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Mass Effect RPG Franchise Explained in Manga

ASCII Media Works ' Dengeki Online website began serializing the Oshiete! Mordin-sensei! (Teach me! Professor Mordin!) this month to explain the Mass Effect role-playing game franchise's story. The manga artist Michiru Michi is drawing the series that places the science-fiction games' characters in a school setting. The website posted the series' second part on Thursday.

The manga aims to explain the franchise's scenario and introduce the games' characters and races before the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 game Mass Effect 3 ships in Japan on March 15. In the manga's story, the asari alien Liara appears as a schoolgirl, and the game's main character Commander Shepard is a gym teacher.

The first Mass Effect videogame is set in the year 2183, when humans explore the galaxy and has made contact with alien species. The player controls the protagonist, a human soldier named Commander Shepard, whose skills and appearance are customizable. Throughout the game, Shepard works to save organic life from a threat known as the Reapers, a machine race which sows destruction throughout the galaxy. BioWare, a video game division of Electronic Arts, released the first game for the Xbox 360 on November 20, 2007, with a PC version released on May 28, 2008. A sequel titled Mass Effect 2 was released on the PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3 consoles in January 2011. Mass Effect 3 will ship in North America on March 6 and in Europe on March 9.

The North American distributor Funimation and the Japanese studio T.O. Entertainment are producing and "anime feature film" based on the franchise. The movie is in production, and the producers aim to release the project via digital means and home video this summer.

Source: Dengeki Online via Kotaku]