While gearing up for the return of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, I’ve spent the interim revisiting the anime and diving back into its expanded universe, including Bartosz Sztybor’s Rebecca-focused prequel manga. But the creative force behind the original series, Rafał Jaki—who made history as one of Manga Plus’ first Western creators following Edgerunners—is already back with a fascinating new project. Following his previous sci-fi manga No\Name, Jaki has teamed up with artist Machine Gamu for a dark fantasy series titled Brain Alive, which feels like a collision of Inception and Elden Ring.
True to Jaki’s knack for emotionally devastating storytelling, Brain Alive introduces us to Daniel, a father who wakes up from a devastating car crash to devastating news: his wife didn’t survive, and their young son is trapped in a coma. To comfort his unresponsive child, Daniel reads him the dark fantasy novels that served as the inspiration for the Soulsborne games the two used to play together.
When Daniel falls asleep by the hospital bed, he suddenly finds himself stripped of his clothes and trapped inside a grim dungeon. He soon realizes he has slipped into his son’s dreamscape, which is heavily shaped by the boy’s love for hard-as-nails action RPGs.
It’s far from a walk in the park. While dying in the dream won’t kill Daniel in the waking world, the nightmare operates entirely on roguelike-meets-Soulsborne logic. Save states are handled by bonfire-like checkpoints guarded by the dream-eating yokai Baku, and every death forces Daniel to retrace his steps, growing slightly stronger with each grueling loop. However, unlike standard video game runs, Daniel cannot simply close his eyes and dive back in endlessly; his visits are strictly limited, raising the stakes with every attempt to rescue his son.
It’s reminiscent of Persona 3, except instead of balancing high school social links with dungeon crawling, Daniel’s entire existence is dedicated to "git gud" survival tactics just to bring his boy home.
Naturally, the dreamscape is crawling with iconic Soulsborne-style threats—from skeleton armies and massive yokai to venomous serpents. Daniel has to rely on real-world sword training, dodge-rolling, and exploiting enemy weak points to stay alive. Fortunately, he isn’t entirely alone: he’s aided by a flaming saber guided by the spirit of his late wife.
Jaki has been vocal about wanting to pay homage to the art and media that shaped him. As he shared in an interview with IGN, his goal is to offer readers the same sense of awe and emotional resonance he felt experiencing the work of other creators.
Unlike the oversaturated wave of superficial isekai power fantasies that hide behind gaming mechanics, Brain Alive treats its rules with genuine weight and grit. Given Jaki’s extensive background writing rich video game narratives—including Dark Horse’s The Witcher 3: Ronin comic and the board game The Witcher: Old World—this dark fantasy drama carries the narrative teeth and emotional depth needed to make its high-concept premise truly work.
The first chapter of Brain Alive is currently available to read online ahead of its wider English release, while Jaki’s debut manga, No\Name, can be read on MANGA Plus.