Psyren ‒ Episodes 1-3
Even after sitting down for the first three episodes, it still feels a little surreal to actually be watching a Psyren anime. The manga was one of several big battle shonen obsessions for me when I was in high school, and although it never reached the heights of Shonen Jump's heaviest hitters at the time like Bleach or Naruto, it was still a fun read in its own right. It was also victim to one of Shonen Jump's most infamous manga cancellations at the time, as despite lasting in the magazine for a full three years, it still wasn't safe from getting axed, and didn't garner enough popularity to warrant an anime. Even though part of me held out hope that an anime could happen someday, I kind of figured that was a pipe dream. So I'm a little surprised to see it finally dusted on the shelf after all time. Thankfully in spite of one notable hiccup, Psyren is still a mostly good time.
The main appeal of the series shows itself almost immediately within these first three episodes, which is mostly in its sense of mystery. Our protagonist Ageha finds himself caught in the middle of an urban legend when his classmate Sakurako goes missing one day, and his attempt to find her drags him into the world of Psyren. There the two of them find themselves in the middle of what seems to be a death game, with most of the tension for the first couple of episodes coming from Ageha being as in the dark as the audience to the rules and stakes of what he's been trapped in. It isn't until he manages to escape from Psyren with Sakurako in the third episode that we start to get a better sense of what's happening. There we learn that rather than being some alternate world, Psyren is actually the world of the future, and those who have been warped into this death game have been tasked with preventing that future from coming to pass.
But even with those revelations, there are still a couple of big unanswered questions. One of them is the identity of the mysterious figure called Nemesis Q who's conscripted them into this game, and the other is discovering what person or group is responsible for Psyren's creation. These aren't exactly the most exciting mysteries, but they do make for a pretty good setup, and considering that these kinds of mysteries sometimes like to take their time rolling out information, it's nice to see that this one is willing to do it at a reasonable pace. This does have the unfortunate consequence of making the third episode the slowest thanks to all the exposition, but it's dished comfortably enough to avoid coming off as particularly grating.
Ageha and Sakurako also make for a pretty likeable pair of leads. Although Ageha hasn't really distinguished himself too much beyond being a delinquent with a heart of gold, it's a popular archetype for a reason and he's a pretty easy hero to get behind. Sakurako, on the other hand, seems to have a bit more going for her. We quickly see that while she tends to act aloof in front of her classmates at school, she's struggling to hold herself together thanks to her experiences being trapped in this game. That especially becomes apparent in the second episode where the other players ignore her warnings about the dangers they're in and quickly end up dying for it. While she tries to convince Ageha she doesn't feel responsible for what happened to them, it's clear she thinks otherwise, and that this is far from the first time she's faced this situation. With how much of the show has been focused on its mysteries, we haven't had a lot of time to explore this side of Sakurako yet, but it's an aspect of her character that managed to make her pretty compelling in the manga, so I'm interested in seeing how the anime tackles it as it goes along. We're also introduced to another delinquent named Hiryu, who so far hasn't had too much to do beyond butting heads with Ageha, but he is good for giving Ageha another character to bounce off of. It's also only when Hiryu nearly blames him for the deaths of the others that Ageha realizes how much guilt Sakurako is carrying.
The strengths of the leads also seem to be coming through pretty well in the English dub so far, and Dylan Ray Owen does a pretty good job of getting across Ageha's brash personality while still making him come across as endearing. Kelly Greenshield's performance as Sakurako, on the other hand, is a bit harder to get a read on just based on the first episode, since she has less to work with. For what we see, though, she manages to get across Sakurako's desire to keep others at a distance well enough that I'm looking forward to seeing how she handles the rest of her character.
Sadly for all those positives, the show is held back by one major caveat: its production. The first three episodes look pretty rough to say the least, and there are a lot of noticeable animation shortcuts when it comes to the heavy use of speed lines and impact frames. It's certainly not the worst looking show I've seen by a long shot, and it's serviceable enough not to be too egregious, but it is a bit concerning. This does ironically make the show look more like an actual product of the time period the manga was made in, but it's unfortunate given how much the bar has been raised for animation quality in battle shonen since then. If Sakamoto Days doing well on Netflix in spite of some similar shortcomings is any indication, this probably isn't too likely to affect this show's success in the long run (especially since it doesn't really have much directly competing against it this season). Still, for how long people have been asking for this show to be adapted it is a shame that what we've gotten so far has been more passable than solid. Considering that the show is only going to get more action intensive, I hope that we'll see some improvements as time goes on, but for the moment it's hard to be too optimistic about that. In spite of all this though, part of me can't help but be excited to finally see this show animated, and even if it's not in the most ideal state, it's nice to see the series get a second chance at life.
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Psyren is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.
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