Entry tags:

manga, manga:!shounen, manga:!weekly jump, manga:iwashiro toshiaki

This is not a proper review, because I don't do reviews of manga except for completed series, but OMG YOU NEED TO READ THIS MANGA WHY IS IT NOT MORE POPULAR???

Ahem.

So. It starts off when, in order to rescue a classmate, Ageha uses a mysterious phone card and gets sucked into a world called Psyren. It turns out this monster-filled wasteland is actually the future, and Ageha and his friends have to back and forth through time to try and stop this future from coming to pass. Since this is a Jump series, there's got to be special powers. In this case, the atmosphere of Psyren awakens everyone's latent psychic powers.

I zipped through the first seven volumes + approximately two more volumes worth of chapters and now am feeling completely bereft. A Jump series hasn't grabbed me like this for a while. It's got a lot of stuff I love, like time-travel and post-apocalyptic futures and mysteries. I love how the future keeps changing based on the actions of Ageha and the others in the present. (I really, really, really love that part.)

The art wasn't that great at the beginning, but it's really improved as the series went on and I really like it a lot now. It has sort of a similar look to Bleach.

I like the characters a lot, too. There are quite a few female characters (though of course there are more male characters) and while a few of them sometimes fall victim to Irrational Woman Syndrome (think any Takahashi Rumiko heroine), it's not constant. Also the three healers? Are guys. I know. I'm amazed. People have various types of psychic powers and for once it's not the girls who get the healing powers. All the female characters can take care of themselves (to the extent anyone can; for example, while the series starts out with Ageha rescuing Amemiya, she rescues him in the next chapter) and play an equal part in the battles instead of being relgated to the sidelines.

Anyway, it's just really awesome and has totally become my new favorite Jump series.

A bunch of people are scanlating it. The scanlations I've seen have not been that great, and have had some mistakes that completely change the meaning, which is even more crucial in a series like this, but...it's better than nothing, I guess. It will probably come out in the US eventually, because it's Jump, but it doesn't seem to be out yet.