Popularly, the shounen market is known for being over-saturated with the same kind of average stories and not presenting a whole lot of originality. I hate that kind of view, but I have to agree that the definition of Psyren is average,.

Psyren is a shounen manga serialized between 2007 and 2010. It was created, written and illustrated by Toshiaki Iwashiro.

Ageha Yoshina is a high schooler who frequently gets into fights and always wins. After one of his incursions, he passes by a payphone and it starts ringing. He answers the call but can only hear static. When he hangs up, he finds a calling card with "Psyren" written on it. The next day, he goes to school and a visually distressed girl, Sakurako Amamiya, forgets her wallet. Ageha picks it up and sees that the girl has the same card. Both of them end up getting involved with the game "Psyren" and uncover some incredibly distressing mysteries.

The beginning of Psyren is very promising, but, after the initial wonder, it becomes awfully predictable, for the most part. With the introduction and defeat of a character in the world of Psyren, it is made awfully clear that it would become a much more predictable story than it first seemed.

It already starts trailing off by the middle. A lot of different characters and concepts are introduced early on just to be forgotten for about 50 chapters, until they suddenly appear again as if nothing had happened.a I have no idea what happened with Ageha's original friends, they just disappeared.

Towards the ends, the unpredictability comes back, but not in a good way. It becomes almost nonsensical, with asspulls left and right. The impressions it gives is that the author got tired of writing Psyren and rushed to end it without thinking too much about it.

The battles, with a couple of exceptions, don't include any type of strategy, they are only based on who is stronger. That is actually pretty sad, as the abilities themselves are pretty imaginative and created a lot of possibilities for better battles. The main character's ability, "Melchee's Door" is truly original and also had a lot of potential, that wasn't fully used.

The cast is pretty big, but most of the characters are pretty well developed. However, there wasn't a single character that had an original personal arc, everything had already been done before. It was pretty easy to see what would happen with each of the characters from their first appearences.

Which brings me to the character design. It also isn't any different than most of other shounens. It is extremely easy to recognize everything about a character with just their design, from abilities to the personal arc. It makes everything extremely easy to predict, taking away any tension.

The art as a whole is pretty, but doesn't have a hint of originality. It is the traditional art for shounens.

Psyren was an extremely boring read to me. I knew what was coming most of the time because of the predictability of the story, which made it lose its edge. When it tried to be different, it became extremely confusing. The characters and their interactions were also pretty standard.

If you are looking for a new shounen to read, it is exactly what you are looking for. Yet, it doesn't offer anything different from all the other hundred shounens.