YMMV / Mob Psycho 100

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• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Was Mob really oblivious to Reigen not truly being an esper? Or did he know all along or found out on the run and played along?
  • Is Mob a stealth Deadpan Snarker or just dense?
• Angst? What Angst?: Using the body of a client's daughter, Mogami bullies Mob ruthlessly for what he perceives to be half a year inside a Lotus-Eater Machine. Other than gratitude for an important lesson, a burgeoning sense that maybe his powers aren't useless, and a little fear upon Mogami's return later, the spirit's cruel illusions seem to leave no lasting side effects on the boy. Some watchers/manga readers felt Mob's apparently shrugging off torment that might drive other children to suicide was unrealistic—as well as emblematic of a harmful 'let's just move on' approach to deep trauma.
• Arc Fatigue: The second Claw arc lasted long enough to tire out some readers, not to mention that there were lots of characters to keep track of. (Even ONE himself joked about forgetting the telepathy twins at one point). Chapter 90, in particular, was divided into 12 parts overall.
• Award Snub:
  • Lost the "Best Animation" category in the fan-voted 2016 Crunchyroll Anime Awards to Yuri!!! on Ice. While Yuri!!! on Ice is by no means bad-looking, it has a rather standard art style and level of animation outside some examples of Animation Bump.
  • Averted in the 2019 Awards. To the surprise of many, the second season won "Best Animation" over Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, which many assumed would win due to its greater popularity.
• Awesome Art: Arguably the gold standard for TV animation. Few other shows can come close to it.
  • This series is essentially a love letter to the art itself. The second season's opening features shoutouts to the zoetrope, barrier grid/picket fence, kaleidoscope and other historical animation techniques. Mob Psycho 100 is packed with styles not typically seen outside of experimental works, like sand-painting, paint on glass, frequent off-model stylistic shifts, and visibly, purposefully rough line-work. Studio Bones also used traditional (cel) animation for every scene—CGI was only used for coloring. Even simple scenes like Reigen eating a hamburger are notable for their smoothness and attention to fine detail.
• Awesome Music:
  • The opening theme, "99".
  • The second opening theme "99.9", qualifies as well.
  • As does the third opening theme, "1". If any band formed solely for purpose needed to release independent albums, it would be Mob Choir.
  • The mysterious first battle theme, "Mob's Emotional Explosion".
  • The intense second battle theme, "Mob's Power Liberation".
  • ???%'s theme, "Mob's Unknown Mode". A Dark Reprise of the first battle theme.
  • Reigen's verbal smackdown theme, "1000% Gratitude".
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The first season of the anime opens with ???% fighting a horde of monsters. One would expect that to be an Adaptation Expansion of the battle inside Mogami's mindscape, but when the second season adapted it, it stayed closer to the manga's version. That Action Prologue is also odd in that ???% is given his own Explosion Counter that ends at 100%, ???% going from the usual smokey black with white eyes to bright white with red eyes, seemingly implying a form beyond ???; all of which never happens in the series proper and is never explained outside of the series either.
• Crossover Ship:
  • In the early years, fans paired Reigen with Saul Goodman from Better Call Saul since Saul is also a shady loser protagonist who makes up for it with his silver tongue and ability to read the room, much like the fox man.
  • On Twitter of 2022, fans have started shipping Reigen with Gojo Satoru from Jujutsu Kaisen due to their similarities as powerful but pathetic teachers with unconventional teaching methods.
• Diagnosed by the Audience: Mob is popularly interpreted as autistic by the series' neurodivergent fanbase. He tries to fit in with his peers, but has No Social Skills and needs to prevent Power Incontinence by suppressing his emotions, traits that autistic fans cite as paralleling their own experiences with socializing, masking, and avoiding the risk of meltdowns. His Sarcasm-Blind nature, flat affect, and difficulties with expressing emotions are also commonly cited.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: The Body Improvement Club became quite popular because instead of being stereotypical Jerk Jocks, they're actually decent guys who are legitimately nice to Mob and look out for him. Fans were quick to dub them "The Muscle Bros".
  • Keiji Mogami for being a badass villain with a killer backstory. And in a series that its dark moments, Mogami is dark.
• Epileptic Trees: A slow building theory over the course of the series concerned Tsubomi secretly being an esper as well. Some story points support the theory, such as her nonchalant reaction to Mob's powers, her initial resistance to Psycho Helmet's influence, and in Chapter 100 she shows virtually no fear despite the city almost breaking apart as she speaks.
• Fountain of Memes: Reigen. In the fandom, he is known as the resident Memetic Badass. In fact, him trending on Twitter contributes a lot to the show's popularity.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • With One-Punch Man of course, as they share the same creator, ONE. You wouldn't be able to count the amount of One Punch Man Easter Eggs this series (such as Saitama's face randomly appearing on objects or in the background) has in one hand.
  • With My Hero Academia, with both anime series being made by Studio Bones and praised for their art. There's a lot of fanart of Midoriya befriending Mob, as both are rather similar in characterization, being extremely powerful, but lovable characters.
  • With The Disastrous Life of Saiki K., as both series star teenage overpowered psychics. Saiki and Mob have a tendency to appear in fanart together. In 2022, fans have included the excitable Anya Forger from Spy X Family alongside the boys for being a fellow esper (and for having pink hair and odd head accessories like Saiki).
  • There also exists an overlap with the fan base of Kid Cosmic, due to their often similar tones and (especially) themes.
  • The same can be said with The Owl House as the premise of both shows feature a neurodivergent protagonist who develops their powers under the mentorship of a shady con artist with a heart of gold who practically adopts them and their school friends. They even feature a rival character who develops romantic feelings for the protagonist after letting go of their hostile behaviors.
  • With the Mother series, as Mob Psycho 100 is noted to be strikingly similar to the much older video game series in question; both feature preteens who battle all manner of bizarre, surreal, and quirky foes — even including a villainous cult centered around happiness — with trippy psychic powers. It's not surprise that the two fandoms have gotten along fairly well, with plenty of crossover◊ fanart. Some fans even go as far as to call Mob Psycho 100 a Spiritual Successor of the games.
  • With Chainsaw Man, since both have overpowered teenagers fighting the supernatural whose mentors are thirsted after by the fandom. There's plenty of crossover fanart of the two series with Mob and Denji swapping mentors with the general consensus that Denji would be much better off working at Spirits and Such, Mob should be kept away from Makimaat all costs, and that Reigen should mentor both of them.
  • Has been getting some with Ace Attorney recently, due mostly in part to the frequency of spirits in both stories, and Phoenix and Reigen both lying to help people.
• Growing the Beard: The Teruki Arc is often cited as the changing point from the series from being "One Punch Man 2.0" to its own unique identity.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • In the anime, at the end of each episode, Reigen gives a sales pitch for the next one, in line with his personality as a con man. When Reigen is presumed dead at the end of Episode 11, Mob voices the post-credits scene.
    Mob: Next time on Mob Psycho 100 Episode 12: 'Mob and Reigen.' This was in Master's will: Watching the finale in real time is an excellent decision.
  • The second half of the "Separate Ways" Arc involved Reigen being publicly humiliated on social media and treated like a social pariah for lying to everyone. In 2019, his dub voice actor Chris Niosi was accused on different media platforms of, and later confirmed by himself to have been, sexually harassing and emotionally abusing his friends and family members for years.
    • Then in 2022, his original voice actor Takahiro Sakurai was revealed to have been cheating on his wife for 10 years thus sullying his image amongst the anime community.
• He Really Can Act: Or, more properly, he really can draw. ONE. considers Mob Psycho 100 his "serious" comic (One-Punch Man started as a gag comic on the side); while he's well-known for his grungy Stylistic Suck art, he sometimes draws fairly amazing panels for it, such as the one at the end here.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Shigeo is nicknamed "Mob" as in "mob character", a Japanese term for a background character in a manga/anime or a non-player character in a video game, because of his outward lack of emotions and ambition. Why is this hilarious? Because ONE basically predicted the "NPC" meme years before it appeared.
  • If Dimple can see the ridiculous Art Shift (and hear the Vocal Dissonance) that occurs when Mob hits 100% Cockiness/Full-of-Himself/Getting Carried Away, others likely can as well and would actually notice as Mob walks down the sidewalk with Ritsu. Mezato stops just short of commenting on Mob's vocal shift; no one else—save Dimple—ever does. When Mob's Art Shift at 100% Courage renders his face unrecognizable, both Dimple and Mogami point it out.
• Love to Hate: Keiji Mogami is one of the most popular villains of the series... thanks to how utterly dark and twisted he is. His calm and analytical personality also makes it a delight to hear him talk.
• Magnificent Bastard: Touichirou Suzuki is the leader of Claw and one of the most dangerous opponents that Mob has ever faced. Seeking to conquer the planet, Suzuki has toured the world for 30 years, gathering enough power and followers to carry out his plans. When his attempts to empower his henchmen via machinery fail, he gives them his own psychic energy to use, taking it back after they've served their purpose. Suzuki recruits the timid Katsuya Serizawa by showing him that he doesn't need to fear his own powers, acting as a mentor to manipulate him. During his fight with Mob, Suzuki showcases mastery over several different abilities in rapid succession. Upon overloading during said fight, he calmly requests Mob to kill him, having seen the error of his ways. When Mob chooses to save him instead, Suzuki decides to turn himself in, apologizing for how he treated his family and encouraging Serizawa to believe in himself.
• Memetic Badass: Reigen's insane luck and occasional Refuge in Audacity eventually earned him this status among fans.
• Memetic Loser: Likewise, it's also common to find fanworks or memes that ridicule Reigen due to many fans interpreting him as a relatable mess of a human being.
• Memetic Mutation: Now has its own page.
• Moe: Mob himself. A lot of readers find his modesty, awkwardness, and earnest attempts at self-improvement very endearing.
• Never Live It Down: Shou's actions at the start of the World Domination Arc have resulted in many Western fans forever labeling him as a Smug Snake who enjoys setting houses/things on fire to get a shock out of people for funsies.
• One-Scene Wonder: The security guard Dimple possesses during the Scar arc. He only shows up as Dimple's meat suit for a couple of scenes, but he's by and large one of the most popular forms Dimple has taken in the series, especially among girls. He's so popular that the official fanbook even dedicates a section to him, gives him a proper name (Mamoru Yoshioka), and mentions Dimple himself liked possessing him a lot despite his lack of power. The guy himself is overjoyed about his reception!
• Overshadowed by Controversy: The dubbed third season has often been avoided or criticized due to Kyle McCarley, Mob’s voice actor, being recast by Crunchyroll after he openly requested to negotiate with them about his contract. This also resulted in various other members of the cast being replaced by other voice actors. Needless to say, the fan community was not amused with Crunchyroll's decisions with many fans choosing to ignore the dubbed season as an act of boycott.
• Retroactive Recognition: In the dub, Edward Bosco voices Serizawa, who'd later gain a spike in popularity for voicing Alastor.
• Self-Fanservice: While it is hard to point out who's supposed to be attractive or not in ONE's art (Tsubomi being the main exception among the recurrent cast, since she even seems to be drawn in a slightly different style in order to show us how pretty she is supposed to be), we don't get any clues whether Reigen is meant to be actually more attractive than any other person who isn't an obviously Gonk one-shot character. In fanart, however, he is usually portrayed as quite the Pretty Boy. Granted, a lot of this is helped by the anime, where everyone is given much more attractive/handsome character designs. Do note, however, that this was going on before the anime even aired.
• Ships That Pass in the Night: Despite resorting to being Just Friends and having no other involvement in the story after her Arc debut, Emi has proven to a popular character to ship Mob with in both the Japanese and Western fanbases.
• Superlative Dubbing: Reigen, voiced by Chris Niosi in the English dub. His voice is a perfect fit for the character, absolutely nailing both his jaded, skeptical world-weariness and wacky Large Ham tendencies. It's a supremely well-acted performance. The rest of the cast is (mostly) able to keep up; standouts include the voice actors for Tome and Ritsu.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • When Mob is being pushed around by the LOL Cult in Chapter 7, the crowd laughs at him after spitting out the spoiled milk that he was given. Mob then glares, and firmly responds that he isn't laughing along with them. The anime's (Episode 3) interpretation of this particular scene had Mob look much less threatening in comparison (dull expression on a white background), which disappointed some viewers who otherwise enjoyed how the episode depicted Mob's Rage Breaking Point.
  • Certain fans were somewhat disappointed with the shortening of the Keiji Mogami arc in the anime, particularly Mob's time in Mogami's Lotus-Eater Machine, which had more time devoted to escalating Mob's torture in the manga.
  • There's a minority of fans who were upset with the finale where a good portion of ???/Shigeo's conversation with Mob explaining his ideologies was cut without a good reason.
  • The general consensus for the dubbed third season is that it isn't as enjoyable due to many of the voice actors, especially Mob's new VA Jason Liebrecht, sounding off-putting for their characters they voice and how they don't have the same charm as the original cast.
• The Woobie: Mob only wants to improve his life and be liked by others, but often comes across opponents who envy his powers, whilst in turn ending up being exploited by most of the people around him for their own purposes.
• Woolseyism: When recording the dub of episode 2, Chris Niosi's voice was a bit shot and couldn't go into the falsetto that the Japanese version did for the crossdressing scene. He then tried a Valley Girl take, which made it into the final cut.

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