Welcome to all guys, girls, and nonbinary friends. Today's post is a brief review of the third season of Mob Psycho 100. This anime follows the life of the quiet but extremely powerful psychic boy, Shigeo Kageyama. His nickname is Mob. In the third season, Mob and everyone else in Seasoning City are dealing with the aftermath of the epic battle at the end of the previous season. A lot of character development happens for Mob, Reigen, Ekubo, and others this time around. Let's begin the review.
Visuals: 9/10
Visuals have always been strong components of this series, and this doesn't change in the third season. The art style and character designs are quite simplistic and cartoonish, but this adds uniqueness. Much detail is layered on to the basic-looking characters in the form of shading. The face expressions are usually comical and entertaining. Likewise, people in the background typically look intentionally ridiculous.
While not especially cinematographic, Mob Psycho always looks good, with smooth animation, colorful backgrounds, and pretty lighting (at least during fights). In action scenes, characters use their neon glowing psychic abilities, and there are explosions and vivid gusts of power. The artwork for the destruction of the city in the last three episodes was poignant. It all looks top-tier to me.
Story: 8/10
The storyline of Mob Psycho (season 3) is interesting, exciting, and generally well-executed. The pacing and structure is also good. Season 3 starts with two rather random episodes. Then it covers the Sacred Tree/Psycho Helmet arc, followed by a few in-between episodes focused on supporting characters. Finally, the last 3 or 4 episodes make up another story arc. This is the chaotic arc where Mob loses control and rampages around the city. The events flow into each other smoothly. So, basic plot and structure both check out.
This season had a lot of emotional moments, both sad and wholesome, and everything in between. The emotional components were pulled off so well that I nearly cried at a few points in the story. Humor is also an important part of any anime with a comedic side to it. Mob Psycho's third season definitely succeeds with its humor in my opinion. The humor style is mostly goofy, but it can also be ironic or sometimes slightly witty. Reigen, of course, is the main source of the comedy.
Themes included friendship, altruism, growing up, independent thinking, and acceptance. The story category also includes philosophical and psychological elements. There were some interesting lines and scenes that explored philosophical topics. For example, Reigen's carefree philosophy exists in contrast to Mob overthinking things in general. Psychology was explored in two main cases. First, there was the commentary on blind religious thinking and how people can become brainwashed. Secondly, there was the discussion of Mob's emotional trauma and his need to accept the different parts of himself instead of repressing them.
Audio: 8/10
The instrumental OST for Mob Psycho 100 Season 3 was composed by Kenji Kawai. I'm not super familiar with the themes and tracks, but the music sounds fine to me. All the songs were performed by Mob Choir, with the main female vocals sung by Sumiyo Mutsumi. The opening song is called "1." The style of it is very much in keeping with the theme songs from the previous seasons, but I'm not a big fan of it. There are two different ending songs, "Cobalt" and "Exist." Both are good, but I much prefer the latter. It sounds epic and emotionally intense.
Another side of the audio category is voice-acting. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on it, but the cast of Japanese voice-actors is amazing. They all perform well. Notable names include Takahiro Sakurai as Reigen, Akio Ohtsuka as Ekubo, and Yoshitsugu Matsuoka as Teruki Hanazawa. Of course, Setsuo Itou (voice of Shigeo/Mob) also did excellently. With awesome songs, music, and voice-acting, this anime deserves an 8/10 for audio.
Video: "Exist" full song by Mob Choir
Characters: 8/10
We know from previous seasons that the characters in Mob Psycho are excellent. Each one has a fairly interesting starting concept for their character. (For example, Reigen is a handsome conman.) Shigeo/Mob is a very likeable protagonist, and in general, it's not hard to relate to the cast. Even some of Mob's friends at school are interesting characters, with my personal favorite being Tome Kurata. There are also a lot of minor characters designed mostly for laughs.
Having good development for your characters is just as important-- if not more so-- than having good starting concepts. Mob Psycho 100 develops its characters very well. Most of season 3 was focused on the personal growth of Mob, Reigen, and others around them. The diversity in personality types is another nice thing related to characters. For example, just look at Mob and Ekubo, who are complete opposites. Yet both are fun characters that you can't help liking in their own ways.
There were no major new characters this season, but I just wanted to add that Psycho Helmet's characterization, while brief, was extremely interesting. This anime not only writes likeable and fun protagonists, but also a few fascinating antagonists here and there. Overall, the character category easily earns an 8/10.
Personal Enjoyment: 8
I enjoyed elements of all the above categories in this season of Mob Psycho 100-- visuals, audio, story, and characters. But I'll also give examples of three specific things I liked.
The Sacred Tree/ Psycho Helmet arc was amazing to me in several places and in several ways. Story elements about brainwashing and blind religious fervor are always interesting to me. The emotional weight of Mob entering the tree to save the city from brainwashing was intense. Additionally, I loved that the Sacred Tree gained sentience and had its own character motivations and reasoning. It was a creepy creature, but it made a great temporary antagonist.
Besides that arc, another source of enjoyment for me was the episode where the psychic research club goes on a New Year's hike to a location where UFOs have been sighted. The episode was very touching, providing good character growth for Tome, even before they got to interact with actual aliens. The aliens were cute and funny. I had so much fun watching them spend time with the humans.
For a final example, I loved that Reigen finally told the truth to Shigeo/Mob. He admitted to having no psychic powers and being a complete fraud. He even apologized for acting like he was Mob's master. It was clearly difficult for Reigen to be honest this way, and he did get emotional during it. But he did it! I couldn't be prouder of my favorite conman.
Overall Score: 8.2 /10.0
The overall score is the average of the five scores for the categories explained above. I definitely consider Mob Psycho 100 as an easy 8/10 in general. The third season lived up to the previous installments, so this score makes sense. Interestingly enough, season 3 is currently enjoying a score of 8.77 on MyAnimeList.net. It seems like the reception for the third season has been overwhelmingly positive. That makes me smile. Thank you for reading my review of Mob Psycho 100: Season 3.
Thanks for reading~