Mob Psycho 100

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Mob Psycho 100 is one of the most unique shonen manga I have read.

With an easy to understand premise of "boy with psychic powers wants to impress girl he likes by joining the bodybuilding club", it's so much more than that.

However, the real goal of the series is not that.
It's something mentioned very early on by Mob's mentor, Reigen, which is just
"Be the best person you can be".

Mob Psycho 100 is not about this awkward kid dealing with espers and ghosts and all things supernatural, while trying to live his school life.
It's about that awkward kid growing up as a person through all ... the different people he meets, and at multiple times it's referenced how Mob is just a "blank slate" and he needs to "be somebody". It's here where you see the biggest difference between Mob and anyone else with psychic powers in the show who constantly think they're better than everyone else, while Mob is trying to BE like everyone else.


It's the one story-based manga I can say has the perfect ending.
Not because everything went his way, but because everything that happened is consistent with the message of the show.

Definitely check this out if you want a heartfelt manga, and if you don't like the art at first, give it some time and it'll definitely grow on you.

Mob Psycho 100 is one of my favorite animes, and I genuinely think that season 2 is great, worthy of a 10. But, coming to read the manga, I say it's not that much. ONE deserves credit for his work, but a significant part of Mob's greatness came from Studio Bones.

Story: 6/10
It got lost at some point. Many people think that season 2 is the end, and in fact it could've ended there. Claw was defeated, as well as Suzuki after having the greatest fight of all series with Mob, Mob was fully grown as a character, and Hazamada, Ritsu, Reigen and the others had ... finally found their place. It was a good closure, and a season 3 seemed unnecessary, but I love Mob so I'd be up to it if it was good. It wasn't. If I were to review season 3 alone, I would give it a 3 or a 4.

Season 3 decided to focus on the psychic helmet club and how it was becoming a huge cult. It seemed a cool idea that Mob's followers were creating a new spiritual monster just by their beliefs, much like Neil Gaiman's American Gods where gods are real and powerful if there are many people believing on them. It also seemed a great parallel to Mob and his own self, how he is not special, to the point that his identity can be stolen and distorted by a giant "mob" of the people out there. It could've been a great Man vs Self/God-Self conflict, then oops, it was Dimples all along.

After that, somehow they thought it would be a nice idea to a final conflict that Mob was isekai'd by a car and became an out of control allmighty psychic. This was stupid and incoherent to Mob's arc, since he has been close from dying in many situations in the past, and now you'll say that he could control himself in Suzuki's fight, but not when he was hit by a car?

Art: ONE/10
I don't care too much about it, but it's still here. ONE can't draw, simply. Other authors, like Hajime Isayama, were also bad at drawing when they began, but improved a lot during the years. ONE, somehow, managed to improve literally nothing.

Character: 7/10
I gave this a high rating for the amazing development given to the main characters: Mob, Ritsu, Reigen and Hazamada. I love how ONE fleshed out Reigen's toxic attitudes with Mob, showing how bad is a relationship like this, and that he could developed a character like Reigen, making him really suffer the consequences for his mistakes and become a better person.
Now, I would love to say that Mob is the most developed character of the manga because of how much he has changed. He changed on everything, his life without friends, his relationship to his family, his job, the way he works to improve himself, everything was brilliantly written and made Mob grow as a person. Except one thing, his school crush, that stayed the same and was dragged in for the entire series.

I was shocked to see that the little screentime Tsubomi had was created by Bones. The manga cares so little about her and put her as a cardboard with no personality, and we're supposed to care about her since she is the main source of conflict in the final arc.

Mob Psycho gave brilliant arcs to some characters, but unfortunately couldn't do the same to female ones. The few ones we had were irrelevant, and then we have Tome. A great character, very important in the beginning and discarded later. I think the best part of season 3 was her club's arc on getting her to meet a telepath, and their search for aliens.

Having them all together in the end was a very wholesome and emotional scene, and I'm excited to see this in the anime. Still, her and the other girls never have a role in the story and Tome was very disconnected from everything that happened regarding Mob and his friends (even the Body Improvemente Club knew Mob's ongoings and helped in some fights). My thoughts on how season 3 could be better: Give Tome actual development and a major participation in the story like the others, and giving her more focus instead of Dimples.

Dimples was a character that I never hated nor liked too much. He was good in seasons 1 and 2, but in the third one he is all over the place. Sometimes he just wants to be Mob's pal, other times he wants to take over the world with a cult, he differs too much from the main characters by the fact that he doesn't have an arc, and that makes the end more stupid. Not only he is forgiven instantly by his actions, he is also magically ressurected to Mob's wantings. This also brings up an unspoken rule in Mob Psycho, that no named or relevant character is ever going to die. Honestly I think that ONE simply didn't know what to do with Dimples after he made him stick up with Mob, so he had to create this situations in season 3 to make Dimples feel like something more than Mob's pet.
By the way whatever happened to Shimazaki

Enjoyment: 5/10
Like I said, the anime was great, as it took all the greatness that the manga had and made it even better. With amazing animation, story, character arcs and fighting scenes, it became one of my favorite animes, and I admire ONE for making it all possible. However, the manga felt very underwhelming compared to it, and this third part was mostly disappointing. I'll watch season 3 when it airs, but I won't hype ir nor recommend it to the others like I was doing in season 2.

Overall: 6/10
Mob Psycho was a good manga, with terrible art but a great story and great characters, yet it lost its way in the third part. It will forever be one of my favorite animes, but I wish that it ended in season 2 and that Tome was way more relevant than she is. Overall, it serves as a good example of how all great things have to end at some point.

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS

Almost every aspect was poor (3) for me. Let me elaborate. Please bear in mind that i kind of forgot a lot of things about this manga because i didn't like it so much, and that this is my own opinion so you shouldn't be err attacking me for it.

Story: i was very unimpressed with all arcs. let's just say all i remember is explosions. my favourite part in the story was reigen's character development (somewhere near the ending)

Art (4): obviously not the best art ever, i'm not going to trick myself into saying that the art is mediocre because a lot ... of manga have better art i believe

Character: i see that the ending was supposed to be character development for mob, but the problem is that i didn't feel like it was very interesting. exploding everything and crying? that's about it? i suppose reigen is an interesting character for helping mob out in the ending (i remember his dramatic part because i liked it), but bear in mind that this manga has other characters too... in the end, isn't everyone else kind of... unneeded? maybe i should reread the manga but this is what i remembered.

Enjoyment: i don't remember laughing a lot for the comedic parts with ekubo. even worse, i was looking forward to mob's character development but it just didn't suit my tastes in the end. i read every chapter as it got published so maybe the wait for it made me forget details? anyway, i do not remember enjoying the ending as well...

I think I had expectations that were too high, but i believe some may enjoy the read as seen from the other 10/10 reviews. if you really want to start MP100, i actually want to recommend watching the anime instead because the animations and sound are really cool. like... perhaps... award-winning cool.