Title: Bug Ego Vol. 1
Author: ONE, Kiyoto Shitara
Publisher: Viz Media
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 215
Genre: Supernatural, Drama, Horror
Publication Date: March 21, 2026
The Story
We have a brand-new series by ONE, creator of One-Punch Man and Mob Psycho 100! In Bug Ego, the world is full of hacks. Some of them are whimsical, others have dire consequences. Kokudo knows all about the hacks thanks to a notebook he found; however, the hacks have specific rules… such as never sharing them with anyone. Despite that rule, he begins to share them with his classmate Hitsujiya. He doesn’t know why he shares them, but it’s probably because Hitsujiya is the only one who will ever talk to him at school.
At first, the hacks are rather simple… such as teleporting yourself to a bathroom instantly when you have diarrhea, or another hack to control lucid dreams; however, there is one hack that has incredible consequences… the hack to turn back time. It requires a laundry list of very specific conditions, such as waiting for an eclipse and doing a dance naked in a specific location at a specific time. When Hitsujiya tries it for himself, he messes up the dance and gets tackled by the practicing sports team in quite an embarrassing situation. 44 years pass, and he meets up with Kokudo once again. Feeling he was tricked, Hitsujiya becomes upset that his life has been ruined; however, Kokudo tells him the hack is real.
Convinced, Hitsujiya tries it again and succeeds, and ends up right back where the series begins, but Kokudo knows about the time leap. Now with a second chance, Hitsujiya claims that he’s not interested in hacks anymore, but no matter how many times he says that, he is still drawn to them. In fact, when it’s time for the class to do a group project, his partners pick an oddly specific museum… a place that Kokudo knows to avoid at all costs. Hitsujiya is about to find out why first-hand!
Characters
While there are a few side characters, the first volume focuses mainly on Kokudo and Hitsujiya, with a potential third one later on.
Kokudo is a rather short kid for his age; however, he has a rather apathetic attitude. He knows the secrets of the world… aka… the hacks, so he doesn’t let stuff bother him too much; however, there is a time when that changes. Deep down, he feels that Hitsujiya is only hanging around him because he’s teaching him hacks and that they’re not truly friends. Despite Hitsujiya denying it, that thought lives in the back of his mind at all times. Despite that, he feels compelled to keep helping him out, like when Hitsujiya has trouble initiating the lucid dream hack and comes to his rescue when something goes wrong with it. He was also worried about him when he went to the museum… so much so that he left his group behind to make sure he was okay. So, despite his conflicting thoughts, he can’t just leave Hitsujiya be… and that all stems from the fact that nobody at school even cares about him. Hitsujiya is the only friend he has, so it’s almost like a necessity more than a want or desire for friendship. It’s a bit sad, but warming because Hitsujiya seems to be warming up to Kokudo regardless of his intentions.
Speaking of Hitsujiya, his intentions are pretty black and white. He was only hanging around Kokudo because he was teaching him hacks. He wanted to know more of them, so he was using Kokudo for just that. When he failed the time leap hack, Hitsujiya felt betrayed and therefore held a deep grudge against Kokudo; however, when he listened to future Kokudo’s sincerity, believed him, and succeeded at the time leap hack, something inside of him changed. He began to appreciate Kokudo and started considering him a true friend; however, his ego wouldn’t let him admit it, so whenever Kokudo questioned him, he just passed it off as if he considered him a friend the whole time, but it’s pretty obvious that it was true he was only using him to learn hacks. When Kokudo comes to his rescue over and over again, you can feel the guilt inside of Histujiya, even if he never shows it. From his perspective, all he has to do is just continue being Kokudo’s friend, but it’s not just a scheme… It’s a genuine feeling now.
The potential third character is Ko Moesawa. She’s a rather quiet and nerdy-looking girl who got stuck in Hitsujiya’s group along with a crowd of delinquents… Magehiko Taki and Shosuke Yodomi. It turns out that Magehiko and Shosuke made Ko pay for the admission, while they picked the museum as the place to write their report on. Of course, they were planning on making Hitsujiya write the report for them and do none of the work. When Hitsujiya tries to stand up for Ko by demanding they pay her the money back, you can tell she develops an appreciation for Hitsujiya. It’s nothing grand right now, but it’s like nobody stuck up for her before. Because of this, she may end up getting involved with him and Kokudo. Plus, with her being kind of an outcast like Kokudo, she would be a perfect fit. We’ll see if something comes of this later on.
Final Thoughts
Well… I have to say… if ONE knows how to do one thing, it’s to make obscene manga with a sense of humor. While it wasn’t as wildly hilarious as One-Punch Man, it still had his humorous style written all over it. From Hitsujiya ending up naked most of the time, to just really obscure references and jokes, to dirty humor, and everything else in between, you can tell that ONE had his hands all over this story with little to no doubt.
I don’t want to make comparisons to his other series, but rather just say that I think this series on its own is quite good. While a lot of the hacks in the world are childish (i.e., feeding 60 yen in a vending machine and pressing buttons in the right order will make a bird poop in the same spot every time), that’s part of the humor. There are more serious hacks with bigger consequences, so it offers up a nice balance between humor and drama. Much like with Saitama and Mob, Kokudo is another one of those nonchalant, laid-back characters, but there are some personality differences between him and ONE’s other creations. He doesn’t truly feel like a copy of any of his previous works, but there is that familiarity to him all the same.
The story itself is quite interesting, too. While it could have kept it simple and just stuck to the hacks themselves, there were several plot points here that suggest that things are a lot deeper than they appear on the surface. When someone enters Kokudo’s lucid dream, or when a certain sticker keeps changing, it’s quite obvious that there are other life hackers out there. I’m sure that we’re going to meet someone one day (and if I know ONE, I’d say that we already have…). What happens when hackers cross paths, though? I’m not sure when we’ll get that answer, but you just set that up in the first volume and didn’t have that happen down the line.
This looks to be another great start for ONE. It wouldn’t shock me to see this with an anime one day. If you’re a fan of his work, pick this one up!
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This item was provided for review by Viz Media
