Preface
My reason for reading this book, "Psyche Again," was an advertisement I saw online.
I often start reading comics because of advertisements.
Web ads can be quite persistent and annoying at times, but that's what triggered this situation.
From the image in the advertisement,A battle story where the protagonist has the ability to reverse time.Once I realized that, I thought it sounded interesting.
In my mind,Stories where the protagonist has the ability to loop and start over repeatedly are usually interesting.I have had that experience.
For someone like me who loves video games, using the save and load function in games and restarting until I get the desired result is something I do on a daily basis.
That's perhaps why it's easier to empathize with the idea of utilizing those abilities.
However, the ability to reverse time is, frankly speaking, an extremely powerful, almost cheat-level ability.
If you could use it without any limits, it would be too powerful and not fun.
I was also interested in how they imposed restrictions and risks to avoid stressing the readers.
Work summary
The manga "Psyche Again" was serialized in Weekly Shonen Sunday from 2014 to 2019.
The manga series consists of 15 volumes, which isn't too long and I think it's a length that can be read in one go.
The author is Tsubasa Fukuchi, known for works such as "The Law of Ueki".
I haven't read "The Law of Ueki" myself, but I've heard it's quite highly regarded as a superpower battle manga.
I started reading "Psyche Again" without knowing it was by that author, but the interesting content convinced me.
The pacing and development of the story were fast, and the ability-based battles that required strategic thinking felt very well-executed.
I understand now why the author is able to maintain such consistent entertainment value—it's because they have a long history of drawing supernatural battle stories.
The synopsis of this work is as follows:
Highlights
The main point of interest is how they defeat their enemy.
The main character, Psyche, has the ability to "return to 7 AM on the day in question by drowning in a pond."
Aside from this point, Psyche has the same physical abilities as an ordinary human, so in battles against enemy ability users, he is usually at a disadvantage at the beginning.
However, the enemies in the early stages have no way of knowing that Psyche's ability is "time reversal."
Therefore, Psyche employs a strategy of fighting for a while, then withdrawing from the battle, jumping into a pond, and starting over from the morning of that day.
That way, next time you'll have information about the enemy beforehand, you can prepare countermeasures and battle again.
Often, you won't know the enemy's weaknesses in a single battle.
In that case, Psyche would drown dozens, even hundreds of times, and the experiment would be repeated over and over again.
Even if you can return to how things were before, it would still be quite painful since you would have to drown and die.
However, the sheer persistence and madness of Psyche, which allows him to repeat this process over and over again, is truly astonishing.
When, after much effort, you manage to overcome the enemy's abilities and achieve victory, you feel a sense of accomplishment, just like when you finally defeat a boss in a video game after many attempts.
I also love the movie "All You Need Is Kill," and the beginning of this movie has a similar feel to it.
The second highlight, I think, is how the characters are portrayed.
The artwork has an overall cute style, and each character has their own unique abilities.
While many characters appear, the main characters have plenty of exciting battle scenes, and their emotions are also carefully portrayed.
While the protagonist Psyche's growth is one of the story's themes, I think the other characters are also well-developed.
Also,"Someone you once fought against as an enemy has become an ally and is lending you a hand."This kind of development is quite common.
It's a common plot development in shonen manga, but it's also an exciting and thrilling development.
While this work follows many conventional plot developments, everything is depicted with care, and it never feels repetitive.
In that sense, it may not have many edgy aspects, but it's a work with almost no flaws, and I think it's a work that I can recommend to anyone.
Psyche Again (1) (Shonen Sunday Comics)(Amazon)
Review (contains spoilers)
I enjoyed all 15 volumes so much that I read them almost in one go.
The power of "doing it over" that only you can perceive gives the reader a sense of superiority, which I find quite satisfying.
The real power battles begin in volume 2, and from there the story becomes exponentially more interesting.
After encountering Ice Head, extracting information while escaping, finally"This is my territory."Diving backwards into the mole pond gave me a great sense of accomplishment.
Furthermore, the scene in volume 4 where Psyche and Ice Head divide up the roles and fight against Ana is one of my favorite scenes.
This is what Hyozu says to Ana, who dismisses Psyche's abilities as "trivial."
This scene depicts Ana's mistake for underestimating Psyche's abilities,This scene also reveals the terrifying obsession of psychedelia.
I find it incredibly frightening when someone fails to realize that the other person is repeating the same behavior over and over again.
If you want to defeat Psyche, it will be difficult unless you either kill him instantly without him noticing, or cut off his escape route before fighting him.
If you can get Psyche into a "checkmate" state by 7 AM, then restarting will be pointless, so this might be an effective countermeasure.
Given these abilities, if there were no limitations on Psyche's powers, any enemy that appeared would simply be a rehash of the Ice Head and Ana fights.
I think the restriction that made it harder to use Psyche's ability freely from the mid-game onward is a reasonable one.
On the other hand, it was good because it allowed the spotlight to shine on other characters and their personalities to be explored in more depth.
My favorite characters are Hyozu and Johan.
Hyouzu has an unfriendly, clumsy, villainous face, but I like him because he has a cute side like a dog.
当初、物体を発泡スチロール化する能力というのは、やや不便そうに感じました。
However, the way Hyozu fought, using his quick wit and resourcefulness, was clever and cool.
Johan came across as quite evil when he was an enemy, but he was reliable when he was on our side.
I initially thought he was the final boss, so I was surprised when he became an ally, but he turned out to be very reliable.
For some reason, it has a similar charm to the Kumagawa River in "Medaka Box."
She was cute after she became younger to escape Will's captivity.
Although it had 15 volumes, I didn't feel it was too short or too long; I thought it was just right.
I didn't feel like the story was dragged out at any point, and as soon as one case was solved, the next one started immediately, so the pacing was good.
My impression was that it's a truly enjoyable power-battle manga without any quirks.
Psyche Again (1) (Shonen Sunday Comics)（Amazon）画像リンク先のebook japanで試し読みできます。
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