Book Review: "Mob Psycho 100 Volume 1"

By ONE

Ta-da, our first book review of the new year! Because I love the anime so much, I decided to read the “Mob Psycho 100” manga. My local library has the first 6 volumes of it.

Compared to the high quality of the anime, the artwork leaves a lot to be desired. But as my sister, a comic book nerd, has said, “You don’t need to be a good artist to make comic books.” Especially when the creator is both the writer and the artist, a lot of people will overlook bad art if the story is good. Which “Mob Psycho 100” is.

An interesting difference between the anime and the manga is that our main character, Shigeo “Mob” Kageyama, is a lot sassier. I’ve been told the English translation of the manga is not the most accurate, and you can kind of tell in places where the wording feels off. So I feel like the English dub of the anime has the more accurate translation, but there were aspects of the manga that gave off bigger “Mob is autistic” vibes than the anime does. Which, as an autistic reader, is always fun. Yay for finding subtext in anything! Even if it’s not intentional.

I’m also surprised that volumes 1 through 6 all encompass the events of season 1, but volume 1 contains the entirety of episodes 1 through 4. It’s interesting to see where the anime added things versus what the manga chooses to expand on. What I’m looking forward to seeing is more flashbacks to Mob’s childhood, which I may or may not get, but I did get one extra flashback that was very short, so I’m getting my hopes up for little kid Mob and Ritsu content. I love seeing childhood flashbacks in anime/manga. They’re always such cute children. And one wish I have for the anime was that I wished we could see more of their childhood together, especially since Mob has psychic powers and it would be cool to see more of how people, especially family, reacted to them in their youth. But we’ll see. (Ritsu is Mob’s younger brother and is my most favorite character. Mob is my second favorite.)

Another difference is that it’s more obvious that Arataka Reigen is a manipulative person and a con man. There’s more poking fun at it, whereas the anime — from what I’ve seen so far — makes Reigen a bit more likeable. Both Reigens suck in a way that makes you like him, and it’s funnier in the manga, but so far I prefer anime Reigen. We’ll see if that holds up in volume 2.

So far it’s just as fun as the anime is, so if you enjoy anime, then definite give it a shot.