Sunday 20 July 2003

Pic of the day: Our hero panics after accidentally grabbing the heroine's breast. Screenshot from anime Psychic Academy Aura Banshou.

Review: Psychic Academy

I had really looked forward to this anime. I take a particular liking to schools for gifted youngsters: For instance, I have at least two manuscripts lying around about teen boys studying magic in co-ed magic schools in stone castles ... both of them written before the first Harry Potter book was sent to the publisher. It would be nice in this context to claim psychic powers; but the truth is that these concepts are so common as to belong to everyone. Only the way the concepts are used and combined make them into real stories; and even I freely admit that the Harry Potter series is better than what I could produce.

Psychic Academy Aura Banshou seemed to give yet another variant on this archetype: Not wizards, not mutants, but psychics. (Although telekinesis and element control seems to take precedence over finding stray cats.) Also from the description I knew it would be mostly interaction between the students, not chasing criminals like the X-men. High School romance and psionic powers, what is not to like? Well, perhaps the excessive breast grabbing.

***

Yes indeed. Think Harry Potter and the National Breast Grabbing Competition. Of course there is no such thing as a National Breast Grabbing Competition; then again, there is no Psychic Academy either ...

Mind you, it's not like anyone actually wants to grope. It just happens by accident, and everyone is terribly sorry. (Although sometimes this could be because they are slapped in the face. Not our main character, though. He is genuinely shocked every time it just happens.) Nor is it limited to male hands: One of the main female characters has a tendency to embrace the other from behind when she is happy, and somehow always end up with a breast in each hand. (In all fairness, there are clothes. While there are a couple bath scenes, there is no grabbing until after both girls are clothed.)

This particular feature is kinda jarring for a while, although over time it is toned down to just a running gag. Sadly it is only halfway through the series that we get to see good plot and character development; it gets better and better, and then it ends. This series would have been much better if the first 11 episodes had been remade into 2 or 3, just enough to present the main characters.

***

The story in brief: In the near future, psionic abilities are diagnosed by their aura, and young people with the talent are trained at separate high schools. Some kids also go to an Aura Development Center to increase their aura during their formative years. The main character never did - he was not discovered until his older brother displayed unusual psychic strength. So far the younger brother has not done anything unusual, but he is found to have a strong aura too and sent off to the Academy (which is actually a High School). Oh, and by sheer coincidence his name is Ai, which happens to mean Love in Japanese.

At the Academy Ai meets again his childhood sweetheart Orina, who has definitely missed him. But there is also her roomie Myuu, who just happens to have an aura 100% compatible with Ai. This is highly unusual and leads to weird effects whenever they come close to each other. Throw in a telepathic bunny with Yoda-like tendencies, and the show is on. But what about the self-styled elite kids who have had auras since birth and are jealous of Ai and Myuu? And who are the Aura Hunters who attack academy students at night?

***

Americans are likely to find this series very embarrassing because of the breasts and a couple bath scenes. Evidently the Japanese have a more relaxed attitude to these things, more like us Scandinavians. But even so, I have never seen an anime specializing like this before. As I said, it seems to be some sort of running gag in this series. If you can ignore that, the last 12 episodes are quite good. And the very last episode has a truly interesting plot twist that took me completely by surprise even though the clues were there all the time. Well done.

The manga (comic) is also available on-line. Search for "Psychic Academy" +manga.