New Manga First Impressions is a column where I detail my thoughts, however brief or long, about the first chapter or so of a newly-available-in-English manga.
“μεμέ(τρηκεν)() ἰς̣() τὸ δη(μόσιον) (πυροῦ) γενή(ματος) τοῦ διελ(θόντος) ιθ (ἔτους)
Αὐρηλίων Ἀντωνίνου καὶ Κομμόδου
Κ[α]ισάρων τῶν κυρίων (διὰ) σι(τολόγων)() λιβὸ(ς) τοπ(αρχίας) [Σ]ερύ(φεως)() τόπ(ων) Κλάρος Διδύμου ἀγορανομή(σας)
[θ]έμ(α) ἀρταβαι() ὀκτο() χ(οίνικας) δ, (γίνονται) (πυροῦ) (ἀρτάβαι) η \χ(οίνικες) δ./ Διογ(ένης) σι(τολόγος) σεσημ(είωμαι).”
Shonen Jump’s rush to find their next big hit has produced its fair share of odd little manga, most of which don’t get the chance to run very long; from the still-in-limbo draconic slice of life that was Ruri Dragon to the sweet-tooth, axed-before-its-time battle shonen Candy Flurry, the casualties are frequent and litter the magazine’s pages—and that of its affiliates—like skeletons on a battlefield. Just the other day, it was this environment that Cipher Academy strove into; confident, swaggering, and about as qualified for the job as anyone could hope to be.
Cipher Academy‘s greatest asset is not actually anything within the manga itself, at least not yet. It’s the manga’s author; NISIOISIN, one of the modern anime / manga landscape’s great eccentrics. (On art, we have Yuuji Iwasaki.) You might not know that from reading Cipher Academy itself, though. So far, it’s actually been fairly tame by Isshin’s standards. Of course, that still means that this thing is pretty weird; the premise alone—our protagonist is a new student at an academy that specializes in teaching its students high-level cryptography—is fairly novel. Add in the general state of the manga zeitgeist, and the introductory chapter drops such shamelessly silly shit as AR glasses that help our hapless femboy protagonist bluff his way to Sherlock status (complete with “elementary!” as a catchphrase), a Jojo-posing mean-girl clique who threaten to indenture him on his first day, a habit of literally censoring some of its own dialogue (mostly, though I would be willing to bet not entirely, for comedic effect), and of course, this admirably-insane single page of exposition, which is, in its entirety, most of the worldbuilding that we’ve gotten so far.
As for what this thing is actually about, well, our protagonist, Iroha, enrolls essentially out of lack of better options. The titular academy is mostly but not entirely a girls’ school, and Iroha is in fact crossdressing throughout the entire thing, almost as a matter of fact. This might conveniently dovetail into some sort of harem setup later on, but the emphasis must be on the “some sort” there, given Isshin’s history with that genre. More importantly; he’s a total airhead and doesn’t have the slightest brain for cryptography at all. Enough so that, when he’s handed his first assignment in his home room (where he sits directly behind the beautiful and brilliant Kyoha. Keep her in mind), he has no real idea what to make of it.
Things seem rather dim for Iroha until he runs into Kogoe, who is on the run from Kyoha and her girls for reasons we’re not currently privy to. Iroha hides Kogoe, aided by the fact that Kyoha is immensely dismissive of him, writing him off as a “token boy”. (A meta-joke? Maybe.) Kogoe, grateful, offers Iroha these.
Google Glass, eat your heart out.
She then lightly teases Iroha about the possibility that she might be dangerous. Is this foreshadowing? Probably, although if she actually is a war criminal that’s less foreshadowing than one or two-shadowing. What we might make of her claim that she enrolled at the academy so she can become “a hero” without “resorting to violence” is similarly fairly up in the air. None of this is that strange; first chapters are supposed to have a lot of setup. (I also feel compelled to point out the SHAFT-style head tilt here. Look at that smirk; priceless.)
The real payoff of the first chapter comes when Kyoha and her circle confront Iroha again. Kyoha, correctly, accuses Iroha of having gotten someone else to do the assignment they were handed earlier. When Iroha denies the accusation, Kyoha forces a wager on her, and it’s here where things start to really take off. (Another sidenote; look at her face in that first panel. Positively Seto Kaiba-ish.)
As mentioned, those glasses that Kogoe gives Iroha aren’t actually just for show. They are, for lack of a better way to put it, hacking glasses. An AR interface that both solves no small amount of any given puzzle on its own but also directly aids Iroha in completing the rest. It seems like quite a handy thing to have at a school full of crypto nerds!
It’s a Unix system, he knows this.
The puzzle as-given turns out to have a fairly simple lateral thinking-esque solution (the cryptogram refers to someone, as Kyoha says, “amongst us.” Thinking about this for a few seconds will tip you off that the grammar there includes Iroha as well. Iroha himself, naturally, is the solution to the puzzle).
But we’re not done yet! In a final and very Isshin-y twist to this situation, this then happens.
Note the speech bubbles; that’s not Iroha himself talking. That’s the glasses. Or rather, Kogoe talking through them. During his very first day at school, Iroha has gotten Kyoha, earlier established not only as a brilliant cryptanalyst but also the heiress to a weapons company, under his thumb, through no active will of his own. Time will tell if that actually holds.
The opening chapter’s final scene is this cut back to Kogoe, squirreled away in some lair, where she casually ropes another definition of the term “crypto” into this manga’s world.
Cryptocurrency certainly works better as the proverbial treasure chest in what promises to be a wild battle-of-wits adventure than it does here in the real world, but more than anything, this scene did make me wonder if Cipher Academy might be more ambitious than I was initially inclined to give it credit for. Certainly, the “censored” speech bubbles are a funny joke, but they too could easily point to something more substantial. This early on, it’s hard to make strong claims, so firmly within the realm of speculation is where we remain.
In terms of pure quality, I’d call Cipher Academy more solid and promising than an out-and-out show stopper, but given that NISIOISIN is involved, it seems likely that even if it totally crashes and burns, it’ll at least do so entertainingly. The fact that Iroha himself is functionally just a pawn of Kogoe at the moment points toward some interesting possible dynamics; either one where Iroha is constantly shuffled between opposing forces, like a repeatedly-captured bughouse chess piece, or one where he must learn to leverage his limited assets in the form of the glasses in order to become a proper contender in his own right. There are a lot of open questions about how the world of Cipher Academy even functions, too.
All of this and more provides a number of opportunities for the manga to open up in interesting ways. I just hope that it actually takes them. If it does, you will likely see Cipher Academy in this column again.
Cipher Academy can be read legally, for free, in English, on MangaPlus.
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