Shonen Jump's Goofy New Manga is Actually A Surveillance Nightmare
The latest new manga series from Shonen Jump is a bit formulaic, but Super Smartphone's biggest impact may not be in its outrageous and 'fun' premise… but in teaching young manga fans the terrifying power of 'Big Data' and a world of constant surveillance.
Written by Hiroki Tomisawa with art by Kentaro Hidano, Super Smartphone debuts with a 55-page first chapter, detailing the chain of events that led its brilliant-but-lazy teenage protagonist to obtain (and put to use) the eponymous smartphone. Driven by the loss of his brother at a young age, protagonist Kyu Sagurada (also called simply 'Q') immediately works out the authenticity of the phone's powers, and puts it to work tracking down a missing child. While he's already using his powers for good, the story leaves readers with the distinct impression that something nefarious is behind the smartphone's abilities. And the same goes for its sudden appearance in Q's life.
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The «Super Smartphone,» as it's introduced to Q, uses a mystery search engine called «GooGuGu» to go through nearly every piece of information on Earth. Anything written, built, or developed by humans has a record it can access, from lost coins, to purchase histories, to diary entries. Unfortunately, the phone does have limitations. So even if the phone can't simply tell Q where the missing child is currently located, he can start putting together pieces of information to narrow down the pool of suspects. With such data at hand, the solution is simple: cross-referencing vehicles in the vicinity of the kidnapping with related purchases, the suspect is identified, reported anonymously, and the day is saved.
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