Mob Psycho 100 II モブサイコ100 II

2019 winter | Episodes: 13 | Score: 8.8 (1017039)

Updated every Mondays at 23:00 | Status: Finished Airing

Type: TV

Producers:Warner Bros. Japan | KlockWorx | BS Fuji | Hakuhodo DY Music & Pictures | Shogakukan

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Synopsis

Shigeo "Mob" Kageyama is now maturing and understanding his role as a supernatural psychic that has the power to drastically affect the livelihood of others. He and his mentor Reigen Arataka continue to deal with supernatural requests from clients, whether it be exorcizing evil spirits or tackling urban legends that haunt the citizens. While the workflow remains the same, Mob isn't just blindly following Reigen around anymore. With all his experiences as a ridiculously strong psychic, Mob's supernatural adventures now have more weight to them. Things take on a serious and darker tone as the dangers Mob and Reigen face are much more tangible and unsettling than ever before. [Written by MAL Rewrite]

Voice Actors

Ootsuka, Akio

Itou, Setsuo

Sakurai, Takahiro

News

Reviews

elthreedotcomma
01/18/2024, 09:54 AM
"Just having powers doesn't mean everything works out for you. But that's perfectly fine, as long as you make the important choices yourself. I'm the protagonist of my own life." Building off of its previous season, Mob Psycho 100 II delivers a much-improved masterful narrative, with heightened action choreography. What it has given to the world is a masterpiece of a story about kindness and power. Unlike its previous season, this one is anything but a lighthearted comedy. There are some comedic aspects, but the majority of it is serious. This tonal shift has been handled extremely well. Characters have been used and built up adeptly, asthe show has focused on their personality and maturity rather than their sole contribution to comedy. The biggest example of this is the sleazy Reigen Arataka. He is seen facing the consequences of his deceptive actions, rightfully so, but is also shown to be a compassionate and caring human, someone others can rely on. He slowly sees everybody he had a good connection with move further away from him, with his only "friend" being Mob. Reigen becomes someone we wanted to see : preserving his comedic nature but realising the importance of trust and honesty. Mob undergoes his own character arc : he gains some, he loses a lot. His power alone brings unwanted enemies to his family, who face the brunt of the unwarranted consequences. The viewer really gets to see the selfless Mob's true strength in this season : he utilises his power fully only when someone he cares about is on the line. The villain is shown to be a stubbornly logical character : he truly believes in his purpose, however flawed it may be. He is a pessimistic and uncaring father, and serves as the polar opposite of the optimistic Mob, for whom there is always hope for tomorrow. By the end, we see how much he regrets his actions that led him up to this point. As an action show, it goes above and beyond, with Studio Bones giving viewers the best choreography in the past few years. As a serious story, it covers all plot points it needs to. As a drama, it focuses on its characters perfectly. Mob Psycho 100 II gives us the story of many characters, but never forgets where its roots lie : portraying a narrative focusing on the importance of kindness and humility in the presence of power.
literaturenerd
09/19/2022, 03:36 PM
Since season 3 is right around the corner, I decided to give an overview of Mob Psycho 100 and what makes it one of the most unique shonen anime around today. If I had to describe Mob Psycho in just one sentence, I would say that it's a shonen that rejects the tropes and teachings of shonen SOO hard that it accidentally became an old school superhero comic. Shigeo "Mob" Kageyama is a genuinely good person who was born with absolutely incredible power, but only wishes to use that power to help other people and make the world a better place. He never has totrain like crazy to be the very best. He starts out being the strongest just though his natural genetics. He makes friends throughout the series and greatly values friendships, but he gains friends completely independent of his powers. He doesn't use his powers because he's lonely and wants to impress people so he can have friends. He would have about as many friends and be just as happy if he never had powers. Mob doesn't define himself by his powers. He's just a really chill dude with a strong sense of morality who happens to have powers. Shigeo doesn't resemble any shonen hero I can think of in the history of shonen. He's Japanese Clark Kent. To understand why Mob Psycho is weird as a shonen, you have to look at the evolution of shonen manga/anime starting in the early 1970s. One of the biggest and most influential shonen heroes of that time was Joe Yabuki. Joe doesn't start off the manga as a particularly nice guy. He's kind of an asshole antihero who starts out at the very bottom of society. However, he trains hard and along his journey he grows stronger, makes allies, and eventually transforms into someone you can cheer for. Devilman was another 1970s antihero. Amuro from the original Gundam is a depressed teen who is reluctantly forced into war and later gets screamed at by his mother for being a murderer since he's mowed down so many enemy soldiers. He's killed thousands of people by the end of that series. Once you get past the Astro Boy era, young man's manga/anime has traditionally been dominated by anti-heroes who don't start the series as nice people and often aren't truly "heroic" in a traditional Western sense. Kenshiro was a Mad Max/Bruce Lee ripoff who wandered the wasteland killing hundreds weak goons with zero remorse and was the most popular and influential shonen character of his decade. Goku was one of the first shonen heroes to even resemble a Western superhero, but that was mostly due to the meddling of Toriyama's editors. Toriyama always wanted Goku to be more like Sun Wukong from Chinese mythology. Sun Wukong the Monkey King is an arrogant, selfish little monkey jerk who just enjoys the thrill of fighting and isn't really a moral paragon. Now let's step into the 90s. We begin the 90s with Yusuke Urameshi. He's a juvenile delinquent who likes to get in fights and smoke cigarettes on the school roof while he's cutting class. He doesn't see himself as a particularly nice person and doesn't usually go out of his way to save the world. He more often gets put into these situations where he has to fight in order to protect the few people he actually cares about and if you mess with his friends then he'll fuck you up! You guessed it! We're still stuck on anti-heroes! The mid 1990s are dominated by Shinji Ikari who is a generally nice boy with serious psychological issues and depression. Not exactly a traditional superhero. Naruto and Deku embody the shonen Jump hero of the modern era. They begin the series as losers who get bullied constantly. Then they start working hard and eventually gain tremendous power. Once they improve themselves and gain more physical power, only then do they start to gain friends and get a girlfriend and things go right for them. The moral message of modern shonen is that if you work hard, you can grow stronger. Once you become stronger either physically, academically or in some capacity, even the people that bullied you will reluctantly respect you. You can make friends and get a girlfriend and be a winner in society. It's supposed to encourage Japanese children to strive and seek self-improvement, which is a healthy message. However, it's often unfortunately mixed with a "Might makes Right" worldview. If Deku or Naruto had never gotten super strong, they would have continued getting absolutely shit on by everyone around them. Bakugo like Vegeta before him starts out as an outright evil bastard who hates the main character for being born inferior to them and daring to not bow down. Then they begrudgingly respect the hero only because the hero is strong. They never actually have to suffer consequences for their misdeeds or really have a moral epiphany. Usually, there's a time skip and suddenly the asshole rival is just kind of accepted as one of the good guys. If you're strong in shonen, that's ultimately what matters. So, as mentioned above the self-improvement message is kind of poisoned by this almost Fascist worldview. Another way that Mob does away with Shonen's "might makes right" morality is that it completely gets rid of the biggest curse in all of shonen...power levels. Mob's teacher is the funniest character in the show and the most popular character in the whole franchise. He has no powers whatsoever. He's just a regular dude who cons people into thinking he has powers. This regular dude with a power level of 2 is able to repeatedly save Mob from danger, positively impact the story, and not get sidelined by a lineup of increasingly strong characters who have bigger numbers than him and therefore make him irrelevant. Mob genuinely reveres his teacher and in no way sees him as lesser, even though he's millions of times stronger than him. Naruto's best friend isn't some normal dude. Naruto's best friend in defiance of all logic is Sasuke, who is both a horrible person and also despises him. Why? Because Sasuke is strong! Krillin is officially still Goku's best friend when Toriyama remembers, but in reality, it's Vegeta. Why? Because Vegeta is strong! At no point in this series does Mob's respect for someone increase simply because they're strong. Mob meets someone early in the series who thinks psychics are superior to normal people and is SUPER strong. Mob just thinks he's some asshole. Once he sees the light, he grows to respect Mob. Not because Mob is strong, but because Mob changed his worldview, and he genuinely feels remorse for being an asshole. Mob somehow manages to be subversive while also being incredibly traditional. Mob is storytelling SO old that it's new again. Shonen has never seen anything like it. Even American comics since the success of Watchmen in 1986 have at least partially turned away from inspirational stories like this. It would certainly be boring if every anime was like Mob and every comic hero was Superman, but after SO much subversion and anti-heroes, this honestly felt refreshing. Also, I hope all future shonen take note of Mob's success and FUCK power levels!
KnucklesOfficial
02/26/2022, 12:24 PM
I came into Mob Psycho with a very open mind, hoping to be amazed by some genius story with amazing characters and great developments. What I received was some underwhelming bullshit about a young boy being manipulated by a degenerate con artist to eliminate these meaningless 'spirits'. Mob for whatever reason has insane innate psychic power, more than everyone else which is never explained and is LITERALLY HORSE! He doesn't want to abuse them or whatever but then just abuses his power for the entire show which was just cringe to watch. Also the antagonist of the show CLAW or whatever is actually so lameit's painful. Terrible show.
CodeBlazeFate
03/20/2020, 11:21 AM
It's taken quite a while to sit down and write my thoughts on Mob Psycho 100 II. For the longest time, I've been trapped in this limbo of not wanting to write but never finding anything remotely close to my perspective being represented. It's as if no one has any of the same problems I have with this season, therefore I’ve yet to find someone disappointed in it for any of the same reasons as me. As such, this review is born more out of a place to satisfy myself and bring peace to my perspective than anything I’ve written thus far. Keeping a measuredand somewhat informed perspective is still integral to what is being written here, but the fact remains: this was the first of many anime from 2019 to disappoint me. Let’s get the big positive out of the way. The visuals are some of the best in recent years. Season 1 already had stellar animation with its vibrant fight scenes filled to the brim with sakuga. The first scene alone was enough to set the standard for this series, which would be matched by several key fights in the show. There’s a sense of weight and impact to many of the attacks combatants use, from psychic blasts to superpowered fists slamming people into the ground. It’s not that the fights were ever exceptionally brutal or bloody since they weren’t, but they were heart-pumping with how they communicated each devastating hit and frenzied blow someone took. It’s the way characters would stretch and contort with every crushing blow, how environments would shatter upon impact and the camera zooms in at a controlled pace to create dynamic angles that sell attacks traveling at blistering speeds. The show’s simple, rugged art style allowed for all of this to be possible, and the direction by Yuruzu Tachikawa that allowed for a steady hand that could keep up with the frenzy being shown on-screen This second season continues this trend with several astounding sequences such as the main fight scenes of episodes 5 and 11. While nothing is ever quite as epic a slugfest as Mob vs Koyama in season 1, the animation in most of the fights here is top-notch. The camera is allowed to be taken to even wilder heights as battles get more aerial than ever before. Hakuyu Go, the man behind the monstrous fights from Fate/Apocrypha episode 22 and One Punch Man episode 12 came back and delivered another grand slam with his storyboarding and animation direction for this season’s 5th episode. Perhaps more so than any other fight in this series, it feels dynamic and larger than life in a way that’s hard to put into words. Few titles this year can keep up with some of the fights presented here, even as films such as Fate/Stay Night: Heaven’s Feel 2 step up to the plate. Even outside of the monumental fights, the show’s rough art style and vibrant aesthetic make it interesting to look at even in scenes of characters just sitting around and talking. They never quite reach the levels of just having lip-flaps be the only real source of motion for minutes on end like with most shows that require exposition dumps or characters conversing, as there’s always a nice visual gag or a few gestures going around. The general aesthetic of the show is eyecatching in general, and the designs remain simple yet often vibrant just as before. The only moments I found awkward were in episode 9, including its big fight scene. Even then, it’s not like the show ever looked bad, so a few stumbles in animation quality still have the show looking better than many of its contemporaries. Unfortunately, animation does not a good anime make, and I have a more complicated assortment of feelings towards everything else about the show. The easiest to cover would be Kenji Kawai’s OST, as I didn’t notice a single new background track. All of the music that plays during the fight scenes sound exactly as they did in season 1, and find themselves feeling overplayed here. If any new additions were made, it’s unnoticeable in the show itself, which is criminal for a Kenji Kawai score. This man did the music for Ghost in the Shell 1 and 2, as well as Irresponsible Captain Tylor. Even his Gundam 00 OST had a few memorable pieces that got expanded upon with each installment. I’m not sure what happened here. Luckily, we still have a banger of an OP theme with “99.9” by Mob Choir feat. sanjou no Hana. It’s a more adrenaline-pumping, energetic tune that captures how much more action-driven this second season is compared to the first. The show also has 4 EDs, but the only one I care about is the song that played at the end of episodes 1 and 7: “Gray” by sajou no Hana. It’s easily the most tender and emotional track, fitting for some of the beautiful moments that cap off those two episodes. This brings me to some of the emotional climaxes in the first half of the show. Episode 1 was a beautiful and hilarious reintroduction to Mob as a character, with him being roped into running for student council (and failing miserably) before someone asks him out. We follow him as this new girl, Emi, as they struggle to connect before Mob eventually reveals his psychic powers in one of the most genuine scenes in the show. The way he uses it to repair a piece of writing her so-called friends tore up in front of her really brings to light how committed the show is to accentuating how much of a sweet person Mob is and how beneficial his powers can be. The show has always been about self-improvement and recognizing the benefits of your gifts while never losing sight of how everyone has one so no one should let their gifts define them as some supreme being. While there are a lot of moments like this peppered throughout the series, it’s when the show decides to quiet down in its more human, slice of life moments, where Mob Psycho 100 is at its best. There’s no better example than the Reigen arc, which comprises episodes 6 and 7. Finally taken to task for his slimy conning and how he puts himself before even Mob, the one person who looks up to him for all the advice he has given, Reigen is at wit’s end. It’s only when he finally owns up to what a scummy douchebag he can be that he’s saved from the ultimate character assassination which had been catching up to him, before Mob lets him know that he understands who Reigen truly is beyond all of the fronts and scams he put up. It’s hard to do this moment justice without spoilers, but it’s the one time this show nearly brought me to tears. Mob and Reigen by this point, have become a perfect duo for exemplifying the core themes of this show, and their dynamic, ever-evolving personalities are a joy to watch. Sadly, there’s the rest of the show. Episode 2 is a perfectly fun joyride of explosive animation and cute comedic scenes, so I’m got gonna dog on this one. Episode 3 is where the cracks really begin to form, as Mob has to choose between doing his job of exorcising spirits or sparing them as they just want to live their lives. This feels like a plot that should have been handled as early as the 3rd or 4th episode of season 1. It’s the most obvious story to tell with this kind of premise, and the way they execute it feels so melodramatic and hamfisted, like the show keeps shouting “FEEL BAD” without just letting the emotions play out naturally. It feels sophomoric for how late into the series this plot comes in. Then we get episodes 4 and 5, which make up the Matsuo arc. Matsuo possesses a teenage girl and a bunch of espers are summoned to exorcise him, including Mob and Reigen. Once Mob holds his own against Matsuo, he’s effectively transported to a nightmare scenario where for several months, he’s powerless and put into a school where everyone hates and bullies him, that way Mob’s idea of self-improvement and how his powers don’t make him who he is will crack. It’s amazing how in a show about absurdly durable superhumans that something like this can still test my suspension fo disbelief, but sometimes this second season does that to me, especially since it feels like the show wants to go to extremes to get its point across compared to season 1. It’s going this far just for the classic fight between self-improvement/the human spirit and nihilism and chaos. It doesn’t exactly feel earned, and when Reigen’s voice finally reaches Mob after months in this simulation (probably a couple of minutes in real-time) and suddenly makes him remember all of his values so he can stand up to Matsuo, instigate the epic fight scene, and win the literal and ideological battle. It all feels hamfisted and not nuanced, even compared to season 1 which never had to go overboard to get its point about self-improvement and foregoing entitlement across. It all starts to get across the idea that the show is gonna keep suffering from these issues as it progresses into its second half, making it all the better when the Reigen arc avoids these pitfalls. I should mention that at no point in these first 7 episodes is Claw, the evil organization that wreaked havoc in the second half of season 1 while threatening to make a return, even mentioned. In season 1, this made sense as we were getting to know the world and what kinds of enemies and struggles Mob would face before the evil organization stomped onto the scene to test our heroes and further solidify the show’s main themes. Season 2 tries the exact same structure, with the first 7 episodes being primarily slice of life comedic or dramatic escapades as well as encounters against one asshole psychic, before episode 8 onwards has the big bad Claw organization jump into the fray. However, this set-up doesn’t work as it completely undercuts the looming threat they’re supposed to have. It would be fine if maybe there were a few encounters planned out by them or even passing mentions to remind the audience not to get too comfortable as the bad guys could come back at any moment. It ends up just having these guys retroactively leave no impact on the story or setting from their first arc back in season 1, undercutting what tension they could have. I get that maybe their reintroduction with the sabotage of Mob’s family in episode 8 is supposed to come as this wham-episode cliffhanger surprise to end all of the endearing hijinks the first 8 episodes had, but it felt so obvious that it was never truly earned. Everything afterwards has its own set of issues. There were some nice scenes with some of the supporting characters such as the members of the Body Improvement Club that Mob joined and had tried to keep up with back in season 1. Long-since reformed Teruki Hanazawa and the reformed Claw members along with Reigen taking on the teleporting Shimazaki, one of the top dogs of the organization, made for a fun and creative action setpiece. However, the first hurdle outside of the untwist that the son of the big bad of the organization very obviously did not kill everyone in Mob’s home and instead hid them and tried to awaken Mob’s power to help him fight the dad, was the first lame thing to occur here. Killing them off would be rather out of character for the show, which makes this so obvious that it genuinely feels cheap. Another awkward move was everyone’s decision to leave Mob with Reigen and Dimple when he was rendered unconscious, given that Reigen isn’t even a psychic, Dimple is still pretty weak after his encounter with Mob back in episode 3 of season 1, and they’re facing a group of superhumans who want to track down Mob. I get that this is supposed to show that Mob’s closest friends who aren’t the ultimate non-Mob badasses are with him to help, and that the plot still needs to get from point A to point B. It does feel like this show writes itself into a corner, though. Then the final episodes pull a few sins that I never thought possible: they made me stop caring. I no longer cared about the conflict, and I even stopped caring about Mob. I get that Mob is this pillar of self-improvement, the kind of guy you should want to root for all the way as he goes from the small kid you wanna protect to the badass who can protect you all the same while remaining true to the nervous dork he’s always been. Up until this final arc, the show has managed that, but with how hamfisted the show gets and how Mob becomes the center of almost everything, I felt ejected from what was going on. I was no longer immersed. When Mob faced the penultimate bad guy who was clinging to the main antagonist’s coattails cuz he finally felt valued and useful, I didn’t care. When the show blatantly spelled out multiple times that the dude was basically being used and that he needed to learn to truly value himself so he can stop being a shut-in loser who clung to people, it went in one ear and out the other. Season 1 was never the most subtle thing on the planet, but it never felt this preachy. That’s not to say that these lessons aren’t worth teaching, as they absolutely are. However, season 1 did most of them better. I get that this is all meant to be payoff as Mob does what Reigen did back in season 1 by bitch-slapping to sense into misguided and/or entitled espers, but by the end he basically becomes Jesus, going as far as to attempt what seems like an ultimate sacrifice when trying to save the main antagonist of the show, who wants to rule the world. That brings me to the big boss man himself, the boring man Toichirou Suzuki. He views people as lesser and beneath him, so he wants to rule the world. While the show does make fun of the generic nature he announces his plans before he and his goons proceed to tear up the city, he still remains the boring bid bad guy who wants to rule the world cuz he’s the coolest and best while everyone else is boring and lame. There’s basically nothing else to him. He feels the least like an actual person out of anyone in the show, more akin to a typical Fairy Tail antagonist than even some of the lesser Mob Psycho 100 side-acts. His fight with his kid was only barely more interesting than his fight with Mob, as at least that one had personal stakes and build-up despite that being a fight designed to job the kid who was already a mysterious, untrustworthy powerhouse. I genuinely felt bored when Toichirou and Mob threw buildings at each other, as this climax barely had any build-up to pay off. The fact that afterwards the dude’s wife and kid are there to forgive and support him despite all of this, comes across as utterly asinine in context. Sure, forgiveness and reform are part of self-improvement i.e the core of this show, but there is a level of believability that can be strained before the show’s decisions regarding its themes and messages become hamfisted and ridiculous. The dude treated his wife and kid like shit due to his callous nature, and his kid wanted revenge on the man. For them to just quickly forgive him, resulting in everyone turning a new leaf, is a bigger stretch than when Teruki immediately went from an entitled jerk to a chill dude who gets everything without warning in season 1. There’s a way to make a quick and dramatic character change work, but that requires evidence that the character is starting to crack beforehand, and we have to spend time with them during the change. Otherwise, it’s like when Kirito got super depressed at the end of SAO episode 3, only to just become a generic OP badass in episode 4. That’s ultimately the problem I have with this second season of Mob Psycho 100. While its visuals are outstanding, it frequently overreaches when it comes to delivering its messages and thematics. It’s often hamfisted, sometimes extremely questionable in its writing. It’s a shame because a lot of the show’s lighthearted and comedic moments are incredibly charming. The subplots regarding the girl Mob pines for, the girl from episode 1, and Reigen’s arc are wonderful just as the slice of life and comedic elements in season 1 were. There are some sweet payoffs present too, and the show has a good heart to it. There are some shounen titles people believe work better when they’re purely in slice of life mode such as Fairy Tail, and I think I can say this applies to the second season of Mob Psycho 100. When the show wants to be more profound than that, it stumbles pretty heavily more often than not. It hurts to say because I was genuinely hyped for a continuation of a great series, and there are several wonderful moments and elements here. It just bogged down by all of these issues to the point that I somehow managed to stop caring. I could not have imagined that happening prior to the last arc of the show, let alone before I even got to season 2, but here we are long after this mixed bag ended. Where it counts, this season is not as consistent or effective as its predecessor, which is the opposite of self-improvement. That’s some cruel irony.
milshane772
04/02/2019, 03:19 PM
Ok, so I'm pretty sure I'm in the minority here so before I start this review let me just say that I very much enjoyed the second season of MP II. I rate a 7 due to the fact that it was not as interesting compared to the first season. More specifically, it had a certain charm that stems a lot from the dynamic between Reagan and Mob. Where the first season had an extremely good flow to it, most of the story this season feels more episodic. I rated the characters a 6 as a result of this. The firstseveral episodes almost perfectly encapsulated the feeling that I got from the characters from the first season. But the second half just failed to land for me as everything quite disconnected as you would have a touching story say about Reagan without Mob and then suddenly right the next episode everything was back to normal. With all this said in NO WAY is the show bad, far from it actually. The animation style used specifically for the fight scenes in certain arcs were extremely fluid and gorgeous to look at. The music was as great as the previous season, especially the op which I have probably listened to an unhealthy amount of times. To conclude, I definitely think this is worth the watch, but if you were expecting the same feeling you got from the first season I think you'd be a little disappointed like I was.
AnimeBW
04/02/2019, 03:03 PM
Mob Psycho 100 was one of the best anime of 2016, an electric bolt of whipcrack-sharp comedy and searing intensity that elevated original author ONE’s intimately realized portrait of self-improvement and prioritizing the important things in life into a piece of genuine pop art. So it’s kind of shocking to realize in retrospect how quickly the community at large moved on to the next big thing once the rush of the seasonal anime charts left it behind. Maybe the shadow of its contemporary One Punch Man still loomed so large that it couldn’t help but feel like a weird grunge band offshoot of a full-throttlehard rock extravaganza, or maybe the community’s taste just really is that shit. Either way, I certainly enjoyed the hell out of the first season, and it seems pretty much everyone else did as well, but it also never really stuck at the forefront of public consciousness the way it deserved to. I’ve even been guilty of that myself; as much as I loved every moment of it, for whatever reason, it never managed to touch me in that magic way that keeps it swirling at the forefront of my mind like the rest of my favorites. Since then, it’s been one of those really good shows that everyone talks about to some extent, but also often gets overlooked when the conversation turns to the widely regarded classics. And then, the second season aired. And you can bet your ass that no one is going to overlook Mob Psycho 100 EVER again. Picking up where the first season left off, Mob Psycho 100′s second season implements the same general formula, following the somewhat episodic adventures of the emotionally repressed middle school psychic Shigeo “Mob” Kageyama, the most powerful psychic in the world who nevertheless just wants to live a normal school life and improve on his own terms, and his slick, surprisingly helpful con artist master/god-tier husbando Reigen Arataka, as they battle a series of dangerous spirits an go about their daily lives, building up to a multi-part confrontation with the dangerous esper terrorist croup Claw in the final act. But make no mistake, this is no simple retread of the first season. ONE’s stories have always masterfully explored the idea that no amount of power, however great, can serve as a placeholder for true, genuine humanity. Even the strongest men on the face of the earth are defined above all else by their honor, their humility, their connections, their willingness to reach out. And without spoiling anything, it’s clear from the emotionally overwhelming end of the very first episode, which I was lucky enough to see early in a special movie event, that Mob is not content to jog in place, shut off from understanding his own emotions and the world around him. He truly, genuinely, wants to improve himself. Not in the simple way that most shonen heroes seek to power-up and push past their limits, but the true, exceedingly difficult act of facing your flaws, learning from your mistakes, and accounting for the deficiencies in your life in order to become a more well-rounded person. Don’t get me wrong, the first season also gave plenty of opportunities for Mob to grow into himself and figure out how to become someone he could be proud of. But now that the lessons he and his friends learned last time around have stuck, the story is able to advance into weirder, darker, more difficult places. Characters get challenged in ways that fundamentally reshape them as people, facing down their internalized weaknesses and unrealized potential in equal measure. The philosophical questions about the nature of power and its relative unimportance in the grand scheme of things are tested in the heat of battles too spoiler-filled to properly discuss. Nothing you took for granted back in the first season is sacred, and no one escapes the crucible completely the same. Over the course of this season, Mob Psycho 100 itself (and its titular character) evolves on such a fundamental level that it’s hard to even recognize it as the same show as the first season. Yet it still is the same show. It’s still every ounce of wit and heart that made the first season such an invigorating experience. Only this time, with the fundamentals of the world and characters already established, MP100 is able to take every single idea it teased out and set it sprinting forward at full tilt. The first season did a fantastic job talking the talk; now, the second season is finally able to walk the walk. And as a result, a show that was already really damn spectacular explodes into an indisputable modern masterpiece with the staggering, awe-inspiring force of an atom bomb. That simile isn’t even stretching the truth: the raw tectonic power of Mob’s journey to self-acceptance and self-improvement hits with so much goddamn force that I was regularly left reeling from the shock of what I’d just experienced. It’s stunning on a level that defies language, the kind of all-encompassing “HOLY SHIT HOW IS THIS SO GOOD” that can only be properly communicated by the frantic, floundering screams of experiencing it in the moment. I could look into your eyes, say “that one episode of Mob Psycho was episode of the year”, and you would have no idea what episode I was talking about, because so goddamn many of them would fit that description perfectly. Am I talking about that one subplot where Reigen’s predatory, manipulative mindset is finally challenged, forcing him to grow into his better angels and become the worthy master that Mob always saw him as? Or perhaps I’m referring to the beginning of the final showdown, kicked off by a cliffhanger so unbelievably destructive it risks giving you nightmares. Maybe I’m referring to that first episode, highlighting the critical juncture of Mob’s decision to better himself with one of the most conclusions of the entire show. But I also might be talking about the climax of Mob’s attempt to save a possessed, deeply damaged person, which is, without hyperbole, the single most visually stunning sequence of TV animation I’ve ever seen. Seriously, I have no earthly clue how any mortals managed to put that together. But that’s always been the magic of Studio Bones’ approach to this material; by embracing ONE’s original sketchy, ragged illustrations, they imbue their adaptation with such a frenetic, off-kilter energy that’s able to be messy and lopsided without losing a single ounce of visual shock and awe. And if you thought the first season was already a showcase for some of the most creative, imaginative animation ever put to screens, then you are not ready for this second season to take it up all the way to ???%. This is, no joke, the single most visually stunning TV anime I’ve ever seen, with the most consistently awe-inspiring sakuga and endlessly frenetic visual gags and quirks that make even the most mundane scenes shine with unending personality and momentum. Every second, every frame, is packed full of so much specific detail that you could spend a full year pouring through all background gags and clever shifts in animation style for emotional impact, from sketchy to dust blowing to grayola smears, and still have more to explore. And when the action kicks up, awash in a kaleidoscope of colors and a veritable hurricane of moving pieces, the spectacle is so eye-popping that words couldn’t possibly do it justice. It’s the kind of impossibly stunning visual flair that regularly leaves you speechless, wondering how on earth any of this was possible by human hands. And it perfectly emphasizes the emotions of every critical moment along the way, aesthetic working in synthesis with script to craft a narrative experience so overwhelmingly complete that any minor nitpicks you might have about occasional awkward dialogue gets swept away by the prismatic rapture of it all. Mob Psycho 100 was a show we never should have forgotten as easily as we did. It was too spectacular, too uniquely important as a staple of the best this medium is capable of, to let languish for lack of attention. But not only did this second season remind us all why it was so essential in its time, it blew past every boundary it set for itself and raised the bar not just on itself, but on the entire landscape of modern anime. We are never going to forget about Mob Psycho now. We are never going to forget the utterly mind-blowing experience it left us with. And we are never going to stop talking about how completely this season rewrote the rules and took us all to the next level. This is the kind of show that defines a generation, the kind of show we’re all going to look back on ten years from now and say “yeah, the don’t make ‘em like that anymore” with the same reverence we currently have for the likes of Gurren Lagann and Stein;s Gate. No, we don’t make them like Gurren Lagann anymore. We make them like Mob Psycho 100. And I fail to see how that can be anything else than the highest possible compliment. Now to wait with increasingly dejected hopelessness for the upcoming return of One Punch Man. Lord have mercy on us all.
ardaarsen01
04/02/2019, 06:11 AM
*This review contains light SPOILERS* WHY I LIKED: ⬤ Character driven plot ⬤ Opening and ending songs ⬤ Top quality dynamic visuals, super smooth animation, Dimple scenes in particular ⬤ Decent situational comedy, unexpected little twists. Not a single dialouge is wasted at least. ⬤ The progressive story of Mob who is slowly becoming a socially acceptable person is actually identical to "worldbuilding" ⬤ Mob Psycho shows how effectively slice of life episodes can be used in order to create foundations of action-heavy episodes. The thin line between fantasy and real life problems is portrayed perfectly, maturely and it makes characters "believable". They have their own causes, motives, pasts and feelings soyou can actually tell the weight of every single action, every single punch is doubled with feels. Yet those feels always come out with humorous tone, become one with the art style and speak to audience. Musashi vs Shibata is a great example to it. Seriously now... "Are you not entertained !!" As for slice of life episodes people disliked, I actually liked quite a few of them: > Episode 1 was pure Romantic and Emotional. Still happpens to be my favourte of the bunch > Episode 2 Urban Legends was ridiculously funny > Episode 4-5 the most destructive episode and the most beautiful crying animation. > Episode 7 was also an interesting milestone in terms of Mob-Reigen relationship. WHY I DISLIKED: ⬤ In contrast with episode 2 (Dimple vs Dragger), epiode 5 (Mob vs Mogami), episode 10 (Musashi vs Shibata), episode 11 (Scar vs Shimazaki) and some other minor clashes, the final fight (Mob vs Suzuki Sr) was anticlimactic and lasted shorter than I imagined. It was surely on another level but it wasnt rewarding as the villain didnt live up to my expectations. I was expecting a rage moment or two but instead Mob got ahold of himself by seeing his broher's face. So be it.. ⬤ The people can change motto is, I believe, overused as plot armor and it will damage Mob's character at some point. Mob should never resemble a simple-minded shounen MC. ⬤ Earlier episodes were as good as latter ones and surely accumulated alot of information for the final arc but still they were episodic. I am not a big fan of episodic animes. The show started to shine after episode 8 with Claw arc. SUMMARY: Mob Psycho might be the most succesful slice of life-action synthesis ever descended on earth! I can tell some viewers disapprove it but this is not your daily dose of dragonball. Although season 2 is a late bloomer I find it better than the first season. Things have gotten a little bit serious as I expected. One more thing ...Reigen self-defense !!! [[ 10/10 ]] !! Story: 9/10 Art: 10/10 Sound: 10/10 Character: 9/10 Enjoyment: 10/10 Overall: 10/10
mha_hater_No1
04/01/2019, 11:27 PM
Like you, I was waiting for the unknown entity seen in the "????!!!%" state in Season 1 to somehow be expatiated upon and it wasn't. This season was incredibly unsatisfying and lost it's reputation of breaking tropes and instead made the decision to follow every single Shounen trope. No ground breaking themes or events in this season, sadly. Every single villain in Mob Psycho's universe starts out with certain convictions and beliefs. Maybe this is a disadvantage the Shounen format has, but I feel the writers really took the worst of the format's issues and exacerbated it beyond belief. Every time a villain shows up, youknow for a fact that they are going to end up having a change of heart, or start having immense respect for Mob, specially when Mod reks them. Somehow losing makes the villain realize that he had been wrong about every single thing, and a little schoolboy (whose struggles are incredibly generic with loneliness and social awkwardness being the main themes) knows what the real way is to live in this world and enjoy it. The writers fail to understand that everything that bad happens in the world, isn't always going to be related to psychic powers. And not all issues can be explained away by saying, "You don't have the right attitude". Mob is never faced with an opponent that cannot be defeated with powers, or faces issues that actually make him rethink this beliefs or question them. This anime's basic statement is beat your enemies to a pulp and suddenly their ideologies and convictions will be forgotten, and they will follow your beliefs and respect you. For a show that focuses so much on inner strength and moral platitudes, the moral of the story is always that if you defeat your enemy, they will yield to you. It's like a guy pestering a girl at a party, begging her to sleep with him. Following this anime, I bet if I use physical strength against the girl I'd be able to conquer her in mind, body and spirit. Because being beaten up made her realize that I was very empathetic or had a similar life or something. It is incredibly creepy how Mob treats his villain, instantly realizing their hopes dreams and ambitions and continuing to ignore the villain's convictions in favor of his own path, which requires that he controls his emotions in order to be a better person. The world somehow tends to literally revolve around Mob and what his most recent emotion is. Situations manifest that only serve as a teaching moment for Mob and to realize that great truth about life that you can find on a fortune cookie. The villains have zero backbone. Even the horrible show that is My Hero Academia has respectable villains that actually touch upon the nature of evil. And how mere defeat and lectures from a school boy aren't enough to sway anyone's heart. I swear to God if these people talked about their feelings anymore I'd feel I was watching a chick flick. Being a nice person does not have anything to do with how Mob behaves. He sets a very bad example to follow. Even though he is OP, he is hardly ever able to nip any problem in the bud. There are zero consequences to anything that happens in the story and everything works out perfectly in the end. Having empathy is a necessary part of living a full life, but not to the extent that Mob says it does. Sometimes things need to be resolved with extreme prejudice, not because we hate the sinner, but because we want to protect someone or something. My interest in the second season was piqued by the inner "thing" that resided in Mob. The entity that was from another world. That moment was hair-raising and was amazing. I believe the most viewed videos on youtube have to do with that part of the 1st season. I was really looking forward to that this season and it is basically forgotten. I don't understand why there is a huge disconnect between the studio and the people. I would understand if the second season was more slice of life and didn't focus too much on fights, but that isn't the case at all. There are dragonballz type fights and action galore but none of them scratch your itch. For once we had an anime that broke the tropes and showed people who were so certain and full of themselves being brought down into the ground by an awkward school kid. There was something very cathartic about that, but that never happens in this season. They literally have to remove Mob from the scene in the beginning of the final arc so that the plot can progress, therefore Mob only ever has to deal with the biggest of the villains, who is also dealt with in a very anti-climactic way. Addition of so many espers to the show has also dampened the world-building. With every single esper that is added, the world of Mob-Pyscho becomes more removed from the fantasy we live in, therefore we end up caring a little less about the world and the consequences of living in a world with psychic powers. People are sick and tired of anime MC's getting the ever-loving crap beaten out of them for 15 minutes out of 26 minutes and then having the fight resolved in a couple minutes with everything working out. Just how many times do we have to see Mob getting pummeled into the ground? It's sort of sadistic in the sense, it made me feel that the creators of the show hated Mob in some weird way. I'm just very disappointed and I am happy that this season is over and I wouldn't have to see this again in my life.
rtil
04/01/2019, 04:31 PM
A few years prior to the 2nd season of Mob Psycho 100, this series was relatively unknown. One Punch Man - once a goofy webcomic drawn in the charmingly childish style of ONE - was masterfully redrawn by the accomplished mangaka Yusuke Murata, and not long after an explosive anime adaptation from Madhouse introduced the world to the works of ONE. No one saw Mob Psycho 100 coming. Adapted in ONE's style during the height of One Punch Man's popularity, its humble and unapolagetic flair both intrigued and repelled anime fans. But it didn't take long for those paying attention to take notice of the incrediblestory of ONE and the raw power of Bones' animation unfolding on screen. And just when most of us were thinking, "how will they top season 1?", we got blindsided again. Mob Psycho II is nothing short of lightning in a bottle - a perfect storm of solid storytelling, compelling characters and a studio willing to meet the challenge. What was initially shrugged off as "that thing that isn't One Punch Man" only two years before my typing this is now one of the most highly regarded anime series of all time. STORY: 90% In season one, Mob was always under the thumb of charming con-man Reigen. While Reigen is in many ways a father figure to Mob, it's clear from the very beginning that Reigen takes advantage of Mob's selfless good nature and naivete when it's beneficial to him. Despite that, Mob builds his philosophy around Reigen's early advice, "do not use your powers to hurt people." We see Mob get pushed to his limits several times as his emotions boil over and his hand is forced to protect the people that he cares for. Along the way, enemies and rivals become friends, and Mob begins to grow as a person. In season two, we get to see the fruits of these actions pay off in big ways. In Mob Psycho, the "power of friendship" doesn't come in the way of inexplicable power level boosts - Mob has always been a force of nature. How he got his powers and why he is so powerful is trivial to the core of the story - I can't stress that enough. Mob isn't interested in his own powers, he sees no value to them. He sees the value in hard work, cherishing and nurturing the latent ability that is inside of all people, not just espers. When he's back into a corner, he'll do anything to protect the people that cherish him and the people that he cherishes. It's what has always separated him from the antagonists he has faced. What Mob - and the viewer - are rewarded with is not the power but rather the value of friendship, as Mob's humanity inspires those around him to protect the same values he does. But many wrenches are thrown in the works as one crisis after another compounds on itself to the final arc of the 2nd season. My only reason that I am not giving the story a 100% is that the first few episodes retread familiar territory a little too much with Mob and Reigen doing what they always do - which isn't bad, but leaves you wondering what's coming next. Then episode five smacks you upside the head with one of the most surreal and mind-bending battles that briefly unleashes a new terrifying power in Mob we haven't seen before, only to bottle it back up again and bring us back down to reality. From then on, Mob Psycho puts its foot on the gas and doesn't stop. Mob and Reigen experience some heartfelt and well needed introspection. They drift apart briefly, only to come back together having a better understanding of themselves and eachother. And they need it, because the final arc of the anime is full of heart-stopping cliffhangers, twists and the most formidable antagonist that Mob and his friends have yet faced. Outside of all the monologues about power, espers vs humans and sakuga battles, Mob never forgets its core message, which lies at the center of its protagonist. Find yourself, embrace who you are, and become a good person. Mob refuses to let his powers define him, and in that respect the story of the anime refuses to let the esper battles do the same. While fantastic in their own right, they are a part of something bigger. Mob Psycho II ends in spectacular fashion and succeeds in taking the story to even greater heights. I have not read the manga, but I have nothing but full faith that if we are lucky enough to be graced with a 3rd and likely final season that we'll find ourselves stunned again. ART: 100% Studio Bones has taken full advantage of the simple style of ONE to take this anime production to a level we normally we don't get to see in broadcast anime. The characters' simple and straightforward designs allow the animators to be more expressive in other ways, and ironically Mob Psycho 100 is one of the most lively, well-animated and artistically striking anime we've ever seen. From the emotionally dramatic poses, facial expressions and light-hearted comedic moment styled in ONE's unforgettable faces, to the dark and foreboding nightmare sequences painted on glass by Miyo Sato, to the myriad of absolutely wild and untamed fight sequences, Mob has it all. I wish more anime productions were as bold as Mob to not be so rigid in an industry where I believe too much focus can be put into excessive character design detail, which forces animators to make a compromise in how many drawings they can squeeze into a scene. Mob, on the other hand, shows us what can be done when - perhaps unwittingly - an art style is animator-friendly, and consequently treats us to an almost never-ending demo reel of some of the world's best animators going all out for a project they care about. And you can tell just by watching it. SOUND: 100% Sound design and music in an anime can elevate or distract you from what is happening on the screen. A lot of creativity went into what an esper fight would sound like, and Mob has nailed it consistently. Every moment feels impactful and matches what is happening in that moment. To top it off, the music is fantastic and catchy - although what sticks out to me the most are the horror-esque caucophony of violins that screech every time something terrible is happening (or about to happen). CHARACTER: 100% Mob Psycho's story leans a lot on its characters, as many stories do. This can be good or bad depending on a few things. The first thing is the diversity and relatability of the cast. Do we resonate with the plight of the people in this fictional world? Do we empathize with their struggles, and even share them? I think the answer for most people with Mob is a resounding "yes". While none of us have Mob's powers, Mob is probably the most human of all in the cast. His pure intentions, desire for real friendship, and relentless drive to be a better and stronger person, all through a filter of humility are hard not to root for. He also learns to stick up for himself through the trials of this season, and while it causes temporary pain, he comes out stronger. Reigen also experiences some valuable development, as he sees Mob growing up, he begins to feel threatened by his independence and lashes out. He soon learns that Mob was the only friend that he had, and has to make a decision that will either make or break him, with risk to his past and his future. Seeing a character that spends most of his life putting on an act come down to earth and look inside himself is a grim reminder that there can be grim consequences for the different faces we put on - that you can only "fake it 'till you make it" until you don't. While Reigen turns a page himself this season, he's still the same in-your-face, quick-witted ball of charisma that you loved from the first season - just a better version of the one he used to be. It seems, for once, Reigen took his own advice, and it was thanks to Mob's friendship and honesty that he was able to see its value. As far as the supporting cast goes, I could go on and on. There are so many endearing characters, some who appear on-screen for a few moments and others who are far more important, like Ritsu, Mob's incredibly supportive and far more selfless brother. What matters is that there are two types of people in Mob's world - those who Mob has befriended, and those who he still wants to reach a hand out to. Everything in the story revolves around Mob, and the antagonists that are most closely tied to his outbursts of power are the ones who not only actively refuse his friendship, but seek to destroy everyone and everything he loves. It's at those moments we see Mob at his most terrifying and powerful, but want him to return to his humanity. And that's why Mob Psycho 100 is such a successfully character driven series. ENJOYMENT: 100% Season 2 is an emotional roller coaster. It's still full of light-hearted fun, and you will laugh. But it really plays with your heart on some extremely dark cliffhangers, life-threatening situations and a couple of "wait, did he just-" moments. At times, the antagonists can feel a little too shounen-esque in their monologues and diatribes about their power and just how great they are - but often get subverted by our heroes who are rolling their eyes as much as we are. It's proof that ONE is self aware of what he was writing and keeping Mob in a distinct place between an action series and a story about a boy who just wants to live a normal life. There are very few anime out there that I can say have the perfect mix of all the ingredients Mob has successfully thrown into the mix. This is one in a hundred, maybe even more rare. Every second of the series has been satisfying to watch, and also leaves me wanting more. It will be sad to see the day when there is no more left of the story of Mob Psycho to tell, but I also genuinely look forward to whatever ONE writes next - and I hope Bones picks it up, too. OVERALL: ???% Mob Psycho 100 is something truly special. There is no one I wouldn't recommend it to. I believe its largest barrier of entry is probably the art style - which I can see a lot of people shrugging off at first glance. To that I would say, if you ever needed proof that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover - or in this case an anime by a single frame - point them to Mob Psycho 100. I feel bad for anyone who skips out on this or couldn't enjoy it. We may very well never see an anime like this again. I hope that we do - but in the meantime, I tip my hat to ONE and everyone at Bones for pouring more than 100% of their passion into making Mob everything it could be and more.
forster82
04/01/2019, 03:08 PM
What do you mean Mob Psycho 100 got a second season before One Punch Man?! Anyways, I never actually thought that a second season of an anime could be way better than a first. I absolutly loved the first season of Mob Psycho 100 and just when I thought the second season couldn't be any better, I was completly wrong. This second season is without a doubt outstanding! It's so good that it's worth being my top 10 animes of all times! Even when trying my best to search for flaws in this second season of Mob Psycho 100, I wouldn't be able to find any.It's just visually outstanding and perfect! Every single episode left me aching for more. There just isn't anything worth criticizing in this anime, it's just that damn good. The story was outstanding, the visuals are phenomenal, the sound is marvelous, the characters are all fantastic! Overall a perfect anime in every aspect! Solid 10/10. <3
ItIsIDio
04/01/2019, 02:03 PM
If you are coming back to the second of Mob Psycho to once again experience the series, then I do have great news for you. It's maintained the level of quality it has presented in Season 1 and it has continued to develop on the themes it has been presenting so far. If you were satisfied in the past by Mob Psycho, it is very unlikely that this season of Mob Psycho is gonna be any different. If you're on the opposite side of the spectrum, I haven't seen Mob Psycho change its approach in any way that would cause someone to consider the seriesany better than they had if they have gotten an initial negative response from it. So if you consider giving the series another shot, there was nothing done to quelch your prior displeasure as everything is consistent. To go more in depth, the series follows the absolute same formula the previous season had, in the sense that it starts with a bunch of more comfortable situations that do not have a lot of high stakes for the world at large or even the protagonist himself, but eventually situations that force him out of the comfort zone take hold and force him to have an emotional response. In other words, the protagonist stoically endures every situation thrown at him and then has an outburst that displays who he is by the emotional response that has been triggered by the event. During the same battle and events leading up to it, he endures the immoral indignities that are placed upon him, and through enduring them, he showcases that he is the more moral man in the end. Ideally, every fight he endures fighting shows that he has become a better person and the fact that he endured that situation displays what the correct moral path in their life would've been for the aggressor. The animation presents the same level of care and detail it has always done and the OST at this point feels very familiar. Everything about the experience at its core has been the same, even if the execution has slightly improved. Mob's motivation has not changed in the slightest. He still wants to become a better person so that society and the people around him would actually want to be around him. He seeks to become a person that is worthwhile to have around by making other people appreciate and respect him. What is a person's worth, if all you seek is to entertain yourself by proving your superiority, and you end up unwanted as a result? Who are you gonna measure up to once you are alone, when everyone thinks you are a monster and despises you? Power is not something that helps Mob in the slightest, because it cannot make him feel better about himself, about how the world at large would just not interact with him, and power has only ever been a detriment in achieving that goal. Thematically, it tries to touch upon that a person's worth is not decided by themselves, and everybody is useful to somebody else. From the very beginning, that never changed. His feelings and situation continue to adapt around this theme. Every praise you have probably given Mob Psycho for the things it has done is gonna be maintained as valid because the show is gonna be experienced in the exact same way and really in order to not reiterate every praise the show has been given so far, I've described exactly what the show has done and seems to continue doing. The decision of whether or not to watch Mob Psycho should be a simple one if it was pleasant or unpleasant in the past. But I believe there is some validity in having a healthy amount of doubt. Here's exactly what has been bothering while watching the second season. Mob cannot win. What do I mean? I mean that, every single time that Mob sets a goal for himself, he is forced into a situation that he has to endure that completely overshadows the thing he set for himself to achieve at the start. This also applies when Mob earns something that he would be capable of calling an accomplishment towards getting towards his goal. The series, outside of showcasing that the people around Mob appreciate, respect and want him, does not seem to want to showcase how Mob became more adept as a person. The only thing that I seem to observe that people are generally more open about who Mob is, and react positively to his attitude. But his attitude does not bring him any tangible results. Mob does not seem to be stronger or more physically capable. He does not seem to be better suited to attracting another partner. The very thing he set himself to do. In other words, as a result of his intense work, Mob achieves nothing tangible, not even on a small scale. Even if this growth should at least be proven and some result should be displayed, the only thing really shown is that Mob's relationships improved. I understand that the primary point of the series and to Mob as a character is not to achieve a great feat after displaying an intense amount of perseverence and dilligence. But I consider that he at least has to receive some credit and proof that his efforts pay off. As far as Mob is concerned, what he's doing and what he endured has indeed caused him to change and the people around him notice that. But none of this seems to put him any closer to the goal he set for himself, at the very least in his eyes. He has no tangible proof that he has gotten better and that he would be able to finally impress the person he has strived to the most. It seems like all these efforts do not pay off, and all that Mob gets as a result out of them is appreciation from the people around him. Which given his character, it is a satisfying result, but ultimately, the person he wants to impress the most is out of reach and every time he tries to move onwards towards that path, he is sidelined by another event that forces him into yet another emotional outburst. Mob deserves to win. And when I say win, I don't mean that he is provoked into a fight he never chose to have then fights back or that he was forced to step in because the circumstances of the entire ordeal will harm his close ones. I mean that Mob has to set a goal for himself, minor or major, and then achieves that goal and gets what he wants. Without being sidelined and without any outside interference interfering with Mob's goal. He is constantly being held from moving forward, yet his attitude adjusts so that he would be able to. And none of adjustments seem to bear any fruit. It is starkly clear that Mob has become a better person since the start of the series and that the world he is surrounded by appreciates him better. I just sincerely wish that Mob would be given an opportunity to prove to himself that he's become a better person and as a result, he'd end up appreciating himself more too. This lack of apparent growth hinders me from considering Mob great and if anything would be done about this, I'd definitely start leaning towards that direction. Simply because Mob endures every confrontation he is forced into, as long as he is not proactive, he will not move further to achieve anything, and despite the brilliant presentation and well thought out psyche of Mob, the series is gonna be boring me while it stagnates. For once I'd enjoy Mob taking initiative and moving towards something he wants to do on his own without interruption. Hell, you can even have him have an emotional outburst during it if that is a demand. Because as it has been proven, positive emotions can also overwhelm Mob, you could cause that reaction from Mob and not rely on him having to endure the world falling on his shoulders to feel overwhelmed and start acting. I believe that this concern has risen out of the fact that eating the same type of food a second time does not have the same impact as the first. If you plan to keep every element that you used in the series prior to this season, you need to add something that adds to the experience. Sure, I genuinely did want more Mob Psycho, but I didn't want to experience a rehash of what I've already experienced so far. Some other ingredient should've been added to the food so that its taste would be a new experience. Perhaps the ingredient that I wished for is just something that would've changed the taste enough for me to enjoy the food's flavor even better. But the familarity of the taste was still welcome. But that does not mean that me or other people won't want new ingredients added. Despite all this, I believe the series has remained consistent and presented Mob Psycho enthusiasts with more Mob Psycho, and it has accomplished everything a fan would seek from the series. I am concerned about how Mob will grow as a character as given the approach portrayed he might stagnate or the changes he might experience will feel unrealistic. But for what the series is currently, Mob continues to deliver on its theme, it is as much of an worthwhile experience to have as it has always been, and it still continues to deal with personal growth quite well. I wish I would have more details on how it is different and what changed, but the series deals with the exact same themes using the exact same techniques within the exact same structure. The only thing that I experienced in this season that I did not in the previous is that within this season Mob has displayed a lot of growth, but I could no longer consider it personal because Mob Psycho hardly presented how his growth has impacted Mob's life. But I do not mind it as much now, as I can see it becoming a problem in the future.
AnarchistSasuke
04/01/2019, 11:42 AM
Ever seen a show that makes you wish you could give it more than a 10/10? That makes use of its medium so fully and with so much care and passion that everything compared to it looks dull? That's Mob Psycho 100 season 2. Everything about this show is artful in its execution. After an absolutely fantastic first season that made its way into my top five anime of all time within the first six episodes and then stole top spot when it came to a close with almost no competition, it was difficult to imagine that it could be topped. Calling Mob Psycho 100 season2 a masterpiece almost feels like an understatement. If you're familiar with the first season, you'll know the story is pretty unique. Insanely powerful esper boy works under fraud psychic and is afraid of his own powers but eventually learns some really great lessons from the people around him. This season goes even further with that premise and provides an experience so mindblowing in its execution that I'm honestly astounded it exists. The art, as with the first season, is leagues above any TV anime coming out right now. Season 2, in particular, takes its multi-media approach to the next level and provides movie level animation almost every episode. The character animation is outstanding, the fight animation will surely go down in anime history as some of the best the medium has ever seen, and the preservation of ONE's art style works wonders in allowing every frame to be fluid and a treat for the eyes. The sound design does what it needs to do but besides the OP and ED, as well as a standout track or two, it isn't really anything to write home about. It doesn't take away from the experience at all, but I wasn't itching to buy the OST. If you liked the characters in season 1, you're going to love them in season 2. From the very first mini-arc, Mob is getting character development. Reigen gets an entire arc of his own that cemented him as my favorite anime character of all time - and I'll be shocked if he's knocked off his throne any time soon (or ever). Managing such a large cast is no small feat on the part of the author, but he manages it with such care and precision that I don't think it's much of an exaggeration to call the man a genius. Almost every character is at the very least likable, and the villains perfectly foil the main character and/or Reigen. There are hardly any characters around that can rival the best written of the Mob Psycho cast, and this season stuck the landing so hard on character development that it's almost crazy. Overall, you'd be hard-pressed to find a reason not to watch Mob Psycho 100, and even if you did find a reason you'd be doing yourself the disservice of a lifetime. The slice of life elements of this show work just as well as the more typical shounen elements, each arc is important for the story and character development, the emotional beats hit hard and stay hard, and the art could and should be put into museums for future generations to see. Witness a masterpiece in motion. Watch Mob Psycho 100.
Sasori_Nagashi
04/01/2019, 10:19 AM
If you thought Mob Season 1 was a 10/10 like I did, prepare to view a 20/10. Everything about this season dwarfs the original season. Everything that was good in it has been multiplied to an insane level I never thought was possible. The Art and Animation reach new peaks, the soundtrack and overall sound design totally immerse and treat the ear to a delightful, emotion-evoking experience. The story continues with similar and entirely new themes in an insanely powerful way. The characters continue to evolve and grow while still retaining what we all loved about them. It's truly one of the best anime, orany form of animated media, ever produced.
RConway1729
04/01/2019, 10:16 AM
Spoilers up ahead ONE has done it again, Studio Bones has done it again. Mob Psycho 100 II is one of the best shows ever made. It is a great example of a character driven story with incredible animation, heart warming moments, great comedy and well done character interactions. Story 8: The story is quite simple and well done, the way Claw and other story threads are woven together to make a clear and coherent is well done. Generally it has a simple premise of daily occurrences in Mob's world. A school marathon, performing jobs for the Spirits and Such Consultation Office, failure to adapt to new things.And then brought to a thrilling and satisfying conclusion with the head of Claw and his ideology facing Mob's. Art 10: Studio Bones has once again saved anime with the level of skill in the art. Episode 5 stands out as having one of the most amazing battles in anime with solely it's artistic aspect. However through the rest of the series as the animation style is consistently at a very high standard, and follows ONE's drawings. Also the lapses in the continuous art style for comedic effect are well done and also fit their role. Some of the best art in anime in this show. Sound 9: Extremely good voice acting that fits well and is believable, Dimple's voice actor especially at the end of episode 8. This leads to a more consistent experience where I can easily suspend my disbelief. The sound effects are also well done. Character 10: The highlight of this show is the characters and their own arcs. Reigen's arc especially good with his understanding how he could not hold on Mob forever and learning that the hard way. Mob constantly trying his hardest to be the best without his powers. Mob also being forgiving to everyone he can, trying to shine a light on things. And also his clash with the head of Claw's ideology, that fight showed what Mob is really about, whether you are part of the world or above it. It also carries on the superiority complex from the main villains of last season and applies it on a broader sense. Also what's more the villains from last time have reflected on their misdeeds and are now correcting themselves as part of society. Enjoyment 10: Mob has a lot on the surface to enjoy, the fights, the animation, the comedy. But it also has a more implicit deeper meaning to explore. I really enjoy seeing what shows have to offer in their "philosophy" and found that Mob provided it in abundance. There was much to enjoy with that and a great show to go along with that. Overall 10: Mob Psycho 100 II has made its way into my number 1 spot of all time thanks to everything that went into it. Truly deserving of the 9+ it has on MAL, (at the time of writing this). This show is sure to become a classic down the years.
Krankastel
04/01/2019, 09:15 AM
As is the case with sequels of critically-acclaimed and popular anime, Mob Psycho's second season was among the most anticipated anime of 2019, with lots of hype being built even before it aired. Many claim that the second managed to actually surpass the first one by leagues, praising the character development and the plot's shift to more dramatic and slice-of-life elements. Is it worth all the hype and praise? Can it be considered a masterpiece? Let’s find out. [1. Beginning with story and characters...] During the first season, the first 3 arcs were character introductions and episodic adventures, whereas the last two (episodes 6 to 12) were morestraightforward and linear, with clear antagonists in mind. In the second, Mob Psycho followed a more episodic slice-of-life approach up until the 8th episode, this changing to more linear action-based narrative later on. (a) Up until the 8th episode, although there were fine examples of supernatural action, its emphasis was actually on prominent coming-of-age and more dramatic elements, with plenty of character development involved. These are what made this part shine. Mob in particular received plenty of character development, with each episode emphasizing on how interactions as well as his supernatural job shaped him into steadily becoming a more balanced and better-rounded individual. Also, both sides of the coin as far as his relationship and partnership with Reigen are shown in great detail. Multiple flawed and complex aspects of Reigen’s personality are brought into question. And the 8th episode did a poignant turn towards the next arc, with its action-focused arc. (b) And now about the parts from the 9th all the way to the end. Known as the World Domination Arc, it shifts to action elements. In my opinion, although this arc showed tremendous quality in a technical level, it’s also the part that deteriorated the anime story-wise. Why? First of all, because it contradicted a certain twist of the previous arc in a very anticlimactic way. Rather than leave events ambiguous, the creator chose the safe way in order not to displease fans by reassuring them too early. This way, Mob Psycho’s plot didn’t dare to grasp its full potential and fell into the trap of becoming way too shonen-like. Second, it introduced and reintroduced way too many supportive characters rushedly, making certain parts dazzling and barely fun at times, at least in my opinion. Negativity outside, this arc also had brilliant things to showcase. Displaying the fruit of Mob’s labors, this arc showcases him becoming wiser and much more willing to use force. Also, this arc presented us with unrestrained sakuga action with brilliant choreography and display of supernatural powers and also had certain very heartwarming moments that got into me. [2. Art and music...] a.) Its art style remains largely the same unusual, identifiable and psychedelic style of season 1. Animation-wise, Mob Psycho II has consistent quality and neat art shifts that amplify comedic or dramatic elements of the show. What this season has improved in comparison to the first is the quality of the animation of its battles in particular. Both the part up until the 8th and the World Domination Arc showed sublime examples of sakuga, which really proved how skilled Bones’ animators were at animating sublime telekinetic action. b.) The music is great, with the iconic Kanjou no Bakuhatsu returning for action and hype-filled scenes, three ending themes and a fine opening. However, I consider the first season's opening to be much more iconic and pumped-up, as well as with better introductory visuals. Conclusion: all in all, I believe that Mob Psycho II was a good sequel, but though it had the potential to become a masterpiece, it played way too safe at times and did not attempt to be more intriguing than just another shonen arc. Also, I felt the plot was based too much on the Mob-Reigen duo at times. Nonetheless, a highly enjoyable experience I would more than happily recommend, not only as a comedy-action anime, but also as a genuinely touching coming-of-age anime.
oggeswag
04/01/2019, 08:18 AM
(Slight spoiler warning in the third paragraph) “There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love.” When season 2 of mob psycho 100 got announced it would be an understatement to say that I was excited. I was brimming with excitement to see the continuation of Reigen’s, Mob's and all the other characters story. But now after it’s release and I’ve watched all the episodes of my oh so awaited season 2. I’m honestly not feeling it, and I’m very disappointed. I’m in no way saying that mob psycho 2 is a bad show. Not at all. The animationis stunning, the direction is phenomenal and the voice acting is as good, if not even better than the first season. It’s noticeable that a lot of care and effort has been put into making Mob Psycho 2. But despite all of these amazing features it has, I feel as if Mob Psycho has lost what made it unique and fun. What made the first season of Mob psycho great in my opinion is three points: the lightheartedness, the sense of humor and the characters. Season 2 only hits one of these points, but actually improves upon it. The characters. Mob and friends have never been better. Mob actually has an arc spanning over the whole season, not one forced into the last few episodes (as in season 1). Mob wants to improve as a person and actively makes an effort to do so. Something you really can’t say he does in the first season. Reigen also has an amazing arc this season. I won’t talk much about it because it would be a shame if I spoiled it for someone. Reigen was more or less the same person at the end of the first season as he was at the start. In season 2 tho, he’s a changed man at the end. It’s not only Mob and Reigen that’s gotten better, but all other characters also stepped up in season 2. They all changed so much that some felt out of character. But I don’t mind since the most of the characters are very well written. And that’s the part of Mob I adore. The rest of it kind of sucks. The two other points that season 2 doesn’t get is the lightheartedness and humor. Which mostly goes hand in hand. Mob psycho season 1 is a lighthearted slice of life anime about a boy with psychic powers that despite his lack of emotion tries to live out his normal life as good as possible. Mob psycho season 1 never gets serious and dark. It has its emotional moments but never something too serious. In season 2 mob literally comes home to find his house on fire and sees what he believes to be his family burning. Mob Psycho 2 is one of the darkest and most serious shows I’ve seen in a while. And I don’t understand why, Mob Psycho was funny because of how lightheartedly these situation that would be handled totally different in other shows. That’s why it’s funny. When the most serious thing ever happen and Reigen then laughs about it later isn’t funny. It seems more like a flaw in Reigens character. I feel weird saying this but Mob Psycho season 2 isn’t funny at all. Season 2 abandons the concept of the first season and it makes me really disappointed. The first season of Mob Psycho was an analysis of manchildren and more or less a parody of shounen animes. But the second season isn't a parody anymore. It’s turned into what it made fun of in the first place. I find it very hard to even call it a slice of life anymore. To further prove my point that Mob psycho isn’t a slice of life anymore is the frequency and lengths of fights. There are few fights in the first season of Mob, meaning that when Mob went 100% and the fights broke out, it felt Impactful and epic. But in season 2 there are fights more or less every episode. The fights are longer, some spanning over something like 10 minutes. The animation might be great, but it gets overwhelming. I was finding myself sighing and thinking isn’t this fight over soon? Rather than being amazed by them as I was in season 1. The most stupid thing ever happened as well. You know how the show is called Mob Psycho 100. Well suddenly mobs emotions can get ever 100% and he grew even more powerful. The point of the WHOLE show is that once the emotions get to 100% they overflow and Mob can’t control them anymore. But what’s the point of that if he suddenly can get 200%. It breaks the concept season 1 put up. Season 2 takes everything season 1 does good and throws it in the trash can. What was once fresh and amazing is now just another My Hero Academia, and it’s a real shame. I had high hopes for this anime and I was let down big time. I would honestly rather watch the worst anime ever than rewatch this. The animes I feel the least from are the ones that are mediocre, the animes with extreme wasted potential. And Mob Psycho has sadly become one of them. I was expecting greatness and when what I got was very mediocre. It hit hard and my rating off this season of Mob Psycho suffered.
The-Observer95
04/01/2019, 07:56 AM
It rarely happens that second season of any anime tops the first season but its not the case with the Mob Psycho 100, because its clearly improves over 1st season artistically and story-wise too. Mob Psycho 100 is lucky that its not being handled by any other studio then Bones because otherwise it might not have gotten the same treatment that its getting here, any other studio might have changed the director for the second season and all know how well that sits with anime fans. Just look at that One Punch Man's second season's PV, the anime has not been released yet but peopleare freaking out at the PV because not only studio is changed but director also is changed. The thing about mob psycho 100 is that artistically its very unique and one of kind like Bakimonogatari, I am glad that it follows the art style of manga and does not shy away from its quirkiness and respects authors will and his intent. When its comes to animation studio bones knows what they are doing and god they have done a phenomenal job here, each and every frame of mob psycho 100 is masterpiece and can be looked as a drawing that can be hanged in household as a art-piece. The anime's other unique thing is his main character Shigeo (Mob), who thinks supernatural powers are part of his daily life and does not give him any edge over anything. And that mentality is something which makes him unique in the shounen genre and which through he grows as a person. While talking about this anime we can not ignore the one person that is Reigen, he servers as a mentor to Mob, a kind of mentor he truly deserves as shown in the episode 3 of season 2. I really like that overall the show has not changed much from the first season it has just improved upon on the first season.
Plantlife
04/01/2019, 07:39 AM
"I wanted to make something kind." - ONE [Author of One Punch Man and Mob Psycho 100] (paraphrased since I can't find the source of the interview) The most hyped up second season since My Hero Academia II has come to fruition and let me say, it does not disappoint. My expectations were sky-hecking-high after an incredible first season. Yet, SOMEHOW, the second season went above and beyond the call of duty and blew me away with the most amazing season of any show I have ever seen in my life. Allow me to explain. While most people's complaints related to the show is "bland" and "tooslice-of-life". I must first say that this show is centered around the characters rather than the plot, despite the plot being really, really good. Nothing related to the story is wasted. Every character, every line, every moment, every sound, camera angle, power, you name it, is important. There wasn't a single episode that I felt that I was sold short. I ate up every moment, because it MATTERED. While small things like incredible animation, directing, pacing, humor, romantization of normal occurrences and all other terms I could use to show how great the show is despite 90% of the population not knowing what that means, I want to focus on the main part of the series I love the most. The characters. Every single one of them feels like a fragment of a real person's soul, and shaped to become a well rounded character. Reigen, Mob, Teru, Ritsu, Suzuki, Shou, CLAW, new villains, side villains, and school kids, are all important characters. I was constantly surprised and satisfied with how real these characters felt and reacted to their situations. Their motivations were understandable, and frighteningly relatable. The relationships between these characters are even more fascinating and is what brings me to tears a majority of the time. The psychology of this show blows my mind, and saying that it has taught me how I think is flawed (by showing characters that mirror my way of thinking) and how life is actually beautiful (albeit being kind of awful sometimes) would NOT be an understatement. Mob Psycho 100 is my favorite form of entertainment on all platforms for probably the rest of my life. I would not hesitate to recommend this anime to other people, knowing that many people will probably miss the point of the whole show, which is this: You matter. Relationships matter. Living life joyfully and working hard, even as a everyday commoner, is not something to be ashamed of, but to be cherished. Enjoy yourself, your life, and your relationships. A message needing to be heard by every human being. I hope this review was helpful.
Johan_Liebert_
04/01/2019, 07:32 AM
What makes a show good? Is it the story’s ability of positing a revolutionary concept or to delve into deep unprecedented philosophical topics and tackle uncharted themes and ideas? Or, maybe it’s the unique characters present that imbue the show with relatability and separate it from the rest? This season of Mob Psycho 100 has me thinking otherwise. Mob Psycho takes themes like self-identity, comradery, uniqueness and blends them into a tale that I will not soon forget. Mob Psycho tackles the aforementioned themes in a way that most of its predecessors have failed to do. This has me believing that in order to fabricatea good story, you don’t need the most original concept but need to execute whatever you have in your hand to a T. This season, we again go on a journey with Mob (the OP psychic) and Reigen (the conman) as they exorcise the demons present in the world and those present inside of them. The plot is as simple as it gets, we have our exorcisms going on; Mob being taken advantage of and deciding to become a better person; Claw, making a move; the body improvement club being awesome, etc. The plot doesn’t really diverge from what was presented to us in Season 1, though it does take some detours, those are what make this season so much better than the first one. The previous season focused more on the fights and their aesthetics whereas this season the attention is more on the character development through the fights. Sure, the fights look as beautiful as ever, but more importance is given to how the characters change and what they take away from the fights. Reigen and Mob visit various clients, and most of the time the exorcism of the spirits serves as a catalyst for Mob’s growth as a character and as a human. But, where the anime shines is not the plot, but the characters. The characters are the heart of the show, which is true for most stories but more so with this one. The characters may look like typical shounen characters if you look superficially, but when scrutinized, one can come up with a different conclusion. One aspect about the characters I love is how human they feel. Mob does not require any catalyst for the instigation of the feeling that he needs to change, it comes from within him. It’s a joy to see him transform into a socially acceptable person from a socially awkward teen. The show handles this change in a way that is realistic and poignant, which is to be expected as the show does such a great job of portraying the difficulties and hurdles faced by Mob due to his awkward disposition. No development feels rushed or out of place and everything is handled at a pace that is not too fast but not too slow that the watchers get bored. As you watch Mob trying his level best to grow up as a person, you can’t help but start to support him. The body improvement club is what our society should be. They are introduced as temporary comic relief characters but slowly they become an integral cog in the growth of Mob. We don’t spend much time with them on screen, but whenever they are on screen the experience is absolute gold. The two characters in the spotlight are Mob and Reigen with the latter also getting a character arc which is probably one of the best I’ve seen in recent years. Reigen is a conman, he swindles people, including Mob, for his own personal gain, but, despite that he’s one of the most likeable characters in the series. At first, there seems to be a dichotomy between him and Mob, with Mob lacking the very confidence that Reigen seems to be brimming with, but this season lets us view things with a different perspective. We see Reigen’s inner struggles vicariously and realise he’s not much better off than Mob. Reigen when put in a difficult situation where his only ally seems to be him himself, his introspection reveals a great deal about him and his relationship with Mob. He realises that under the pretence of helping Mob control his powers, he was actually taking advantage of him and was holding Mob back from enjoying his youth. After his epiphany, he does not feign ignorance but tires to better himself as a person. Reigen, in Mob’s own words, is a genuinely good guy. Furthermore, his ultimate move – Self Defence Rush – is capable of destroying the whole planet and needs to be nerfed. The anime also boasts a spectacular cast of supporting characters. We’ve got dimple, the spirit who wanted to take over Mob’s body at first but warms up to him and becomes more and more of a comrade after each passing episode. This change happens gradually which helps audience familiarise themselves with his character. We don’t get any abrupt character change and thus the show avoids alienating the viewers. Another character worth mentioning is Mogami, a resentful spirit who is the perfect depiction of what Mob would’ve been had he not met with Reigen or had Reigen been a selfish person. The serendipitous meeting between Mob and Reigen is what kept Mob and his uncontrollable powers anchored to the ground. The body improvement club is as epic as ever and this season has convinced me that the biggest muscles they have are their hearts. The characters are meticulously crafted and handled with care. That being said, there are some flaws here and there. Most of the villains are underdeveloped and are there only as an obstacle for our heroes to overcome. We don’t know their motivations for joining the evil organisation that they have joined and neither do we learn about their personalities. Not all villains are cannon fodder though. The leader of the organisation has a goal set in his mind and though his motivations are a bit overbearing, it’s not difficult to picture that among tens of hundreds of espers one would come across such a guy. Although, the villains are not as interesting as they could have been, I don’t think it matters much because at the end of it all what Mob Psycho really is, if you ask me, is a coming of age story. The animation is absolutely fantastic. Studio Bones have outdone themselves once again. If you’re holding out on this show because you think that the animation looks crap then, I don’t know what to say to you except you’re missing out on an acid trip. The facial animation conspicuously shows the characters’ emotion and much of the characters’ thoughts are accentuated through their body language. There is a lot of visual storytelling which is really well complimented by the unique art and animation. Lastly, the fights are stupendous. The animation does a great job of presenting the tension and force exerted by each punch, each kick that the characters throw and receive. Every time someone uses his/her psychic powers to pin someone to the ground, the anime does an awesome job of accentuating the augmentation of gravitational field around them which helps in visualising the incomprehensible telekinetic powers that the characters possess. This one guy has the power to teleport himself anywhere he wants and keeps doing so while fighting. You would think that it would make it very hard for us to follow him as he keeps darting around, but due to the excellent cinematography and clever use of visual direction, you can always keep your eyes on him using your peripheral vision. That’s some next level stuff right there. Massive props to everyone involved in animating the series. The music is brilliant as well. I’m no connoisseur of music but I can tell whether a piece of music fits a scene or not and in the case of Mob Psycho 100, most of the pieces perfectly complement the ongoing scene. The music during fights are perfect to get you hyped, and those during the emotional scenes will make the feels hit you like a truck. Also, the OP is fire. Mob Psycho 100 is one of the best character driven narratives to come out in recent years. It’s a near prefect retrospective look into a teenage mind and how everyone is susceptible to change. It sends a message that no matter how incongruous you are with respect to your surroundings, no matter how detached you are with reality, you can always start over.
Stark700
04/01/2019, 07:32 AM
Sometimes, I wish I could wipe my own memory and relive the experience of something all over again. Whether it’s a book, manga, video game, TV show, or anime, there’s probably one thing out there we all want to experience all over again for the first time. Mob Psycho 100 Season 2 is one of those things. With its ever growing popularity, ONE's Mob Psycho 100 is back in town with its eccentric character cast and innovative ideas. It’s hard not to love the show with its sheer dynamic visual style. But we know Mob Psycho is much more than its animation quality. In fact,this is one of the few show that fully manages to capture the magic of the manga and perhaps outdone itself even more. Mob’s return reminds me how an underdog young boy like him can make a difference in a world where anything is possible. As one of the most anticipated sequels, Mob Psycho Season 2 immediately gets the viewers back on track starting from the first episode. It’s not in a huge rush to accelerate the plot like some sequels but instead get fans to familiarize the franchise again. We are reminded of how characters can change and make a difference with Mob being the most prominent example this season. He’s no longer a shy little kid like before and stands up for himself. Mob is like capeless hero armed with esper power and a strong desire to be himself in this season. Regardless who he is facing off against, he doesn’t back down and shows just how much he has grown. Now, that my friends, is more than just hitting puberty. On the other hand, we are also reintroduced to Reigen, the sexy bad boy who is known for being super shady. Business returns for him and he isn’t afraid to guide Mob with his way of words. In the earlier episodes, the duo deals with urban legends and eventually, he even decides to make a website for psychic business. With this business, it should come to no surprise that he’d attract unwanted attention. Knowing Reigen, he deals with his problems in unorthodox ways with a full air of confidence regardless of consequences. The season boosts his personality in full fold with him taking on the role of a businessman, a con artist, and anti-hero. Regardless how the show delivers his character, I always find him to be the most entertaining part of this season. Why? It’s because of how much variety Reigen brings out of this show. Mob Psycho shines when characters’ actions speaks louder than words, and in most cases, Reigen does so. It’s the type of fan service where ONE knows how to give to us, the audience. As part of the plot, the first half felt like the storytelling is a bit loose although remains consistent to the show’s overall themes. When experimenting with ideas, Mob Psycho always wants us to feel something whether it’s sadness, laughter, or excitement. Indeed, there’s a deeper degree of emotions drawn out with the attitude and actions of the characters this season. Mob is an example of such when he became a much larger than life character. He wants to improve himself and continues to overcome his own personal obstacles. It makes me want to see him succeed and the show executes Mob’s character growth emotionally. I’m not going to lie, this season might just make one of you shed a tear or two. You could probably guess that while the second season contains its goofy moments, we can’t forget about the threats of certain espers. In the latter of the show, we are introduced to Claw, an organization that wants to make the world under its image. Is the world ready? Can anyone stop them? If you’re not aware, ONE is also known for his other popular superhero work, One Punch Man. This show no doubt has its own legion of heroes only that they aren't dubbed as such but act with heroic intentions. Even Reigen, our local bad boy knows who the real villains are despite his reputation. Claw itself is a mysterious organization especially with their charismatic leader, Toichiro Suzuki. As a very powerful esper, his own confidence perhaps dwarves even Reigen. After announcing his plan for a New World Order, he makes it clear that nothing will get in his way. The second season pushes him as the Big Bad along with the Ultimate 5, a series of elite espers who serves directly under their boss. If you don’t believe me, just watch what characters like Shimazuki and Mingeishi can really do. They test the limits of Espers’ powers with few rivals. But still, I don’t think Mob Psycho was ever designed to be a battle shounen. It’s more of an supernatural action flick that combines elements of its unique humor, style, and surreal imaginations to make a worthy show. And trust me, what I came to see is what I got from this season. Bones, what can we do without you? With so many action packed projects under your belt, Mob Psycho really is another title that fully deserved its spot on their roster. Make no mistake, the second season is a feast of extravagant animation that went beyond my expectations. In particular, chief animation director Yoshimichi Kameda is able to sell the character designs as real as possible while decorating the show with jaw-breaking elements. Episode 8 is an example with the extensive amount of stylistic choreography. It may look a bit rough at times but the episode delivered the highest quality of anime action I haven’t seen in years. When the show isn’t showing off its over the top tier animation, it’s well known to execute its character personality through cleverly timed expressions. There’s no shortage of moments this season when you find characters react in overly exaggerated manners. It’s the type of selling that makes Mob Psycho 100 Season 2 so great. It’s been a wild ride this season. With just 13 episodes, Mob Psycho’s sequel manages once again become a sensation from Studio Bones and its talented staff. There was no episode where I felt bored as it managed to connect me with its wealth of creative ideas and character growth. Very few shows I’ve seen these days can match up with the style that Mob Psycho has built and to say this without bias is a real accomplishment. Keep up the good work Mob Psycho, because you definitely earned it.

Mob Psycho 100 II モブサイコ100 II

2019 winter | Episodes: 13 | Score: 8.8 (1017039)

Updated every Mondays at 23:00 | Status: Finished Airing

Type: TV

Producers:Warner Bros. Japan | KlockWorx | BS Fuji | Hakuhodo DY Music & Pictures | Shogakukan

Streaming: Crunchyroll

Synopsis

Voice Actors

Ootsuka, Akio

Itou, Setsuo

Sakurai, Takahiro

News

Reviews

elthreedotcomma
01/18/2024, 09:54 AM
"Just having powers doesn't mean everything works out for you. But that's perfectly fine, as long as you make the important choices yourself. I'm the protagonist of my own life." Building off of its previous season, Mob Psycho 100 II delivers a much-improved masterful narrative, with heightened action choreography. What it has given to the world is a masterpiece of a story about kindness and power. Unlike its previous season, this one is anything but a lighthearted comedy. There are some comedic aspects, but the majority of it is serious. This tonal shift has been handled extremely well. Characters have been used and built up adeptly, asthe show has focused on their personality and maturity rather than their sole contribution to comedy. The biggest example of this is the sleazy Reigen Arataka. He is seen facing the consequences of his deceptive actions, rightfully so, but is also shown to be a compassionate and caring human, someone others can rely on. He slowly sees everybody he had a good connection with move further away from him, with his only "friend" being Mob. Reigen becomes someone we wanted to see : preserving his comedic nature but realising the importance of trust and honesty. Mob undergoes his own character arc : he gains some, he loses a lot. His power alone brings unwanted enemies to his family, who face the brunt of the unwarranted consequences. The viewer really gets to see the selfless Mob's true strength in this season : he utilises his power fully only when someone he cares about is on the line. The villain is shown to be a stubbornly logical character : he truly believes in his purpose, however flawed it may be. He is a pessimistic and uncaring father, and serves as the polar opposite of the optimistic Mob, for whom there is always hope for tomorrow. By the end, we see how much he regrets his actions that led him up to this point. As an action show, it goes above and beyond, with Studio Bones giving viewers the best choreography in the past few years. As a serious story, it covers all plot points it needs to. As a drama, it focuses on its characters perfectly. Mob Psycho 100 II gives us the story of many characters, but never forgets where its roots lie : portraying a narrative focusing on the importance of kindness and humility in the presence of power.
literaturenerd
09/19/2022, 03:36 PM
Since season 3 is right around the corner, I decided to give an overview of Mob Psycho 100 and what makes it one of the most unique shonen anime around today. If I had to describe Mob Psycho in just one sentence, I would say that it's a shonen that rejects the tropes and teachings of shonen SOO hard that it accidentally became an old school superhero comic. Shigeo "Mob" Kageyama is a genuinely good person who was born with absolutely incredible power, but only wishes to use that power to help other people and make the world a better place. He never has totrain like crazy to be the very best. He starts out being the strongest just though his natural genetics. He makes friends throughout the series and greatly values friendships, but he gains friends completely independent of his powers. He doesn't use his powers because he's lonely and wants to impress people so he can have friends. He would have about as many friends and be just as happy if he never had powers. Mob doesn't define himself by his powers. He's just a really chill dude with a strong sense of morality who happens to have powers. Shigeo doesn't resemble any shonen hero I can think of in the history of shonen. He's Japanese Clark Kent. To understand why Mob Psycho is weird as a shonen, you have to look at the evolution of shonen manga/anime starting in the early 1970s. One of the biggest and most influential shonen heroes of that time was Joe Yabuki. Joe doesn't start off the manga as a particularly nice guy. He's kind of an asshole antihero who starts out at the very bottom of society. However, he trains hard and along his journey he grows stronger, makes allies, and eventually transforms into someone you can cheer for. Devilman was another 1970s antihero. Amuro from the original Gundam is a depressed teen who is reluctantly forced into war and later gets screamed at by his mother for being a murderer since he's mowed down so many enemy soldiers. He's killed thousands of people by the end of that series. Once you get past the Astro Boy era, young man's manga/anime has traditionally been dominated by anti-heroes who don't start the series as nice people and often aren't truly "heroic" in a traditional Western sense. Kenshiro was a Mad Max/Bruce Lee ripoff who wandered the wasteland killing hundreds weak goons with zero remorse and was the most popular and influential shonen character of his decade. Goku was one of the first shonen heroes to even resemble a Western superhero, but that was mostly due to the meddling of Toriyama's editors. Toriyama always wanted Goku to be more like Sun Wukong from Chinese mythology. Sun Wukong the Monkey King is an arrogant, selfish little monkey jerk who just enjoys the thrill of fighting and isn't really a moral paragon. Now let's step into the 90s. We begin the 90s with Yusuke Urameshi. He's a juvenile delinquent who likes to get in fights and smoke cigarettes on the school roof while he's cutting class. He doesn't see himself as a particularly nice person and doesn't usually go out of his way to save the world. He more often gets put into these situations where he has to fight in order to protect the few people he actually cares about and if you mess with his friends then he'll fuck you up! You guessed it! We're still stuck on anti-heroes! The mid 1990s are dominated by Shinji Ikari who is a generally nice boy with serious psychological issues and depression. Not exactly a traditional superhero. Naruto and Deku embody the shonen Jump hero of the modern era. They begin the series as losers who get bullied constantly. Then they start working hard and eventually gain tremendous power. Once they improve themselves and gain more physical power, only then do they start to gain friends and get a girlfriend and things go right for them. The moral message of modern shonen is that if you work hard, you can grow stronger. Once you become stronger either physically, academically or in some capacity, even the people that bullied you will reluctantly respect you. You can make friends and get a girlfriend and be a winner in society. It's supposed to encourage Japanese children to strive and seek self-improvement, which is a healthy message. However, it's often unfortunately mixed with a "Might makes Right" worldview. If Deku or Naruto had never gotten super strong, they would have continued getting absolutely shit on by everyone around them. Bakugo like Vegeta before him starts out as an outright evil bastard who hates the main character for being born inferior to them and daring to not bow down. Then they begrudgingly respect the hero only because the hero is strong. They never actually have to suffer consequences for their misdeeds or really have a moral epiphany. Usually, there's a time skip and suddenly the asshole rival is just kind of accepted as one of the good guys. If you're strong in shonen, that's ultimately what matters. So, as mentioned above the self-improvement message is kind of poisoned by this almost Fascist worldview. Another way that Mob does away with Shonen's "might makes right" morality is that it completely gets rid of the biggest curse in all of shonen...power levels. Mob's teacher is the funniest character in the show and the most popular character in the whole franchise. He has no powers whatsoever. He's just a regular dude who cons people into thinking he has powers. This regular dude with a power level of 2 is able to repeatedly save Mob from danger, positively impact the story, and not get sidelined by a lineup of increasingly strong characters who have bigger numbers than him and therefore make him irrelevant. Mob genuinely reveres his teacher and in no way sees him as lesser, even though he's millions of times stronger than him. Naruto's best friend isn't some normal dude. Naruto's best friend in defiance of all logic is Sasuke, who is both a horrible person and also despises him. Why? Because Sasuke is strong! Krillin is officially still Goku's best friend when Toriyama remembers, but in reality, it's Vegeta. Why? Because Vegeta is strong! At no point in this series does Mob's respect for someone increase simply because they're strong. Mob meets someone early in the series who thinks psychics are superior to normal people and is SUPER strong. Mob just thinks he's some asshole. Once he sees the light, he grows to respect Mob. Not because Mob is strong, but because Mob changed his worldview, and he genuinely feels remorse for being an asshole. Mob somehow manages to be subversive while also being incredibly traditional. Mob is storytelling SO old that it's new again. Shonen has never seen anything like it. Even American comics since the success of Watchmen in 1986 have at least partially turned away from inspirational stories like this. It would certainly be boring if every anime was like Mob and every comic hero was Superman, but after SO much subversion and anti-heroes, this honestly felt refreshing. Also, I hope all future shonen take note of Mob's success and FUCK power levels!
KnucklesOfficial
02/26/2022, 12:24 PM
I came into Mob Psycho with a very open mind, hoping to be amazed by some genius story with amazing characters and great developments. What I received was some underwhelming bullshit about a young boy being manipulated by a degenerate con artist to eliminate these meaningless 'spirits'. Mob for whatever reason has insane innate psychic power, more than everyone else which is never explained and is LITERALLY HORSE! He doesn't want to abuse them or whatever but then just abuses his power for the entire show which was just cringe to watch. Also the antagonist of the show CLAW or whatever is actually so lameit's painful. Terrible show.
CodeBlazeFate
03/20/2020, 11:21 AM
It's taken quite a while to sit down and write my thoughts on Mob Psycho 100 II. For the longest time, I've been trapped in this limbo of not wanting to write but never finding anything remotely close to my perspective being represented. It's as if no one has any of the same problems I have with this season, therefore I’ve yet to find someone disappointed in it for any of the same reasons as me. As such, this review is born more out of a place to satisfy myself and bring peace to my perspective than anything I’ve written thus far. Keeping a measuredand somewhat informed perspective is still integral to what is being written here, but the fact remains: this was the first of many anime from 2019 to disappoint me. Let’s get the big positive out of the way. The visuals are some of the best in recent years. Season 1 already had stellar animation with its vibrant fight scenes filled to the brim with sakuga. The first scene alone was enough to set the standard for this series, which would be matched by several key fights in the show. There’s a sense of weight and impact to many of the attacks combatants use, from psychic blasts to superpowered fists slamming people into the ground. It’s not that the fights were ever exceptionally brutal or bloody since they weren’t, but they were heart-pumping with how they communicated each devastating hit and frenzied blow someone took. It’s the way characters would stretch and contort with every crushing blow, how environments would shatter upon impact and the camera zooms in at a controlled pace to create dynamic angles that sell attacks traveling at blistering speeds. The show’s simple, rugged art style allowed for all of this to be possible, and the direction by Yuruzu Tachikawa that allowed for a steady hand that could keep up with the frenzy being shown on-screen This second season continues this trend with several astounding sequences such as the main fight scenes of episodes 5 and 11. While nothing is ever quite as epic a slugfest as Mob vs Koyama in season 1, the animation in most of the fights here is top-notch. The camera is allowed to be taken to even wilder heights as battles get more aerial than ever before. Hakuyu Go, the man behind the monstrous fights from Fate/Apocrypha episode 22 and One Punch Man episode 12 came back and delivered another grand slam with his storyboarding and animation direction for this season’s 5th episode. Perhaps more so than any other fight in this series, it feels dynamic and larger than life in a way that’s hard to put into words. Few titles this year can keep up with some of the fights presented here, even as films such as Fate/Stay Night: Heaven’s Feel 2 step up to the plate. Even outside of the monumental fights, the show’s rough art style and vibrant aesthetic make it interesting to look at even in scenes of characters just sitting around and talking. They never quite reach the levels of just having lip-flaps be the only real source of motion for minutes on end like with most shows that require exposition dumps or characters conversing, as there’s always a nice visual gag or a few gestures going around. The general aesthetic of the show is eyecatching in general, and the designs remain simple yet often vibrant just as before. The only moments I found awkward were in episode 9, including its big fight scene. Even then, it’s not like the show ever looked bad, so a few stumbles in animation quality still have the show looking better than many of its contemporaries. Unfortunately, animation does not a good anime make, and I have a more complicated assortment of feelings towards everything else about the show. The easiest to cover would be Kenji Kawai’s OST, as I didn’t notice a single new background track. All of the music that plays during the fight scenes sound exactly as they did in season 1, and find themselves feeling overplayed here. If any new additions were made, it’s unnoticeable in the show itself, which is criminal for a Kenji Kawai score. This man did the music for Ghost in the Shell 1 and 2, as well as Irresponsible Captain Tylor. Even his Gundam 00 OST had a few memorable pieces that got expanded upon with each installment. I’m not sure what happened here. Luckily, we still have a banger of an OP theme with “99.9” by Mob Choir feat. sanjou no Hana. It’s a more adrenaline-pumping, energetic tune that captures how much more action-driven this second season is compared to the first. The show also has 4 EDs, but the only one I care about is the song that played at the end of episodes 1 and 7: “Gray” by sajou no Hana. It’s easily the most tender and emotional track, fitting for some of the beautiful moments that cap off those two episodes. This brings me to some of the emotional climaxes in the first half of the show. Episode 1 was a beautiful and hilarious reintroduction to Mob as a character, with him being roped into running for student council (and failing miserably) before someone asks him out. We follow him as this new girl, Emi, as they struggle to connect before Mob eventually reveals his psychic powers in one of the most genuine scenes in the show. The way he uses it to repair a piece of writing her so-called friends tore up in front of her really brings to light how committed the show is to accentuating how much of a sweet person Mob is and how beneficial his powers can be. The show has always been about self-improvement and recognizing the benefits of your gifts while never losing sight of how everyone has one so no one should let their gifts define them as some supreme being. While there are a lot of moments like this peppered throughout the series, it’s when the show decides to quiet down in its more human, slice of life moments, where Mob Psycho 100 is at its best. There’s no better example than the Reigen arc, which comprises episodes 6 and 7. Finally taken to task for his slimy conning and how he puts himself before even Mob, the one person who looks up to him for all the advice he has given, Reigen is at wit’s end. It’s only when he finally owns up to what a scummy douchebag he can be that he’s saved from the ultimate character assassination which had been catching up to him, before Mob lets him know that he understands who Reigen truly is beyond all of the fronts and scams he put up. It’s hard to do this moment justice without spoilers, but it’s the one time this show nearly brought me to tears. Mob and Reigen by this point, have become a perfect duo for exemplifying the core themes of this show, and their dynamic, ever-evolving personalities are a joy to watch. Sadly, there’s the rest of the show. Episode 2 is a perfectly fun joyride of explosive animation and cute comedic scenes, so I’m got gonna dog on this one. Episode 3 is where the cracks really begin to form, as Mob has to choose between doing his job of exorcising spirits or sparing them as they just want to live their lives. This feels like a plot that should have been handled as early as the 3rd or 4th episode of season 1. It’s the most obvious story to tell with this kind of premise, and the way they execute it feels so melodramatic and hamfisted, like the show keeps shouting “FEEL BAD” without just letting the emotions play out naturally. It feels sophomoric for how late into the series this plot comes in. Then we get episodes 4 and 5, which make up the Matsuo arc. Matsuo possesses a teenage girl and a bunch of espers are summoned to exorcise him, including Mob and Reigen. Once Mob holds his own against Matsuo, he’s effectively transported to a nightmare scenario where for several months, he’s powerless and put into a school where everyone hates and bullies him, that way Mob’s idea of self-improvement and how his powers don’t make him who he is will crack. It’s amazing how in a show about absurdly durable superhumans that something like this can still test my suspension fo disbelief, but sometimes this second season does that to me, especially since it feels like the show wants to go to extremes to get its point across compared to season 1. It’s going this far just for the classic fight between self-improvement/the human spirit and nihilism and chaos. It doesn’t exactly feel earned, and when Reigen’s voice finally reaches Mob after months in this simulation (probably a couple of minutes in real-time) and suddenly makes him remember all of his values so he can stand up to Matsuo, instigate the epic fight scene, and win the literal and ideological battle. It all feels hamfisted and not nuanced, even compared to season 1 which never had to go overboard to get its point about self-improvement and foregoing entitlement across. It all starts to get across the idea that the show is gonna keep suffering from these issues as it progresses into its second half, making it all the better when the Reigen arc avoids these pitfalls. I should mention that at no point in these first 7 episodes is Claw, the evil organization that wreaked havoc in the second half of season 1 while threatening to make a return, even mentioned. In season 1, this made sense as we were getting to know the world and what kinds of enemies and struggles Mob would face before the evil organization stomped onto the scene to test our heroes and further solidify the show’s main themes. Season 2 tries the exact same structure, with the first 7 episodes being primarily slice of life comedic or dramatic escapades as well as encounters against one asshole psychic, before episode 8 onwards has the big bad Claw organization jump into the fray. However, this set-up doesn’t work as it completely undercuts the looming threat they’re supposed to have. It would be fine if maybe there were a few encounters planned out by them or even passing mentions to remind the audience not to get too comfortable as the bad guys could come back at any moment. It ends up just having these guys retroactively leave no impact on the story or setting from their first arc back in season 1, undercutting what tension they could have. I get that maybe their reintroduction with the sabotage of Mob’s family in episode 8 is supposed to come as this wham-episode cliffhanger surprise to end all of the endearing hijinks the first 8 episodes had, but it felt so obvious that it was never truly earned. Everything afterwards has its own set of issues. There were some nice scenes with some of the supporting characters such as the members of the Body Improvement Club that Mob joined and had tried to keep up with back in season 1. Long-since reformed Teruki Hanazawa and the reformed Claw members along with Reigen taking on the teleporting Shimazaki, one of the top dogs of the organization, made for a fun and creative action setpiece. However, the first hurdle outside of the untwist that the son of the big bad of the organization very obviously did not kill everyone in Mob’s home and instead hid them and tried to awaken Mob’s power to help him fight the dad, was the first lame thing to occur here. Killing them off would be rather out of character for the show, which makes this so obvious that it genuinely feels cheap. Another awkward move was everyone’s decision to leave Mob with Reigen and Dimple when he was rendered unconscious, given that Reigen isn’t even a psychic, Dimple is still pretty weak after his encounter with Mob back in episode 3 of season 1, and they’re facing a group of superhumans who want to track down Mob. I get that this is supposed to show that Mob’s closest friends who aren’t the ultimate non-Mob badasses are with him to help, and that the plot still needs to get from point A to point B. It does feel like this show writes itself into a corner, though. Then the final episodes pull a few sins that I never thought possible: they made me stop caring. I no longer cared about the conflict, and I even stopped caring about Mob. I get that Mob is this pillar of self-improvement, the kind of guy you should want to root for all the way as he goes from the small kid you wanna protect to the badass who can protect you all the same while remaining true to the nervous dork he’s always been. Up until this final arc, the show has managed that, but with how hamfisted the show gets and how Mob becomes the center of almost everything, I felt ejected from what was going on. I was no longer immersed. When Mob faced the penultimate bad guy who was clinging to the main antagonist’s coattails cuz he finally felt valued and useful, I didn’t care. When the show blatantly spelled out multiple times that the dude was basically being used and that he needed to learn to truly value himself so he can stop being a shut-in loser who clung to people, it went in one ear and out the other. Season 1 was never the most subtle thing on the planet, but it never felt this preachy. That’s not to say that these lessons aren’t worth teaching, as they absolutely are. However, season 1 did most of them better. I get that this is all meant to be payoff as Mob does what Reigen did back in season 1 by bitch-slapping to sense into misguided and/or entitled espers, but by the end he basically becomes Jesus, going as far as to attempt what seems like an ultimate sacrifice when trying to save the main antagonist of the show, who wants to rule the world. That brings me to the big boss man himself, the boring man Toichirou Suzuki. He views people as lesser and beneath him, so he wants to rule the world. While the show does make fun of the generic nature he announces his plans before he and his goons proceed to tear up the city, he still remains the boring bid bad guy who wants to rule the world cuz he’s the coolest and best while everyone else is boring and lame. There’s basically nothing else to him. He feels the least like an actual person out of anyone in the show, more akin to a typical Fairy Tail antagonist than even some of the lesser Mob Psycho 100 side-acts. His fight with his kid was only barely more interesting than his fight with Mob, as at least that one had personal stakes and build-up despite that being a fight designed to job the kid who was already a mysterious, untrustworthy powerhouse. I genuinely felt bored when Toichirou and Mob threw buildings at each other, as this climax barely had any build-up to pay off. The fact that afterwards the dude’s wife and kid are there to forgive and support him despite all of this, comes across as utterly asinine in context. Sure, forgiveness and reform are part of self-improvement i.e the core of this show, but there is a level of believability that can be strained before the show’s decisions regarding its themes and messages become hamfisted and ridiculous. The dude treated his wife and kid like shit due to his callous nature, and his kid wanted revenge on the man. For them to just quickly forgive him, resulting in everyone turning a new leaf, is a bigger stretch than when Teruki immediately went from an entitled jerk to a chill dude who gets everything without warning in season 1. There’s a way to make a quick and dramatic character change work, but that requires evidence that the character is starting to crack beforehand, and we have to spend time with them during the change. Otherwise, it’s like when Kirito got super depressed at the end of SAO episode 3, only to just become a generic OP badass in episode 4. That’s ultimately the problem I have with this second season of Mob Psycho 100. While its visuals are outstanding, it frequently overreaches when it comes to delivering its messages and thematics. It’s often hamfisted, sometimes extremely questionable in its writing. It’s a shame because a lot of the show’s lighthearted and comedic moments are incredibly charming. The subplots regarding the girl Mob pines for, the girl from episode 1, and Reigen’s arc are wonderful just as the slice of life and comedic elements in season 1 were. There are some sweet payoffs present too, and the show has a good heart to it. There are some shounen titles people believe work better when they’re purely in slice of life mode such as Fairy Tail, and I think I can say this applies to the second season of Mob Psycho 100. When the show wants to be more profound than that, it stumbles pretty heavily more often than not. It hurts to say because I was genuinely hyped for a continuation of a great series, and there are several wonderful moments and elements here. It just bogged down by all of these issues to the point that I somehow managed to stop caring. I could not have imagined that happening prior to the last arc of the show, let alone before I even got to season 2, but here we are long after this mixed bag ended. Where it counts, this season is not as consistent or effective as its predecessor, which is the opposite of self-improvement. That’s some cruel irony.
milshane772
04/02/2019, 03:19 PM
Ok, so I'm pretty sure I'm in the minority here so before I start this review let me just say that I very much enjoyed the second season of MP II. I rate a 7 due to the fact that it was not as interesting compared to the first season. More specifically, it had a certain charm that stems a lot from the dynamic between Reagan and Mob. Where the first season had an extremely good flow to it, most of the story this season feels more episodic. I rated the characters a 6 as a result of this. The firstseveral episodes almost perfectly encapsulated the feeling that I got from the characters from the first season. But the second half just failed to land for me as everything quite disconnected as you would have a touching story say about Reagan without Mob and then suddenly right the next episode everything was back to normal. With all this said in NO WAY is the show bad, far from it actually. The animation style used specifically for the fight scenes in certain arcs were extremely fluid and gorgeous to look at. The music was as great as the previous season, especially the op which I have probably listened to an unhealthy amount of times. To conclude, I definitely think this is worth the watch, but if you were expecting the same feeling you got from the first season I think you'd be a little disappointed like I was.
AnimeBW
04/02/2019, 03:03 PM
Mob Psycho 100 was one of the best anime of 2016, an electric bolt of whipcrack-sharp comedy and searing intensity that elevated original author ONE’s intimately realized portrait of self-improvement and prioritizing the important things in life into a piece of genuine pop art. So it’s kind of shocking to realize in retrospect how quickly the community at large moved on to the next big thing once the rush of the seasonal anime charts left it behind. Maybe the shadow of its contemporary One Punch Man still loomed so large that it couldn’t help but feel like a weird grunge band offshoot of a full-throttlehard rock extravaganza, or maybe the community’s taste just really is that shit. Either way, I certainly enjoyed the hell out of the first season, and it seems pretty much everyone else did as well, but it also never really stuck at the forefront of public consciousness the way it deserved to. I’ve even been guilty of that myself; as much as I loved every moment of it, for whatever reason, it never managed to touch me in that magic way that keeps it swirling at the forefront of my mind like the rest of my favorites. Since then, it’s been one of those really good shows that everyone talks about to some extent, but also often gets overlooked when the conversation turns to the widely regarded classics. And then, the second season aired. And you can bet your ass that no one is going to overlook Mob Psycho 100 EVER again. Picking up where the first season left off, Mob Psycho 100′s second season implements the same general formula, following the somewhat episodic adventures of the emotionally repressed middle school psychic Shigeo “Mob” Kageyama, the most powerful psychic in the world who nevertheless just wants to live a normal school life and improve on his own terms, and his slick, surprisingly helpful con artist master/god-tier husbando Reigen Arataka, as they battle a series of dangerous spirits an go about their daily lives, building up to a multi-part confrontation with the dangerous esper terrorist croup Claw in the final act. But make no mistake, this is no simple retread of the first season. ONE’s stories have always masterfully explored the idea that no amount of power, however great, can serve as a placeholder for true, genuine humanity. Even the strongest men on the face of the earth are defined above all else by their honor, their humility, their connections, their willingness to reach out. And without spoiling anything, it’s clear from the emotionally overwhelming end of the very first episode, which I was lucky enough to see early in a special movie event, that Mob is not content to jog in place, shut off from understanding his own emotions and the world around him. He truly, genuinely, wants to improve himself. Not in the simple way that most shonen heroes seek to power-up and push past their limits, but the true, exceedingly difficult act of facing your flaws, learning from your mistakes, and accounting for the deficiencies in your life in order to become a more well-rounded person. Don’t get me wrong, the first season also gave plenty of opportunities for Mob to grow into himself and figure out how to become someone he could be proud of. But now that the lessons he and his friends learned last time around have stuck, the story is able to advance into weirder, darker, more difficult places. Characters get challenged in ways that fundamentally reshape them as people, facing down their internalized weaknesses and unrealized potential in equal measure. The philosophical questions about the nature of power and its relative unimportance in the grand scheme of things are tested in the heat of battles too spoiler-filled to properly discuss. Nothing you took for granted back in the first season is sacred, and no one escapes the crucible completely the same. Over the course of this season, Mob Psycho 100 itself (and its titular character) evolves on such a fundamental level that it’s hard to even recognize it as the same show as the first season. Yet it still is the same show. It’s still every ounce of wit and heart that made the first season such an invigorating experience. Only this time, with the fundamentals of the world and characters already established, MP100 is able to take every single idea it teased out and set it sprinting forward at full tilt. The first season did a fantastic job talking the talk; now, the second season is finally able to walk the walk. And as a result, a show that was already really damn spectacular explodes into an indisputable modern masterpiece with the staggering, awe-inspiring force of an atom bomb. That simile isn’t even stretching the truth: the raw tectonic power of Mob’s journey to self-acceptance and self-improvement hits with so much goddamn force that I was regularly left reeling from the shock of what I’d just experienced. It’s stunning on a level that defies language, the kind of all-encompassing “HOLY SHIT HOW IS THIS SO GOOD” that can only be properly communicated by the frantic, floundering screams of experiencing it in the moment. I could look into your eyes, say “that one episode of Mob Psycho was episode of the year”, and you would have no idea what episode I was talking about, because so goddamn many of them would fit that description perfectly. Am I talking about that one subplot where Reigen’s predatory, manipulative mindset is finally challenged, forcing him to grow into his better angels and become the worthy master that Mob always saw him as? Or perhaps I’m referring to the beginning of the final showdown, kicked off by a cliffhanger so unbelievably destructive it risks giving you nightmares. Maybe I’m referring to that first episode, highlighting the critical juncture of Mob’s decision to better himself with one of the most conclusions of the entire show. But I also might be talking about the climax of Mob’s attempt to save a possessed, deeply damaged person, which is, without hyperbole, the single most visually stunning sequence of TV animation I’ve ever seen. Seriously, I have no earthly clue how any mortals managed to put that together. But that’s always been the magic of Studio Bones’ approach to this material; by embracing ONE’s original sketchy, ragged illustrations, they imbue their adaptation with such a frenetic, off-kilter energy that’s able to be messy and lopsided without losing a single ounce of visual shock and awe. And if you thought the first season was already a showcase for some of the most creative, imaginative animation ever put to screens, then you are not ready for this second season to take it up all the way to ???%. This is, no joke, the single most visually stunning TV anime I’ve ever seen, with the most consistently awe-inspiring sakuga and endlessly frenetic visual gags and quirks that make even the most mundane scenes shine with unending personality and momentum. Every second, every frame, is packed full of so much specific detail that you could spend a full year pouring through all background gags and clever shifts in animation style for emotional impact, from sketchy to dust blowing to grayola smears, and still have more to explore. And when the action kicks up, awash in a kaleidoscope of colors and a veritable hurricane of moving pieces, the spectacle is so eye-popping that words couldn’t possibly do it justice. It’s the kind of impossibly stunning visual flair that regularly leaves you speechless, wondering how on earth any of this was possible by human hands. And it perfectly emphasizes the emotions of every critical moment along the way, aesthetic working in synthesis with script to craft a narrative experience so overwhelmingly complete that any minor nitpicks you might have about occasional awkward dialogue gets swept away by the prismatic rapture of it all. Mob Psycho 100 was a show we never should have forgotten as easily as we did. It was too spectacular, too uniquely important as a staple of the best this medium is capable of, to let languish for lack of attention. But not only did this second season remind us all why it was so essential in its time, it blew past every boundary it set for itself and raised the bar not just on itself, but on the entire landscape of modern anime. We are never going to forget about Mob Psycho now. We are never going to forget the utterly mind-blowing experience it left us with. And we are never going to stop talking about how completely this season rewrote the rules and took us all to the next level. This is the kind of show that defines a generation, the kind of show we’re all going to look back on ten years from now and say “yeah, the don’t make ‘em like that anymore” with the same reverence we currently have for the likes of Gurren Lagann and Stein;s Gate. No, we don’t make them like Gurren Lagann anymore. We make them like Mob Psycho 100. And I fail to see how that can be anything else than the highest possible compliment. Now to wait with increasingly dejected hopelessness for the upcoming return of One Punch Man. Lord have mercy on us all.
ardaarsen01
04/02/2019, 06:11 AM
*This review contains light SPOILERS* WHY I LIKED: ⬤ Character driven plot ⬤ Opening and ending songs ⬤ Top quality dynamic visuals, super smooth animation, Dimple scenes in particular ⬤ Decent situational comedy, unexpected little twists. Not a single dialouge is wasted at least. ⬤ The progressive story of Mob who is slowly becoming a socially acceptable person is actually identical to "worldbuilding" ⬤ Mob Psycho shows how effectively slice of life episodes can be used in order to create foundations of action-heavy episodes. The thin line between fantasy and real life problems is portrayed perfectly, maturely and it makes characters "believable". They have their own causes, motives, pasts and feelings soyou can actually tell the weight of every single action, every single punch is doubled with feels. Yet those feels always come out with humorous tone, become one with the art style and speak to audience. Musashi vs Shibata is a great example to it. Seriously now... "Are you not entertained !!" As for slice of life episodes people disliked, I actually liked quite a few of them: > Episode 1 was pure Romantic and Emotional. Still happpens to be my favourte of the bunch > Episode 2 Urban Legends was ridiculously funny > Episode 4-5 the most destructive episode and the most beautiful crying animation. > Episode 7 was also an interesting milestone in terms of Mob-Reigen relationship. WHY I DISLIKED: ⬤ In contrast with episode 2 (Dimple vs Dragger), epiode 5 (Mob vs Mogami), episode 10 (Musashi vs Shibata), episode 11 (Scar vs Shimazaki) and some other minor clashes, the final fight (Mob vs Suzuki Sr) was anticlimactic and lasted shorter than I imagined. It was surely on another level but it wasnt rewarding as the villain didnt live up to my expectations. I was expecting a rage moment or two but instead Mob got ahold of himself by seeing his broher's face. So be it.. ⬤ The people can change motto is, I believe, overused as plot armor and it will damage Mob's character at some point. Mob should never resemble a simple-minded shounen MC. ⬤ Earlier episodes were as good as latter ones and surely accumulated alot of information for the final arc but still they were episodic. I am not a big fan of episodic animes. The show started to shine after episode 8 with Claw arc. SUMMARY: Mob Psycho might be the most succesful slice of life-action synthesis ever descended on earth! I can tell some viewers disapprove it but this is not your daily dose of dragonball. Although season 2 is a late bloomer I find it better than the first season. Things have gotten a little bit serious as I expected. One more thing ...Reigen self-defense !!! [[ 10/10 ]] !! Story: 9/10 Art: 10/10 Sound: 10/10 Character: 9/10 Enjoyment: 10/10 Overall: 10/10
mha_hater_No1
04/01/2019, 11:27 PM
Like you, I was waiting for the unknown entity seen in the "????!!!%" state in Season 1 to somehow be expatiated upon and it wasn't. This season was incredibly unsatisfying and lost it's reputation of breaking tropes and instead made the decision to follow every single Shounen trope. No ground breaking themes or events in this season, sadly. Every single villain in Mob Psycho's universe starts out with certain convictions and beliefs. Maybe this is a disadvantage the Shounen format has, but I feel the writers really took the worst of the format's issues and exacerbated it beyond belief. Every time a villain shows up, youknow for a fact that they are going to end up having a change of heart, or start having immense respect for Mob, specially when Mod reks them. Somehow losing makes the villain realize that he had been wrong about every single thing, and a little schoolboy (whose struggles are incredibly generic with loneliness and social awkwardness being the main themes) knows what the real way is to live in this world and enjoy it. The writers fail to understand that everything that bad happens in the world, isn't always going to be related to psychic powers. And not all issues can be explained away by saying, "You don't have the right attitude". Mob is never faced with an opponent that cannot be defeated with powers, or faces issues that actually make him rethink this beliefs or question them. This anime's basic statement is beat your enemies to a pulp and suddenly their ideologies and convictions will be forgotten, and they will follow your beliefs and respect you. For a show that focuses so much on inner strength and moral platitudes, the moral of the story is always that if you defeat your enemy, they will yield to you. It's like a guy pestering a girl at a party, begging her to sleep with him. Following this anime, I bet if I use physical strength against the girl I'd be able to conquer her in mind, body and spirit. Because being beaten up made her realize that I was very empathetic or had a similar life or something. It is incredibly creepy how Mob treats his villain, instantly realizing their hopes dreams and ambitions and continuing to ignore the villain's convictions in favor of his own path, which requires that he controls his emotions in order to be a better person. The world somehow tends to literally revolve around Mob and what his most recent emotion is. Situations manifest that only serve as a teaching moment for Mob and to realize that great truth about life that you can find on a fortune cookie. The villains have zero backbone. Even the horrible show that is My Hero Academia has respectable villains that actually touch upon the nature of evil. And how mere defeat and lectures from a school boy aren't enough to sway anyone's heart. I swear to God if these people talked about their feelings anymore I'd feel I was watching a chick flick. Being a nice person does not have anything to do with how Mob behaves. He sets a very bad example to follow. Even though he is OP, he is hardly ever able to nip any problem in the bud. There are zero consequences to anything that happens in the story and everything works out perfectly in the end. Having empathy is a necessary part of living a full life, but not to the extent that Mob says it does. Sometimes things need to be resolved with extreme prejudice, not because we hate the sinner, but because we want to protect someone or something. My interest in the second season was piqued by the inner "thing" that resided in Mob. The entity that was from another world. That moment was hair-raising and was amazing. I believe the most viewed videos on youtube have to do with that part of the 1st season. I was really looking forward to that this season and it is basically forgotten. I don't understand why there is a huge disconnect between the studio and the people. I would understand if the second season was more slice of life and didn't focus too much on fights, but that isn't the case at all. There are dragonballz type fights and action galore but none of them scratch your itch. For once we had an anime that broke the tropes and showed people who were so certain and full of themselves being brought down into the ground by an awkward school kid. There was something very cathartic about that, but that never happens in this season. They literally have to remove Mob from the scene in the beginning of the final arc so that the plot can progress, therefore Mob only ever has to deal with the biggest of the villains, who is also dealt with in a very anti-climactic way. Addition of so many espers to the show has also dampened the world-building. With every single esper that is added, the world of Mob-Pyscho becomes more removed from the fantasy we live in, therefore we end up caring a little less about the world and the consequences of living in a world with psychic powers. People are sick and tired of anime MC's getting the ever-loving crap beaten out of them for 15 minutes out of 26 minutes and then having the fight resolved in a couple minutes with everything working out. Just how many times do we have to see Mob getting pummeled into the ground? It's sort of sadistic in the sense, it made me feel that the creators of the show hated Mob in some weird way. I'm just very disappointed and I am happy that this season is over and I wouldn't have to see this again in my life.
rtil
04/01/2019, 04:31 PM
A few years prior to the 2nd season of Mob Psycho 100, this series was relatively unknown. One Punch Man - once a goofy webcomic drawn in the charmingly childish style of ONE - was masterfully redrawn by the accomplished mangaka Yusuke Murata, and not long after an explosive anime adaptation from Madhouse introduced the world to the works of ONE. No one saw Mob Psycho 100 coming. Adapted in ONE's style during the height of One Punch Man's popularity, its humble and unapolagetic flair both intrigued and repelled anime fans. But it didn't take long for those paying attention to take notice of the incrediblestory of ONE and the raw power of Bones' animation unfolding on screen. And just when most of us were thinking, "how will they top season 1?", we got blindsided again. Mob Psycho II is nothing short of lightning in a bottle - a perfect storm of solid storytelling, compelling characters and a studio willing to meet the challenge. What was initially shrugged off as "that thing that isn't One Punch Man" only two years before my typing this is now one of the most highly regarded anime series of all time. STORY: 90% In season one, Mob was always under the thumb of charming con-man Reigen. While Reigen is in many ways a father figure to Mob, it's clear from the very beginning that Reigen takes advantage of Mob's selfless good nature and naivete when it's beneficial to him. Despite that, Mob builds his philosophy around Reigen's early advice, "do not use your powers to hurt people." We see Mob get pushed to his limits several times as his emotions boil over and his hand is forced to protect the people that he cares for. Along the way, enemies and rivals become friends, and Mob begins to grow as a person. In season two, we get to see the fruits of these actions pay off in big ways. In Mob Psycho, the "power of friendship" doesn't come in the way of inexplicable power level boosts - Mob has always been a force of nature. How he got his powers and why he is so powerful is trivial to the core of the story - I can't stress that enough. Mob isn't interested in his own powers, he sees no value to them. He sees the value in hard work, cherishing and nurturing the latent ability that is inside of all people, not just espers. When he's back into a corner, he'll do anything to protect the people that cherish him and the people that he cherishes. It's what has always separated him from the antagonists he has faced. What Mob - and the viewer - are rewarded with is not the power but rather the value of friendship, as Mob's humanity inspires those around him to protect the same values he does. But many wrenches are thrown in the works as one crisis after another compounds on itself to the final arc of the 2nd season. My only reason that I am not giving the story a 100% is that the first few episodes retread familiar territory a little too much with Mob and Reigen doing what they always do - which isn't bad, but leaves you wondering what's coming next. Then episode five smacks you upside the head with one of the most surreal and mind-bending battles that briefly unleashes a new terrifying power in Mob we haven't seen before, only to bottle it back up again and bring us back down to reality. From then on, Mob Psycho puts its foot on the gas and doesn't stop. Mob and Reigen experience some heartfelt and well needed introspection. They drift apart briefly, only to come back together having a better understanding of themselves and eachother. And they need it, because the final arc of the anime is full of heart-stopping cliffhangers, twists and the most formidable antagonist that Mob and his friends have yet faced. Outside of all the monologues about power, espers vs humans and sakuga battles, Mob never forgets its core message, which lies at the center of its protagonist. Find yourself, embrace who you are, and become a good person. Mob refuses to let his powers define him, and in that respect the story of the anime refuses to let the esper battles do the same. While fantastic in their own right, they are a part of something bigger. Mob Psycho II ends in spectacular fashion and succeeds in taking the story to even greater heights. I have not read the manga, but I have nothing but full faith that if we are lucky enough to be graced with a 3rd and likely final season that we'll find ourselves stunned again. ART: 100% Studio Bones has taken full advantage of the simple style of ONE to take this anime production to a level we normally we don't get to see in broadcast anime. The characters' simple and straightforward designs allow the animators to be more expressive in other ways, and ironically Mob Psycho 100 is one of the most lively, well-animated and artistically striking anime we've ever seen. From the emotionally dramatic poses, facial expressions and light-hearted comedic moment styled in ONE's unforgettable faces, to the dark and foreboding nightmare sequences painted on glass by Miyo Sato, to the myriad of absolutely wild and untamed fight sequences, Mob has it all. I wish more anime productions were as bold as Mob to not be so rigid in an industry where I believe too much focus can be put into excessive character design detail, which forces animators to make a compromise in how many drawings they can squeeze into a scene. Mob, on the other hand, shows us what can be done when - perhaps unwittingly - an art style is animator-friendly, and consequently treats us to an almost never-ending demo reel of some of the world's best animators going all out for a project they care about. And you can tell just by watching it. SOUND: 100% Sound design and music in an anime can elevate or distract you from what is happening on the screen. A lot of creativity went into what an esper fight would sound like, and Mob has nailed it consistently. Every moment feels impactful and matches what is happening in that moment. To top it off, the music is fantastic and catchy - although what sticks out to me the most are the horror-esque caucophony of violins that screech every time something terrible is happening (or about to happen). CHARACTER: 100% Mob Psycho's story leans a lot on its characters, as many stories do. This can be good or bad depending on a few things. The first thing is the diversity and relatability of the cast. Do we resonate with the plight of the people in this fictional world? Do we empathize with their struggles, and even share them? I think the answer for most people with Mob is a resounding "yes". While none of us have Mob's powers, Mob is probably the most human of all in the cast. His pure intentions, desire for real friendship, and relentless drive to be a better and stronger person, all through a filter of humility are hard not to root for. He also learns to stick up for himself through the trials of this season, and while it causes temporary pain, he comes out stronger. Reigen also experiences some valuable development, as he sees Mob growing up, he begins to feel threatened by his independence and lashes out. He soon learns that Mob was the only friend that he had, and has to make a decision that will either make or break him, with risk to his past and his future. Seeing a character that spends most of his life putting on an act come down to earth and look inside himself is a grim reminder that there can be grim consequences for the different faces we put on - that you can only "fake it 'till you make it" until you don't. While Reigen turns a page himself this season, he's still the same in-your-face, quick-witted ball of charisma that you loved from the first season - just a better version of the one he used to be. It seems, for once, Reigen took his own advice, and it was thanks to Mob's friendship and honesty that he was able to see its value. As far as the supporting cast goes, I could go on and on. There are so many endearing characters, some who appear on-screen for a few moments and others who are far more important, like Ritsu, Mob's incredibly supportive and far more selfless brother. What matters is that there are two types of people in Mob's world - those who Mob has befriended, and those who he still wants to reach a hand out to. Everything in the story revolves around Mob, and the antagonists that are most closely tied to his outbursts of power are the ones who not only actively refuse his friendship, but seek to destroy everyone and everything he loves. It's at those moments we see Mob at his most terrifying and powerful, but want him to return to his humanity. And that's why Mob Psycho 100 is such a successfully character driven series. ENJOYMENT: 100% Season 2 is an emotional roller coaster. It's still full of light-hearted fun, and you will laugh. But it really plays with your heart on some extremely dark cliffhangers, life-threatening situations and a couple of "wait, did he just-" moments. At times, the antagonists can feel a little too shounen-esque in their monologues and diatribes about their power and just how great they are - but often get subverted by our heroes who are rolling their eyes as much as we are. It's proof that ONE is self aware of what he was writing and keeping Mob in a distinct place between an action series and a story about a boy who just wants to live a normal life. There are very few anime out there that I can say have the perfect mix of all the ingredients Mob has successfully thrown into the mix. This is one in a hundred, maybe even more rare. Every second of the series has been satisfying to watch, and also leaves me wanting more. It will be sad to see the day when there is no more left of the story of Mob Psycho to tell, but I also genuinely look forward to whatever ONE writes next - and I hope Bones picks it up, too. OVERALL: ???% Mob Psycho 100 is something truly special. There is no one I wouldn't recommend it to. I believe its largest barrier of entry is probably the art style - which I can see a lot of people shrugging off at first glance. To that I would say, if you ever needed proof that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover - or in this case an anime by a single frame - point them to Mob Psycho 100. I feel bad for anyone who skips out on this or couldn't enjoy it. We may very well never see an anime like this again. I hope that we do - but in the meantime, I tip my hat to ONE and everyone at Bones for pouring more than 100% of their passion into making Mob everything it could be and more.
forster82
04/01/2019, 03:08 PM
What do you mean Mob Psycho 100 got a second season before One Punch Man?! Anyways, I never actually thought that a second season of an anime could be way better than a first. I absolutly loved the first season of Mob Psycho 100 and just when I thought the second season couldn't be any better, I was completly wrong. This second season is without a doubt outstanding! It's so good that it's worth being my top 10 animes of all times! Even when trying my best to search for flaws in this second season of Mob Psycho 100, I wouldn't be able to find any.It's just visually outstanding and perfect! Every single episode left me aching for more. There just isn't anything worth criticizing in this anime, it's just that damn good. The story was outstanding, the visuals are phenomenal, the sound is marvelous, the characters are all fantastic! Overall a perfect anime in every aspect! Solid 10/10. <3
ItIsIDio
04/01/2019, 02:03 PM
If you are coming back to the second of Mob Psycho to once again experience the series, then I do have great news for you. It's maintained the level of quality it has presented in Season 1 and it has continued to develop on the themes it has been presenting so far. If you were satisfied in the past by Mob Psycho, it is very unlikely that this season of Mob Psycho is gonna be any different. If you're on the opposite side of the spectrum, I haven't seen Mob Psycho change its approach in any way that would cause someone to consider the seriesany better than they had if they have gotten an initial negative response from it. So if you consider giving the series another shot, there was nothing done to quelch your prior displeasure as everything is consistent. To go more in depth, the series follows the absolute same formula the previous season had, in the sense that it starts with a bunch of more comfortable situations that do not have a lot of high stakes for the world at large or even the protagonist himself, but eventually situations that force him out of the comfort zone take hold and force him to have an emotional response. In other words, the protagonist stoically endures every situation thrown at him and then has an outburst that displays who he is by the emotional response that has been triggered by the event. During the same battle and events leading up to it, he endures the immoral indignities that are placed upon him, and through enduring them, he showcases that he is the more moral man in the end. Ideally, every fight he endures fighting shows that he has become a better person and the fact that he endured that situation displays what the correct moral path in their life would've been for the aggressor. The animation presents the same level of care and detail it has always done and the OST at this point feels very familiar. Everything about the experience at its core has been the same, even if the execution has slightly improved. Mob's motivation has not changed in the slightest. He still wants to become a better person so that society and the people around him would actually want to be around him. He seeks to become a person that is worthwhile to have around by making other people appreciate and respect him. What is a person's worth, if all you seek is to entertain yourself by proving your superiority, and you end up unwanted as a result? Who are you gonna measure up to once you are alone, when everyone thinks you are a monster and despises you? Power is not something that helps Mob in the slightest, because it cannot make him feel better about himself, about how the world at large would just not interact with him, and power has only ever been a detriment in achieving that goal. Thematically, it tries to touch upon that a person's worth is not decided by themselves, and everybody is useful to somebody else. From the very beginning, that never changed. His feelings and situation continue to adapt around this theme. Every praise you have probably given Mob Psycho for the things it has done is gonna be maintained as valid because the show is gonna be experienced in the exact same way and really in order to not reiterate every praise the show has been given so far, I've described exactly what the show has done and seems to continue doing. The decision of whether or not to watch Mob Psycho should be a simple one if it was pleasant or unpleasant in the past. But I believe there is some validity in having a healthy amount of doubt. Here's exactly what has been bothering while watching the second season. Mob cannot win. What do I mean? I mean that, every single time that Mob sets a goal for himself, he is forced into a situation that he has to endure that completely overshadows the thing he set for himself to achieve at the start. This also applies when Mob earns something that he would be capable of calling an accomplishment towards getting towards his goal. The series, outside of showcasing that the people around Mob appreciate, respect and want him, does not seem to want to showcase how Mob became more adept as a person. The only thing that I seem to observe that people are generally more open about who Mob is, and react positively to his attitude. But his attitude does not bring him any tangible results. Mob does not seem to be stronger or more physically capable. He does not seem to be better suited to attracting another partner. The very thing he set himself to do. In other words, as a result of his intense work, Mob achieves nothing tangible, not even on a small scale. Even if this growth should at least be proven and some result should be displayed, the only thing really shown is that Mob's relationships improved. I understand that the primary point of the series and to Mob as a character is not to achieve a great feat after displaying an intense amount of perseverence and dilligence. But I consider that he at least has to receive some credit and proof that his efforts pay off. As far as Mob is concerned, what he's doing and what he endured has indeed caused him to change and the people around him notice that. But none of this seems to put him any closer to the goal he set for himself, at the very least in his eyes. He has no tangible proof that he has gotten better and that he would be able to finally impress the person he has strived to the most. It seems like all these efforts do not pay off, and all that Mob gets as a result out of them is appreciation from the people around him. Which given his character, it is a satisfying result, but ultimately, the person he wants to impress the most is out of reach and every time he tries to move onwards towards that path, he is sidelined by another event that forces him into yet another emotional outburst. Mob deserves to win. And when I say win, I don't mean that he is provoked into a fight he never chose to have then fights back or that he was forced to step in because the circumstances of the entire ordeal will harm his close ones. I mean that Mob has to set a goal for himself, minor or major, and then achieves that goal and gets what he wants. Without being sidelined and without any outside interference interfering with Mob's goal. He is constantly being held from moving forward, yet his attitude adjusts so that he would be able to. And none of adjustments seem to bear any fruit. It is starkly clear that Mob has become a better person since the start of the series and that the world he is surrounded by appreciates him better. I just sincerely wish that Mob would be given an opportunity to prove to himself that he's become a better person and as a result, he'd end up appreciating himself more too. This lack of apparent growth hinders me from considering Mob great and if anything would be done about this, I'd definitely start leaning towards that direction. Simply because Mob endures every confrontation he is forced into, as long as he is not proactive, he will not move further to achieve anything, and despite the brilliant presentation and well thought out psyche of Mob, the series is gonna be boring me while it stagnates. For once I'd enjoy Mob taking initiative and moving towards something he wants to do on his own without interruption. Hell, you can even have him have an emotional outburst during it if that is a demand. Because as it has been proven, positive emotions can also overwhelm Mob, you could cause that reaction from Mob and not rely on him having to endure the world falling on his shoulders to feel overwhelmed and start acting. I believe that this concern has risen out of the fact that eating the same type of food a second time does not have the same impact as the first. If you plan to keep every element that you used in the series prior to this season, you need to add something that adds to the experience. Sure, I genuinely did want more Mob Psycho, but I didn't want to experience a rehash of what I've already experienced so far. Some other ingredient should've been added to the food so that its taste would be a new experience. Perhaps the ingredient that I wished for is just something that would've changed the taste enough for me to enjoy the food's flavor even better. But the familarity of the taste was still welcome. But that does not mean that me or other people won't want new ingredients added. Despite all this, I believe the series has remained consistent and presented Mob Psycho enthusiasts with more Mob Psycho, and it has accomplished everything a fan would seek from the series. I am concerned about how Mob will grow as a character as given the approach portrayed he might stagnate or the changes he might experience will feel unrealistic. But for what the series is currently, Mob continues to deliver on its theme, it is as much of an worthwhile experience to have as it has always been, and it still continues to deal with personal growth quite well. I wish I would have more details on how it is different and what changed, but the series deals with the exact same themes using the exact same techniques within the exact same structure. The only thing that I experienced in this season that I did not in the previous is that within this season Mob has displayed a lot of growth, but I could no longer consider it personal because Mob Psycho hardly presented how his growth has impacted Mob's life. But I do not mind it as much now, as I can see it becoming a problem in the future.
AnarchistSasuke
04/01/2019, 11:42 AM
Ever seen a show that makes you wish you could give it more than a 10/10? That makes use of its medium so fully and with so much care and passion that everything compared to it looks dull? That's Mob Psycho 100 season 2. Everything about this show is artful in its execution. After an absolutely fantastic first season that made its way into my top five anime of all time within the first six episodes and then stole top spot when it came to a close with almost no competition, it was difficult to imagine that it could be topped. Calling Mob Psycho 100 season2 a masterpiece almost feels like an understatement. If you're familiar with the first season, you'll know the story is pretty unique. Insanely powerful esper boy works under fraud psychic and is afraid of his own powers but eventually learns some really great lessons from the people around him. This season goes even further with that premise and provides an experience so mindblowing in its execution that I'm honestly astounded it exists. The art, as with the first season, is leagues above any TV anime coming out right now. Season 2, in particular, takes its multi-media approach to the next level and provides movie level animation almost every episode. The character animation is outstanding, the fight animation will surely go down in anime history as some of the best the medium has ever seen, and the preservation of ONE's art style works wonders in allowing every frame to be fluid and a treat for the eyes. The sound design does what it needs to do but besides the OP and ED, as well as a standout track or two, it isn't really anything to write home about. It doesn't take away from the experience at all, but I wasn't itching to buy the OST. If you liked the characters in season 1, you're going to love them in season 2. From the very first mini-arc, Mob is getting character development. Reigen gets an entire arc of his own that cemented him as my favorite anime character of all time - and I'll be shocked if he's knocked off his throne any time soon (or ever). Managing such a large cast is no small feat on the part of the author, but he manages it with such care and precision that I don't think it's much of an exaggeration to call the man a genius. Almost every character is at the very least likable, and the villains perfectly foil the main character and/or Reigen. There are hardly any characters around that can rival the best written of the Mob Psycho cast, and this season stuck the landing so hard on character development that it's almost crazy. Overall, you'd be hard-pressed to find a reason not to watch Mob Psycho 100, and even if you did find a reason you'd be doing yourself the disservice of a lifetime. The slice of life elements of this show work just as well as the more typical shounen elements, each arc is important for the story and character development, the emotional beats hit hard and stay hard, and the art could and should be put into museums for future generations to see. Witness a masterpiece in motion. Watch Mob Psycho 100.
Sasori_Nagashi
04/01/2019, 10:19 AM
If you thought Mob Season 1 was a 10/10 like I did, prepare to view a 20/10. Everything about this season dwarfs the original season. Everything that was good in it has been multiplied to an insane level I never thought was possible. The Art and Animation reach new peaks, the soundtrack and overall sound design totally immerse and treat the ear to a delightful, emotion-evoking experience. The story continues with similar and entirely new themes in an insanely powerful way. The characters continue to evolve and grow while still retaining what we all loved about them. It's truly one of the best anime, orany form of animated media, ever produced.
RConway1729
04/01/2019, 10:16 AM
Spoilers up ahead ONE has done it again, Studio Bones has done it again. Mob Psycho 100 II is one of the best shows ever made. It is a great example of a character driven story with incredible animation, heart warming moments, great comedy and well done character interactions. Story 8: The story is quite simple and well done, the way Claw and other story threads are woven together to make a clear and coherent is well done. Generally it has a simple premise of daily occurrences in Mob's world. A school marathon, performing jobs for the Spirits and Such Consultation Office, failure to adapt to new things.And then brought to a thrilling and satisfying conclusion with the head of Claw and his ideology facing Mob's. Art 10: Studio Bones has once again saved anime with the level of skill in the art. Episode 5 stands out as having one of the most amazing battles in anime with solely it's artistic aspect. However through the rest of the series as the animation style is consistently at a very high standard, and follows ONE's drawings. Also the lapses in the continuous art style for comedic effect are well done and also fit their role. Some of the best art in anime in this show. Sound 9: Extremely good voice acting that fits well and is believable, Dimple's voice actor especially at the end of episode 8. This leads to a more consistent experience where I can easily suspend my disbelief. The sound effects are also well done. Character 10: The highlight of this show is the characters and their own arcs. Reigen's arc especially good with his understanding how he could not hold on Mob forever and learning that the hard way. Mob constantly trying his hardest to be the best without his powers. Mob also being forgiving to everyone he can, trying to shine a light on things. And also his clash with the head of Claw's ideology, that fight showed what Mob is really about, whether you are part of the world or above it. It also carries on the superiority complex from the main villains of last season and applies it on a broader sense. Also what's more the villains from last time have reflected on their misdeeds and are now correcting themselves as part of society. Enjoyment 10: Mob has a lot on the surface to enjoy, the fights, the animation, the comedy. But it also has a more implicit deeper meaning to explore. I really enjoy seeing what shows have to offer in their "philosophy" and found that Mob provided it in abundance. There was much to enjoy with that and a great show to go along with that. Overall 10: Mob Psycho 100 II has made its way into my number 1 spot of all time thanks to everything that went into it. Truly deserving of the 9+ it has on MAL, (at the time of writing this). This show is sure to become a classic down the years.
Krankastel
04/01/2019, 09:15 AM
As is the case with sequels of critically-acclaimed and popular anime, Mob Psycho's second season was among the most anticipated anime of 2019, with lots of hype being built even before it aired. Many claim that the second managed to actually surpass the first one by leagues, praising the character development and the plot's shift to more dramatic and slice-of-life elements. Is it worth all the hype and praise? Can it be considered a masterpiece? Let’s find out. [1. Beginning with story and characters...] During the first season, the first 3 arcs were character introductions and episodic adventures, whereas the last two (episodes 6 to 12) were morestraightforward and linear, with clear antagonists in mind. In the second, Mob Psycho followed a more episodic slice-of-life approach up until the 8th episode, this changing to more linear action-based narrative later on. (a) Up until the 8th episode, although there were fine examples of supernatural action, its emphasis was actually on prominent coming-of-age and more dramatic elements, with plenty of character development involved. These are what made this part shine. Mob in particular received plenty of character development, with each episode emphasizing on how interactions as well as his supernatural job shaped him into steadily becoming a more balanced and better-rounded individual. Also, both sides of the coin as far as his relationship and partnership with Reigen are shown in great detail. Multiple flawed and complex aspects of Reigen’s personality are brought into question. And the 8th episode did a poignant turn towards the next arc, with its action-focused arc. (b) And now about the parts from the 9th all the way to the end. Known as the World Domination Arc, it shifts to action elements. In my opinion, although this arc showed tremendous quality in a technical level, it’s also the part that deteriorated the anime story-wise. Why? First of all, because it contradicted a certain twist of the previous arc in a very anticlimactic way. Rather than leave events ambiguous, the creator chose the safe way in order not to displease fans by reassuring them too early. This way, Mob Psycho’s plot didn’t dare to grasp its full potential and fell into the trap of becoming way too shonen-like. Second, it introduced and reintroduced way too many supportive characters rushedly, making certain parts dazzling and barely fun at times, at least in my opinion. Negativity outside, this arc also had brilliant things to showcase. Displaying the fruit of Mob’s labors, this arc showcases him becoming wiser and much more willing to use force. Also, this arc presented us with unrestrained sakuga action with brilliant choreography and display of supernatural powers and also had certain very heartwarming moments that got into me. [2. Art and music...] a.) Its art style remains largely the same unusual, identifiable and psychedelic style of season 1. Animation-wise, Mob Psycho II has consistent quality and neat art shifts that amplify comedic or dramatic elements of the show. What this season has improved in comparison to the first is the quality of the animation of its battles in particular. Both the part up until the 8th and the World Domination Arc showed sublime examples of sakuga, which really proved how skilled Bones’ animators were at animating sublime telekinetic action. b.) The music is great, with the iconic Kanjou no Bakuhatsu returning for action and hype-filled scenes, three ending themes and a fine opening. However, I consider the first season's opening to be much more iconic and pumped-up, as well as with better introductory visuals. Conclusion: all in all, I believe that Mob Psycho II was a good sequel, but though it had the potential to become a masterpiece, it played way too safe at times and did not attempt to be more intriguing than just another shonen arc. Also, I felt the plot was based too much on the Mob-Reigen duo at times. Nonetheless, a highly enjoyable experience I would more than happily recommend, not only as a comedy-action anime, but also as a genuinely touching coming-of-age anime.
oggeswag
04/01/2019, 08:18 AM
(Slight spoiler warning in the third paragraph) “There can be no deep disappointment where there is not deep love.” When season 2 of mob psycho 100 got announced it would be an understatement to say that I was excited. I was brimming with excitement to see the continuation of Reigen’s, Mob's and all the other characters story. But now after it’s release and I’ve watched all the episodes of my oh so awaited season 2. I’m honestly not feeling it, and I’m very disappointed. I’m in no way saying that mob psycho 2 is a bad show. Not at all. The animationis stunning, the direction is phenomenal and the voice acting is as good, if not even better than the first season. It’s noticeable that a lot of care and effort has been put into making Mob Psycho 2. But despite all of these amazing features it has, I feel as if Mob Psycho has lost what made it unique and fun. What made the first season of Mob psycho great in my opinion is three points: the lightheartedness, the sense of humor and the characters. Season 2 only hits one of these points, but actually improves upon it. The characters. Mob and friends have never been better. Mob actually has an arc spanning over the whole season, not one forced into the last few episodes (as in season 1). Mob wants to improve as a person and actively makes an effort to do so. Something you really can’t say he does in the first season. Reigen also has an amazing arc this season. I won’t talk much about it because it would be a shame if I spoiled it for someone. Reigen was more or less the same person at the end of the first season as he was at the start. In season 2 tho, he’s a changed man at the end. It’s not only Mob and Reigen that’s gotten better, but all other characters also stepped up in season 2. They all changed so much that some felt out of character. But I don’t mind since the most of the characters are very well written. And that’s the part of Mob I adore. The rest of it kind of sucks. The two other points that season 2 doesn’t get is the lightheartedness and humor. Which mostly goes hand in hand. Mob psycho season 1 is a lighthearted slice of life anime about a boy with psychic powers that despite his lack of emotion tries to live out his normal life as good as possible. Mob psycho season 1 never gets serious and dark. It has its emotional moments but never something too serious. In season 2 mob literally comes home to find his house on fire and sees what he believes to be his family burning. Mob Psycho 2 is one of the darkest and most serious shows I’ve seen in a while. And I don’t understand why, Mob Psycho was funny because of how lightheartedly these situation that would be handled totally different in other shows. That’s why it’s funny. When the most serious thing ever happen and Reigen then laughs about it later isn’t funny. It seems more like a flaw in Reigens character. I feel weird saying this but Mob Psycho season 2 isn’t funny at all. Season 2 abandons the concept of the first season and it makes me really disappointed. The first season of Mob Psycho was an analysis of manchildren and more or less a parody of shounen animes. But the second season isn't a parody anymore. It’s turned into what it made fun of in the first place. I find it very hard to even call it a slice of life anymore. To further prove my point that Mob psycho isn’t a slice of life anymore is the frequency and lengths of fights. There are few fights in the first season of Mob, meaning that when Mob went 100% and the fights broke out, it felt Impactful and epic. But in season 2 there are fights more or less every episode. The fights are longer, some spanning over something like 10 minutes. The animation might be great, but it gets overwhelming. I was finding myself sighing and thinking isn’t this fight over soon? Rather than being amazed by them as I was in season 1. The most stupid thing ever happened as well. You know how the show is called Mob Psycho 100. Well suddenly mobs emotions can get ever 100% and he grew even more powerful. The point of the WHOLE show is that once the emotions get to 100% they overflow and Mob can’t control them anymore. But what’s the point of that if he suddenly can get 200%. It breaks the concept season 1 put up. Season 2 takes everything season 1 does good and throws it in the trash can. What was once fresh and amazing is now just another My Hero Academia, and it’s a real shame. I had high hopes for this anime and I was let down big time. I would honestly rather watch the worst anime ever than rewatch this. The animes I feel the least from are the ones that are mediocre, the animes with extreme wasted potential. And Mob Psycho has sadly become one of them. I was expecting greatness and when what I got was very mediocre. It hit hard and my rating off this season of Mob Psycho suffered.
The-Observer95
04/01/2019, 07:56 AM
It rarely happens that second season of any anime tops the first season but its not the case with the Mob Psycho 100, because its clearly improves over 1st season artistically and story-wise too. Mob Psycho 100 is lucky that its not being handled by any other studio then Bones because otherwise it might not have gotten the same treatment that its getting here, any other studio might have changed the director for the second season and all know how well that sits with anime fans. Just look at that One Punch Man's second season's PV, the anime has not been released yet but peopleare freaking out at the PV because not only studio is changed but director also is changed. The thing about mob psycho 100 is that artistically its very unique and one of kind like Bakimonogatari, I am glad that it follows the art style of manga and does not shy away from its quirkiness and respects authors will and his intent. When its comes to animation studio bones knows what they are doing and god they have done a phenomenal job here, each and every frame of mob psycho 100 is masterpiece and can be looked as a drawing that can be hanged in household as a art-piece. The anime's other unique thing is his main character Shigeo (Mob), who thinks supernatural powers are part of his daily life and does not give him any edge over anything. And that mentality is something which makes him unique in the shounen genre and which through he grows as a person. While talking about this anime we can not ignore the one person that is Reigen, he servers as a mentor to Mob, a kind of mentor he truly deserves as shown in the episode 3 of season 2. I really like that overall the show has not changed much from the first season it has just improved upon on the first season.
Plantlife
04/01/2019, 07:39 AM
"I wanted to make something kind." - ONE [Author of One Punch Man and Mob Psycho 100] (paraphrased since I can't find the source of the interview) The most hyped up second season since My Hero Academia II has come to fruition and let me say, it does not disappoint. My expectations were sky-hecking-high after an incredible first season. Yet, SOMEHOW, the second season went above and beyond the call of duty and blew me away with the most amazing season of any show I have ever seen in my life. Allow me to explain. While most people's complaints related to the show is "bland" and "tooslice-of-life". I must first say that this show is centered around the characters rather than the plot, despite the plot being really, really good. Nothing related to the story is wasted. Every character, every line, every moment, every sound, camera angle, power, you name it, is important. There wasn't a single episode that I felt that I was sold short. I ate up every moment, because it MATTERED. While small things like incredible animation, directing, pacing, humor, romantization of normal occurrences and all other terms I could use to show how great the show is despite 90% of the population not knowing what that means, I want to focus on the main part of the series I love the most. The characters. Every single one of them feels like a fragment of a real person's soul, and shaped to become a well rounded character. Reigen, Mob, Teru, Ritsu, Suzuki, Shou, CLAW, new villains, side villains, and school kids, are all important characters. I was constantly surprised and satisfied with how real these characters felt and reacted to their situations. Their motivations were understandable, and frighteningly relatable. The relationships between these characters are even more fascinating and is what brings me to tears a majority of the time. The psychology of this show blows my mind, and saying that it has taught me how I think is flawed (by showing characters that mirror my way of thinking) and how life is actually beautiful (albeit being kind of awful sometimes) would NOT be an understatement. Mob Psycho 100 is my favorite form of entertainment on all platforms for probably the rest of my life. I would not hesitate to recommend this anime to other people, knowing that many people will probably miss the point of the whole show, which is this: You matter. Relationships matter. Living life joyfully and working hard, even as a everyday commoner, is not something to be ashamed of, but to be cherished. Enjoy yourself, your life, and your relationships. A message needing to be heard by every human being. I hope this review was helpful.
Johan_Liebert_
04/01/2019, 07:32 AM
What makes a show good? Is it the story’s ability of positing a revolutionary concept or to delve into deep unprecedented philosophical topics and tackle uncharted themes and ideas? Or, maybe it’s the unique characters present that imbue the show with relatability and separate it from the rest? This season of Mob Psycho 100 has me thinking otherwise. Mob Psycho takes themes like self-identity, comradery, uniqueness and blends them into a tale that I will not soon forget. Mob Psycho tackles the aforementioned themes in a way that most of its predecessors have failed to do. This has me believing that in order to fabricatea good story, you don’t need the most original concept but need to execute whatever you have in your hand to a T. This season, we again go on a journey with Mob (the OP psychic) and Reigen (the conman) as they exorcise the demons present in the world and those present inside of them. The plot is as simple as it gets, we have our exorcisms going on; Mob being taken advantage of and deciding to become a better person; Claw, making a move; the body improvement club being awesome, etc. The plot doesn’t really diverge from what was presented to us in Season 1, though it does take some detours, those are what make this season so much better than the first one. The previous season focused more on the fights and their aesthetics whereas this season the attention is more on the character development through the fights. Sure, the fights look as beautiful as ever, but more importance is given to how the characters change and what they take away from the fights. Reigen and Mob visit various clients, and most of the time the exorcism of the spirits serves as a catalyst for Mob’s growth as a character and as a human. But, where the anime shines is not the plot, but the characters. The characters are the heart of the show, which is true for most stories but more so with this one. The characters may look like typical shounen characters if you look superficially, but when scrutinized, one can come up with a different conclusion. One aspect about the characters I love is how human they feel. Mob does not require any catalyst for the instigation of the feeling that he needs to change, it comes from within him. It’s a joy to see him transform into a socially acceptable person from a socially awkward teen. The show handles this change in a way that is realistic and poignant, which is to be expected as the show does such a great job of portraying the difficulties and hurdles faced by Mob due to his awkward disposition. No development feels rushed or out of place and everything is handled at a pace that is not too fast but not too slow that the watchers get bored. As you watch Mob trying his level best to grow up as a person, you can’t help but start to support him. The body improvement club is what our society should be. They are introduced as temporary comic relief characters but slowly they become an integral cog in the growth of Mob. We don’t spend much time with them on screen, but whenever they are on screen the experience is absolute gold. The two characters in the spotlight are Mob and Reigen with the latter also getting a character arc which is probably one of the best I’ve seen in recent years. Reigen is a conman, he swindles people, including Mob, for his own personal gain, but, despite that he’s one of the most likeable characters in the series. At first, there seems to be a dichotomy between him and Mob, with Mob lacking the very confidence that Reigen seems to be brimming with, but this season lets us view things with a different perspective. We see Reigen’s inner struggles vicariously and realise he’s not much better off than Mob. Reigen when put in a difficult situation where his only ally seems to be him himself, his introspection reveals a great deal about him and his relationship with Mob. He realises that under the pretence of helping Mob control his powers, he was actually taking advantage of him and was holding Mob back from enjoying his youth. After his epiphany, he does not feign ignorance but tires to better himself as a person. Reigen, in Mob’s own words, is a genuinely good guy. Furthermore, his ultimate move – Self Defence Rush – is capable of destroying the whole planet and needs to be nerfed. The anime also boasts a spectacular cast of supporting characters. We’ve got dimple, the spirit who wanted to take over Mob’s body at first but warms up to him and becomes more and more of a comrade after each passing episode. This change happens gradually which helps audience familiarise themselves with his character. We don’t get any abrupt character change and thus the show avoids alienating the viewers. Another character worth mentioning is Mogami, a resentful spirit who is the perfect depiction of what Mob would’ve been had he not met with Reigen or had Reigen been a selfish person. The serendipitous meeting between Mob and Reigen is what kept Mob and his uncontrollable powers anchored to the ground. The body improvement club is as epic as ever and this season has convinced me that the biggest muscles they have are their hearts. The characters are meticulously crafted and handled with care. That being said, there are some flaws here and there. Most of the villains are underdeveloped and are there only as an obstacle for our heroes to overcome. We don’t know their motivations for joining the evil organisation that they have joined and neither do we learn about their personalities. Not all villains are cannon fodder though. The leader of the organisation has a goal set in his mind and though his motivations are a bit overbearing, it’s not difficult to picture that among tens of hundreds of espers one would come across such a guy. Although, the villains are not as interesting as they could have been, I don’t think it matters much because at the end of it all what Mob Psycho really is, if you ask me, is a coming of age story. The animation is absolutely fantastic. Studio Bones have outdone themselves once again. If you’re holding out on this show because you think that the animation looks crap then, I don’t know what to say to you except you’re missing out on an acid trip. The facial animation conspicuously shows the characters’ emotion and much of the characters’ thoughts are accentuated through their body language. There is a lot of visual storytelling which is really well complimented by the unique art and animation. Lastly, the fights are stupendous. The animation does a great job of presenting the tension and force exerted by each punch, each kick that the characters throw and receive. Every time someone uses his/her psychic powers to pin someone to the ground, the anime does an awesome job of accentuating the augmentation of gravitational field around them which helps in visualising the incomprehensible telekinetic powers that the characters possess. This one guy has the power to teleport himself anywhere he wants and keeps doing so while fighting. You would think that it would make it very hard for us to follow him as he keeps darting around, but due to the excellent cinematography and clever use of visual direction, you can always keep your eyes on him using your peripheral vision. That’s some next level stuff right there. Massive props to everyone involved in animating the series. The music is brilliant as well. I’m no connoisseur of music but I can tell whether a piece of music fits a scene or not and in the case of Mob Psycho 100, most of the pieces perfectly complement the ongoing scene. The music during fights are perfect to get you hyped, and those during the emotional scenes will make the feels hit you like a truck. Also, the OP is fire. Mob Psycho 100 is one of the best character driven narratives to come out in recent years. It’s a near prefect retrospective look into a teenage mind and how everyone is susceptible to change. It sends a message that no matter how incongruous you are with respect to your surroundings, no matter how detached you are with reality, you can always start over.
Stark700
04/01/2019, 07:32 AM
Sometimes, I wish I could wipe my own memory and relive the experience of something all over again. Whether it’s a book, manga, video game, TV show, or anime, there’s probably one thing out there we all want to experience all over again for the first time. Mob Psycho 100 Season 2 is one of those things. With its ever growing popularity, ONE's Mob Psycho 100 is back in town with its eccentric character cast and innovative ideas. It’s hard not to love the show with its sheer dynamic visual style. But we know Mob Psycho is much more than its animation quality. In fact,this is one of the few show that fully manages to capture the magic of the manga and perhaps outdone itself even more. Mob’s return reminds me how an underdog young boy like him can make a difference in a world where anything is possible. As one of the most anticipated sequels, Mob Psycho Season 2 immediately gets the viewers back on track starting from the first episode. It’s not in a huge rush to accelerate the plot like some sequels but instead get fans to familiarize the franchise again. We are reminded of how characters can change and make a difference with Mob being the most prominent example this season. He’s no longer a shy little kid like before and stands up for himself. Mob is like capeless hero armed with esper power and a strong desire to be himself in this season. Regardless who he is facing off against, he doesn’t back down and shows just how much he has grown. Now, that my friends, is more than just hitting puberty. On the other hand, we are also reintroduced to Reigen, the sexy bad boy who is known for being super shady. Business returns for him and he isn’t afraid to guide Mob with his way of words. In the earlier episodes, the duo deals with urban legends and eventually, he even decides to make a website for psychic business. With this business, it should come to no surprise that he’d attract unwanted attention. Knowing Reigen, he deals with his problems in unorthodox ways with a full air of confidence regardless of consequences. The season boosts his personality in full fold with him taking on the role of a businessman, a con artist, and anti-hero. Regardless how the show delivers his character, I always find him to be the most entertaining part of this season. Why? It’s because of how much variety Reigen brings out of this show. Mob Psycho shines when characters’ actions speaks louder than words, and in most cases, Reigen does so. It’s the type of fan service where ONE knows how to give to us, the audience. As part of the plot, the first half felt like the storytelling is a bit loose although remains consistent to the show’s overall themes. When experimenting with ideas, Mob Psycho always wants us to feel something whether it’s sadness, laughter, or excitement. Indeed, there’s a deeper degree of emotions drawn out with the attitude and actions of the characters this season. Mob is an example of such when he became a much larger than life character. He wants to improve himself and continues to overcome his own personal obstacles. It makes me want to see him succeed and the show executes Mob’s character growth emotionally. I’m not going to lie, this season might just make one of you shed a tear or two. You could probably guess that while the second season contains its goofy moments, we can’t forget about the threats of certain espers. In the latter of the show, we are introduced to Claw, an organization that wants to make the world under its image. Is the world ready? Can anyone stop them? If you’re not aware, ONE is also known for his other popular superhero work, One Punch Man. This show no doubt has its own legion of heroes only that they aren't dubbed as such but act with heroic intentions. Even Reigen, our local bad boy knows who the real villains are despite his reputation. Claw itself is a mysterious organization especially with their charismatic leader, Toichiro Suzuki. As a very powerful esper, his own confidence perhaps dwarves even Reigen. After announcing his plan for a New World Order, he makes it clear that nothing will get in his way. The second season pushes him as the Big Bad along with the Ultimate 5, a series of elite espers who serves directly under their boss. If you don’t believe me, just watch what characters like Shimazuki and Mingeishi can really do. They test the limits of Espers’ powers with few rivals. But still, I don’t think Mob Psycho was ever designed to be a battle shounen. It’s more of an supernatural action flick that combines elements of its unique humor, style, and surreal imaginations to make a worthy show. And trust me, what I came to see is what I got from this season. Bones, what can we do without you? With so many action packed projects under your belt, Mob Psycho really is another title that fully deserved its spot on their roster. Make no mistake, the second season is a feast of extravagant animation that went beyond my expectations. In particular, chief animation director Yoshimichi Kameda is able to sell the character designs as real as possible while decorating the show with jaw-breaking elements. Episode 8 is an example with the extensive amount of stylistic choreography. It may look a bit rough at times but the episode delivered the highest quality of anime action I haven’t seen in years. When the show isn’t showing off its over the top tier animation, it’s well known to execute its character personality through cleverly timed expressions. There’s no shortage of moments this season when you find characters react in overly exaggerated manners. It’s the type of selling that makes Mob Psycho 100 Season 2 so great. It’s been a wild ride this season. With just 13 episodes, Mob Psycho’s sequel manages once again become a sensation from Studio Bones and its talented staff. There was no episode where I felt bored as it managed to connect me with its wealth of creative ideas and character growth. Very few shows I’ve seen these days can match up with the style that Mob Psycho has built and to say this without bias is a real accomplishment. Keep up the good work Mob Psycho, because you definitely earned it.

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