What do i mean specifically? Well, the part about the body improvement club and other self improvement in general.
More and more shows as of late seem to have been going down this path of trying to search for/preach on some moral and meaning behind them, even ones that have no business of doing so and who's writers have literally no ability to make use of the theme and actually instill the audience with anything of value. There are, and where OTHER shows that either did have that capacity, or, instead, recognized their inability to do these things, and kept it to a more simple formula of RAISING these questions they wanted to discuss, but leaving them open, which is a great approach as if done correctly and the show's interesting and worth it enough, it will get the viewer pondering and seeking these answers themselves, which can be valuable...
But... Not mob sadly. What started as a funny and interesting show in season one, which i think made it great, and also which kept the moral lecturing to a minimum and focused more on entertaining the viewer and maybe raising a couple of basic questions, soon devolved into a preachy mess in season 2, and even worse in 3, with the comedy drying up hard, and the entertainment dwindling to a minimum just to pretend to raise and answer a few questions it deems important. Worse than that, despite these supposed steps forward it pretends to take, usually the characters do NOT seem to act much different than they did before. For example after the things Eeagan went through in season 2, i expected him to be, or try to be a different man, instead, he's still exactly the same outside the end of season 3 where he has a brief scene of being real and getting over himself to speak the truth for once.
Overall it also seems to carry the exact same tired message of mediocrity that MANY other anime seem to carry and fits the Japanese mindset to a T - "having special abilities doesn't make you special" (both in regards of talents or literal supernatural abilities)... Which is actually a ludicrous statement, as being able to do things others can't, or being able to do them better ABSOLUTELY makes you special, which is why a heart surgeon will always be valued more than a cleaner, even under socialism or any other oppressive enforced social regime. Which of COURSE does not warrant bad treatment of other people with lesser or no talent, nor should affect equality under the law.
This in turn is why the show veers more and more into fighting other people instead of fighting ghosts like it did in the beginning, to the point they pretty much seem to disappear entirely by season 3 despite season 1 showing them literally everywhere. The dilemma to use special powers vs living life like a completely normal human thus makes a bit more sense, but would be literally nonsensical with all the ghosts around if they didn't suddenly vanish... And even then, the decision to do everything manually, such as saving kids from incoming traffic or a cat from a pole, as opposed to using powers for it, putting your, and other lives at risk for the sake of that weird 'normalcy' still looks incredibly stupid and naive, also selfish, considering you're not taking into account all the possible pain, suffering and worry you'd be causing to the afflicted individuals and their relatives, and your own too if you where to fail. Heck that's exactly what happens, and it causes MAJOR problems, aka basically a disaster worse than a tsunami, earthquake and hurricane combined, destroying like half the city. Was it important to the character development? I guess. Does the show comment on how utterly stupid and selfish it was? Not at all. Quite the 'self improvement' huh?
And that's on top of the final theme of s3 which is self acceptance. If Mob accepted his side with the powers, why still prefer not to use them in a potentially dangerous situation? It also goes against the principle of self improvement as a theory, not within the show's narrow confines, but in general and logically... But guess for Japan self improvement is just about striving for utter normalcy, not sticking out, and living out what others expect of you (as long as that expectation is within the confines to be normal) than striving to be extraordinary.
At the same time its about being selfish if you want to and perusing momentary desires like love interests and being normal at the cost of your potential? As i said, its all over the place and doesn't really make a proper point or argument to back any of this up, nor leaves a lasting lesson or proper conclusion, being a mess at best, and hypocritical, confused and shallow at worst.
5/10 for me, can't honestly recommend anything but the first season.
