is a Japanese manga series written by Nisio Isin and illustrated by Yūji Iwasaki. It has been serialized in Shueisha's Weekly Shōnen Jump magazine since November 2022, with its chapters collected in three tankōbon volumes as of August 2023.
Plot
The plot takes place in the eponymous Cipher Academy, a former all girls' military academy focused on study of cryptography, and focuses on Iroha Irohazaka, the sole boy in his class. While dealing with a spartan homework puzzle on his first day in class, Iroha comes across Kogoe Horagatoge, a student from a different class on the run from Kyora Toshusai, a fellow student of Iroha's and the heiress to a weapons manufacturer. After helping hide her, Kogoe gifts Iroha with a pair of glasses embedded with technology that allows him to see the "hints" to codes that his fellow classmates use to seed control. After winning a cipher-based battle against Kyora, Iroha is thrown into a conspiracy involving 50 billion morg hidden in the academy - a stash of cryptocurrency so valuable that it could end half the wars in the world... or double them.
Publication
Written by Nisio Isin and illustrated by Yūji Iwasaki, the series began serialization in Shueisha's Weekly Shōnen Jump magazine on November 21, 2022. A voice comic featuring Rina Satō, Ayane Sakura, and Saori Ōnishi was released on YouTube. Shueisha released the first tankōbon volume on March 3, 2023, and has released three volumes as of August 4, 2023.
Viz Media and Manga Plus are publishing the series in English. However, the series' original English translator, Kumar Sivasubramanian, announced he would stop translating the series following the release of the thirteenth chapter; he also linked to an article by Screen Rant, which described the series as "impossible to translate". He was replaced by a new translator, Dan Luffey.
Volume list
Chapters not yet in tankōbon format
These chapters have yet to be published in a tankōbon volume. 35. "When Leaders Tolerate Humiliation, then Even War Can Become Virtuous" 36. "On a Paper Razor's Edge" 37. "Those Who Chase Two Rabbits are First Class Privates" 38. "The Aftermath" 39. "You Can't Put an Army on a Stone" 40. "Whoever Decodes It Should Do It" 41. "Walk Three Steps Back and Be Careful Not To Step on the Shadows of Those Who Died in War" 42. "War is the Mother of Invention" 43. "It’s Better to Have a Big War than a Small War" 44. "Mine Has Been a Life of Much War" 45. "Become the Fight, Not the Muzzle"
Reception
The series ranked fourth in the 2023 Next Manga Award in the print manga category.
Carlyle Edmundson of Screen Rant praised the use of purposeful censorship to illustrate points about contemporary Japan.