Mob Psycho 100 06 – 08
Yes, hoodies are just that good of a disguise.
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Sorry guys, I was away on vacation so I have to cram a bunch of episodes into one post. Uhh…enjoy? |
After completely blowing up the school and putting on a dazzling display in the sky, it makes sense for Mob to lay low for a bit. Putting the school back together doesn’t mean he’s off the hook for busting it up in the first place. Understandably, Mob is starting to really worry about controlling his powers now. He asks Reigen, and receives some surprisingly sage advice. But to me, this scene wasn’t about Mob that much, because Reigen just stole the spotlight so easily.
you can’t con a conman
I love the way Reigen is being utilized in this show. He’s not there all the time because that would be tedious given how flamboyant he is all the time. Having fried chicken is awesome every now and then, but you’ll get tired of it if you have it every day (totally not speaking from experience here). He’s there in just the right doses to be funny. What makes him so great, for me at least, is that he operates according to his own set of rules and is impossible to pin down. For example, he’s a dirty fraud, yet at the same time he provides solid advice to Mob. He can’t see ghosts, and yet he does have some bravery to trek headfirst into the heart of dangerous places with only a kid for protection. I haven’t come across anyone quite like him in anime.
As such, I find it difficult to read him accurately. It’s hard to tell if Reigen genuinely cares about Mob and is hiding it, or if he’s using him just for money. I like to believe Reigen actually grew fond of his lackey, but the reality is that every kind gesture he shows towards Mob could potentially be linked to an ulterior motive. For example, when he approaches Ritsu to ask for help instead of Mob, it seemed like he was doing so to give Mob a well-timed break. But at the same time, he’s asking Ritsu to do something to get him more money.
While Reigen doesn’t get anything out of Ritsu, he does get tricked into following some other sketchy dude in a suit to their private business. I guess this sort of tendency runs in the family? Anyways, I had to talk about Reigen a bit, but these past 3 episodes have really been about Ritsu.
Poor Ritsu. He has no psychic powers, he’s constantly holding back so he doesn’t enrage his chaotic big brother, and now his fellow classmate is making him frame vandals for doing perverted things. (While we’re at it, poor Onigawara too. He’s a good guy!!!). All this builds up a huge amount of turmoil within him. Eventually, he reaches a breaking point, which unleashes his latent psychic powers. This should be a joyous moment, but instead, it’s much darker. With Dimple by his side, Ritsu uses his powers to beat up high school gang leaders. This is for stress relief, as well as to assert his dominance over others since he finally has a taste for what it’s like to be powerful.
His hair just can’t be beat
Teru weighs in on this, which is interesting given that he used to be very similar. He recognizes that people with psychic powers like to think they’re special – but really, what’s Ritsu when you take away his powers? Just a megalomaniac who is going around hurting people for fun. Scum. It also appears that Ritsu still isn’t actually that powerful, as Teru is easily able to push him back with a half-hearted psychic assault. Therefore, Ritsu is only able to prey on normal humans, while other psychics remain completely out of his reach. It’s a rather pitiful position.
Ritsu goes through a lot of changes on his downward spiral, and it’s really interesting to watch (in a morbid kind of way). What really struck me was seeing Ritsu’s “true” feelings towards Mob. He claims that his sweetness was all just an act in order to avoid angering him. It makes sense, since no one would want to even playfully tease a brother who can decimate an entire building with their mind. It’s just not worth the risk. So Ritsu has been suppressed all this time, fearing for his life any moment he’s with his brother. As a defense mechanism, he tricked himself into thinking that fear was just admiration so that he wouldn’t feel so helpless. That’s just how elaborate and complex his feelings towards his brother are. And yet, this description doesn’t entirely ring true. Yes, he does feel resentment, jealousy, and fear towards Mob. However, he also feels some genuine awe at Mob’s strength. He seemed very alarmed when Mob is getting beat up, and he wouldn’t have that kneejerk reaction if he care at least a tiny bit about his sibling. Even Mob’s explosion meter isn’t riled up by what should have been an earth-shattering statement of detest from Ritsu – because he didn’t believe half of it.
Mob’s faith in his brother is a beautiful and pure thing. He tries his best to redeem him right on the spot by apologizing to a heap of battered delinquents, and even praising Ritsu for his newfound abilities. He’s as supportive as he possibly can be. His reaction seems to do a number on Ritsu, who wasn’t expecting sympathy. It’s a good first step towards open dialogue between the two, as Mob seems to have been holding back on his true feelings as well when it came to speaking his mind with Ritsu. Unfortunately, Ritsu gets kidnapped, so it’ll be a while before that perfect sibling bond actually forms. But that’s ok, because Teru and Mob teaming up (with Dimple, I guess) to fight a superstrong psychic team sounds great to me. The animation these past few episodes have been astounding, so I can only imagine how crazy it’s going to get with a whole organization of psy-powered juggernauts.
There’s a strong correlation between the number of piercings a character has and how much of an asshole they are
About Overcooled
A neuroscience graduate, black belt, and all-around nerd. You'll either find me in my lab or curled up in my rilakkuma kigurumi watching anime.
POWUH: 400-499 with 445 comments
“There’s a strong correlation between the number of piercings a character has and how much of an asshole they are” agreed XD
About reigen, these past eps have illustrated that while he is a conman, he has his ethics. He lies to people, but he doesnt want people to feel like they wasted their time. This is made so clear in this ep when the lady he helps this ep says that she previously went to someone else for help and they just brushed her off with shitty advice while taking her money. Reigen is clearly displeased with this because from the looks of it, he cares about the psychology of his clients. However, you make an interesting point with reigen as well: does he genuinely care about the psychology of his clients, or does he go through the trouble of “helping” people so that he can get good publicity to his business? Things point more towards the former but the latter doesnt seem out of the realm of possibility
POWUH: Meta Team and The Mad Scientist with 5525 comments
That’s true, he does have this likeable quality to him despite being a conman. He tricks people into getting what he wants, but he never makes people unhappy just to get money. So while maybe he’s not exorcising ghosts, he’s still at least giving people really good massages instead of just shooing them away. I’m glad he has morals.
Yeah, I wanna believe Reigen is a good guy and actually cares about others (or at least Mob), but it’s easy to say anything he does is just for the sake of more longterm monetary gains :/ (like you said, gaining a better reputation so he gets more customers). He’s an enigma…
POWUH: 800-899 and Self-proclaimed Manga Queen with 874 comments
~The ‘animation porn’ tag is so right for this series, gOD. Every episode is animated so well it blows my mind they’re still keeping it up onto episode 8 ;;
I’m also (FOR ONCE) happy about the pacing!! Like I feel like we’ve gotten an adequate amount of time to see these characters flesh out without feeling too rushed~
I can’t believe how much more emotional I feel watching the scene with Mob fighting against the piercing guy then I did reading it. I’m sure it’s because ONE’s drawings look so scribbly in the beginning of the series so you unfortunately don’t feel the entire emotion of the scenes, which makes me even happier that they animated this ;;
I’ve fallen more in love with this series watching it then reading it which is VERY RARE for a manga-stickler like me lol. Usually adaptions of series I’ve liked have turned out to be just boring remakes of the manga or go too far off from the manga. To me, a good anime adaption is one that adds something extra without going overboard, making the anime its own thing without straying too too far from the original. Like it’s an extra addition to the series as a whole…if that makes sense lol.
ANYWAY, sorry for the wall of text!! I’m just so happy with this adaption~
POWUH: Meta Team and The Mad Scientist with 5525 comments
It’s so gorgeous, I’m always afraid to blink in case I miss something. Ugh. So good.
That’s great that fans of the original can enjoy the adaptation. I think it really does help that the animation here is just so much better – it brings the work to life. And like you say, it’s not completely disregarding the original style either. It’s just building on what makes the manga/webcomic/whatever great in the first place.
😀