Mob Psycho 100 season 3 keeps interrogating anime’s power dynamics

Season 3 and Finale Mob Psycho 100 The series picks up right where the previous ones would have finished. Shigeo Kageyama (aka Mob), is the protagonist. AlreadyA worldwide conspiracy against evil psychics was defeated and the Earth saved from destruction. There is so much more to be done. Find out more. Mob Psycho 100, this is just the beginning — our hero has to decide what he wants to do with the rest of his life.

Shonen, a genre of anime and manga that is typically targeted at young men, has escalation in its official DNA. Shonen stories can be incentivized by the fact that they are regularly cliffhangers because of their serialized weekly chapter releases. Protagonists start with a specific, seemingly impossible goal — Naruto’s quest to become the strongest ninja in his village, Luffy searching for the One Piece, and so on — and spiral outward. Every new enemy is more dangerous, cool, and interesting than the previous.

While many shonen series may have well-established, deep character bases, some can be fundamentally different. Individualist genre. The protagonist, whether it’s Izuku Midoriya, Naruto Uzumaki, or Son Goku, relies on others and builds relationships. Their success or growth comes down to their individual strength. Often, this is often expressed in single combat. Your friends can give you the emotional strength to punch good, but at the end of the day, it’s You fist.

One, the pseudonymous mangaka behind Mob Psycho 100This script is flipped upside down by. His work tends to ask, “What if you already Had all the power you could possibly need… and it didn’t make you happy?”

ONE’s breakout series One Punch Man It is, at its core, one joke that’s repeated over and over: The protagonist Saitama can beat any enemy with just one punch. He struggles to find meaning in life, even without real challenges or adversity. One Punch Man frequently devolves into a riff on drawn-out shonen series where the protagonist’s victory is a foregone conclusion (specifically Dragon Ball), but the most compelling parts of the series pit Saitama up against an opponent he can’t beat with brute force — bureaucracy and office politics.

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  Image: ONE/Viz Media
  

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  Image: ONE/Viz Media
  

While his surroundings are filled with geniuses, cyborgs, and psychics, Saitama remains a normal person, who became stronger by sheer will and effort. Mumen Rider (a completely normal man who rides his bike to rescue people) is not the least sympathetic character in this series. Saitama has difficulty climbing up the Hero Association ranks, as his exploits are often taken credit by other heroes and the public is frequently critical of his appearance. He also clashes with the other members of the Hero Association over what it means to be a hero — though the other characters all have specific, flowery ideals, Saitama just wants to be a hero for fun, something ONE underlines again and again. He isn’t detached from reality, but his invincibility leaves him perpetually aloof, bored, and put-upon.

Mob Psycho takes the basic idea of a protagonist who is definitionally all-powerful and gives it more emotional heft and seriousness, leaning into the idea that there are some problems you can’t solve by punching them. Shigeo Kageyama (14 years old) is the world’s most powerful psychic. But Shigeo (nicknamed “Mob” because he seamlessly blends into the background) avoids using his powers as much as possible. Mob instead wants to become popular and win over his childhood crush Tsubomichan. It’s not just that he wants other things besides being a powerful psychic; his powers aren’t even Interessant To him.

This central irony is heavily underlined early in the series, when Mob is set up to join his school’s flailing Telepathy Club, which ostensibly exists to investigate the potential existence of aliens and psychic powers. Mob could join the Telepathy Club to follow the logic of an older shonen story and allow him to discover his talents. Mob chooses instead to join the Body Improvement Club. At first, they were described as intimidating jocks that threatened to seize control of the Telepathy Club. They quickly became the most charming characters in the series and support Mob throughout his weight training and stamina training.

Mob uses his abilities to help himself instead of working part-time for Spirits and Such. Spirits and Such is a psychic agency owned by Reigen Arataka. (If you haven’t seen the show before, there are two important things to know about Reigen: He’s basically a slightly more lighthearted anime version of Saul is better’s Jimmy McGill, and he’s an internet sex symbol.) Mob does exorcisms on Reigen. Reigen claims that he is a strong psychic, but has no supernatural powers.

Reigen is a casual liar who exploits Mob for his own ends, but he’s also frequently the moral center of the series — he teaches Mob the importance of not using psychic powers against people, and is fond of noting that people have all sorts of gifts, whether it’s academic talent, physical prowess, a way with words, or, yes, psychic power. Via Reigen, Mob Psycho 100 It’s a series you should watch Syndrome. Amazing Things sneer that “when everyone’s super, no one will be” and respond, “Yeah, dude, that sounds cool as hell.” (The opening lyrics of the series’ first intro song are “If everyone is not special, maybe you can be what you want to be.”) Where other anime characters’ lives are frequently Defined by their gifts — Goku by his Saiyan fighting strength, Naruto by his ninja talents, and so on — Reigen exists to remind Mob that he doesn’t need to pursue something just because he’s good at it, and he doesn’t need to think of himself as being better than anyone else. Mob’s life is his own. (Except for the time he’s at work — then his life is Reigen’s.) There’s some extratextual irony in the fact that Kyle McCarley, who played the heavily exploited Mob in the English dub in seasons 1 and 2, was replaced in season 3 because he attempted to negotiate a union contract on behalf of his fellow actors.)

Image: Bones/Crunchyroll

While Mob may receive this lesson in almost every episode, ONE’s work is in fact populated by villains who You can find it here to think of themselves as special — people who want To become anime protagonists. Almost every antagonist is in anime. Mob Psycho 100 has a debilitating case of Main Character Syndrome: They’re people born with psychic powers who think that having that gift doesn’t just mean they’re Special, it also means they’re more important than everyone else around them. This fundamentally childish belief defines both the heroes and the villains of many anime and manga characters. And Heroes, but also many other people. Mob Psycho 100 is just surprisingly deft at, essentially, telling its villains (and, perhaps, some of its readers and viewers) that they’re overgrown babies who need to go touch grass. Each time he confronts an opponent, Mob is able to apply his own experience to connect with them, because he knows what it’s like to feel disconnected from everything and everyone except your own mind. “Enemies becoming friends” is a classic anime trope, but in the case of Mob Psycho The trope serves a particular thematic purpose. It is used to reveal an isolated loner who struggles with isolation and a power-tripping megalomaniac boss.

Mob sees the common anime activity of defeating foes as a means of creating a community. Some of his old foes are now rivals. Some others use Mob to inspire them as they try to live a normal, happy life. Mob is able to find his place in the agency by working with Reigen at Spirits and Such. He doesn’t have to worry about being abandoned by his mentor. Premiere of the third season. Mob Psycho 100It is dedicated to this topic. We the viewers might want to see Mob and Reigen ride off into the sunset as colleagues and friends who continue to work together after the end of the series, acting out the same dynamic we’ve come to know and love. But there’s no world where Mob has a satisfying adult life working for Reigen. He now has complete control over his own life.

Of course, subverting and reflecting on straightforward power fantasies isn’t exactly new: Being ambivalent about power has been a central theme of anime since, at the absolute latest, the sixth episode of the original 1979 Mobile Suit GundamThe story of Amuro Ray, the protagonist who tries to escape from his role as an ace pilot (read: mass murderer)

Yoshihiro togashi, the immensely successful mangaka, is most famous for his creations. Yu Yu Hakusho Hunter x Hunter, continually engages with the limits of individual power, and the way that pursuing “power” can bump against the more important calling of being a cool and nice guy with friends and loved ones. At various points during his series, characters like Yusuke Urameshi — singularly gifted, enormously powerful heroes — decide to leave the fight in order to focus on something even scarier than demons: A happy life.

I don’t have direct evidence to prove this, but it feels pretty clear to me that Togashi is a major influence on ONE. You can find many characters in Mob Psycho who pay visual homage to Togashi’s characters, some with similar abilities. Mob is a boy with a lazy face who confronts an incomprehensible supernatural evil. This image evokes the background of Yu Yu Hakusho Shinobu, the antagonist of Reigen, is a brilliant child psychic and was deputized instead of being met by Reigen. Both Mob and Reigen are put through the wringer, realizing slowly that supernatural creatures and spirits aren’t inherently evil just because they’re not human.

Sensui’s confusion between right or wrong is broken when he encounters the cabal of wealthy, powerful people torturing demons to make money. After being abandoned functionally by the indifferent, insensitive Spirit World, he sets out on his path to evil. After defeating Sensui, Yu Yu Hakusho’s protagonist Yusuke Urameshi rejects Spirit World himself, and starts asking some of the same questions that plague Mob: What does it mean to hold on to your own sense of justice? What is the point of fighting in the first instance? How would you live your normal life if you put all of your abilities aside?

Togashi’s work explores the failings of supposedly benevolent institutions, the moral ambiguity of heroism, and the relationship between power, craft, and meaning, setting a template for how ONE engages with the same topics. There are other things. Yu Yu Hakusho (and Togashi’s ongoing series Hunter x HunterThese questions are derived from the traditional structure of shonen, where protagonists start with a goal, but then start questioning themselves once they have achieved it. ONE’s work is able to simultaneously ignore that structure And It is easy to take everything as it comes. But, Yusuke insists on asking these questions from the beginning. Yusuke must endure brutal training and battles before realizing that life might have more to it. ONE’s protagonists are able to StartThey are then forced to take responsibility for their actions and spend much of their time searching for answers.

Mob Psycho These tensions are transformed into a physical psychic toll. The series employs a percentage tracker that shows how close Mob comes to losing control over his suppressed emotions. This is a result of a childhood incident in which he hurt his brother. Once he hits 100%, he “explodes” into a display of raw, destructive power. Without spoiling anything for people who haven’t read the manga, this repression is itself the final boss of the series, as Mob is finally forced to confront the nature of his own power, how he uses it, and his own discomfort with having the ability to change the world.

Image: Bones/Crunchyroll

Image: Bones/Crunchyroll

Image: Bones/Crunchyroll

Mob is Mob’s ultimate enemy. This makes perfect sense, as Mob was dead by season end. It has gotten stronger. While he may not be an elite athlete, his stamina has improved. He is close to many people, including former enemy psychics and members of The Body Improvement Club. And, in shocking contrast to the wallflower we met at the beginning of the series, he’s able to form his own opinions, voice them to others, and solve problems collectively. Mob is attempting to solve a problem that’s more frightening than any psychic in the second episode. It involves a school-wide project. He still doesn’t quite know what he wants to do with his life, but he knows he wants to figure it out for himself. Many Shonen characters build relationships over the course their journey. However, these communities are usually centered on their unique gifts in particular school settings. My Hero Academia, Food WarsAnd even more Naruto. But again, ONE’s work feels distinct; though Mob’s psychic powers are ostensibly the reason for the show, they’re almost completely incidental to his actual growth.

Mob is committed to doing the hard work of improving, even starting from a pitiful beginning — not just because he wants the end goal of being popular, but because the work is rewarding in itself. Informally, this quality is also reflected in Mob Psycho 100 itself: By conventional stAndards, ONE’s art looks coarse and childish, especially in the original webcomic version of both Mob and One Punch Man. But after several years (and, admittedly, with help from assistants), ONE’s art has become expressive and specific, capturing the contrast between the goofy indignities of everyday life and the cosmic-level stakes of psychic war.

Image: Bones/Crunchyroll

The anime series is successful in large part because animation studio Bones has latched onto those seemingly sloppier elements of ONE’s work. In Bones’ hands, simple character designs and off-putting expressions become visually stunning Silly Putty. Throughout the series’ big, pyrotechnic fight scenes, Mob is often rendered as a relatively static, unmoving blob, and his lack of response or interest in the fight heightens the absurdity of the proceedings without deflating any of the spectacle. As much as he might want to be somewhere, anywhere else, he can’t quite escape being in the middle of a battle.

In these sequences, Mob remains isolated and alone in the face of whatever enemy he’s fighting. While Mob Psycho 100 effectively makes the case for choosing to spend one’s life in community with others, it does still ultimately posit that that choice is up to the individual. Mob is not the Main Character Syndrome. However, he remains the protagonist. ONE’s work is so good at exploring this thematic material that it raises more questions. Like, what would happen if a story simply started with the assumption that individual power isn’t the be-all and end-all, and that we have to struggle communally? From there, where would we go?

These fans might not need to go far to find the answer to their questions. Mob Psycho This argument is persuasive Everyone Mob strives to achieve freedom, but should also have the potential to make the kind of life they wish. It’s a different vantage point than many of his fellow shonen protagonists have, one that sets up potential new and compelling directions for the genre alongside other compelling, subversive series, like Jujutsu Kaisen. Mob Psycho 100 season 3 starts after most other series would end, but there’s still plenty of room for ONE to keep doing something new. Rather than having to decide what to do with the rest of his life, maybe someday we’ll see Mob actually put in the work of living.

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