JOKER
JO
Joker directs the British Library Special Operations Division and sends Yomiko, Nancy and Drake into the I-jin crisis. He treats the recovery of rare books with the machinery of an international intelligence service: agents, surveillance, military cooperation and a headquarters hidden beneath the British Library.
He is calm enough that even extraordinary situations arrive at his desk as another operation to manage. That composure also makes him difficult to read. Joker clearly values his agents, but the organization he represents is secretive, powerful and willing to operate far outside anything resembling normal library work.
Within the OVA, his job is less to fight than to understand the scale of the threat quickly enough to put the right people in its path.
He is calm enough that even extraordinary situations arrive at his desk as another operation to manage. That composure also makes him difficult to read. Joker clearly values his agents, but the organization he represents is secretive, powerful and willing to operate far outside anything resembling normal library work.
Within the OVA, his job is less to fight than to understand the scale of the threat quickly enough to put the right people in its path.
JOKER THROUGH THE ARCHIVE //
BRITISH LIBRARY & PAPER MAGIC //
Open page →The British Library Special Operations Division
Open →Rare Books · Secret Agents · Very Unusual Library Work
The British Library Special Operations Division treats rare books as matters of international security. Joker directs the organization from London while agents such as Yomiko Readman, Nancy Makuhari and Drake Anderson are sent into the field when a manuscript becomes dangerous enough to justify espionage, military support or both.
R.O.D never acts embarrassed by the premise. A stolen book can trigger the same response another spy story would reserve for a stolen weapon, and the agents pursuing it may include a woman who controls paper and another who walks through walls.
R.O.D never acts embarrassed by the premise. A stolen book can trigger the same response another spy story would reserve for a stolen weapon, and the agents pursuing it may include a woman who controls paper and another who walks through walls.
Why it matters
The British Library gives the OVA its entire tone. Books are not sitting safely behind glass while the action happens elsewhere. Books are the reason the spies, historical clones and governments are fighting in the first place.
