Psyren Episode 1: Urban Legend
Oshimeter
11 Ratings
EPISODE REVIEWS
The intro of every anime series is slightly boring, but do not give up watching it, because the real story always starts at the climax of every first episode of new series
PSYREN Episode 1 Review: “The Call of Psyren”** *(Or: How to Ruin Your Entire Day With One Red Card) Curiosity didn’t just kill the cat. It put the cat on a bus, dropped it in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, and then charged it a service fee. Episode 1 of *PSYREN* starts like every other high-school anime you’ve ever seen: classrooms, delinquents, mild teenage angst. Then it casually introduces an urban legend, a sketchy red phone card, and the concept of “what if answering a payphone in 2026 was the single worst life choice you could make.” Spoiler: it is. Our hero is Ageha Yoshina, a short-tempered high-schooler whose entire business model is “tell me your problem and I’ll punch it for ten thousand yen.” He’s basically TaskRabbit with a criminal record and zero self-preservation instincts. The man walks past a ringing payphone—an object that hasn’t been relevant since flip phones were cool—and decides, against all common sense, to answer it. Because of course he does. This is anime. Looking at a glowing red flag and going “hmm, interesting” is basically the job description. The phone spits out a red card stamped “PSYREN.” Ageha’s first reaction isn’t “throw this cursed object into the nearest volcano.” It’s closer to “free collectible?” He takes it to the school’s Occult Club (yes, that exists), learns it’s connected to people vanishing into thin air, and still keeps the damn thing. Somewhere, every horror movie protagonist is nodding in solidarity. Then there’s Sakurako Amamiya, the quiet, distant classmate who looks like she’s permanently calculating the nearest exit. She has the same card. She panics. She whispers “save me.” And then she vanishes like a particularly dramatic magician’s assistant. Ageha, being Ageha, decides the only logical next step is to call the number on his own card. What follows is the world’s most unsettling customer-service interview, complete with personal questions that make you want to hang up and change your name. The episode’s pacing is… ambitious. The first half slowly builds that classic “something is very wrong here” urban-legend dread. Then it suddenly floorboards the gas pedal, throws Ageha into a chase with the world’s least convincing fake cops, and yeets him into a desolate, monster-adjacent wasteland where Amamiya is already waiting. The tonal whiplash is real. One minute you’re watching a guy argue with a payphone; the next you’re staring at blue lightning over ruined buildings. It’s like the show got bored of being a mystery and decided to become a survival game mid-sentence. Ageha is the main reason this works. He’s loud, stubborn, and constantly one bad decision away from making everything worse, which is peak entertainment. He doesn’t accept the nonsense with a heroic smile. He questions it, gets irritated by it, and looks like he’s about to file a formal complaint with reality. Amamiya, meanwhile, radiates “I know things and I am exhausted by all of you” energy. Their dynamic already has potential, even if Episode 1 mostly uses her as the world’s most effective plot magnet. Visually it’s solid. The everyday scenes look fine, and the wasteland sequence actually feels empty and wrong in a good way. Nothing here is going to win animation awards, but the atmosphere does its job. The soundtrack is quietly excellent at making ordinary moments feel off—especially during the phone scenes. That dial-up-adjacent static and the creepy voice work harder than some characters. Is it a perfect first episode? No. The middle section takes its sweet time, the supporting cast barely exists, and if you came for flashy fights you will be politely asked to wait outside. But it does the most important thing an opening chapter can do: it makes you genuinely curious. By the time the credits roll, you’re left with a pile of questions and the strong suspicion that Ageha’s decision-making skills require professional intervention. I wouldn’t pick up that red card. Ageha did. And now I’m stuck watching because I need to know exactly how badly this is going to go.
As opening episodes come, this one feels like the opening episode for the opening episode. Basically, there's not really enough to go on to feel engaged in the concept. The concept of the show isn't very clear as of now, neither is the way things are going to work or how everything is connected. Frankly, based on what I've seen here, I'm not totally hopeful that we can go up from here, but I will cross my fingers because I really want to like this. Ultimately, whether I care for this or not will probably be revealed next episode where I assume we'll get a little deeper into the core of the show. As of current, nothing - the plot, the characters, the production value - is drawing me in, but I don't give up that easily.
10
