Q-STAR—the Quantum Technology Innovation Council—has embarked on an ambitious collaboration with the Quantum Art Festival, advancing a bold initiative that fuses art and journalism into thought experiments for exploring future use cases of quantum computing. At the heart of this project are science journalist Akihiko Mori, who serves as the project director, and social sculptor Ryuta Aoki, who leads the production of the artistic components. In a recent webinar, they delivered a mid-project report, with a particular focus on Aoki’s method known as “Sci-Fi Manga Design Research.” Joining them was guest speaker Yasuhiro Yamauchi, Vice Director of the MANGA Research Institute and President of Manga Night, to examine how sci-fi manga can become a vehicle for imagining the societal impact of quantum technologies.

 

 

 

Drawing Maps of the Future with Sci-Fi Manga

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Ryuta Aoki, as both an artistic director and a social sculptor, operates in the liminal space between art and technology. Through installations, R&D projects, conferences, and curated exhibitions, Aoki probes the contours of what he calls “possible societies.” With the Sci-Fi Manga Design Research initiative, he aims to enact creative interventions—redesigning the very fabric of society through the lens of art.

 

Developed by Aoki in 2019, this methodology takes the form of workshops that engage in speculative forecasting. Participants extract and analyze elements from manga—physical phenomena, societal systems, ethical frameworks—and examine their parallels to real-world structures. By bringing together diverse perspectives, participants map out multilayered challenges and ideas, eventually surfacing new concepts and research themes. Notably, this method has already led to long-term collaborative research projects with industry partners.

 

In the current iteration of the project, Q-STAR assembled representatives from companies pioneering next-generation quantum technologies. Together, they engaged in structured thought experiments to unearth potential use cases for quantum computing—each subsequently rendered as an artwork. The imagined scenarios spanned a broad spectrum: how privacy norms might evolve in an era of ubiquitous quantum communication; how quantum sensing could alter human perception; how quantum-enhanced economic forecasts might transform political systems.

 

“When a new technology is born, it brings with it a cascade of changes—new institutions, ethical dilemmas, cultural shifts. To understand this broader picture, we turn to sci-fi manga,” Aoki explains.

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Meanwhile, Mori has provided the Q-STAR community with rigorous journalistic research, conducting interviews with researchers, investors, and entrepreneurs working at the forefront of quantum innovation. These insights not only inform the scenarios but also elevate the collective intelligence of the community, evolving it into a high-level knowledge ecosystem.

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By interweaving journalistic inquiry with artistic imagination, the project achieves a rare synthesis of realism and creativity. At the center of this process—serving as a catalytic medium—is the genre of sci-fi manga.

 

 

 

Manga as a Medium for Shared Futures

 

Yamauchi, who founded Manga Night in 2020 to promote the intersection of comics and education, emphasized manga’s deep social function. “Manga is a medium inextricably linked with society,” he said, “and it holds enormous power as a tool for understanding and empathizing with the social implications of technology.”

 

He highlighted the accessibility of manga production: “Because it can be created by a single artist—or an artist and editor duo—it enables a massive output of works. The titles that resonate, that become hits, are often those that precisely capture the mood of the times—its anxieties, interests, and undercurrents. They earn empathy, get passed along, and ultimately find cultural significance.”

Aoki added that manga possesses a unique capacity for shared visualization. “Unlike film, where scenes are fleeting, manga allows participants to refer to specific panels on a page, instantly synchronizing their imaginations. Compared to prose novels, manga reduces discrepancies in interpretation and provides a rich reservoir of visual cues to concretize ideas.”

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He continued, “Japanese sci-fi manga holds layers upon layers of creative sediment built by generations of artists. It’s a deep archive of unexplored ideas. The fact that we can access this expressive richness in our native language makes it an invaluable cultural resource.”

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Manga as a Simulator for Social Design

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Yamauchi also underscored that manga, at its core, is about depicting life. “Professional manga artists imagine entire worlds from scratch, but they focus intensely on making those worlds feel alive—with humans and non-humans coexisting. This isn’t mere fantasy; it offers meaningful insights for real-world implementation of science and technology. It helps us imagine futures where empathy and livability are central.”

 

Integrating cutting-edge technologies into society is a problem that researchers and corporations alike have long struggled with. Manga artists, however, approach this challenge from a different vantage point. The vast body of sci-fi manga that has emerged can now be viewed as a form of simulation—an imaginative rehearsal for technological adoption and its social ramifications.

 

“Time and again, the futures depicted in manga have inspired real-world technological development,” Yamauchi said. “And the manga being drawn today may well serve as a compass for the societal implementation of tomorrow’s innovations.”

 

In imagining the future, perhaps we begin to take responsibility for it. Sci-fi manga, far from being mere aesthetic indulgence or entertainment, emerges here as a powerful medium for exploring possibilities—and for making those possibilities legible and shareable across society. It is a simulator for futures we have yet to inhabit, but may soon need to understand.