A Small But Crucial Detail I Really Love About S3e12 And Reigen’s Whole Encounter With ??? Is The Fact

A small but crucial detail I really love about S3e12 and Reigen’s whole encounter with ??? is the fact that Reigen doesn’t break down until he lays eyes on Mob.

Reigen is calm and collected throughout the “earthquakes”, realizing that Mob’s causing the disaster, running after him, and braving his way through the tornado. He’s determined to reach Mob at all costs and never wavers or hesitates.

Reigen calls out to Mob when he sees his silhouette in the distance, but it’s not until Reigen struggles close enough to Mob to actually see the state he’s in that his composure crumbles.

And it crumbles. It’s the first time the audience has ever seen Reigen so openly upset. I am not exaggerating by saying that Reigen is genuinely desperate and distraught, and it happened the moment Reigen made visual contact with Mob.

And this isn’t even taking into account him breaking down into tears talking with Mob. This is just the start of the encounter.

I like this little detail so much because it accentuates the fact that Reigen truly didn’t have any idea what Mob was dealing with or holding inside. All of the evidence pointed to Mob being the cause of the disaster. Reigen knew on a logical level that this was Mob’s power at work (“But Mob’s in the center of that tornado, right?”). But I think Reigen still refused to believe it on a more emotional level. To Reigen, Mob can do no wrong. Reigen sees Mob with such a favorable tint, I’m sure in that moment everything seemed so unreal to Reigen that he couldn’t make himself believe Mob was capable of this.

But when he finally catches a visual of Mob in his ??? form, he sees Mob wrapped in a sinister red energy and absolutely monstrous, his shape blurry and poorly defined from his raw power distorting it into charcoal-like smudges, his face stuck in a pained grimace. ??? looks so out of place in the normal animation style that he seems otherworldly, like he belongs in a different dimension.

The only thing keeping Reigen in denial was not directly seeing Mob rampaging around the city. So when Reigen saw ???, the realizations and the gravity of the situation just hit him all at once and he flew into a desperate panic.

It just seems so like Reigen to downplay Mob’s ability to hurt, both himself and others.

I hope this makes sense lol i’m so tired