Review: Mob Psycho 100 – E.01

If like me you were expecting to watch Mob Psycho 100 and enjoy something similar to One-Punch Man, then go ahead and lower those expectations. Did you do that? Okay… now lower them again. Frankly I was so put off by this first episode that I didn’t care to research the series to see when creator ONE began writing it. I kind of assume that it’s sometime before One-Punch Man because this isn’t nearly as polished as OPM. That’s not to say that the episode is terrible, but even if I didn’t have predisposed expectations that let me down, this was still a choppy, poorly paced first episode. It essentially begins at the end of the story, but we’re never told that. That’s my assumption based on the information. Mob is a high school boy that’s also a powerful physic. His family knows of his powers and may have their own? Not really sure on that one. Mob works for a fake physic who is supposed to be our source of comedy… and he is not. I didn’t laugh at one goddamn thing this character did and found him to be annoying. Actually what’s beyond annoying? Throw him past that and you might have an idea of just how unlikable this character is. He wasn’t the good kind of shitty, but rather the worst kind of shitty. He’s a one-trick pony and the trick never worked on me.

Mob exorcises ghosts which really seems like something that’s lucrative in Japan… I should look into that. After the insane display of his power we see a smaller showcase of it and then a larger showcase of it. We also learn from following Mob at school that he’s terrible at everything. School work, everything asked of him in gym class. Everything. Everything except for busting ghost’s asses.

The animation was tolerable. It has this really dated feel to it at times that I really couldn’t get into. That and there were so many classic visual gags that it really added to the date stamp that was firmly placed on this show. The exorcisms were okay, but after you see it once they really tone it down which shows how visually uninspiring it is.

The catch of this show, based on my guess, is that Mob will explode or be over powered when he reaches “100”. I assume there’s a very spoilerly synopsis out there because there always is for manga/anime, but I don’t really care to find it. Because this first episode really made me not care. I’ve seen other reviews for it praising it and I have to wonder: A) was the reviewer just hyped on One-Punch Man still; or B) was this their first experience with this type of humor? Because the humor was nothing new to me. I have seen similar and it wasn’t very good either. Bottom line, this wasn’t the hit I was expecting, but rather the stinker I wasn’t expecting. I'm not writing it off completely, but if this first episode is any indication of what's to come... I won't be watching for long.

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Mob Psycho 100 – E.01

Official Website

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