Japanese Title: Mob Psycho 100

 

Related: Mob Psycho 100 Season 2 (TBR)

Similar: The Disastrous Life of Saiki K

One-Punch Man

Hinamatsuri

 

Watched in: Japanese & English

Genre: Supernatural Action Comedy

Length: 12 episodes

 

Positives:

• Fluid animation and colourful style.
• Mob is a great conduit for comedy.
• Doesn’t drag.

Negatives:

• First half doesn’t quite align with the second.
• If you’ve seen One Punch Man, much will feel copy and pasted.

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From the creator of One-Punch Man comes the strikingly similar Mob Psycho 100 – a socially repressed, bored, supernatural guy with more power than sense tries to hide from conflict. The difference here is the focus on comedy. Mob Psycho uses a zany comedy style in the vein of The Disastrous Life of Saiki K as Mob works with a psychic fraud performing exorcisms.

I don’t recall the names of the spirits, though I do remember their characteristics thanks to the strong visual style. There’s Balls on Chin. There’s Fart Cloud, and there’s even Car Ghost, the spirit meets exhaust pipes hybrid. They’re a fun time. My favourite episode has a spirit create the cult of LOL, where laughter truly is the best medicine – medicine straight to a frontal lobotomy! He controls everyone by forcing them to smile and feel good in perpetuity. But Mob, being a socially inept kid with zero appeal, wouldn’t know how to have fun even if you played him a marathon of Monty Python’s greatest hits, so the power has no effect on him. He’s too dumb for fun. The face-off that ensues is brilliant comedy.

Mob has to contend with more than just spirits, however, as other psychics exploit their abilities. And unlike Reigen, Mob’s hack fraud of a psychic mentor, they have genuine power. The main opponent among them is Mob’s brother, Ritsu, which leads us into the second half of the series that becomes action heavy. Ritsu was always jealous of Mob’s abilities. He shuffles around bitter at being the lesser son, especially in the face of a brother who doesn’t wish to use his power and finds it an annoyance at times. Imagine the jealousy of having a famous sibling adored by all while you are in the corner, invisible and worthless to the world. Now replace that Hollywood acting career with superpowers and the jealousy increases ten-fold.

The dilemma reminds me of a question posed to me by a reader regarding living with any anime character for a year. Would you choose someone magical to go on adventures with or an interesting but ordinary human? If you go with the magical being, sure, you’ll have adventures you could only dream of for a year, but after that, you have to contend with the rest of your life never living up to that greatness again. It would probably depress me forever. So I can understand where Ritsu is coming from. He makes for a sympathetic villain.

The other psychics and thugs Mob fights aren’t anywhere near as interesting and the comedy takes a hit in the process. The action is good, mind you, and Mob’s mechanic of going into rage mode when his emotions hit 100% (hence the title) looks cool as hell. I still would have preferred the comedy go longer and keep action episodes only related to the brother.

Lastly, I love this recent trend of having shorter seasons but of a higher quality over the budget-stretched seasons of old. Mob Psycho 100 won’t make it to my favourites list or be a must watch recommendation, but it’s a short and sweet experience that respected my time and entertained me to the end.

Art – High

Mob Psycho 100 sports fluid animation and a cool style, though the character colouring is a tad poor. The energy effects and environmental destruction look cool.

Sound – High

The dub is good for those who prefer it, though I find the original Japanese to be more on the money with Mob’s dulcet tones and the crazy villains.

Story – High

A psychic child suppresses his powers to contain the destruction he could unleash if gone unchecked, but his naiveté allows a psychic fraud to take advantage of him to perform exorcisms. A mix of One-Punch Man action and Disastrous Life of Saiki K comedy results in the successful Mob Psycho 100.

Overall Quality – High

Recommendation: For action comedy fans. As long as you aren’t averse to the hectic and out there comedy style of Mob Psycho 100, you will have a great time with this one.

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Awards: (hover over each award to see descriptions; click award for more recipients)

Positive:

Negative: None