Saiki Kusuo no Ψ-nan: Ψ-shidou-hen

Note: this is not a review of the entire series, but these 6 episodes only. You can find my opinion of the first season on the first season's series page.

Having reviewed the first season, I was glad when I coincidentally saw the new season released today on Netflix and binged all of it this morning. This Netflix release had me a bit confused at first since it doesn’t continue right where the second series ends. Instead, the story follows Saiki, once more, as he engages in his daily living with unexpected comedic events. I felt the comedic punchlines were not nearly as good as they ... were in the first two seasons.

For those unclear about the chronology of this series:
1. Season 1 & 2,
2. Shidou-hen episodes 1-5
3. Kenketsu Hen
4. Shidou-hen episode 6

Story/Comedy: 6/10
As much as I enjoyed the first two seasons, giving them a 10 and 9 respectively, the story and comedy in this season were not as entertaining as the first two seasons' story and comedy. Instead of coming up with new material, they often chose to revisit old jokes which were funny the first time around but got stale through repetition.

On the bright side, new characters are introduced and they present a new set of challenges. However, these new characters did not bring a lot of new comedic value to the show and it felt more like the writer(s) just wanted to add a new character and didn't know what kind so they just added these two. The show still has its signature “multiple stories per episode” format, often jumping from one story aspect and continuing it in a later episode which is great. Overall, this season’s story and comedy was alright, but I only laughed maybe about four or five times throughout the entire 6 episodes. The end of the series was incredibly satisfying.

Character: 7/10
We don’t get much new character development this season. The show reuses the same gags for the old characters as have been present for quite some time but introduces two new characters. One of the characters is a student and presented some funny moments, whereas the other was a teacher and a bit of a weird choice. I won’t go into the specifics of each but overall I’d say the characters were still pretty good.

Art: 6/10
The art and animation have never been the greatest and appears to be comparable to the first two seasons, with a simple art style and nonfluid animation. It works for this show since it’s a gag/comedy anime.

Sounds: 7/10
They cut out the opening theme altogether in this season. Instead, they replaced it with a 5-second singing clip. There was at least one interesting new OST, but overall it’s about the same soundtrack. Voice acting was about the same. It doesn’t seem like they went "all out" with the sound effects this time around.

Enjoyment: 7/10
It was pretty entertaining to watch, but I was hoping for more entering this season, quite honestly. Hopefully, they’ll pick up the momentum in any future releases depending on the number of people watching it this season.

Overall/TLDR: 7/10
The story follows Saiki as he continues to struggle with being a psychic and having “unwanted” people around him all of the time. In the end, we get a bit more character development of Saiki. Additionally, we get to see all of the main characters from the original series as well as the introduction of new characters. However, this season did not deliver as well as the first two seasons did, and consequently I didn't enjoy it as much either. I would still recommend this season to you if you enjoyed the first two seasons, but if you’re new to the Saiki Kusuo franchise, it is much better to watch the first two seasons first since there are plot aspects of this season that you would not appreciate as much if you hadn’t watched the first two seasons.

Should you watch this series?
If you watched the first two seasons of this series, then OF COURSE!
If you’re looking for a comedy series, then start with the first season?
If you’re looking for a sci-fi, then ehh it’s not THAT sci-fi related but you can give it a shot.
If you’re looking for a serious, complex, and/or linear plot with an end-goal, then you’re definitely in the wrong place buddy.

This series was too great! You should watch it if you haven’t heard of it before!

If you thought this review helped you make your decision please let me know by clicking the “helpful” button~ If you thought it was wrong or inaccurate, let me know why so I can improve my reviews in the future ^^

The Disastrous Life of Saiki Kusuo is simply a very fun parody/gag anime which also manages to have its own unique story and its own personal charm. This will be a review of the whole Saiki series with the main focus on this six episode midquel/sequel.

Saiki is just one of those anime where even though it just repeats itself a lot with the same gags, the speed of it all just makes the comedic moments work. I love the comedy. It is similar to Gintamas in where the characters just bash each other. It is like a family or a tight knit ... group of friends where you can make fun of someone but everyone knows that it is in a loving way and not just in a mean way. The other aspect of the humor relies on situational humor (like Saiki trying his hardest for in the end for everything to backfire). It is both an episodic series and a show with an overarching plot. While nothing in the show is a masterpiece by itself, it becomes one when you mix all of the individual elements together.

This season focuses on side stories which happens between season 2 and 3 with the last episode being the final episode of the entire series (so far). There are two new characters introduced and there is some development on Saikis character.

Story:
Saiki Kusuo is a psychic who everyday deals with the trouble of hiding his powers while needing to constantly use them at the same time. Plenty of classmates flock arround him (since he is the main character) and while it annoys him, he puts up with it because he is lazy (a simplified explanation but I don't want to make this review too long). These classmates keep his life in constant turmoil and are the driving force of the shows episodic plots. Besides for classmates, he also needs to deal with family, neighbors, animals, and street-folk which leaves him with no free time. This season deals with all of that and how Saiki develops after saving the world and wanting to be rid of his powers.

Art:
The art is probably the weakest aspect of this anime but it isn't at all bad. It is simple and cheap. All of Saikis episodes are just 5 shorts bundled up into a full length episode. Because of this most of the time characters don't move a lot besides for lip flaps and the occasional head turn (or some other limb). But since this show moves so fast, it is easy to ignore. The character designs are very memorable and the coloring choices are very distinctive.

Sound:
The soundtrack isn't anything Oscar worthy but it does its job of melding with the atmosphere of each scene. It almost sounds like a video game soundtrack. The first , second, and third openings and endings are good but the fourth OP and ED are honestly just fantastic. They are both fun and catchy (put your hands up, put your hands up!!!). This new season doesn't have an OP and it only has an instrumental ED with just credits. The voice acting is also spot on. I saw the first season with Funimations English dub, then the second and third season in its original Japanese with English subtitles, and then finally this side series in the new English dub created by Netflix. The Japanese voice actors were perfect. Funimations dub was also spot on. The Netflix made dub on the other hand wasn't as good as Funimations, but it was surprisingly good. It was as if the voice actors or the directors watched the Funimation dub and tried to pay respect to it by making the voices sound as similar as possible to the original cast (some voice actors were more successful than other, but in all the dub was pretty good).

Characters:
The characters are what make this anime so good in my opinion. While they are all cliched character tropes and have one personality trait, they embrace it with so much enthusiasm that they feel like real characters. It isn't easy for any anime to have any memorable characters but this in this anime almost every character is memorable (and there are a lot of characters). In this season there are two more characters: The weird looking teacher, Iguchi, who looks like a pervert to everyone (even though he isn't) and the new transfer student, Suzumiya, who has terrible luck. These characters don't have a lot of screen time but they are still memorable. Other notable characters in this season include Teruhashi, Nendo, Kaido, Saiko, Koboyasu, Mikoto, Toritsuka, Hairo, and of course Saiki Kusuo (There are more but these characters play the biggest roles in this season). Saiki actually gets some character development in the last episode when he spends some time without his powers. The last episode is a must watch for any Saiki fan.

Enjoyment:
Even though this anime isn't a sakuga fest featuring an OST from a big name in the anime community, this anime is one of the most enjoyable I have seen in all of my life. The characters are so fun that I can enjoy watching them all day. I have rarely laughed so much in an anime. Hopefully Netflix can produce more episodes for this anime such as original material for a sequel or what-not.

Overall:
In conclusion, watch Saiki. If you can look past the cheap production values, then you are in for a treat. It is definitely in my top 25 anime of all time (somewhere between 20 and 25). This anime is an easy 10 for me.

Score: 10 (A masterpiece and so good that i would watch it again and again and again). I have already done so at least five times.

This is a masterpiece.
I was not statisfied with the end of Saiki K. 3rd season, but this season is making the Anime complete.
Funny scenes, a new character (that I HARDLY ship with Satou!) and finally Saiki admitting that Teruhashi is beautiful (besides her personality lol). I like that there were episodes that did not continue with the end of the 3rd season, because that made me feel like the seasons before this one had more episodes that we can watch and laugh with :).

The end is the best that could happen to the Anime and i am fully statisfied. But still i wish for ... more seasons of the Anime. That means the only downside of this Anime is that it only had 6 Episodes.
Also I liked that this season was streamed on Netflix! It makes me happy that this way more people can see this masterpiece and realize this Anime is just one of the best!
Of course this is my opinion but I am sure that there are no people who really HATED this Anime!
No other Anime made me laugh and scream more than this one. I am a big fan!