Mob Psycho 100



At a first glance, 14-year-old Shigeo Kameyama looks like the ultimate Ordinary Middle High School Student, albeit one with so little presence he is nicknamed "Mob" due to his extremely ordinary looks and penchant to fade in the background. Truth is, Mob is actually an esper with an incredible amount of Psychic Powers that are feed by his emotions. The problem is that Mob himself would like to actually be an ordinary teenager, as he has realized that his powers have been steadily grown greater and more dangerous with the years, so to avoid them to become out of control he suppress his emotions as much as he can. He also has placed himself under the tutorship of famed "psychic" Arataka Reigen, whose advice actually has seemed to help.

Unfortunately for Mob, trouble keeps coming to him, and threatening every semblance or normalcy he tries to attain. Not to forget, the increasing turmoil of his suppressed emotions does feed his powers, and when the percentage of his accumulated feelings reaches 100 percent, he is overcome by the strongest emotion he is feeling at the time and unleashes the full extent of his powers.

Mob Psycho 100 is the second manga from ONE (of One-Punch Man fame), and ran between 2012 and 2017. An animated adaptation was released in 2016 by Studio BONES, with a second season premiered in 2019 and a third one released in 2022. While still ostensibly comedic, it's more dramatic than its co-running title. A spin-off manga series titled Reigen, following the titular character, began in March 2018 and last 7 episodes.


 * The Ace: Mob's brother, Ritsu, who despite being a year younger is taller, smarter, handsomer and more popular than Mob. Teruki Hanazawa also has this on his daily life.
 * Broken Ace: Ritsu, however, is secretly jealous of his brother's powers, and that taints their relation. Teruki has his identity as an esper-enchanced Ace so entrenched on him, that when Mob points out that, without his powers, he wouldn't have anything, Teru doesn't take it well.
 * Achievements in Ignorance: Mob manages to kill the Kuchisake-onna, an Urban Legend-fueled spirit that is immune to the attacks of anyone who fears her, because he was sheltered from any local urban legends and as such he was unaware that he was to be afraid of her.
 * Adaptational Attractiveness: even with taking in account the manga's art evolution (as the anime take its cues from the later volumes for its designs), the characters are drawn more attractive in the anime than in the webcomic. Particularly noticed with Tsubomi (who was drawn as an ordinary anime character to emphasize how beautiful Mob and others see her), and with Reigen (as noted by the animator of the first anime ending) who within the art style becomes the most attractive adult character.
 * A God Am I: several of the villains of the series has this mindset, as they think their psychic powers make them above other human beings.
 * A God I Am Not: The actual theme of the series. Mob is of the opinion that having psychic powers is just another human characteristic (not too different of other mundane talents), and try to instill this mentality on spers who go with the above trope.
 * Ambiguous Disorder: even before he began to actively suppressing his emotions, Mob had problems catching social cues and had an apparently inexpressive visage.
 * An Aesop: Just because you have special qualities doesn’t mean that you are above the rest, specially if you are using those qualities for your own gain at the expense of others.
 * Con Man: Arataka Reigen, to an extent. Strangely, he seems to have some ethic code: he actually cares to bring satisfaction to his clients, and the advice he gives Mob is actually legitimate.
 * Edible Theme Naming: the setting is "Condiment City", and all the schools and location has condiments names. Other locations mentioned have food names.
 * I Just Want to Be Normal: Mob, who, while aware that he can never be completely "normal", takes pride on being as ordinary as possible and doing things without retorting to his psychic powers (like regularly exercising despite his slow improvement when he is powerful enough to telekinetically move himself anywhere). Other psychics who meet him doesn't get it.
 * I Just Want to Be Special: The running gag of the series is that almost every enemy Mob confronts has this going on them. To make this funnier, most of them are either supernatural beings or powerful espers on their own, so technically they are already special, but they try to bring it to Ubermensch levels or make it their whole identity.
 * Phony Psychic: Reigen.
 * "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Reigen manages to weaponize this against a group of espers that were terrorizing the city, by shaming them for clinging to their alleged "specialness" and acting like small children instead of manning up and taking responsibility for their lives like actual adults. His speech is so effective, he demoralizes almost all the bad guys of said arc into stopping their plans right there.
 * Super Mode: whenever the emotional counter of Mob gets to 100%, he enters into one of these