Characters / Mob Psycho 100: Main Characters

Mob Psycho 100 Main Character Index
Main Characters | Seasoning City | Claw | Others

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General

• Badass Crew: Each of them has his own special talent that makes him capable of handling even the greatest of threats.
• Color-Coded Characters: The characters often wear different outfits throughout the series, but they do have a signature color regarding their powers or physical appearances.
  • Mob - Light Blue
  • Reigen - Orange
  • Dimple - Green
  • Ritsu - Blue
  • Teruki - Yellow
  • Serizawa - Purple
• Cool Kid-and-Loser Friendship: Ritsu and Teru are the most popular boys of their respective schools, yet are so partial towards plain, socially awkward Mob that they both assume their own female admirers are actually checking Mob out when hanging out with him.
• Five-Man Band:
  • While not the main protagonist, Reigen fills in as The Leader who calls the shots when he and his allies come across a powerful foe or challenge. It's also worth mentioning that he's the adult of the group so he puts it on himself to watch over everyone.
  • Mob, while being the real protagonist, is The Lancer considering his apprentice role to Reigen and how his meek and humble appearance contrasts Reigen's bolder presence.
  • Dimple would be The Smart Guy as he's well versed in spiritual affairs and often provides advice to the heroes on how to deal with evil spirits or their powers.
  • Ritsu is The Big Guy who often uses his powers for offensive matters and will not hesitate to use them to protect himself or his big brother.
  • Teruki can be considered Girly Girl given his flamboyant appearance and how he openly fawns over Mob.
  • Serizawa would join the group later on as the Sixth Ranger.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: The heroes fit into the following:
  • Mob is Phlegmatic. He has a kind and sympathetic nature but he often gets swayed by different people.
  • Reigen is Sanguine. He's gifted with a silver tongue and an analytical mind that allows him to charm others to his advantage. Of course, he can also be hyperactive and sometimes ends up looking like a fool.
  • Dimple is Choleric as he's eager to work with different people despite his tendency to be condescending to others, along with maintaining his desire for world domination.
  • Ritsu is Melancholic. He's a hard-working individual who isn't afraid to be blunt or harsh towards people.
  • And Teruki would be Leukine as he becomes more balanced when he realizes that there's more to life beyond using and exploiting psychic powers.
• Morality Chain: The entire group would have had their negative vices go unchecked if they didn't have Mob in their lives. And likewise, Mob himself is grateful that he has his friends and master to guide him.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: An extremely powerful esper with a calm but boring appearance; an eccentric, sweaty con man with a heart of gold; a sleazy ghost who dreams of becoming a god; a cool student council member with an inferiority complex and a former bancho who has a new, positive outlook on life.
• Recruit Teenagers with Attitude: Mob, Ritsu, and Teruki have psychic powers and are more than capable of fighting against ego-maniacal adult espers.

Shigeo "Mob" Kageyama

Voiced by: Setsuo Itou (Japanese), Kyle McCarley (English, Seasons 1 & 2), Jason Liebrecht (English, Season 3) ^{Foreign VAs}Carlos Siller (Latin American Spanish), Ítalo Luiz (Brazilian Portuguese), Jean-Pierre Leblan (French), Mosè Singh (Italian), Manuel Scheuernstuhl (German)

Portrayed by: Tatsuomi Hamada

^{100% Explosion}

"I don't really get it."

Shigeo "Mob" Kageyama (影山茂夫; Kageyama Shigeo) is a middle schooler with psychic powers linked to his emotions. Being stressed enough can charge Shigeo's abilities to world-shattering lengths, so he studies under Reigen and tries his best to avoid misusing his powers. Often socially awkward and sporting an expressionless face, he is more concerned about making friends and realizing his purpose in life than fighting dangerous espers or being the leader of a cult.

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• Above the Influence: Dimple suggests that there’s nothing Mob can do naturally to attract Tsubomi, but by being the leader of the Psycho Helmet Religion, it would give him the ideal opening after her brainwashing into the cult. Mob barely bothers with a response.
• Achievements in Ignorance: His defeat of the Kuchisake-Onna (or Dragger in the anime). Since the being was created by urban legend and sustained through the fear of those who believe in it, people well acquainted with the myth (such as Shinra and Reigen) were unable to exorcise it properly. Mob, having been socially isolated for many years, had no such fear in his heart and was able to destroy it cleanly.
• Afraid of Their Own Strength: After his first ???% explosion, Mob stopped viewing his powers as a neat trick that lost their novelty and started seeing them as outright monstrous.
• Alternate Character Reading: The characters in his given name, Shigeo, can also be read as "Mobu", hence his nickname.
• Anime Hair: His hair is normally an ordinary-looking bowl cut, but it becomes wild and spiky at 100% power. Justified in that it seems to be his own power aura lifting his hair.
• Angel Face, Demon Face: 100% Mob tends to look a lot cuter and less deranged◊ when set off by more positive, productive emotions. Dimple's so thrown off by the difference that he can't even recognize Mob during the first "good" explosion he witnesses.
• Angst Nuke: Thanks to his volatile powers, his emotional explosions are often very literal.
• Apologetic Attacker: While he does grow out of his Suicidal Pacifism, he never feels good about using his power on people and often apologizes for resorting to force... Unless you hurt Ritsu, in which case you brought it down on yourself.
• Astral Projection: Does this to combat Mogami.
• Athletically Challenged: Due to relying one his psychic powers, he is very physically weak. He joined the Body Improvement Club to overcome this.
• Attractive Bent-Gender: Ironically, the only time in the series he actually did get popular with girls was when he was disguised as one.
• Ax-Crazy: Mob ^note  only appears to be fairly stoic under normal circumstances. When he does go off emotionally, he is often surprisingly conscientious of people around him, reserving the force of his explosions for whomever actually set them off. Sometimes he's not:
  • Expect indiscriminate destruction whenever ???% is in play, as Mob is no longer holding the reins.
  • 100% Obsession / Tenacity, after Dimple talks him down from starting WWIII on accident when he sees what look like the crispy corpses of his family in his burning home. Mob's normal concern for others' safety is gone as he picks a vicious fight—in the middle of a crowd—with two grown men. He then nearly sends Koyama and Sakurai through the windshield of their car when they try to calm him down.
  • 100% Ecstasy and 100% Resignation, in which he faces an equal for the first time in battle against Suzuki. We get a good sense of how cold-hearted and maniacal this teenager can be if he sheds his inhibitions completely. That laugh on his lips as he absorbs Suzuki's Beam Spam in the beginning of their battle is deeply unsettling; as is his contorting the man's body beyond belief in order to force an end to their fight.
• The Baby of the Bunch: The Body Improvement Club can be very protective of their littlest member.
• Badass Adorable: Mob's a cute walking bowl, but he's also disturbingly powerful.
• Beady-Eyed Loser: His irises are drawn much smaller and duller than his younger brother's to mark him as the plain, awkward one of the two. He usually loses this during his 100% explosions, instead sporting sharp, red Tsurime Eyes. He grows out of this over the course of the series; by the end, his irises resemble his brother's more.
• Berserk Button: Anything that threatens his happiness makes him go ???% eventually. It's also a separate conscience that exists all for the sake of his own happiness. The problem is, it's a very In-Universe Chaotic Good conscience to an extreme fault.
• Beware the Nice Ones: He's about as humble and gentle as anyone can hope to be right up until he hits the end of his Catastrophic Countdown.
• Big Brother Instinct: Seriously, don't hurt Ritsu in his presence. Seeing Ritsu get beat up by a member of Claw caused Mob to openly show rage, before his counter reached full capacity; not to mention that scene marks the fastest his counter had gone up.
• Big Good: The strongest force for good in the series so far, as his influence has made many other characters kinder and more humble. After their fight in the Divine Tree, Dimple flat out tells Mob that the strength of his powers, combined with his careful and earnest personality, could make Mob a true leader and unifying force for the people of Spice City, compared to Dimple's plays at godhood through brainwashing.
• Book Dumb: Mob is a bit annoyed that none of that unfathomable psychic talent he was born with seems to have any positive impact on his GPA.
• Boxing Lessons for Superman: Since he was unable to impress the girl he likes with his powers, he believes they are not necessary in daily life. So he enters the Body Improvement Club to become stronger without depending on them.
• Broken Ace: He can effortlessly wipe extremely powerful psychics off the face of the earth, but he doesn't really enjoy any of that power, and would happily trade it for his brother's social and academic skill. He constantly represses his emotions out of fear of causing a catastrophe, and may be suffering from depression.
• Brutal Honesty: While kind and soft-spoken, he also voices his opinions very bluntly and doesn't try to spare feelings if he has a bone to pick.
  Reigen: So, that rules out any natural causes. What do you think, Mob?
  Mob: I think you should stop asking me to drop everything for you.
• Catastrophic Countdown: When Mob experiences spikes in his emotions, building up towards his bursts of power. Though, depending on the emotion he feels at the moment, it's not always catastrophic.
• Character Development: Gradually becomes more confident, sociable and less dependent on Reigen. This has a lot to do with his training in the Body Improvement Club, where he goes from almost the very bottom to the upper half in his second year. That, and a lot of good teaching from Reigen.
• Chuunibyou: Inverted; he legitimately has incredible strong Psychic Powers, but he doesn't see them as a big deal, both because of his desire to improve in more mundane areas of life (like physical fitness and social interactions) and because he's internalized the philosophy that having powers doesn't automatically make him better or more special than everyone else.
• Classical Anti-Hero: Self-doubting, emotionally fragile, and hates having to fight and hurt people, despite the world's best attempts to drag him into fighting evil.
• Comically Missing the Point: During the Psycho Helmet Cult arc, he mistakens the fact he spoke to four girls within hours on a school day as a sign that he became popular with girls. It gets even worse when other girls swoon his way (but not towards him, but rather real chick magnets like Ritsu and Teru).
• Creepy Child: While he is one of the nicest kids you'll ever meet, when his power lashes out, he turns into a horrifying force of nature in the body of a child. It doesn't help that even when he is genuinely enraged, he doesn't entirely lose his quiet and polite demeanor, which leads to cold and hate-filled Tranquil Fury far more eerie and disquieting than any screaming fit of rage would be.
  (to Koyama, in the middle of a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown): Hey, mister who did terrible things to us... just so you know, this is all your fault.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Downplayed. Mob is by no means a moron, but he isn't an excellent student and can be quite naive and unskilled when it comes to social situations despite being quite mature for his age. However, he has very strong psychic abilities that can curb-stomp most people in a fight.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: If he has enough power stored and isn't holding back, he can bring down anyone in a few moves. The only reason why he wasn't able to defeat Koyama at first was because he was holding back, and because Koyama had knock-out spray. When they meet again, he doesn't hold back and easily hands Koyama an instant ass-kicking. Averted with later opponents, who seriously put up a fight and even force Mob to use several 100% modes to keep up.
• Cuckoosnarker: His naivete and Brutal Honesty sometimes results in some pretty brutal jabs, which Reigen and Dimple usually face the most of.
• Delicate and Sickly: He has chronic anemia and often passes out during club activities as a result. It also serves as a Drama-Preserving Handicap, as it makes him highly prone to Power Strain Blackouts alongside his mundane fainting spells.
• Determinator: Mob gets rather dangerous at 100% emotion. Before that, he's taken quite a few beatdowns, but still refused to give up.
• Did Not Get the Girl: The ??? arc ends with Mob finally confessing his feelings to Tsubomi, and being soundly rejected by her in response. They manage to stay friends though.
• Does Not Like Spam: His least favorite foods are cilantro, shiokara, and locusts.
• Dull Surprise: Unless he's at 100%, his facial expressions tend towards this. He's also stated to have limited emotions in everyday life.
• Elemental Powers: Over the course of the series, Mob displays the ability to bend water, gather clouds around himself and stimulate plant growth—as well as an immunity to immolation and electrocution—when conscious. When unconscious, he can also generate tornadoes, earthquakes, landslides and electrical storms.
• Emotional Powers: The more stressed Mob becomes, the closer his explosion counter gets towards 100%. Strong enough emotions can drive it far beyond that, to the point that unlike his unconscious "???%" mode, his power isn't even knowably unknowable, with the percentage simply expressed as a smudge.
• Emotion Bomb: He's capable of projecting his memories, feelings, and perspective into others. However, he doesn't use this as a weapon, but rather as way to communicate his feelings as clearly as possible, since he's not great at expressing himself in the usual ways.
• Emotionless Boy: Has grown used to being like this as a way to suppress his powers.
• Emotion Suppression: The original cause of how he came to be as deadpan and emotionally flat as he is, shackling his feelings after Ritsu got caught in the blast zone of a ???% emergence.
• The Empath: He's able to feel the emotional content of the spiritual energy he absorbs (which opponents are often freely throwing at him during their assaults). Of course, since his regular social and mood-reading skills are rather subpar, this often leads to him cluelessly commenting on their deepest insecurities mid battle.
• Energy Absorption: Drains energy from Teru during his ???% state at Black Vinegar Middle School. By the time he faces off against Toichirou of Claw, he seems to have gained a better grasp on this power even at an emotional state below 100%.
• Everybody Hates Math: While most of his grades are middling, he's absolutely abysmal at math.
• Everyone's Baby Brother: The Body Improvement Club absolutely refuses to use their strength for violence... Unless it's for Mob, as Onigawara is happy to weaponize against Black Vinegar Middle School.
• Expressive Hair: As he gets less prone to stuffing down his feelings, it becomes increasingly common for his hair to puff up or fray in anger well before he hits 100%.
• Extreme Doormat: He starts off as one, so unused to making his own decisions that Tokugawa asking, "Don't you have anything you want to do?" gives him an existential crisis.
• Forgettable Character: Mob lacks presence so much that the few rumors he does provoke instead attach themselves to his younger brother. His schoolmates—including those in the Telepathy Club—can barely even remember he has psychic powers, even though he's never actually made a secret of them.
• The Fettered: Thanks to some choice words Reigen gave him when he was younger, he's been able to hold back on his psychic abilities responsibly and reasonably maturely. It comes around to seeing his powers as "knives"—he shouldn't be pointing them at anybody for no good reason. This also extends to his emotional repression, as if he ever truly lets go or has no limiter, he can become dangerous to everyone around him.
• From a Certain Point of View: Mob still thinks of Reigen as having special powers even after he confesses to being a complete fraud; because as far as Mob is concerned, his charisma and bullshit artistry is a superpower, and he just hasn't realized it yet.
• Full-Contact Magic: A good sign Mob is losing control of himself is when he stops letting the Powers Do the Fighting and gets up close and physical.
• A God I Am Not: Reigen instilled in him the philosophy that being an esper doesn't make him better than other people, and as a result Mob tends to deflect all praise that could be put towards his psychic powers. For the most part, the world respects his wishes, with the Telepathy and Body Improvement Clubs supporting his desires to increase his physical abilities, and Ichi recognizing that she probably shouldn't reveal his existence to the Psycho Helmet Cult that began worshiping him after he defeated Dimple.
• Green Thumb: Learns to control plant life when facing off against the Wiggly Figure. After facing off against the leader of Claw, this power ultimately results in the creation of the Divine Tree, a ginormous head of Broccoli that grows in the middle of Seasoning City.
• The Heart: Since Reigen or Teru are usually more suited to leading, Mob tends to be this until he needs to step up to the plate, with his kindness and innocence keeping everyone else on the straight and narrow.
• Height Angst: Not as severe as his Muscle Angst, but still present. He even falls into despair in one fourth wall-breaking Reigen omake when learning he's not in the spinoff, simply because it means readers will never see him hit a growth spurt.
• The Hero: While Reigen often takes a leadership role due to being... relatively more mature, Mob himself is pretty much always at the forefront of the action, even when he'd really rather not be.
• Heroic Neutral: He's not interested in any shounen battle or adventure shenanigans, repeatedly dismissing the Call to Adventure because he'd rather work at keeping his Psychoactive Powers from running wild and getting his childhood crush to notice him. Knowing this, Shou fakes his family's death and burns his house down to force his hand in the World Domination Arc.
• Heroic Willpower: Manages to resist Mogami's attempts at corrupting him for what he perceives as half a year.
• Humanoid Abomination: Under the effects of ???% mode, Mob effectively becomes this with the full release of his raw psychic power. This idea is even further cemented with the fact that ???% has a separate consciousness of its own that seems to be dedicated to Mob's well-being and happiness, since its appearances have been either protecting Mob after being knocked out or, as in Chapter 100, picking up Mob's bouquet of flowers and ensuring that he makes it to his meeting with Tsubomi, life-threatening injury be damned.
• I Am a Monster: It's hard to not hate yourself when your one talent is being a part-time Humanoid Abomination.
• I Just Want to Be Loved: Above all, Mob would really like Tsubomi to notice him.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: Played with. Unlike most characters of this type, he does not necessarily resent his powers per se (at least not usually), and will openly use them to exorcise evil spirits and take down those who seek to harm innocents. However, he does not exactly embrace them either, not really seeing the big deal in being a psychic, since it doesn't really help him improve his personal life. Above all, he doesn't want to have his powers be his sole defining feature, and wants to become good at normal everyday life things, which he perceives as being more valuable than overwhelming psychic abilities.
• I Just Want to Have Friends: Aside from wanting to be normal, Mob's biggest goal in life is to be able to connect with other people.
• Instant Expert: Able to learn plant control and astral projection with little difficulty.
• I Want to Be a Real Man: It's a running gag that Mob's ideas of how to be attractive to girls are a bit... off... and that he often fantasizes of one day looking like a terrifyingly huge musclebeast like Musashi, even though girls at his school are far more interested in boys like Ritsu. Dimple is a bit concerned.
• Kid Hero: A 14-year-old boy, and one of the world's most powerful espers.
• Kubrick Stare: Mob's default expression. Becomes a Death Glare when he actually means it.
• Leitmotif: When he lets loose in battle, it's commonly accompanied by an eerie tune known as "Explosion of Mob's Feelings", which makes prominent use of seamoons, a peculiar instrument best described as a distorted version of human vocalizations (or, more humorously, "threatening kazoos", according to the Youtube comment section). The dark, surreal sound of the track emphasizes Mob's nature as possibly the single most powerful esper in the world, and reminds us that despite his harmless appearance and kind nature, an angry Mob is a terrifying sight to behold. It has a few variations, such as the slower, even more sinister version used as the theme of ???%, or the more badass, heart-pumping version used when Mob finally has the chance to let loose with the full extent of his power against an equal in Toichirou Suzuki.
• Looks Like Cesare: While normally too nondescript to even be considered an Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette despite his paleness, he slips into this look upon exploding in Rage, Animosity, Obsession, or Ecstasy. ???% straddles the line between this and faceless Humanoid Abomination.
• Loser Protagonist: Begins as an insecure, all-but-friendless ditherer with no remarkable talents beyond his psychic powers (which he doesn't find useful in most contexts anyways). He moves out of this after he starts gaining confidence in himself and begins more openly expressing his emotions, gaining a growing circle of close friends.
• Magnetic Hero: Despite his lack of social skills, he's managed to collect a large amount of friends and allies through his earnestness and kindness, from schoolmates like the Telepathy Club, Body Improvement Club, and Salt Mid's delinquent gang; to former enemies like Dimple, Teru, and the 7th Branch Scar Members of Claw. It's even noted that this quality may have helped the Body Improvement Club recruit more members after Mob becomes their Assistant Director, especially since the new recruits aren't already muscular like the Body Improvement Club was when Mob first joined.
• Martial Pacifist: Hates fighting other humans, and will avoid it when at all possible; but push him too far or exhaust his other options, and he will show just how powerful of an esper he is.
• Meaningful Name:
  • His nickname, "Mob" (モブ), is derived from "Mob Character," the Japanese term for a background character or NPC. Shigeo has a rather plain appearance befitting of such a character and begins the story with little sense of presence, suppressing his emotions and trying to live like a common person despite everyone trying to take advantage of him. It also doubles as an Alternate Character Reading, as his given name can be read as "Mobu".
  • His surname can also be seen as meaningful. "Kageyama" literally translates to "shadow mountain," which could be a reference to how his psychic "shadow" in the spiritual world is like a mountain's compared to other espers'.
  • The first character in Mob's given name, 茂, means 'to grow lushly' or 'to be in full leaf'. He awakens chlorokinetic powers in the show's second season.
• Minor Living Alone: Outside of Mogamiland, Mob has two loving parents and a younger brother who adores him; within, he lives entirely alone and his brother... is a stranger. That this is the case, and that he literally has no one to turn to for help, is far less ambiguous in the manga. It's a sign of how far gone Mob is—and of how incessantly cruel the torment he undergoes—that he can't even spare the headspace to question what's happening to him.
• Mistaken for Badass: Played with. Mob is by far the most powerful character in the story for his tremendous esper abilities, but otherwise he looks like a weak little boy, incapable of any physical might; thus when Mob gets tangled up in delinquent feuds, and with minor foes who don’t quite get his psychic powers, they think Mob is some secret badass who’s just hiding his true physical strength after he either defeats them or have his shredded friends from the Body Improvement Club help him out; for that Mob is nicknamed "Uraban" (Ura Banchou / Secret Boss Delinquent) among school thugs, for they see him as the unassuming secret boss of his school.
• Muscle Angst: Muscle is his go-to example for things he'd like to have rather than psychic powers, and he joins the Body Improvement Club under the rather naive belief that it might get Tsubomi interested in him.
• Muscles Are Meaningful: Rather than over-rely on his psychic power, Mob does his best to work out his body with the Body Improvement Club. In his second-year marathon, he manages to place in the top half of 180 students, and that's with an injured leg. By the end of the Manga, he's gotten strong enough to climb a telephone pole without the use of his powers... though getting down from it with just his muscles is another story.
• Mutual Envy: He wishes he were more normal like his brother Ritsu, unaware that Ritsu is secretly resentful and envious of him for having psychic abilities.
• My God, What Have I Done?:
  • Mob and Ritsu were once mugged by high-schoolers who knocked him unconscious by pushing him into a wall. When Mob woke up, all of them, including Ritsu, were heavily injured. This is what caused him to reject his power and meet Reigen for guidance.
  • He has a small one after seeing Ritsu beat up a large group of delinquents with his psychic powers unprovoked, making him realize he had been unconsciously ignoring his brother's insecurities all this time until the issue boiled over.
• Nice Guy: Very kind and forgiving. Upon defeating former bad guys such as Dimple and Teruki, Mob even asks Reigen if it was wrong to just come and ruin their lives like that. At a different point, he even sheds tears due to having to hurt a guy who is out to kill him.
• Nightmare Face: His expression when he encounters what appear to be the burning corpses of his family after Claw invades his house is a clear and VERY disturbing example◊.
• The Nondescript: Mob is noted to look much like a random extra in a crowd shot (aka a "mob" character).
• Nonstandard Character Design: While regular Mob is drawn in the same simple, cartoony fashion as everyone else, Studio BONES draws 100% Mob more angularly and with more detail to resemble a character from a more traditional shounen battle manga. The most dramatic case is 100% Courage Mob, which is accompanied by an Art Shift so drastic that even the characters themselves are wondering who this new kid is.
  Mogami: You're not the same boy as before. Who are you?
  Dimple: Don't you get it? This is the true form of Shigeo Kageyama he only reveals when he's truly piss—Wait, actually, yeah. Who are you?
• No Sense of Humor:
  • Not for a lack of trying. Not even intentionally letting Dimple's laugh-inducing mind control through his barrier had any effect on him. He finally laughs in Chapter 101 after accidentally sending Reigen's birthday cake flying into his face with his powers.
  • Reconstructed: During the Mogami arc, he cracks a joke—his first in the series—with Dimple, marking a milestone in his emotional growth.
• Older Than They Look: Mob realistically resembles a 14-year-old, but is often surrounded by people who look much older than their age, making him seem young in comparison.
• One-Man Army: Is able to trounce groups of baddies with his psychic powers alone.
• Only Friend: To Reigen, though Reigen only realizes this during their brief separation. This gets subverted when Reigen forms new friendships with Serizawa, Dimple and Tome.
• Part-Time Hero: Quite literally, though spirits are not enough of an immediate or significant danger to cause him any Samaritan Syndrome.
• Person of Mass Destruction: When Mob's psychic powers flare up, there might be some collateral battle damage, but when ???% shows up, it gets far worse. Chapter 100 shows that ???% walking through Seasoning City causes phenomena mistaken for large-scale windstorms and earthquakes—to the point that an evacuation order comes into effect—and leaves a visible trail of dug-up earth in his wake.
• Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure: In-Universe, he's stated to be completely out of the loop when it comes to pop culture, as well as other trends like urban legends. This ends up being a major advantage when he's facing the Kuchisake-Onna/the Dragger, who gets her power from people's knowledge and fear of her; because he isn't up to date on such things and doesn't know anything about her, he has no reason to be afraid of her.
• Power Incontinence: While unconscious, Mob's power level becomes incomprehensible. He also drives his powers towards infinity in a blind rage once he walks up to what looks like the corpses of his family, but Dimple manages to convince him they're fake and calms him down.
• Power Limiter:
  • More metaphorical than most examples: subconsciously suppressing his emotions keeps his powers in check, as does his kindness and Reigen's advice not to use his powers on other people. Building up an emotional charge that exceeds his ability to hold it back trips the limiter.
  • Also consciously self-imposed, in that he tends to roughly match his psychic strength to that of his human opponents to avoid killing them—he uses just enough strength to end fights. There are exceptions.
  • His consciousness itself is a limiter. Knocking him out releases the full extent of his powers in uninhibited ???% form.
• Power Profit Potential: Mob's Psychic Powers are exploited by his master, Reigen Arataka, who runs an exorcism business. When an actual spirit shows up, Reigen will call Mob to deal with it. Mob himself does get paid for his work, though very little. Later, Reigen recruits Serizawa, another legitimate psychic, to his business as well.
• Power-Strain Blackout: Overusing his powers can take a toll on his already weak constitution, and his emotional explosions are often followed up by fainting spells, temporary paralysis, or a compromised immune system.
• Puberty Superpower: While Mob has had psychic powers since birth, they start growing rapidly when he hits his early teens, to the point that his Emotion Suppression begins to fail and cause his Explosions.
• Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: Deconstructed. The line he says just before obliterating Dimple, while badass, is more of a Tear Jerker because you can just tell that Mob is actually disgusted with himself and the stuff he can do when he goes out of control.
  "I'm... terrible."
• Psychic Powers: He's very proficient in telekinesis even when not trying, can make psychic barriers and also imitates any abilities he sees his opponents perform.
• Psychoactive Powers: His power is shaped by his mindset and overall worldview, and growing out of his Emotion Suppression and self-fear results in more positive, constructive "explosions" such as 100% Gratitude.
• Rage Against the Mentor: Mob eventually has a falling out with Reigen when working with him puts a strain on his social life. They reconcile soon after.
• Red Baron: The former LOL cult members call him "Psycho Helmet" and the students at Salt Mid and in other delinquent gangs around the district know him as "White T Poison". Dimple later takes the Psycho Helmet identity for himself when he takes over the cult.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: In the anime, Mob's natural eye color as shown in a closeup while being choked by Teruki is a deep reddish-brown. When he hits some of his explosions, like 100% Rage or 100% Hostility, they start glowing a vibrant and menacing red.
• Relative Button: Anyone who harms Ritsu is making a grave mistake if Mob knows about it. To put that into perspective, Mob always had a gradual build up to his 100% emotional outburst. The arc prior, it took Teruki almost strangling him to death to bring out his powers. By comparison, Mob goes from 0-100% in the matter of seconds after seeing Koyama beat up Ritsu.
• Repression Never Ends Well: As can be seen from his explosions. It also turns out that ???% isn't some separate eldritch entity sleeping inside him, but simply the repressed feelings and base impulses he's too ashamed to acknowledge, a realization that nearly breaks him.
• The Runt at the End: He's by far the scrawniest, frailest member of the Body Improvement Club, and he's often shown lagging far behind them on their daily runs.
• Secretly Selfish: Like most of his emotions, Mob tends to suppress his more selfish and uncharitable impulses. So much so that said impulses became their own entity in the form of ???%, who considers Mob a fabricated persona that has outlived its usefulness.
• Selective Obliviousness: He has a huge blind spot in regards to Reigen's obvious Phony Psychic act, even when other characters spell it out to him. The final arc reveals that he subconsciously picked up on it a while ago, but is too scared of the implications that his most formative relationship is a complete lie to actually process it.
• Sexier Alter Ego: 100% Courage, which character design notes jokingly refer to as Mob's "ikemen" form.
• Shounen Hair: Hitting 100% throws his hair into complete disarray, making him look like a scrawny little Super Saiyan.
• Shrinking Violet: Starts off extremely withdrawn thanks to his fear of so much as acknowledging his emotions and desires. Even when he does become more social and acquire a fairly broad circle of friends, he tends to be the quietest, most subdued person in the conversation.
• Sickly Child Grew Up Strong: While he never does get those muscles he was dreaming of, the Body Improvement Club does a great deal to help his anemia.
• Socially Awkward Hero: At home and in school he is usually reserved and a bit awkward, even anxious at times, during social interactions. To wit, his "speech" when coaxed into running for Student Council President is an unprecedented 5 minutes of silence.
• Soulless Bedroom: Compared to that of his brother Ritsu—whose room screams 'generic middle-class gifted kid'—Shigeo's ample bedroom is empty. Empty, except for a desk and chair, a small bookcase, a closet, a dresser, and a neatly folded and enviably plush futon. It's also unnaturally tidy for a teenager's room.
  • Downplayed: Upon closer examination, his bookcase contains his favorite manga, study books for subjects he struggles with, and books that hint at his desire to learn more about people in his life. His bedroom doesn't change to reflect his emotional and spiritual growth over the course of the story either, unlike many examples of this trope. Shigeo just seems to prefer living in near-ascetic simplicity.
• Split-Personality Merge: The series climax is Mob and ??? coming to an understanding, with Mob finally accepting his powers as part of what makes who he is and that they were instrumental to his growth and the friends he got along the way, rejecting his previous wishes of ever wanting to be a person without psychic powers; Mob fully unlocks the path to free all his emotions, and going through the final trial of being rejected by Tsubomi has him grow up. By the end of the series Mob has become the best version of himself, happy with all of him and laughing with joy for what he knows will be great days ahead.
• Squishy Wizard: While unrivaled in pure psychic ability, he's shown to be incredibly out of shape. His time as the newest member of the Body Improvement Club is mostly comprised of him passing out during their morning jogs. However, this is only an issue in his everyday life—in combat, Mob is perfectly capable of raising psychic barriers stronger than steel and infusing his body with psychic energy to make himself much stronger. In the latter half of the series, he's grown out of the trope entirely—while he's pretty far from matching the other members of the Body Improvement Club, his strength and stamina are hinted to be above average at least. In an aversion of Hard Work Hardly Works, solely psychic-enhanced muscles turn out to be inferior to a mix of psychic power enhancement and conventional training, which should make Mob a better combatant as well.
• Stock Shōnen Hero: Mob is an inversion—instead of being Hot-Blooded and cheerful, he's emotionally repressed and usually a bit downbeat. Instead of spiky hair all the time that gets spikier the more power he uses, his hair is only spiky when his powers flare up and is usually styled into a rounded bowl cut. Instead of having lots of confidence and lots of friends, he starts the story with very little self-confidence and relies on what few friends he has to keep it from collapsing entirely.
• The Stoic: Mob is usually expressionless by default, and doesn't have much of a sense of humor. After his Character Development, however, he gets better at interacting with others and smiles more often.
• Successful Sibling Syndrome: While Mob doesn't resent Ritsu for his effortless success at school, being the under-performing brother of Salt Middle School's star student does not do favors for his self-esteem.
• Sudden Eye Color: His eye color (dark red) only becomes apparent during his explosions.
• Suicidal Pacifism: Early on. Knowing how dangerous his powers are, Mob refuses to use them on other humans. Exorcising ghosts is fine, though, because it benefits Reigen. It takes a while for him to question whether or not that is right.
• Super-Empowering: 100% Gratitude. By the time he faces off against the leader of Claw, he's learned how to do this at below 100%.
• Super Gullible: The flip side of his good faith in others is sometimes ludicrous credulity, especially if tempted with the possibility of becoming popular or attracting Tsubomi's attention.
• Super Loser: He may have won the Superpower Lottery, but missed out on just about anything actually useful in his daily life.
• Super Mode: 100%. Here, his powers become much stronger due to the force of his emotions, allowing him to keep up with exceptionally powerful espers.
• Supernatural Floating Hair: His most distinctive characteristic when hitting 100%.
• Superpowered Evil Side: ???%. It comes out when Mob is unconscious, and not only seems to be almost a separate entity from Mob, but is also far more destructive, although it doesn't seem actively malicious, just less restrained in its power use than Mob. To wit, ???% is so focused on getting to Mob's meeting with Tsubomi that it completely ignores the fact that its presence is pretty much destroying Salt City.
• Superpower Lottery: He's hit the absolute jackpot as far as psychic powers go. Too bad he's more interested in being a Slice of Life protagonist than a shounen action hero.
• Trademark Favorite Food: His favorite food is takoyaki and his favorite drink is milk.
• Tranquil Fury: Even at 100% Rage or 100% Animosity, the only outward sign he's angry is a Death Glare. That, and the way property damage starts to accumulate around him.
• Unconscious Objector: Mob is able to keep fighting when knocked out. His power level when he's unconscious? "???%". He's terrified of what could happen when he loses control like that. When Mogami destroys Mob's body... the ???% still takes form. If Mob's physical body is obliterated, then ???% gets unleashed fully. ???% has thoughts and a personality of its own, though seemingly in service to Mob, as it states that because Mob going to see Tsubomi is an important meeting for him, and because Mob has been knocked out from being hit by a car, ???%'s intervention has become necessary and it won't let anything get in its way, including picking up the bouquet Minegishi gave him.
• The Unfavorite: While his parents do love him, he seems to be this compared to his much more classically gifted younger brother, particularly in the eyes of his mother. As a result, Mob envies Ritsu for being a normal kid, which blinded him to Ritsu's resentment for having the incredible psychic powers he craves.
• Unwanted False Faith: Former members of the LOL cult decide to start a new cult worshiping him, which he has no desire to engage with despite Mezato's pestering.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Mob doesn't have a lot of refined techniques the way most elite Claw members do, but his power advantage is so overwhelming that it rarely matters.
• Used to Be More Social: He was a lot more expressive and social as a small child. Then the accident with ???% happened, leading him to emotionally shut down and isolate himself.
• Wacky Parent, Serious Child: While not actually parent and child and he does have actual parents who don't fit this trope, his dynamic with Reigen resembles this.
• Warrior Therapist: Many of the psychics Mob fights end up being on the receiving end of having their insecurities thrown in their faces as Mob destroys them.
• Weirdness Magnet: It is sort of justified when it comes to evil spirits; after all, his part-time job involves exorcising them, and while some of them end up being fakes, some are bound to be real.
• What Beautiful Eyes!: In the anime, his eyes are drawn in a shiny Bishōnen fashion during 100% Courage.
• When He Smiles: He smiles frequently (and adorably) enough, but it's an absolute joy to see him laughing brightly in Ch 101.
• World's Strongest Man: Mob is demonstrated to have the strongest psychic powers displayed thus far in the series, with only powerful espers like Toichiro Suzuki and Keiji Mogami giving him an actual challenge. The young boy still holds himself back with his ???% which vastly increases his already godlike psychic powers, though he can only use it when he's unconscious. For reference, Suzuki had been storing power for twenty years in preparation for his attempt at world domination. Mob has not even been alive for twenty years and has presumably not been consciously storing any power, but was still able to fight the Claw leader on equal ground.
• Wouldn't Hit a Girl: In his fight against Tsuchiya at Scar HQ, he reveals that this is one of the morals that Reigen taught him. It takes her pointing out that she's an adult woman fighting a middle school boy to get him to actually retaliate.

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Arataka Reigen

Voiced by: Takahiro Sakurai (Japanese), Chris Niosi (English) ^{Foreign VAs}Manuel Campuzano (Latin American Spanish), Vagner Fagundes (Brazilian Portuguese), Fabrice Lelyon (French), Jacopo Calatroni (Italian), Pascal Breuer (German)

"You're the main character of your own life, Mob."

Arataka Reigen (霊幻新隆; Reigen Arataka) is a self-proclaimed psychic who owns a business that deals with exorcising ghosts. Reigen is very clever and has a way with words, so he can easily bring people under his sway. However, he also makes a point of solving his clients' problems and making them satisfied, no matter what it takes.

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• Achievements in Ignorance: His tendency to dive into situations that he doesn't fully understand, combined with his massive confidence, has led him to pull off amazing victories when no sane person would have even tried.
• Adaptation Dye-Job: Whenever he's shown in color in the manga, Reigen has light brown hair. The anime adaptation makes him a blonde with a ginger undertone.
• All-Loving Hero: Downplayed; Reigen will fight if he absolutely has to, but he would prefer to end his battle with words over violence. He defeats the Scar members by telling them that they are wasting their powers on being evil and should instead focus on improving themselves to be better people. Compare this to a typical anime protagonist who would simply beat them up.
• All Take and No Give: While Reigen does care about Mob, he has a habit of taking advantage of his charge and often expects him to drop everything for his own sake. This eventually reaches its head in the Separate Ways arc when Reigen rather callously says that Mob's new friends don't really care about him and are just using him. Mob, who has spent the last several arcs growing more self-confident, sees through Reigen's attempts to manipulate him and decides to take a break from working for him. This leads to a string of Break the Haughty moments for Reigen and, by the end, he comes to realise how he has taken advantage of Mob and makes amends with him. This leads to their relationship becoming much healthier from then on.
• Anti-Mentor: He has a reputation as a famous esper with Mob as his disciple, who has great esper powers. In reality, he's a Con Man (albeit a benevolent one) who has no powers and only uses Mob to manage real spirits. However, it's gradually subverted since Reigen does act as a legitimate mentor figure for Mob, having taught him at a young age that his powers don't make him any better than everyone else, encouraging him to use them properly and wanting him not to use his powerful abilities against other people. Said teachings having a very large effect on Mob's outlook in life and helped him become a good person.
• The Anti-Nihilist: Life dealt you a short-hand and you want to take it out on the world? Reigen's answer is to tell you to suck it up and work through it to make something out of your life. Somewhat deconstructed when his tough-love attitude drives Mob away, leading to him focusing on making the best of his situation by pushing his public persona. This gets him revealed as a fraud, and hands him a serious reality check of his own.
• Arc Villain: A relatively minor one, but the main conflict and Plot-Mandated Friendship Failure between him and Mob in the Separate Ways Arc was caused by none but Reigen himself.
• Badass Normal: You wouldn't believe the things this guy can do despite having no powers. He shames several Claw members into working for better lives, isn't fooled by a Creepy Child whose demonic possession everyone else couldn't detect, puts a massive effort to take down a virtual MMORPG ghost that was immune to the abilities of proper psychics, and tries to punch out some of the most powerful espers in the planet.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: Well, he's got at least one part of that right. Or arguably both.
• The Barnum: Why bother to dispel people's belief that their backaches are caused by evil spirits when you can make money off it instead?
• Bavarian Fire Drill: Bluffs his way into places or into the trust of others by acting supremely confident, and it usually works.
• Breakout Character: So much his popularity gains him title "Internet Sex Symbol".
• Blocking Stops All Damage: Reigen tends to cover the back of his head with one hand to avoid concussions if he's thrown around.
• Born Lucky: Even with his Refuge in Audacity and having actual espers as allies, this is the only way to explain how he's not only avoided being torn to pieces multiple times over, but also how his plans actually work.
• Break the Haughty: The Separate Ways arc is one long string of such moments for Reigen. First he pushes Mob's trust in him to far when he callously says that Mob's new friends don't really care about him leading to Mob taking a break from him. Reigen, instead of realising what he did wrong, doubles down on his narcissism and believes he can run Spirits and Such by himself. This comes to a head when Kirin Shoudou tricks him into revealing his fraud status on live television, causing Reigen to become the subject of ridicule. This leads him to realise how much he had taken Mob for granted and he deicides to apoplogise to his student on live tv. Fortunately, things improve for Reigen after he reunites with Mob, and afterwards he becomes a far better mentor to his charge.
• Broken Ace: The guy is actually quite talented in a number of fields except his current chosen profession. It's often Played for Laughs, but at his heart, he's someone who isn't satisfied with the success he has achieved and wishes he could possess something more special.
• …But He Sounds Handsome: He makes sockpuppet accounts online to defend himself on social media or give his business good reviews.
• Calling Your Attacks: Parodied. He has names for all of his "exorcism techniques", which he loudly shouts out whenever he uses them. Being what he is, half of those techniques are ineffective and the other half are just obvious attempts to invoke Mundane Made Awesome, such as Sorcery Crush (just a massage) and Digital Purification (photoshopping ghosts out of photographs).
• Can't Hold His Liquor: It only took one drink for him to get buzzed, and it didn't even have alcohol in it. He even threw up afterwards.
• Character Development: Goes from a sleazy Jerk with a Heart of Gold who has no problem using Mob and isolating him in order to keep him under his thumb, to a more understanding mentor who cares for Mob; not just as an employee, but as his friend as well. This is best exemplified when when he gives Mob the week off of work so he can focus on training for a marathon and then trains alongside him to keep his spirits up.
• Character Focus: While he is the second most important character already, the Separate Ways arc specifically focuses on him, with Mob out of the picture for most of it.
• Character Tics: The anime shows him waving his hands about erratically when he gestures, most likely to appear more mysterious and powerful than he actually is.
• The Charmer: Reigen has a particular knack for pleasing female clients, enough that Serizawa is surprised to hear he's never actually had a girlfriend.
• Children Raise You: Reigen didn't exactly have the purest of motivations in mentoring Mob, but he's moved enough by the kid's trust and admiration to put some actual effort in being a decent mentor and role model.
• Chuunibyou: He is a regular man who pretends to be a powerful psychic out of a desire to be special, and gives grandiose names to his techniques. This sets him as a Foil to the espers of Claw, who also channel this trope despite their powers being genuine. Unlike them, Reigen is far from childish or unaware of how the world really works, and most importantly, he doesn't feel the need to drag everyone down so he can feel superior to others.
• Combat Pragmatist: When facing off against Claw, he drop kicks one while he's distracted, and pretends to use hypnosis on another before randomly decking him in the face. He pulls a similar trick when facing Toichirou, having him envelop Mob in his psychic barrier as soundproofing so that Reigen will have a clear shot at punching him.
• Con Man: Played With. He lies about psychic powers, and will fake his way through anything he can; but his business ethic relies on actually helping his customers, and he has a special hatred for any con artists that play the trope straight. He also refuses to extort his customers, being noted as the cheapest "psychic" on the market, and sometimes accepts non-monetary compensation, such as taking some crop seeds as payment from a poor farmer.
• Cowardly Lion: He'll usually try to keep away from a fight, but if someone he cares about is in danger—especially Mob—he'll jump into a fight he knows he can't win and simply hope for a miracle to happen.
  • Goes straight into ???'s tornado to save Mob, fully knowing he has a high chance of dying in the attempt. The anime punctuates this with a Theme Music Power-Up.
• Crazy-Prepared: He knows fully well how to handle himself in social situations and against people who would harm him or Mob. (Ex. He gives a group of trouble-making kids a fake name after he hit them on the heads for doodling on a dog).
• A Day in the Limelight: The "Separation" Arc puts more focus on him than Mob, exploring his character and why he decided to become a Phony Psychic.
• Decoy Protagonist: The world of the series is introduced with Reigen and his work. He's soon forced to call Mob for help, who is then revealed to be the actual main character.
• Deuteragonist: He's one of the most important characters in the series, second only to Mob. He continues filling this role in REIGEN, though in this case he's second to Tome.
• Drunk on Milk: Lampshaded and played for drama. After a huge fight with Mob leaves him in a Heroic BSoD over how thoughtless he was acting, he ends up showing blackout-level symptoms after one cup of a completely non-alcoholic drink, purely due to him believing he should be drunk.
• Eccentric Mentor: He's a Phony Psychic who's secured his position as the mentor of the most powerful esper in the world completely through the power of bullshit.
• Empowered Badass Normal: In a critical moment, Mob's gratitude reaching 100% instinctively transfers his charged power over to Reigen, making him able to No-Sell the attacks from the Claw members. It takes a while for him to even realize the level of danger he was dealing with. Even after Mob's power leaves him, he's still awakened enough to be able to see spirits. This also counts while he's possessed by Dimple at the end of Chapter 100, which makes him powerful and fast enough to close in on ???% Mob and give him a heart-to-heart while he's causing a massive tornado.
• Everyone Has Standards: Reigen may be a fraudster, but at least he's a honorable one who wants to solve people's problems and even teaches them to defend themselves from other con men who only care about swindling people out of their money.
• The Face: His time spent being The Leader usually ends up with him as this due to his silver con man tongue making up for his lack of psychic powers.
• Friendless Background: It's hinted in the OVA Drama CDs and Episode 9 of the Radio specials that Reigen was unpopular as a kid and didn't have any friends growing up. This is more evident during the "Separate Ways" Arc when he realizes that Mob is the only person in his life he could consider a friend. This trope gets subverted when Reigen forms new friendships with Serizawa, Dimple, and Tome.
• Foil: To Mob. Reigen is bombastic, and plays himself up as powerful, but is really just an average human with an unorthodox skillset and a bizarre amount of luck. Mob is extremely blunt, has very little presence, but is pretty much the most powerful entity in the series, bar none. And while Mob wants to live his life fairly without worrying about his powers, Reigen desires to become a somebody by becoming a Phony Psychic.
• Greed: Played with. Reigen is constantly looking for a new client or job to do and he pays Mob rather pitifully, but he's mainly interested in keeping the lights on and genuinely helping his clients out. As such, he charges much less than other Phony Psychics.
• Guile Hero: Relies on misdirection and trickery to turn a fight in his favor.
• Hair Color Dissonance: He either has blonde hair, blonde hair with orange shading, or really light orange hair. According to Character Designer Kameda Yoshimichi, Reigen's hair is supposed to be officially blonde.
• The Heart: Despite usually taking on a leadership role when the main characters team up, what he really provides above all is emotional and moral support.
• Heroic Sacrifice: In the Reigen spinoff, he hugs Tome in order to take on the deadly curse that was passed onto her by Dozen.
• Hypocritical Humor: He confronts the (remaining) leaders of Claw by admonishing that they shouldn't be hurting people. Teruki is quick to mentally note that Reigen had just dropkicked someone right before saying that.
• I Just Want to Be Special: Reigen has always wanted to "become somebody", so when he first met Mob and was amazed about his powers being the real deal, he figured that was his chance to work his way to the top of a line of business.
• Insistent Terminology:
  • Mob is well aware that Reigen is no Esper, but Reigen uses the terms "Psychic" and "spiritual powers" to keep up his image. And that's gotta mean something even though Reigen has no power aura or any supernatural abilities.
  • One of Reigen's "special moves" is to sucker-punch his target and yell out "SELF-DEFENSE PUNCH!" in the hopes that claiming it's "self-defense" means they can't sue him, despite him quite obviously striking first.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He often manipulates Mob for his own gain, but does honestly care for him, gives advice about his insecurities, and protects him from harm. Eventually, he realizes he's been keeping Mob from living his youth and becomes afraid of losing his trust.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: Zig-zagged. He insists to Mob that when things are really bad, there's no shame in fleeing and living to fight another day, mostly to protect the boy. However, once 100% Gratitude kicks in, he is able to stand his ground against Claw and effortlessly bat their attacks aside.
• Large Ham: When he's on the job, it helps sell the psychic act.
• Loophole Abuse: His hilariously named "Self-Defense Rush", which consists of him rapidly punching his opponent. In the anime the narrator mentions that he calls it this to avoid getting sued or arrested for assault, despite him initiating the attack.
• Loveable Rogue: He's a con man with insane luck and even more insane expressions, but his dedication to Mob and to actually helping his clients makes him this.
• Magnetic Hero: Similar to Mob — while Mob's powers were what Reigen was using fighting the 7th Branch of Claw, his speech about growing up and taking responsibility was what turned them, especially the members of Scar, to his and Mob's cause, resulting in him being placed as leader for the fight against Toichirou.
• Mean Boss: Underpays Mob and calls him to help at the most inopportune times. Becomes more of a Benevolent Boss later on.
• Meaningful Name: "Reigen" is written with the kanji for "spirit" and "illusion" — a perfect fit for a man who lies about having spiritual powers. "Reigen arataka" is also a homophone for a Japanese phrase 霊験あらたか meaning "miraculous; wonder-working; magical​".
• Mentor Archetype: Although Reigen clearly isn't paranormal, Mob still respects him for his wisdom.
• Metaphorically True: While he's never given Mob any actual psychic training, he did teach him how to use his powers as promised — he taught him to use them responsibly.
• Mind over Matter: By lucid dreaming that he has genuine powers, he is able to Salt Punch the Devourer out of existence in the Devourer's own dreamworld.
• Mistaken for Badass: Many members of Claw are convinced that Reigen is not only an esper, but an insanely powerful one who can flawlessly mask his spiritual aura. This seems to have been completely unintentional on Reigen's part, but he's more than happy to roll with it.
• Mooching Master: As the Phony Psychic mentor to a very much not phony psychic apprentice, this can be expected. Reigen constantly relies on Mob's help whenever he gets in over his head, which is pretty much every single time he encounters even the weakest genuine spirit.
• Mood-Swinger: He frequently goes from calm to panicking in the span of a few seconds.
• Morality Chain: Why is Reigen Mob's mentor when there's nothing at all he can teach him about using Psychic Powers? The truth is that he serves a much more important role in Mob's life: his moral compass and emotional support, which is crucial to someone as young as Mob in possession of massively destructive powers. For instance, he is the one who instilled in Mob the rule of never using his powers on humans.
• Mr. Fanservice: Not like how most would picture "fanservice", but it's there in the anime version. The animator for the ending sequence even asked girls in the studio for a "sexier" way to light a cigarette during his morning routine.
• Mundane Made Awesome: Reigen slaps fancy names on anything he does to make them look like supernatural abilities, such as pretending to lift curses by relieving his clients' shoulders and back with nice massages. The narrator refers to those as his "Secret Techniques" and more often than not, they do turn out to be awesome and unexpectedly effective.
• Not-So-Phony Psychic: While he starts out as a Phony Psychic, he gains shades of this after Mob's Super-Empowering gives him the permanent ability to see (some) spirits. He still has no way of actually dealing with them on his own, but it still puts him above the level of normal humans.
• Older Than They Look: He's reaching 30 but looks very close to Mob's age.
• Only Sane Man: Since all the espers in the series are either emotionally stunted manchildren or literal children, Reigen often winds up as the only Adult in the room.
• Parental Substitute: Zigzagged. Mob has parents and has a healthy relationship with them while his relationship with Reigen is that of a standard master and student. But Reigen often takes the role of a father-figure by providing Mob with moral guidance throughout his adventures while doing what he can to protect him from dangerous threats. Not to mention that Reigen is arguably more involved with Mob's character growth than Mr. and Mrs. Kageyama.
• Phony Psychic: A very talented guy who could be anything but chose to fake being a psychic for some reason. He has no actual powers and has Mob take care of any genuinely supernatural threats that they come across, though he's usually able to solve his customers' problems in mundane but surprisingly effective ways. He eventually becomes slightly less phony after Mob's Super-Empowering gives him the ability to see lower-level spirits, but he still can't actually deal with them on his own.
• Phrase Catcher: Any esper or spirit will often say "I don't sense any psychic energy from him" upon meeting Reigen.
• Pretty Boy: Believe it or not, yes. While he does make exaggerated faces like he does in the manga, the anime's consistent proportions do offset it some. Look at how he's portrayed in the anime compared to the manga. The animators even made his having bed head attractive.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Gave a rather famous one to the members of Scar during the climax of the Scar Arc. Since he realized he couldn't reason with them as adults since the group had the maturity of children, he talks down to them like they are petulant children.
  Ritsu: He dragged them out of their delusions and back into reality by force, by shattering their dreams.
• Refuge in Audacity: He acts with such supreme confidence and charm that his clients fail to notice that he doesn't actually have any powers, because why else would this guy act this way?
• Running Gag: His specialized anti-esper fighting technique: sidling in close and punching their lights out when they least expect it. It never works for long, but it does work.
• Salt Solution: His primary way of dealing with evil spirits is spraying them with salt. Unfortunately, as one spirit points out, he's using regular table salt rather than purified salt, making it completely ineffective.
• Sand In My Eyes: Blames his Tears of Remorse over finally telling Mob he's lied about having powers from the moment they met on his allergies.
• Sharp-Dressed Man: Never seen without a suit, even when he's running around in the woods.
• Ship Tease: He has some minor Ho Yay with Serizawa, with them being seen together almost constantly in Season 3 and the Season 2 OVA. They also got official art of them in traditional wedding outfits, standing behind Ritsu and Mob who seem like flower boys.
• Snake Oil Salesman: Inverted. Rather than sell fake treatments for real ailments, Reigen masks mundane but effective treatments as spiritual solutions to his client's various "curses". When a client has a real curse or spirit to deal with, that's when he calls in Mob.
• The Social Expert: Reigen has an astute ability to read people and figure out what to say to get what he wants from them.
• Spanner in the Works: He manages to invade the Claw division headquarter and accidentally get Mob and company out of an anti-psychic room with nothing more than bumbling around, giving rousing speeches to mooks and some unintended Refuge in Audacity.
• Super Mode: Reigen 1000%, caused by Mob transferring all of his powers to Reigen during 100% Gratitude.
• Stress Vomit: He starts to strain under the pressure when he gets to realizing that he's still the same false psychic who hasn't changed at all.
• Sure, Let's Go with That: Frequently makes use of this when he's in full confident bluffing mode. The best example is him strolling up to the 7th Division Claw headquarters and acting with such bluster that the underlings there assume he's one of their bosses. He rolls with this without missing a beat and successfully browbeats them into letting him into the facility.
• Team Dad: Generally concerns himself most with the well-being of the crew when they team up — especially Mob.
• The Team Normal: Not that anyone but Dimple knows, though Ritsu has his suspicions. Mob is implied to have known all along, but he sticks by Reigen's side because of the genuine wisdom he can offer.
• Trademark Favorite Food: His favorite foods are ramen and yakiniku. He sometimes treats Mob to some ramen.
• Vicariously Ambitious: Reigen took up mentoring Mob less because it would boost his Phony Psychic business (which he was contemplating quitting out of boredom rather than lack of success before Mob showed up) and more because it's as close as he'd ever get to being an esper himself.
• Why Couldn't You Be Different?: His relationship with his parents isn't the healthiest. As shown in the Separation Arc, his mom's birthday e-mail is mainly her expressing disappointment over his shady job profession and telling him that it's "not too late" for him to get a normal job. And in the second OVA, Reigen's goodbye letter features him apologizing to his parents for disappointing them with his life choices. The fanbook additionally explains that his relationship with both parents is fractured to the point where he only visits them once a year.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Has said he's afraid of cockroaches.
• Would Hurt a Child: He has no issues with hitting unruly kids as shown in the Urban Legends episode.
• Wouldn't Hit a Girl: This is implied given that he made it a rule for Mob to never hit girls. And based on Mob's account, Reigen states that "guys who go around beating women are the biggest losers in the world".

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Dimple

Voiced by: Akio Ōtsuka (Japanese), Michael Sorich (English) ^{Foreign VAs}Carlos Hernández (Latin American Spanish), César Marchetti (Brazilian Portuguese), Patrick Pellegrin (French), Marco Balzarotti (Italian), Thomas Höricht (German)

^{Upper Class Evil Spirit Form}

"Well, if you cannot go to paradise when you die, you can always stay with me."

Dimple (エクボ; Ekubo) is an evil spirit who wants to be worshiped as God by people. Mob happens to defeat his cult, so Dimple tags along in an effort to take over his body. He eventually mellows out and becomes a genuine friend to him, though.

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• Ambition Is Evil: He started a cult so he could become a god. Too bad Mob defeated him before he could fulfill it.
• Armor-Piercing Question: Is asked one by Mob that he has no idea how to answer.
  Mob: Why do you keep doing bad things?
• An Arm and a Leg: Quickly lost his limbs to Mob when they fought. Over and over. Lucky for Dimple that he had a Healing Factor.
• Arc Villain: Of the (LOL) Cult Arc. He also starts off as the main antagonist of the Divine Tree arc, but pulls a Heel–Face Turn for good and gets hijacked by the awakened consciousness of the Divine Tree itself.
• Back from the Dead: Being a ghost aside, Dimple has come back from being exorcised or otherwise defeated a few times through sheer willpower. He managed to somehow survive Mob exorcising him during their first meeting, Teru exorcising him in a weakened state sometime after, and he outright states Mob's friendship with him helped him return after he sacrificed himself to defeat the Lord Psycho Helmet created in the Divine Tree.
• Being Evil Sucks: It takes him two attempts at becoming a god to do so, but he eventually realizes that being worshiped by brainwashed people doesn't actually bring him any happiness and that he'd prefer a single true friend over a world of mindless sycophants.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • He breaks into Mogami's mental world to keep Mob from falling prey to his corruption.
  • He comes back from the dead just in time to possess Reigen and help him withstand ???%'s rampage.
• Brutal Honesty: Dimple is honest to a fault and he won't sugarcoat his words, especially to Mob. Mob eventually realises that Dimple's honesty is a sign of his true friendship with Mob. While Mob's other friends will sometimes sugarcoat things not to make him feel bad, Dimple bluntly telling Mob what he thinks, even if its counter to what he wants to hear, leads Mob to realise that Dimple can be trusted.
• Cerebus Syndrome: The Divine Tree arc is set up to be another wacky and violent scheme by Dimple where he learns a lesson and reconciles with Mob before they head home. Unfortunately, as it's set near the end of the story, it transpires that Dimple's latest plot involved toying with forces he really shouldn't have messed with, resulting in a far more dramatic fallout that stresses that Nothing Is the Same Anymore.
• Character Focus: The Divine Tree Arc primarily focuses on Dimple, him coming to terms with his goal of becoming a God, and his relationship with Mob.
• A Day in the Limelight: Next to Mob, Dimple could be considered one of the main protagonists of the Divine Tree Arc, with most of the Character Focus of said arc going to him.
• Demonic Possession: Dimple is able to do this but it doesn't always work. He tries to take over Ritsu with an excuse of wanting to help him use his powers, but Ritsu remains in control. Dimple later gets an opportunity to possess Mob, but finds out he can't properly control his powers and by then, he had taken a liking to the kid.
• Defeat Means Friendship: Towards Mob, who defeated him, although Dimple was only pretending at first. Later he comes to see him as a genuine friend.
• Disney Death: Despite all signs pointing to Dimple being erased after the battle with Psycho Helmet, he comes back in Chapter 100 and is still around 6 months later.
• Facial Markings: Two large Pikachu-esque red markings on his cheeks, that also appear on any body he inhabits when possessing them.
• First-Name Basis: Dimple exclusively refers to Mob by his first name Shigeo.
• Fluffy the Terrible: It's hard to be scared of a spirit named something as goofy as Dimple, even if he's legitimately dangerous.
• Grand Theft Me: His usual method to become corporeal and have people see him, though they can't tell there's a spirit taking over a host's body.
• Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: Does this to Mob when he nearly gives in to Mogami's corruption and later when it looked like Mob's entire family was murdered.
• Getting Smilies Painted on Your Soul: Used hypnosis to force depressed people to smile and join his LOL cult.
• Godhood Seeker: His primary goal. Upon assuming the guise of Lord Psycho Helmet and absorbing psychic energy from the Divine Tree, he's become powerful enough to fit the bill, including renaming all his attacks to be prefixed with the "God".
• Hard Work Hardly Works: Upon being defeated by Mob, Dimple can't believe he's losing his cult to some random middle schooler. Mob simply admits how unfair his powers are, and then pokes Dimple to oblivion.
• Heel–Face Turn: Dimple sides with Mob after he's been reduced to a fraction of his original power in an attempt to possess him. Eventually, he gives up on possessing Mob entirely and instead prefers to just be his friend.
• Heel–Face Revolving Door: Downplayed. Once the opportunity arrives for Dimple to once again become a god, he severs ties with Mob and attempts to take over Spice City with hypnosis. Even then, most of his actions seemed mainly to provoke a violent reaction in Mob, as he actively tries to avoid hurting Mob seriously and, when Mob discards his power through 100% Trust, Dimple's attempts to scare him fall flat when Mob realizes that Dimple truly does care about him. Once Dimple realizes that Mob is his friend, he completes his Heel–Face Turn for good.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Lets himself be eaten by Lord Psycho Helmet so he can overpower it and rip the Divine Tree out of the ground, sending it elsewhere to save both Spice City and Mob. Subverted in that he didn't actually die.
• Horror Hunger: After being forced to eat all of the other spirits in Matsuo's jar, he developed a taste for other evil spirits. Whenever Mob calls in sick and Dimple has to take his place as exorcist, Reigen's way of paying him is basically "Hey, if you find it you can eat it." and Dimple never refuses.
• Humanoid Abomination: His giant high-level form seen when he first fights Mob. Lord Psycho Helmet, who looks like a sketch based on Mob, is also Dimple in disguise... at least at first.
• I Just Want to Be Special: His whole ambition, including wanting to become a god, boils down to this. This way of thinking infects his interactions with Mob, where he tries to convince Mob to show off and have more pride in his powers, and how he initially compares Teru's selfish abuse of his powers favorably to Mob's rejection of them.
• I Just Want to Have Friends: After Mob displays 100% Trust in him, Dimple admits that his desire to be worshiped was ultimately him getting carried away in a desire to be noticed and acknowledged, much like Mob. He wanted to be popular and have friends, and meeting Mob finally opened the door for him in that regard.
• The Imp: Aside from being an evil spirit and not a demon, he becomes an almost textbook example of one after his initial exorcism, a small, silly-looking, mostly nonthreatening Token Evil Teammate that tries to act as The Corruptor to Mob, though ultimately Mob pulls him to the side of good much more than the inverse.
• Invisible to Normals: Like most spirits. Other than proper espers, Reigen alone can see him due to the long-term side effects of 100% Gratitude. In order to act as Lord Psycho Helmet, he fashions a simulacrum of Mob made out of plant matter, which is physical and thus visible.
• Meaningful Name: A dimple is a noticeable mark or crease that appears on the cheeks when someone smiles.
• Monstrous Cannibalism: Can regain his power by eating other Evil Spirits. It's implied that this is how he dealt with Matsuo's spirits while trapped in his jar, and shown in a subsequent chapter to be his preferred method of exorcism.
• Morphic Resonance: Anyone Dimple possesses gains his signature red cheek markings.
• One-Man Army: "Weakened Blob" Dimple against an army of tougher evil spirits? Dimple still wins.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: While making his cult bully Mob around, Dimple lectures the boy about how his inability to emote will forever distance him from others. This causes Mob to finally explode and show what his emotions really are like.
• Redemption Equals Life: After understanding that friendship is what he was really after and giving up on his plans, Dimple ends up sacrificing himself to save Mob from Lord Psycho Helmet. However, he comes back in a weakened state to assist Reigen against ???%, reasoning that Mob's strong belief in him is enough to bring him back from the brink every time.
• The Smart Guy: When he's fighting with the heroes, he tends to be the most knowledgeable about matters relating to evil spirits and psychic powers, and is usually the one to fill the others in.
• Spirit Advisor: He appoints himself as Mob's and briefly Ritsu's in hopes of eventually corrupting him and taking his power for himself, though he does wind up Becoming the Mask to a degree.
• Starter Villain: The first notable antagonist that Mob faces.
• Sudden Anatomy: He usually looks like a floating green blob with a face and no limbs, but he'll often grow arms out of nowhere whenever it's convenient.
• Super-Empowering: Anyone possessed by him has their natural attributes boosted, which has come in handy quite a few times. Not only is he able to provide his bodies with reasonable Esper abilities and help control and refine the powers of those who already have them, they become much tougher, stronger and more agile. His frequent possession of Mob shows that he can't use anywhere near his host's full psychic potential, but on the other hand he's able to turn the rather unimposing boy into a pretty effective melee combatant.
• Symbiotic Possession: When Ritsu is still only beginning to figure out his powers, Dimple is able to use his possession to fine tune his psychic aura from inside his body. During the Asagiri Mansion and Claw arcs, his relationship with Mob involves this, possessing and controlling his uninhabited or sleeping body in order to protect him from harm. He also does this with Reigen in Chapter 100, boosting him enough to help him weather a tornado caused by ???%.
• Token Evil Teammate: While he does genuinely come to care for Mob and his friends, he started hanging out with the heroes in hopes of possessing Mob for his powers, and isn't so far gone from his God Envy to pass up on taking control of the Psycho Helmet Cult and brainwashing most of Spice City.
• Took a Level in Kindness: At first, his ultimate goal was to possess Mob’s body so he could attempt world domination again. To achieve this, he figures he has to win Mob’s trust, so his strategy is basically befriending Mob, protecting the people Mob likes, the clients he shares with Reigen, and Mob himself. And he keeps doing that even after he realizes that he can’t bring Mob’s power to its full potential while possessing him. At this point, it's just natural for him to protect Mob and whoever Mob likes. This is most apparent in Chapter 97 as, even after becoming powerful enough to pose a threat to Mob, Mob sees through all Dimple's bluster and attempts to draw Mob into a fight as just hollow gesturing, with Dimple refusing to hurt him and even being worried at one point when he thought his God Beam could've killed Mob.
• We Can Rule Together: He proposes this to Mob the day after his defeat. Mob immediately threatens to exorcise him. Much later, Dimple invites him to take over the Psycho Helmet cult. Mob refuses to be his front-man and asks why is it that Dimple won't stop doing bad things. Dimple leaves looking dejected and takes matters into his own hands.
• Worf Had the Flu: Dimple was in a weakened state when Teru wiped him out instantly, but then again, Teru probably was also much more powerful than he expected.

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Ritsu Kageyama

Voiced by: Miyu Irino (Japanese), Max Mittelman (English) ^{Foreign VAs}Javier Olguín (Latin American Spanish), Robson Kumode (Brazilian Portuguese), Vincent De Bouard (French), Richard Benitez (Italian), Fabian Wittkowski (German)

"I do not accept losing to anyone besides my big brother."

Mob's younger brother. Ritsu Kageyama (影山律; Kageyama Ritsu) is great at exams and sports, popular among girls and a member of the Student Council, but greatly resents how he doesn't have Esper powers like Mob does. In spite of it, he loves Mob, and his well-being is a great priority.

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• Aloof Big Brother: Inverted since he's the younger brother, but he otherwise plays very heavily into the archetype, and the Big Cleanup sets the ground for brother-against-brother battle which Mob completely refuses to let happen.
• Always Someone Better: Ritsu is everything Mob wishes he could be, and he's seemingly impossible to catch up with despite all of Mob's hard work.
• Ascended Extra: The first chapters simply have him as Mob's nice brother and part of his house life. It's not until the Big Cleanup Arc he actually becomes a main character.
• The Ace: Ritsu is a lot more physically fit, as well as a perfect student, and his brother Mob envies him for it, but all Ritsu wants is to become an esper like Mob. Once he does get his powers, Dimple helps him develop them very quickly, and he soon becomes extremely proficient, although not to the level of, say, Mob or Teru.
• Arc Villain: Along with Shinji Kamuro, he serves as this during the Big Cleanup Arc.
• Attractiveness Isolation: As written in Mezato's notes, his evident disinterest in positive attention leads to most girls admiring him from a distance rather than approaching him directly. It's only on designated days like Valentine's Day that the confessions come out at full force, in the indirect form of countless chocolates crammed into his shoe locker.
• Big Brother Worship: With a twist. Ritsu may view and worship his brother as a god, but gods are worshiped out of fear, and there's nothing Ritsu fears more than the possibility that his brother might not always be so responsible with his power.
• The Big Guy: While Mob and Teru are stronger than he is because of their powers, Ritsu is more aggressive than either of them on the team, in addition to being larger and more fit than Mob initially, and remains aggressive with his own esper powers even after Mob reasons with him, unlike Teru, so he fits this role more than anything.
• Big Little Brother: Due to him being slightly taller (and looking slightly older) than Mob, and his more assertive, take-charge attitude, it's easy to forget that he's the younger brother. This ends in the final third of the series, after Mob grows just enough to match him in height.
• Born Winner: Mezato notes that Ritsu's won the genetic lottery when it comes to everything that isn't psychic powers, and it turns out he didn't completely lose out there either.
• Broken Ace: He's more physically talented than his brother Mob, something that Mob envies him for, but Ritsu deeply resents his brother for being an esper. And once he gets powers of his own, Ritsu decides to use his powers selfishly until Mob reasons with him.
• The Call Put Me on Hold: It turns out he's a late bloomer as an esper. But rather than resolving his inferiority complex, it releases all the resentment towards his brother he had been bottling up and puts him on a destructive power-trip.
• Character Development: He begins the series distant and slightly fearful of his older brother. The traumatic event from their childhoods where Mob accidentally maimed Ritsu with his psychic powers left a bigger scar than Mob thinks, causing Ritsu to grow jealous of his brother's immense powers. After gaining powers of his own he realizes that Mob genuinely loves him and wants to protect him, and the two become closer as brothers as a result.
• Chick Magnet: Very popular with girls, though he has no interest in reciprocating.
• Chuunibyou: Ritsu starts developing delusions of brooding antiheroism when he first manifests his powers, affecting needless Magical Gestures picked up from shounen battle manga and dropping Meaningless Meaningful Words. Luckily, he grows out of it.
• Did You Actually Believe...?: Once his powers awaken, he rants to Mob that he always envied him and how he was never being able to do anything that might agitate Mob's powers out of fear, in essence making his "supportive, kind brother" attitude a facade. Mob believes that Ritsu only means half of it, and he never denies this.
• Does Not Like Spam: His least favorite food is pork feet.
• Emotional Powers: Much like his brother, Ritsu's powers are tied to his emotions. He intentionally takes part in the Student Council President's plan just so he can become more powerful from the feelings of guilt.
• Foil: To Mob. He's fantastically skilled in the mundane tasks Mob wishes he could excel in, but spends the early portion of the manga secretly wishing he could give it all up to have fantastic psychic powers like Mob.
• The Gift: He's so effortlessly talented in most mundane activities that he's universally considered the "special" Kageyama brother even though his brother literally has psychic powers. His introductory chapter is even titled "The Gifted One".
• Hard Work Hardly Works: Most of Ritsu's success is entirely effortless, and while his agonizing efforts to awaken his psychic powers produce little result. Even after he finally grows into his powers, he's still far outclassed by his brother, who instead just won the Superpower Lottery and kind of wishes he didn't.
• Head-Turning Beauty: He tends to garner a lot of appreciative glances and whispers from girls as he passes them. While Ritsu's long since tuned out such attention, Mob notices when they walk home from school together one day, and they both conclude they're all checking out Mob.
• Humble Hero: He's aggressively indifferent towards his popularity and uncomfortable with praise, fearing it will simply fuel his brother's insecurities to a dangerous extent.
• I Just Want to Be Special: Despite excelling at studies and sports, Ritsu just wanted to have powers like his brother's. He gets his wish granted when he discovers his psychic powers during "The Big Cleanup," and masters them with Dimple's help.
• Karma Houdini: Was never punished for wrongfully framing school delinquents during the "Big Cleanup" and using his psychic powers selfishly once he gains them. To be fair, he seems to have realised the error of his ways.
• Knight Templar Big (Little) Brother: He can be obsessively (and violently) protective of his brother, especially after developing his powers. Mob even has to talk him down from strangling bullies harrassing him.
• Mood-Swinger: He's much moodier and more melodramatic than his older brother, once he sheds the Stepford Smiler tendencies.
• Morality Chain: Ritsu's well-being is what fundamentally motivates Mob to be a good person who's responsible with his powers. If Ritsu's hurt or in danger? Everything goes out the window and Mob will brutalize anyone tangentially responsible with little remorse. Conversely, seeing Ritsu's horrified face is the only thing that pulls him out of his Blood Knight frenzy during his fight with Toichiro.
• Mutual Envy: He's secretly envious of Mob for having psychic powers, and wishes he had those powers himself. Ironically, Mob wishes he could be as normal as Ritsu, since his powers haven't done much to improve his personal life.
• My God, What Have I Done?: He slowly realizes that framing school delinquents for transgressions they didn't commit, thus ruining their lives and reputations, was wrong. Later he exploits it by powering his own psychic powers with feelings of guilt.
• No Challenge Equals No Satisfaction: Being a Born Winner, he has so little sense of self-accomplishment in his successes that being praised for them actually stresses him out. Instead, he fixates on his failure to achieve the two things he works tirelessly at: psychic powers and being his brother's confidant.
• Not Afraid of You Anymore: After developing his powers, Ritsu finally feels confident enough to drop his perfect little brother facade and tear into Mob for all the fear and helplessness he put Ritsu through thanks to his volatile Emotional Powers. He's shocked when Mob refuses to fight him and even takes the blame for Ritsu's recent behavior, acknowledging that he was too wrapped up in his own problems to ever recognize how legitimately terrifying it is to be in Ritsu's position and do anything to make him feel safe.
• Out of Focus: Of all the major arcs, he is noticeably missing from the Mogami arc and the Separate Ways arc.
• Psychic Powers: Eventually gains the power of Telekinesis.
• Puberty Superpower: While most espers were born with their powers, Ritsu's only started manifesting at age thirteen.
• The Resenter: Towards Mob, who has the incredible psychic powers he covets. He stops after gaining his own psychic powers. He also really resents Reigen for holding so much of Mob's admiration despite being an obvious fraud.
• School Idol: Ritsu is the most popular boy in his year (if not the school) with both students and teachers alike, and Mob openly envies him for it.
• Somebody Doesn't Love Raymond: While a majority of the kids and espers either like or show respect towards Reigen, Ritsu stands out as the main person who refuses to do either.
• Sour Supporter: Ritsu doesn't work with Reigen so much as begrudgingly tolerate his existence by his brother's request.
• Spoon Bending: Ritsu's envy over his brother's psychic powers have led to an odd fixation on spoons and the bending thereof, to the point that he carries a spoon on his person at all times. The first sign of his emerging powers is a violently discarded spoon that is much too twisted to have been bent by the physical impact alone.
• Stepford Smiler: He spent many years suppressing his fear and resentment towards Mob under an unconditionally supportive Big Brother Mentor façade. After gaining powers of his own and realizing that Mob's love for him is unconditional, he sheds the act and interacts with everyone more naturally, which consequently reveals that he's naturally quite the Mood-Swinger.
• Super Mode: Ritsu turns out to have his own emotional explosion counter, which finally hits 100% when he tries to talk down ???% in the final arc. However, while powerful enough to briefly offer some decent resistance against ???%, it very quickly burns out and leaves him too exhausted to even stand.
• Teen Genius: He doesn't just have the best test scores in school — he has the best test scores in the nation.
• Took a Level in Badass: Begins as a normal boy, but eventually develops psychic powers.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: His personality and values change for the worse during the Big Cleanup arc, with him framing several violent school delinquents for crimes they didn't commit. He also becomes Drunk with Power after his psychic powers emerge and develops the desire to do whatever he pleases with them, even suggesting he test his powers on Kenji's car during a spoon-bending demonstration. Luckily, Mob is able to reason with him later.
• Trademark Favorite Food: His favorite foods are tofu and boiled pork.
• Unwitting Pawn: Subverted; Dimple and Kamuro thought he would be one of these, but he's most definitely not. He makes it clear that he knows Dimple wants to possess him and lets Kamuro suffer from the fallout of the Big Cleanup alone.
• Valentine's Day Vitriol: Ritsu finds Valentine's Day annoying at best because of the absolute mess all those chocolates and love letters make of his desk and shoe locker.
  Ritsu: Oh, right, it's today... Crap, I forgot to bring a bag.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: At first, Ritsu agreed to take part in the Big Cleanup operation to make the school a better place for weak-willed people such as his brother. He then goes on to believe he actually feared Mob and wanted to keep him from going out of control.
• What You Are in the Dark: When he awakens his psychic powers and nobody knows about it, his personality changes drastically and he quickly adopts the attitude that he's entitled to do whatever he feels like (with the toxic influence of Dimple nearby).
• Wise Beyond Their Years: Subverted. What other characters mistake for genuine maturity is actually maladaptive parentification from years of carefully managing his brother's explosive emotions. Without the Big Brother Mentor mask he puts on for Mob, he's moody, anxious kid just as emotionally immature as any other thirteen-year-old boy.
• Younger Than They Look: A milder example than other members of the cast, but he could easily be mistaken for Mob's high-school-aged older brother.

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Teruki Hanazawa

Voiced by: Yoshitsugu Matsuoka (Japanese), Erik Kimerer (English) ^{Foreign VAs}José Antonio Toledano (Latin American Spanish), Felipe Zilse (Brazilian Portuguese), Alan Aubert (French), Matteo Garofalo (Italian), Felix Mayer (German)

^{After his haircut}

"A star is shining not because it's being showered in light, but because he who emits light is a star."

Teruki Hanazawa (花沢輝気; Hanazawa Teruki) is Black Vinegar Middle School's secret bancho ^note the leader of his school's delinquent group, an esper who held normal people in contempt and liberally used his powers to excel in everything. This changes once he faces Mob and is not only overwhelmed but also gets his motivations deconstructed by him. After his defeat, Teru becomes more humble and friendly to others and decides to train the young espers from the Awakening Lab.

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• The Ace: Becomes this after his Heel–Face Turn, training to help the world and becoming one of the few known espers capable of using more than one technique at a time.
• Adaptation Dye-Job: Noted a couple of times to have brown hair in the comic, but the anime gives him bright blond hair instead.
• Adaptational Hairstyle Change: Teru's hairstyle differs between the series finale of the manga and its' anime adaptation; it's closer to his pre-Mob look in the manga while in the anime his locks resemble a stylized mullet that appears to be a fusion between his pre-Mob and post-Scar arc hairstyles. .
• Agent Peacock: He's a flashy prettyboy with an interest in questionable fashion, feminine Magical Gestures, pigeon toed battle stances◊, and a strong need to show off even after being humbled. An omake implies he also became a Gym Bunny after meeting Mob.
• Ambiguously Bi: Teru's seen on a date with a girl the first time we meet him, but he seems to have a crush on Mob. In the manga, he tells Mob that girls are, in fact, staring at him because he's handsome, and takes him shopping. During the Divine Tree arc, Dimple refers to Teru's "true feelings" for Mob; Teru says he will end their "relationship" if Mob does not give up on his attempts to destroy the Divine tree; Teru states that, before the Divine Tree and Lord Psycho Helmet, Mob was the most important thing to him; he apologizes before hitting Mob with his power; and, when being thrown out of the Divine Tree, he can't help but comment through is brainwashing that Mob is "so amazing". In the anime, he comes off as rather flirty with Mob and trying to get his attention during the Claw arc, offering his help by stating Mob will need someone who is strong, smart, and on his side, and then later by commenting that he, too, was nearly killed by some of the Claw members. Also, during the second OVA, Teru questions if Mob has a crush on anyone in the Body Improvement Club, which consists of all boys. Teru would know this — he's met them.
  • His name can even mean 'sparkly' or 'glittery'.
• Always Someone Better: To Hoshino, made all the worse by Teru's tendency towards transparent humblebragging.
• Arc Villain: Of the appropriately named Teruki Hanazawa Arc.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: Teru is able to replicate the special abilities of other espers simply by watching them use their techniques.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: He tries to force Mob to fight back with his psychic powers, and feels like both of them lost when he chokes Mob into unconsciousness. Then ???% Mode kicks in, and Teruki gets what he wanted — in a complete and utter Curbstomp Battle that forces him to eat his words and completely destroys every bit of self-perception he had built up over his entire life.
• Big Eater: A fact Reigen would have preferred to know before he invited him along for dinner in an omake.
• Big Jerk on Campus: Abused his powers to intimidate others and make himself the top boy of Black Vinnegar.
• Break the Haughty: Mob delivers a Breaking Speech to Teruki and, in ???% mode, tears his clothes off, drains his power and levitates him and the entire landscape into the sky, proving a point about how dangerous psychic powers can be. Teruki admits Mob was right and leaves in shame as he realizes even Mob had genuine friends. After several days of trauma from such a loss, he recovers and becomes a better person.
• Clark Kent Outfit: In the "Inspiration" omake, hopelessly outclassed by Teru as an esper, Hoshino consoles himself in the Awakening Lab's locker room by musing Teru's just a scrawny Squishy Wizard while he himself does sports, so at least he has better abs... Then a shirtless Teru, who has been working out religiously since his defeat by Mob, walks by and shatters his ego again.
• Close-Call Haircut: Thrice. Once in his battle with Mob, he just narrowly avoids being scalped, but it takes away the top of his hair. And again in the face-off with the Claw Organization, except it just cuts off half of his ridiculous wig. It looks better that way. The final time is during the ??? Arc, where Teruki's battle with ???% leads to the first incident being paralleled almost perfectly. Thankfully, it grows back for the finale.
• Defeat Means Friendship: Became a member of Mob's circle of allies after getting an ass-kicking.
• Dodgy Toupee: His towering beehive style wig during the 7th Branch Infiltration Arc, affectionately referred to by fans as "The Haystack." It gets cut in half during the climax of the arc, and once his hair grows back properly, he ditches it.
• Does Not Like Spam: His least favorite food is raw oyster (bad experience).
• Easily Forgiven: Subverted. While Mob does seem to immediately welcome Teru's presense as his self-appointed best friend-slash-rival despite their traumatic first meeting, that's only because he's offloaded his resentment onto ???%. Once free, ???% notably goes out of his way to beat and humiliate Teru in a near-lethal repeat of their first encounter.
• Evil Counterpart: Initially one to Mob, in that he frequently abuses psychic powers for his own benefit while Mob keeps his own abilities under tight control unless danger is present. After his Heel–Face Turn, he started acting like Mob.
• Flash Step: He's capable of going at super speeds.
• Friendly Rival: Considers himself this towards Mob, who doesn't seem to have an interest about it.
• Full-Contact Magic: He likes to get up close and personal, using telekinesis to augment physical strikes.
• Giftedly Bad: Teru is so comically fashion-blind it winds up indirectly triggering one of Mob's explosions. But when asked if there's anything he's not good at, he laments that he's tragically too perfect to be more interesting and wishes he had an endearing flaw like awful taste in clothes.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Subverted at first, but after he got his ass kicked by Mob and going through the above Break the Haughty, he slowly started becoming kinder and more heroic.
• Hero of Another Story: He implies that he has a pretty long history fighting off Claw, hence how he got it in his head that he was the main character of the universe.
• Heel–Face Turn: After his fight with Mob.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Fires a knife at Mob and it gets accidentally deflected at his head, taking away most of his hair. Whoops.
  Teru's head: 0%
• I Just Want to Be Special: To the point where once he found out he has psychic powers he started to consider himself "The Main Character of the World" and "The Chosen One". After Mob beat him down he calmed down on this.
• Important Haircut: Getting shaved by Mob during their fight was the first bit of humiliation needed for him to start becoming a good guy. After the 7th Branch Infiltration arc, he's settled into a short, spiky hairdo as his heroic look, as opposed to his medium-length messy hair from his introduction. It doesn't last — within the last ten chapters of the manga, Teruki is once again left with only the sides of his hairstyle intact after a catastrophic fight with ???%. His hair is back to a cut similar to his original long locks for Chapter 101.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: Mob comes to realize that deep down, this is what Teru feels. By their next meeting, he's learned to embrace the "Inferiority" part to an extent, recognizing that being an Esper doesn't mean he's better than anyone else, and resolves to make himself a better person because of that.
• Instant Expert: Has very little trouble learning new powers, as shown by him mimicking Terada's Air Whips mere minutes after seeing them in action.
• Insufferable Genius: Mob may have struck a serious blow to his ego, but he didn't exactly kill it.
  Teru: You're going to need an ally. Someone talented, reliable, and brilliant. Luckily, he's much closer than you might think.
  Mob: ... The Body Improvement Club?
  Teru: No, idiot. You'll need me.
• It's All About Me: Because of his power, he felt like he was the main character of the world. Then he had an encounter with Mob at ???% and has since lost this trait.
• Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: He likes beating or waterboarding the answers out of uncooperative mooks, even after his Heel–Face Turn. The Drama CD reveals that he similarly tortures his VCR when it eats one of his vintage tapes.
• Japanese Delinquents: Introduced as the last resort of his school's delinquents.
• Jerkass: At first. Learns to be a Nice Guy after his defeat.
• Killing Intent: After losing his hair to Shigeo, Teru snaps and starts trying to kill him.
• The Lancer: He's Mob's most consistent partner when facing off against threats, and is generally a little more headstrong than the more passive Mob.
• Mentor Archetype: After his Heel–Face Turn, he mentors several other Espers in expanding their weak psychic powers.
• Minor Living Alone/Parental Abandonment: His parents have been working overseas for years.
• Muscles Are Meaningless: Uses psychic power to enhance his physical skills and toss around the Body Improvement Club like they were nothing.
• Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: Based on Teruki's angry reaction to Mob No Selling his opening attack, Dimple describes him as having lived much of his life as a big fish in a tiny pond.
• Out of Focus: Like Ritsu, he doesn't show up in the Mogami arc and the Separate Ways arc.
• Playing with Fire: Learns pyrokinesis after seeing Miyagawa use it.
• Pragmatic Hero: Even after his Heel–Face Turn, Teru is not above torturing henchmen to get information he needs. Likewise, unlike Mob, he will not hesitate in exerting deadly damage towards his enemies, particularly if he was attacked first, as Miyagawa unfortunately found out.
• Pretty Boy: How he's designed in the anime. His anime epilogue self makes him one of the long-haired variety.
• Psychic Powers: Powerful telekinesis which he used to enhance his moves without revealing his ability to people.
• Shadow Archetype: An example to Mob of how abuse of psychic power can twist people.
• Smug Super: At first, he was a powerful psychic with a superiority complex. Then Mob knocked him down a peg or two.
• Took a Level in Badass: Learns to use two different psychic abilities at the same time, which is something few espers can do.
• Took a Level in Kindness: After his battle with Mob, he lost most of his arrogant streak and started to be more friendly towards others.
• Trademark Favorite Food: His favorite food is steak.
• Villainous Breakdown: Teru is given a breaking lecture by Mob on how they're nothing without their powers. Unable to defeat Mob with psychic power, Teru just tries to choke him to death, essentially giving up on his own terms for fighting Mob. And when Mob still refuses and weakly resorts to ineffectually punching Teru, the guy is practically begging Mob to fight back with his powers before he winds up killing him.
• Weak, but Skilled: Relative to Mob, Teru makes up for his lack of raw power with his uncanny ability to replicate the abilities of other espers.
• The Worf Effect: Usually on the receiving end of this whenever a foe too strong for him to beat has to get the daylights beaten out of them by Mob.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: He was so completely convinced he was the protagonist of a shounen battle manga that Mob shatters his entire worldview simply by refusing his demand to prove My Kung-Fu Is Stronger Than Yours and asserting that neither of them are special. Even following his redemption, he still has a tendency to frame his friendship with Mob as a shounen battle "rivalry" despite its uncompetitive nature.

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The New Coworker SPOILERS

Katsuya Serizawa

Voiced by: Takanori Hoshino (Japanese), Edward Bosco (English) ^{Foreign VAs}Luis Fernando Orozco / Alejandro Orozco (Latin American Spanish), Armando Tiraboschi (Brazilian Portuguese), Alexandre Coadour (French), Mattia Bressan (Italian), Alexander Turrek (German)

An ex-member of Claw who decided to take a job at Spirits & Such after the World Domination Arc. Despite having intense anxiety when it comes to social interactions, Serizawa intends to make a new start by helping others with his psychic powers while improving his own life.

Click here to learn more about him.

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