Akihabara@DEEP is a 2004 novel by Ira Ishida which spawned a manga, television drama, and movie adaptation. The drama and manga versions have considerable differences from the original novel. The original novel focuses on a group of outcasts and their attempt to make a new search engine, which would have its own Artificial Intelligence that would understand users intentions and help them in their online searches. This technology gets the attention of Digital Capital, who wants to steal the technology for themselves. Taking place in the Tokyo district of Akihabara, or Akiba as it is often shortened to, the story in the drama focuses on a group of outcasts of society, mainly otaku, and a company they establish to "troubleshoot" the problems of Akihabara. The manga has a story more similar to the novel, in that the Otaku are in conflict with Digital Capital over the development of new software. The movie, on the other hand, shows a much darker, more violent and slightly twisted perspective of life as an Akiba-otaku. The movie was released in September 2006. Akihabara@Deep was adapted into a manga a year after the novel's publication. It featured art by Makoto Akane, and followed the same story as the original novel. It was serialized in Weekly Comic Bunch, a seinen manga magazine, in August 2005 and spanned a total of six tankōbon volumes. In 2006, Nickelodeon and Polygon Pictures announced a computer animated series based on the novel, with character designs by Ippei Gyoubu. It was ultimately never released.
Plot
Novel
A group of outcasts who meet each other through an online website decide to form an IT company. They seek to create a search engine that will become more popular than Google. They call their creation CROOK. This new search engine uses Artificial Intelligence to understand the user's intentions and help them narrow their search. This attracts the attention of Nakagomi Takeshi, the president of Digital Capital, who after a failed attempt to take over Akihabara@Deep, steals the technology for himself. The group must then find a way to get their technology back from DigiCap. The novel is narrated from the point of view of CROOK's Artificial Intelligence.
Drama
The Drama takes a much more lighthearted approach to the story. It all begins when a mysterious online personality named Yui decides to assemble these outcasts to try to form a group dedicated to solving the problems that plague Akiba by forming the "troubleshooting" company, Akihabara@DEEP, often shortened to just @DEEP. One example of this troubleshooting would be that the otaku of Akiba have come under a surge of bullying. @DEEP's first task was to eliminate this bullying. After getting rid of this problem, @DEEP began taking up other tasks as well. Some of these include clearing the name of a cosplayer in a case that involved the distribution of underground videos depicting other cosplayers getting undressed in dressing rooms, protecting a news anchor from attacks by otaku who were enraged at a story that she had previously worked on that bashed the youth of Akiba, and helping out a maid café that the people of Akiba frequent from an opposing maid café that was acting extremely hostile to this maid café and even provided various prostitution services to the visitors of the opposing maid café. While @DEEP solves these cases, the group unintentionally attracts the attention of a seedy character named Nakagomi Takeshi. The reason behind this is because of a secret past relationship between Nakagomi and Yui. What adds to this is a fully self-reliant AI program that Nakagomi would greatly benefit from if he got his hands on it. This is because he is the president of a very influential electronics company called Digital Capital, often shortened to DigiCap. He will eventually raid @DEEP's headquarters and steal Yui's AI.
Characters
The main characters of @DEEP are all outcasts of society and usually have something fundamentally wrong with themselves. After getting advice from a website called "Yui's Lifeguard" these six individuals are called together by the website's creator, Yui, to help clean up Akiba. ;Page: ;Box: ;Taiko: ;Akira: ;Ism: ;Daruma: ;Yui: ;Takeshi Nakagomi: ;Professor Wataru Hanzawa: ;Naoki Tousaka: ;Ajita:
TV drama episodes
;Episode 1: Our City Akihabara. Exterminate the Otaku Hunts! ;Episode 2: Fighting Maid Akira. Get Revenge in the Cat Fight! ;Episode 3: Getting Over Yui's Death. @DEEP Gets Started. Catch the Cosplay Peeper! ;Episode 4: Taiko in Love!? Save the Brainwashed Akiba Children! ;Episode 5: Appearance of Imposter Yui! Exposing the Suicide Site Targeting Ota! ;Episode 6: Female Announcer vs Otaku. Prevent a Media Frenzy! ;Episode 7: Akiba of the Dead. Repel the Otaku Zombie! ;Episode 8: Great Maid War. Investigate the Ero Maid Cafe! ;Episode 9: Box's Past. Conquer that Fear of Women! ;Episode 10: Daruma Falls!? @DEEP splits up!? ;Episode 11: @DEEP Goes Forth! Rescue Yui from the Electric Brain Castle! ;Special 12: Dictionary of Akihabara@DEEP
