Book Review: "Mob Psycho 100: Volume 5"
By ONE
I really like the cover for this one. It looks spooky — just how I like it!
Volume 5 continues to tell the events of the Seventh Division arc where Ritsu Kageyama has been kidnapped and Shigeo “Mob” Kageyama, Teruki Hanazawa, and Dimple have gone to rescue him.
The biggest difference in the manga versus the anime is that I much prefer how the manga phrases a particular exchange between Shigeo and an enemy named Tsuchiya. Tsuchiya is a female martial artist who uses her psychic powers with qi-gong martial art techniques. For those unaware, qi-gong is a Chinese martial art that’s over 4000 years old. It predates Tai-chi. Tsuchiya is beating up on Shigeo with her fists and kicks, and he’s not exactly fighting back, and he’s starting to cry. Confused, she asks why he’s crying, and he admits that Reigen long ago had told him that it’s wrong for a man to hit a woman. In the anime, Tsuchiya just says “that’s an insult,” but in the manga, she says “To me, that’s an insult.” And she then explains that a domestic abuse scenario is very different than when an adult woman is wailing on a 14-year-old kid with her fists and that it’s okay for him to fight back. And he then proceeds to do so, resulting in him defeating her in psychic-powered combat. The scene in the anime never sat too well with me because of how quickly the exchange goes and how there’s less nuance there, but I’m glad that the manga is more nuanced and ends up being a little funnier as a result.
The volume leaves off on a cliffhanger where the boss of Claw is revealed . . . or is he?
There’s also a bonus story in Volume 5 that is not in the anime at all. It’s just a small little story about what Dimple the ghost was doing in between the period of time where Hanazawa supposedly exorcised him in Volume 2 and his re-appearance in the story when Ritsu develops his psychic powers and thus the ability to see Dimple in the first place. It’s so short to the point where if I summarized the events, I’d spoil the whole thing. But it has some interesting character insight to Dimple via comparing him to another, differently-motivated ghost.
Other than that, there’s nothing really to note here that’s particularly different between the anime and the manga. It’s pretty par for the course, so if you’ve seen the anime, you’ve more or less read the manga. It is interesting to see how ONE’s art skills develop as time goes on, though there are still some glaring imperfections here and there. If art critique is something you struggle with turning off, then the manga might not be for you. Otherwise, I would still recommend reading it if you like the anime.
The main drawback to reading the manga as opposed to watching the anime is that I know what’s going to happen when Ishiguro’s identity is finally revealed, and I know it’s not going to be nearly as funny in the manga as it is in the anime. In the anime, in the English dub, Ishiguro is given a female voice that is being modulated through some sort of mouth piece. It sounds as though the voice actress is speaking into some kind of bowl while talking into the mic, which makes sense for the desired effect they wanted. Then Ishiguro’s identity is revealed, and the juxtaposition between the reality and our assumptions about Ishiguro is what’s hilarious. In the manga, there’s no sound to guide our expectations, so we can think whatever we want about Ishiguro and our reaction to the reveal relies completely on who we already assumed Ishiguro was through personal biases instead of being guided towards a completely incorrect assumption on purpose, as is the case in the anime. But I’ll talk about that more when I actually reach that moment in the manga.
I have Volume 6 from the library, and after that, I will be reading something non-Mob-Psycho-100-related.