Sandbox / Mob Psycho 100 Mob

Shigeo "Mob" Kageyama

Voiced by: Setsuo Itou (Japanese), Kyle McCarley (English), Carlos Siller (Latin American Spanish), Ítalo Luiz (Brazilian Portuguese)

Portrayed by: Tatsuomi Hamada

^{100% Explosion} 

"I don't really get it."

Shigeo "Mob" Kageyama (影山茂夫; Kageyama Shigeo) is a middle schooler with psychic powers linked to his emotions. Being stressed enough can charge Shigeo's abilities to world-shattering lengths, so he studies under Reigen and tries his best to avoid misusing his powers. Often socially awkward and sporting an expressionless face, he is more concerned about making friends and realizing his purpose in life than fighting dangerous espers or being the leader of a cult.

     

• Above the Influence: Dimple suggests that there’s nothing Mob can do naturally to attract Tsubomi, but by being the leader of the Psycho Helmet Religion, it would give him the ideal opening after her brainwashing into the cult. Mob barely bothers with a response.
• Achievements in Ignorance: His defeat of the Kuchisake-Onna (or Dragger in the anime). Since the being was created by urban legend and sustained through the fear of those who believe in it, people well acquainted with the myth (such as Shinra and Reigen) were unable to exorcise it properly. Mob, having been socially isolated for many years, had no such fear in his heart and was able to destroy it cleanly.
• Afraid of Their Own Strength: After his first ???% explosion, Mob stopped viewing his powers as a neat trick that lost their novelty and started seeing them as outright monstrous.
• Alternate Character Reading: The characters in his given name, Shigeo, can also be read as "Mobu", hence his nickname.
• Anime Hair: His hair is normally an ordinary-looking bowl cut, but it becomes wild and spiky at 100% power. Justified in that it seems to be his own power aura lifting his hair.
• Angel Face, Demon Face: 100% Mob tends to look a lot cuter and less deranged◊ when set off by more positive, productive emotions. Dimple's so thrown off by the difference that he can't even recognize Mob during the first "good" explosion he witnesses.
• Angst Nuke: Thanks to his volatile powers, his emotional explosions are often very literal.
• Apologetic Attacker: While he does grow out of his Suicidal Pacifism, he never feels good about using his power on people and often apologizes for resorting to force... Unless you hurt Ritsu, in which case you brought it down on yourself.
• Astral Projection: Does this to combat Mogami.
• Athletically Challenged: Due to relying one his psychic powers, he is very physically weak. He joined the Body Improvement Club to overcome this.
• Attractive Bent-Gender: Ironically, the only time in the series he actually did get popular with girls was when he was disguised as one.
• Ax-Crazy: Mob ^note  only appears to be fairly stoic under normal circumstances. When he does go off emotionally, he is often surprisingly conscientious of people around him, reserving the force of his explosions for whomever actually set them off. Sometimes he's not:
  • Expect indiscriminate destruction whenever ???% is in play, as Mob is no longer holding the reins.
  • 100% Obsession / Tenacity, after Dimple talks him down from starting WWIII on accident when he sees what look like the crispy corpses of his family in his burning home. Mob's normal concern for others' safety is gone as he picks a vicious fight—in the middle of a crowd—with two grown men. He then nearly sends Koyama and Sakurai through the windshield of their car when they try to calm him down.
  • 100% Ecstasy and 100% Resignation, in which he faces an equal for the first time in battle against Suzuki. We get a good sense of how cold-hearted and maniacal this teenager can be if he sheds his inhibitions completely. That laugh on his lips as he absorbs Suzuki's Beam Spam in the beginning of their battle is deeply unsettling; as is his contorting the man's body beyond belief in order to force an end to their fight.
• The Baby of the Bunch: The Body Improvement Club can be very protective of their littlest member.
• Badass Adorable: Mob's a cute walking bowl, but he's also disturbingly powerful.
• Beady-Eyed Loser: His irises are drawn much smaller and duller than his younger brother's to mark him as the plain, awkward one of the two. He usually loses this during his 100% explosions, instead sporting sharp, red Tsurime Eyes. He grows out of this over the course of the series; by the end, his irises resemble his brother's more.
• Berserk Button: Anything that threatens his happiness makes him go ???% eventually. It's also a separate conscience that exists all for the sake of his own happiness. The problem is, it's a very In-Universe Chaotic Good conscience to an extreme fault.
• Beware the Nice Ones: He's about as humble and gentle as anyone can hope to be right up until he hits the end of his Catastrophic Countdown.
• Big Brother Instinct: Seriously, don't hurt Ritsu in his presence. Seeing Ritsu get beat up by a member of Claw caused Mob to openly show rage, before his counter reached full capacity; not to mention that scene marks the fastest his counter had gone up.
• Big Good: The strongest force for good in the series so far, as his influence has made many other characters kinder and more humble. After their fight in the Divine Tree, Dimple flat out tells Mob that the strength of his powers, combined with his careful and earnest personality, could make Mob a true leader and unifying force for the people of Spice City, compared to Dimple's plays at godhood through brainwashing.
• Book Dumb: Mob is a bit annoyed that none of that unfathomable psychic talent he was born with seems to have any positive impact on his GPA.
• Boxing Lessons for Superman: Since he was unable to impress the girl he likes with his powers, he believes they are not necessary in daily life. So he enters the Body Improvement Club to become stronger without depending on them.
• Broken Ace: He can effortlessly wipe extremely powerful psychics off the face of the earth, but he doesn't really enjoy any of that power, and would happily trade it for his brother's social and academic skill. He constantly represses his emotions out of fear of causing a catastrophe, and may be suffering from depression.
• Brutal Honesty: While kind and soft-spoken, he also voices his opinions very bluntly and doesn't try to spare feelings if he has a bone to pick.
  Reigen: So, that rules out any natural causes. What do you think, Mob?
  Mob: I think you should stop asking me to drop everything for you.
• Catastrophic Countdown: When Mob experiences spikes in his emotions, building up towards his bursts of power. Though, depending on the emotion he feels at the moment, it's not always catastrophic.
• Character Development: Gradually becomes more confident, sociable and less dependent on Reigen. This has a lot to do with his training in the Body Improvement Club, where he goes from almost the very bottom to the upper half in his second year. That, and a lot of good teaching from Reigen.
• Chuunibyou: Inverted; he legitimately has incredible strong Psychic Powers, but he doesn't see them as a big deal, both because of his desire to improve in more mundane areas of life (like physical fitness and social interactions) and because he's internalized the philosophy that having powers doesn't automatically make him better or more special than everyone else.
• Classical Anti-Hero: Self-doubting, emotionally fragile, and hates having to fight and hurt people, despite the world's best attempts to drag him into fighting evil.
• Comically Missing the Point: During the Psycho Helmet Cult arc, he mistakens the fact he spoke to four girls within hours on a school day as a sign that he became popular with girls. It gets even worse when other girls swoon his way (but not towards him, but rather real chick magnets like Ritsu and Teru).
• Creepy Child: While he is one of the nicest kids you'll ever meet, when his power lashes out, he turns into a horrifying force of nature in the body of a child. It doesn't help that even when he is genuinely enraged, he doesn't entirely lose his quiet and polite demeanor, which leads to cold and hate-filled Tranquil Fury far more eerie and disquieting than any screaming fit of rage would be.
  (to Koyama, in the middle of a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown): Hey, mister who did terrible things to us... just so you know, this is all your fault.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Downplayed. Mob is by no means a moron, but he isn't an excellent student and can be quite naive and unskilled when it comes to social situations despite being quite mature for his age. However, he has very strong psychic abilities that can curb-stomp most people in a fight.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: If he has enough power stored and isn't holding back, he can bring down anyone in a few moves. The only reason why he wasn't able to defeat Koyama at first was because he was holding back, and because Koyama had knock-out spray. When they meet again, he doesn't hold back and easily hands Koyama an instant ass-kicking. Averted with later opponents, who seriously put up a fight and even force Mob to use several 100% modes to keep up.
• Cuckoosnarker: His naivete and Brutal Honesty sometimes results in some pretty brutal jabs, which Reigen and Dimple usually face the most of.
• Delicate and Sickly: He has chronic anemia and often passes out during club activities as a result. It also serves as a Drama-Preserving Handicap, as it makes him highly prone to Power Strain Blackouts alongside his mundane fainting spells.
• Determinator: Mob gets rather dangerous at 100% emotion. Before that, he's taken quite a few beatdowns, but still refused to give up.
• Did Not Get the Girl: The ??? arc ends with Mob finally confessing his feelings to Tsubomi, and being soundly rejected by her in response. They manage to stay friends though.
• Does Not Like Spam: His least favorite foods are cilantro, shiokara, and locusts.
• Dull Surprise: Unless he's at 100%, his facial expressions tend towards this. He's also stated to have limited emotions in everyday life.
• Elemental Powers: Over the course of the series, Mob displays the ability to bend water, gather clouds around himself and stimulate plant growth—as well as an immunity to immolation and electrocution—when conscious. When unconscious, he can also generate tornadoes, earthquakes, landslides and electrical storms.
• Emotional Powers: The more stressed Mob becomes, the closer his explosion counter gets towards 100%. Strong enough emotions can drive it far beyond that, to the point that unlike his unconscious "???%" mode, his power isn't even knowably unknowable, with the percentage simply expressed as a smudge.
• Emotion Bomb: He's capable of projecting his memories, feelings, and perspective into others. However, he doesn't use this as a weapon, but rather as way to communicate his feelings as clearly as possible, since he's not great at expressing himself in the usual ways.
• Emotionless Boy: Has grown used to being like this as a way to suppress his powers.
• Emotion Suppression: The original cause of how he came to be as deadpan and emotionally flat as he is, shackling his feelings after Ritsu got caught in the blast zone of a ???% emergence.
• The Empath: He's able to feel the emotional content of the spiritual energy he absorbs (which opponents are often freely throwing at him during their assaults). Of course, since his regular social and mood-reading skills are rather subpar, this often leads to him cluelessly commenting on their deepest insecurities mid battle.
• Energy Absorption: Drains energy from Teru during his ???% state at Black Vinegar Middle School. By the time he faces off against Toichirou of Claw, he seems to have gained a better grasp on this power even at an emotional state below 100%.
• Everybody Hates Math: While most of his grades are middling, he's absolutely abysmal at math.
• Everyone's Baby Brother: The Body Improvement Club absolutely refuses to use their strength for violence... Unless it's for Mob, as Onigawara is happy to weaponize against Black Vinegar Middle School.
• Expressive Hair: As he gets less prone to stuffing down his feelings, it becomes increasingly common for his hair to puff up or fray in anger well before he hits 100%.
• Extreme Doormat: He starts off as one, so unused to making his own decisions that Tokugawa asking, "Don't you have anything you want to do?" gives him an existential crisis.
• Forgettable Character: Mob lacks presence so much that the few rumors he does provoke instead attach themselves to his younger brother. His schoolmates—including those in the Telepathy Club—can barely even remember he has psychic powers, even though he's never actually made a secret of them.
• The Fettered: Thanks to some choice words Reigen gave him when he was younger, he's been able to hold back on his psychic abilities responsibly and reasonably maturely. It comes around to seeing his powers as "knives"—he shouldn't be pointing them at anybody for no good reason. This also extends to his emotional repression, as if he ever truly lets go or has no limiter, he can become dangerous to everyone around him.
• From a Certain Point of View: Mob still thinks of Reigen as having special powers even after he confesses to being a complete fraud; because as far as Mob is concerned, his charisma and bullshit artistry is a superpower, and he just hasn't realized it yet.
• Full-Contact Magic: A good sign Mob is losing control of himself is when he stops letting the Powers Do the Fighting and gets up close and physical.
• A God I Am Not: Reigen instilled in him the philosophy that being an esper doesn't make him better than other people, and as a result Mob tends to deflect all praise that could be put towards his psychic powers. For the most part, the world respects his wishes, with the Telepathy and Body Improvement Clubs supporting his desires to increase his physical abilities, and Ichi recognizing that she probably shouldn't reveal his existence to the Psycho Helmet Cult that began worshiping him after he defeated Dimple.
• Green Thumb: Learns to control plant life when facing off against the Wiggly Figure. After facing off against the leader of Claw, this power ultimately results in the creation of the Divine Tree, a ginormous head of Broccoli that grows in the middle of Seasoning City.
• The Heart: Since Reigen or Teru are usually more suited to leading, Mob tends to be this until he needs to step up to the plate, with his kindness and innocence keeping everyone else on the straight and narrow.
• Height Angst: Not as severe as his Muscle Angst, but still present. He even falls into despair in one fourth wall-breaking Reigen omake when learning he's not in the spinoff, simply because it means readers will never see him hit a growth spurt.
• The Hero: While Reigen often takes a leadership role due to being... relatively more mature, Mob himself is pretty much always at the forefront of the action, even when he'd really rather not be.
• Heroic Neutral: He's not interested in any shounen battle or adventure shenanigans, repeatedly dismissing the Call to Adventure because he'd rather work at keeping his Psychoactive Powers from running wild and getting his childhood crush to notice him. Knowing this, Shou fakes his family's death and burns his house down to force his hand in the World Domination Arc.
• Heroic Willpower: Manages to resist Mogami's attempts at corrupting him for what he perceives as half a year.
• Humanoid Abomination: Under the effects of ???% mode, Mob effectively becomes this with the full release of his raw psychic power. This idea is even further cemented with the fact that ???% has a separate consciousness of its own that seems to be dedicated to Mob's well-being and happiness, since its appearances have been either protecting Mob after being knocked out or, as in Chapter 100, picking up Mob's bouquet of flowers and ensuring that he makes it to his meeting with Tsubomi, life-threatening injury be damned.
• I Am a Monster: It's hard to not hate yourself when your one talent is being a part-time Humanoid Abomination.
• I Just Want to Be Loved: Above all, Mob would really like Tsubomi to notice him.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: Played with. Unlike most characters of this type, he does not necessarily resent his powers per se (at least not usually), and will openly use them to exorcise evil spirits and take down those who seek to harm innocents. However, he does not exactly embrace them either, not really seeing the big deal in being a psychic, since it doesn't really help him improve his personal life. Above all, he doesn't want to have his powers be his sole defining feature, and wants to become good at normal everyday life things, which he perceives as being more valuable than overwhelming psychic abilities.
• I Just Want to Have Friends: Aside from wanting to be normal, Mob's biggest goal in life is to be able to connect with other people.
• Instant Expert: Able to learn plant control and astral projection with little difficulty.
• I Want to Be a Real Man: It's a running gag that Mob's ideas of how to be attractive to girls are a bit... off... and that he often fantasizes of one day looking like a terrifyingly huge musclebeast like Musashi, even though girls at his school are far more interested in boys like Ritsu. Dimple is a bit concerned.
• Kid Hero: A 14-year-old boy, and one of the world's most powerful espers.
• Kubrick Stare: Mob's default expression. Becomes a Death Glare when he actually means it.
• Leitmotif: When he lets loose in battle, it's commonly accompanied by an eerie tune known as "Explosion of Mob's Feelings", which makes prominent use of seamoons, a peculiar instrument best described as a distorted version of human vocalizations (or, more humorously, "threatening kazoos", according to the Youtube comment section). The dark, surreal sound of the track emphasizes Mob's nature as possibly the single most powerful esper in the world, and reminds us that despite his harmless appearance and kind nature, an angry Mob is a terrifying sight to behold. It has a few variations, such as the slower, even more sinister version used as the theme of ???%, or the more badass, heart-pumping version used when Mob finally has the chance to let loose with the full extent of his power against an equal in Toichirou Suzuki.
• Looks Like Cesare: While normally too nondescript to even be considered an Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette despite his paleness, he slips into this look upon exploding in Rage, Animosity, Obsession, or Ecstasy. ???% straddles the line between this and faceless Humanoid Abomination.
• Loser Protagonist: Begins as an insecure, all-but-friendless ditherer with no remarkable talents beyond his psychic powers (which he doesn't find useful in most contexts anyways). He moves out of this after he starts gaining confidence in himself and begins more openly expressing his emotions, gaining a growing circle of close friends.
• Magnetic Hero: Despite his lack of social skills, he's managed to collect a large amount of friends and allies through his earnestness and kindness, from schoolmates like the Telepathy Club, Body Improvement Club, and Salt Mid's delinquent gang; to former enemies like Dimple, Teru, and the 7th Branch Scar Members of Claw. It's even noted that this quality may have helped the Body Improvement Club recruit more members after Mob becomes their Assistant Director, especially since the new recruits aren't already muscular like the Body Improvement Club was when Mob first joined.
• Martial Pacifist: Hates fighting other humans, and will avoid it when at all possible; but push him too far or exhaust his other options, and he will show just how powerful of an esper he is.
• Meaningful Name:
  • His nickname, "Mob" (モブ), is derived from "Mob Character," the Japanese term for a background character or NPC. Shigeo has a rather plain appearance befitting of such a character and begins the story with little sense of presence, suppressing his emotions and trying to live like a common person despite everyone trying to take advantage of him. It also doubles as an Alternate Character Reading, as his given name can be read as "Mobu".
  • His surname can also be seen as meaningful. "Kageyama" literally translates to "shadow mountain," which could be a reference to how his psychic "shadow" in the spiritual world is like a mountain's compared to other espers'.
  • The first character in Mob's given name, 茂, means 'to grow lushly' or 'to be in full leaf'. He awakens chlorokinetic powers in the show's second season.
• Minor Living Alone: Outside of Mogamiland, Mob has two loving parents and a younger brother who adores him; within, he lives entirely alone and his brother... is a stranger. That this is the case, and that he literally has no one to turn to for help, is far less ambiguous in the manga. It's a sign of how far gone Mob is—and of how incessantly cruel the torment he undergoes—that he can't even spare the headspace to question what's happening to him.
• Mistaken for Badass: Played with. Mob is by far the most powerful character in the story for his tremendous esper abilities, but otherwise he looks like a weak little boy, incapable of any physical might; thus when Mob gets tangled up in delinquent feuds, and with minor foes who don’t quite get his psychic powers, they think Mob is some secret badass who’s just hiding his true physical strength after he either defeats them or have his shredded friends from the Body Improvement Club help him out; for that Mob is nicknamed "Uraban" (Ura Banchou / Secret Boss Delinquent) among school thugs, for they see him as the unassuming secret boss of his school.
• Muscle Angst: Muscle is his go-to example for things he'd like to have rather than psychic powers, and he joins the Body Improvement Club under the rather naive belief that it might get Tsubomi interested in him.
• Muscles Are Meaningful: Rather than over-rely on his psychic power, Mob does his best to work out his body with the Body Improvement Club. In his second-year marathon, he manages to place in the top half of 180 students, and that's with an injured leg. By the end of the Manga, he's gotten strong enough to climb a telephone pole without the use of his powers... though getting down from it with just his muscles is another story.
• Mutual Envy: He wishes he were more normal like his brother Ritsu, unaware that Ritsu is secretly resentful and envious of him for having psychic abilities.
• My God, What Have I Done?:
  • Mob and Ritsu were once mugged by high-schoolers who knocked him unconscious by pushing him into a wall. When Mob woke up, all of them, including Ritsu, were heavily injured. This is what caused him to reject his power and meet Reigen for guidance.
  • He has a small one after seeing Ritsu beat up a large group of delinquents with his psychic powers unprovoked, making him realize he had been unconsciously ignoring his brother's insecurities all this time until the issue boiled over.
• Nice Guy: Very kind and forgiving. Upon defeating former bad guys such as Dimple and Teruki, Mob even asks Reigen if it was wrong to just come and ruin their lives like that. At a different point, he even sheds tears due to having to hurt a guy who is out to kill him.
• Nightmare Face: His expression when he encounters what appear to be the burning corpses of his family after Claw invades his house is a clear and VERY disturbing example◊.
• The Nondescript: Mob is noted to look much like a random extra in a crowd shot (aka a "mob" character).
• Nonstandard Character Design: While regular Mob is drawn in the same simple, cartoony fashion as everyone else, Studio BONES draws 100% Mob more angularly and with more detail to resemble a character from a more traditional shounen battle manga. The most dramatic case is 100% Courage Mob, which is accompanied by an Art Shift so drastic that even the characters themselves are wondering who this new kid is.
  Mogami: You're not the same boy as before. Who are you?
  Dimple: Don't you get it? This is the true form of Shigeo Kageyama he only reveals when he's truly piss—Wait, actually, yeah. Who are you?
• No Sense of Humor:
  • Not for a lack of trying. Not even intentionally letting Dimple's laugh-inducing mind control through his barrier had any effect on him. He finally laughs in Chapter 101 after accidentally sending Reigen's birthday cake flying into his face with his powers.
  • Reconstructed: During the Mogami arc, he cracks a joke—his first in the series—with Dimple, marking a milestone in his emotional growth.
• Older Than They Look: Mob realistically resembles a 14-year-old, but is often surrounded by people who look much older than their age, making him seem young in comparison.
• One-Man Army: Is able to trounce groups of baddies with his psychic powers alone.
• Only Friend: To Reigen, though Reigen only realizes this during their brief separation. This gets subverted when Reigen forms new friendships with Serizawa, Dimple and Tome.
• Part-Time Hero: Quite literally, though spirits are not enough of an immediate or significant danger to cause him any Samaritan Syndrome.
• Person of Mass Destruction: When Mob's psychic powers flare up, there might be some collateral battle damage, but when ???% shows up, it gets far worse. Chapter 100 shows that ???% walking through Seasoning City causes phenomena mistaken for large-scale windstorms and earthquakes—to the point that an evacuation order comes into effect—and leaves a visible trail of dug-up earth in his wake.
• Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure: In-Universe, he's stated to be completely out of the loop when it comes to pop culture, as well as other trends like urban legends. This ends up being a major advantage when he's facing the Kuchisake-Onna/the Dragger, who gets her power from people's knowledge and fear of her; because he isn't up to date on such things and doesn't know anything about her, he has no reason to be afraid of her.
• Power Incontinence: While unconscious, Mob's power level becomes incomprehensible. He also drives his powers towards infinity in a blind rage once he walks up to what looks like the corpses of his family, but Dimple manages to convince him they're fake and calms him down.
• Power Limiter:
  • More metaphorical than most examples: subconsciously suppressing his emotions keeps his powers in check, as does his kindness and Reigen's advice not to use his powers on other people. Building up an emotional charge that exceeds his ability to hold it back trips the limiter.
  • Also consciously self-imposed, in that he tends to roughly match his psychic strength to that of his human opponents to avoid killing them—he uses just enough strength to end fights. There are exceptions.
  • His consciousness itself is a limiter. Knocking him out releases the full extent of his powers in uninhibited ???% form.
• Power-Strain Blackout: Overusing his powers can take a toll on his already weak constitution, and his emotional explosions are often followed up by fainting spells, temporary paralysis, or a compromised immune system.
• Puberty Superpower: While Mob has had psychic powers since birth, they start growing rapidly when he hits his early teens, to the point that his Emotion Suppression begins to fail and cause his Explosions.
• Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: Deconstructed. The line he says just before obliterating Dimple, while badass, is more of a Tear Jerker because you can just tell that Mob is actually disgusted with himself and the stuff he can do when he goes out of control.
  "I'm... terrible."
• Psychic Powers: He's very proficient in telekinesis even when not trying, can make psychic barriers and also imitates any abilities he sees his opponents perform.
• Psychoactive Powers: His power is shaped by his mindset and overall worldview, and growing out of his Emotion Suppression and self-fear results in more positive, constructive "explosions" such as 100% Gratitude.
• Rage Against the Mentor: Mob eventually has a falling out with Reigen when working with him puts a strain on his social life. They reconcile soon after.
• Red Baron: The former LOL cult members call him "Psycho Helmet" and the students at Salt Mid and in other delinquent gangs around the district know him as "White T Poison". Dimple later takes the Psycho Helmet identity for himself when he takes over the cult.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: In the anime, Mob's natural eye color as shown in a closeup while being choked by Teruki is a deep reddish-brown. When he hits some of his explosions, like 100% Rage or 100% Hostility, they start glowing a vibrant and menacing red.
• Relative Button: Anyone who harms Ritsu is making a grave mistake if Mob knows about it. To put that into perspective, Mob always had a gradual build up to his 100% emotional outburst. The arc prior, it took Teruki almost strangling him to death to bring out his powers. By comparison, Mob goes from 0-100% in the matter of seconds after seeing Koyama beat up Ritsu.
• Repression Never Ends Well: As can be seen from his explosions. It also turns out that ???% isn't some separate eldritch entity sleeping inside him, but simply the repressed feelings and base impulses he's too ashamed to acknowledge, a realization that nearly breaks him.
• The Runt at the End: He's by far the scrawniest, frailest member of the Body Improvement Club, and he's often shown lagging far behind them on their daily runs.
• Secretly Selfish: Like most of his emotions, Mob tends to suppress his more selfish and uncharitable impulses. So much so that said impulses became their own entity in the form of ???%, who considers Mob a fabricated persona that has outlived its usefulness.
• Selective Obliviousness: He has a huge blind spot in regards to Reigen's obvious Phony Psychic act, even when other characters spell it out to him. The final arc reveals that he subconsciously picked up on it a while ago, but is too scared of the implications that his most formative relationship is a complete lie to actually process it.
• Sexier Alter Ego: 100% Courage, which character design notes jokingly refer to as Mob's "ikemen" form.
• Shounen Hair: Hitting 100% throws his hair into complete disarray, making him look like a scrawny little Super Saiyan.
• Shrinking Violet: Starts off extremely withdrawn thanks to his fear of so much as acknowledging his emotions and desires. Even when he does become more social and acquire a fairly broad circle of friends, he tends to be the quietest, most subdued person in the conversation.
• Sickly Child Grew Up Strong: While he never does get those muscles he was dreaming of, the Body Improvement Club does a great deal to help his anemia.
• Socially Awkward Hero: At home and in school he is usually reserved and a bit awkward, even anxious at times, during social interactions. To wit, his "speech" when coaxed into running for Student Council President is an unprecedented 5 minutes of silence.
• Soulless Bedroom: Compared to that of his brother Ritsu—whose room screams 'generic middle-class gifted kid'—Shigeo's ample bedroom is empty. Empty, except for a desk and chair, a small bookcase, a closet, a dresser, and a neatly folded and enviably plush futon. It's also unnaturally tidy for a teenager's room.
  • Downplayed: Upon closer examination, his bookcase contains his favorite manga, study books for subjects he struggles with, and books that hint at his desire to learn more about people in his life. His bedroom doesn't change to reflect his emotional and spiritual growth over the course of the story either, unlike many examples of this trope. Shigeo just seems to prefer living in near-ascetic simplicity.
• Split-Personality Merge: The series climax is Mob and ??? coming to an understanding, with Mob finally accepting his powers as part of what makes who he is and that they were instrumental to his growth and the friends he got along the way, rejecting his previous wishes of ever wanting to be a person without psychic powers; Mob fully unlocks the path to free all his emotions, and going through the final trial of being rejected by Tsubomi has him grow up. By the end of the series Mob has become the best version of himself, happy with all of him and laughing with joy for what he knows will be great days ahead.
• Squishy Wizard: While unrivaled in pure psychic ability, he's shown to be incredibly out of shape. His time as the newest member of the Body Improvement Club is mostly comprised of him passing out during their morning jogs. However, this is only an issue in his everyday life—in combat, Mob is perfectly capable of raising psychic barriers stronger than steel and infusing his body with psychic energy to make himself much stronger. In the latter half of the series, he's grown out of the trope entirely—while he's pretty far from matching the other members of the Body Improvement Club, his strength and stamina are hinted to be above average at least. In an aversion of Hard Work Hardly Works, solely psychic-enhanced muscles turn out to be inferior to a mix of psychic power enhancement and conventional training, which should make Mob a better combatant as well.
• Stock Shōnen Hero: Mob is an inversion—instead of being Hot-Blooded and cheerful, he's emotionally repressed and usually a bit downbeat. Instead of spiky hair all the time that gets spikier the more power he uses, his hair is only spiky when his powers flare up and is usually styled into a rounded bowl cut. Instead of having lots of confidence and lots of friends, he starts the story with very little self-confidence and relies on what few friends he has to keep it from collapsing entirely.
• The Stoic: Mob is usually expressionless by default, and doesn't have much of a sense of humor. After his Character Development, however, he gets better at interacting with others and smiles more often.
• Successful Sibling Syndrome: While Mob doesn't resent Ritsu for his effortless success at school, being the under-performing brother of Salt Middle School's star student does not do favors for his self-esteem.
• Sudden Eye Color: His eye color (dark red) only becomes apparent during his explosions.
• Suicidal Pacifism: Early on. Knowing how dangerous his powers are, Mob refuses to use them on other humans. Exorcising ghosts is fine, though, because it benefits Reigen. It takes a while for him to question whether or not that is right.
• Super-Empowering: 100% Gratitude. By the time he faces off against the leader of Claw, he's learned how to do this at below 100%.
• Super Gullible: The flip side of his good faith in others is sometimes ludicrous credulity, especially if tempted with the possibility of becoming popular or attracting Tsubomi's attention.
• Super Loser: He may have won the Superpower Lottery, but missed out on just about anything actually useful in his daily life.
• Super Mode: 100%. Here, his powers become much stronger due to the force of his emotions, allowing him to keep up with exceptionally powerful espers.
• Supernatural Floating Hair: His most distinctive characteristic when hitting 100%.
• Superpowered Evil Side: ???%. It comes out when Mob is unconscious, and not only seems to be almost a separate entity from Mob, but is also far more destructive, although it doesn't seem actively malicious, just less restrained in its power use than Mob. To wit, ???% is so focused on getting to Mob's meeting with Tsubomi that it completely ignores the fact that its presence is pretty much destroying Salt City.
• Superpower Lottery: He's hit the absolute jackpot as far as psychic powers go. Too bad he's more interested in being a Slice of Life protagonist than a shounen action hero.
• Trademark Favorite Food: His favorite food is takoyaki and his favorite drink is milk.
• Tranquil Fury: Even at 100% Rage or 100% Animosity, the only outward sign he's angry is a Death Glare. That, and the way property damage starts to accumulate around him.
• Unconscious Objector: Mob is able to keep fighting when knocked out. His power level when he's unconscious? "???%". He's terrified of what could happen when he loses control like that. When Mogami destroys Mob's body... the ???% still takes form. If Mob's physical body is obliterated, then ???% gets unleashed fully. ???% has thoughts and a personality of its own, though seemingly in service to Mob, as it states that because Mob going to see Tsubomi is an important meeting for him, and because Mob has been knocked out from being hit by a car, ???%'s intervention has become necessary and it won't let anything get in its way, including picking up the bouquet Minegishi gave him.
• The Unfavorite: While his parents do love him, he seems to be this compared to his much more classically gifted younger brother, particularly in the eyes of his mother. As a result, Mob envies Ritsu for being a normal kid, which blinded him to Ritsu's resentment for having the incredible psychic powers he craves.
• Unwanted False Faith: Former members of the LOL cult decide to start a new cult worshiping him, which he has no desire to engage with despite Mezato's pestering.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Mob doesn't have a lot of refined techniques the way most elite Claw members do, but his power advantage is so overwhelming that it rarely matters.
• Used to Be More Social: He was a lot more expressive and social as a small child. Then the accident with ???% happened, leading him to emotionally shut down and isolate himself.
• Wacky Parent, Serious Child: While not actually parent and child and he does have actual parents who don't fit this trope, his dynamic with Reigen resembles this.
• Warrior Therapist: Many of the psychics Mob fights end up being on the receiving end of having their insecurities thrown in their faces as Mob destroys them.
• Weirdness Magnet: It is sort of justified when it comes to evil spirits; after all, his part-time job involves exorcising them, and while some of them end up being fakes, some are bound to be real.
• What Beautiful Eyes!: In the anime, his eyes are drawn in a shiny Bishōnen fashion during 100% Courage.
• When He Smiles: He smiles frequently (and adorably) enough, but it's an absolute joy to see him laughing brightly in Ch 101.
• World's Strongest Man: Mob is demonstrated to have the strongest psychic powers displayed thus far in the series, with only powerful espers like Toichiro Suzuki and Keiji Mogami giving him an actual challenge. The young boy still holds himself back with his ???% which vastly increases his already godlike psychic powers, though he can only use it when he's unconscious. For reference, Suzuki had been storing power for twenty years in preparation for his attempt at world domination. Mob has not even been alive for twenty years and has presumably not been consciously storing any power, but was still able to fight the Claw leader on equal ground.
• Wouldn't Hit a Girl: In his fight against Tsuchiya at Scar HQ, he reveals that this is one of the morals that Reigen taught him. It takes her pointing out that she's an adult woman fighting a middle school boy to get him to actually retaliate.

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