Entertainment: Comparing Mob Psycho 100's Psychic Abilities with Real Life Blessings - An Essay

"If everyone is not special, Maybe you can be what you want to be" - Mob Choir

I used to watch a lot of anime, but I grew out of it in my teenage years. I just don't find it appealing anymore and admittedly, a lot of it's made for a younger audience. Most of the mainstream stuff are Shonen or Moe and I really don't like those genres. I'm not going to get into why I dislike them. Anime that I really enjoy nowadays are stuff like Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo, which makes sense because I fall under the Young Male target demographic now.

More importantly for this essay is I also really like Deconstructions. For those of you who don't know, you can check out its long, elaborate definition in the link I inserted. But to put it shortly and simply, a deconstruction is a type of storytelling that picks apart the commonalities of its peers and what makes it work i.e. it's when you "break apart" and analyze a story. Deconstruction isn't a genre of anime -- you can find deconstructions in any medium. They tend to look like parodies but what differentiates deconstructions from parodies is that they're done with the intent of making the viewer think of other similar works, instead of making the viewer laugh through satire which is what parodies normally do. There are two deconstruction animes I currently love: Mob Psycho 100 and Asobi Asobase. I already wrote about Asobi Asobase so we'll just go straight ahead with Mob Psycho 100.

I'd love to get some of the more official art on this blog
but I have to use the license-free images thanks to copyright issues.

Mob Psycho 100 is a Deconstruction anime that's hilarious and epic as much as it's deep. Lady Geek Girl does a great job explaining how Mob Psycho 100 deconstructs the Shonen genre here. If you're in the mood to philosophically contemplate the media you're consuming, you should definitely check it out! That's not what I want to expound on here.

In a nutshell, Mob Psycho 100 is about Shigeo Kageyama, nicknamed "Mob" by everyone around him. Mob is your average middle-school boy. He's a bit timid, frail, and he's also not the brightest. He has a crush on a girl that everyone says is way out of his league, and he works part-time for a conman. It doesn't sound like a lot of fun being Mob but what makes him unique is he's blessed with the strongest psychic abilities in the world. He's the closest thing to God when he lets his powers fly out of control. He can easily throw cars in the air and destroy buildings with his mind alone (I know I said he isn't the brightest but you don't need to be smart to be psychic!) The catch of the anime is that Mob doesn't want to use his powers. Not at all. Other psychics exist in Mob's universe and unlike Shigeo, they abuse their powers whenever they think it would benefit them. Mob's enemies are psychics who see themselves as special. They believe the world should put them on a pedestal to be worshipped for their specialty. They get a dose of reality after their run-in with Mob and they realize they're not so special after all. Mob beats them because his powers are on a wholly different level. Pitting the other psychic's powers to Mob's is like comparing a bunch of ants to the freakin' Sun.

With that said, Psychic Abilities play an important role in the world of Mob Psycho 100. It's become the general identifier of someone's specialty in the anime. The stronger your Psychic Abilities, the more special you are. Mob doesn't see himself as someone special even though he has God-given powers. This drives the other, weaker psychics mad because they've been completely invalidated. Psychic powers don't exist in real life, though. The theme of the anime is to be as down-to-earth as possible, so it'd be nice to have a reference on what exactly does the show pertain to exactly.

Below I've listed some real life attributes we have in real life. I'll try to compare them to Psychic Abilities in the anime to see which makes the best match.

1) Capacity for Violence

What if they're basically just punching each other with their minds?

This is an obvious one because there's so much destruction and fighting in the anime. It's wrong, but the reality is it's easy to get others to do what you want them to do, and get what you want, by using force. This is exactly what the Scar group (Mob's psychic enemies) do with their powers. Although more or less, an individual's capacity for violence isn't necessarily something someone is born with -- it can be trained -- this fits well given that Shonen anime are also basically about fighting, starring protagonists blessed with inexplicably strong powers.

Mob could be a middle-school boy with unholy bloodlust deep within him that freaks out adults like the Scars. They must think they're so tough just because they have a bit of bloodlust in them too. This situation would be somewhat similar to a bunch of fighters (Scar), who underestimate an up-and-coming street fighter with enormous potential (Mob).

I thought of the equivalence of violence to Psychic Abilities during the scene in one of the last episodes of season 2 where Mob scolded a bunch of weak psychics using their powers to break windows and loot abandoned shops. Mob can do the exact same thing, but he doesn't because he's in control of his bloodlust. He'd rather be a productive member of society.

2) Good Looks

Psychics are just a bunch of Narcissists

Psychic Abilities can be a symbolism for good looks because charisma and attractiveness is just something someone is born with. The reality is some people are born more attractive than others. Sometimes this gets into the heads of the charming people, and they start to think that they're more special than everybody else just because of their good looks.

It's possible that the symbolism here is that all the psychics are much more attractive than the general crowd, so they believe they deserve to be worshipped on a pedestal. Mob can be someone so young and so incredibly handsome who doesn't agree with this worldview, and he prefers to work hard to put some meaning into his life. This upsets the psychics because they know very well that without their charisma they're nothing in life. Mob, who has something going on for him while also being the best looking out of all of them, reminds them of their inferiority.

I'm stretching a bit here, but one of my evidences for thinking this is during Mob's fight with Teru, who proclaimed "I am the main character of the story" because he sees himself as so charismatic.

3) High IQ

Einstein may not have been a psychic,
but at least he contributed to society

High IQ works really well as a match for Psychic Abilities because both of these things are mental in nature. Similar to good looks, this is something that people are simply born with. Some people are gifted with high IQs, while others are not so lucky. IQ doesn't change drastically over the course of a person's life.

I thought of the connection between the two because there are so many pseudo-intellectuals online who like to compare IQs as if they're measuring d*ck lengths. Someone would say their IQ is 117, and another would jump out of nowhere to say their IQ is 121. All they do is spend a lot of time comparing IQs and arguing about esoteric topics on the internet instead of doing anything productive. People with high IQs also lack in the EQ department, so oftentimes they act like buttholes.

That goes exactly against one of the core messages of the anime: Just be a Good Person, okay?

I'm also reminded again of the scene where Mob scolds the weak psychics for breaking stuff and asks them a bunch of questions related to being a productive member of society, like if they know how to craft the glass they broke, manufacture the can they stole, or plant the seeds of the tree that creates the ingredients for the soda they didn't pay for. What's the point of having a high IQ if you're just going to spend all of your time arguing?

4) Money/Social Class

Psychics and the Bourgeoisie have one thing in common:
They're entitled

Out of all the items on this list, I think this is the one where I really stretch out. Regardless, I still see plenty of similarities between what the show's trying to say about Psychic Abilities, and our real life "power" of Money/Social Class.

Status is something we're born with. If we're born middle-class we'll probably die as middle-class. Likewise, if we were born as part of the lower class, we'd probably still be lower-class when we die. Moving up or down a status is actually quite difficult. Obviously, moving up is a lot harder than moving down. Our status carries money, and money is power.

I thought about this when I realized Teru was a popular kid in his own school. Normally it's the rich kids who become popular. The privilege associated with rich individuals give them the upper hand when it comes to sports, getting respect, and talking to the opposite sex. I also see a similarity between Psychic Powers and Money in the last episode of Season 2. Toichiro became so strong because he saved up his powers for over 20 years, kind of like how you can save money up.

5) Mental Illness

This looks nearly identical to that one scene in the opening!

This is the last one on the list because I like to save the best for last.

Mental Illness connects with Psychic Abilities because they're both psychological in nature (duh), and they both play a part when it comes to a person's emotions. Nowadays the term "Mental Illness" is used way too much, to the point that the term has lost both its meaning and value, and maybe that's one thing Mob Psycho 100 is trying to show.

There are many self-proclaimed psychics in the show, but a lot of them are fake. These psychics can be seen as "man-children" who just want to be seen as unique by society to get special treatment. The Scars, although they really do have psychic powers i.e. they really do have mental illnesses, think they deserve special treatment for it. Not Mob. Mob might have a really severe mental illness that he can't control, but he doesn't let that get to his head as him being "entitled". He understands that his mental illness isn't something to be celebrated. In fact, he sees it as a curse, so he tries to live his life as if it doesn't exist.

I thought of this connection between mental illnesses and psychic abilities because of the traumatic experience Mob had with his little brother, when they were bullied. Mob unconsciously used his powers to kill the bullies, but he badly injured his little brother in the process. Ever since that incident, his brother Ritsu's been afraid of him whenever he has episodes. Ritsu doesn't want his brother to be stressed out because he might explode again.

As someone who is mentally ill, I can say with certainty my sisters really don't like it when I have one of my episodes. They try to steer clear from it as much as possible.

Conclusion:

I know just last week I said I made a really long blog post, but apparently this one is longer than my blog post about why video games are a good way to waste your time. What have we learned from all that I've written about Mob and the show's Psychic Abilities?

I think it's safe to say that the author, One, did a good job of choosing Psychic Abilities as the "power type" that makes the special characters in the anime, well... special. Since Psychic Abilities have a lot in common with a bunch of other attributes like the ones I listed above, its very easy to relate to the anime. The show clearly wants us to relate it with our own lives, so it let's us see what we want to see since Psychic Abilities actually don't exist in real life. We're allowed to fill in the gap on what would it really be in real life.

What do you think the Psychic Abilities represent in Mob Psycho 100? Is it different from the ones I mentioned in the list? Let me know in the comments below :)