Toshiaki Iwashiro's "Psyren" is an adventure comic series serialized in a magazine "Weekly Shonen Jump." It follows the story of a high school student Ageha Yoshina, who is whisked away to the strange world where a real survival game is going on.
Ageha comes back alive from the first round of the deadly "game" with a help from his childhood friend Sakurako "Ice Queen" Amamiya. Sakurako must train Ageha quickly for the next game because the next game will be only in a few weeks. Also, a few interesting things are revealed about muscular Hiryu Asaga, one of the survivors of the first Psyren game depicted in the first volume.
The comic shifts its focus from the urban legends of a red telephone card and missing people to the quest of the truths behind Psyren, an alternate world that strongly suggests a catastrophic event in the future. The comic's pace gets faster with several new characters introduced into the story, though Ageha, Sakurako and Hiryu remain the central characters who push the story forward. They are all interesting and likable, and provide occasional humor, sometimes in an unexpected fashion.
Some of the story elements may remind us of another "Weekly Shonen Jump" comic, "Bleach" - a dashing hero (Ichigo Kurosaki) with potential for special powers, and a cool heroine (Rukia Kuchiki) training him, etc. "Psyren" may not be as famous as Tite Kubo's long-running comic series, but the comic offers a thrilling read.
