Psyren is one of those manga you can’t read without wondering why it hasn’t been adapted to anime yet. Combining some of the best elements of battle Shonen, sci-fi, and mystery series, Psyren paints a world filled with a variety of deeply interesting and incredibly cool characters, crafts a power system worthy of standing alongside Nen from Hunter x Hunter, and delivers consistent motion that keeps you coming back for more.
This sudden hope for an adaptation comes on the heels of a vague announcement about an upcoming anime series. Total Licensing’s Summer ’25 issue revealed that Japanese anime distributor REMOW is co-producing a “high profile project” with Shueisha “that ended more than 15 years ago.” Psyren’s original run was from December of 2007 to November of 2010, putting it just at the edge of seemingly qualifying as a potential pick to be animated. More to the point, Psyren is consistently a name tossed around when fans are asked what manga series deserve to be animated and even made its way into the top 20 series fans wanted animated during a 2024 AnimeJapan poll.
During its time in Weekly Shonen Jump, Psyren typically was toward the bottom of the magazine’s table of contents, indicating that it was lower in terms of the priority being given to series that the editorial staff want fans to read. While it wasn’t outright cancelled before having time to come to a conclusion, many have speculated over the years that its somewhat abrupt ending was the result of the series losing industry support and being forced or induced toward ending more quickly.
Normally, I wouldn’t have hope for a series that old coming back. But, previous winners of polls like this have gone on to become fan favorite anime (series like Solo Leveling and Wind Breaker). Even more, the revival of series like BLEACH after 10 years, complete with an effective re-write of sections of the manga story considered rushed or underdone, proves that revivals like this are possible. This is a series that more than deserves it and one that you should check out the manga of even if it never makes it way to the screen.
What is Psyren?
Written and illustrated by Toshiaki Iwashiro, Psyren follows high school student Ageha Yoshina as he stumbles upon an occult mystery that comes to change every aspect of his life and the world around him. On his way home from taking down a bully for some money, Ageha discovers a ringing pay phone, though only hears an echo of his own voice when he answers.
He witnesses the appearance of a spectral looking monster, mistaking it for a hallucination, and finds a phone card inserted into the booth labelled “Psyren.” He learns that this card is connected to a secret society of urban legend, with an award of 500 million yen out for anyone who learns the truth about them.
Out of curiosity, a desire for a fat payout, and a burgeoning desire to save a missing classmate who had the same phone card in her wallet, Ageha calls the number on it, completing a questionnaire of sorts. The next day, he’s assailed by some phony cops, barely fleeing from them before picking up a call on his cell and instantly being transported to a desolate wasteland.
Ageha’s introduction is a lot like the introduction of hard-headed characters like Yusuke, Ichigo, or Tatsumi Oga. Characters who, on the surface, are high school punks, but inside have a pure desire to save people and do something about the malaise that exists throughout the world. Psyren early on emphasizes the sort of sense of imminent doom that comes from living in the modern world and being aware of existential crises like global warming, world war, and general societal decline.
Ageha is someone who tries to live in the moment, ultimately using fights as a distraction from the rest of his life but still, on some level, servicing his desire to help people in different ways. He’s a character that a lot of boys and young men will relate to; he has the classic adolescent desire to be useful and make a meaningful difference in the lives of those around him somehow, complete with the angst from failing to do so.
Without spoiling the finer details of the desolate wasteland Ageha finds himself in, it’s certainly not a safe one. Monstrous creatures known as Taboo exist within Psyren and not being prepared to fight them means a quick death. Those who are able to enter Psyren, called Drifters, must defeat Taboo and survive in order to return to their world, though they are eventually summoned back.
This creates a twisted death game format that plays out as Drifters slowly learn more about Psyren, develop their own unique abilities, and come to understand the many moving parts of the mystery. If I had to compare the narrative progression to recent series, I would say to combine the video game style of missions of Solo Leveling, the mysterious games of Alice in Borderland, the power diversity of a series like Hunter x Hunter or Jujutsu Kaisen, and the constant love letters to sci-fi of a series like DAN DA DAN.
Why It Deserves an Anime
The most basic reasons are this: fans want it, it’s more than good enough to warrant it, and it deserves a chance to end properly. BLEACH mending its rushed final arcs created a set of possibilities that I didn’t think ever would exist, it ignited hope for me that it truly was never too late for a series to come alive. In an era where countless production houses release hundreds of new anime every season, it’s not a surprise that more opportunities than ever exist for manga to get a shot.
Sure, those manga are competing within an ever widening landscape as more and more artists enter the market and the backlog of “could be animated” series builds up. But when something is high quality, it stays above the rest of the manga out there as a candidate. The fact that after all these years it can still place top 10 in an AnimeJapan poll is proof of that.
And its quality is certainly up there. No manga is exempt from criticism, and Psyren certainly deserves some for falling into some of the classic battle Shonen tropes, especially as it approached a somewhat rushed ending. Even with that critique in mind though, the story wraps up nicely. And while the ending may be less than perfect (the bar isn’t that high to begin with), the rest of the story is excellent. I particularly enjoy the combat in this series. Battles are often eerie and have an otherworldly quality to them fitting of the other world that Psyren transports its characters to.
The death game elements make it feel like you’re playing your way through a video game and reading a mystery novel all at the same time. The characters are some of my favorite, with the layers of their personality having real impact on the story and even, at times, the power system. In the same way that Psyren positions Ageha as someone striving against all of the banal poisons of the world, characters have to challenge the toxic parts of themselves in order to survive this other world. So much of it is worth praising.
Ultimately, it’s more than likely that this new project isn’t Psyren. But, that doesn’t mean it’s not worth singing the manga’s praises and recommending it to fans of action, mystery, and sci-fi. I’ve never gotten one of these predictions right in my 20 years of following anime, but this is one I really hope myself and others do. You can read Psyren on VIZ.
PSYREN © 2007 by Toshiaki Iwashiro/SHUEISHA Inc
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