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!

Pretty unnecessary season with 5 episodes being filler and anachronistic. 6th Episode is all that's relevant, but also kind of unneeded.
Felt like usual low effort Netflix work. More of an epilogue season like Pokemon Mezase. To be more specific, its essentially like six totally different OVAs broadcasted as a season.

Season 2 had a well done ending, keeping things vague. There was no reason to explore it further, that too for a basic 15mins reason as shown in episode 6. Rest all the the episode/shorts were predictable and formulaic, well too much to make it entertaining after the long experience.

Most of the recurring characters were barely ... existent, not more than 10mins. Worse yet another transfer student with a quirk was added amidst all things. It was not suited for an epilogue of a story with all major adventures over and done with prior.

I get this is adapting from the manga but like not everything needs to adapted. Kaguya sama skipped a bunch of chapters to keep the initial episodes engaging. Ultimately this one was a borefest. If you just want to pass the time and casually see an episode after work or school, you may not feel as antagonistic to this season as I am.

Compared to the other seasons, this is such a disappointment. The jokes are horrible. They are just reworkings of jokes that have been told before in the series.

The dialogue goes so fast I kept having to rewatch several scenes multiple times to even read the subtitles. So I missed details that would even make the scenes funny.

Also I thought this was a continuation from the last season, so I am confused about when these episodes take place in the story line. With the title being Reawakened, I thought this would focus on Saiki's life after the big climax. How he deals with ... what happened and the reawakening of his powers.

I don’t know how it’s possible but netflix somehow ruined a show I really liked.

the animation felt so different. The episodes felt rushed and the characters felt not as likeable. I was very excited when I saw netflix was doing a remake but they made the show feel less like a comedy and i don’t know tried to make it a slice of life somewhat. This actually could’ve worked as i was already very attached to the characters from the previous show but the short season with 3 new characters felt rushed.
I’m not sure if the animators are different or netflix isn’t sticking to the ... manga but the show feels different and not in a enjoyable way.

This is only for this season of Saiki K!

I LOVE the original three seasons. I rated them 9/10's. However, this one was not the same for several reasons. The first being that the entire english cast is different from the original. Second the episodes were not as well written. Lastly there was only six episodes for the entire series. If we had at least twelve I think my scores would of increased. I was very excited for this to come back but it just wasn't the same. Very disappointed.

I will ... say that the new characters they introduced made the series watchable.

I may pick this up again and force myself to watch the other 5 episodes at a later date, but after watching the 3 original seasons of the show, episode one of this Netflix continuation was such a downgrade that I can't bring myself to watch any more right now. It feels like the writers for this season just fundamentally misunderstood what was so great about Saiki as a character, and the show he exists in. Throughout the first 3 seasons there's a very subtle progression of plot and characters atypical of a gag comedy. Saiki begins to understand that he does in fact value ... his friends, and that standing out may not be the worst thing in the world. And then episode one of reawakened starts and it's like none of that happened. At first I thought maybe it would be a reboot, but then they start acknowledging events from previous episodes, and I realized what had actually happened.

Saiki K. is back! Just by being Saiki K. and not failing I rated it high.

Story
There's not much story in Saiki K as it's... Saiki K. but it's still awesome. But these stories (except the last episode's) seemed a little lacking. It's cool though

Art
Amazing as usual. Check out everything else. Everything is still cool.

Sound
They had a nice between-episodes music, but they didn't have an opening song. The ending song was cool. The voice acting was 1000% as usual. I'd forgotten how Saiki spoke and how fast he spoke until I watched this, and Kamiya Hiroshi is awesome. The other voice actors were awesome too. ... Must rewatch.

Character
The stereotypical characters are back, but they're all awesome because this is a comedy/parody anime. They're all cliches which is what the point was. So 10/10.

Enjoyment
I love Saiki K. and it's one of my top three anime ever! :3 Haven't watched too many so I can't really comment, but it's amazing. I rewatch Saiki K. quite often because of the entertainment value. If you watch sub, make sure you can read fast. That's all.

Overall
9/10 because I don't really like Netflix -_- a netflix original anime huh?
Also because I rated some other stuff 9 and it's a 9.6/10. This isn't math class, we're not rounding up. Yare yare.

Saiki Kusuo no Ψ-nan: Ψ-shidou-hen (2019)

Another outstanding addition to the series. Fun at every corner and keeps the pace of the show up all the way through.

As they came onto Netflix I immediately watched all 6 episodes with ease and loved them. Again I was sad when it was over.

The story has a few different directions during these and the final one really is hilarious. I would love to see more come forward and the show continue.

Saiki is a great character, always leading to funny situations and his friends are the icing on the cake. Kokomi is great with her reactions to everything. She ... is just a warm character although would be annoying in real life she is wonderful to experience here.

Absolutely watch these if you enjoy all the rest of it. If you haven't seen any of it I strongly recommend watching everything else too.

Previously...

"Yareda, yareda, now LA is getting emotional. Saiki-kun has ended-"

Well Saiki Kusuo no Ψ-nan used clairvoyance and said NOPE!

Saiki Kusuo no Ψ-nan: Ψ-shidou-hen is the "final chapter" of Saiki Kusuo no Ψ-nan (so far) but the bulk of this arc focuses on two new characters that were supposedly introduced in between Season 2 and Kanketsu-hen. Before that the first two episodes are the typical hijinks episodes with the rest of the cast doing their quick paced hijinks and all the running gags that entails, it's not until episode 3 the new characters are introduced that of Takumi Iguchi voiced by Kousuke Toriumi, a new teacher ... in Saiki's class, he however "looks" perverted and all the flaws that comes with that, but he's just nervous but his face can't express it, you can see where the comedy from him comes in and he gets a rather amusing scenario where he thinks NENDOU is getting bullied by his friends when it's all a misunderstanding. Hii Suzumiya voiced by Nao Touyama is the other new character and she just has absolute bad luck, she's like the complete opposite of Teruhashi's godly good luck in everything. Hii gets interaction with Reita and Satou (who Saiki previously likes due to his averageness), and this setup with Hii, Reita and Satou was probably the funniest thing in this arc mainly due to chain reactions that occurs. So Hii has bad luck, Reita wants a girlfriend and Satou is average BUT due to Hii's bad luck, it gives Satou "lucky pervy luck" as well as bad luck, almost like Touma from Index in a ways and you can already see where this is going so LA won't spoil this joke about these characters nonetheless, great new characters.

Lastly the final episode is the "actual finale" of Saiki Kusuo no Ψ-nan (so far) and it's what LA has been saying about Saiki and his tribulations of his powers and that he's ALWAYS liked his friends and family and much as a hassle they were time and again. Now this final episode leaves off in a cliffhanger in a ways but character wise it's a nice proper resolution to the Saiki, his friends and his powers.

The animation done once again by Egg Firm and JC Staff and really LA doesn't need to say much. same animation, same style, same crazy quick paced animation and comedic facial reactions you get the drill and consistent (expected for an anime with so many seasons).

Now the voice cast is more or less the same cept the new characters of Takumi Iguchi and Hii Suzumiya. Kousuke Torumi and Nao Touyama blended quite well the cast already and did their roles quite well all things considered. LA says this as both Iguchi and Hii were some pretty yeah one note characters but their mostly the catalyst that escalates their personality traits and their reactions goes crazy at times thus LA says this. As a Nao Touyama fan...yea Hii was in her typical cadence just her having bad luck (in terms of Nao Touyama, Hii feels like an ironic callback to her as a love interest in most harems, where she's the third wheel that doesn't win, but here...she's the focus of affection!). What can LA say about the original voice cast? Hiroshi Kamiya's great one liners as Saiki, Ai Kayano as Teruhashi, Eri Kitamura as Mikoto and Daisuke Ono as Nendou...amazingly talented cast, LA said it time and again.

Saiki Kusuo no Ψ-nan: Ψ-shidou-hen is the "definitive finale?" (LA put the ? as who knows considering what LA said at the start of this review and proved wrong that with this season even existing, Saiki Kusuo no Ψ-nan might continue especially with how open ended the ending was as well).

Instead of leaving Saiki Kusuo no Ψ-nan with one last episode, Saiki Kusuo no Ψ-nan: Ψ-shidou-hen decided to bring in some missing episodes and bulk them together for more craziness and we got it and even with the new characters, Saiki Kusuo no Ψ-nan: Ψ-shidou-hen was enjoyable, funny as hell from the one liners and great reactions from the cast as well as the absurd situations Saiki goes through and how meta-jabbing it is at times (which DOES make sense, almost like Saiki knows he's in a manga/anime and reacts accordingly with the perfect one liners). If Saiki Kusuo no Ψ-nan: Ψ-shidou-hen was the finale of finales then Saiki Kusuo no Ψ-nan: Ψ-shidou-hen was a great conclusion to Saiki's friend and power resolution but if it has a chance to continue, LA would be happy to see it continue as Saiki Kusuo no Ψ-nan's great cast of memorable characters and their crazy situations, it was bloody funny, chaotic and ~OH

Teruhashi best girl...also Satou x Hii

this Anime has never failed to entertain me every season is better than the last one it's keeps on giving non stop .

honestly the show was on fire from the first season to this latest one .

excellent writing - amazing jokes that fits the situations so well , it's a top notch in comedy .

if you're feeling down and looking for something to cheer you up this is definitely the right Anime for you .

it has an author that really has a very high quality sense of humor and that is very rare to find these days .

honestly i'm giving it 8 / 10 even ... tho i really want to give it a 9 but i don't want to whoever gonna reads this review to think that i exaggerated .

overall really had a blast with this amazing Anime and really hope this isn't the end of it because i really want to see more seasons and visit all these well written characters again .

Despite being only a 6-episode season, the Saiki Kusuo series gave me a good, satisfying ending. The main character Saiki finally decides what does he want to do with his life (being normal or not) and within that final decision, the show gains an epic climax.
The comedy is fresh as always with the bad luck, ghosts and psychic powers giving me a good laugh, and the art quality remains with the vivid colors and the constant scenario changes.
The characters (which I can identify with friends of mine in real life) and the sound remained well as the other seasons.
In general, the season ... is an 8, like the series has always been. Thank you JC Staff for this experience.

This is, basically, Saiki K.'s Slip Arc, and it's just as you'd expect it to be--that is to say: funny and typical Saiki K. Because these are just random, unadapted chapters, I didn't feel as excited about them as a follow-up to the previous two installments in this series. Of course, that's to be expected since the story all but ended before this aired (besides the final episode, of course, which is the true sequel to the previous installment).

Was Reawakened as consistently funny as previous seasons? Yes. Where I feel like these episodes did well was the fact that we got to see more of ... certain characters than what is typical for the anime adaptation of Saiki K. Having characters like Mikoto on screen more often was nice because I felt like she, for instance, hadn't been used all that much prior to this. And, in general, these episodes are good fun if you love the humor of Saiki K. and the characters themselves (which I imagine you do if you've continued watching until now). It's just that, for me, the elements of Saiki K. that were used in the second season and the special episode (longer storylines, semi-serious content) couldn't be used as often in Reawakened because a.) it's shorter and b.) the fact that these are unadapted chapters meant that this season was going to be naturally episodic. Still, though, I enjoyed it as much as I have thus far.

The last episode, being the actual finale of Saiki K., was brilliant. Even though it was a singular episode, it was sterling the entire way through and included all of the stuff I mentioned above--it even had character and relationship developments in that short amount of time. In a way, I think Reawakened was a good way to close out this series because it gave the audience the clever absurdity of Saiki K. right up until the end where it gave itself the proper goodbye. There's definitely nothing else like this series out there--I'm glad to have been introduced to the disastrous life of Saiki Kusuo.

Most of this is just new interesting episodes with new characters. But they also revise the ending with one that is better in my opinion. That's pretty much all there is to say about this one lmao. It's a must watch if you liked the previous Saiki K. material.

The new characters are cool. It's nice to see some fresh blood after getting to know the other characters so well. Great stuff. It's an extra taste of a show you most likely love if you've watched it to this point.

I think it's a Netflix original thingy, I saw this advertisement expressing that's the place it will ... be shown. Maybe they just bought the rights to premier it exclusively, not own it if that makes sense.

You should watch this, but of course see the previous seasons first if you haven't. It's an 8/10.

I watched the original Saiki K. directly prior to watching this. According to MAL there was also a 24 ep season that I couldn't find, plus another one-off episode that I also couldn't find that aired between this and the original, so the transition between the two was a little jarring. To be blunt, I wasn't a huge fan of the original Saiki K.; for me it was very hit or miss as whether or not an episode was funny. There were a few that had me laughing the majority of the episode, but there were also quite a few were I sat staring straight-faced ... at the screen for the entire episode. This season was more of the latter; quite genuinely, I believed I laughed twice during these 6 episodes, and in both instances I would have to honestly say that said "laugh" was more of a light snicker than an actual laugh.

Story: 1, basically all the episodes are just jumbled together scenes that have absolutely nothing to do with each other. The original Saiki K.'s story was nothing to write home about, but this was just sad. Even as standalone pieces, each of the 4-5 plots they'd go through in a single episode were simply overly predictable garbage, there's really no sugar coating it.

Art: 7, Solid and consistent art. The original had a slightly different style, which adhered more to my personal tastes, but the art for this season certainly wasn't bad.

Sound: 5, Watched the English dub for both the original and this, for some reason basically every voice actor changed, which was certainly a step-down for basically every character. Nendou's VA in particular couldn't hold a candle to the original, which made his scenes in particular much more difficult to enjoy. You can tell the new VA's really tried to imitate the original voices, and I appreciate them putting that effort in, but unfortunately that effort wasn't enough.

Character: 5, There was little to no time spent developing any character beyond the original. Instead of trying to actually build characters, they simply just showed a quick flashback to the original to go, "oh, here's how this character acts". Nendou was my favorite in the original, but the change in his VA and is overall lack of importance in this season really made it hard to enjoy him at all.

Enjoyment: 3, As stated previously, I laughed twice, and for a comedy, that's pretty deplorable. Also the pacing of the dialogue felt like I was watching on 2X speed. It felt like they went with the approach of, "If we rapid fire as many lines as possible, something has to make someone laugh, right!?" Needless to say, it didn't work for me.

Overall: 5, I didn't want to hate this, while the original certainly wasn't my favorite comedy anime of all time, I did get a fair bit of enjoyment out of it, but this was just a sad remake of something that, in my opinion, was already overrated in the first place.

If you watched the original, and want a comedy that will actually make you laugh, skip this, and go watch Haven't you heard? I'm Sakamoto.