Rafał Jaki, executive producer of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, has launched a new manga titled Brain Alive alongside artist MACHINE GAMU. The series began serialization on Kadokawa’s KadoComi platform, with a free English pilot chapter already available and a full digital English release scheduled for this fall.
Jaki announced the project on social media, sharing a Google Drive link to the English pilot so readers could access it immediately alongside the Japanese debut. He noted that permission was granted to release the pilot early while the regular English digital serialization prepares for its fall start.
The story follows a father named Daniel whose son falls into a coma after an accident. Using a form of magic, Daniel enters his son’s dreams and must battle a mix of Slavic mythical beasts and Japanese yōkai in order to wake the boy before time runs out. Jaki has described the manga as a personal love letter to the film Inception and to Soulsborne games, combining dream-layer tension with challenging, high-stakes combat against folkloric creatures.
The pairing of Slavic and Japanese supernatural beings gives the dream world a distinctive flavor. Rather than drawing from a single mythology, the series places creatures from different cultural traditions inside the same mental landscape, creating encounters that feel both familiar and unexpected. The core emotional driver remains the father’s determination to reach his son, grounding the more fantastical battles in a clear personal goal.
This is not the first collaboration between Jaki and MACHINE GAMU. The two previously worked together on No\Name, which began with a one-shot on Shonen Jump+ and MANGA Plus in early 2024 before moving into serialization. That series concluded in February 2025, with Shueisha releasing the second and final volume in Japan the following April. MANGA Plus carried the English version during its run. Brain Alive marks their next joint project, this time under Kadokawa.
Jaki’s background adds interest to the launch. As a key figure behind Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, the Studio Trigger anime based on CD PROJEKT RED’s Cyberpunk 2077, he already has a track record of bringing distinctive storytelling to a wide audience. The sequel series, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners 2, is also scheduled to debut in fall 2026, placing both the new manga’s English release and the anime follow-up in the same season.
Kadokawa released a trailer for Brain Alive in conjunction with the launch, and Jaki shared an English-language version of the trailer on his account. The early availability of the pilot chapter gives international readers an immediate entry point while the longer-term English serialization is prepared.
Manga projects led by creators better known for anime or game production sometimes struggle to find a stable audience, but the combination of a clear high-concept premise, an experienced artist collaborator, and an existing international profile for Jaki improves the project’s visibility. The decision to offer the pilot in English from day one further reduces the usual delay between Japanese serialization and overseas access.
The story’s blend of parental desperation, dream logic, and cross-cultural monster battles sets it apart from more standard isekai or pure action titles. By framing the conflict as a race to save a comatose child, the manga establishes immediate stakes that do not rely on world-ending prophecies or chosen-one frameworks. The Soulsborne influence suggests combat encounters will carry weight and risk, while the Inception comparison points to shifting rules and unstable environments inside the dream.
With the Japanese serialization now live on KadoComi and the English pilot freely available, Brain Alive has made its first impression. The full digital English release later this fall will determine how the series builds on that introduction. For readers interested in a story that mixes personal drama with folklore-driven action inside a dream world, the pilot already offers a chance to see whether Jaki and MACHINE GAMU’s latest collaboration delivers on its premise.
Brain Alive is currently running in Japanese on Kadokawa’s KadoComi site. The English pilot can be read through the link shared by Rafał Jaki, with broader digital serialization expected in the coming months.