Mob Psycho 100: Countdown Simulator OP

Imagine a story where main protagonist is all powerful with no real challenge in sight. Quite possibly the most powerful being you have laid your eyes on. The sheer presence of this man can strike fear in any enemy’s soul. No! Not One Punch Man, but man were you close. That’s right, I am going to talk about Mob Psycho 100.

Mob Psycho 100 is about a boy, Shigeo “Mob” Kageyama, who learns at an early age that he has psychic powers. While some kids may be over joyed with excitement, Mob sees great danger in his abilities. While searching for a teacher to help him control his powers, Mob meets Reigen Arataka, a self-proclaimed, master psychic who in actuality cons Mob into doing all his work for him. Little did either of them know, there is much more to Mob’s power and he’s only been tapping into a small percentage of his actual potential. Mob’s biggest enemy is his own emotions, the one thing that can send him to 100%.

With a premise such as this, there is really no telling  what kind of anime series you would get. I am pretty sure you wouldn’t believe me if I told you that this is a supernatural action comedy with a slice of life. Well it is and does a great job with finding a balance between each genre. There are two reasons why this happened. ONE being the creator of the series. Can you guess what other series he made? Come on man, I can only give you ONE hint. Get it? Okay sorry, bad pun but yes he created the 2015 hit One Punch Man. With One Punch being a great series at balancing some of the best comedy of its year with the best(fight me) action scenes of it as well, there was little doubt that Mob would disappoint.

The other reason I believe it was so successful was the studio who animated this series, Studio Bones. Bones has animated a range of different anime. Bones also has four different studios with a ridiculous amount of animators. Here are few examples of some of their works:

When I initially watched this series, I was amazed by the ability that Bones had to make such an anime with such a rough art style look so great. In each arc there are some quality fights but each fight would top each other as the story moved on. This was not really due to the intricacy of the fights but just sitting on the quality of animation. While doing some research I came to find the story of how the mangaka, ONE, initially found out it was going to be animated. He never thought this series would be animated. I cannot imagine his excitement when he learned how much they stuck to the manga and avoided making changes to bring in more of an audience. Studio Bones saw the art style and felt that there was no way they can change it seeing that it was most fitting for this story. ONE even suggested to Bones to maybe change Mob’s look to be more handsome and good looking.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I love the animation  but the characters really bring this series together. Mob is a very empathetic and naive. This makes the relationship and interactions he has with other characters in the series enjoyable. This is what his relationship with Reigen is ultimately based on. Reigen uses Mob for work but also teaches him great life lessons about understanding others and not to use his abilities on other humans. Reigen alone can always steal the spot light. His charm is second to none and his psychic ability being non-existent makes you fall for this character increasingly episode by episode.

There only a few things that would lead someone to dropping this show. This mainly on personal opinion because like Reigen, this series is flawless. When Mob Psycho first aired, I was not very interested. The animation looked great but the art was to rough for me to give it a chance. Within the first few episodes you do not get enough of these characters to know how good they are. Except Reigen. As I said before, flawless. The three episode test does not do this show justice. I know it is a lot to ask you to watch more but trust me. IT IS WORTH IT! You may get annoyed with the series predictability but it is about the journey. You may be surprised along the way.

If you’ve gotten to the end of this review, there’s a chance you will like this series. I strongly recommend giving it your attention. This series should have won Anime of the year. ROBBED I SAY. Sorry, there I go again bringing up Yuri on Anime Awards. Mob Psycho 100 is currently streaming on Crunchyroll. Please let me know what you think in the comments and check out our weekly podcast!