A long-overlooked Weekly Shonen Jump fan favorite is now speaking English. Crunchyroll has added the English dub for Psyren, the TV anime based on Toshiaki Iwashiro's psychic battle manga, just two weeks after the series premiered in Japan.
Crunchyroll announced the dub on Sunday, and the first dubbed episode began streaming on Monday, with new episodes rolling out weekly.
Meet The English Cast
Dylan Ray Owen leads the dub as Ageha, the hot-headed high schooler who gets pulled into the deadly world of Psyren. The cast for the first episode includes:
- Dylan Ray Owen as Ageha
- Kelly Greenshield as Amamiya
- Katelyn Barr as Fubiki
- Kevin D. Thelwell as Hiroki
- Jacob Browning as Miyake
- Abigail Blythe as Nemesis Q
- Derrick Snow as Okumura
- Mauricio Ortiz-Segura as Saka
- Daniel Van Thomas as Usui
Crunchyroll's list covers the cast of the first episode, so the voices for other major characters have not been revealed yet.
The anime's official character profiles give a sense of who fans will be meeting. Ageha is a first-year high school student who lost his mother when he was young and lives with his older sister while their father works away from home. He is quick to pick a fight, but he cannot leave people alone when they need help. Sakurako Amamiya, his childhood friend, was cheerful and popular as a kid, but she has since become so withdrawn that classmates call her the Ice Queen. The main cast is rounded out by Hiryu Asaga, a towering student known as the Dragon, popular actor Oboro Mochizuki, and Kabuto Kirisaki, a 19-year-old who would rather take it easy than hold down a real job.
The Crew Behind The Dub
The dub is produced by Crunchyroll, with Dani Chambers serving as voice director and Zach Bolton as producer. James Cheek handled the adaptation, William Dewell is the mixer, and Jose Sandoval is the engineer.
Crunchyroll describes the story: "One day, high schooler Ageha Yoshina picks up a mysterious red phone card. Days later, his childhood friend, Sakurako Amamiya, who possessed the same card, suddenly vanishes." As Ageha searches for her, he is drawn into rumors about a nationwide string of disappearances tied to a secret organization called Psyren, and accessing the group pulls him into a deadly game that changes his life.
The Full Story Is Getting Animated
The anime premiered in Japan on October 5th on Tokyo MX and other channels, with Crunchyroll streaming it as it airs. It is directed by Katsumi Ono at studio Satelight, with Shin Yoshida handling series composition, Akira Okuma designing the characters, and Takashi Omama, Tatsuhiko Saiki and Shu Kanematsu composing the music. CLAN QUEEN performs the opening theme, "Warning!!," and Who-ya Extended performs the ending theme, "ICARUS."
The Japanese cast is led by Rikuya Yasuda as Ageha Yoshina and Mayuko Kazama as Sakurako Amamiya, alongside Shunsuke Takeuchi as Hiryu Asaga, Soma Saito as Oboro Mochizuki and Yukihiro Nozuyama as Kabuto Kirisaki.
The biggest news for longtime readers came at AnimeJapan in March, when the production team confirmed that the anime would adapt the manga all the way through to the end of the story. No episode count has been officially announced yet.
A Cult Classic Finally Gets Its Shot
Iwashiro serialized Psyren in Weekly Shonen Jump from 2008 to 2010, and the series has kept a devoted following in the years since. According to the anime's official site, it was nominated three times in AnimeJapan's fan-voted ranking of manga people want to see animated, and the anime arrives roughly 15 years after the manga ended.
Viz Media released all 16 volumes of the manga in English, so new fans who get hooked by the anime can read ahead.
The anime also had a special stop in Hollywood before its broadcast. The second episode had its world premiere at the Global Stage Hollywood Film Festival at the Chinese Theater on October 3rd, where the first episode also screened, and Iwashiro attended the event.
Are you watching Psyren with the new English dub, and how do you think Dylan Ray Owen sounds as Ageha?
Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.