The Fall 2022 Preview Guide

Mob Psycho 100 III

"Mob" is a boy who will explode if his emotional capacity reaches 100%. This boy with psychic powers earned his nickname "Mob" because he does not stand out among other people. He keeps his psychic powers bottled up so he can live normally, but if his emotional level reaches 100, something will overwhelm his entire body.

Mob Psycho 100 III is the third season of the television anime of ONE's Mob Psycho 100 manga and streams on Crunchyroll on Wednesdays.

Caitlin Moore
Rating:

Sometimes it's hard to review sequels, you know? You just want to nod and say, “Yep, that sure was a solid episode of Mob Psycho 100, looking forward to next week.” But you can't, because you have editors with expectations and standards who are all like, “That's not enough for us to pay you for a review, peon! Get back to work! Ohohohohohoho!” And then they kick me. (Editor's Note: I've never kicked Caitlin -LL)

Anyway, that sure was a solid episode of Mob Psycho 100! Our boys are back, this time with Serizawa joining them with a fresh haircut, suit, and a still-unresolved anxiety disorder, and Mob having to consider his future for the first time. Because this is fiction and they have things like themes to contend with, this of course means that they must face an evil spirit created by a 50-year-old man caught in the throes of existential dread about all the mistakes he's made in his life, getting caught up in his rancid vibes before knocking him down with their Trapper Keeper holographic effect powers.

As much as I joke about this being just another episode, it actually does a pretty good job of setting up where the characters are emotionally and what their development will look like. It's also preparing for what could well be the series' final big story arc, drawing together all the big dangling plot threads to prepare to tie them off. If previous seasons are any indication, though, it won't just tie them up; it'll interweave them with the characters and themes, because it's all one grand metaphor for adolescence and Mob's coming of age. Along the way we'll have some laughs, watch some of the most visually arresting fights anime has to offer, and spend a few final sweet episodes with the characters who we've grown to love so deeply, both major and minor, since the first time we walked into Spirits and Stuff.

Whoops, here I go, getting sentimental. There's a lot of good stuff to come, and this episode is already foreshadowing a lot. Looking forward to next week.

Ladies, gentlemen, and others: Mob is back on streaming, all is right with the world. I'm happy to inform you all that this third (and final) season is off to an excellent start. Unfortunate controversies surrounding the English dub aside, it's basically as if the Spirits and Such crew never left us, which is a great thing for viewers, though it certainly has Mob feeling a bit restless.

Having your teenage protagonist fret about his future on account of a career survey is a familiar plot yet perfectly fitting for our boy at this point of his growth. Sure, he's saved the world from destruction with his superhuman psychic abilities, and he's regularly accomplished feats that no average person could ever dream of doing, but he's also still a kid. Of course he's going to be freaked out when asked to consider the entire rest of his life, especially considering that busting ghosts and ghouls is the only talent he's ever put a lot of work into developing, and that was only for a part-time job.

It's a solid story to begin our final adventure with Mob, and it gives Reigen, Serizawa, and the other members of the supporting cast some time to shine as they help Mob navigate his first ever 1/6th-Life Crisis (also to help a profoundly depressed middle-aged man overcome the metaphorical and literal demons that have been weighing him down). The stylish and charming animation from Studio Bones is as strong as ever, and anyone who has been jonesing for some dumb Reigen antics will be overjoyed at the nonsense everyone's favorite Internet Sex Symbol gets up to.

Also, while the way that Crunchyroll has handled Kyle McCarley's recasting (not to mention his attempts to promote more industry discussion about unionization) has met with a lot of ire from the fandom at large, it's worth noting that the new actor acquits himself well in the role of Mob. There's not been any official news of the full cast list this season, but all of the actors do a fine job, and the English dub is solid.

Really, if I had anything to complain about, it would be that this premiere simply isn't as jaw-droppingly wonderful as past episodes, like the first episode of Season 2. Granted, it isn't like I'm about to complain that Mob Psycho 100 III is merely “really, really good” so far, and not “literally perfect”. Anyone who hasn't been sold on MP100 yet needs to go back and catch up on the first two seasons, and then immediately add Mob Psycho 100 III to their watchlist. Series like this don't come around all that often, and we need to appreciate our good boy Mob and his psychic misadventures while we still can.

Richard Eisenbeis
Rating:

The last season of Mob Psycho 100 showed Mob what could happen to him if he gave into megalomania and decided that his powers make him better than everyone else. But as this episode shows, just because you've seen what happens down a single wrong path, that doesn't mean you suddenly know the right one.

This time, a simple (and rather meaningless) school assignment throws Mob into a full-blown existential crisis. Simply put, Mob has no idea what he wants to do with his life. Sure, he dreams of somehow ending up in a lovey-dovey relationship with Tsubomi, but that's not his life's goal or anything. Once he realizes this, he starts searching for what he wants by asking others about their dreams, which only ends up throwing his heart into even more chaos. Everyone else seems to have no problem answering the question—making him worry that since he hasn't found his path through life yet, he never will.

It's a common anxiety we all face at some point or another in our lives. And while some find their calling quickly and easily, some do not. The rest of the episode is spent showing the two options available to the latter group.

One option is to give up looking for where you belong and simply blame everyone else for your own unhappiness. You stop trying to make your life better and, rather than being the hero of your own story, you become the eternal victim. You are responsible for nothing—not even your own actions. It's everyone and everything else keeping you down.

The other option is to simply keep looking—keep trying new things until you find the dream you never even knew you had—even if it takes decades. This is what happened in Reigen. He went from a job he hated to being a scam artist, where he discovered that his true calling was to be the mentor to a struggling young boy who wanted nothing more than to be normal.

All in all, this is a fantastic episode. Not only is it a self-contained adventure that philosophically explores the search for the meaning of life, but it also sets up the arc for the season as Mob starts trying to figure out what he wants to be when he grows up. While not the most exciting or hilarious episode of the series, it is a solid start to a new season full of promise.

Nicholas Dupree
Rating:

After a few years away, everyone's bowlcut-sporting anime son has returned, and it's almost like Mob never left at all. Despite a change in the director's chair, this is very much still the Mob Psycho that eked out a place in the hearts of countless viewers, both in its ambitious artistic production and the oddly relatable struggles of our teen super-psychic hero.

Much like season two's opener, this is a bit of a slower, set-up focused episode meant to get us up to speed with the new status quo before starting the next arc, but that's just fine by me. Despite his loss in the Ultimate Tumblr Sexyman poll, Reigen is still in fine form here, as is everyone else. Mob Psycho's character writing, paired with its sardonic sense of humor, has always been its greatest strength and this episode easily coasts on those enduring powers. It's just really damn amusing to see Mob, Reigen, and new addition Serizawa going about their business as semi-pseudo-psychic consultants. I was a bit worried Serizawa might mess up the chemistry a bit, but his presence actually lets us get back to the humor of Reigen double-bluffing through spirit encounters, while also allowing him to offer some solid advice to help the guy through his arrested development. It makes for a weirdly charming family dynamic, and carries the episode through a couple of straightforward but entertaining exorcisms.

Then there's Mob himself, who has grown considerably through the past two seasons, but is still a teenager filled with all the anxieties and insecurities that come with the territory. Specifically he's at that baffling point in life where we tell teens to decide the rest of their life or else they'll be miserable failures forever, and for the life of him can't figure out a prospective career. What with this being the final season, it's fair to guess that this is building up towards Mob's ultimate arc, deciding what he might want out of life now, with the implication that his path might take him away from Spirits & Such eventually. It's kind of a sad idea, really, but the show's ethos on personal growth was probably always leading to that kind of farewell. And I appreciate Reigen's lesson that, even as an adult, you don't always know what you want to do with your life, and that's okay. So long as you're willing to do what's necessary, it's alright to take chances and not have your whole existence planned out.

It's a solid emotional hook for our hero, and hits just the right note to get me invested in seeing this final season play out. Right now, Mob Psycho 100 has not missed a beat on its return, and I can't wait to see what it has to say and how it'll look while saying it.