MegaMan NT Warrior,[note 1] known in Japan as Rockman.EXE (ロックマンエグゼ, Rokkuman Eguze), is an anime and manga series based on Capcom's Mega Man Battle Network video game series, part of the Mega Man franchise. The manga series was written by Ryo Takamisaki and ran in Shogakukan's CoroCoro Comic between 2001 and 2006. The anime television series, produced by Xebec, Nihon Ad Systems and TV Tokyo, ran for five seasons on TV Tokyo in Japan between March 2002 and September 2006, reaching 209 episodes in total. The series is directed by Takao Kato and written by Kenichi Araki across all seasons, with Mitsuru Ishihara designing the characters. Viz Media produced English-language versions of the manga and licensed the first two seasons of the anime. Despite common elements, the stories of the game, anime, and manga versions of the Battle Network series all diverge heavily from each other.