Season: 1
Number of Episodes: 12 (24 minutes)
Stars: Akio Matsuda, Yuki Nagano, Jun Fukuda
Release Year: 2016
Rated: N/A
Synopsis: Shigeo Kageyama is an average middle school boy, nicknamed Mob (モブ means background character) for lacking a sense of presence. Although he seems like an inconspicuous person, he is in fact a powerful psychic. As he grows older, Mob realizes his psychic powers are dangerous. To avoid his power getting out of control, he constantly lives a life under emotional shackle. Mob wants to live just like others, but a barrage of trouble comes to him. With the suppressed emotions growing inside Mob little by little, his power threatens to spill over its bounds.
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
"Listen. Just because you have psychic powers doesn't make you any less human."
I didn't expect to come out of this show loving it so much, but Lord, it was amazing! I was kind of iffy on "One Punch Man" (which was written by the same writer), but let me tell you, hands down, this is the better show.
I should make it clear that I'm not an anime fan. I believe anime can produce fantastic and entertaining shows, just like any other form of television from any other country can, but the majority of what I watch isn't Japanese animation. What I'm saying is, I'm no expert, but by my standards "Mob Psycho 100" was pretty awesome.
The animation was great. A lot of animated TV shows (even the ones with large budgets) can fall into habits of cutting corners to avoid having to do a lot of expensive animation, especially once you get further into a season. This show not only dodged that bullet, but provided great animation, especially for the fight scenes. There's not much I can say on this beyond that it looked really cool. If you think the weird character designs will throw you off, you need to forget about that and go watch the show right now, because the art style fits perfectly and makes the show even better.
Also, Mob is my son now. The main character of this show, Shigeo (better known as Mob) is a 14-year-old boy, and I have officially adopted him as my son. He is such an amazing character, and his morals and personality are so sweet and kind. I love his relationships with his brother, his mentor, and his friends, because just about everything he says to the people he loves is heartwarming. The flashback scenes of him as a younger child (like the one in the GIF above) killed me with adorableness and gave me cavities. But don't let that fool you! He will kick your ass.
Although Mob is the character I would die for, I still have to say that the character with the best scenes was Mob's mentor, Reigen. Reigen scams people by telling them he's a psychic (lie) who can get rid of ghosts (lie), and when things hit the fan he uses Mob's powers to fix everything. Sure, he's taking advantage of Mob, but you can never really hate him for that because it's clear that he really and truly cares for Mob and wants him to be a good person. He's also a riot, and his confidence and scams provide for some great comedy.
Speaking of comedy, the show is funny!
I had only one moment of literal, laugh-out-loud comedy, but all of the smaller jokes and unexpected twists still kept me very entertained. (I'm not going to say what that moment of laughing-out-loud was, because if you haven't seen the show, I don't want to spoil the joke).
The plot wasn't amazing, but it didn't have to be. The show had such great characters, and I loved the characters more than enough to let any issues with the plot slide.
My main complaint was that some parts of the plot seemed rushed, specifically Ritsu's (Mob's brother's) arc. His character motivations shifted so often and so dramatically over the course of the season with motivations that just felt a bit weak. If they had made his shifts less drastic, or somehow more warranted, the plot would have been stronger (This is true for Teru's arc as well, although to a lesser degree).
I've got to say though, the show was great. I recommend it highly.
(If you're stuck between the English dub or the original Japanese with English subtitles, let me tell you that the dub is great, and you're not missing out on anything.)
-Claire
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