Psycho Staff: Manga Review

Title: Psycho Staff
Genre: Action, Comedy, Romance, Sci-Fi
Author: Satoshi Mizukami
Volumes: 1 (7 Chapters)



“To Hiiragi Kouichi, I’ll be waiting for you after school behind the gym. Sakuragi Umeko.” This is the first time Hiiragi Kouichi has ever gotten what seems like a love letter. He goes to the meeting place thinking something exciting and extraordinary is going to take place that will blow all reality out of proportion. Well it turns out he’s right for all the wrong reasons.
Sakuragi Umeko is an agent of the Space Esper Corps from the planet R’lyeh looking to recruit Kouichi, claiming he is a B-Class psychic.
Needless to say he immediately rejects her invitation, ignoring her rambling and saying he wants to go to University more than he wants to go to space.
The series spans seven chapters, allowing the reader a glimpse into a brief but interesting sequence of events.

I like dry, serious characters. I say that, I like it when they’re done well. A lot of the time characters that are supposed to be blunt, witty and clever are nothing beyond a shallow, insensitive husk that barely resembles a decent character. A character needs another element to his attitude that off-sets these harsh characteristics, maybe through using some kind of personal information to justify them, or softening their effects by adding a layer of sensitivity or content that makes the dryness seem less harsh.
This is why I like the main character of Psycho Staff. Kouichi avoids nonsense and always has a serious, cynical outlook on what he does, but over the seven chapters you get to find out what he’s like underneath it all, and that is something satisfying to read.
Umeko is another great character, although her conviction and motivation is something you see in a lot of characters just like her, so as a person she is quite predictable, but the scenarios within the series are interesting enough that while the character is predictable the situation she’s in is bizarre enough to warrant different courses of action.

Fans of “Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer” (a.k.a Wakusei no Samidare) and “Sengoku Youko” will immediately recognise Satoshi Mizukami’s original art style. While the style is pretty simplistic, it has enough detail to make sure the panels aren’t bland but not so much that you can’t see what’s going on (one of the things I hate most in Manga is when you can’t distinguish one thing from another in a scene).

For all its merits it suffers the problem of being very short. While I was most certainly satisfied with it as a whole, the ending seemed a little rushed and a lot of pivotal moments are busted out in a short amount of time, leaving the reader to wonder whether the artist really did have bigger plans for the story. Rushed as it is the ending is satisfying, finishing the story while implying that more happens later.

While I am slightly disappointed by the short length of the Manga, it is still very much worth the read as long as you can let go of it by the seventh chapter.