Now we know The Matrix's iconic cascading green code was cooked up from a Japanese recipe book.

The first of The Matrix films came out nearly 20 years ago, but it's only now that we've learned the source of the iconic falling green code that trickles down the screen - sushi recipes.

If you know Japanese and look closely you'll be able to see it's a jumble of characters: hiragana, katakana, and kanji. The production designer, Simon Whiteley, who created the title sequence for the movie has revealed the source was his wife's Japanese cook book.

"I like to tell everybody that The Matrix's code is made out of Japanese sushi recipes," Whiteley told CNET (via Gizmodo Japan). "Without that code, there is no Matrix."

The production designer on the movie The Matrix has revealed the source of that code was his Japanese wife's cookbooks and the sushi recipes he found within them.

Whiteley scanned the cookbooks, then reversed and mixed up the characters to create the cascading code.

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The Wachowskis, who directed the movie, have opened every subsequent film within the Matrix franchise with this sequence. It is not known if they ate sushi while shooting the movies.