Shun Numa is back, but not with a continuation of Super Psychic Policeman Chojo as many might have hoped. Rather, his one-shot from October 2025 has now been turned into a full-blown series in the pages of Weekly Shonen Jump… with one major change.

Even though Numa has never had any problems tackling both story and illustration up until this point, Yuushin Kuroki has been roped in for the art of the serialized version of The Ura Files. To be fair, Kuroki has been largely inactive since Teenage Renaissance! David came to an end all the way back in 2019, but this change in production staff necessarily brings with it several creative departures from the initial one-shot. Whether or not these changes are for the better remains to be seen.

Just in case you haven’t checked out The Ura Files already, it follows secret agent Momotaro Kibitsu in deep cover as he monitors Ura Onigashima, a descendant of the oni from Japanese folklore living in modern times. Given that oni are usually characterized as violent and even malevolent towards humans, Momotaro is understandably suspicious of Ura, believing that she could flip at any moment and eat one of her classmates. Nevertheless, she is one of the most popular girls at school, while Momotaro is that weirdo who sits at the back talking to himself.

In terms of those creative departures from the initial one-shot, Kuroki’s art is decidedly more detailed and less cartoonish than Numa’s. Where Numa tends to use white space and simple lines, Kuroki prefers to fill it with shading and complicated designs that change the entire aesthetic of the story. Perhaps the biggest victim of this aesthetic change is Onegashima herself: Numa’s original, somewhat inconspicuous design is replaced with a more ostentatious one, complete with bigger horns and a much bigger bust.

When reading the synopsis provided above, you would be forgiven for thinking that this series sounds an awful lot like The Dangers in My Heart with a supernatural twist. That didn’t appear to be a point of reference for the one-shot, but the visual changes coupled with a completely different plot push the two manga very close together. By replacing the mad dash to the cafeteria with a tender moment on the rooftop as Momotaro comforts Ura after a classmate’s insensitive comment, Numa’s story finds itself much more squarely in the realm of romance over comedy.

That being said, no major changes have been made to the characters or overall concept for the series, so this is all just a question of positioning and presentation. Chojo did feature a certain amount of ‘will they, won’t they’ between the titular character and his subordinate, but Numa has never tried his hand at an out and out love story before. Perhaps one of the reasons for bringing Kuroki on board was to lighten Numa’s load slightly while he tackles something a little out of his comfort zone.

If The Ura Files does commit to this unlikely romance, then it will most likely succeed given the rising star of Shinobi Undercover as well as The Dangers in My Heart in the past couple of years. Anyone who was expecting something along the lines of Numa’s previous work, as well as the one-shot, may be disappointed.

Chapter One Club is a weekly column that aims to spotlight the latest in new series and one-shots from across a wide variety of different demographics and publications.