What They Say:
In a world full of spirits and the supernatural, the only ones who can deal with them are those with powers known as psychics. Self-proclaimed psychic Reigen Arataka operates as an exorcist for a living but in reality, possesses no powers at all. His apprentice Kageyama Shigeo, otherwise known as “Mob” on the other hand, is an incredibly talented psychic, but has difficulty controlling his powers. Together the two of them battle against the supernatural while Mob remains none the wiser to the fact that his master is a fraud.
The Review
Content (warning as portions of this review may contain spoilers):
Wel,l we’re nearing the home stretch of Mob Psycho’s current run and things are starting to heat up…kinda. Last week’s events brought us the introduction of an actual group of antagonists for this series in Claw, and this episode’s events are largely dedicated toward dealing with them. While that setup certainly has a lot of potential, in execution, it left me feeling more than a little mixed as the show seems to be unsure of how intimidating it actually wants these guys to be.
The basic beats of this episode are pretty simple: After finding out from Koyama (mohawk guy) about Mob, one of the higher up members of Claw named Terada decides to go after him only to end up helping Mob and Teru find out where Ritsu’s being held, while Ritsu himself plots his escape with the other esper kids. Tonally, though, this episode feels a bit inconsistent in places, as the story seems weirdly torn between establishing Claw as an actual threat, and making them a joke in the same way most things are handled in the series when it comes to Mob. For now, it seems to be mostly leaning towards the latter, which would normally be pretty alright with me, but the way in which it does so feels kind of off compared to most of the show’s humor.
On the one hand, scenes like Terada going after Mob, only to be beaten by Mob offscreen and tortured for info, work as a pretty hilarious subversion of expectations and are generally in line with the show’s usual gags. On the other hand, the fakeout with one of the esper kids not dying felt really strange as the tension was built up overtly ominous fashion that it initially seemed like the setup to a punchline where something funny was going to happen to him instead, only to make it seem like he was killed in horrific fashion, and then backtracking on that a couple of scenes later where he turned out to be perfectly fine. I’m not sure that was supposed to come off as kinda funny or kinda chilling, but either way, it just felt strange, and it felt like a slight misstep in visual direction for a show that’s generally been really good with it.
To the show’s credit, though, these issues aren’t quite enough to completely distract from the fun, and as always, there’re some really cool action highlights here. Terada’s second attempt to take out Mob and Teru, was a short but action-heavy set-piece with some great storyboarding and one of the show’s best yet, but the real standout here was Mob turning Koyama into a human pinball during their “rematch” as it managed to simultaneously accomplish being both one of the coolest and one of the most hilarious pieces of action animation I’ve ever seen. It was so impressive that it was kind of hard for me feel disappointed that it wasn’t more of a straight up fight, and shows that Mob Psycho really knows how to impress even when the material isn’t quite at it’s best. Overall this was probably my least favorite episode of the show so far, but the show knows how to be fun even when it’s not in top form, and since it’s clear we’re not quite done with Claw just yet, there’s still a chance this could all lead to some interesting payoff.
In Summary:
Mob Psycho let’s loose with its villains this week, but despite Claw’s introduction as something of a genuine threat in the last episode, this one’s a lot more inconsistent when it comes to how seriously we’re supposed to take them. While the general sense of things so far seems to be that they’re mostly a joke, and a couple of gags here really work in that regard, that dissonance hits hard during the scene with the death fakeout and it felt like a rare slip-up for the show. Still, the show manages to have quite a bit of fun here, and while I’m not quite as excited about this group of villains as I was last week given that they don’t seem to be all that threatening, I’m still plenty curious to see how things wrap up with them.
Grade: B
Streamed By: Crunchyroll