You Know What I Really Admire In Mob Psycho 100? Its Ability To Blur The Distinction Between What’s

You know what I really admire in Mob Psycho 100? Its ability to blur the distinction between what’s funny and what’s serious. And I don’t mean mood-whiplash, because that’s easy. Mood-whiplash just requires one very funny thing immediately followed by a very serious one, or vise versa. What I’m talking about with mp100 is that they take the funny thing and make it grave when you weren’t looking. Or the severe thing become funny without losing its severity. It always just leaves you hauntingly unsettled figuring out what the actual tone of the scene is and this is just so fascinating to experience.

The fight with Teru. Mob accidentally launches a knife and shaves Teru bald. That’s funny. That’s fucking hilarious. Princely Teru is suddenly an old-man-looking bald guy. But you know? The bald joke becomes Teru’s crisis about his identity. The bald joke becomes Teru going after Mob with his own hands, wrapping his fingers around Mob’s windpipe begging him to fight, to take back what Mob said about both of them being common. The actual narration in the manga is “In the end, Teru chose to act. He’s using his hands to choke Mob. A simple act of violence against a weaker person. And it is every bit common…” And Mob doesn’t fight back. He suffocates in silence, and passes out. And this…this is still the bald joke. This was just a bald joke. And it’s not the end of the joke, because when Mob’s ???% powers activate they strip Teru naked, and THAT’S still the same joke. The cold severity of watching Mob be choked to unconsciousness while Teru’s whole world shattered was inside this joke.

On a smaller note, the student count president Kamuro. Watching him lock himself in his room and literally throw himself on a pile of trash bags is funny. That’s the sort of thing you watch and go “haha me!” I’ve seen a lot of people tag him trash boy. But also its…pretty brutal for his character. His family demands perfection from him in every category that concerns family pride, but their son’s own health? Own well-being? Own living space? They let him fill his room with literal trash because it doesn’t concern them, and Kamuro is too tired to put in any effort to clean his room when it’s not demanded of him. So yeah, trash boy literally sleeps on a pile of trash, but only because of the horrifying way his family treats him. Am…am I laughing?

Then REIGEN. Oh god REIGEN. He’s pretty much the personification of everything I’m getting at here. The guy does stupid shit. Like, all the time. Always. 24/7 Reigen is doing something stupid. And yet his stupid nonsense is one of the only serious sources of support in Mob’s life, at least early on. Reigen will be doing something unarguably stupid while Mob acts as support, and when Mob expresses real worrying concern about his own powers, Reigen turns around and cites the exact stupid nonsense they’re doing as solid proof that Mob’s concerns are ill-founded. Reigen will talk Mob down from his own panic and fear by pointing out the good Mob is doing for the world, that he’s fine, he’s in control, he’s okay–by making the constant stupid nonsense into something powerful and sweet. Am I laughing? Am I crying? 

(Spoilers now for anime-only watchers) This culminates so well in the conclusion to the 7th Branch arc. Teru and Ritsu pressure Mob to go 100% and use his powers to save all of them. Reigen, and Reigen alone, tells him not to do it, because Reigen understands how much Mob suffers when his powers go out of control. He takes Mob by the face right before he 100%’s and tells him it’s okay to run and let Reigen handle it. Immediately after, with his guard dropped, Reigen takes a sword to his back.

And it has every potential to be the most traumatizing thing in the series.

But Mob goes 100% right before the attack lands, and it’s not 100% panic or fear or anxiety, it’s 100% gratitude. Which passes on Mob’s powers to Reigen to control because Mob listened to Reigen, and trusted him, and passed on the responsibility Mob was too scared to handle. But Reigen is Reigen. So he just fields all of these powerful attacks with a mixture of annoyance and confusion because “what the hell I dont have psychic powers. did Mob do this?” And it’s hilarious to see every attack bounce off Reigen while he responds with essentially “Could you not?” the whole time, until the opponents are trembling in awe of Reigen’s powers. It’s simultaneously the most hilarious and heart-felt thing I’ve seen in the series and I’m still in awe.

There are just so many little instances of this that defy all expectation and I’m so appreciative of the skill that goes into pulling this off.