Mob Psycho 100: Reigen - Shirarezaru Kiseki no Reinouryokusha

I have not seen Mob Psycho in a long while, so this was a great refresher. I got reintroduced to the characters, their personalities and relationships, the overall vibe of the show, and definitely Reigen's schemes. I couldn't tell truth from fiction for a large portion of the film since my memory wasn't great, so it was entertaining to revisit these scenes and try to decypher the details. I got to experience the film as if I was one of the very customers Reigen would try to impress with his dramatizations and smooth talking.

Now I'm ready to see more of Mob Psycho.

"if you're making a recap episode, this is the way to go about it" -- the comments on Crunchyroll

tl;dr This recap has a story that informs a bit more about the depth the characters may have. If you watched 1st season a long time ago & wanna recap, you may watch and enjoy this. "I watched season 1, and what's in this one for me?" --> see the spoiler section below.

The memory afterwards: This is the one recap episode (or rather a movie, given it's length) that I WILL remember for it being a recap, as it gives something from itself, not merely stiching the ... scenes together & (maybe) giving some commentary. It's a recap with it's own plot, and yes, it can have very minory minor spoilers because of that.

The animation keeps the quality known from the first season, there is nothing to complain about and it's decent all along, but lacks the new action to feed your eyes with (NOT counting the scenes from original season, which are shown) or I'm just forgetting something here.

The story is told with humour specific to the series, playing off of its' characters really really well. It's done to the point, that even though this is a recap or in-between story, it actually lets you know the characters better, showing the depth to which they may commit to their certain tendencies (mainly Reigen and Mob), thus showing how strong those tendencies are within them & what they may lead them to.

Length & construction: as I watched it perhaps just a week after finishing the 1st season if not less, while watching it I wished it would be about 1/4th shorter, but by itself it's well paced and not much can be taken away from it without hurting its' quality, the story told or the story recapped. It weaves the series' story with its' own bits gracefully, well put and without hiccups a story within a story might treat you with due to one more layer of complexity (but I'm not even aware of any example of this in the wild, just saying).


If I may sound a bit corny, when Mob 100 is involved & you have dedicated, experienced team animating it: you can (not) just recap.

If you would like to recap the 1st season of the series after watching it a time long ago sufficient to make you forget its' parts: you will be happy to watch this instead of the longer series, and it will even entertain you a bit more beyond just reminding you what's happened in the story up to about the point before the season II.

If you've just watched the 1st season: I wouldn't recommend watching this right now, but it won't hurt you a lot if you can afford the time & the feeling it could be a bit shorter (unless you really dig the clips of the events from the series). But I *may* have a bit different standards than you, as to what wastes time or what clips to dig.


THIS REVIEW CONTAINS (minor minor) SPOILERS BELOW,
but they apply mainly to the construction & resolution of the plot, not specifics, although the end result equal to "some kind of resolution" can be suspected from it being "just a (decent) recap episode".

For those who watched the 1st season of Mob 100 and wonder if they should be/would enjoy watching this, the recap:

- show-lights the annoying Reigen even more and basically lets him go on the loose for extended period of time (thought the season 1 finale redeemed him? nah!)
+ but makes things very right in the end, cleansing you from any bad taste & feelings of injustice towards any involved characters you may worry it may leave you with for life (it may give you a small satisfaction even)
+ while recapping the whole 1st season well
= and the plot is resolved in a reasonable, balanced way, so all remains without change, coming full circle, as it should be (for a recap episode)

If you've seen Season 1, you don't need to watch this.

It's just a 60-minute recap of the previous 12 episodes, using clips from those episodes.
The premise is that Reigen, aka Mob's con artist/sensei, wants Mob to write a book about their adventures. So Reigen narrates over clips from the previous 12 episodes as Mob is supposedly writing all this down, for the book. In the end, Reigen doesn't like what Mob wrote, because "it's all about Mob and it just makes Reigen look like a con artist". So they give up on the book, the end. Nothing of consequence happens. Skip this.

Myanimelist says I ... have to write a longer review in order for me to submit? So... blah blah blah...