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 (クルーク). 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 (DigiCap), 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