Today for Why It Works (well, yesterday technically, but I was too busy to actually link stuff then), I gush some more about Mob Psycho 100’s season premiere! The episode was friggin’ brilliant, so I was happy to extol its strengths in a longer format than the preview guide allows. I could probably just dedicated Why It Works to weekly Mob posts and be happy this season, but I’m sure I’ll mix it up – with Neverland and a variety of other hits on the service, I certainly won’t be lacking things to talk about. Anyway, here’s the piece!
The Brilliance of Mob Psycho 100’s Season Premiere
This episode–particularly, in its two-plot structure–was just about a perfect encapsulation of one of the things that impresses me most about the series on the whole. How it handles the tension between being an “action show” and its portrayal of violence.
There’s no shortage of “action shows that ostensibly preach against violence”, many of whom seem like they’re trying to have their cake and eat it too, but I really, really like the level of nuance and balance with which Mob Psycho 100 approaches the issue.
On one hand, I don’t think it’s trying to say, overall, anything so simplistic as that violence is never the answer (as exemplified by the first half of the episode). Sometimes you need to fight, and the show wrestles with that.
But on the other hand, it also does one of the best jobs I’ve seen of simultaneously contrasting that with times when violence actually doesn’t end up being the answer at all, and genuinely making them feel like they’re actually even more awesome than when Mob flips out and wrecks people. Like, the fight in the first half was cool, but in terms of what stuck with me, long after the episode was over, was the other time he used his powers in the second half, to heal a torn up story. Similarly to how a big part of the climax of the first season was Reigen actually just talking down the members of Claw . And having it work!
Some action shows will try to make violence feel universally awful to varying degrees of success, while others will pay “lip service” to the emptiness of violence, while still making it feel cool and exciting. Mob Psycho 100 is one of the few that (for me) really threads the needle between “yes, it actually can be admirable and awesome to fight to protect people, and it can be necessary… BUT it’s also so much better if you can avoid it, and I’m going to really make you FEEL how much more awesome it is to work things out this other way, in those cases when you manage it.”