Listen I wanted to like Psyren, I really did. I was really taken in by its setting made more interesting by the mystery. But I’m starting to think that the shonen market is all about the vending machine effect, where what’s predictable sells. This made me a little sad because the author had a lot to say about books he reads and I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt that he has the taste to pull off a good story. Yet though either the pressure of his publisher or overabundance of characters to lasso a plot around, Psyren falls into the broad demographic of drab shonen that doesn’t impress me.

If it has one thing going for it it’s the premise. Psyren’s setting and stories are nestled between the venn diagram of Bleach and the Matrix. Except all of the action is Bleach and none of the thinking is the Matrix. Yet the mystery that’s initially set up of the contemporary world being so different from the Psyren wasteland was really compelling and hooked me to the story. I was at first impressed with the characters fixing time in the past present and present future, but that quickly waned after the characters had less of a reason to do it more for the sake of the plot than for themselves. And the semblance of characterization that was there consisted more of archetypes than substantial players of the game. The character models and designs are all really sharp and cool but didn’t add much more to the story, and that’s the story that was squeezed between explosions that took up whole and chapters.

The severe lack of motive is something I found made the books really flat overall. Save the world because you should save the world. Yet it sets up a whole mess of characters you don’t care if Ageha saves or not. Everyone he’s fighting to save he shared a comedic moment, brodown, boob grab or info dump in response to a question. The books never give the characters time to simmer and build on each other and the point of the series seems moot if that’s what we’re given. It had potential all the way through to elaborate on some interesting storylines, yet the final result is so top heavy from its characters it’s hard to say any of them were worth reading. I would say it’s worth reading if you’re looking for something different in shonen, even if it isn’t super different. But it certainly didn’t show me that the genre has mature or thoughtful stories to tell, but just gave me more pointy-haired high school sword flingers saving the world.