Versus

Versus is a new manga written by ONE (One Punch Man, Mob Psycho 100) and illustrated by Kyoutarou Azuma (the King of Fighters manga, Tenkaichi, Sakura Brigade, and Sacred Seven).

Chapter 1 is out. The premise starts really cliche, fantasy Heroes fighting Demon Kings, and while I liked some of the minor twists it had early on, like the fact that a bunch of the Heroes died and then Harrow(Halo? Hollow?)'s party died while fighting their Demon King, that did hurt my emotional connection to the characters a bit since most of them were dead and I didn't know who would survive. I did note that a few of the Heroes mentioned weren't dead, so they might show up later. Right off the bat, I had strong Berserk and slight Gurren Lagann vibes, but I wasn't fully hooked yet. Then his brother Zaybi (Xaby?) showed up and revealed the REAL twist and premise of the series, which immediately hooked me:

While the Heroes were distracting the Demon Kings, the mages were traveling around the world and setting up a slightly wrong summoning circle around the whole planet, thus summoning a whole different planet to merge with our own. This new world is futuristic, with sci-fi soldiers who have laser guns that can shred demons apart with a few shots... and they're also fighting a great evil that has almost wiped out their world, and they ask for help.

I'm guessing the premise from here is that sci-fi tech is strong against the Demons and magic is strong against the future enemies (maybe Aliens?). The Humans of both worlds will team up and merge their weapons together into Magitek, while the Demons and future enemies fight each other and maybe even team up themselves. I think the real main cast is Harrow, Zaybi, Panepane, and Captain Kayla, she might be the main representative of the future world. Maybe even Harrow's love interest? I could see a "we come from two different worlds and have suffered greatly at the hands of our oppressors, so we find comfort in each other" kind of dynamic between them.

Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on Nov 30th 2022 at 2:19:59 AM

I have heard from other places that this was a weak start, and I feel inclined to agree, but I have never gotten used to ONE despite having watched One Punch Man and Mob Psycho 100, so I am open to seeing this play out.

I agree the first half of the chapter was kinda weak and generic, but I think that was intentional to make the twists in the second half of the chapter hit harder.

Possibly because it starts off as (intentionally) a very cliche fantasy story about vanquishing demons from the land. I personally didn't care about the obvious jobbers they introduced in the beginning, and I didn't feel that sense of dread in seeing the humans falter against the demons. My mind spent most of the chapter wondering when the twist will drop, and when it did... I guess it's a decent concept, but as of now the writing will have to kick it up a couple of notches to be really engaging.

It almost seems too obvious. There's a large focus on how prey can't defeat their predators, so it would make sense how different parallel-world sensibilities could upend the food chain, so to speak. The obvious story would be the humans creating the magitek, like you mentioned, which they use to fend off their oppressors, whom in turn would join forces to fight back against the humans. But again, that seems too obvious.

ONE's series always start out slightly cliche and then subvert them over time (Though has gone on record from One Punch Man that Saitama would eventually go all out eventually, but he would never lose either way).

Versus will definitely end up the same.

Of all the Heroes mentioned in the letter, I'm 100% positive we'll see Ario again, and we might see Fecaccio, Alicia, and Makbuk again. Especially with the very interesting note that Makbuk was brainwashed into "becoming a Demon". If Demons are portrayed as Humanity's natural enemy like the narrator says, what sense does it make that a Human can "become" a Demon?

As a side note, the faces are pretty great here. They range the gamut from goofy and cartoony to grim and depressing.

Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on Nov 30th 2022 at 12:36:35 PM

Humans Are the Real Monsters both metaphorically and literally. A tale as old as Devilman.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Nov 30th 2022 at 5:29:56 AM

Chapter 2:
We learn of Keira and his unit of anti-robot troops fighting against AI robots that are eerily creepy as expected. When Zaybi and our magic-wielding heroes aid them out, they start working together. And then, cue the robots coming and evolving AND one of the Demon King's top brass Kiva coming to destroy them too. Battle, Battle, Harrow comes to fight, and soon, he emded pitting the two foes against each other for long enough to get them to escspe. It ends with the robot-world refugees in the magic-world castle grounds.

Edited by thuse on Dec 26th 2022 at 6:33:34 PM

I can't find chapter 2 anywhere.

It's not translated yet.

Translation for chapter 2 is out. I'm glad that the obvious scenario where the different humans have RPS-style matchups with their enemies is quickly debunked. From the looks of things, humanity's enemies seem like they'll be fighting each other. So the story might be more about humans trying to survive on the bottom of the food chain while they figure out how to win? All while dealing with tensions between the refugee groups?

I really like Kayla. I'm guessing the main character squad will be made up of her, Hallow, Zavy, and then one character from 3 or 4 other worlds. The robot vs demon fight was sick, but I think tricking the natural enemies into fighting each other is just a temporary measure. Humans are gonna need to combine power systems in order to win. Classic ONE move to go "what if EVERYTHING was in this manga?"

Ooh, I just read a good theory: the robots in the future world were created by humans, and the first chapter confirmed that humans can become demons. Humanity's natural enemy is itself.

Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on Dec 27th 2022 at 9:56:09 AM

Would make a ton of sense. Ultimately humans are the apex predator.

The big question is how exactly are they gonna combine their powers? Granted, we need to first learn what the other humans can do.

Chapter 3:
Hmmm... I guess it was just running away from some monsters, unless I really haven't paid attention...

So, to count, we've got Demons, Robots, Mole Monsters, Kaiju, Titans, Carnivorous Flowers, Fungal Zombies, UFOs, and Monstrous Roots, which may or may not be connected to the flowers. Plus in the intro, we saw humans on spikes and clotheslines with birds, that's one we didn't see in the mission (unless it's connected to the Titans). This chapter was all about establishing the Natural Enemies, the villains, with 10 or so different types I spotted. I think next chapter will focus on establishing the Mankinds, and maybe answer how many different universes we're dealing with. I counted 13 different Mankinds at the table, and I think we're missing a few that we saw at the end of chapter 2, so maybe there are 15-20 universes total that have been smashed together. This chapter also pretty quickly kills the "Mankind's Natural Enemy is itself" theory, unless all of those were somehow created by humans.

Recently Chapter 4 was recently released and each of the worlds natural enemies have been revealed by the inhabitants.

They are Demons, Ai, Aliens, Kaiju, Mutant Humans, Mutant Nature, A Death Game, Gods Wrath, A Curse, Wasteland Raiders, Parasite Zombies, A Life Absorbing Tree and Giants

So far they seem pretty interesting, I’m interested to see how it turns out.

Can we at least wait until the chapters get an English translation before talking about them here?

Why, I did not post unhidden spoilers or anything? Is it taboo or something? I’m not sure I did anything wrong.

Anyways if you want translations check the Reddit for the manga, raws have been (poorly) translated by AI there, so if anyone wants to read an approximation of what occurred just check it their if anyone is too curious.

Edit: A proper translation has been released

Edited by Toxor on Feb 26th 2023 at 5:39:02 PM

Basically has the different groups of humans introducing themselves and their natural enemies. I’m sorry but in terms of power rankings the Lawless World’s enemies are definitely the chumps.

Most interesting worlds to me are New Humanity and the Game World.

Also if the Lawless World is as unimpressive as it sounds. The man from the Lawless World didn't even attempt to get in that piss fight about bandits being the strongest.

I could see the Lawless World having some cool Mad Max-esque war vehicles covered in spikes and shit.

I think the people from the Game World were only drawn once in that entire chapter and it was the introduction panel to their world.

• Twice. They were the ones sitting down next to the people from the Calamity World in the top left of the first page.

the people of each world arguing who's natural enemy was stronger makes me think ONE pays attention to battleboard debaters, and I love it.

So is anybody gonna create the page for this manga yet? We've got enough material so far with the world and enough characters.

Chapter 5: Mostly just learning some names and meeting the characters. It's now that I realize this is a manga with 26 different factions of characters. Oh boy.