English Dub Season Review: Mob Psycho 100 Season Two

After a masterful first installment back in 2016, the second major hit by manga author ONE (known for his more popular series “One Punch Man”) has wrapped its own second season. But unlike OPM’s more lackluster sophomore sequel, Mob’s manages to live up to the hype of the original and more by exponentially expanding on the ideas, concepts, action, and emotions. With the legendary anime studio BONES once again behind the helm, it’s not a surprise that the series continues to hit the mark both visually and story-wise. But to do this, they couldn’t just tread water on what the first season discussed. They’d have to really dive into those ideas and make it worth bringing the show back.

The first half of the season focuses mainly on the heart of the story, namely Shigeo “Mob” Kageyama balancing his regular school life with trying to understand and control his immeasurable psychic abilities. The old Uncle Ben mantra of great power and great responsibility is fully on display here in one way or another, with Mob often being put in numerous situations which test his will to remain a normal person in a society that is increasingly paying attention to espers and psychics. Mob is Superman levels of overpowered, meaning he could probably take over the world if he wanted, but his charm as a character is in how he cherishes his connections to other people and his aspirations to improve himself as a person over being an esper. He faces many dark reflections of who he could be if he prioritized eliminating spirits or decided on world domination, but his unshakeable heart makes these dark turns all worth it.

The second half is primarily action-heavy, following up on last season’s battle with the evil esper organization known as Claw. It’s here that we see the author’s creative lamp-shading of shonen clichés and formulas, showing the enemy group has rather unremarkable shmucks with pretty standard goals. However, their ultimate objective of showing the world the superiority of espers falls right in line with the story’s major themes regarding how viewing one as a superior being simply because of special talent is a poor mindset. I did think that this half indulged just a bit too much in the formulaic, but it never broke from its intended message and still landed on a final battle and closing show that was very much in-character for this series.

Mob Psycho 100’s second season is everything its first was and more. In fact, it’s actually hard to keep talking about how boringly perfect this show is, so much so that I can’t really expand on what else to like about it without just showing you it in its entirety. With that all said, it’s highly unlikely that this will be the last we see of Mob and friends. The source material still has about enough to cover one more season, which looks like it will be focusing much more on exploring characters internally through its trademark flavor of surrealism than physical action. And luckily, that’s pretty much the only thing I would want more of from this particular season, so however long I have to wait to see more of that in the final season will be more than worth it. In short, however, you need to ingest this series into your brain, whether by reading the manga or watching this show, anyway would be worth it to expose yourself to this level of brilliance. So, do whatever you need to see more of Mob Psycho 100 as soon as possible. I cannot stress that hard enough.