Psycho Busters, Book 2

サイコバスターズ / Psycho Busters (Novel) #2

by Yuya Aoki, Rando Ayamine

The explosive supernatural fantasy novel that inspired the blockbuster manga thriller!

The trouble began when ninth grader Kakeru found a beautiful teenage psychic named Ayano in his room–in desperate need of help. She and her equally gifted friends had just escaped from a secret organization whose agents train young psychics to carry out their fiendish plans.

Now psychic thugs have been ordered to hunt down the runaways–and Kakeru. Ayano is certain the only reason they haven’t been caught is that Kakeru’s supernatural skills are saving them. Kakeru, who thinks he’s utterly ordinary, finds this hard to believe. Still, why do amazing things happen whenever disaster threatens to strike? Why did a girl whisper “Kakeru” right before experiencing a truly mind-blowing death? For better or worse, what happens next will depend on Kakeru. But first he must discover what his friends and enemies already the dangerous truth about himself.

Genres: Fantasy, Manga

160 pages, Paperback

First published July 21, 2004

About the author

青樹佑夜
Real Name: Shin Kibayashi
Pseudonym of Tadashi Agi, Yuma Ando, Joji Arimori, Hiroaki Igano, Ryo Ryumon

Blood Type: O

亜樹 直 Agi Tadashi is a Japanese manga storywriter, novelist and screenwriter. His original name is Shin Kibayashi (樹林 伸 Kibayashi Shin). He was born in 1962 in Tokyo, and graduated from Tokyo Metropolitan Musashi Senior High School and Waseda University School of Economics & Political Science. The penname "Tadashi Agi" is shared with his sister. Under the name Yuma Ando, he received the 2003 Kodansha Manga Award for shōnen for writing Kunimitsu no Matsuri.

Reviews

[Allison · Rating 3 out of 5]

After reading the first Psycho Busters novel, I wasn’t too sure what to expect from this one. The first one was kind of messy, but moved quickly and had enough bizarre religious imagery to keep me going. In this sequel, the religious imagery is a little less explicit, though still present, but the book is written more cleanly, too. Perspective is no longer so much of a stumbling block, as Kakeru’s first person narrative is more cleanly distinguished from the third person sections in terms of tone. As minor as this sounds, it made a major difference for me in terms of readability. It made the plot and setting less confusing, making the whole thing easier and more fun to read. The constant perspective changes still come off as odd, but they’re no longer such a problem.
This book still had some issues, though. Early in the novel, there’s an incident discussed where a girl faces five delinquents and, in the next chapter, Kakeru and his friends just happen to fight five delinquents. I thought that there was some sort of odd time shift going on, meaning that Kakeru and his friends rescued the girl, but it turned out it was just a coincidence that led to significant and unnecessary confusion. It’s also worth noting that, for its short length, this book has a lot of characters. Some of them, Maya and Joi in particular, are given a chance to do something significant, but everyone else sort of just pops up for fights and then leaves again. It makes it difficult to keep the characters straight and even more difficult to care what happens to them.
I don’t really dislike the Psycho Busters series, and when I’m done with the third book, I’d consider lending it out to some of my other nerdy friends, but at the same time, I’m glad I bought the series cheap and used and would recommend that other interested readers do the same.

[Maverynthia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty mediocre a story for this one. Women do nothing and literally only serve to awaken the power of the male protagonist. There's very little story that happens as it's all combat.