Review of Mob Psycho 100 II

Since season 3 is right around the corner, I decided to give an overview of Mob Psycho 100 and what makes it one of the most unique shonen anime around today. If I had to describe Mob Psycho in just one sentence, I would say that it's a shonen that rejects the tropes and teachings of shonen SOO hard that it accidentally became an old school superhero comic. Shigeo "Mob" Kageyama is a genuinely good person who was born with absolutely incredible power, but only wishes to use that power to help other people and make the world a better place. He never has totrain like crazy to be the very best. He starts out being the strongest just though his natural genetics. He makes friends throughout the series and greatly values friendships, but he gains friends completely independent of his powers. He doesn't use his powers because he's lonely and wants to impress people so he can have friends. He would have about as many friends and be just as happy if he never had powers. Mob doesn't define himself by his powers. He's just a really chill dude with a strong sense of morality who happens to have powers. Shigeo doesn't resemble any shonen hero I can think of in the history of shonen. He's Japanese Clark Kent.

To understand why Mob Psycho is weird as a shonen, you have to look at the evolution of shonen manga/anime starting in the early 1970s. One of the biggest and most influential shonen heroes of that time was Joe Yabuki. Joe doesn't start off the manga as a particularly nice guy. He's kind of an asshole antihero who starts out at the very bottom of society. However, he trains hard and along his journey he grows stronger, makes allies, and eventually transforms into someone you can cheer for. Devilman was another 1970s antihero. Amuro from the original Gundam is a depressed teen who is reluctantly forced into war and later gets screamed at by his mother for being a murderer since he's mowed down so many enemy soldiers. He's killed thousands of people by the end of that series. Once you get past the Astro Boy era, young man's manga/anime has traditionally been dominated by anti-heroes who don't start the series as nice people and often aren't truly "heroic" in a traditional Western sense. Kenshiro was a Mad Max/Bruce Lee ripoff who wandered the wasteland killing hundreds weak goons with zero remorse and was the most popular and influential shonen character of his decade. Goku was one of the first shonen heroes to even resemble a Western superhero, but that was mostly due to the meddling of Toriyama's editors. Toriyama always wanted Goku to be more like Sun Wukong from Chinese mythology. Sun Wukong the Monkey King is an arrogant, selfish little monkey jerk who just enjoys the thrill of fighting and isn't really a moral paragon.

Now let's step into the 90s. We begin the 90s with Yusuke Urameshi. He's a juvenile delinquent who likes to get in fights and smoke cigarettes on the school roof while he's cutting class. He doesn't see himself as a particularly nice person and doesn't usually go out of his way to save the world. He more often gets put into these situations where he has to fight in order to protect the few people he actually cares about and if you mess with his friends then he'll fuck you up! You guessed it! We're still stuck on anti-heroes! The mid 1990s are dominated by Shinji Ikari who is a generally nice boy with serious psychological issues and depression. Not exactly a traditional superhero. Naruto and Deku embody the shonen Jump hero of the modern era. They begin the series as losers who get bullied constantly. Then they start working hard and eventually gain tremendous power. Once they improve themselves and gain more physical power, only then do they start to gain friends and get a girlfriend and things go right for them. The moral message of modern shonen is that if you work hard, you can grow stronger. Once you become stronger either physically, academically or in some capacity, even the people that bullied you will reluctantly respect you. You can make friends and get a girlfriend and be a winner in society. It's supposed to encourage Japanese children to strive and seek self-improvement, which is a healthy message. However, it's often unfortunately mixed with a "Might makes Right" worldview. If Deku or Naruto had never gotten super strong, they would have continued getting absolutely shit on by everyone around them. Bakugo like Vegeta before him starts out as an outright evil bastard who hates the main character for being born inferior to them and daring to not bow down. Then they begrudgingly respect the hero only because the hero is strong. They never actually have to suffer consequences for their misdeeds or really have a moral epiphany. Usually, there's a time skip and suddenly the asshole rival is just kind of accepted as one of the good guys. If you're strong in shonen, that's ultimately what matters. So, as mentioned above the self-improvement message is kind of poisoned by this almost Fascist worldview.

Another way that Mob does away with Shonen's "might makes right" morality is that it completely gets rid of the biggest curse in all of shonen...power levels. Mob's teacher is the funniest character in the show and the most popular character in the whole franchise. He has no powers whatsoever. He's just a regular dude who cons people into thinking he has powers. This regular dude with a power level of 2 is able to repeatedly save Mob from danger, positively impact the story, and not get sidelined by a lineup of increasingly strong characters who have bigger numbers than him and therefore make him irrelevant. Mob genuinely reveres his teacher and in no way sees him as lesser, even though he's millions of times stronger than him. Naruto's best friend isn't some normal dude. Naruto's best friend in defiance of all logic is Sasuke, who is both a horrible person and also despises him. Why? Because Sasuke is strong! Krillin is officially still Goku's best friend when Toriyama remembers, but in reality, it's Vegeta. Why? Because Vegeta is strong! At no point in this series does Mob's respect for someone increase simply because they're strong. Mob meets someone early in the series who thinks psychics are superior to normal people and is SUPER strong. Mob just thinks he's some asshole. Once he sees the light, he grows to respect Mob. Not because Mob is strong, but because Mob changed his worldview, and he genuinely feels remorse for being an asshole.

Mob somehow manages to be subversive while also being incredibly traditional. Mob is storytelling SO old that it's new again. Shonen has never seen anything like it. Even American comics since the success of Watchmen in 1986 have at least partially turned away from inspirational stories like this. It would certainly be boring if every anime was like Mob and every comic hero was Superman, but after SO much subversion and anti-heroes, this honestly felt refreshing. Also, I hope all future shonen take note of Mob's success and FUCK power levels!