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So the fifth episode of Mob Psycho 100’s second season aired.

Let’s talk about it.

Before this episode aired, people who read the manga were all over social media warning people that this arc was hella dark and messed up shit happens, and also just hyping the hell out of it in general.

I’d never read the manga, but as a fan of intense stories and the horror genre, these rumblings got me really excited, especially since Mob Psycho 100 is one of my favourite shows.

So the episode aired and it was met with…a mixed reception.

A lot of the darker and bloodier scenes had been completely cut, disappointing manga fans and leaving some anime fans feeling cheated.

Now, I really, really liked the episode for reasons that I’m going to get into, but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t a little disappointed. I wanted all of the weird and fucked up stuff that the manga readers were talking about to happen because…I thought it was gonna happen.

I was so goddamn curious about this part of the manga, and after hearing people go on and on about how this arc wasn’t done justice, I decided to read chapters 59-67 (aka “The Mogami Arc”) to satisfy my curiosity and turn this into a research project.

So, I did.

Spoilers from here on out, by the way.

To an extent I understand why people wanted the darker stuff. For those of you who are curious, in the manga there was more violence, including a stabbing, more blood, images of a man hanging himself, and the murder of an innocent animal. While I feel these elements may have been over exaggerated by the fan base, they were still present in the manga and absent from the anime.

Some people have been arguing that by removing these elements, the final message about having courage and emotional strength in the face of intense pain is weakened. There’s also another camp arguing the exact opposite: that the anime still has a strong effect by focusing more on Mob’s development in the second half of the episode.

To both of these arguments I say…eh?

Like, the whole thing about a message being just as strong even though the contrasting build up is weaker is just…a strange perspective to me. That’s the whole idea behind contrast. Literally in this episode there’s a line saying “only in the darkest depths of fear does courage truly shine.” That’s…literally the point. If the idea of the Mogami arc is that Mob has a tremendous amount of empathy and the capability to see the good in bad people, then that point will be driven home more if the people are really bad. They can still be complex, but they have to inflict a type of pain that makes the audience say “oh god, I don’t want good things to happen to these people.”

Welcome to the world of moral complexity.

On the flip side, I don’t think having the bloodier and more intense parts taken out made that much of a difference.

There’s my contrarian opinion of the day.

Studio Bones probably had to censor some parts for the PG 13 audience, and they did. I don’t fault them for that, but I think there’s something waaaay more important to the build up in this arc that Bones dropped the ball on, and it’s the pacing.

In the manga, Mob is in hell. 6 months of utter fucking torment with no emotional support to get him through it. That shit is rough. In the anime, it’s still a 6 month time period, but the audience doesn’t quite feel the length of it, y’know?

The pacing of this episode has been mentioned in criticism, but I feel like few people have really discussed the actual problem here. The pacing issue wouldn’t necessarily be solved by giving this arc a higher episode count. Literally all you need to do to sell me on the fact that Mob has been in Mogami Land for a long ass time, and just saying “Mob has been in Mogami Land for a long ass time” doesn’t get that idea across very effectively.

In the manga, the line “for half a year” is given its own panel, a big font, and a stark black background. Then, it’s followed immediately by an empty looking Mob surrounded by the emotions that are plaguing him. There. You did it. You sold me on this length of time by emphasizing it with a well paced panel punch. It’s got more power in the manga. In the anime, Mogami just kind of states it off hand.

The anime also could have taken advantage of its medium by giving the audience a montage of Mob’s suffering. Again, if you sell me on Mob’s suffering I am more likely to believe that Mob is willing to kill a man in order to rid him of his stress and get revenge on those who wronged him.

Minor details like this can have a huge impact.

So, I do indeed think that the manga did a better job at making the Mogami arc emotional, especially in the build up. But it had almost nothing to do with the content and everything to do with the passage of time.

However:

Episode 5 is by no means bad. In fact it is waaaaaay outside the realm of bad.

It’s great. Is what I’m saying.

EDIT: I realized I forgot to say something really important.

If you watched this episode as a manga reader or someone who was hyped up and felt a little let down, watch it again. It’s actually a phenomenal episode of television for reasons that past me is about to describe. Once you see it for what it is and not what you thought it would be it’s just great.

Also, while I’m here, I just want to clarify my previous statement because I think I said it in a way that was kind of muddled. Basically, I think that the amount of torment that Mob goes through adequately convinces me that he would change his perspective on people even without the shock value stuff. I think the pacing has more disparity? Like in the manga it feels like months and in the anime it feels like a couple of days, even though they say it’s months. I hope that makes sense.

Back to the original post:

If we lived in a universe where the manga didn’t exist, I feel like the criticisms of this episode would stop at “it felt a bit rushed,” because the story, message, and holy shit the visuals, are out of the god damn park.

Season 4 of My Hero Academia is gonna look like shit because I’m pretty sure Bones bet the family farm on this episode.

On a related note, I don’t want to discredit One’s artwork. In all honesty, compared to the anime, I think his drawings in the Mogami arc did a better job at conveying the uncanny elements of the spirits and certain emotional expressions. However, the anime does a lot more with visual metaphor, comedy, and the bombastic impact of the final action scene. I also like the letterboxing and grey colour pallet added to Mogami Land. It was a nice touch and really made the blood stand out after Mob was beaten over the head. Great. Loved it.

I know some people like to argue that this kind of thing is “style over substance” but this is one of those perfect pieces where style is substance. The scratchy chaotic lines over Unknown Percent, the ethereal body that Mob takes on after defeating the spirits, the grand scale of the destruction, the fucking hilariously awesome reveal of Mob’s 100% courage form as like…a regular looking anime character.

Both the animation and the voice acting did wonders in the scene where Minori breaks down and apologizes to Mob after admitting that she’s a terrible person. Her voice really wormed its way into my soul and I felt that scene in the anime way more than I did in the manga. The close up details on her face added greatly to this effect.

Also, just throwing this out there, Dimple!Mob was fucking badass and his fight with Mogami!Minori had some of my favourite animation cuts…like, ever.

Alright, so those are my thoughts on this arc. Unfortunately this season of Mob Psycho is only slated to be thirteen episodes, which really sucks. After this season wraps up I’ll probably read the rest of the manga and we’ll see where we go from there.

This probably won’t be the last you hear from Mob Psycho on this channel.