Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Mob Psycho 100
|
Goto page Previous Next Note: this is the discussion thread for this article |
| Author | Message | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Kikaioh
 Posts: 1205 Location: Antarctica |
|
|||||
That lengthy explanation doesn't really counter my thoughts on the episode. The moment Mob gets angry is the moment his personality changes into the sort of modern disaffected, "tortured" teenage emo character that seems to be the rage these days. "I can't have emotions, because I don't want to hurt the people around me, but look how cool/powerful I am when you make me angry, but yeah, it's nothing special, just makes my life miserable". His facial design even changes from plain-jane bowl-hair cut nerd to a more modern-looking and popular visual aesthetic. And to top it all off he outright calls himself "terrible" as a sort of period to end his self-disgusted speech. That's all pretty emo in my book. |
||||||
|
||||||
|
CheezcakeMe
|
|
|||||
|
Meh, I'm not bothered by a bit of angst. It's a show starring teenagers, and it's anime. Anime is like 75% angst. And after Re:Zero this is like prancing through the daisies level of angst.
Loving the show and the animation, it's so nice to see something that isn't animated exactly like everything else, but it hasn't quite hit my top 5 shows of the year or anything yet. Eager to see where it goes. |
||||||
Valhern
 Posts: 916 |
|
|||||
His personality never changes, what changes is his attitude, he lashes out because they gave him plenty of reasons to, and what ultimately allows him to do it is because Dimple is not a person. He doesn't think that his power is making his life miserable, he just thinks that it's nothing special because it doesn't really put him above anyone or makes him great. He reprises his emotions unconsciously, so he doesn't exactly realises that he is doing it (that's actually tied-in with a different incident in the past, but not relevant now). He is not "tortured" by it, but it does trouble him that he cannot seem to understand people, that's his real problem and why he strives for something like popularity. What you're talking about is the kind of broody protagonist that outright avoids people because he is too dangerous for them or crap like that, and then at some point he softs up to people and regains confidence in them or things like that. Quite the opposite, Mob doesn't hate people or considers himself dangerous for them, he knows that he can harm them but his power is perfectly in check, and he wants to understand them, since of course it frustrates him that he cannot read the mood like everyone else and get along with them (and of course it pisses him off that you mock this weakness of his). When he says "I'm terrible" is clearly explained in his talk with Reigen, since (in his mind) by not being able to read the mood he bursted out and ruined everyone's fun, and even if it was an evil spirit, Mob thought that his actions were rash and actually negative, that's when Reigen advice comes in, and he lets Mob think better of himself. |
||||||
|
||||||
JustinTaco
 Posts: 118 |
|
|||||
He stills comes off as the kind of character OPM would be parodying. |
||||||
|
||||||
|
Valhern
Posts: 916 |
|
|||||
There's already Genos for that. Genos is much closer to the sort of lonely, sad protagonist haunted by his past and on a path of revenge, though he still isn't quite there with hating the society and stuff like that. And technically, Mob is a parody of common Esper protagonists. Normally, Espers are part of an organization (heroic or evil, depends on the story) and play directly in a bigger plot scheme, and the protagonist is either inside an organization or co-opted by one in the first or second episode. Mob is in an organization...run by a conman, and besides defeating evil spirits here and there, Reigen isn't involved in a bigger structure. It also parodies a bit on high-school settings, in most school settings the protagonist either starts a club with seemingly no future or becomes the needed member of a club about to be closed. Usually but not always they are dragged into the club by its members shenanigans and turns out they have a lot of fun in the club and stuff. Mob is outright not interested in that and legitimately feels forced to accept to be in a club that desperately needs him and is also in line with his Esper characteristic, and the joke works better because Mob thought that it was better to get some abs and impress a girl. |
||||||
|
||||||
|
Kikaioh
Posts: 1205 Location: Antarctica |
|
|||||
|
@Valhern: The narrator explicitly explains when recounting Mob's history of shutting down his emotions that "as he grew older, he gradually realized how dangerous his powers were." Dangerous to who? To himself? Nothing points to that. To evil spirits? Well, then that wouldn't be a problem, would it? Or (as it suggests) to the people around him? I mean, why would he subconsciously suppress his emotions in the context of realizing that his powers were dangerous? It suggest that he's not afraid of being around people, but that he's afraid of being around people when his emotions aren't in check.
Not to mention, in the midst of his fight with the Happy Mask guy, he also explains it outright: "They came out upon your request. These are my emotions. This is what happens if I let them show. I'm...terrible." (ugh, sooo emo) Anyways, it suggests that the "unconscious Mob" knows what's going on as far as his emotions being bottled up, and he's pretty much a lamer emo teen about it. While regular Mob is a little dull in comparison, I can at least appreciate that he tries to spare everyone from the annoyance of "Night Pain". |
||||||
|
||||||
|
Valhern
Posts: 916 |
|
|||||
That's exactly what I said. He doesn't realize that he is locking away his emotions, he consciously knows though that his power can harm people, because that's exactly what Reigen taught him, not use his power on people, as simple as that, that's why he doesn't fight until he realizes Dimple is an evil spirit, and that's why by the end he feels reluctant of doing that. The narrator himself says that Mob didn't realize that restraining from using his power created a complex within him.
You joined together two phrases that aren't said together. He says "I'm terrible" when he realizes that he might have actually done something bad, not when he is talking about his emotions. "This is what happens when I give in" is actually closer to the original meaning than "when I show them"; it's more along the lines of Mob referring that he has a breaking point and Dimple surpassed it, at least that's how I understood when I read the manga, and I wouldn't be surprised of CR getting the meaning of a lot of lines wrong. Anyways, this is only Rage, he displays many others in very different ways when he breaks 100% and they are not exactly how he feels all the time, it's how he feels at that exact moment, it's more important to see what he thinks after he breaks the limit, since that's the real Mob, it's not as if Rageful Mob is the real Mob that's super dangerous to people and is tortured by that or something like that. |
||||||
|
||||||
|
Kikaioh
Posts: 1205 Location: Antarctica |
|
|||||
|
@Valhern: Earlier you were saying that Mob doesn't think his power makes his life miserable and that he's not tortured by it, but that's not exactly the reality of his situation --- his realization that his powers are dangerous drives him to hold back his emotions, which in turn causes him problems being in tune with people, meaning there's a connection between his emotionally stunted growth and his powers.
In any case, I think you're trying too hard to justify and explain away "Rageful Mob's" emo-ness, but without making a case for why he isn't emo, just why you think his emo-ness is understandable. That those "two phrases weren't said at exactly the same moment" doesn't change that the two phrases were said in the same breath, nor that they were said at all in the first place --- even taken separately it still sounds like a sour emo teen. If later limit-breaks display other types of melodramatic emotions, then that'll be interesting to see contrasted against his "rage", though I'm hoping they don't just bolster that emo vibe his unconscious seems to have given off in this episode. |
||||||
|
||||||
|
Guus van Voorst
Posts: 20 |
|
|||||
|
Hmm, was sort of disappointed with how Mob reaching 100%... I was more expecting his personality to become incredibly unbalanced (constantly warping his emotions and such). Even when his emotions are fully released, he was still standing still taking the attacks instead of... due to emotional imbalance, taking the offense in vicious (and possibly) cruel manners... ... maybe I'm used to Elfen Lied's way of things, I guess...
|
||||||
|
||||||
HelloBucket
 Posts: 477 Location: Upstate New York |
|
|||||
|
to weigh in on the emo argument...
Yeah, Mob is pretty emo. The show handled everything in a clever fashion, so it's well executed emo, but it doesn't escape that label. It takes some genuinely tortured logic to get from "Kid with secret powers that he suppresses because they are dangerous finally snaps and kills someone (who turns out to be a spirit, of course, because a true human would never do this) in a totally cool fashion after they brainwash the sheeple who foolishly just want to be happy with their lives and remind said kid of their unfair emotional experiences." to "not emo". I wouldn't go so far as to call the entire show emo, in general. I mean, hypothetically, the set up is there to make it go "full emo". Specifically, the set up that Mob is appreciated or unappreciated almost entirely based on whether people appreciate his talents. A cynical take would be that no one (outside his brother) cares about Mob as a person. Reigen's moments of good advice could be construed later as nothing more than a cheap leash and we could always get a revelation about the brother. Telepathy girl is clearly only into Mob's usefulness at the moment. "People don't really like other people, they just use them for their convenience." is pretty classic emo, yeah? This would frame everyday Mob as a sucker and his 100% incarnation as an awakened/enlightened state. However, I'll note for the record that I don't think the show is heading this direction, just that the groundwork is there. |
||||||
|
||||||
killjoy_the
 Posts: 2471 |
|
|||||
|
Best episode so far. I especially like how Reigen was, in this episode, an actual positive influence on Mob. I do expect us to see more emotions being burst after 100%, if it's always anger that'd be kinda boring.
|
||||||
|
||||||
|
Valhern
Posts: 916 |
|
|||||
I would believe that his powers made his life miserable if he literally never, EVER displayed any emotion unless shaken to the extreme. He smiles when he sees Tsubomi-chan and dreams to date her, he smiles when he is praised by the school girls he just saved, he may not smile clearly but he surely feels better when Reigen tells him that he hasn't done anything bad. He is excited when the opportunity of the Body Improvement club comes in because that will make Tsubomi notice him, he is as well excited when the woman tells him that she will make him popular, he's hilariously serious about these two. His "complex" is that he bottles up acting entirely on his instant emotions and goes a long way to endure that pressure, because he would probably harm people, that's the entire point of the Mob's level of explosion, he unconsciously reprises reactions that could probably be dangerous, but not on the level to reprise himself from being happy at times or be interested in stuff or being able to talk with people more or less normally-
What I actually wanted to discuss is on people saying "Nah, this is the typical brooding teenager guy whose life is so crappy that he can't show emotions because he would kill people", to me that's oversimplifying Mob's character, because, like I said before, he has far more relatable reasons to be the way he is than the type of character you're trying to make him to be. If you are hellbent on thinking that someone having problems in interacting with people and confused in how to express emotions (not that he doesn't) is an emo, well, I won't try to change that, I wanted to at least change the idea of what kind of protagonist Mob is. And by the way, it's very important that those lines aren't said together, since Mob is not in the same state in the first two rather than in the last. In the first two he is more defiant, in the second one his rage is calming down as he defeats Dimple and reflects on what probably was a bad action, which is basically what makes him feel gloomy when talking with Reigen. |
||||||
|
||||||
|
iatheia
Posts: 130 |
|
|||||
|
@Valhern, just accept that this show is not everyone's cup of tea. What you try to defend as the Deep and Compelling and Totally Unique Seriously 100% Never Before Seen Backstory and Character Motivation, many others see as trite, forgettable, and, frankly, boring.
I seriously don't get the hype behind this show. It's amusing enough, but not to the levels I see most people taking it. Just because it is by the person who did OPM (for which I also never got the hype, by the way, just another run-of-the-mill shounen fantasy that couldn't even come up with a proper ending for the anime) doesn't mean that it is, well, good. I've seen better, even this very season, be it in terms of comedy, or deconstruction, or characters, or the spirits. And I definitely hoped that the explosion would have been at least a big bang level event we've been promised in episode 1, definitely more than "oh, no, he can actually emote, what in the world shall we do" as he gets rid of an entirely unremarkable spirit. |
||||||
|
||||||
|
Valhern
Posts: 916 |
|
|||||
This I didn't say, unless my memory has gotten that bad. I did say that MP100 parodies at least two very common tropes. I'm sure there are other anime that deal with teenagers having socialization problems, some include fantastical/sci-fi elements to it or are straight up school dramas. Surely there are protagonists like Mob who has been ostracized by their peers and are far away from their crushes. Of course there are protagonists whose power is so strong that they somehow seal it. And there obviously are anime in which protagonists seem to be emotionless. I don't have any problem with MP100 not being particularly original in this regard. I do think that Mob's character is compelling mostly because it's well-executed and done very well, I do not think that everyone has to agree with that. My main point in this discussion was that I believed someone oversimplified Mob's character and made him look in a way that (in my view) isn't quite right, not that they cannot dislike him anyway. It has happened with me that even as I understood characters beyond my dislikeness for them, I still dislike them, that's not something that changes that easily. And the hype is mostly from manga readers or those who've enjoyed OPM. I would hardly go into an anime thinking it will be good because of the hype, the most that I can do with hype is trying to look what made it popular, whether it's good or not is up to me, not the hype. |
||||||
|
||||||
|
iatheia
Posts: 130 |
|
|||||
|
I was being sarcastic, if that wasn't clear.
This is so not the hill to try to kill everyone over. You think that someone oversimplified him, I think that you read waaaaaaaaaay too much into it. We have the right to our own interpretation of his character traits, even if you don't agree with it, and you are not going to change my mind, no matter how you try. In either case you make him even sound even less compelling with your gun-ho defense. Let it go. |
||||||
|
||||||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group