Comedy is a very subjective piece of media in today’s age. It can be interpreted differently by different people. And comedy through one media would differ from comedy originating from another. But comedy derived from every Piece of media is categorized under a single genre. Therefore, it’s important to find the right type of comedy that works for you.
Comedy in anime & manga is not as broad a category as it’s observed in the western media, which makes less room for errors. That’s right, the manga and anime industry understood their audience and pioneered comedy to an unbelievable extent.
Some of the anime with such comedic anime tropes are Daily Lives of High School Boys, JOJO’s bizarre adventure, Haven’t You Heard? I’m Sakamoto, Assassination Classroom & Gintama. One such anime with a similar trope is The Disastrous Life of Saiki K, a.k.a. Saiki Kusuo no Psi Nan.
The Disastrous Life of Saiki K is a story written and illustrated by Shuichi Aso, whose comedic nature is rivaled by very few, from his unique form of delivery to the fast-paced comedy narration & his craft of lovable characters, put in tight spots are bound to make you crack up.
The story follows Saiki Kusuo, the main lead of the series with insane superhuman abilities who just wants to live a normal life. At the same time, Saiki doesn’t want to stand out as much. Things don’t go as planned…
Here we have 15 insane facts on The Disastrous Life of Saiki K that you didn’t know about. Buckle up!
Also Read: 20 Comedy Anime That Will Make Your Day
1. Levi’s Voice Actor
From the beginning of the series, Saiki’s character and personality have been made very clear. He would like to cut himself off from society and live an isolated life. However, over time circumstances led Saiki to communicate with his “friends” on a daily basis.
Saiki rarely communicates with his friends verbally, and though Saiki only uses Telepathy to talk to them, he still needs a voice actor for obvious reasons.
Hiroshi Kamiya is a Japanese voice actor who gives Saiki his nonchalant and mellow voice, which suits our lovable protagonist just right. Hiroshi has voiced many well-known characters throughout his career as a Seiyū.
Hiroshi can be a notorious protagonist like Yaboku(Noragami) & Izaya Orihara(Durarara), or a serious character like Levi(Attack on Titan) & Trafalgar Law(One Piece), and a gentle yet stern character like Natsume(Natsume’s Book of Friends) & Ofcourse Saiki Kusuo himself.
2. Saiki’s Friends & Their Colorful Hair
Saiki is accompanied by a bizarre group of friends with very peculiar character traits. Even though Saiki initially did not want to hang around them, they became a part of his daily life due to circumstances.
Though Saiki doesn’t outright dislike the idea of hanging out with his friends, he still wishes to avoid further complications with his unique hair color and out-of-the-ordinary attachments like his antennas and a green pair of glasses.
To void the curiosity of such fashion from people’s minds and not stand out. Saiki manipulated everybody’s mind into thinking, ‘having colorful hair and antennas over your head is a common fashion choice.’
And this caused all of Saiki’s friends to have colorful hair choices. However, the author stated that if Saiki hadn’t manipulated everyone, all his friends would have normal black hair. And Saki with antennas would be a quirky character trait that he would be known for throughout the series.
3. Saiki’s Overpowered Abilities
Saiki was born with abilities no human could have. Though Saiki doesn’t appreciate these abilities as much as he did when he was young, he still has to live with them.
Saiki has a wild roster of fascinating abilities that everyone would love to have-
- Telekinesis: Saiki uses this to move objects from a distance.
- Clairvoyance: When Saiki goes cross-eyed, he can see things from afar.
- Size Augmentation: Saiki can shrink or grow in size. However, the ability lasts for only 1 hour.
- Elemental manipulation: As the name suggests, Saiki can control elements like water, fire, ice, and electricity.
- Hypnosis: Saiki can trick people into thinking something completely different from what normal humans may perceive.
- Shapeshifting: Saiki can take the form of any animal or human. However, it takes him 2 hours to transform.
- Memory erasure: Saiki can remove chunks or fragments of memory from people, making them believe that the event never happened.
- Mind control: Like hypnosis, Saiki can manipulate and make people do anything beyond their will.
- Time reset: Saiki can revert the earth to its past self, making the present obsolete.
Even with the variety of utilities at Saiki’s disposal, he only tries to live an ‘ordinary’ life. Unlucky for Saiki, it always turned out to be disastrous. With that said, if you were given a choice to choose just one of Saiki’s abilities, which one would it be?
4. Saiki And His Green Glasses
Like Saiki’s pink hair, his green glasses are also now part of his look, making him stand out from other characters in the series. But, unlike Saiki’s pink hair, he wasn’t born with these glasses. Additionally, Saiki has no problems with his eyes, which makes one wonder. “why does he wear these glasses?”
Saiki was 7 or 8 years old when he stumbled upon these glasses. Saiki took quite a liking to it, though it was just a toy. We have seen him wearing them ever since. However, due to Saiki’s heightened eyesight, he sees through the glasses, literally.
Therefore, Saiki doesn’t see through a green filter. Rather, his view of the world is quite normal, like any other person, which puts all the more stress on the previous question.
5. Saiki Can See Corona Virus
The Coronavirus outbreak was a tragic one, to say the least. It was a blow to humanity’s morale but also a learning experience for the national leaders and the people affected by it. We have gained an appreciation for life’s fragility and learned the importance of taking precautions to protect our health.
During the initial outbreak, Asou Shuichi made a Twitter post confirming Saiki could see Coronavirus. The post was of a manga panel where Saiki casually removes a single Coronavirus from Toritsuka’s shoulder. Knowing Saiki, he would try his best to eradicate the virus so the coffee jelly stores don’t remain shut down.
6. Is That Jojo’s Reference?
Gintama is known as ‘The Parody Anime’ with too many references to list out. Gintama has pioneered comedy like no other anime. Like Gintama, The Disastrous Life Of Saiki K. is not only recognized for its similar comedy style but also for the surprising references it makes throughout the series.
A popular reference The Disastrous Life Of Saiki K had was Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. This is referenced several times throughout the series, especially by Shun Kaido, seeing how Chuunibyou is one of Kaido’s main characteristics.
But Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure wasn’t the only anime referenced here. In fact, Shun Kaido’s hairstyle is heavily inspired by Gintoki(Gintama). As well as anime references like Luffy(One Piece), Tobi(Naruto), Koro Sensei(Assassination Classroom), Yaoyorozu(My Hero Academia), pokemon, and many more can be noticed throughout the series, which really add to the comedy aspect of the series.
7. Saiki Kusuo Is A Girl?
We know Saiki Kusuo uses shapeshifting ability a few times in the show. This allows him to transform into someone else (human or animal). But, with the limitations of the transformation process taking too long and his physical inability to completely adapt to the transformed body.
Though Saiki was shown exercising this ability during season 1, to our surprise, Saiki had actually used this ability before he was even born.
In chapter 131 of the manga, Saiki transforms into a girl while in his mother’s womb, which had the doctors and Saiki’s parents expecting a girl baby from the scan results. But Saiki transformed back after he was born, leaving the doctors confused. The doctors stated that the machine was broken to avoid any confusion.
8. Reset to Zero
Saiki’s abilities are terrifying at times, and his time travel ability lets him reset earth’s time to 1 year before the time of activation. Additionally, Saiki turning back time results in nobody aging, including himself. So, Saiki uses this in addition to his hypnosis ability and makes people think nothing has changed.
There are layers to this process. But Saiki has a valid reason why he resorts to such lengths. During the events of season 2 of the anime, Saiki states there is a volcanic eruption that is bound to happen at a certain time which would deal a major blow to Japan.
To prevent this, Saiki decides to turn time back by a year and keep the eruption at bay. Due to this, Saiki had to repeat his second year of high school more times than he should have. But later in season 3, Saiki finally managed to stop the eruption with some help.
9. Saiki’s Fear
Saiki is headstrong and doesn’t usually lose his composure, coffee jelly being the only exception. Even so, there are moments in the anime where things take an unexpected route, which could even startle the emotion less Saiki kun.
Some bugs are known to be unpredictable and have unusual movements. You would be wrong to think Saiki could predict such things with his vast range of abilities. Saiki admits he can’t predict bugs because they have small heads.
The severity of Saiki’s fear of bugs can be seen in episode 19 of season 1 when Saiki teleported all the way to Texas in sheer panic after encountering a bug while cleaning the room. Additionally, claiming he does not even want to use his psychic powers to touch the bug.
10. Saiki’s Wish
We know of Saiki’s over-the-top abilities that everyone so wishes to have. But is that something Saiki wishes for? Saiki had these abilities of his right from his birth. As a kid, Saiki had fun playing around and pulling harmless pranks with his new abilities. But as Saiki was making his way to adulthood, he realized these abilities were more harmful than beneficial.
Saiki only wishes for a normal life. He goes out of his way to keep his powers hidden from everyone outside his family. However, he can never fully escape his abilities, as circumstances bring out the psychic within him. Saiki envies those around him who can live an ordinary life without any worries about dealing with special powers.
11. Saiki Almost Never Speaks
The Disastrous Life of Saiki K series is fairly long, and to our surprise, Saiki has almost never spoken throughout the manga serialization. Saiki’s abilities are a part of his life now, so he monopolizes on that fact and uses Telepathy to communicate with people throughout the series. He also manipulates people into thinking talking with your mouth closed is normal.
With that said, Saiki uses Telepathy to communicate with people and for his inner monologues, but he also occasionally uses his mouth to communicate. In some instances, it may seem like a mistake, and in others, it looked like Saiki meant it. Saiki spoke verbally 4 times-
- The first time was when Saiki said “Damn it” to Nendou when Saiki saw him wearing his glasses.
- The second time is when Saiki blurs out an inconspicuous “Offu” overheard by Kokomi.
- The third time was when Saiki smiled and said, “Good grief…you guys are a pain…seriously.” to his friends with full intent.
- The last time Saiki thought out loud and said, “Thanks Nendou.”
12. Saiki Is A Tsundere
Tsundere is a familiar character trait in anime, mostly observed in female characters. Tsundere characters often demonstrate an outwardly cold and hostile attitude and hide their true feelings of love behind a mask.
But, most Tsundares always have a breaking point, where they give in and reveal they are true feelings. Despite the annoying character trait at times, it never ceases to give you that sense of satisfaction when one’s true feelings are properly conveyed.
Saiki is a classic example of a Tsundere character which is likely inherited from his grandpa, who is known to be a Tsundere. Saiki pushes away those who care about him while secretly enjoying their company. This can be seen when Saiki finally reveals his true feelings toward his friends at the end of season 1. This is coincidentally also the time when he openly talks to the friends he so cares about.
13. Saiki Has A Sweet Tooth With No Repercussions
Sweet tooth is a trait associated with health issues such as obesity and diabetes. This makes it advisable to control one’s urge to consume sweets in large quantities. This especially makes it quite unfair when someone like Saiki can have all the sweet delights he wishes with zero backlash from it.
Saiki is a superhuman living in a normal world, not an ideal living condition for someone like himself. With most of his senses heightened, he can never have a normal experience like his friends do. But his smell and taste are the only 2 senses that remain normal.
Saiki’s favorite food is coffee jelly, something he very regularly enjoys at Café Mami. Saiki once stated he’d rather be bribed with coffee jelly rather than money. With Saiki’s normal sense of taste, he gets to enjoy the true flavor of his favorite food without his powers getting in the way. However, on the plus side, Saiki’s powers help him not gain weight or any other health issues from consuming unnatural amounts of coffee jellies.
14. Riki Nendou Is Jotaro Kujo?
When I think of Jotaro Kujo, I think of a cool, calm, and collected character. A character with an iconic voice who is potentially the face of the Jojo series. Daisuke Ono is a Japanese voice actor who played Jotaro Kujo and also some other prevalent characters like Erwin (Attack on Titan), Sebastian Michaelis (Black Butler), William Vangeance (Black Clover), Sinbad (Magi: Adventures of Sinbad), and of course the comedic hero Riki Nendou himself.
15. Wordplay Of Names
There are a variety of characters featured throughout The Disastrous Life of Saiki K., each adding to the comedic nature of the show. Saiki had made quite a few of them as his friends throughout the series. The first impression might be that they appear “normal” and have “normal” names, considering the bizarreness of the anime.
In reality, their names were meticulously chosen. Each of their names translates to different psychic abilities befitting the anime.
- Saiki Kusuo translates to Psychic.
- Hairo Kineshi translates to Pyrokinesis.
- Shun Kaido translates to Teleportation.
- Nendou Riki translates to Telekinesis.
- Saiko Metri translates to Psychometry.
- Aiura Mikoto translates to seeing auras.
- Teruhashi Kokomi translates to Telepathy.
Who among them is your favorite character?
Also Read: Anime Like Saiki Kusuo no Psi Nan That You Should Not Miss.
