Hello everyone and welcome back to Mob Psycho 100, the best show of the season! It’s a rather tame episode this week, but even tame a Mob Psycho episode is still one of the most solid things to air. Don’t believe me? Well lets jump in and see if I can’t convince you by the end of this post.
First up, what do I mean by “tame”? Simply that there weren’t any “big” moments. No grand sakuga showcase, no fight, nothing that we can point to and say “That looked incredible”. Instead what we got was simple, solid consistency. Everything from small scenes of character acting to expressive body language and engaging visual metaphors. The kind of things that fall by the wayside in a lot of series, because who is going to notice, right? But Mob Psycho is known both for its incredible highs and it’s consistently solid “lows”. So now that we’ve seen that solid “low”, when can we expect the high? And remember, I say low but that’s still wildly above average for TV anime. Back to the high, from what I’ve read we know that Hakuyu Go, from Season 2 Episode 5 fame, is working primarily on episode 8. So expect that to be huge.
Getting into the episode itself, Mob Psycho continues to set things up and prepare for what’s to come. This episode is all about furthering the Divine Tree as a plot McGuffin. And what with the way its gathering psychic/divine power and is being horded by everyone around it, a pretty important one at that. Even Dimple is looking for a hustle, one beyond just stealing some power here and there and looking like a super saiyan. And for that, I think Mob Psycho did a good job. Not only have we seen its roots throughout the city, we now also know that everyone else is, at least on some level, aware of it’s power. On top of that, this episode also establishes collective belief, prayer basically, as a legitimate source of power. So that of course makes you wonder: Who has, or will take, that power?
But what about Mob, how is he involved in all of this? Well it’s simple: This whole Psycho Helmet cult thing, combined with everything else he’s been through and done over the last two seasons, have given him a big head. On some level, this is good! Mob is starting to gain self confidence for the first time, something he’s sorely lacked for awhile now. But with that self confidence also comes a layer of conceit, something Mob hasn’t experienced nor learned how to manage. We see this in how it manifests as Chad!Mob, complete with chiseled features and a cleft chin. Everything about him, personality to visuals, completely change. As off putting as it is though… I kinda like it. It’s a great visual gag, and the way Mob Psycho occasionally morphs between the two is fantastic.
What’s interesting about Chad!Mob though is how the rest of the cast are reacting to it, because of course they’ve noticed. Some, like Dimple, tried to help. They pointed out that he was just imagining things, not everyone is talking about him and, in Reigan’s case, that he was acting like a bit of a conceited dick. But in both cases, neither of them really came out and called him on it. For Dimple it was because he wanted to convince Mob to join him on this cult thing. But Reigan got distracted by the money. What not doubt makes it confusing for Mob though is how other characters, like Teru and Ritsu, are encouraging this behavior. Either because they are themselves conceited, Teru, or believe Mob deserves this so-called attention, Ritsu. With this personality conflict brewing, and sides seemingly chosen amongst the cast, where will it lead?
Well if you ask me the answer is obvious. Do you remember the fake Mob we saw at the end of the episode? The one made up of vines from the Divine Tree that looked exactly like Mob? I think that this is going to act as a physical manifestation of Mob’s growing arrogance, and that Mob will be forced to confront it. Whether or not he embraces it as part of himself or denies it is up in the air. But I suspect it’s going to become a sort of personal conversation, Mob to Mob, conducted through the medium of beating the shit out of each other via psychic powers. You know, the classic Shounen strategy of communication! And sure, we don’t yet know why this Fake Mob spawned, nor what it can do. But I suspect we are going to get our first taste of big sakuga next week, if you catch my drift.
So anyways, yeah, this was a pretty good episode of Mob Psycho. Once again, it was pretty tame. Mob Psycho is still blue balling us a bit when it comes to big blowout animation scenes. But, for me at least, the narrative is engaging enough for that to not matter and the animation we do get in the form of character acting and visual metaphors is interesting enough that I don’t mind it. That said, I cannot tell you how much I am looking forward to next week, because it seems to me that things are finally about to kick off. All the setup is done, a “Villain” has been introduced, the tracks have been set and now the only thing left to do is hit “Go”. I hope you’re as excited as I am.
