The city looked ... a lot like Tokyo, except that one-fourth of the buildings seemed to have been plucked from the future, and another one-fourth looked like they'd been borrowed from a fantasy movie. At the far end of it was an immense building that looked like a metronome. The bridge spanning Tokyo Bay looked suspiciously like the Golden Gate Bridge.
A tall Japanese man with an afro hairstyle stood halfway across the bridge, staring over towards the city. He wore a red jacket, a blue shirt with a yellow tie underneath, a pair of faded-looking blue jeans, and a slightly bored expression. He was smoking a cigarette.
"Mr. Watanabe!"
The man didn't even turn as a much more sensibly-dressed man with glasses raced towards him. "Rikdo Koshi," he said.
"You're the first familiar real face I've seen in over an hour!" exclaimed the sensibly-dressed man. He had the Japanese symbol for "fear" on his forehead. "What's going on!? I've been seeing ... what looked like anime characters running around, with real weapons! And there's puchuus running around too!"
"Oh boy," said the man with the afro. "Rikdo Koshi, this is gonna be difficult to explain." He stood up straight, taking a drag from his cigarette as he did. "You have fallen into Neon Tokyo, a world where characters from anime and manga convene with characters from video games."
"I ... what!?" exclaimed Rikdo Koshi in a panic. "That's impossible! Watanabe Shinichi, you've got to ... to ..."
A giant robot lumbered into view. It was intercepted by several dozen flying spaceships, denied clearance for landing, and turned around and headed back towards the sea, looking hurt and dejected.
"For some reason," said the man in the afro, "it was the author of the Excel Saga manga Rikdo Koshi, not the character of the Excel Saga anime Rikdo Koshi, who was brought here by the Force That Nobody's Entirely Sure What It Is. Similarly, I am not Watanabe Shinichi, the director of Excel Saga ..." He struck a dramatic pose, and was temporarily surrounded by speed lines. "I am Nabeshin, the flagrant self-insert character of Excel Saga!"
"Th ... that's not true!" exclaimed Rikdo. "That's impossible!"
"Search your feelings," said Nabeshin. "You know it to be true."
Rikdo was caught off-guard. "What ... I ... uh ... huh?"
"You know what you have to do now," said Nabeshin. "You need to do it at every beginning." He held out a piece of paper.
"Yes," said Rikdo, taking it. "I do."
He stood up straight, facing the water. "I, Rikdo Koshi, do hereby give my permission for the characters in Excel Saga to become three-dimensional!"
Then the Excel Saga intro sequence played out.
The sixteen-year-old Chinese waitress was cheerful, helpful, and had ... a slightly tenuous grasp of anything other than the Chinese language. Spike Spiegel watched as she waited on a table of young men in various types of travelling gear, each armed with a sword.
"Mister Gourry, Mister Hiro, Mister Bartz!" she said, bowing elaborately. "You are earing well, no?"
"Definitely a good one, Shampoo!" said the the brown-haired one in the blue shirt.
"Yeah, I could eat this all day!" said the black-haired one who seemed cockier than the other two.
The third, who had long blond hair, snorted. "You should see Lina sometime."
"Yeah, yeah ..."
The girl -- Spike could hardly believe her name was Shampoo -- bustled over to his table. "And you, Mister Spike?"
"My compliments to the chef," he said, though he couldn't stop a hint of unease to slip into his voice.
Shampoo tilted her head slightly. "Mister Spike is new in city, no?"
"Yes, actually," said Spike. He glanced at another table, where two men in red trench coats with wide-brimmed hats were bickering about vampire hunting. "I'm still trying to wrap my head around the notion that somehow, every single person who comes to this city is from some kind of Japanese cartoon or video game ..."
"Is more complicated than that," said Shampoo.
"Yeah I know," said Spike, gesturing as if to push the thought away. "I meant that. I mean ... all the worlds linked to this ... 'Neon Tokyo' are by an insane coincidence, identical to the ones in these ... games and cartoons, and everyone here ..."
Shampoo nodded. "Is amazing, yes," she said, with the air of someone to whom serving at a restaurant is much more important than debating the nature of the multiverse. She turned to head towards another table.
"Not everyone," said a man behind him in a somewhat sleepy voice.
Spike turned. "And you are?" he said.
The man looked something like a stylized ninja out of -- let's face it -- an anime. He had spiky white hair, a mask which covered his mouth, and a headband pulled down to cover his left eye. "My name is Kakashi," he said. "And I'd just like to point out that there are plenty of natives. Take that guy walking in now, f'rinstance ... he's a resident of the RPG Quarter, but he and his whole family were all born here."
Spike looked at the entrance. A boy in his late teens, with spiky black hair and a red jacket was walking in. "He's a native?" he said. "Never would've guessed."
"He's something of a regular here," said Kakashi. "His name's Yar Kramer. By the way, and if you're the type of person who doesn't mind it when the ending is given away, you might want to get your hands on a few copies of the anime called 'Cowboy Bebop.'"
Spike groaned inwardly. The Bebop would be stuck here for several days, it looked like, with no familiar companions except Jet -- no offense, Jet -- and Faye and Ed and Ein ... "I'll pass on that," he said.
Yar was walking towards the waitress. "Hey, Shampoo," he said.
"Shampoo have break in two minutes," said Shampoo in a professional tone of voice. "Be outside then."
Yar nodded. "You got it," he said, and turned and exited the restaurant.
Spike looked towards Yar's retreating back, then turned back to Kakashi. "Mind filling me in on what just happened?"
"Technically, they are two fo the top martial artists in the city," said Kakashi, "despite the fact that Shampoo is very near the top of the list, and Yar is nowhere near the top of the list."
"A challenge," said Spike, arching an eyebrow. He wondered where he fell in that category.
"Pretty much," said Kakashi, with a shrug. "Yar's just lucky that he lives down the street from Weiila, one of the greatest users of healing-magic in the city." He arched his visible eyebrow. "On top of which, Shampoo is part of a tradition whereby, if a man defeats her in hand-to-hand combat, she has to marry him."
Spike grinned. "Oh-ho," he said. "So, he's got his eye on her or something?"
Kakashi shrugged again. "Oh, I don't know," said Kakashi. "Only one man has ever beaten her before, and Yar's next stop would have to be the Saotome Dojo if he wanted to take it further. And Ranma Saotome is even closer to the top."
Spike chuckled. "I gotta see this," he said.