A Hacking Battle That Even The Pros Will Appreciate

A teenage genius hacker and an angel investor

Sadayasu: When I began developing the plan for a story, I had an idea that I wanted to depict a team of two geniuses. My editor Naoko Yamauchi said, “Here’s some interesting people,” and shared with me a documentary about Google engineers.

I became interested in the topic, and as I was researching the IT industry, I decided to make the manga into a cyber action story centered on Koreeda, a hacker, and Sakai, an angel investor who supports him.

Sadayasu: Then I asked novelist and scriptwriter Makoto Fukami to collaborate on the story. Fukami introduced me to Mayah and Hayato, engineers who would supervise the work, and together we formed a production team and got started on the series. Besides these members, we also worked with many others, including actual angel investors and people from start-up companies, in order to be able to depict the manga with a sense of reality.

What influenced the character creation?

Sadayasu: Sakai is modeled after Takao Ozawa, who was an angel investor at the time when I encountered him through my research. I made him into an outgoing, smooth-talking genius with a wealth of life experience and the gift of foresight. In contrast, Koreeda is a teenager who is bad at communicating and whose only friend is his computer.

He is brilliant in that he doesn’t mind putting a lot of effort into something, and as such he has invested an enormous amount of time into programming and developed tough skills as a genius hacker. For his character, I also referenced people such as artists, musicians, and sports athletes.It was really fun to depict geniuses who are completely opposed to each other in terms of their direction.

mayah: When imagining Koreeda’s skills, I thought of the master hacker George Hotz. He was the first person in the world to succeed in jailbreaking (removing the restrictions imposed on a device) the iPhone and PS3 by himself when he was still in his teens.

Sadayasu: Mayah and Hayato are really fond of the characters. When I heard them discussing things like, “Valkyrja would write clean code,” or “Koreeda wouldn’t do such a thing,” it deepened my own understanding of the characters.

What decisions were made to heighten the reality of this hacker manga?

Mayah: We decided that we would use actual programmer language, and we wouldn’t do anything that couldn’t be done mathematically.

Mayah:However, as long as a program is written by a human, there will be mistakes, and this gives rise to vulnerabilities. We looked at things such as how the characters were able to break a password by penetrating these vulnerabilities, from an engineer’s perspective, to make sure that the story didn’t seem entirely made up.

Sadayasu: As a production team, we decided not to make the protagonist Koreeda into a “god capable of anything.” He is only able to fully utilize his abilities because the people around him, including Sakai, are cooperative and provide him with the environment he needs. I think that’s true in the real world as well. Each person brings their own abilities to the table, and by complementing each other, they are able to fight against the impossible.

Creating entertainment with wide appeal beyond the world of the laptop

Sadayasu: The story deals with the world of hacking, but the human aspect of it is what I wanted to portray.

Sadayasu:That’s because, even in cyber warfare, there are always people sitting on the other side of the computer screen.

Sadayasu: I was careful to ensure that non-tech-savvy readers would be excited by the story as well. I pay attention to the drama of the presentation—adding in physical actions to increase the excitement in a scene of an otherwise static screen, or illustrating the internal growth of Koreeda and his team as they tackle a crisis to make sitting at a computer look way cooler than any other action.

Sadayasu: Partly because of the environment in which he was raised and the fact that he has had no experience in adult society, Koreeda initially has no qualms about doing legally wrong things. But his attitude changes as he begins to wonder, “what is right?” As the characters thought about these unanswerable issues in the real world, so did I.

Sadayasu:This work is my first manga series, and like Koreeda, I was also a nobody. I think I was groping for my purpose in life. Then, by gaining a team, I was able to create the manga I wanted to create. I wove together this story by incorporating this side of myself into Koreeda’s character.

Sadayasu: If there are any young people out there who feel like they don’t have a place where they belong, I hope that they come away from this story with the feeling that, “There’s more than one way of living. Knowing myself will open up more possibilities.”

A hacker’s sense of ethics, unencumbered by common notions of “good” and “evil”

Sadayasu: When I talk with Mayah and the others, I start to doubt all sorts of things. I think that sort of rebellious spirit is, fundamentally, the essence of a hacker.

Mayah: I have doubts about the system of ethics that currently dictates what is “right” and have my own criteria for evaluating what is good or evil within me. Even if the world says, “That’s evil,” if I believe it is good, I will act on it. I think hackers have this side to them.

Sadayasu: As came to know the IT industry through my research, I didn’t want to taint the work that these people do. I began to hope that young people wouldn’t use this technology to do bad things.

Sadayasu: Hackers destroy existing things. And that’s why new innovations are created. But what happens when their abilities are used to commit crimes? What happens when people use their powers for evil? These are some of the questions I wanted to throw at readers. Some things can be better conveyed when made into a story. I think that’s also one of the functions of manga.

What do you want to tell young geeks and the new generation of people learning programming?

Sadayasu: Engineers are unsung heroes working in the background. They created a world for us that we could have never imagined in the past, and their digital technologies have saved and supported us throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. If you come away from this manga thinking, “I want to become a hacker!” I hope you never forget to keep asking “Why?” as you plow forward believing in your own convictions.

Mayah: Fifteen years ago, the IT industry was unpopular because jobs were said to be hard work with long hours and low pay. But right now, it’s the most popular industry among aspiring male high school students.

Mayah: The environment is always changing. That’s why you should keep your criteria of judgment within you, not based on external factors, and do what you enjoy doing.

To those who have yet to read the manga

Mayah: The world of a hacker is fascinating enough, even if it were to be depicted exactly as it is in reality. But we designed this manga so that it could also be enjoyed by people who don’t have a clue about this world. For those who do understand, we have scattered fun tidbits here and there. It’s a manga that can be enjoyed by anyone and everyone.

Sadayasu: So many people helped me in my attempt to depict a sincere and realistic story about hackers. I’d be happy if this manga sparks your interest in the world of IT, which is now an inseparable part of our lives, and what goes on in the industry behind the scenes.

Sadayasu: I hope that this manga provides an opportunity for you to think about how humans and digital technology can coexist, and that you will go on to create a world beyond the conclusion of this manga that exceeds our wildest imaginations.