Mob Psycho 100 III

Episode 10

If you ignored the nightmare boy wearing a gakuran uniform and red sneakers, the opening act of this week's Mob Psycho 100 would be indistinguishable from a kaiju flick. Panicked citizens, smoldering rubble, and a trail of crushed asphalt left behind in the monster's wake. The adaptation, which always knows what it's doing, uses these familiar visual cues to impress upon the audience the severity of Mob's berserk state—a tragedy that only deepens with each step.

Since we're in the series' endgame now, there's a poeticism to Mob's final adversary being himself. It is, in a sense, the ultimate conflict of any bildungsroman. The hero can only mature by confronting and overcoming their own weaknesses, and any victories beyond that are just garnish. The irony here is that Mob's weakness is his freakish psychic strength. This rampage proves how terrifyingly powerful a fully-unleashed Mob can be, which in turn proves how incredibly strong a person Mob has been to not rely on these powers. While it does feel a bit narratively cheap for all this to come to a head as a result of a horribly timed accident, I also don't think Mob could have willfully gotten to this point in a way that wouldn't have felt like a betrayal of his character. And besides, how it starts will be less important than how it ends.

With Mob unable to help himself, it's his allies' turn to step up and stop him. Unfortunately, poor Hanazawa seems doomed to pick fights he cannot win, but that's what makes him such an endearing character. He knows all too well that a full-power Mob can trounce him easily, and he doesn't let that prevent him from trying. He cuts through his fear and sees a crying friend in need. That's the only thing that matters. And when he knows he can't win, he uses his powers to save all the innocent bystanders—which also spares Mob the pain and guilt of hurting them unintentionally. It's an incredibly heroic moment, and Hanazawa deserves the blisteringly badass treatment that Kai Ikarashi's distinct cuts of animation provide him. I also love the series' continuing dedication to its brand of dumb, wry humor, by making sure Hanazawa is nude and bald while all this is happening. Rather than detract from the severity of the scene, it just makes it that much more quintessentially Mob Psycho 100.

The rest of the episode looks great too, of course. Again, the decision to show all of the destruction before we get a good glimpse of Mob himself hearkens back to classic kaiju and horror movies, which helps set the tone of this chapter. And when we do see Mob, he's drawn as a violent scribble before the scene focuses on his dark, emotionless, and hair-raising visage. It reminds me, probably intentionally, of how Togashi depicts Gon in his final fight with Neferpitou. Both situations take classic shonen manga tropes and twist them around into an expression of the true tragedy at hand. These aren't triumphant moments. They're our heroes' lowest points, saved only by clearer heads coming to their rescue.

In Mob's case, some of those clearer heads include his former adversaries from Claw, but that's nothing new. The series has consistently preached that practically nobody is so far gone as to be beyond some form of redemption. Sakurai and Koyama, for instance, now take pride in eking out an honest living at a humble convenience store. The big surprise, however, is the re-emergence of Claw's big boss Suzuki, which actually isn't all that shocking now that I remember that he turned himself in at the end of season two. While he's still in prison atoning for his crimes, he probably sees this moment as an opportunity to return Mob's favor and save him from himself. I'm definitely looking forward to how their scene will play out.

And overall, this episode just whets my appetite for the eventual resolution. Hanazawa's material stands on its own perfectly well, but almost everything else sets up the myriad of other conflicts I want to see. How is Reigen going to get through to his precious part-time employee? How will Tsubome react when she learns those flowers are meant for her? Will Suzuki's eyebrows be bushy enough to punch through berserker Mob? Only time and the alarmingly few episodes of Mob remaining will tell.

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Mob Psycho 100 III is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Steve is a regular freelance contributor to ANN and also the guy who called Arataka Reigen an internet sex symbol that one time. Feel free to roast him on Twitter about this. Otherwise, catch him chatting about trash and treasure alike on This Week in Anime.