Psyren, Vol. 1 [Paperback]

Where is Psyren? What IS Psyren? And what is Psyren's connection to our own troubled world?

Those are the questions that litter "Psyren Volume 1," one of the few manga I was eagerly awaiting even before it arrived on American shores. It's hard to see why this series has been completely overshadowed by lesser manga/anime series -- it has a deliciously nightmarish world where ordinary people must fight to survive, a mysterious figure pulling the strings, and a rough-diamond hero.

Strange things are happening in Yoshina Ageha's life: Masked apparitions, ringing phones, and his old friend Amamiya pleading "Save me!"... just before she goes missing. In fact, a lot of people are going missing, and the only clue Ageha has is a calling card with "Psyren" printed on it. But using the card only attracts more trouble -- and Ageha ends up being whisked into a strange desert world with ruined buildings.

And after monstrous creatures kill most of the people there, Ageha joins forces with an exhausted Amamiya and a very tall, tough teenager named Asaga. Their only hope for survival is to find the gate leading out of Psyren and back to their own world. But when Ageha learns what Psyren truly is, he realizes that there may be no escape for anyone...

"Psyren Volume 1" is one of the best introductions to a manga series that I have ever seen. It introduces the first three main characters, it's got plenty of wall-smashing action, and author Toshiaki Iwashiro tosses a KILLER twist into one of the chapters. I won't reveal what it is, but it adds an entirely new spin on a seemingly ordinary "through the looking glass" tale.

It's also a very lean, fast-moving story, with compact fight scenes that feel grittier and more realistic than most shonen series. There are a few bleakly humorous moments (Amamiya getting all weird and smiley), but Iwashiro's skill is in how passionately he evokes deeper emotions. There's a nightmarish, haunting quality to Psyren itself, and the death of a kid Ageha tried to save is all the sadder because of his words before he turns to ash and blows away.

Oh, and the monsters? Friggin' creepy, especially the grinning helmeted one that almost looks human, but not quite. Even the mysterious "Nemesis Q" is kind of eerie.

Ageha himself is a really likable character. He's brash, temperamental and prone to fisticuffs -- he even SELLS fights on behalf of other students! -- yet has a heart of gold. He doesn't quite stand out from the pack of spiky-haired shonen heroes, but he's getting there. Asaga is mostly a dark horse at the moment, but Amamiya seems to be a new twist on the action girl -- she's bespectacled and studious, but also a sword-swinging monster-slayer.

"Psyren Volume 1" is a solid kickoff to one of manga's more underrated series. If you like "Bleach" but wish the fight scenes weren't so prolonged, then this might be your cup of tea.

Ageha lives in a pretty dismal world, where the suicide rate is high, people are often missing, and he believes the planet is doomed.

His world is about to get a lot more dismal. And dangerous.

Ageha does quite a bit of fighting, though he believes he does this for a noble cause. His sister, who's in charge of him, doesn't believe a word of that. Some people think that Ageha fights for the sake of the downtrodden, while others speculate that Ageha just fights because he can. Whatever the real reason, it's clear he gets into fights.

One night, after another fight, he's hurrying home when the phone rings at a nearby phone booth. He goes ahead and answers it. When he does, some sort of monster lands on the booth and freaks Ageha out. But the monster's gone seconds later, so Ageha thinks he must have hallucinated it simply because he's tired. That's when he sees a phone card that says "Psyren" and decides to keep it.

Ageha may be the lead, but his classmate Sakurako, nicknamed the Ice Queen, is soon going to be a major part of his life. Friendless and always reading, she suddenly says the startling words, "Psyren is coming!" She has the same "phone card" Ageha has, but when he asks her about it, she coldly tells him there are things in this world he's better off not knowing.

After that, she goes missing.

So Ageha decides to do some research on Psyren. He learns that there are rumors of a Psyren Secret Society and that it's behind all the missing people lately. Wanting to learn more, he takes his "phone card" to a telephone booth and puts it in the phone. A recording asks him all sorts of odd questions, and after that, the police are after him, though Ageha suspects they're not real police officers. After fleeing from them, he somehow ends up in another world, a wasteland, and finds Sakurako there.

The art style is very shonen, from the look of the characters to the action sequences. Backgrounds are often sparse or blank. Some of it feels formulaic, but it's still entertaining. It has a good mystery going on, and I like the character Sakurako, especially after Ageha finds her in the wasteland and she saves his life by fighting off monsters with her sword. There's quite a bit of action, and some humor, so I think it might entice reluctant readers who like fast-paced stories.

Reviewed by Danica Davidson

To save his missing childhood friend Sakurako Amamiya, a high school boy Ageha Yoshina enters an alternate universe where a certain game is about to start. To come back to the original world alive, he and other participants including Sakurako herself must win the life-or-death game, of which rules are simple: get to the goal without getting killed.

The comparatively long comic series (serialized in Weekly Shônen Jump 2007-2010, all in 16 volumes) uses a slow-burn approach, taking time in establishing the characters to build tension and drama. The first chapter of the Volume 1 is pretty long, taking up more than one-third of the volume, but it is worth the wait. Once action kicks in, it is a non-stop ride to the end.

Some narrative devices may look familiar. The "public telephone" idea is reminiscent of a Keanu Reeves sci-fi adventure movie, but manga creator Toshiaki Iwashiro gives a few twists to the overused idea of a hero "transported into another world" by adding the urban legends of a red-colored telephone card and people who mysteriously disappeared.

Don't let the manga's old-school artwork put you off reading it. This is a thrilling adventure story with likable characters and intriguing mysteries to be solved. Like "Muhyo & Roji's Bureau of Supernatural Investigation," Toshiaki Iwashiro's "Psyren" is one of the most underrated manga among the countless comics serialized in Shônen Jump, one of Japan's most popular weekly magazines. With the publication of English version, I hope the comic will be read by more people.