Review of Mob Psycho 100 II
Mob Psycho 100 is a wild and unique show exploring its themes of power, youth, control and most obviously emotion in its purest sense. This is my first review so cut me some slack if it's a bit dodgy. Don't take my criticisms to heart too much as i do think the show is great. (spoilers from here on) Story-6.5 likely Mob Psycho's weakest point is its story which is made up of three arcs, being the smile cult arc, fight club arc and the Scar arc. the smile cult arc mainly acts as an introduction to whats to come and gives us the shows mascot Ekubo (thegreen spirit), the story is nothing much but has some cool animation and cheap but existent laughs. the second arc the fight club arc is easily my favourite, it introduces my favourite character for part 1 Hanazawa along with some other fun characters for example Onigawara and the fitness club. the best part of the second arc is of course Mob and Hanazawa's fight which builds on the themes of Mob's control and resilience as he refuses to use his powers on Hanazawa, once he builds up to '100' and lets his powers unleash we see an awesome sequence of mobs powers destroying an entire school. the last arc introduces who could be called the main villains Scar and acts as the primary story arc of part 1. The arc centres around mob's younger brother Kageyama who is jealous of Mob's psychic powers and gets kidnapped to become an esper for Scar. To be completely honest Kageyama comes off as annoying the whole arc. whilst i don't think the arc is amazing it has some redeeming qualities such as Reigen's feigning as Scar's leader and the many fight sequences. in addition to the three arcs the show also has episodic style episodes that show Mob and Reigen dealing with ghosts, aside from maybe one or two exceptions and some decent moments these are quite tedious to watch at times. Saying this the show (season one not two) doesn't seem to aim to be a story telling marvel.
Art-9
In opposition to the weaker story the art in Mob Psycho 100 is great with a unique style resembling ONE's other work One Punch Man, but with far more fluid looking movements and brighter colour in comparison to One Punch Man's amazing but more classic animation. the animation stays consistently good throughout the show and perfectly matches the story and soundtrack. most notably the rage or '100' scenes have amazing animation. it's hard to judge the animation of something so unique as some may hate it, and some may think it perfect. unfortunately regardless of how good and unique it is, it lacks the beauty and diversity from one scene to the next needed for a 10 for example it would be interesting if the show experimented with more than the rainbow palette to express Mob's different emotions.
Sound- 7.5
There's not much to say about the sound in this show. it seems to act mostly to support the animation and doesn't do much on itself, it does this well enough however to get a decent score. some more unique sound would really help the show going forwards.
Character- 7.5
Both the shows strongest and weakest point at times. Many of the characters are hilarious and any scene with them in it it is immediately lifted. Unfortunately the characters who are funny aren't much besides that and the characters who are gloomy are not much besides that. this is to say that many characters feel 2D, season 2 really helps this but this is season 1. in addition to this the characters either receive no development or the development is extremely basic with Hanazawa going from a punk to a nice guy or Kageyama going from being jealous to loving his brother, there isn't really a grey area in between, the only exception to this is Mob who clearly from episode to episode develop's to trust his power more and become more open/emotional (this character arc doesn't fully grow until season 2 though). This factor could easily be cut down to the 12 episode limit though.
(no spoilers from here on)
Enjoyment- 8
As said throughout the review the humour is the best and most enjoyable part in this show closely followed by the great animation. It's still an 8/10 but this is mostly for the factor of slight boredom in some episodes and the lack of a solid story.
Overall- 8
Almost anyone can enjoy this show and i definitely recommend it as its short and fun definitely making it worth your time. having watched season 2 it is definitely an improvement giving all the more reason to watch this season.