Sometimes I remember that out of everyone else in the military that we've seen, it is the depressed seemingly cynical Roy Mustang who's written as the optimist and I sed a tear
She’s in her Dostoyevsky era.
Things I love about this exchange:
1. It’s really funny.
2. Reigen refers to being the bodyguard and right hand man of a megalomaniacal esper terrorist as “Serizawa’s last job” which is a perfect example of his attitude towards everything. “Yes I know you kidnapped the prime minister but have you, personally, got any customer service experience?”
3. It’s clear from this scene that Serizawa’s job interview was saving Reigen from a giant ball of psychic power and at no point did either of them discuss what he’d be doing there.
4. “Smack them with my umbrella.” Obviously this is a translated work and I don’t know if this nuance was in the original line at all, but I love the phrasing here. I don’t believe for a second Toichiro told him to “smack” people with his umbrella so much as "eliminate them without hesitation or mercy" and the fact that Serizawa would frame it in such an innocuous way speaks to the level of denial he was in.
5. Reigen, who recently had to knock out a client that pulled a knife on him: Yeah, things aren’t that different here.
I’ve seen comments elsewhere complaining about Reigen yet again lying to Mob and regressing but I really didnt see this scene that way.
a) Reigen didn’t pull a “I am your master and my powers tell me they’re fine”. He said he thought they were safe and told Mob a legitimate reason to assume so. The only ‘lie’ would be his utter calm and certainty as he said it, since he isn’t sure. But he had to act like that so Mob could calm down in turn. But ultimately, he didn’t lie or trick Mob into it, he made no certain statement and gave him an explanation;
b) Despite the fact that he didnt lie, if his supposition turns out wrong, Mob is likely not going to react well anyway. Reigen knows this. He said to Dimple Mob might hate him forever, and that’s something Reigen is also risking. Considering the face he made after Mob passed out, his gamble wasn’t to make his own life easier by not dealing with angry Mob, but a gamble for Mob’s sake. And he knows what he’s risking for it.
a broadly applicable extended metaphor for the kageyama brothers:
this applies to LOTS of things about both of them– least of all, but most noticeably, their hair.
mob is round. he’s blunt, socially dull, tangential to the lives of his peers. he’s like a firm ball of clay rolled between two hands. when he learns new things, it’s like, first he has to make them stick, then he has to re-roll himself back into shape without them falling out. ideally, the things he learns become a part of him. overall, it’s a clumsy process, so he’s not the best learner, but neither is he the worst. and he’s good when it comes to learning about (and improving) himself, because he can reshape himself, being clay. he is also relatively easily influenced by others, who may try to shape him to their own liking. still, roundness is the most comfortable shape for him, so he always returns to it.
ritsu is sharp. sharp-tongued, sharp-eyed, sharp-witted. he’s like a mass of thorns or shards of glass. when he learns new things, they stick easily, becoming impaled on his jagged surface, and he understands them intimately, though they remain separate from his self. ritsu is a very good learner. but he’s not very good at learning about himself, because when he tries to delve deeper, he gets poked by his own spikes. he is also more brittle than mob, so it’s harder to improve himself; things need to break before they can change shape. likewise, ritsu is less easily influenced, being more solid and thus less permeable. he wishes he was a more organic shape, like his brother, despite the many clear advantages afforded to him by his sharpness.
mob’s psychic power is also based on roundness– his aura in the anime consists of overlapping circles. his power, tied directly to his emotions, is round like a coiled spring. as his explosion meter slowly ticks up, the spring is compressed bit by bit. when he hits 100%, it releases all that potential energy at once, then slowly collapses back to normal.
ritsu’s psychic power is also based on sharpness– his aura in the anime looks like jagged shreds. where mob’s aura flows like ripples in a pond, ritsu’s cracks and crinkles along fault lines, like paper or tin foil that’s been folded before. the uneven structure means he can’t store emotions as psychic energy in the same way as his brother; emotions just create more faults and fissures, making it harder to direct his power anywhere else.
ritsu is certainly sharp by nature, but much of his jaggedness is a result of having parts of him shattered by trauma. i can’t help but wonder how different he would be had he never met ???%.
(This post only uses manga caps for convenience’s sake,)
One of the main plot points of MP100 is Mob’s aversion to using his powers. This was due to a number of things, but that main two being Tsubomi and a tragic event where he accidentally hurt his brother.
This, of course, eventually leads to Mob’s explosions or “100%.” But in theory, these explosions wouldn’t be nearly as bad if Mob wasn’t as powerful. Which begs the question - where did all of Mob’s psychic power come from?
We know he’s a natural born psychic. He’s had his powers since he was young - Ritsu confirmed as much.
But obviously being able to float dogs since birth doesn’t give you godly powers. There are at least four other natural born psychics in the show, and their abilities all differ.
We also already know that Mob hasn’t been “training” his powers or anything. He’s avoided using them at all cost. So why the strength if he’s not even training? Well, the answer is simple.
Holding back his emotions.
We already know from Dimple that emotions can affect your psychic powers, and from Ritsu’s “experiments,” we know it can increase said power.
So it’s safe to say that after years of stress and other floods of emotions (that Mob has been holding back,) his power naturally increased because of all his turmoil. However, this wouldn’t be bad if he were also using his powers freely like Ritsu did. But since Mob is still too afraid to do such, he was accidentally saving energy.
Saving energy is something that we know is possible due to both of the Suzukis doing it. You can still use part of your energy and save the rest. Kind of like eating one slice of pizza instead of the entire thing.
These two things are what makes Mob so overpowered. Whenever Mob goes 100%, he is using part of 10+ years of held back emotions.
But keep in mind that this energy isn’t being immediately replaced. When you eat a slice of pizza, another one doesn’t magically take it’s place. You either have to cook more or buy another slice. Both of which takes time.
So when Mob goes 100%, he is depleting part of the energy he has saved for so long.
This leads you to believe “Wouldn’t Mob eventually run out of stored energy?”
Yes, but when he uses ???%, this energy is replaced.
During his fight with Teruki, he absorbed the other’s power. (Along with everything else in the atmosphere.)
Luckily, ???% is much rarer than 100%, otherwise Mob would eventually take in more energy than he got rid of.
TLDR: Mob’s power is due to him holding in his emotions and if not for his 100% explosions, he could eventually kill us with a sneeze.
mogami tv show box set is $40. mogami variety show appearances free on youtube
nora - she/her - yelling about other things in @extra-spicy-fire-noodles
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