About The Disastrous Life of Saiki K.
The Disastrous Life of Saiki K. (斉木楠雄のΨ難, Saiki Kusuo no Sai-nan) is a comedy manga written and illustrated by Shūichi Asō. After a run of one-shots from 2010, it was serialised in Shueisha's Weekly Shōnen Jump from May 2012 to February 2018, followed by two final chapters in Jump Giga that summer, and collected in 26 volumes; the anime's official site puts its circulation at more than nine million copies. The Japanese title is a pun: sainan means 'disaster', and the 'sai' is written with the Greek letter psi, a joke the anime carries into many of its episode titles. A live-action film directed by Yuichi Fukuda and starring Kento Yamazaki followed in October 2017.
J.C.Staff and Egg Firm made the anime, directed by Hiroaki Sakurai with series composition by Michiko Yokote, character designs by Masayuki Onji and music by Psychic Lover. The first season began on TV Tokyo on 4 July 2016 in an unusual format: a short episode every weekday morning inside the children's show Oha Suta, with the week's five gathered into a late-night compilation, 120 shorts in 24 episodes by the end of the year. A 24-episode second season ran from January to June 2018, a two-part Conclusion special aired on 28 December 2018, and Netflix released a six-episode follow-up, Reawakened, worldwide on 30 December 2019. Funimation simulcast the first season and dubbed it into English; Netflix licensed the later parts.
Kusuo Saiki was born with almost every psychic power there is: telepathy, psychokinesis, teleportation, x-ray vision, clairvoyance and more. To him they are a curse that spoils every surprise and invites trouble, so he hides them, keeps his marks exactly average and tries to drift through PK Academy unnoticed. It never works. The comedy comes from the oddballs who keep landing on his desk, the cheerful Riki Nendo, whose empty head Saiki cannot read; Shun Kaido, who thinks he is a dark hero; and Kokomi Teruhashi, the perfect girl who cannot understand why he will not fall for her, and from Saiki's deadpan narration as he quietly uses his powers to keep everyone's lives, and his secret, from falling apart.
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What the The Disastrous Life of Saiki K. Quiz Tests
Our Saiki K. quiz covers all 56 episodes of the anime: the 2016 first season (asked about by its short episodes' titles and stories), the 2018 second season, the Conclusion special and the Netflix series Reawakened. Nothing comes from manga chapters the anime did not adapt, the games or the live-action film. Easy levels cover the basics: who made it, Saiki's powers, his limiters and glasses, coffee jelly and the classmates who will not leave him alone. The middle levels follow the stories, from the coffee-jelly sacrifice and Nendo's lucky pencil to the trip to London, the wrong-day birthday party, the Psychic Kids, Touma Akechi and the shipwreck on Saiko's trip. The hard levels are for people who watched closely: the range of Saiki's telepathy, how long his stone gaze lasts, who built his limiters, the 100th short episode, the singers of season 2's opening and the very end of the Conclusion and Reawakened.
Key Characters
Kusuo Saiki is a straight man surrounded by chaos: nearly all-powerful, mostly silent and endlessly weary, he would trade every power he has for a normal day, yet he keeps quietly rescuing the people who drive him mad. Riki Nendo, the big-hearted classmate he can never predict, treats him as a best friend whether he likes it or not, while Shun Kaido spins stories about fighting the Dark Reunion and Kokomi Teruhashi works tirelessly at being adored by everyone, Saiki included. The hot-blooded class representative Kineshi Hairo, the dreamy Chiyo Yumehara and the reformed gang leader Aren Kuboyasu fill out the class. Two other psychics, the ghost-seeing medium Reita Toritsuka and the fortune teller Mikoto Aiura, share his secret, and at home his carefree parents and his rival older brother Kusuke, a genius inventor who has never once beaten him, cause as much trouble as anyone at school. Take the 'Which Saiki K. Character Are You?' quiz to find your match.
Available Quizzes
The Disastrous Life of Saiki K. Trivia
50 hand-crafted questions across 5 categories. 10 levels of increasing difficulty.
Which Saiki K. Character Are You?
Answer 10 questions to discover which Saiki K. character matches your personality!
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Characters
Kusuo Saiki
Riki Nendo
Shun Kaido
Kokomi Teruhashi
Kineshi Hairo
The Disastrous Life of Saiki K. Fun Facts
- The first season was shown twice over in Japan: as a short episode every weekday morning inside TV Tokyo's children's show Oha Suta, and as a weekly late-night compilation of the week's five. That is why it adds up to 120 short episodes but only 24 compiled ones.
- Many of the Japanese episode titles hide the Greek letter Ψ (psi) in place of the sound 'sai' or 'zai', just like the series title, where sainan ('disaster') becomes Ψ難.
- The background music is credited to Saikick Lover (斉木ックラバー), a unit formed for the show by two members of the anime-song group Psychic Lover and their regular arranger, Kenichiro Ōishi. Its singer says they were chosen because the band's name sounds so much like Saiki's.
- Saiki's grandparents, Kumagoro and Kumi, are voiced by Koichi Yamadera and Rie Tanaka, who were married in real life at the time.
- Hiroshi Kamiya, who voices Saiki, said the anime gets through a chapter that Shūichi Asō spent a week drawing in about four minutes. All four parts together come to 56 episodes made up of 280 of those segments.
- Before Reawakened came out, Kamiya said that with it the anime had covered almost every story Asō published in Weekly Shōnen Jump.
The Disastrous Life of Saiki K. Quiz — Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes of The Disastrous Life of Saiki K. are there?
Fifty-six, as Wikipedia's episode list and the official site count them: 24 in season 1 (2016), 24 in season 2 (2018), two in the Conclusion special (December 2018) and six in Reawakened (Netflix, December 2019). Season 1 was first broadcast as 120 short episodes, five a week, which is why some lists give it 120; each of its 24 episodes gathers five of those shorts, the same five-part format every later episode uses.
Is The Disastrous Life of Saiki K. finished?
Yes. The manga ended in 2018 after 26 volumes, and the anime's Conclusion special, which aired on 28 December 2018, adapted its last Weekly Shōnen Jump chapters and brings the story to an end. Netflix's six-episode Reawakened followed in December 2019, with the original Japanese cast and staff, to animate stories that had been skipped, with a final episode set after the Conclusion. The anime's tenth-anniversary celebrations in 2026 have brought events, merchandise and a Blu-ray of the Conclusion and Reawakened, but no new anime had been announced as of November 2026.
What order should I watch The Disastrous Life of Saiki K. in?
Release order works best: season 1, season 2, the two-part Conclusion special and then Reawakened. Reawakened's first five episodes are mostly self-contained comedy that fits before the Conclusion, while its sixth episode picks up after the Conclusion's ending, so leaving it until last keeps the finale's twist intact. The 2017 live-action film is a separate adaptation and is not needed to follow the anime.
Where can I watch The Disastrous Life of Saiki K.?
Funimation simulcast the first season as it aired in 2016 and released an English dub, and Madman Entertainment licensed it in Australia. Netflix licensed season 2 and the Conclusion and released Reawakened as a Netflix original worldwide. Availability differs by country and changes over time, so check your local services.
What is The Disastrous Life of Saiki K. about?
Kusuo Saiki is a high-school student born with almost every psychic power imaginable, and all he wants is to be left alone to live a quiet, ordinary life. Instead he is surrounded by eccentrics: a classmate whose mind he cannot read, another who thinks he is a dark hero, a perfect girl determined to win him over, fellow psychics, a doting family and a genius brother out to beat him. Each short story follows Saiki as he uses his powers in secret to get through another day without anyone finding out. It is a fast, deadpan school comedy.
