Chapter 216

PK Academy School Cultural FestPSIval Preparation Part is the 216th chapter of The Disastrous Life of Saiki K. (Saiki Kusuo no Psi-nan) manga series published on the 17th of October 2016.

Characters

 * Saiki Kusuo
 * Teruhashi Kokomi
 * Kaidou Shun
 * Kuboyasu Aren
 * Nendou Riki

Abilities Used

 * Telepathy

Short Summary
Kusuo and Kokomi look for the play their class should do for their school's culture festival. Tagging along for help are Shun, Aren and Riki. They all then start to complain about different folktales until they ultimately decide which one they will use.

Long Summary
One month before the cultural festival, Kusuo and Kokomi are at the library. Kusuo explains that this is the continuation of Chapter 202 and is about to explain why they are in the library but Kokomi beats him to it. Kokomi explains that their class chose to do a play and they came to the library to help figure out one. Kusuo thanks her for the explanation. Kokomi further explains that they need to do costumes and other things, wondering why the class chose a play. In Kokomi's thoughts, however, she explains this was her plan and the class did not choose it.

In a flashback to several hours ago, the class had a meeting. Kusuo writes on the board and Kokomi explains, since the festival is a month away, they should all figure out what would be the class project. She asks for people to raise their hands if they have any ideas. One guy says a maze and another says a cafe. Kineshi suggests 50 thousand paper cranes. Another guy suggests a play and the guy next to him tells him that it is not a good idea, it is too much work, and he should consider things. Kokomi, however, is really happy and says it is a great idea. Many guys then say they want to do a play too. Kokomi sees the enthusiasm and says the class has decided that they will do a play, all the while Kineshi still suggests they should do 50 thousand cranes. She finishes by saying that the committee members would choose the script.

Back to the present, Kokomi is smiling about how she made the class think they chose the project. She thinks she was able to control the masses, Kusuo thinks about how she should not call their classmates “the masses.” She explains why she chose a play as the project, both herself and Kusuo would have to do many jobs together and thus have many chances for get an “offu” from him. She also explains that she could make him say it as a line in the play, while thinking of them doing Romeo and Juliet. Kusuo states that Romeo has no line like that in the play. She then thinks on how he must be happy for them to be alone together and tells him that they should do their best to make the play a success. Kusuo thinks about how she is happy and not himself.

Kokomi grabs a sketchbook and explains that she bought it in the school store to brainstorm ideas. Writing on the book, she states that their team is called “the K’s” and they should fill up a few of these books with some ideas. Kusuo wonders what is up with that. She asks him if he gets it, explaining that their names start with the letter “K” and wonders if it makes his heart skip a beat. Kusuo thinks of how the name reminds him of an electronic store chain. Kokomi thinks they should start the discussion. Kusuo, however, smiles and thinks that the “K” theme works since they finally arrived. At that moment they tell him that they are sorry they are late and Kokomi is confused. Who arrives is Shun Kaidou, Aren Kuboyasu and the kimomen Riki Nendou. They explain they are here to help them choose a play. Not having heard them, she asks them why they are here, they say “offu” to her and Kusuo explains that he called them to come to the library. They ask her if they can help them decide a play and she reluctantly agrees. Kusuo further explains that he gets nervous being alone with her and it is better to have more people involved in this process anyways. Kokomi thanks them for coming to help but thinks on what Kusuo is doing for ruining their alone time together.

The group settles down on a table and Kokomi explains that she has selected a few number of plays that seem good to do. She wonders which one they should do and talks about safe choices like fairy tales and Shakespeare. Aren explains that class 5 is doing The Wizard of Oz and Kokomi believes they can not do that one. Shun further elaborates that Nisekoi did Romeo and Juliet for their cultural festival, Kokomi states they will not do that one either and Kusuo thinks if they start excluding plays with that reasoning then there will not be any left. Riki suggests that they do Momotarō since it is a perfect play. Kusuo thinks on how the author did a one-shot on that folklore and Aren explains to Riki that it is too cliche, every child has done it, and they should try harder.

Shun, believing he is going off topic, starts telling the others in the group about how the story of Urashima Tarō is quite terrible. He explains he is quite fine with the beginning: Urashima Tarō helping save the bullied turtle and being welcomed to the dragon palace. What he does not understand is when he exits the palace and his whole world has changed. He then yells in anger when he is more frustrated that the box Tarō was given made him become an old man. He finds it unfair how he did a good deed and yet he got treated like that. Kusuo then thinks that Shun did go off topic. One person explains that Tarō was told to not open the box, Shun reasons that Tarō had valid reasoning to open it in his situation. Shun continues to argue that it was all a trap and Otohime and the turtle should have explained to Tarō what would have happened. He reasons that if Tarō were bullying the turtle then it would have made some sense. Aren then reminds him there are some theories flowing around but folktales are like that.

Kokomi agrees and explains how she initially thought the story of Hanasaka Jiisan was weird. She tells the tale, it is about an old man and his dog called Shiro. One day his dog told him to dig in a place, he did and found gold coins. His neighbor hears of this news, gets jealous and asks him to borrow Shiro. The neighbor then drags Shiro around, only to find snakes and disgusting things, and ends up killing the dog in anger. The guy ends up burying the dog alongside a tree, it then grew and he chopped up the tree. Kokomi questions why he did that and continues the story. The material he made with the wood ended up making him a lot of rice, she questions why he needed it if he is already rich. The neighbor asks for the material and the guy lets him borrow it. She again questions this. The material does not produce the same rice and he burns the material into ash. The guy is saddened by this, throws the ashes into a field and beautiful flowers appear. A lord sees this and offers him an award. The neighbor tries to reproduce what he did, only for the ash to hit the lord’s eyes and is thrown in jail. Finished retelling, Kokomi then questions the point of the story. She finds it frustrating how things are connected but then suddenly are not. They understand her reasoning, adding that the man should have cremated the dog in the first place. Kusuo is confused by them talking about this instead of focusing on choosing a play.

Riki then begins to talk about a story he finds odd too. He starts to tell the story of Momotarō, saying he found it weird how a child was inside a peach. The others stop him, telling him that he went off topic. Riki is confused and Kusuo says that all of them are off topic.

Aren then tells his story, it was a man who slept for 3 years. He never worked, ate the food his wife made him and the villagers called him “Sleepy Taro.” The villagers got fed up with him being lazy. Aren then adds that he forgot to mention that Taro will just come out of his home just to pee on a cliff. Kusuo believes that the guy was useless. Aren adds more, saying that the village is in a drought and the villagers believed that he caused them to not have water, all the while using vulgar language. Kusuo is surprised at the many rude words in the tale. Aren continues, saying the villagers hatched a plan to go to his house. When they arrived they found Taro walking to the cliff and assumed he would just pee again. To their surprise, however, Taro pushes a boulder out of the cliff, it falls into the river below and the water redirects to their village. They began to cheer, believing he was not sleeping but thinking on how to solve their problem. Aren voices on how he does not believe it but finishes up the story. The villagers were so proud of him, they gave him rewards but found out that the guy is asleep again. They think he is thinking of another plan to help them, they start to treat him well and that is the end. Aren believes that the villagers are gullible and is so certain that his original plan was to pee but accidentally pushed the rock. Shun compliments his retorts and Kokomi agrees, believing the person who wrote it must have been a NEET. Kusuo repeats himself by saying that they should be working on choosing a play.

Riki believes he finally got what they are talking about and they let him have a try. Kusuo thinks about how none of them get what they should be doing. Riki starts telling the story of Issun-bōshi, saying the child should not be small. They cut him off once again and tell him that he should stop. They think about how they should pick another story to complain about and agree. One of them talk about Kobutori Jiisan and how demons are basically delinquents. Kusuo thinks that none of them will talk about the play and starts planning to go home.

While talking they think on how some stories should just need some changes, giving Shun an idea. Kusuo, nearly exiting the library, hears this and stops. Shun explains they should pick a folktale and change it themselves. The others are in shock and Shun talks about the possible ways to change it. Shun finishes by saying they should twist the tale to make no one complain about it and perform it. Kusuo believes this as the most obvious answer. The others are in shock and think of it as a great idea. Kusuo states it is not, admitting that it is more rare for people to perform the story on how it originally was. They give ideas but Kusuo says on how all of them have been done before. The narrator then says that this is when writing folktales with a twist started to begin, Kusuo says that they should not lie. They think of the folktale with the most complaints and decide to do it. They will do Urashima Tarō with a twist, and Kusuo says that it has been overdone.