Mob 1
~Moving~
Japanese Title:
モブ１ ～引っ越し～
Mobu Ichi ~Hikkoshi~
Original Air Date:
30 November 2022
Little Mob and Tsubomi leave the playground after a sweet day, hand in hand... Mob blinks himself awake. No, that was obviously a dream. He turns over and drifts back off to sleep...
Only a term left in this year! As Mob's homeroom teacher announces plans for the remaining weeks, the teenager fantasizes about sharing a class with Tsubomi-chan next year and asking her out... To his dismay—and that of almost every other boy in his class—the teacher reveals that she's moving away before year's end. He must act soon.
While Tsubomi rejects every suitor who calls, Mob turns to the Muscle Brothers (with Onigawara), the Telepathy Club gang (Takenaka included), his brother, Teruki Hanazawa, Ichi Mezato, Reigen and Serizawa for advice. All lend him their heartfelt support and confidence, but what Takenaka and the latter three offer him is directly useful; Mob takes it all in as he ponders why he decided to consult all his loved ones for something this dear to him. He himself has all the answers he seeks, no?
Mob finally psyches himself up to call Tsubomi—after having been out of contact with the girl for years—and arranges a meeting with her at a park where they used to play together. She can hear his quavering nerves over the phone, but he attempts to reassure her otherwise.
On Teru's suggestion, the teenager buys her a gift after classes the very next day: the biggest bouquet of flowers a middle schooler's meager pocket change can afford. Minegishi spies him leaving the shop and trades Mob for an enormous bundle of beauties instead as thanks for saving their life from Mogami. Now beaming with joy and gratitude, he waits at a traffic signal before setting off to their appointed meeting place, but fate and a sleepy driver plowing straight through the red light move to intervene...
Tropes appearing in this episode include:
- Armor-Piercing Question:
- Two of Mezato's questions to Mob while he works up the courage to confess outside Tsubomi's classroom after school. Mob meets both with Stunned Silence:Mezato: I mean, she doesn't seem to trust anyone at all. I'm pretty sure she has no interest in other people. Actually, how can you not tell?Mezato: Say, Mob-kun. What exactly do you like about her?
- And one of Mob's, during the same conversation. While Ichi has some good answers, she is stunned at Mob's growth in even asking the question:Mob: What kind of guys do girls like?
Mezato: [internally] He's starting to consider more than just 'working out'!
- Two of Mezato's questions to Mob while he works up the courage to confess outside Tsubomi's classroom after school. Mob meets both with Stunned Silence:
- Brutal Honesty:
- Tsubomi is as blunt and nearly as awkward as Mob is, just better at hiding it. She rejects every boy who asks her out and is shown giving one an honest reason:Unlucky Boy: [stumbling over his words] I-I wuv you! Please go out with me!
Tsubomi: [bows graciously] I'm sorry!
Unlucky Boy: B-But why?
Tsubomi: Oh, do I really need to tell you the reason? I mean, I have absolutely no interest in y-- - Mezato has a heart-to-heart with Mob while he paces around, nervous, in front of Tsubomi's empty classroom. She gives him some advice on how to be a good boyfriend and chides him for not being more observant about others, particularly with respect to Tsubomi. Mezato has a better sense of what she's like than he does and tells him so.
- Tsubomi is as blunt and nearly as awkward as Mob is, just better at hiding it. She rejects every boy who asks her out and is shown giving one an honest reason:
- Call-Back: In a direct reference to this show's very first episode, Mob is shown playing soccer (or football for those outside the US) and jogging in physical education class. Instead of tripping and falling flat on his back, he intercepts the ball with his chest and is able to kick it down the field, just like the other students. The boy also has the stamina to keep running this time around without passing out.
- Diving Save: Mob pushes the little boy in the crosswalk, lost in his game, out of the dozing driver's path... his realization of what is happening playing out in Slow Motion. Becomes a Heroic Sacrifice when the man's minivan strikes him instead.
- I Owe You My Life: Minegishi thanks Mob with a gigantic and lush bouquet for saving them from Keiji Mogami's murderous wrath in the previous season.
- Ironic Nursery Tune: Many, many traffic lights in Japan play the ancient tune '通りゃんせ' (Tōryanse, 'Let Me Pass') to signal pedestrian right-of-way. The song itself offers blessings for children who survive past the age of seven and mourning for those who don't. A driver smashes into Mob in a crosswalk where he and the boy he saves have the right of way... as the signal plays in the background.
- Literal Metaphor: Tsubomi's 'assembly line of broken hearts' behind the school, to which Mezato refers, is represented as an actual conveyor belt full of stamped-out masks of boys' faces that weep after she mechanically bows to reject them. It halts on Mob's soundlessly bawling visage.
- Oh, Crap!:
- Mob as he projects an oncoming driver's trajectory straight through the child crossing ahead of him... and does the math.
- The child whose life Mob saved at the sight of Mob's unmoving body. He can only tremble in speechless, gasping horror.
- Running Over the Plot: Mob is hit by a sleepy driver in a minivan at the end of this episode, three episodes before the end of the season. The accident acts as a kind of Truck Driver's Gear Change, raising the dramatic stakes for the remainder of the story.
- School Idol: Tsubomi is the crush of almost every boy at Salt Middle School, not just in Mob's grade. Mezato implies that no one knows what she's really like, as guys only seem to like her for her appearance and she isn't particularly close to anyone.
- Shirtless Scene: Deconstructed. Musashi Gouda, the Body Improvement Club's president, demands Mob take off his clothes when he asks his clubmates for advice on how to ask out Tsubomi. When he removes his shirt, the Muscle Bros slap him hard enough to leave red hand marks all over his torso. Musashi then congratulates him on all his hard work building muscle, suggesting they'll be a success with whatever opponent he has in mind. The Telepathy Club are watching all of this, and they seem to find it as awkward as Mob does.
- Stupid Sacrifice: Of course, Mob could have just used his telekinesis to pull the kid out of the minivan's path, just as he had done to a cat mere moments before, but nope.
- Downplayed. Considering Mob's long-standing conditioning against directly using his ESP on other human beings and his discomfort with said powers, floating the boy out of the way—instead of using the physical strength he'd worked so hard to develop—would have been out of character for him.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Mob's impact with the minivan leaves more damage than one might expect from other encounters with Truck-kun in anime; his body bashes in the windshield and the hood, and shatters one of its headlights. As the driver was not in the process of braking for the light, Mob is hit hard enough to land near the middle of the intersection.
- Written Sound Effect: Mob shuffling down the hallway in front of class 2-3's door as he waffles over asking Tsubomi out is not audible, but shown on screen instead as 'ススススス…' note
