Manga creator Katsuwo has launched a manga adaptation of Renren Ii’s Ōja no Ban Kuruwase: Net Shōgi no Teiō, Real Taikai de Chōjō o Mezasu (roughly, Underdog Upsets the King) light novels. The first chapter ran in the November issue of Kadokawa’s Dengeki Daioh G, which also put the new manga on its front cover.
It is a notable assignment for Katsuwo, whose comedy series have built a steady following and whose newest anime adaptation premieres within days of this launch.
What the story is about
The series centers on Mikado Watanabe, an introverted high school student who leads a double life online as the so-called “King of Self-Destruction” — a high-level online shōgi player whose play makes even professionals uneasy.
After a series of strange events, Mikado joins his school’s shōgi club, enters the amateur shōgi tournament Kōryūsen, and begins his rise in the game away from the internet, together with his fellow club members.
The setup leans on a familiar hook: the quietly dominant online competitor who has to prove himself in the offline world. Shōgi gives it a concrete competitive structure, and the light novel has been building an audience on Kadokawa’s Kakuyomu platform since December 2023.
The light novel behind it
Renren Ii launched the original story’s serialization on Kakuyomu in December 2023, and it is still running. Kadokawa published the first print volume on March 21 with illustrations by Fujiko, followed by the third volume on August 24. A fourth volume is scheduled for November 20.
For the manga to start in Dengeki Daioh G while the novels are still in progress puts the adaptation close to the source material, which usually means the manga has room to run rather than catching up and stalling.
Katsuwo’s track record
Katsuwo is best known for two works that reached anime. Hitori Bocchi no Marumaru Seikatsu (Solitary “__” Life) launched in the inaugural issue of Comic Dengeki DaiohG in September 2013 and ended in April 2021, with Kadokawa publishing the eighth and final volume in June 2021. It inspired a television anime in April 2019, streamed by Crunchyroll. Mitsuboshi Colors followed, adapted into an anime that premiered in January 2018 and streamed by Sentai Filmworks.
More recently, Katsuwo launched #Zombie Sagashitemasu (#ImLookingForZombies) in Comic Dengeki DaiohG in June 2022. Kadokawa published the third and final collected volume in January 2024, and Yen Press licensed the manga in English. That series is getting a television anime that debuts on October 3, with Crunchyroll streaming.
So Katsuwo is launching a new manga in the same magazine that has housed most of the creator’s career, a week before one of those series hits television. The timing reads less like coincidence and more like a publisher building on an anime moment.
Why it matters
Shōgi manga has a strong pedigree, and a new series from a creator with two anime adaptations already behind them is a reasonable bet for Dengeki Daioh G. The magazine has been a reliable home for Katsuwo for over a decade, and putting the debut on the cover signals how much stock Kadokawa is placing in it.
For readers abroad, the path is less certain: no English license has been announced for either the novels or the manga yet, so the immediate way to follow the story is the Japanese release. If the anime of #Zombie Sagashitemasu performs well, interest in the creator’s back catalogue usually follows.
The launch also fits a busy stretch of new-manga announcements we have been tracking, including the Killing Bites writer Shinya Murata’s new ninja isekai Shinoblade and Battle Royale: Enforcers artist Yukai Asada’s zombie manga. For a different kind of simultaneous launch this week, our report on Digimon Eggs arriving on MANGA Plus covers how day-one international releases work.
Source: Anime News Network
Featured image: Dengeki Daioh G November 2026 issue cover, via Anime News Network.
