There are dozens of anime that I love to pieces,
that speak to me on a deeply personal level,
that I would recommend to anyone who asks
and go to bat for in the blink of an eye.
If I didn't have a lot of room in my heart for a wide variety of shows and movies,
I don't think that I could do this job.
But no matter how much space there is in there,
there's only ever been room for one anime at the very top.
And for eight years, that spot has been held by one show.
Anohana: The Flower we Saw that Day
was my favorite anime of all time,
and it would really take a whole video to explain why,
but I'm not making that video today,
because on January 8th, 2018, another show challenged its supremacy,
and after a month of mulling everything over
and one of the most incredible single episodes of anime I've ever laid eyes on,
I realized it had been usurped.
Anohana was now my second favorite show,
and into first place had stepped Mob Psycho 100.
[Mob Psycho 100 Season 2 Opening plays]
What's really wild is that this kinda snuck up on me.
I loved the first season of Mob when it aired in summer 2016,
but the endless march of seasonal anime
coupled with a daily life that was becoming increasingly busy as this turned into my full-time career,
it all kind of pushed Mob Psycho into the back of my mind.
While I have made a few videos about it since then,
outside of the time that I was working on those
and the time I spent binging the manga when it finally ended,
I haven't really given Mob much thought.
I haven't been able to.
Considering how fast the discussion around anime moves
and how many new-- often great-- series hit every season,
especially in 2018,
there's always been something else that I needed to think about.
When I threw together my three-by-three for Twitter on a whim last year, I didn't even think to include it.
But that's not to say that I forgot about Mob.
Scenes and ideas from the series have been playing in my subconscious for the last two years,
leaking out as stray thoughts about ONE-sensei's approach to character development
and his place in the canon of great manga writers;
comparisons to current obsessions like My Hero Academia, Re:Creators, and Planet With;
and a tendency to jam out to "99" by Mob Choir at least once a week.
And after two years of waiting,
when I watched the triumphant first episode of season two,
all of those feelings that had built up came flooding out like...
Well, if you watch the show, you already know.
Dimple: "What?!"
Like an epiphany, all of the tiny things that I appreciate about Mob came into view all at once,
and suddenly for the first time,
I was seeing the full picture of how much this anime had come to mean to me,
and just how many things I really love about it.
Today, I'd like to talk about some of those things
and speak a bit about how this show spoke to me.
That's gonna involve spoiling some things up to episode seven of the anime,
so although Mob isn't really a show that can be ruined by spoilers,
if you're not caught up, consider yourselves warned.
If you're not familiar with the story already,
Mob Psycho 100 is about a young boy named Shigeo Kageyama,
who goes by the name Mob,
who has incredible psychic abilities that become stronger when he's in a heightened emotional state.
Because he fears inconveniencing or hurting others with these powers,
he tries to keep his emotions suppressed most of the time,
which leads to him being socially awkward and feeling like an outcast
and having extreme outbursts at the worst possible moments.
Mob spends most of his free time working for Reigen Arataka,
a fraudulent spirit medium with no psychic abilities whatsoever,
who uses the mystique of the supernatural mostly as a marketing tool
to sell people on discount therapy and massages.
On occasion, he does run into actual ghosts and evil spirits,
and it's Mob's job to mop those up.
I've always found the idea of occult scams
and the performative flim-flammery that goes with them to be hilarious.
Psych is probably my all-time favorite TV comedy.
But at the same time, I've always been fascinated with stories about psychic powers,
especially anime and manga about ESPers.
When I was younger, I ate that stuff up.
So through its premise alone,
Mob Psycho was already well-positioned to become an instant favorite for me.
And it executes on that promising premise almost perfectly.
Mob Psycho 100 is really the complete anime package,
or at least the complete package of everything that I look for in anime.
My favorite genres are shounen-action, comedy, and slice-of-life drama,
and Mob Psycho simultaneously executes on everything I love about all three
better than most anime handle them individually.
I've gone to lengths explaining how brilliant just one of its jokes is,
and its surreal tone and wry character writing consistently crack me up.
Dimple: "Well, you know what they say: yesterday's enemy could be today's friend!"
Dimple: "Mm? You wanna shake?"
Dimple: "AHH! What are you doing, stop! Wait, WAIT!"
But more than that, it's the show's impeccable sense of visual comedy that really gets me going.
When it wants to be, Mob Psycho is as phrenetic and zany as Looney Tunes short.
Not only does it turn the exaggerated reaction style of comedy we commonly see in anime up to 11,
but it manages to wring humor out of characters' body language and mannerisms
--Reigen is basically doing the OreGairu bullshit hand-talking bit all the time--
Reigen: "I've got this! SALT SPLASH!!!"
And, of course, it's got a fair bit of slapstick.
Novel shot compositions and clever edits and transitions
add a lot of visual energy to the show's cinematic presentation as well,
and Mob isn't afraid to shift styles
or even bring in entirely new mediums of animation in order to help a joke land.
At the same time, because it understands its characters so well,
Mob Psycho is just as deft as landing emotional blows as it is punchlines.
Season 5 has already brought tears to my eyes three times,
and none of them were achieved through cheap tricks like killing characters off.
Mob induces those tears mostly through our sympathy
for the emotional growing pains that its characters experience.
In the last two-episode arc, for instance, we see Reigen push Mob away
by failing to recognize his disciple's growth,
and as a result of that,
he has to grapple with his own feelings of loneliness and inadequacy for the first time.
He goes down a dark path after realizing he has no friends,
all but loses his business and reputation in the process,
and by the time he realizes that he's only really in the psychic consultation game
because of his admiration for Mob,
the lie about his spiritual powers that was keeping Mob around
has been exposed.
But then comes the revelation that Mob saw through Reigen's flimsy, obvious lies a long time ago,
and never really cared because he could see that his master is still a great guy at heart.
And that really hit me.
Obviously, I and most other people can't directly relate to being a fake psychic
who's tricking a real psychic into believing he has powers so that he'll help him,
but I think everyone's felt lonely and isolated at some point in their lives,
and I think most people have experienced some kind of anxiety about a close friend
coming to hate them because of a mistake or a secret.
And hopefully all or at least most of those people felt relief
when those fears proved to be unfounded.
My existing investment in Mob and Reigen's relationship
made me care about the outcome of the scene,
but that nugget of truth at the center of it is what made the story resonate with me.
It's not often that an anime can make me sad enough to tear up,
but it's rarer still for one to make me cry with a relieved smile.
And Mob manages to wring those kinds of odd emotional responses out of me
with astonishing regularity.
Following the jaw-dropping brawl that closes out episode five of season two,
itself the conclusion to a rough arc that explores how bullying and loneliness
can hurt and change people,
there's this moment where a flippant, bitchy teenage girl
offers a tearful apology for how awful she's been.
And Mob forgives her without a thought.
I don't know, that gentle, genuine kindness that he shows
is just beautiful, to me.
There's a lot in this show that's so beautiful that it just makes me wanna tear up.
And yeah, that's probably a weird way to look at an action comedy,
but Mob just nails that delicate coming-of-age angst.
Now, as far as the action goes,
I mean, the episode I was just talking about
managed to give the Broly movie I saw the day before
a run for its feature-film budget.
Mob has some of the best directed, most stunningly animated fights in anime, period.
The manga's simple, rough art style
naturally lends itself to wild fight scenes
with lots of moving parts,
and even relatively unimportant filler battles
like the Dragger or Wiggly Figure
are given a five-star sakuga treatment with complex camerawork and choreography.
It's more impressive than many more serious shounen battle anime,
and in a way, I think it's helped in its fight scenes
by the fact that it is a comedy.
When fights break out, in most anime the goal of the animators
is to make them feel as cool and exciting as possible,
which means, in general, they need to avoid looking goofy.
But Mob doesn't have to worry about that as much,
since we expect it to look goofy. And that affords it a bit of freedom to experiment.
The animators are able to work a little more loosely,
exaggerate things a bit more than they would in, say, Naruto or My Hero Academia,
and bend the laws of physics a bit without yanking viewers out of the experience.
But for all of the flare and panache with which it presents violence,
Mob Psycho 100 is, at its heart,
a story rooted in pacifism.
For all that he changes throughout the series's run,
one of the things that Mob never budges on
is his refusal to use his powers against other people,
unless they're posing a direct danger to him or his friends and family.
The whole point of the first fight against Claw is that
trying to use force to impose your will on others
and thinking that your ability to do so makes you better than them
is fundamentally childish.
And, with Reigen's help, Mob is able to find a better way of counteracting that attitude
than simply fighting back.
Over the course of the series, we learn that psychic powers are rooted in powerful emotions,
so it follows that the reason Mob is so powerful
is that he's a sensitive, emotional kid.
And it's that trait, not the power that it gives him,
that proves to be Mob's greatest strength as the anime and manga go on,
because it allows him to empathize with others,
understand their points of view,
and communicate his own views to them.
That's how Mob approaches basically every conflict he's in
--though, at the start, he's not very good at it--
but, that's the thing:
instead of becoming better at shooting side beams or teleporting or other psychic nonsense,
that ability to change minds is the main skill that we see Mob hone and develop
as the story progresses and the action escalates.
Or, de-escalates, if he has anything to say about it.
Though, often he does have to defend himself in order to be able to get a word in
and show his enemies the error of their ways.
And I love that about this show.
It rejects the "might-makes-right" undertones of the shounen battle formula,
which can be interesting, but get pretty boring
when they're the only themes you see action anime explore,
and it does so without sacrificing the things that make those battle-driven shows fun.
The animators get to flex their muscles with some crazy explosions
and cool flips and punches and kicks and whatnot,
but those elements don't take over the narrative,
and they also get to flex their muscles when it comes to character acting and comedy.
Teru: "You did this on purpose, didn't you?"
Mob: "It was an accident!"
Teru: *spits*
Teru: "YOU'RE DEAD!"
In fact, many of Mob's strongest episodes
don't involve much in the way of action at all.
The real heart of the series lies in its slice-of-life side plots
and the development of its characters.
Almost every member of Mob Psycho 100's supporting cast
has an innate appeal to them as soon as they're introduced.
And they only become more lovable the more we get to know them.
It kinda goes without saying that Reigen Arataka is the breakout star of the series.
He's the kind of affable, smooth-talking guy who can instantly get you to like him,
but it's shown time and again that underneath his con-man affectations
beats a heart of genuine 24-karat gold.
He's got an uncanny knack for telling people what they want to hear,
but most of the time he sneaks in nuggets of what they actually need to hear as well.
And as the series goes on, he grows into a better and better mentor figure for Mob.
Dimple comes off as being a lot slimier than Reigen at first,
because, well, he absolutely is.
He's a con-man too, but one who often acts with malicious intent
and who thinks only of boosting his own ego.
But, he's got his good points too!
He really believes his own hype and, by proxy,
he believes in the words of encouragement that he offers to others as well.
You get the sense that part of him genuinely cares for Mob,
and it's a lot of fun to see his priorities shift as they become closer.
Mob's relationship with his brother Ritsu
really captures the ups and downs of sibling bonds,
and I love how desensitized his parents have become to all of his psychic bullshit.
Mob's Mom: "There you go again, always bending spoons!"
Mob's Mom: "You really need to stop doing that! It's a bad habit!"
Mob's Dad: "Oh, come now, my dear! Shigeo's going through puberty!"
His friends in the Body Improvement Club
are some of the most enthusiastic and supportive bros
you'll ever see in anime,
and the Telepathy Club that shares their room is a pack of lovable losers.
From Mezato to Emi,
even the background characters at Salt Middle School have their own unique charms.
Hell, even the school's delinquents are pretty swell guys when you get to know them,
and as for the show's villains,
they're an eclectic group of very... unique characters
who develop in interesting ways even after they're defeated.
The least appealing character in the cast is probably Mob himself,
who, by his very nature,
lacks the charisma to immediately draw in fans of his own.
He kinda relies on the colorful personalities of Reigen, Dimple, and everyone else around him
to keep the audience interested in his adventures, at first.
But as the story progresses, slowly but surely,
his gradual development and personal growth becomes the most compelling aspect of the show.
Or, at least it did for me.
As I've said before, I was a shy, awkward, sensitive kid.
Growing up, I had difficulty keeping my emotions in check and reading the atmosphere,
and to a certain extent I still do.
Social anxiety is something I've grappled with my whole life,
so I see a lot of myself in Mob and his journey,
and I appreciate how thoughtful the series is
in exploring why he might think or act the way that he does in any given moment,
and in demonstrating exactly what pushes him to change.
I find Mob's character arc to be both cathartic and inspiring,
because it reflects things that I've been through,
but it also lays out perhaps a better way of dealing with things
that I'm currently going through.
It's not like I'm gonna use one anime as a road map
for my life philosophy or anything like that,
but with each passing episode and chapter,
I've found myself feeling more and more admiration for Mob as a character,
and thinking that it would be nice to be a bit more like him.
I would really like to be more capable of supporting my friends, of letting things go,
and of accepting what I can't change.
There's a lot in this story that just resonates with me,
and it's presented in a way that almost perfectly meshes
with my tastes in entertainment.
So, in that sense, it's not really all that surprising that it's become my favorite anime.
And there's one... other factor.
Mob Psycho 100 was also the subject of one of my first proper sponsored videos.
The trailer analysis that I made for Crunchyroll
prompted my exposure to the franchise,
and I know it probably comes off as either a bit weird
or at least very on brand for me
to have an emotional attachment to what is, essentially,
a product that I shilled,
but that was a turning point in a professional relationship
that's brought me a lot of opportunities
and connected me with some of my best friends in the world,
many of whom are also big fans of Mob Psycho.
It was also a project that taught me a lot about Youtube as a business
and helped me get a handle on how I wanted to work with brands.
So Mob is indelibly tied to an important milestone in my life and career,
which are probably not as separate as they should be.
And those small personal points of attachment
that come from the unique context in which you view an anime
are as important a factor in determining what becomes your favorite
as any of that work's independent qualities.
So I feel like it would be intellectually dishonest of me
not to acknowledge the role that the experience played
in my affection for the series.
And who knows? In a different timeline where I'd been asked to cover, say,
Sweetness and Lightning,
maybe I wouldn't have put as much thought into Mob Psycho as I did,
and maybe it would've ended up being one of the dozens of shows that I merely love.
Maybe there's a timeline where I was asked to cover Berserk 2016 instead,
and I quit anime Youtube forever.
I feel like I was really lucky that my life took a path
that led to me being deeply invested in this show,
because I think it's done a lot of good for me,
and as favorite anime go,
I'd be hard pressed to find one that demos better when I introduce friends to it.
That combination of sakuga and comedic wit,
plus the One Punch Man attachment,
makes it an easy sell.
Now, on that note, when I realized that I wanted to make this video about the series,
I reached out to Crunchyroll and asked if they'd be interested in sponsoring it as well.
And they agreed to do so, so if you're not watching Mob Psycho 100 yet
and this video has convinced you to give it a shot, click the link in the doobly-doo
to go watch it on Crunchyroll.
And if you're not using Crunchyroll yet, well, all I can say is that you're missing out
on a great streaming platform made by anime fans, for anime fans.
Not only do they have a massive library of anime available in high definition
with shows streaming the same day they air in Japan
-- including Mob Psycho--
they also have a lot of great quality-of-life features that make it easy
to find new shows to watch and keep track of what you're already watching,
even when you jump to streaming through your game consoles or smart TV.
If you wanna try it out for yourself, you can head to Crunchyroll dot com slash basement
to get a 14-day free trial,
which is plenty of time to binge all of Mob Psycho season 1
and dive into season 2.
Now, I've just spent the last 15 minutes talking your ears off about my favorite anime,
so it only makes sense to ask:
What's your all-time favorite anime and what makes it so great to you?
I really want to start covering some older shows on this channel,
so I may come back to these comments for a bit of guidance in the future.
But, until then, I'm Geoff Thew, professional shitbag,
signing out from my mother's basement.