Pure Trance

Pure Trance
English-language cover as published by Last Gasp (2005)
ピュア・トランス (Pyua Toransu)
Genre	Science fiction
Manga
Written by	Junko Mizuno
Published by	East Press
English publisher	NA Last Gasp
Demographic	Shōjo
Magazine	Booklets with CDs released by Avex Trax
Original run	1996 – 1998
Volumes	1

Pure Trance (Japanese: ピュア・トランス, Hepburn: Pyua Toransu^?) is a shōjo (targeted towards girls) science-fiction manga by Junko Mizuno. Her debut manga, it appeared as a serial in the booklets of Avex Trax's Pure Trance techno compilation CD series. It was later collected into a bound volume by East Press and published in 1998.

Last Gasp published an English-language translation of Pure Trance in July 2005; the edition was produced by jaPRESS.

Pure Trance takes place in the future, after World War III, which left the surface of the earth inhospitable to life. The humans able to escape underground now live underneath a dome in Tokyo, Japan, while those unable to become creatures resembling brains with eyes and a spine. The people living underground survive on Pure Trance, nutritional capsules which have caused overeating in females to become a serious issue.

The plot of Pure Trance follows Kaori Suzuki, a kind and good-natured nurse at Overeaters Treatment Center 102, run by the drug-addicted and violently abusive director Keiko Yamazaki. Though normally docile in spite of the director's terrible treatment, Kaori lashes out after three expectant mothers die due to a lethal combination of medicines administered by the director. The director subsequently imprisons Kaori and subjects her to constant torture, and creates artificial nurses Umeko and Takeko to replace the human nurses working at the center. Meanwhile, the deceased women's fetuses are raised in an artificial womb and grow into healthy children— Yuriko, who is very strong and intelligent; shy and dainty Rika; and twins Miki and Yuki, who possess magical powers. The children are raised by robot nurse Kiyomi and Aiko, head of the children's ward, but are constantly tormented by the two artificial nurses. When Aiko stands up to them one day, the director brutally chokes her to death and decides to take the children for herself to use as experiments. With the help of Kiyomi, Kaori escapes to the surface with the children via a ventilation shaft, but not before Kiyomi sacrifices herself, leaving only her robotic head at the entrance. The head is later found by Professor Kajiwara, who restores an amnesiac Kiyomi into a new robotic body, naming her B-ko.