Hello and welcome to Project Nitsuj. Welcome to the second week of the Underrated arc. Let’s talk about One. No not the number one, the author, One. In the mid 2010s One made a name for himself by writing two mangas, One Punch Man and Mob Psycho 100. They were big hits for their stories and characters. They were proof that a manga writer didn’t need to be the best drawer to get people to read their work, they just had to present an interesting story with good characters that everyone could relate to and today we’re taking a look at Mob Psycho S2 which was released in 2019 by Bones (MHA). Now I know what you’re thinking, how is this an underrated series? Well allow me to explain. While both One Punch Man and Mob got started off as web novels, One Punch Man would go on to be seen as the more successful of the two as it would get reworked into a full manga published in magazines while Mob Psycho 100 would spend its entire run as a web novel. Which is a shame because a lot of readers supposedly liked Mob more. While I personally found myself relating to Saitama more and prefer One Punch Man over Mob Psycho 100 I can see why some would favor Mob over Saitama and consider that the better story of the two. With the announcement of a third season set to come out this fall, now seems like a good time to shine the spotlight on this series that had an underrated run as a web novel, but is having a popular run as an anime series. Begin the count up to 100, this is Mob Psycho 100 S2.
Opening and Ending Theme
The second season’s opening is “99.9” by Mob Choir. By God is this song good. Between this and 99 I really don’t know which one I like more. This is a very fast paced and energetic song that makes you want to get up and dance and the animation in this opening is a love letter to animation in general. It’s like a fever dream but in a good way. In a year where everyone was dishing out great openings for their anime this was definitely one of the highlights.
The ending is “Memosepia” by Sanjou no Hana. One of my favorite endings from 2019. It’s simple, heartfelt and really captures the spirit of the series. In the end Mob’s story is about growing up into your own person through your experiences with those around you and this ending captures that. It’s an ending that puts a smile on my face and serves a reminder that people can change for the better.
Episodes 1-5
The new season opens up on a farm where a farmer’s field is being haunted by a spirit. Reigan is called in and he calls Mob as well where it turns out the fields are being haunted by a powerful spirit which Mob is able to beat (scene here: https://youtu.be/AOy9zTM4q3I). After this, the rest of the episode focuses on Mob and his love life (something I would love to see). It starts with Ichi who wants to make Mob the leader of a cult but with the way he is currently, there’s no way that’s possible (remember, Mob is a background character, he’s someone who doesn’t want to be in the spotlight). When the student council president steps down because of what he did last season, an election is held to elect a new one and Ichi convinces Mob to run for president in order to impress his crush Tsubomi. After a week of rigorous training, Mob steps up to the podium to deliver his speech where he freezes for 5 minutes straight (and yet it was a very moving stare he gave). Sure enough this costs him in the election (scene here: https://youtu.be/igjPc0atD-g), but it does earn him the favor of a girl named Emi who wants to be Mob’s girlfriend (can’t say I blame her, did you see his speech? Nobody could resist him). Even though Mob rejects her, the two walk home from school and even go on a few dates earning the shock of a few people who figure out Mob has a girlfriend (to them, it defies the laws of nature). We do learn that Emi likes to write and shares some of her work with Mob where he sort of gets it but not entirely. She decides it’s time to break things off because one, she only did this because of a dare made by her friends (bitch move but thank you for being honest), and two, Mob is pretty much indifferent to their relationship (scene here: https://youtu.be/3sTFV7WWGXw). When Emi meets back up with her friends, they shred up her story calling it stupid and she tries to put up a tough act and say it doesn’t bother her but in truth it does and Mob comes to her rescue. He calls her writing good and starts to pick up the shredded pieces with Emi joining him. When the wind blows her stuff away, Mob willingly uses his powers to put the pieces back together (scene here: https://youtu.be/f6suvb3VrBo).
In episode 2, Reigan and Mob are investigating urban legends with another local psychic. The local psychic gets into a fight with a flasher and follows him into the woods where they run into a real urban legend the Dragger, a dangerous lady who catches unsuspecting people on rainy days and drags them to their death in the lake (the Lady of the Lake has got nothing on her). Dimple takes control of the local psychic to fight the Dragger but he’s not strong enough to beat her as his powers have no effect on her. Mob and Reigan show up where the Dragger retreats for a minute (scenes here: https://youtu.be/l-rqJ66st7w and https://youtu.be/Mz2y79aNa_Y). Reigan tries to get a picture of her but nothing shows up on his phone because she’s real and not real at the same time. Dimple explains that the Dragger was created by the imagination of the masses, everyone believed she existed so she came to exist. Her powers come from the fear of everyone believing she’s real, and since Reigan and the local psychic believed in her as children their powers don’t work on her because in the deepest recesses of their minds, they’re still afraid of her (they’ve heard the legends and believed them. To them, this is their boogieman). The Dragger returns now scarier than ever (the legends were greatly exaggerated) and Mob fights her where his powers work on her because he’s out of the loop. Mob knows nothing about the Dragger, so he never came to fear her (to him, she’s just another spirit. Scene here: https://youtu.be/siLDDgm-st4). After defeating the Dragger, Mob and Reigan check out one last urban legend for the day, the Dash Granny. An old lady who runs in a tunnel after you. If she catches you, she jumps on your back and strangles you to death (this is quite the dark episode). They enter the tunnel and sure enough the Dash Granny does show up and chases after them. Mob tries to use his powers but it has no effect on her and she passes by Mob not hurting him at all. It turns out Dash Granny was a real person who enjoys running to stay in shape (scene here: https://youtu.be/b9m7Ez6edws).
In episode 3, Reigen has started up a website to get more customers and jobs which succeeds. He and Mob start the day off with a man who wants to curse someone (wrong agency buddy, look up Ai Emma, she does good work). Reigen says no but gives the guy a fake curse just to get him to go away and Mob for the first time actually questions if that was the right thing to do. In another case, a woman is being stalked by a spirit outside her apartment’s window and is terrified for her life. It turns out the spirit was just her neighbor using some supernatural power to peep on her and once she finds out about this her fear turns into anger and disgust for the man (scene here: https://youtu.be/OtIRUbYeKSA). Their final case for the day is taking 3 people to a haunted location where they skip out on the payment and leave Reigen and Mob behind (assholes). The next day when Mob is returning home from school, some bullies attempt to shake him down but they keep getting stopped. First is by Dimple who possesses one of the bullies, Ritsu shows up and uses his powers to choke the bully, and then the muscle improvement club shows up and suffocates him with their muscles (death by manly muscles. Never thought I see that). The bully gets carried away and the others tell Mob to stop holding back and defend himself when the time comes (scene here: https://youtu.be/52w1A-d-kVk). Meanwhile, the 3 people who ran out on Reigen and Mob return. Apparently, there’s a spirit in the picture they took the other day and they want Reigen and Mob to exorcise it (My response would be this: No. Screw you. Bye). Of course Reigen can’t turn down a client and they go back out to the haunted location where we see there are 3 spirits now and they’re a family. They’re all harmless and just want to live there in peace but the 3 clients still want to exorcise them as they’re scared and creeped out by them. Mob is hesitant on exorcising them as they’re not evil. Even when Dimple tries to provoke the father to attack, the father refuses to harm humans. Once Reigen sees how much of a conflict Mob is in (so much so that he’s having a panic attack) he finally realizes what’s going on. For him and everyone else this situation isn’t all that complicated but for Mob it is. He can see and feel stuff more than them. To him, the life of a spirit is just as important as the life of a human. Reigen comes to this conclusion and throws salt on the clients saying the exorcism is done and they should leave (scene here: https://youtu.be/nPN5R9RQHbU).
Episodes 4-5 are a two-part story (in fact, I’m surprised this wasn’t turned into a movie. It would have killed at the box office). Reigen and Mob along with others exorcists are hired by this rich man named Masashi to perform an exorcism on his daughter Minori who is possessed by an evil spirit and had to be locked up for everyone’s safety. After winning in rock-paper-scissors, Reigen goes to talk to Minori where she acts like a normal girl who is being abused by her dad (she’s lying). The other exorcists turn on Masashi but Reigen calls them all idiots for falling for such an obvious trick (I agree. If you were paying attention to what she said you would notice the inconsistencies in the way she talked. Scene here: https://youtu.be/aXnyGNNV4AE) and the evil spirit reveals itself (if she does that thing from the Exorcist I’m out of here). The exorcists begin trying to exorcise the evil spirit (with methods that make you ask: what the hell are you doing and why are people so stupid to believe you? Scene here: https://youtu.be/juhx0uzTiyE). One of the exorcists named Jodo gets possessed and Reigen knocks him out with a knee. Dimple recognizes the spirit as Keiji Mogami a former psychic who unfortunately died (scene here: https://youtu.be/lOUVSb4Ws9g). Mob tries to exorcise Mogami from Minori’s body but has no luck. Mogami’s too rooted into the body and is so powerful that simple exorcism won’t work, so Mob has no choice but to go in there himself and face him leaving his body defenseless but Dimple takes possession of Mob’s body to keep it safe (scene here: https://youtu.be/KTnrB74oNJ8). Mob arrives in the mental plane and fights against Mogami who explains that psychic powers are fueled by emotions (yeah came to that conclusion a long time ago) and that negative emotions are stronger (no, they’re just more destructive. Difference). Mogami is able to beat Mob and crafts a mental world into Mob’s exact life except he has no powers, friends or family (he is truly alone). In this mental world Mogami disguised as Minori leads her classmates to bully Mob on a consistent basis. While 30 minutes pass in the real world, 6 months pass in the mental world where Mob is at the mercy of Minori who makes his life a living hell in order to appear superior to everyone else. Back in the real world, Dimple uses Mob’s powers to let the other exorcists escape and then dives into Minori to save Mob. Mogami finally gives Mob his powers back after all of his negative emotions build up and Mob goes on the attack (scene here: https://youtu.be/iqk5emAoLDA). Just when he’s about to kill one of the bullies (no! He deserves it but no. Not Mob. That’s not him) Dimple shows up and reminds Mob who he is (scene here: https://youtu.be/yyhmkd-BTtk). With Mob overcoming Mogami’s trial, he unleashes an army of spirits he’s absorbed on Mob and he fights them all to save Minori (scene here: https://youtu.be/WPpd6Sx4giE, gotta love this animation). Mob reaches ????% and is able to blast the mental world apart signaling Mogami’s defeat. He leaves Minori’s body but gets captured in a flask shortly after this. Mob returns to his body and Minori wakes up where she could see everything that happened in her head and saw how Mogami portrayed her. She confirms that that’s how she was in real life (oh you bitch) and then she starts to apologize over and over again because she finally realizes just how wrong she was. Mob forgives her and this helps him see that people can change through their interactions with others (scene here: https://youtu.be/Rfqup18-jH0).
Episodes 6-9
In episode 6 we actually see some growth not just for Mob but for Reigen as well. We see Mob start to become more interactive with the members of the body improvement club and the telepathy club. So much so that they actually go out to a family restaurant together and even try to go to a karaoke bar but Mob gets called away for work where he’s actually mad about this. After helping out Reigen who says a few hurtful things to Mob, Mob decides to cut ties with Reigen for a little while and it works in Mob’s favor (scene here: https://youtu.be/_NILAr5_p3A, he’s growing). He hangs out with his friends and Ritsu more and even starts having a social life (he’s becoming his own character). Reigen on the other hand is shocked by how much Mob has changed without him (he’s no longer that helpless little boy you met some years back) and actually feels a little lonely without him (not that he would admit it because that’s just weird). Now at first you think Reigen is gonna do something bad to get Mob back but no, he adapts and changes his approach. He expands his horizon into other fields, does simple exorcisms that he can perform, does consultation, live exorcisms, seminars and this all works. Reigen’s business begins to flourish and his popularity goes up big time when he defeats a ghost character in an MMORPG that plagued players and developers for years. Because of this and his other achievements he lands a spot on a psychic TV show where he’s determined to make it work in his favor. However, unbeknownst to him, he was set up by Jodo who holds a grudge from Reigen kneeing him in episode 4 and wants to use this show to humiliate him on national TV (you were possessed by an evil spirit and came at him. You deserve whatever he gave you. Scene here: https://youtu.be/h7qw78PvwUk).
Things take a bad turn for Reigen in episode 7. He completely falls into Jodo’s trap and becomes a laughingstock on national TV (scene here: https://youtu.be/h7qw78PvwUk). From there, it doesn’t take long for the social media to slander his name (when the media smells blood they attack) and Reigen is forced into a corner. The media gives him a press conference where at first he does it in typical Reigen fashion but when he gets asked why he became a physic he draws a blank. Reigen is the kind of guy who can be good at any job he’s in because he can talk a good game. However, guys like that usually get bored really quickly and wind up leaving their job to pursue another job for more excitement. So what kept him doing psychic jobs despite it being a somewhat dead end job? The answer, Mob (scene here: https://youtu.be/9OU_tFXCvwA). Like I said in my previous review, Reigen does care for Mob. When he first met Mob he saw how scared and hopeless he was. Reigen became Mob’s light and gave him an outlet for someone to talk to. Little did Mob and Reigen for that matter realize that Mob was also changing Reigen as he admired Mob and wanted to be someone special in his life. As Reigen thinks all of this he finally realizes that the person who was holding Mob back the most and hurting him the most was him (true. You may have always been there for Mob but the one who stopped him from improving himself the most was you). Reigen finally snaps back into reality and on national TV tells Mob that he’s grown so much. As the reporters continue to ask him for questions the room begins to shake and cameras begin to float in the air. Everyone begins to panic but Reigen in typical fashion remains calm and uses this to his advantage. He pretends this is all him to prove he’s not a fraud and leaves the room saying whatever happens, happens (scenes here: https://youtu.be/kftNcODDHjM and https://youtu.be/WFJO7os_548, no more questions. Reigen out). As Reigen walks the streets he runs into Mob where he asks him if he’s always known he was fake which Mob replies he knew from the beginning that Reigen all this time. . .was a good guy (that is some good writing right there. Whether or not Mob believes Reigen is a physic or not, it doesn’t matter to him. What matters to Mob is that he was a kid who was lost, confused, and needed someone to talk to. Reigen became Mob’s light and became the person Mob could talk to). Reigen fights back his tears and goes to eat ramen with Mob and Dimples to end the episode (scene here: https://youtu.be/VWR_hTC4A98).
Things get interesting in episode 8. It’s time for the school’s annual marathon and Mob is determined to place in the top 10 and ask Tsubomi out (scene here: https://youtu.be/ti2617q55bY, that a boy Mob. Show her your a man). In the days leading up to the marathon everyone helps Mob out. Reigen helps get him accustomed to the course and some give him advice and tips on what to do. The day of the marathon comes where Mob trips, scrapes his knee badly, and strains his ankle. Yet despite all of this, he’s still determined to finish the race, place in the top 10, and refuses to use his powers to get ahead of the others (scene here: https://youtu.be/3SezgH4yWio, done. This is no child. This. . .this is a man. When I first met Mob, he was a child but now, he has earned the right to stand beside some of the greatest shonen heroes of all time). In the end we don’t know if he finished the race or not as he passed out and had to go to the infirmary but everyone (including his parents and teacher) were impressed with him. As Mob heads home he spots smoke in the distance and finds out it’s coming from house. Mob rushes home to see his house is on fire (well don’t just stand there, call the fire department). He rushes in praying that his family isn’t inside where he finds burnt bodies on the floor and his emotional meter goes off the scale (scene here: https://youtu.be/0a1spByVfs0, he’s gonna explode).
At the start of episode 9 just before Mob is about to explode, Dimple is able to calm him down by saying that the bodies are fake and that whoever did this wanted to anger Mob. Dimple’s words manage to bring Mob back down (not entirely but enough where he can reasoned with) and Mob uses his powers to locate the people who set his house on fire (and make them pay). It turns out the people who set his house on fire are members from Claw who have gathered in the city at the request of their leader. Mob defeats them and interrogates them to find out what happened to his parents only to find out that they know nothing (scene here: https://youtu.be/ObNVaQHdYAM). He soon gets picked up by the former members of Claw and gets taken to a safe house where the psychic kids, Teru, and Reigen have all gathered as apparently, they were all attacked as well. Reigen is able to bring Mob back to his senses and Mob passes out from exhaustion. After that, we shift our focus to Claw where we find out that they’re beginning their plan to conquer the world and leading the charge is their leader Touichirou. They hijack the networks and announce war on the world for everyone to see and embarrassing Shou who we find out is Touichirou’s son (your dad’s crazy man). It turns out Shou wants to stop his dad (Shou: Dad~, you’re embarrassing me). He’s been steadily recruiting other psychics inside and outside of Claw to join his cause. He went to Mob’s house to recruit Ritsu as he believes Ritsu has more latent power than Mob (wrong). Ritsu agreed to join his cause as long as he kept Mob out of it and kept his parents safe. Shou agreed to Ritsu’s demands and sent his parents to a hotsprings inn where they’re safe and out of harms way. The next day one of the psychics from Claw attacks the prime minister of Japan but Teru fights him only to lose and the Claw member escapes with the prime minister (scene here: https://youtu.be/FrkKWJjvWaI. Now prime minister, let’s talk about Japan’s censorship laws).
Episodes 10-13
The action takes off in episode 10 as the psychics band together to defeat Claw with Reigen acting as the general and coming up with a plan to distract Claw’s artificial psychics while the others attack from below. He stays behind in the safe house to watch over Mob but it doesn’t take long for Claw to find them. Reigen manages to use some knockout gas to take them out (the man’s luck is amazing) but one of Claw’s elite members shows up and despite Reigen gassing the guy twice he gets back up thanks to his powers which enhances his muscles (he calls it steroid muscles). Dimple possesses Mob and goes on the run through the city (scenes here: https://youtu.be/TjOVtb9bN1E and https://youtu.be/qwPOQbql7xk) where the psychic steroid junkie (boy that’s a phrase I never thought I would say) catches up to him and punches him into the sky. This causes Dimple to get knocked out of Mob’s unconscious body, but luckily Mob gets caught by his bros from the muscle improvement club. The club protects Mob from the junkie and Dimple possesses the body of the captain to take out the junkie by unleashing 100% of the captain’s muscles (which would shatter every bone in his body if this was real life. Scene here: https://youtu.be/GmbPAL-xcX0). Despite this the junkie still gets back up to fight only this time Mob is awake to take him out (boy have you missed a lot of Mob. I don’t even know where to begin).
Man we get some good action in episode 11 as everyone seems to be fighting. Shun finally reaches his dad where Touichirou decides it’s time to play daddy. Even Mogami makes a return where he tells Mob that sometimes you have to be cruel to get your point across (in other words, sometimes you need to give people a good kick in the ass). Ritsu takes on the Claw member who beat Teru where even he’s outmatched. The other psychics come in to help where they figure out that if they break up his concentration they’ll win and that’s what they do until the Claw member regains control of his emotions and uses his second ability where he’s pretty much unstoppable. Just when it seems like they’re screwed, Mob walks in with Reigen (to give us the best scene in the entire series) and the Claw member runs away after sensing the overwhelming power of Mob and what he was going to do to him (scene here: https://youtu.be/QVapPWLRBx0). Mob then gets ready to take on Touichirou and he tells the others not to follow him as they’ll just be dead weight (there you go Mob, be cruel to save them).
We start off episode 12 with Mob facing off against Serizawa, Touchirou’s last line of the defense. In the past Serizawa’s life was very similar to Mob. He was an outcast in society and choose to become a NEET to protect himself as he was afraid to interact with the world (in a way he’s like Mob if he never met anybody). Touichirou discovered him and became his rock that he so desperately clings to. It’s here that we see that Mob has inherited Reigen’s abilities to change people with words as he’s able to get Serizawa to realize what he’s doing is wrong and needs to stop before it’s too late. Mob’s words manage to reach him where they become friends (scene here: https://youtu.be/0qZV4XEg8sI). Mob moves on to Touchirou who reveals that he has the power to take and give psychic energy to others. But in an interesting twist it turns out Mob has the same power so Touchirou decides that Mob needs to die (you’re gonna kill a middle school kid just because he has a power similar to yours?). Once again Mob tries to use words to reason with him, but he’s too far gone to be reasoned with (Mob, I’m glad you’re speaking your mind more but sometimes people need a good swift kick in the ass to understand your point). Mob starts to become overwhelmed by Touchirou but Reigen comes to give Mob the final push he needs to go 100% (you’re screwed now Touchirou).
In the final episode (which they end in with a bang) we see Bones go all out in terms of animation as Mob and Touchirou go all out against each other. When Touchirou reaches 100% output on his powers it becomes too much for him to handle and he’s going to explode (ironic, I always thought Mob would be the one to explode. Expect the unexpected. Scene here: https://youtu.be/mi_rpPn7MSA). Mob tells everyone to run while he stays behind to try and contain Touchirou’s explosion and not let him go through this alone. We see into Touchirou’s past where his wife left him because of the man he was becoming (a prick?) and he finally explodes. Through some miraculous miracle Mob survived and gets dug out by Reigen, Ritsu, and Teru and we see they’re all in a giant broccoli. Where did it come from you ask? Well remember the seeds Reigen gave to Mob in episode 1? Yeah. Touchirou also survived and gets taken into custody where he’ll probably be used as a test subject. After that, we see everyone try to blend into normal society and go about their business and Serizawa starts to work for Reigen in his office (scenes here: https://youtu.be/gPzNTcsSywg and https://youtu.be/0N7T6T9E2mY).
Final Thoughts
Season 2 of Mob Psycho delivers. Everything from the characters, story, action, animation, and music gets a massive improvement. The real highlight of this season is the character development of Mob. He has grown so much since the first season and is becoming his own person who is confident and able to think for himself. It’s so cool to see this character grow and be able to stand on his own feet. Reigen also gets some good character development as well. He’s a conman but at the same time a good person who has become the master Mob needs to help him learn to be human. The only two downsides from this season is that Ritsu and the other physic kids don’t have much development and it’s kind of disappointing that they got pushed to the side this season as I was interested in seeing what they were up to. The other was the main villain. While the final battle at the end was great, Touchirou is just kind of a basic villain. He’s just a guy who pushed everyone around him away and isn’t really all that interesting when compared to Mogami. Speaking of Mogami the anime really should have made his arc a movie as they left out a number of things, but they managed to get the message of his arc down right and for what they showed it was great. Not only does Mob change as a character but so does Minori.
The animation as I said before has really improved here and the fight scenes and music were amazing as well. Even the simple scenes such as Mob and Reigen walking in the city as the sun sets is beautiful to look at. Fight scenes were impressive as we got to see varying powers and strategies used to take down their opponents and it’s always fun to see these powers match up against each other. I also like the camerawork and angles in the fights as it just adds to the intensity.
Final Score
The final score for Mob Psycho S2 is a 8.5/10 with a must watch stamp of approval. A great improvement over the first season that developed its two main characters and gave us an amazing ride from beginning to end. With the third season set to come out this fall I’m excited for what’s to come and see what happens next for Mob and Reigen. If you haven’t watched the second yet definitely give it a watch and tune in next week as we hit the big 500 by revisiting an old friend in Hokkaido. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next time on Project Nitsuj.