Recap / Mob Psycho 100, s3e3: 'Getting Carried Away'

Getting Carried Away
~100%~

Japanese Title:
調子に乗る 〜100パーセント〜
Choushi ni Noru ~Hyaku Paasento~

Original Air Date:
19 October 2022

Summary

On leaf-sweeping duty, Tsubomi's friends are engaging in some merciless gossip when she sneezes. In Technicolor. Mortified, she covers the evidence with her hand, but their inquiring minds absolutely must know what she's hiding. She begins to spiral... A disembodied voice—Mob's—calls out to the two, halting Tsubomi's runaway train of thought: Their teacher is looking for them. With the other girls gone, Mob offers her some tissue and takes care of the leaves. Tsubomi thanks him. She acknowledges that they haven't talked in a long time, and leaves with a 'See you later!' Simple words, but they lend Mob's heart wings.

Still blushing as he walks away, he encounters Ichi Mezato, who wants his presence at a meeting this Sunday... and Tome, who isn't about to let him forget that he'd promised to help her find telepaths that day. Emi, behind him, is happy that he's getting some attention from the opposite sex. When Ritsu calls out to him to walk home together, Mob confides in him: 'I might be getting popular...' Too embarrassed to elaborate and uncertain of his own perceptions, he charges on ahead of Ritsu. Suddenly Mob notices heads turned in his direction, watching. Admiring. Full of himself, he explodes in 100% Cockiness.

The faithful bask in the magnificent cruciferous mystery of the Divine Tree. Multiple religious groups come to worship at its feet, all convinced that the broccoli speaks directly to them and wants them as a conduit. All this focused thought energy from so many sources strengthens the Tree; the better for Dimple's plans.

Mezato calls Mob at home that night, delighting Mrs Kageyama maybe a little too much. Noting her curiosity, the boy continues his talk with Mezato in private: the Psycho Helmet Faith has too many claimants to the title of founder. Mob stepping up would definitely make him popular with girls, especially with Tsubomi... Dimple, strangely more vigorous than usual, arrives to catch him off-guard; he calls the boy out on his cocksure self-assurance. Mob's not any more noticeable than he's ever been; he's delusional. Mob bristles at this, then tersely brushes him off when Dimple implores him again to join him in seeking godhood. The sleazy ghost, hurt, breezes past Ritsu in the hallway without a word and floats off into the night.

Saturday is a slow day at Spirits and Such. Reigen wants to know what's new with Serizawa and Mob. Serizawa hasn't made friends yet at night school, but he'll deal. Mob voices surprise that Reigen is asking about his life. As the only jobs on Reigen's desk are all calls for him to investigate sudden instances of structural damage—surely nothing he can't handle alone—he sends the two home. Before heading out, Mob reveals that he's attending a meeting with the faith sprung from his rage explosion. The religion's follower count smells like a real business opportunity to Reigen. He encourages Mob to go, sending the boy off with a bonus to buy himself something nice.

The teenager has no idea what to wear for an occasion like this, and heads home to seek Ritsu's advice when Teruki Hanazawa spots him. Mob explains his quandary to Teru, who had a different concern in mind; Teru affirms that of course people are taking notice of him—he's good-looking and cool—and takes him shopping, convincing him to buy a very loud shirt with Reigen's gift.

Sunday arrives. Ritsu is privately horrified at Mob's new shirt, but keeps most of his alarm to himself. Mob is supposed to be meeting with Tome and Mezato today, but after many many hours of waiting, both girls have stood him up and neither is answering her phone. The Psycho Helmet Faith's founder audition is live and many present at the meeting wonder aloud if there will be a riot, until Psycho Helmet-sama himself takes the stage... and shows all in attendance a miracle...

Tropes appearing in this episode include:

• Acquired Situational Narcissism:
  • Mob deftly shoos away Tsubomi's catty friends with a lie in order to talk to her. That—and speaking to three other girls within the space of a single afternoon—go to the teenager's head, resulting in an explosion of 100% Cockiness^note or Getting Carried Away, or 'Mob on a High Horse', or 'Full-of-Himself'... 調子こき (Choush'koki) in the original Japanese. It's accompanied by a ridiculous Art Shift (described below) and Vocal Dissonance.
  • Mezato manages to convince him to attend the Psycho Helmet Faith's founder audition with the prospect of winning Tsubomi's affections. Their conversation triggers an aftershock in which the teenager denies Dimple's relevance to the cult—even though it formed from (LOL)'s ashes—and brushes off his invitation to join him in godhood.
• Adaptational Ugliness: Tsubomi's friends are not unattractive compared to her in the manga, but the anime adaptation makes them both homely and one of them much older-looking for some reason.
• Armor-Piercing Question: Mob's chat with Dimple after not seeing him in some time contains too many of these:
  • Mob: What, exactly, do you want to do as God?
  • Mob: You're also trying to take [the religion] over, too, aren't you?
    Dimple: No! I'm just... You see...
    Mob: So what makes you different from the other guys?
• Art Shift: Mob sports a butt-chin, darkly chiseled features, and thick brows multiple times in this episode after hitting 100% Cockiness. He strongly resembles a thinner Bruce Lee... with a butt-chin.
• Brutal Honesty: Many examples in this episode. Some salient ones:
  • Mob can often be quite blunt, but he comes across as coldly so in his conversation with Dimple after the spirit shoots down his possible popularity as delusional. As the ghost tries one last time to get Mob to join him in his plans to take over the world, the teenager asks him an Armor-Piercing Question:
    Mob: Dimple. Why don't you give your schemes a rest already?
  • Dimple to Mob in this same conversation, as he tells the teenager his Acquired Situational Narcissism is normal for pubescent boys and that the panopticon-like feeling he's describing is all in his head.
  • Mob's vocal surprise that Reigen is asking outright about his life.
• Call-Back: Ritsu's tearful pride in his brother's newfound popularity directly recalls Mob's pride in Ritsu's finally attaining psychic powers in the first season. Both boys congratulate the other on achieving something they'd always wanted.
• Crush Filter: Tsubomi's eyes and irises are drawn much larger while she talks to Mob, as a sign of his infatuation with her.
• Discretion Shot: Tsubomi blowing her nose and cleaning her face in front of Mob. We hear it, but see butterflies and his hand disposing of the swept-up leaves in a dumpster instead.
• Divide and Conquer: Mob lying to Tsubomi's friends to get them to leave... so he can talk to her alone.
• Gross-Up Close-Up: Inverted; Tsubomi's iridescent snot-'splosion on her face after her sneeze. It sparkles.
• Match Cut: Mob's downcast and dejected face at being stood up by his friends dissolves into the resolute and haunting stare of "Psycho Helmet"-sama, an unreasonable facsimile of our protagonist.
• Over-Enthusiastic Parents: Downplayed. Mrs Kageyama's embarrassingly coy delight at seeing her older son finally getting phone calls from girls isn't the only reason Mob elects to call Mezato from his cell phone in his room, but it's a factor.
• Vocal Dissonance: Mob's voice usually changes in the original Japanese during his explosions, but the vocal shifts all sound like unforced extrapolations of his speaking voice, no matter how unsettling they might be. His 100% Cockiness/Full-of-Himself voice, however, is that of a boy trying desperately to sound much older and cooler than he actually is. Dimple lampshades the ensuing cringe.
  Mob: Dimple?! You startled me. I haven't seen you in a while. What happened?
  Dimple: What happened? That's my line. What's with the face and voice, man?
• Villains Never Lie: Mob is convinced that he's being watched and admired by girls while walking with Ritsu and Teru. As both boys take their own popularity (and hotness) for granted, they aren't able to help Mob make sense of what's happening to him. Teru is already quite enamored of Mob and thus biased. Even Reigen gets too swept away in what fame for Mob would mean for his business to cut the boy a reality check. Dimple, alone out of all Mob's loved ones, is the only one to tell him the truth about his supposed popularity; he does so with characteristic blunt charm.
• With Friends Like These...: Tsubomi's 'friends' seem nearly as bad as Emi's from last season's first episode, in that she's clearly not comfortable around them and is terrified they'll seize any opportunity to humiliate her.
• Why Couldn't You Be Different?: Reconstructed; after Mob spent the last two seasons being repeatedly compared to Ritsu and found wanting, Mrs Kageyama is all too happy to see her oldest child perhaps becoming more normal when she announces that a girl is on the phone for him.

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