Saiki Kusuo no Ψ-nan

To the average person, psychic abilities might seem a blessing; for Kusuo Saiki, however, this could not be further from the truth. Gifted with a wide assortment of supernatural abilities ranging from telepathy to x-ray vision, he finds this so-called blessing to be nothing but a curse. As all the inconveniences his powers cause constantly pile up, all Kusuo aims for is an ordinary, hassle-free life—a life where ignorance is bliss.

Unfortunately, the life of a psychic is far from quiet. Though Kusuo tries to stay out of the spotlight by keeping his powers a secret from his classmates, he ends up inadvertently attracting the attention of many odd characters, such as the empty-headed Riki Nendou and the delusional Shun Kaidou. Forced to deal with the craziness of the people around him, Kusuo comes to learn that the ordinary life he has been striving for is a lot more difficult to achieve than expected.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Saiki, Kusuo Main

Kamiya, Hiroshi Japanese

Kaidou, Shun Main

Shimazaki, Nobunaga Japanese

Nendou, Riki Main

Ono, Daisuke Japanese

Teruhashi, Kokomi Main

Kayano, Ai Japanese

Kuboyasu, Aren Main

Hosoya, Yoshimasa Japanese

Hairo, Kineshi Main

Hino, Satoshi Japanese

Toritsuka, Reita ing

Hanae, Natsuki Japanese

Saiki, Kuusuke ing

Nojima, Kenji Japanese

Saiki, Kurumi ing

Aikawa, Rikako Japanese

Anpu ing

Matsuoka, Yoshitsugu Japanese

Cook, Justin Producer

Fukuda, Jun Producer

Muramatsu, Sayako Producer

Yagi, Hitoshi Producer

Reviews

Dec 25, 2016

MetaThPr4h

Recommended

Aired during the Summer and Fall 2016 seasons, Saiki Kusuo no Ψ-nan is (hopefully just for now) a hidden gem in comedy anime that I can't recommend enough to watch.

The protagonist in this story, Saiki, is a boy that was born with psychic powers in a normal world. He can read minds, he can teleport from one place to another, he can restore things (people included) to their previous state in the past… and these three are just a few examples of all that he can do. Saiki is so powerful that, if he wanted to, he could singlehandedly take control of the Earth in ... a few days, is that his intention? Hell no! He just wants to live a quiet life, and I can already tell you that he isn't even close to have one.

From his family, to his classmates, to seemingly anyone he meets, everyone is a weirdo, and they are all hilarious and awesome in their own way and won't let Saiki alone for a second. There is Shun, the chuunibyou that believes in the existence of Dark Reunion, an evil organization that only he can defeat (even if in reality he is a complete weakling), Nendou, a character that is so empty-headed that Saiki is not able to read his mind, Teruhashi, a girl that is considered perfect by everyone (especially herself), and so, so many other awesome characters that will grow up on you and make you laugh so much.

Saiki itself is a fantastic and unique character, he's a straight man (and the only sane person around) that doesn't fully act like one, instead of shouting like it's the usual, he stays silent for the other characters, and we can listen to him internally complaining in his normal tone, there is something so funny about seeing him wondering what the hell is wrong with everyone, all while keeping his trademark deadpan face, that rarely changes outside of when near his biggest weakness: coffee jello, he absolutely loves it and he will do anything for them.

The variety that having psychic powers provides to the story makes this anime so great, every episode feels very different to the others thanks to the multiple uses that they have. The humor itself is quite fast paced, and manages to be constantly funny, you will be laughing all the time while watching this anime. All the side characters get the right amount of screen time to become memorable, yet never feel like they are overused. The 4th wall breaks are fantastic, and I really have to mention the parodies, that are mostly from other popular games and series that everyone knows about, so one is not left with a “well, I don't get it” reaction everytime they happen.

The art style and animation of this anime is honestly pretty average, it doesn't look bad, but it's definitively not a high budget work at all, I personally don't give much value to that since the main objective in this type of stories is to make us laugh, and actually, if used properly, that can work pretty well in their favour, this can be especially be seen in scenes featuring Nendou, where the intention is to make him look as derp as possible and that helps making it even better.

In the sound department, as most of the time with comedies, the songs are quite forgettable and mostly there to simply go along with the events that happen, there is one big exception though, and it's the “JUDGEMENT KNIGHTS OF” song that follows some Shun scenes and makes them so much better. Both two opening and ending themes are pretty good, especially “Ψ desu I LIKE YOU”, the first ending theme (or the opening one if you watch the shorts), that is a very catchy song.

This next and final point is meaningless for the new watcher now that this anime finished, but I really need to still mention it, Saiki Kusuo aired as both a series of shorts (4 minutes episode per weekday, being 5 episodes in total each week) and one episode each Sunday, that was all of the shorts from that week together, this format was simply fantastic and I want it so much to become more popular in the future. In my timezone it meant that each weekday, when I woke up, I had one new episode available, there is simply no better way to start the day than with a good laugh, and I appreaciated it so much.

In conclussion, Saiki Kusuo no Ψ-nan is a very original and hilarious comedy, full of lovable characters that will make you laugh from start to end. If you're a fan of comedy anime, make sure to watch this one, and if you aren't, I still heavily recommend you to give it a try, because it's probable that it will greatly surprise you!

Reviewer’s Rating: 10

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Aug 30, 2021

RESOLVING_POWER

Mixed Feelings

I watched the first season (24 full-length episodes) of Saiki Kusuo no Psi-nan. Here are my thoughts:

This is a comedy show, the main shtick of which is that the main character has psychic powers. Sometimes the humour is unique and creative. Mindreading and psychic powers are used to put a unique and entertaining spin on absurdist and situational humour. The show consists of short (~5 min.) skits. These skits are hit and miss in of my enjoyment of the comedy. I watched the ~25-minute episodes which consist of 5 skits. Longer stories are presented as multiple sequential skits; the longer stories never exceed the ... length of a single episode.

Decent voice acting that enhances the humour — especially Nendou, whose voice is hilarious. Everyone in the show speaks very quickly. I'm not sure if they literally sped up the voices post-recording, but in any case it made the show more digestible. The fast dialogue combined with short skits makes it easy to burn through episodes. In of music, some of the OP and ED songs are pretty good. However, the OST has a seemingly small number of tracks, given the length of the season. Some tracks are repeated very frequently. Sometimes the music does enhance the humour. In fact the familiarity of songs that are played exclusively during humorous moments can help increase my anticipation of a punch line, or something of that nature. For example, the unforgettable "Judgement Knights of Thunder" song which plays when the chuuni character is doing chuuni things. I'm even chuckling to myself now thinking about that song because it was always used during comedic scenes. It's like a Pavlovian effect.

Although not a huge issue for me, the visuals in this are poor. The art style is very lackluster and the animation appears low budget. Furthermore, there are barely any lighting effects at all. The character designs are also very simplistic. All this said, exceptional visuals would probably just be a distraction from the show's true appeal, which is its comedy. My most significant critique in this regard is that I would have liked to have seen more detail in facial expressions.

The show is shounen target demographic, which was cause for my apprehension going in. The show is okay, but a lot of the humour does revolve around typical highschool anime scenarios. Many of the jokes are the same tired school-setting comedic scenarios that are recycled but with a psychic spin, instead of something truly unique. The writing is clearly targeted towards a young teenage male audience. I think I would have enjoyed the anime more if it were not in a typical school setting. It felt like the creativity was nerfed somewhat by the need to appeal (and be relatable) to the teenage audience. Additionally, a lot of the humour revolves around parody of typical shounen tropes, which is funny the first dozen times but eventually becomes tiresome. Despite my criticisms here, the psychic powers schtick is often applied in refreshing and creative ways that I have never seen before in comedy media. However, I don't think the true strength of this humour mechanism was ever fully realized, mainly due to the limitations associated with the target audience. Saiki Kusuo no Psi-nan doesn't feel like an authentic expression of someone's artistic vision; it feels like it was shrewdly engineered to sell manga to teenage boys. Maybe it's silly of me to want more than this from a shounen anime.

Seinen anime are hit and miss with me, but I think the premise of this anime would be great for seinen. The psychic mechanism would be a terrific way of exploring more mature themes and complex characters, while still generating creative humour. Instead, we are subjected to the artistically bankrupt highschool setting, and its accompanying tired schoolyard humour, likely because the author is looking to maximize sales.

The entire cast consists of very simplistic characters, but this is kind of a necessity for the style of humour and length of the skits, so I'm just stating this as a neutral observation. It would be unfair of me to expect otherwise. However, I don't particularly like the personality of the main character. His internal dialogue is used to narrate the show, but it means he's simply apathetic to everything. I get why the writer would want a blank template to work with in this regard, but it would have been nice to see him exhibit some more emotion occasionally. He's also condescending and frequently treats all the other characters poorly, which becomes very tiresome after a while. I'd like to see a spinoff show with an entirely new main psychic character (and a different setting).

After watching the first half of season 1, my enjoyment of this anime began to significantly decline. In addition to the aspects outlined above that I disliked, the show became somewhat repetitive. This is partly due to the simplistic characters and highschool setting, but probably also due to every joke involving psychic powers in similar ways. Although I enjoyed the beginning of season 1, I'm no longer enjoying this anime enough to justify watching another 24-episode season. Particularly because the next season involves the exact same characters in the exact same setting. I would be far more interested in watching another season if an entirely new cast of characters were used.


My personal rating for season 1 of Saiki Kusuo no Psi-nan: 5/10

A young teenager would probably enjoy this show more than I did. I think that for a comedy fan, this show is worth sampling, but be warned that it is somewhat repetitive. During the first quarter of this season, the show was a solid 7/10 for me and I was enjoying it. Unfortunately, that initial enjoyment was diluted by the many other episodes. Maybe I will give the next season a try in a few years when my recollection of the past comedic material has faded.

Nendou and Kaidou are the funniest characters (although equally as simplistic and repetitive as everyone else). The rest of the cast is comparatively less funny, in my opinion.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Oct 13, 2018

GonFreecss888

Not Recommended

Saiki is an anime about a boy who has psychic powers but despite this awesome gift he is very pessimistic
Story: The story isn't really anything special but this anime doesn't particularly need anything grand as its very episodic and cut up in 5-minute segments.

Art: Pretty awful to be honest. Characters aren't ugly but the animation is so lazy.

Sound: The voice acting was fine, and they have some nice quirky sound effects which can be quite charming

Characters: Saiki is a funny character and is quite relatable in his thinking, however, the surrounding characters are very over the top and can sometimes be funny, but other ... times annoying

Enjoyment: This is just pure fun and something light-heart to put on in the background. The humour was funny at first but after a few hours of watching it became mundane.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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