Book Review: "Mob Psycho 100 Volume 2"
By ONE
Gotta love the public library.
Volume 2 of “Mob Psycho 100” covers the majority of the Teruki Hanazawa vs Shigeo “Mob” Kageyama fight from the anime, and it even includes the Tsuchinoko story that is a bonus story at the end of season 1 of the anime and the incident where Shigeo accidentally breaks a vase that some con artists were trying to make him buy. It’s actually pretty fun to see that the anime included little bonus stories and interwoven them into the main plot.
Things that are in the manga that are not in the anime: a flashback moment where we actually see Hanazawa’s mother telling him that she’s proud of him. It’s well known in the Mob Psycho 100 fandom that Hanazawa lives alone in his apartment. So since his parents are completely absent in the anime, I had assumed the same for the manga and that when it came to the Hanazawa parents, we, as a collective group of fans, could just make up whatever we wanted them to be like. But apparently, at least Hanazawa’s mother is proud of him. Which I find really interesting because being a loving parent is not a typical depiction of her in fan fiction. And now I’m curious as to whether or not her working abroad is in the manga or if it’s another assumption I’ve made through fandom osmosis.
A thing that is also different in the manga than in the anime is that the manga makes a direct connection between Shigeo refusing to use his powers in self-defense to the incident where Ritsu was accidentally severely injured by Shigeo’s psychic powers when Shigeo loses consciousness and lashes out accidentally. The flashback happens during the fight as opposed to happening later in the anime when we’re focusing on Ritsu’s story. And we are also given a flashback to a speech that Reigen gives that proves that he has said in the past that it’s okay for Shigeo to use his powers in self-defense, in the same breath that he says that the powers should not be used against other people. Not using his powers against people is a big thing for Shigeo, but the anime doesn’t include the rather important detail that Reigen said it was okay in self-defense to use his powers. But Shigeo doesn’t. He remembers what happened to Ritsu when they were ten- and nine-years-old and refuses to use his powers on purpose to defend himself because he sees even using his powers in self-defense to be too dangerous to do. Shigeo Kageyama makes me feel so many things; I love him and how damaged he is and how he wants to improve himself so he doesn’t have to rely on his powers.
One thing that I love about “Mob Psycho 100” is the characters and how complex they are and how they develop over the course of the story. For this reason, my most favorite is Ritsu Kageyama for reasons we can cover later when I read more of the manga volumes. Second favorite is Shigeo/“Mob.” Third favorite is Teru. After that, it’s a little hard to rank everybody, but I also really like Tome Kurata and Minori Asagiri.
Things that still apply to the manga in between volume 1 and volume 2: the art still leaves a lot to be desired, especially compared to the anime. It’s the same story, though, so as long as you like the story, it’s fine. There’s just some things that are better in the anime and some things that are, maybe not better per se, but give a different vibe in the manga, and that vibe is very interesting when it comes to story analysis and potential authorial intent.
Again, if you like anime and manga and stories about the supernatural, you’ll like “Mob Psycho 100.”