Versus: ONE’s most ambitious project since One-Punch Man and Mob Psycho 100?

Three creators, one ambitious project

Let’s continue exploring modern manga with serious potential. Next up: VERSUS.

This is ONE’s first print-magazine serialization since his professional debut, as explained in Comic Natalie’s interview with the creative team. And he’s joined by two other creators:

1. ONE develops the concept, world and story;
2. bose turns ONE’s script into manga storyboards, shaping the pacing, sequences and narrative clarity;
3. Kyōtarō Azuma brings the characters, settings and battles to life with detailed, spectacular artwork that feels made for animation.

This isn’t a minor project trading on a famous name. It’s a complex collaboration built from the outset to handle a huge number of worlds, characters and battles.

The recognition has already started: Versus placed 15th in the comics category of the 2024 Next Manga Award, then won the shōnen category at the 49th Kodansha Manga Awards in 2025.

Versus won in 2025. Kagurabachi was among the finalists. The previous year’s winner in the same category? Frieren.

That context makes the award especially interesting: Kagurabachi was on the same shortlist. There’s no published first-to-last ranking, but it’s still a significant achievement for Versus. You can find Frieren’s win in the official 2024 announcement.

What is Versus about?

It opens in a familiar fantasy world.

After centuries under demonic oppression, humanity sends 47 heroes to face 47 demon kings. That’s the starting point set out on the official Monthly Shōnen Sirius series page.

The mission fails.

As a last resort, humans use dimensional magic to ask another reality for help. But when contact is finally made, they discover something devastating: humanity in that world is also on the brink of extinction.

This time, the enemy isn’t demons. It’s robots, created by humans and now beyond their control.

Gradually, the true scale of the story becomes clear. There aren’t just one or two worlds, but 13 different realities. Each is home to a human civilization that can no longer resist its own “natural enemy.”

Demons, robots, giants, aliens, kaiju, parasites and other species so overwhelmingly powerful that they have brought each humanity close to extinction.

Then comes the event that turns the whole premise on its head: the 13 separate worlds merge into a single reality.

Every world brings two things with it:

1. its own human civilization, with a different culture, knowledge and technology;
2. its own natural enemy — the force that was wiping it out.

Imagine joining 13 sinking ships together. The survivors can finally help one another, but every ship is also carrying the monster that was destroying it.

Thirteen human civilizations now share one world. And all 13 threats have come with them.

The idea that makes Versus different

Bringing these civilizations together doesn’t suddenly make humanity strong enough to win. But it does reveal one crucial fact: their enemies don’t know each other either.

That’s where Versus’s central idea comes in.

Instead of fighting invincible creatures head-on, humans have to manipulate them: draw them into conflict and let them weaken or destroy one another.

It’s a very ONE kind of reversal:

• in One-Punch Man, he created a protagonist so powerful that he broke the rules of battle manga;
• in Mob Psycho 100, he set overwhelming psychic power against a teenager’s emotional vulnerability;
• in Versus, he starts at the opposite extreme: humans cannot win by fighting the usual way.

Even if we only consider two opponents at a time, 13 threats give us 78 possible matchups: demons against aliens, giants against robots, kaiju against parasites, and so on.

That doesn’t mean ONE will show us every combination. But he has built an enormous engine for storytelling. Every collision can produce new hierarchies, strategies and temporary alliances — along with plenty of arguments about which enemy is truly the strongest.

Could an anime adaptation change everything?

This structure naturally brings us to the major catalyst still missing: an anime adaptation.

As of 11 October 2026, we haven’t found an anime announcement in the official sources we checked, including the series website.

But…

…Versus feels made for animation: instantly recognizable factions, radically different character designs, enormous battles and creatures from entirely different genres colliding.

A great adaptation could turn each encounter into an event, sparking theories, comparisons and conversations across the fandom.

That possibility is a big part of the appeal for me. For now, though, it remains a possibility. Unlike Jimoto Saikō!, whose MAPPA and Netflix adaptation has already been announced, Versus still has that step ahead of it.

The first Japanese volume

The first Japanese volume was published by Kodansha on 7 April 2023, in B6 format with 224 pages, as confirmed by the publisher’s official listing.

The original launch obi is one of its most recognizable features. It directly references Saitama and Mob, introducing Versus as the new work from the creator of One-Punch Man and Mob Psycho 100.

For collectors, that obi creates an immediate visual link to the two series that established ONE’s worldwide reputation.

A sealed first printing: look for “001” on the back

If you’re looking for a first printing of Versus that is still sealed, there’s a detail you can check without opening the book: the code 001 on the external Kodansha sticker.

In the back-cover photo, you can see it near the publisher’s logo at the top. Collectors who use this system associate it with the first printing; 002 indicates the second, and so on, according to reports from Japanese readers.

It isn’t the end of the ISBN: the book’s number is 978-4-06-530578-2, while 001 appears separately on the sticker. That distinction is exactly why it’s worth taking a close look at the back of a sealed copy.

The colophon photo supplied for the archive reads 2023年4月7日 第1刷発行: 7 April 2023, first printing. The gallery also includes the front with its obi and the publisher inserts.

The external code is a useful reference, although we don’t have official documentation confirming its use across every Kodansha manga. And shrink-wrap alone cannot guarantee that a copy hasn’t been tampered with. When assessing a book, consider the sticker, obi, provenance and colophon where available together — the same approach we took with Vagabond.

Why it could be a great pick

The case for Versus brings together four things you don’t often find in one series:

1. a creator who has already produced two worldwide hits;
2. an original concept with enormous room to grow;
3. a major accolade in the Kodansha Manga Award;
4. a possible anime catalyst that has yet to be confirmed.

That’s why Versus looks like an intriguing collecting prospect to me. The foundations are strong and the work has already earned recognition, while a new wave of international exposure may still lie ahead.

Among modern manga without an announced adaptation in the sources we checked, it has one of the combinations I find most compelling: the creator, the artwork, the strength of the concept and the international potential.

If an anime ever arrives that truly captures the scale of this universe, a first printing of Japanese volume 1 with its original obi could become an even more desirable piece for collectors. We can’t know where demand or prices will go, but we can already see what makes this manga special.

Thirteen worlds. No chance of winning alone.
That’s where ONE starts having fun.