Psych House: Unedited Audio & Notes

Intro

• David: Welcome to this episode of Shonen Flop, where we talk about manga in Shonen Jump that didn’t make it big

• David: I’m David

• Jordan: I’m Jordan

• David: Next week we’ll be covering Dear Anemone If you’d like to read along with us. Be sure to join the discussion in our Discord and submit your six-word summary. You can find a link to the Discord in our episode description and on our website shonenflop.com

• But this week we’re talking about Psych House and we’re joined by our guest guest_name

• Guest: 30-second intro
  

Manga Details

• Tucker on the title:

  • My best guess of what the title is going for is a play on psych (“saiku”) and cycle (“saikuru”). The “biyori” is likely a term for ideal weather for some sort of activity. “Cycle” is often used to refer to bicycles in Japanese (similar to how we use the term “cycling”). So all together, the title sounds like both “a perfect day to go cycling” and “a perfect day for using our psychs.”

  • This is yet another case of a high-concept Japanese title that takes a whole paragraph to explain, almost like a puzzle. I don’t blame the translators one bit for not even attempting to find an English equivalent to it!   

  • Jan likewise was like this what they told me to translate it as

Omusuke Kobayashi

• Other works

  • This is Kobayashi’s debut serial, but they also created these one-shot works:

    • Yamabiko no Nichijo (2022, Weekly Shonen Jump)

    • Hare Tokidoki Ame (2022, Shonen Jump Plus)

    • Ashita Akira no Tanagokoro (2022, Weekly Shonen Jump)

    • Houki no Kariudo (2023, Weekly Shonen Jump)

      • Golden Future Cup entry. Did not win.

Publishing

• Run Dates:

  • 12th May, 2024 to 8th September, 2024

• Series it replaced

  • Shadow Eliminators by Kento Amemiya (3 vols, flop, Shonen Flop episode 111)

• Series that replaced it

  • Shinobi Undercover by Ippon Takegushi & Santa Mitarashi (1+ vol, ongoing, same authors as Candy Flurry). David’s read it and it’s just kinda ok tbh

• Series that started at the same time as it

  • Astro Royale by Ken Wakui (2+ vols, doing okay)

  • Kyokuto Necromance by Fusai Naba (2 vols, flop, Shonen Flop episode 114)

• Chapters/Volumes:

  • 17 chapters/2 volumes

About the Manga

• Plot

  •  Kotone is a high school girl who has the ability to teleport herself and objects. Also her dad left, her mom is in a coma, and she’s poor, One day she meets a kid named Suya who wears a bucket on his head and can make things bigger or smaller at will. He chases her down and tells her that these powers are called “Psychs” and invites her to live at his “Psych House” with other psychics I mean psych users NOT psychics that’s different. Because she’s too broke to afford food she agrees. There she meets Kyoko, an alcoholic whose power is reading minds, Moa, a young girl whose power is creating copies of herself, and Kazu, whose power is being Moa’s dad.

  • They kinda just dick around for 12 chapters.

  • They stop an invisible guy stealing things from a jewelry store and hand him over to the “psych police” in the first and arguably only act that hints at a potential plot. Then Moa uses Kyoko’s powers to read Kotone’s coma mom’s mind, discovering she psych’d herself into the coma using her dream psych powers. Kotone goes into her mind to find that her mom is replaying the last day she had with her husband and daughter together but Kotone gets her to wake up and yeah. 

• Characters

  • Kotone

    • Teleportation of anything she touched during the day

    • Trying to get Suya life together

    • Has a hard life

  •    Nemura Suya

    • Psychic kid

    • Can grow

  • Kazu Nanba

    • No powers

    • Nice guy

    • Team dad

  • Kyoko

    • Drunk

    • Mind reader

    • Works at an office

  • Moa Nanba

    • Duplication powers

    • Quiet

    • Super genius

Why it Failed - Jordan

• What is the plot?

• Wow already doing the nudity of the teen MC in chapter 2 eh?

• This art is just bleh

• The characters beside Kotone have little development or explanation, like Suya is just a happy guy

• This is not built for WSJ, this should have been acute 10 page a week series

• Man a lot of the plot is just oh and then Suya made it smaller/bigger isn’t that wacky

• While cute it doesn’t stick with ya

• There really isn’t a ton of psychic powers in it really, it just kinda falls into the background

• What was the point of the coma mom plot?

• it just kinda wears out it’s welcome

• The housemates don’t really matter at all they just exist as gags, even kazu is kinda just there

• Where is the conflict how is everyone so nice?

What it Did Well - Solomon

• David: And before we get into what we think it did well, if you’ve been enjoying the show we’d really appreciate it if you subscribed to the Shonen Flop Youtube! We’re trying to hit our goal of 1500 YouTube subs and if we hit it we’ll do a special bonus episode on the Build King Epilogue. If you’re already subscribed, thanks so much!

• Has some clever ideas about how  to use powers ike Suya growting things to make furniture

• It gets me some modest chuckles

• Found family is a fun motif

• It’s an easy read

• Being a scifi slice of life is pretty fun like the MC gaining weight because she just teleports everything to her

• I like how people are cool with the psych

• At least it has one bad guy with powers

Where it Could Have Gone

• Play around more with how people with psychic powers can just fit into life

• This really needed to be in a different magazine or have some way of setting slice of life expectations 

• Make the mom's coma story not so lame

Misc Thoughts

• What if yotsubs was psychic 

• Weird they can't say YouTube but can say wall-e-e

• What psychic power were you most surprised showed up

• Wait how old is suya?

• Can I have a little bit of conflict? As a treat? 

• Maxy Bee thoughts:

  • Omusuke Kobayashi’s favorite manga are ‘Onna no Sono no Hoshi’ by Yama Wayama, ‘Level E’ by Yoshihiro Togashi, ‘Golden Kamuy’ by Satoru Noda, and ‘Yotsuba&!’ by Kiyohiko Azuma. Based taste, and you see a couple of them reflected in Psych House. 

  • The author has a problem with wasted effort. They came up with about 50 titles for the series, had a designer make almost 20 logo designs, had a 3d model of the house made of complex schematics, and had a ton of rejected cover designs. It shows a lack of focus that you can feel in the series itself.

  • Volume extras include:

    • A page of FORTY NINE alternative titles that the series could have had, INCLUDING its English title ‘Psych House’ (in Japan it’s Saikuru Biyori)

    • A page of EIGHTEEN logo designs (handled by some poor designer rather than Kobayashi themself), including one with the English Title ‘Phycle Biyori” as a part of it. What could have been!

    • Various small strips and doodles

    • Rejected wraparound covers for both volumes (one for vol.1, SIX for vol.2)

    • Full schematics for the titular house

    • A thank you message

• Trivia from Jan Cash the official translator:

  • A lot of the characters have interesting things going on with their names. "Nemuru," for example, means "to sleep" and that's what we see him doing when he's first introduced--and he has those Z's on his bucket hat. "Suyasuya" is also an onomatopoeia for sleeping, which is similar to Nemuru's last name, "Suya."

  • Moa's name is how the English word "more" is pronounced, which is why the word appears a few times in the series. Her father's name, "Kazu," can mean "number," which might also be why they're the "Nanba" family ("nanbaa" is how the English word "number" is pronounced in Japanese). Honne (Kyoko's last name) is a word that refers to one's inner thoughts

Final Verdict

• Six Word summary

  • Community

    • Tucker: It never goes beyond the pail

    • Maxybee: This house is not a home

    • 090Z: Truly was the House of Mid

    • Artil: A manga about nothing, with superpowers

    • AuraPaladin: Superhero manga outlives MHA (not clickbait)

    • Balth: There's no crime worse than shoplifting

    • blahmoomoo: Lots of fluff, not much else

    • Chickenwarlord: Never got to its bucket list

    • CT3LA: Couldn't teleport to an interesting character

    • dackerson: My Psych power is speed reading!

    • Diego: Enter the mickey mouse psych house

    • Dougie4😊: I already got Buckethead on Spotify

    • duderocks: Good manga in the wrong magazine

    • FunkyGreenOverdrive: You wanted an actual plot? Psych!

    • Glornak Ironspawn: With great power comes great disappointment

    • GreyPotter: As sweet and vacuous as saccharine

    • Isekai Sensei: Why can't we have nice things?

    • jrpg astrologist: Whiffed, sure, but was never great

    • Kpt.Kluless: Psych house was truly a home

    • LordAnubis: Insert obligatory Supa Hotfire reference here

    • Luffy0321: So dull, readers went comatose too

    • Portal man: manga's not getting a second genesis

    • Resident Warhammer Nerd: Psyche! im not participating this time

    • Savia: So laid back it's almost comatose

    • Sbubby: You expected a long runner? PSYCH

    • Spike: This (psych) house has no foundation...

    • T-Wolfwood: Cute, sweet, short, but not great

    • Thores: Should have teleported to another publisher

    • Watchtower: Another U19 already? Please say Psych.

    • Xylon: Gill gets "Axed", Psych gets "Psyche!"

    • Yellowcup: Psych, all a waste of time

    • Ylissean: Teleport me away from Psych House

  • David: house in need of magazine re-home

  • Jordan: it really is nothing but filler 

  • Guest: Cute family for a different magazine

    • Cool Powers and interesting plot PSYCH!