Mob Psycho 100 REIGEN: The Miraculous Unknown Psychic
Japanese Title:
モブサイコ100 REIGEN ～知られざる奇跡の霊能力者～
Mobu Saiko Hyaku Reigen ~Shirarezaru Kiseki Reinōryokusha~
Original Air Date:
18 March 2018
Over lunch, Reigen watches TV as the lisping palm reader Sophia Kirari claims divine inspiration for the idea to write a memoir. When she mentions that her business is booked solid for the next year as a result, he inhales what remains of his cheeseburger and calls Mob to meet him after school.
Mob patiently listens as Reigen lays out his plans. The teenager has some concerns: Won't they need to find a publisher? Releasing a book isn't exactly a simple process. Reigen announces that he's crowdfunding it instead. He hands Mob a sheaf of pamphlets to help advertise, and begins dictating.
Reigen's well-aimed special salt attacks, imbued with his abundantly nonexistent psychic power, crushed the Ceiling Crasher and the Honeido Tunnel gang boss. For some time now, he has been protecting Seasoning City behind the scenes, conducting exorcisms like these and providing other services large and small for clients. Mob gently calls him out on the veracity of his claims over ramen, but in vain. Where does the teenager fit into all this? Not to worry, he has plans for Mob too. The phony psychic continues, taking credit even for Mob's successes in which he only offered advice after the fact...
Mob awakens with a groggy start to Ritsu's hand on his back, gently shaking him awake. Apparently he hasn't left his room at all of late; his younger brother is worried about him. The boy explains that he's been hard at work on a manuscript for his shishou, and resumes work on the second chapter, which Reigen gave him permission to write as he pleased. He uses the space to tell the story of his relationship with his beloved brother and how his psychic powers affected them both, in his own words, right up to Ritsu's kidnapping by Claw.
Reigen takes over after this, wedging himself into the story with a description of his detailed plot to save Mob's little brother and the Awakening Lab kids. As he tells it, he singlehandedly took down each 7th Division Claw enforcer originally sent after Teruki Hanazawa, Mob and Dimple: he crushed Terada between a pair of tree trunks, brought down Matsuo the spirit Pokemon tamer, threw his own barrier onto the pyrokinetic Miyagawa and roasted him in his own flames, and more. Mob—rather deferentially—objects again, but Reigen cuts him off and bids him continue.
Once Reigen makes his way to where Mob, Teru and Ritsu are being held, his account of things is somewhat more accurate, though he still takes pains to de-emphasize Mob's actual participation in fighting wherever possible. Mob's transferring his psychic energy to Reigen to allow him to fight in his stead was not Reigen's plan all along, but you wouldn't know from the man's telling of events.
Mob, exhausted, finally completes the manuscript from Reigen's dictation, to congratulations from his friends. Ichi Mezato offers to put him in touch with a print shop. Just as they rush to make Reigen's dream real, Teru arrives with Ritsu and suggests they look this over beforehand. This is supposed to be nonfiction, after all. Mezato agrees—editors and proofreaders usually comb through a book's prose before printing. Tome Kurata offers to pitch in and bullies the rest of the Telepathy Club into helping out; Ritsu and Dimple lend a hand as well. As the Body Improvement Club cheer on the process, they all take a good look at what's actually in the book...
A triumphant, beaming Reigen shows Mob a slick-looking proof copy. He sits down to read it himself; as his eyes contend with the text, his face darkens... He drops the book and explodes. Mob isn't supposed to be the protagonist, and what's in it makes him look like a con artist. The reviews for it are abysmal. It needs a rewrite. The teenager points out that there might not be a budget for it; crowdfunders don't usually go that well, according to Mezato. Reigen checks his and his face falls further: his crowdfund only has 2500 yen in it—his own money, he openly admits later.
Ah, well. Looks like ramen is in order. He pays Mob for his time with a couple slabs of chashu pork from his bowl. After his young deshi goes home for the day, he hits up his favorite watering hole and orders a lemon sour, extra sour. The kind bartender serves him, and he laments his misfortune as the bar TV overhead displays some good news...
Tropes appearing in this OVA include:
- Brutal Honesty:
- Mob's friends rip Reigen's manuscript to shreds in a fact-checking extravaganza that largely takes place offscreen. We do see the effects of their changes on the narrative (complete with a 'Fabrication Level' counter that drops to 0%) and public perception of Reigen's book, however.
- Downplayed: Mob gently calls him out several times on his lies, but respects his shishou's wishes and changes none of them. He uses his chapter to tell the truth from his perspective.
- Framing Device: A recap of the previous season, tucked into Reigen's dictation to Mob of a book detailing their... no, Reigen's exploits in the supernatural world. Mob's friends set the record straight.
- Mean Boss: Reigen calling Mob a moron for objecting to his lies, being somewhat harsh with him in explaining their 'necessity', and offering him only his hourly pay plus 0.2% of sales. Dimple comments that Mob's take would be less than sales tax.
- Nice Guy: Mob sacrifices his sleep to work on Reigen's memoir, and finishes it at school. It's unclear whether Reigen has given him a deadline that harsh or his own work ethic / respect for his mentor drives this.
- Recap Episode: And how. In retelling the highlights from Mob Psycho 100's first season in skewed fashion, the OVA acts as an epilogue of sorts as well as an unusually elaborate promo for the second season.
- Self-Insert Fic: Reigen attempts to retcon the first season by inserting himself in the story—like a bored, human-sized fly on the wall—where he wasn't part of the action. The animators have a field day with this, pasting Reigen's oversized head and/or body over those of other characters while leaving their appendages visible or awkwardly animating his limbs to perform actions originally done by Mob. Some of the changes are subtle.
- And spectacularly subverted: All of Reigen's inserts are purged from the story, and judging from Ritsu's involvement, replaced with quite a bit of the man's exploitation of Mob... relegating the phony psychic to a bonus chapter wryly entitled 'The Courage to Throw Salt'.
- Stealing the Credit: Averted. When Ritsu wakes Mob from falling asleep over Reigen's manuscript, Mob hands him one of the phony psychic's pamphlets to help spread the news. Ritsu alerts Teru to the project with it; at the end of the OVA, they both help fact-check the narrative before sending it off to print.
- Title Drop: Mob reads the title aloud when Reigen hands him a proof copy of the corrected book.
- Unreliable Narrator: Oh gods yes.
- Reigen wants to be special so badly that he mostly erases his disciple's involvement from the story and minimizes everyone else's efforts to make himself look good and drum up some business. The saddest thing about this is that his intended readers would likely find the truth more compelling: a tale of an ordinary man with an unusual skillset who actually manages to be an effective mentor for a teenaged physical god with no self-confidence.
- Lampshaded by Ritsu's knowing look when handed one of Reigen's flyers and his recruitment of Teru to help edit.
- Zig-zagged—when it comes to describing his influence on Mob, Reigen's not exactly wrong. The arrogance with which he often asserts it here, however, paints him in a dim and ugly light. He also leaves out many of his most Badass Normal contributions to the plot, including the unplanned Bavarian Fire Drill that gets him into Claw's 7th Division headquarters to begin with.
