Psycho Staff

Psycho Staff. It's by the author who did The Lucifer and Biscuit Hammer, so fans will notice the familiar art and general nonchalance of the characters right away. Don't pick up this manga with any grand expectations, though, because this work is lacking in a lot of ways.

This is a short manga. With seven chapters of ~25 pages each, there's not a lot of room for development - and no development really happens. Instead, Mizukami presents a central theme around which each conflict in the story is based: hard work vs. natural talent.

A fairly standard plot pushes the story forward: the main character has enormous untapped potential, and a strange (and cute) girl appears to ask him to utilize it for her cause. However, he refuses, uninterested in the exciting life of a soldier fighting an interplanetary war. She, knowing that his "one-in-five-billion" level of natural power dwarfs her years of training and experience, is furious. He wants to study hard to get into a prestigious school and completely disregard his prodigal psychic abilities. This conflict forms the crux of the story, and the other characters introduced help support it as well.

What pulls this manga down is sloppy execution. None of the characters save the protagonist are fleshed out very well, and the various conflicts lack both proper build-up and satisfying conclusions. It doesn't feel like anything is learned or decided, and thanks to a certain deus ex machina, the main issue that drove all the events of the story is pushed to the wayside. And then the romantic subplot had an ending that felt unnatural and unnecessarily tacked on.

Ultimately, Psycho Staff presents one central idea and then fails to thoroughly explore it, distracted by other topics. It lacks cohesion and a good ending.

This manga is pretty cool because it's basically a one volume version of other action manga. There's a supernatural element, a main character with powers and a girl he meets from another planet who knows about the powers, fights, a little romance, etc. It manages to put all those elements together pretty well for a small glimpse into the characters' lives.

The art was nice: simple, reminded me of other early 2000s styles (like flcl just a little bit).

There is a theme throughout of hard work being more important than natural talent. The main guy Kouichi is confident in his belief in this while the main girl Umeko is insecure about her lack of natural ability and need to work hard to achieve things. She also shows some jealousy towards Kouichi in that regard.

I like that Kouichi is kind of the guy who has no time for people being frivolous since he's preoccupied with entrance exams and stuff, but later you see how he really does care about people. On the flipside I like that Umeko is the funny, more extreme one. They complement each other well.

It's nothing crazy or life-changing but if you're ever in the mood for a manga you can read in one day this one's pretty good for that. It leaves a pretty neutral impression.