Genuinely, WHAT is up with psychics and identity crises in anime? Is it just me? Not complaining, though.

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Mob Psycho 100 is, if anything, the strangest and best show I’ve ever had the privilege to watch. The show has an extremely unique animation style and an even more uncommon soundtrack, with both being clearly overshadowed by the non-archetypal, deep-yet-seemingly-unserious, and brilliantly-written characters who constantly subvert expectations and grow in ways that feel both bizarre and deeply human. Like, have you ever seen an anime with green outline art? Green?

While the show is genuinely hilarious at times, please, please, please don’t be fooled by the (if I must admit) goofy-looking art style and the comedy hashtag. Behind every joke is a bigger tear-jerker waiting to be unearthed and an even greater lesson to be learned. I’d be lying if I said this show didn’t teach me some of the biggest lessons I’ve ever learned in life.

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Shigeo Kageyama, otherwise known as just ‘Mob’, looks no different than an average middle school boy who has absolutely no game (sorry, Mob). However, beneath his unassuming appearance and kind demeanor are intense, powerful psychic powers that he’s had since he was born. To keep from losing total control of his incredible power, Mob has grown into a young man who lives under constant emotional restraints– never angry, passive, and always surpressing his emotional burdens. He doesn’t have many friends and is embarrassingly weak with low stamina (with powers suppressed), and generally has no direction for the upcoming high school years ahead.

In order to learn more about his psychic powers and identity, Mob, since he was in elementary school, has worked as an assistant to Arataka Reigen, a con man and self-proclaimed psychic. Reigen Arataka is a businessman, liar, fake psychic, and most importantly, Mob’s best friend. He’s the owner of Spirits and Such Consultation Office and exorcises spirits with Mob (Mob is the one who does the actual exorcising). Although Mob is clearly more powerful (not to mention the fact that he’s the actual psychic), he sees Reigen as his master—someone who teaches him how to live as a kind, grounded human being, not as someone inherently ‘better’ than others just because of his abilities. In a weird way, even though Reigen constantly lies to everyone in his life, his genuine advice to Mob carries surprising depth and speaks to the audience in a way that feels personal and strangely comforting. I won’t spoil much about his character, but truly, their student-teacher relationship is one of the best I’ve ever seen. Even when viewed separately, I don’t think I’ve ever encountered characters quite like them.

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Mob Psycho 100 is, in a nutshell, half the best fighting scenes you’ll ever see (they lock in on the animation for all fight scenes, I swear) and half deep identity and character exploration, especially for Mob. The truth is, we’re all capable of change– change that helps us grow and see the world in a new light. This show is the epitome of that truth, even going one step further and teaching us how lucky we are to have people around us who help us grow.

Everyone has something going on in their life, and although how we choose to respond to our own issues is eventually up to ourselves, the most important fact is that there are people to support you along the way. You may not realize it right now, but eventually, there will be moments where you’ll sit there with people and think “man, I’m so happy right now”. I’ve come to learn this lesson after rewatching this show so many years after my first watch.

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Each and every single character in this show has their own form of struggles while navigating through life. Even though psychic powers seem to be a decently regular occurrence in their world and clearly not in ours, many viewers find at least one character relatable in the sense that they understand their worries and fears. Sometimes, even the characters’ actions might seem to ring a bell. They laugh, worry, make mistakes, make even bigger mistakes, before laughing about it all in the end. Quite literally, a main theme in the anime is the word ‘improvement’. After watching, I found myself wondering a simple yet complicated question: What do I want to do right now?

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Okay, we’re out of the heavy stuff! The show in itself is pure comedic gold. All the jokes are insanely original and require context, which in my opinion, is the best form of a good joke. It’s like the TikTok comments section but anime form.

As for the manga, I’ll start by saying that the art style is, well,

…right.

I’ll leave the description up to you.

It’s certainly unique. But that’s also what makes it so enjoyable to read. The original manga was written and created by One, who admitted themselves that they honestly suck at drawing yet still wanted to create a manga with their story in mind. However, Mob Psycho 100’s manga has a strange appeal through the simplistic art style itself, as seen in its fast rise to popularity over the years, giving it the well-deserved anime adaptation in July of 2016. From there, Mob Psycho has continued to grow in popularity up to this day with numerous stage plays, collaborations, and even a live-action adaptation.

As always, the manga provides more small interactions and details for each character. However, and this is another great thing about Mob Psycho, the anime studio Bones created the anime adaptation with a lot of intent and budget, therefore, they included all of the important and highlighted moments/scenes from the manga in the anime. Which (it shouldn’t be, but) is quite rare. I personally love both, but solely watching the anime is a great option as well.

If you love The Disastrous Life of Saiki K or One-Punch Man, this show is definitely for you. I’d say think 100x deeper than Saiki K but 100x more unserious than One Punch Man.

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I don’t know what to say. Mob Psycho 100 is, in my opinion, one of the best works I’ve ever seen. Contrary to what people often hear, it actually takes a lot to not judge something by its cover, anime included. So I won’t ask you to not judge this anime by its cover. But hey, I’m hoping that at the very least, this review can help you see Mob Psycho in a new light and that you learned something new about one of my favorite shows.

Now, your final question will probably be, what is up with the percentage sign? Well, throughout the entire anime, there is a percentage that appears flat out on the screen every couple of minutes, starting and going up from 0%. What it represents, however, I’m actually not going to tell you.

Yeah, it’s a cliffhanger. Sorry. I hate those. But how else should I get you to watch it?

Get back to me whenever you figure it out, okay?