Confession
~The Future~
Japanese Title:
告白 ～これから～
Kokuhaku ~Kore Kara~
Original Air Date:
21 December 2022
Should she stay or should she go? Tsubomi, pacing back and forth in front of a park bench, observes the tornado tilting ominously in her direction. She really should seek shelter, but she can't shake Mob's voice... With no way to contact him, she plops back down to wait.
Cut to Reigen behind Serizawa, gingerly navigating through this post-apocalyptic hellscape and these winds draining him of energy at an alarming rate. Much farther, he notes, and he won't have the strength to keep Reigen safe. The phony psychic bids Serizawa turn back; he needs to talk to Mob alone. Serizawa knows he can't talk the man out of this folly...
???% marches on, not quite the calm at the eye of this storm he would seem. As retribution for Mob's self-denial, he disintegrates 'Mob' entirely on the inside, absorbing the shreds into himself. His takeover of this body now complete, ???% then proceeds to draw blood as payback against Reigen for years of hypocrisy; he beats and bruises the man but cannot break him. Throwing his shoes—and perhaps his sanity as well—to the winds, Reigen pelts after the teenager anyway. If these be his last words, he will speak them to Mob directly or die trying.
Almost there... he closes the distance between himself and ???%... but not quite. With the last of his energy, he seizes the boy by the ankle and begs him to listen to what he has to say just before his consciousness departs him.
Unmoved, undeterred, and now right outside Mob's arranged meeting place with Tsubomi, ???% takes another step... straight into Dimple? In Reigen's body? How? A weakened Dimple explains, urging ???% to hear Reigen out. As he finally admits to the boy that he's a fraud, the tornado swirling round them both... evaporates. ???% and Mob agree to accept each other and heal the split between them, just in time for him—with all that remains of his bouquet—to tell Tsubomi how he feels. Shigeo returns with a broken heart, still holding his last flower. The three make their way home while Reigen comforts him and discusses what needs done to restore all the damage.
Fast forward to the following October: a new school year. Jun Sagawa now presides over the Body Improvement Club, with Shigeo as his second-in-command. The boy's perseverance despite his initial poor athletic condition seems to have inspired even more members to join this time round. After classes, Shigeo and his friends discuss plans for another New Year's Eve encounter of the third kind before joining Teru and even more friends for Reigen's surprise birthday party.
Tropes appearing in this episode include:
- Back for the Finale: Dimple, presumed dead since the end of the Psycho Helmet arc, returns to aid Reigen in calming down Mob.
- Battle in the Center of the Mind:
- Continued from the previous episode. ???% persists in ripping the conscious Mob to pieces, literally and figuratively, for ignoring his needs and entertaining Reigen's bullshit for so long. When he wins out, his internal monologue entirely replaces the dialogue between him and Mob.
- After Reigen is honest with him, '???%' and 'Mob' call an armistice, agree to accept each other, and merge into one—Shigeo. Tellingly, it is 'Mob'—the boy's conscious self—who initiates the integration. While Reigen is technically witness to their ceasefire, he sees none of it. Shigeo has only been staring up at him, soundless... for several minutes, from his perspective.
- Be Yourself: Rather fittingly for a series about self-improvement, this is the final lesson Mob needs to learn before he can be whole. Reigen, in his last piece of advice as Mob's mentor, tells him that everyone has two sides to them, and that he should accept the side of himself he doesn't like. Mob and ???% finally reconcile their differences and accept each other, allowing them to become Shigeo Kageyama once more. After the time skip, Shigeo is shown being able to emote much more easily now that he's no longer suppressing his own emotions.
- Bait-and-Switch: After the time skip, Shigeo reaches out his hand towards a pole as if to activate his ESP... before touching it to climb up.
- Barefoot Suicide: Implied. Reigen knows he may die in the attempt to reach his young disciple; he makes his peace with this by removing his shoes before pursuing him.
- Brutal Honesty:
- Reigen finally tells Mob the truth about who he is and how he'd used him. ???% knew of Reigen's true nature all along, but needed to hear him admit it in order to forgive him.
- Tsubomi tells Mob that she doesn't see him in a romantic light. They remain friends and call each other on occasion.
- Call-Back: Being a season and series finale, this particular episode is leaking with scenes and little nods from previous major story arcs. Examples include:
- Inukawa's eyes when Saruta wonders aloud whether their alien friends will return.
- Ritsu's flashback to his first meeting with Teru... and the first appearance of his disastrous 'haystack' wig.
- Carrying a Cake: The teary-eyed Reigen trips while carrying his birthday cake and loses his grip on it at episode's end. It mysteriously halts in midair just in time to catch him landing face-first into it. As Reigen is surrounded by telekinetic psychics with ample cause to play such a prank, judging whom is at fault is left up to the audience. The manga makes it clear, however, that Shigeo was entirely responsible for Reigen's cake facial.
- Catastrophic Countdown: Inverted. We see Mob's final 100%... and it's an integration of his incredibly powerful subconscious shadow self with his conscious, public-facing self. Shigeo Kageyama is now whole again.
- Cooldown Hug: In the form of Reigen grasping ???%'s wrists and a simple statement: 'I don't have any spiritual or psychic powers. I never did!' It restores Mob to full consciousness and instantly halts the tornado swirling round them.
- Determinator:
- After Reigen is nearly brained by a chunk of asphalt larger than his own head, he somehow manages to pick up a second wind and clears the distance between himself and ???% while barefoot. He is so determined to get through to Mob that not even a painful faceplant stops him from grabbing ???%'s ankles.
- ???%, whose advance on the park where Tsubomi waits is only halted by Dimple's reappearance and Reigen's honesty.
- Tsubomi. The girl stares down a tornado and puts her life at risk just to hear out her childhood friend.
- Dimple. Shigeo was perhaps the spirit's first real friend. Dimple willed himself back to existence just because he'd missed the boy so; it didn't hurt that he was also drawn in by the vast streams of psychic energy spewing forth from ???%'s tornado.
- Discretion Shot: The camera cuts away to the twilight sky as Reigen blows his nose during his apology, blaming allergies for his tears.
- Easily Forgiven: Subverted. As shown in episode 10 of this season, ???% had not forgiven Teru for nearly ending Mob's life just a few months ago; he proves here not to have forgiven Reigen either for lying to him.
- Energy Absorption: ???%'s tornado drains Serizawa's considerable energy stores to the point that he is unable to bring Reigen any closer without putting them both in danger.
- Grand Finale: The final episode of Mob Psycho 100.
- Internal Reveal: Reigen finally admits to Mob that he is a phony psychic: a complete Muggle with respect to spiritual matters and no right to advise him on such.
- Karma Houdini: Shigeo has taken quite a few characters to task in this series for causing property damage. We see them face repercussions for their wanton behavior (Tōichirō Suzuki especially), but he himself is never shown being held legally accountable for leveling his hometown. What happens to him between the flattening of Seasoning City and the approximately six-month-long Time Skip epilogue is left up to the reader's/watcher's imagination... though Reigen does natter on about rebuilding plans in the anime.
- Match Cut: Ritsu's mental image of Teru's ridiculous wig from their first meeting... dissolves into Teru in the present, with fully-regrown hair now cut in a very suave style.
- Secretly Selfish: Mob's seemingly limitless capacity for forgiveness only exists because he'd never allowed himself to truly feel his resentment towards those who'd hurt him. For years, ???% absorbed all of it, along with every other emotion Mob stuffed down and swallowed. When finally liberated, ???% takes the opportunity to act on his own whims and wreck a city—all in the service of Mob's desire to confess to Tsubomi—over the course of two and a half episodes.
- Smash to Black: Happens as ???% smacks Reigen in the head with a gigantic chunk of asphalt.
- Split-Personality Merge: At the end of the episode, after Reigen gives his final piece of advice—that everyone has two sides and that acceptance of one's dark side is necessary—Mob and ???% finally reconcile their differences and explode one last time: Shigeo Kageyama, 100%.
- Stunned Silence: Shigeo gives Reigen a Kubrick Stare throughout the entirety of the phony psychic's apology to him.
- Tender Tears: After Shigeo reveals that Tsubomi rejected him, he begins crying big wet tears unprompted. It shows that Shigeo has finally allowed himself to be open with his emotions again and he can move forward in his life.
- Theme Song Power Up: Reigen enjoys a sudden burst of strength while chasing after ???%; the OP from the first season plays over his renewed pursuit.
- When He Smiles: Shigeo's bright, gentle laughter at the end of the episode when Reigen faceplants into his birthday cake.
