Manga / Saike Mata Shitemo

Saike Kuzushiro is an Ordinary High-School Student who's just going through the motions. His closest friend is Mikan Karatachi, who he's known since they were little kids, and the two have had some fond memories together. Tragically, Mikan gets hit by a sleep-deprived driver after the two reminisce at Mogura Pond, and if that weren't enough, Saike falls into the pond and drowns...

...but wakes up in his bed, 7:00 AM, on the day of Mikan's tragic death. Figuring out that he can turn back time by diving into Mogura Pond, Saike figures out a way to rescue his childhood friend from a fatal end, but that's only the beginning of his strange new life as someone with an honest-to-god superpower.

Saike Mata Shitemo ("Once Again, A Psyche") is a shonen manga by Tsubasa Fukuchi (The Law of Ueki) which was serialized in Weekly Shonen Sunday from 2014 to 2018. Fukuchi previously wrote a one-shot manga called The Negatibrain, which was added as a Volume 3 extra. It's in the same continuity as this series and serves as the backstory of Yumewo Kuroda.

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This series provides examples of:

• Affably Evil: Most of Johann's group past the "brainwashed Saike" arc are fairly affable and even relatively comical or well-intentioned, with a bit of a mean streak on the side. It's Johann that is the main one to worry about.
• Amnesiac Hero: Eventually, Saike's brain forgets everything he's learned after awakening to his Oracle as a defense mechanism in order to avoid fatal damage. This takes a turn for the worse when Oracle supremacist Johann tries to take advantage of Saike's memory gap and turn him over to his side.
• Animorphism: The Cat Cafe owner's Oracle is turning anyone who drinks his tea into cats. He wants to turn Japan into a country of cats so its people can live simpler, easier lives.
• Armor-Piercing Question: What Hirayasu asks Saike, giving insight into his true motives. Johann also uses it later.

  Hirayasu: Isn't it more like you just want to be special?

• Art Evolution: Inverted. The art gets noticeably less detailed in the later chapters, most likely due to the author switching to digital.
• Badass Adorable: Fukuchi Tsubasa likes to draw many of his characters with round childish features but Saike and Ana are a couple of the notable who also have many feats as clever badass fighters. Then in the climax of the series Johann shrinks into a cute child form to escape Will's shackles and fight Will himself, he definitely counts.
• Beware the Superman: Society's reaction to people with super powers appearing out of nowhere in public, in part thanks to Johann's bouts with Saike and Kuroda's groups, is immediately freaking out at the mere idea of it and the authorities attempting to arrest and control (or potentially kill) them. Almost entirely because regular people fear the mere concept, regardless of how dangerous or useless their powers might be.
• Big Bad: Johann, who seeks to create a new world full of Oracle users and purge normal individuals that would likely discriminate against them. Not only is he an Arch-Enemy for Saike in terms of ideals and morality, but he's also willing to murder in cold blood to achieve his goals. Just ask a traumatized Saike after numerous deaths of Hizu and Ana. Though, it also turns out Johann was just one of countless people brainwashed by Will, who caused the entire story past the first volume for his own ends and usurps the role from Johann for the finale.
• Blood Knight: Hizu is bored of everything that isn't finding interesting new people and beating the crap out of them.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Near everyone in Kuroda's group gets brainwashed, the only exceptions are Kuroda himself, Yaotome, Mako, Ana and Will as he's the one doing the brainwashing. Also, Saike got brainwashed when Johann kidnapped him to recruit him in the group and during the climactic arc of the series, Hizu is brainwashed to fight Saike.
• Brought Down to Normal: In the ending, Saike had his Oracle removed by Kuroda, as his and Hizu's world-spanning mission to avert the destruction prophecized in the Akashic Records was successful and he doesn't want to spoil the future earned through the efforts of the many allies he made on that journey.
• Cheaters Never Prosper: Ana had a falling out with her best friend Hitomi because she used her Oracle to trip up her rival, which got Hitomi disqualified.
• Comically Serious: Kuroda, especially that time he held up a picture of a lesser panda to Saike's team to tell them that's their target.
• Cover Drop: The final chapter reveals that all the volume covers are Mikan's artworks of Saike on display at a museum.
• Darkest Hour: As the climax of the Nepal arc approached, Saike only had one day left to live, his condition painfully worse and as it turned out, the Oracle Holder his friends seek out to heal him had a dangerous price and he only had one more use before becoming a fetus. To make matters worse, Johann storms in and take the healing god for himself then after a long chase, kills Hizu and Ana. Saike's only solution was to drown himself in a lake he had no idea his power would even work at or any idea he would survive another reset even if it did.
• Date Rape: In his past, Will used his mind control powers to makes women want to be with him and one panel shows a women seemly naked, only covered by a bedsheet. Considering his lack of remorse and hedonistic attitude, it's possible he committed a mind control version of date rape.
• Death Glare: Saike can pull off some really impressive ones but what takes the cake is the one he gives Johan during their final confrontation. The snow makes it even more dramatic.
  • Johann too, whose glare gets more dramatic with close ups of his very strange eyes.
• Deconstruction: Of “time rewind” Manga where the protagonist can repeat a set amount of time over and over, such as ReZero. While that series was dark enough, this one really gets into the nitty gritty of the serious dangers that power could pose to it’s user. While it essentially let’s the user have infinite do-overs, all those memories have to go somewhere, and the combined memories of all the loops can result in Saike’s brain literally overloading. This means that Saike actually has a finite usage of them, and potential overuse will kill him permanently. Repeated use has also mentally aged Saike long past his physical age, and he now acts more like a young adult then a middle-school kid. While he displays freakish determination in the beginning, it becomes clear during the fight against Hizu that Saike’s ability is mentally destroying him and he has become a very different person in a short amount of time.
• Defeat Means Friendship:
  • Hizu, the first Oracle-user whom Saike defeats, becomes his Lancer...but only because he's interested in seeing his final moments.
  • Also happens with Ana after Saike dives into Mogura multiple times just so she can live.
  • Then as of the end of volume 12 even Johann and Saike become true friends. Also, due to most of the antagonist being brainwashed by Will, they easily turn after the heroes broke the effect.
• Depower: Yumewo's Oracle gives the target a choice between dying or giving up their gift.
• Determinator: A strange variant of this trope as unlike other shounen heroes, Saike is driven by anxiety of his past self, performing heroic acts to extreme lengths so we won't go back to being that kind of nobody. Once, he drowned himself 14 times to just get a punch right and another, he drowned himself 226 times just to teach someone a lesson.
• Establishing Character Moment: Quite a few.
  • Saike was introduced narrating his everyday life which mostly involved keeping to himself and reading. His teacher then talked to him about his aspirations for the future, that there may be something that really snatches his attention but Saike responded that he doesn't have any dreams. This all set up the starting point for a long and fulfilling character arc for our protagonist.
  • Although Johann technically appeared for a page in chapter 22, his formal introduction has him revealing that he's been manipulating Kuroda to gather oracle holders before betraying him and brainwashing them. Johann then went on about his ideals to create a world of oracle holders that will succeed humanity.
• Evilutionary Biologist: Johann is an Oracle-user who believes those with special powers are the progenitor of a superior species to humans.
• Fantastic Racism: Knowledge of power users eventually becomes more widespread, causing people to regard such folks as "M", and immediately discriminate against and fear them. As Saike finds out the hard way when he accidentally revealed himself to be such a person in a bad situation, ending up arrested and interrogated by police with an Implied Death Threat in the air.
• Final Boss Preview: In the Amnesia arc, Saike and Hizu first fought Johann whose power was too mysterious, they had no idea what to even do against him and were easily defeated. They fight again in the climax of the Nepal arc and although Saike won, Johann successfully escaped using his mysterious power which Saike still had no idea what it is. By then, they're tied but settle the score in their final battle in a much later arc when Saike finally figures out Johann's ability was rotation.
• Foreshadowing: As Saike uses his redo power over and over again, he becomes noticeably more exhausted and weary the longer the series drags on, complete with slight hints of Exhausted Eye Bags. It's an early sign that his power's gradually taking a toll on his mind due to too many memories accumulating from the constant loops.
  • In the Nepal arc's Darkest Hour, Saike is forced to drown himself in a random local lake in hopes that it will rewind the day much like Mogura Pond does; in this case, it's a success, but the characters point out that they really don't have the opportunity or circumstances to risk testing if it was a fluke or not. Come the end of the series, turns out his power works on any body of water altogether, he just didn't have a proper opportunity to test it until things were more peaceful.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: The final villain Will, in fact, the reason he became such a nightmare was because he was such a nobody to begin with. So completely average in everything that gave no one anything to remember him by.
• Genre Shift: The first volume is relatively grounded and centers around the emotional turmoil of an ordinary boy as he tries to save his best friend from a horrible fate, but after Saike finds out there are other people with superpowers, the focus shifts to him trying to outwit all of the hostile power-holders that come his way.
• Heart Is an Awesome Power: Hizu's ability to turn things into styrofoam sounds like it would be useless, but he can change any object into it and back, which he weaponizes in his first fight by turning a telephone pole into a bludgeoning weapon and busting through walls while pretending to have superhuman strength to fake his foes out. He gets a lot of mileage out of this.
• The Hedonist: Will is this in contrast to the other villains of the series who usually have a sympathetic reason for the things they're doing. Fed up with being seen as normal and forgettable by everyone else, he uses his mind control abilities to gain fame, fortune, and friends. He even finds an oracle user who can de-age him to give off the face of being a child prodigy. He's shown to be more than willing to sacrifice as many lives as necessary to continue living his life of pleasure.
• Heroic RRoD: Saike's Oracle is taking a bad toll on his brain, which has to process all the info he gains from the time loops.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Yaotome attempts to push Ana to safety while diving off a crumbling cliff, but is rescued by Saike.
• High-Heel–Face Turn: Ana ultimately comes over to Saike's side after he goes out of his way to save her from death despite her attempts to kill him, becoming a part of the main cast as a result.
• In Spite of a Nail: Sure Saike can take different routes in each of his loops for most of the future to change. However, for some reason, no matter what changes, Mikan will always end up standing at the exact same spot, at exactly 5:30 with the exact same truck coming at her in every single loop. It's easy to understand Saike's frustration at this.
• Ironic Echo: After Saike wins him over, Hizu decides to team up with Saike so that he can "see [Saike's] last moments". In Chapter 129, his brainwashed self chokes Saike to death, and the first thing he sees after regaining his eyesight (which took several months to heal) is his hands on the neck of Saike's now-lifeless body.
• It Can Think: The Lesser Panda Hi figured out it was being tracked with a GPS, removed it, and attached it to a log as a decoy, much to Calim's chagrin.
• It's All About Me: Will doesn't care about the records of Oracle holders within the Akashic Records, and he doesn't care about all the trauma and death he wrought by manipulating Johann and Kuroda into getting the Records for him. His entire plot amounted to getting a container of infinite knowledge, emptying it out, and using it as an external storage drive for his own excess of memories, all so he can eternally stay as a "child prodigy" to feel good about himself.
• Knight Templar: Yumewo and his underlings want to get rid of Saike's Oracle because they think his good deeds are depriving people of the chance to grow through their mistakes and losses.
• The Lady's Favour: In Chapter 138, Ana ties one of her hair ribbons to Hizu's arm as a symbol of them always being together. If he ever feels down while journeying with Saike to recruit two million Oracle holders so that the world can be saved three years later, she wants him to look at that ribbon and remember that Saike is relying on him. After the three-year timeskip in Chapter 140, Hizu is shown to still have that ribbon on his arm.
  • A Volume 15 extra implies that Hizu secretly put the ribbon into Saike and Mikan's time capsule since he thought he didn't need it anymore. This infuriates Ana because she wanted him to keep it on his body at all times.
• Logical Weakness: Every time Saike dives into Mogura Pond to redo the day, his body resets to the state it was in at 7 AM, but his brain has to accommodate the extra knowledge he gained from the loops; he has to retain those memories somehow. This, coupled with his brain starting to take damage from the stress of using his Oracle, puts Saike in a very precarious position.
  • Most of the Oracles also hold a weakness of some sort in their abilities that all boil down to this, whether it's because someone needs to trigger a specific condition that can easily be countered, or from a sheer drawback in how the ability stacks up against another. In Johann's case, his seeming Flash Step that allows him to deal devastating cuts thanks to the Oracle of Rotation is easily foiled by Saike holding his shoulder or wrist to keep him from warping, and has a specific path and route to it that can be traced in the right circumstances - like snow.
• Lonely Rich Kid: Hizu was born into affluence, but ended up a listless hooligan thanks to his dad's unreasonable expectations of him and other kids ganging up on him.
• The Lost Lenore: Johann and Silva set out to make a world for Oracle holders after Sumire, the girl they both fell in love with, died from her illness.
• Manipulative Bastard: Johann used Kuroda to gather a group of oracle holders before usurping him as the leader. But then later it turned out he was also manipulated by Will, although it's easy for the latter, given his brainwashing powers.
• Money Fetish: In the Nepal arc, Raj will often charge Saike and his friends for the tiniest of services and even unreasonably raise the price at times.
• Mood Whiplash: The series swings between lighthearted and serious moments quite a bit. The most notable shift is when Hizu was teasing Ana about marrying Igor (or was he being serious?), only for Saike to suddenly fall over from all the strain from his powers and suffer amnesia when he wakes up.
• Morality Pet: At the beginning, Hizu had no moral compass and just beat up any people with abilities he could find. When his Heel–Face Turn came, it was only due to his newfound loyalty to Saike, this was even shown to be dangerous as Hizu would sacrifice others without hesitation to save his friend. However, much later in the series, it seems he's been inspired by Saike to take on heroic values, too.
• My God, You Are Serious!: A dark, internalized and serious take. Ana asks Saike just how many times he drowned himself to do their fight over again. His response, with a smile, is about 226 times. Ana is horrified by the implications and lack of self-preservation the boy has at that point.
• Oh, Crap!: A very satisfying one when Will realized Johann shrunk himself to escape his shackles and out to kill him, especially after all the ways he screwed with the characters until then.
• Older Than He Looks: Will looks six years old, but is over 120. Justified because he had another person's Oracle de-age him.
• Parental Substitute: A Volume 15 extra shows Kuroda being Mako's Amazingly Embarrassing Parent during a school visit (it's mentioned that he does this every year).
• Psychopathic Manchild: Dr. Myuton has the attitude of a cutesy little girl, but the cruelty of a kid who likes to rip off the legs of an insect and watch it squirm.
  • Possibly Johann, who acted like a Keet while faking a friendship with Saike. Acting or not, he was obviously having some fun with it.
  • Will, the true Big Bad. That innocuous if somewhat creepy boy? Yeah, he's actually biologically an old man with the power to brainwash people and kept getting his age reset; with the inability to feel the consequences of his actions because he could get whatever he want, he basically never grew up despite having multiple lifetimes' worth of knowledge and skills.
• Save the Villain: Saike goes so far as to turn back time just to save Ana from falling to her death. He even saves Yaotome's life with a bit of quick thinking and Ana's Oracle, though Yaotome repays him by skating off to tell his superiors.
  • Subverted with Will. Saike destroys the Akashic Records and refuses to rewind the day, letting Will die by the backlash of his excess memories.
• Shadow Archetype: Will to Saike. Saike uses his "redo" power to keep trying to save people even if he arguably has no reason to do so in some cases, learns to manipulate others by understanding them thoroughly with sympathies, and has to go through hell and back because of the constant struggles of those dying around him as he dives into the fights directly. It's all reflected in his goal to be an All-Loving Hero, even if no one actually knows his exploits. Will uses his mind-controlling power to get what he wants with no effort and uses someone else's own de-aging power to get as many retries at life as he pleases solely so that he can be special in life and be loved by the world for being a child prodigy without caring about the plights of anyone else, all the while avoiding direct conflict as much as possible since a fight would be an unnecessary risk. The two are outright diametrically opposed to each other on every level.
• Ship Sinking: In Chapter 135, a chat between Mikan and Ana as they're making Valentine's Day chocolate for Saike explicitly confirms that Ana's admiration of Saike isn't romantic.
  Mikan: On that note, are you planning to express any feelings of "love" to him via this chocolate?
  Ana: (looks at Mikan curiously) Of course not.
• Ship Tease:
  • It's telling that Mikan felt relieved after learning that Ana only admired Saike platonically in Chapter 135.
  • Ana has a number of moments with Hizu: she gave him a lucky teika during their battle against Depes in Chapter 61, she subconsciously associated Hi's eyebrows with Hizu's in a Volume 11 extra, she gave him Valentine's Day chocolate in Chapter 135, and she gave him her ribbon in Chapter 138.
• Stealth Sequel: Details about Yumewo Kuroda in this manga's later arcs set it four years after The Negatibrain.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: Hizu, who's not used to having friends before meeting Saike but is very loyal to him. Saike also used to be this way at the beginning of the series when he acted apathetic due to his fear of associating with others.
• Team Pet: Hi the lesser panda seems to have become this to Kuroda's group after they took him in.
• Telephone Polearm: As a matter of fact, Hizu's favorite weapon is a telephone pole, which he turns into Styrofoam and reverts just before the moment of impact.
• The Unfettered: Even though Johann believes his ideal world is what's best for everyone, his strong ambition drives him to ruthless methods to accomplish it such as kidnapping, killing and brainwashing other oracle holders to join his cause. What makes it more frightening is that he was shown to understand what he did was truly cruel but was not bothered by any sense of remorse at all as he sees his actions as necessary means justified by the end.
• Took a Level in Badass: Saike, justified as all those loops he went through gave him more fighting experience in a short time. A nice subtle effect is how in his first couple of fights, he has to squint while punching someone, while later, he punches his opponents with full badass Death Glares. Also, later, he sometimes defeats opponents without even resetting the day at all.
• Tranquil Fury: Johann during his fight with Will, took him for a melancholic merry-go-round, contemplating about death before slamming the latter's face against a wall at supersonic speed. Despite all their time as enemies, Johann had shared a deep bond with Saike whose death affected him.
• Undying Loyalty: Hizu to Saike, who died so Saike snapped out of hypnosis, not even expecting him to redo the day to save him. Hizu was even about to force someone to effectively kill themself to save his hero without hesitation.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Yaotome cheerfully flaunts the fact that he won't repay our heroes saving his life while rocketing off to inform his superiors...though he does tell his teammates to stay away from them because "they're just your run o' the mill weaklings" and "there's no point in bothering to beat 'em."
• Villainous Breakdown: Johann is a particularly tragic example as his core motive was noble but refused to accept that the world he wishes to create just can't hold. When Saike pointed this out toward the end of their final battle, he snaps bad.
• Villains Want Mercy: When Saike destroys the container of the Akashic Records (essentially sentencing Will to death), Will pleads for Saike to redo the day and save him... but Saike says Will has lived long enough.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Johann not only believes that Oracle Holders have a right to live but also believes that everyone deserves to be given an Oracle, no matter who gets hurt in the process.
• Wham Line:
  • In The Negatibrain, Yumewo acts very different from his usual self when his crush Yukari tutors his sister. Then when he's finally able to talk to Yukari in private, he reveals the reason as he asks her...
  Yumewo: Why would you want to kill my sister?
  • In the main series, after Saike and Kuroda work together to defeat Arc Villain Sakagami, the two become friendlier with each other, with Kuroda being more understanding of Saike's view. It seems his group won't be much of a threat anymore. Then when Kuroda gets a phone call from Johann...
    Johann: Your role here is over, ex-leader.