Psycho Busters
Encyclopedia
is a Light novel
series written by Tadashi Agi
and drawn by Rando Ayamine
. It was published by Kodansha
in Japan and is licensed by Del Rey
in the United States.
Kakeru temporarily allows the Psychics to stay at his house before seeking aid from one of his teachers, Hiyama Akira. Joi is left under Hiyama's care while the rest of the group searches for Kaito, another Psychic whom escaped from the Greenhouse. The initial attempts to recruit him fail and Kakeru separates from the group for a while. Kakeru is attacked by Kasuga Maya and is nearly killed by her illusions, but is saved by another stroke of luck. When Kakeru gets back to the group he finds them bloodied and beaten and is attacked by Sho. Kaito arrives and saves Kakeru and the two work together to defeat Sho afterwards Kaito decides to rejoin with everyone.
Joi reawakens from his "Psychic Hibernation" and shows the group a horrifying future in which everything is virtually destroyed and the group is nearly dead with Ikushima standing in front of them laughing. The group goes to a horse race track and Joi is able to provide funding for the group's operations. Upon returning to the school the group is given numerous jobs from Joi. While doing his job Kakeru hears the screams of his classmates of whom he saw earlier and when he finds them he sees that they all have been attacked and badly wounded. Ayano appears and she and Kakeru are attacked by Hidaka Takemaru. Ayano warns Kakeru to run away but instead he rushes to protect her and is severely wounded by Takemaru's projectiles. The two are saved by the interventions of Xiao Long and Kaito and Kakeru is healed.
Soon after, however, the school is surrounded by the Greenhouse and becomes a battlefield. Kakeru is separated from the group and is attacked by Takemaru again. Kakeru attempts to bluff his way out like he did in previous encounters with Maya and Sho, however, this fails to frighten Takemaru. Kakeru instead tries to insult Takemaru's power and how he is being used, but this only causes Takemaru to kill one of Kakeru's classmates in front of him. Angered by Takemaru's ruthless murder Kakeru's power awakens and time begins to rewind. Kakeru unaware of what happened is back to when Takemaru killed the student, instead, however, much to Kakeru's surprise the student is replaced with a cat and one of the lights falls down on Takemaru. Saved numerous times from Takemaru by luck the gym soon begins to fall apart and nearly kills both Psychics. Takemaru awakens to find out he was saved by Kakeru and he then leaves the Greenhouse and becomes friends with Kakeru.
Light novel
A is a style of Japanese novel primarily targeting junior high and high school students . The term "light novel" is a wasei-eigo, or a Japanese term formed from words in the English language. Light novels are often called or for short...
series written by Tadashi Agi
Tadashi Agi
is a Japanese manga storywriter, novelist and screenwriter. His original name is Shin Kibayashi . He 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...
and drawn by Rando Ayamine
Rando Ayamine
is a Japanese manga artist known illustrating the GetBackers series. Since the completion of Get Backers, he has been working on a new manga series called Holy Talker....
. It was published by Kodansha
Kodansha
, the largest Japanese publisher, produces the manga magazines Nakayoshi, Afternoon, Evening, and Weekly Shonen Magazine, as well as more literary magazines such as Gunzō, Shūkan Gendai, and the Japanese dictionary Nihongo Daijiten. The company has its headquarters in Bunkyō, Tokyo...
in Japan and is licensed by Del Rey
Del Rey Manga
was the manga-publishing imprint of Del Rey Books, a branch of Ballantine Books, which in turn is part of Random House, the publishing division of Bertelsmann. It was formed as part of a cross-publishing relationship with Japanese publisher Kodansha. Some of the Del Rey titles, such as Tsubasa...
in the United States.
Plot
The story follows the life of Kakeru, while wishing for something a little more exciting to happen in his life, inadvertently receives it when he crosses paths with a group of gifted youths, Fujimura Ayano, Bai Xiao Long (Shaoron in the Japanese version), and Toma Joi (who is hidden at the time) in an abandoned building and claim to need his help. The group is ambushed by the "Greenhouse" (the organization from which the Psychics escaped from) and Kakeru is almost shot dead but is saved by an amazing stroke of luck.Kakeru temporarily allows the Psychics to stay at his house before seeking aid from one of his teachers, Hiyama Akira. Joi is left under Hiyama's care while the rest of the group searches for Kaito, another Psychic whom escaped from the Greenhouse. The initial attempts to recruit him fail and Kakeru separates from the group for a while. Kakeru is attacked by Kasuga Maya and is nearly killed by her illusions, but is saved by another stroke of luck. When Kakeru gets back to the group he finds them bloodied and beaten and is attacked by Sho. Kaito arrives and saves Kakeru and the two work together to defeat Sho afterwards Kaito decides to rejoin with everyone.
Joi reawakens from his "Psychic Hibernation" and shows the group a horrifying future in which everything is virtually destroyed and the group is nearly dead with Ikushima standing in front of them laughing. The group goes to a horse race track and Joi is able to provide funding for the group's operations. Upon returning to the school the group is given numerous jobs from Joi. While doing his job Kakeru hears the screams of his classmates of whom he saw earlier and when he finds them he sees that they all have been attacked and badly wounded. Ayano appears and she and Kakeru are attacked by Hidaka Takemaru. Ayano warns Kakeru to run away but instead he rushes to protect her and is severely wounded by Takemaru's projectiles. The two are saved by the interventions of Xiao Long and Kaito and Kakeru is healed.
Soon after, however, the school is surrounded by the Greenhouse and becomes a battlefield. Kakeru is separated from the group and is attacked by Takemaru again. Kakeru attempts to bluff his way out like he did in previous encounters with Maya and Sho, however, this fails to frighten Takemaru. Kakeru instead tries to insult Takemaru's power and how he is being used, but this only causes Takemaru to kill one of Kakeru's classmates in front of him. Angered by Takemaru's ruthless murder Kakeru's power awakens and time begins to rewind. Kakeru unaware of what happened is back to when Takemaru killed the student, instead, however, much to Kakeru's surprise the student is replaced with a cat and one of the lights falls down on Takemaru. Saved numerous times from Takemaru by luck the gym soon begins to fall apart and nearly kills both Psychics. Takemaru awakens to find out he was saved by Kakeru and he then leaves the Greenhouse and becomes friends with Kakeru.
Categories
The abilities of the Psychics are referred to as either Wild Types or Cultivated Types. Wild types naturally have powers whereas Cultivated types' powers are awakened due to drugs and experimentation. These groups are then further divided down into categories, which indicate the level of power behind their abilities. Category 4 is the lowest level while Category 1 is the highest. There is also a "Category 0", which refers to a level beyond that of all the rest, and so far, the only examples of Psychics who are Category 0 are Chronodivers, Psychics who have the ability to stop and reverse time and change the past.Characters
- In his final year in middle school, Kakeru feels his life is a little mediocre. That is until he meets the other Psychics and has his life changed drastically. Kakeru's has a power known as, Chronodiving (though he is initially ignorant of it), so he is commonly referred to as a Category 0, the Chronodiver. Chronodiving allows him to jump through time. But, each time he goes back in time he cause a rift in time. His abilities are not explained until the 4th volume, where Takemaru proposes that Kakeru could turn back time. He seems to really care for his friends even risking his own life to save them especially Ayano. He is in love with Ayano and has tried to ask her out, but she refused due to her misunderstanding of the term going out ( Maya tells her going out means doing ecchi things).
- The leader of the group, his power is that of ClairvoyanceClairvoyanceThe term clairvoyance is used to refer to the ability to gain information about an object, person, location or physical event through means other than the known human senses, a form of extra-sensory perception...
, the ability to see the future. He wishes to prevent a vision he saw showing the end of the world. It seems as though the use of this power takes a great toll on his energy levels, causing him to go into hibernation after major usage of his ability. - It is revealed that he and Ikushima are more closely related than anybody has thought.
- The only girl in the group, her abilities include TelepathyTelepathyTelepathy , is the induction of mental states from one mind to another. The term was coined in 1882 by the classical scholar Fredric W. H. Myers, a founder of the Society for Psychical Research, and has remained more popular than the more-correct expression thought-transference...
and Astral ProjectionAstral projectionAstral projection is an interpretation of out-of-body experience that assumes the existence of an "astral body" separate from the physical body and capable of traveling outside it...
, which together allow her to temporarily possess someone. She wishes to experience life like a normal girl would and attend school, which she’s never done before. It seems that she develops feelings for Kakeru when she gets so irritated and jealous seeing Kakeru so close with a girl but she doesn't realize what she is feeling. Later on she realizes that she really is in love with Kakeru. In chapter 20, she accepts Kakeru's confession.
- Xiao Long is the smallest of the group. His abilities include Healing and QigongQigongQigong or chi kung is a practice of aligning breath, movement, and awareness for exercise, healing, and meditation...
. Qigong is actually a Chinese breathing exercise, but it is commonly perceived as a way to channel one's "qi" (also known as "chi" and "ki") into an active force (e.g. Palm blasts) in pop-culture. He blames himself for his parents' death for they died arguing over the money they had charged people to have Xiao Long heal them.
- The group's "tough guy", although he cares a great deal for his friends. Kaito's power is PyrokinesisPyrokinesisPyrokinesis, derived from the Greek words and , was the name coined by horror novelist Stephen King for the ability to create or to control fire with the mind that he gave to the protagonist Charlie McGee in Firestarter...
. He has a tendency to get slightly carried away.
- A teacher at Kakeru's middle school, she temporarily looks after Joi while he recovers and uses the school as a safe house for the group.
- Later, she is also revealed to be an agent, codenamed , of a secret government agency known as .
- A first level manager of the Greenhouse. His powers are ClairvoyanceClairvoyanceThe term clairvoyance is used to refer to the ability to gain information about an object, person, location or physical event through means other than the known human senses, a form of extra-sensory perception...
, as well as the ability to create false futures (which can conflict with Joi's powers), and inflicting rapid cell growth, which turns the opponent into an aged body within seconds. He was been given the job of retrieving Joi at all costs, even if it means killing the other Psychics. He was the cause of the apocalypse in Joi's vision.
- A Psychic working with the Greenhouse to retrieve Joi. Her power is IllusionIllusionAn illusion is a distortion of the senses, revealing how the brain normally organizes and interprets sensory stimulation. While illusions distort reality, they are generally shared by most people....
. Her power is significant in that the illusions can harm those trapped within them. In volume 4, she disguised herself as a high school girl pretending to have crush on Kakeru, however, she eventually falls in love with him for real and reveals herself as Maya only to Kakeru.
- A Psychic also working with the Greenhouse to retrieve Joi. His power is TeleportationTeleportationTeleportation is the fictional or imagined process by which matter is instantaneously transferred from one place to another.Teleportation may also refer to:*Quantum teleportation, a method of transmitting quantum data...
. He uses throwing knives as weapons. In the Japanese version, he speaks in a combination of Japanese and English.
- Extremely powerful, Takemaru's power is PsychokinesisPsychokinesisThe term psychokinesis , also referred to as telekinesis with respect to strictly describing movement of matter, sometimes abbreviated PK and TK respectively, is a term...
. He is well known for being unstable and violent. He used to be bullied constantly when he was young because he was short while his name was fierce. He caused the deaths of three bullies after they burnt his eye. He uses his power to levitate pencils and use them as projectiles which are as powerful as bullets. After Kakeru saved him when the school gym collapsed and offered to become his friend in volume 2, Takemaru "disappeared" then turned up again in volume 4 of the manga to save Kakeru from an attack from the Greenhouse.
- Another Category 0. He is a clone of Kakeru. Like Kakeru, he has the power to stop time and change the past. Due to his power having awakened much earlier than Kakeru's had, he has much better control of his power than Kakeru and is therefore more skilled of the two. In fact, at first, he seemed to be immune to Kakeru's time-stopping power.
- His hatred towards society and especially Kakeru, as well as his genuine adoration for Ikushima, which grew out of his gratitude for Ikushima being the first person to acknowledge his existence was the cause of his murder, ironically, by Ikushima's hands.
- She has the ability to call supernatural beings, Gigantes, from the dead. These beings can be massive, but are vulnerable against Xiao Long's qigong.
- Arata Ikushima's daughter. She died in an accident on the bus seat next to Kakeru. However, Kakeru has no recollection of her, nor of the accident. She appears in the Tower of Time teaching Kakeru about his powers.
- Kaito's younger sister, who appears to be blind and wears a kimono in the Tower of Time. She died to protect Kaito when he was badly beaten by a group of people.