Saga Genji was a Japanese technology mogul and industrialist with Yakuza ties. The character served as the main villain in Dynamite Entertainment's James Bond comic arc, Black Box, which ran between 1st March and 2nd August 2017.
Biography[]
Early life[]
Saga Genji was an ultranationalistic Japanese tech giant with a strong presence in the Shinjuku district of Tokyo. He gained wealth and notoriety through development of innovative phones, tablets, video game consoles and social media platforms; attracting controversy over alleged data-harvesting bots built into his technology. As a result he stood trial and faced international criticism for both his connections to organised crime and data piracy. One of Genji's inventions was a prototype visor he initially developed for virtual reality (VR) gaming. But when his eyesight began to fail, he repurposed the design into a visual prosthesis to combat the glaucoma. The device was wired into a port behind his ear and uploaded sensory data directly into his brain — enabling him to experience the world as an augmented reality of the real and virtual. Among his vices Genji gambled in an underground Yakuza casino in Shinjuku every Friday night.
Black Box[]
In the 2010s, Genji targetted the world's government and military officials in an unprecedented online security breach; stealing emails, text messages, voicemails, photos and instant messaging archives for the purpose of destabilising the existing world order. Fuelled by his ultranationalistic leanings, he intended to give the incriminating data to rival governments and elevate Japan to the status of a superpower during the resulting chaos. The data was stored in a so-called black box at his secret base of operations below the damaged Fukushima nuclear reactor near Ōkuma. The data breaches drew the attention of the world's intelligence agencies, who immediately began hunting for the hackers responsible — and the lucrative treasure trove of proverbial dirty laundry.
His scheme began to unravel when British agent James Bond and an independent assassin named Selah Sax separately intercepted him at the casino he patronized. Due to his cybernetic enhancements he was aware of 007's mission and, after humouring him with a game of cards, Genji attempted (and failed) to dispose of the spy in the casino's shark aquarium. After Bond escaped with Sax's assistance, the villain enlisted the assistance of his death-mask wearing assassin, No Name. He subsequently attended a meeting with a U.S. representative at a sumo tournament. Feeling snubbed by the man's senator superior, Genji watched as he was (seemingly accidentally) crushed by a wrestler. After the eavesdropping Bond outmanoeuvred No Name, Genji promptly dispatched a motorcycle hit-squad to try to kill him. After the tournament Genji fled to his Fukushima facility and, aware that Bond and Sax were following a signal emanating from his headset, the villain used the device to lure the pair to Aokigahara; where they were unsuccessfully ambushed by No Name. A further encounter on-board a Tōhoku Shinkansen train led to her capture and incarceration at Fukushima. 007 later rescued Sax and the pair fought Genji in the dark; during which Bond used the light from his smartphone to locate the villain and hurled a knife at his forehead. The knife split his visor and embedded itself in his skull.
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