Back in 2022 there were a lot of things going on in my life. Among other things, after dealing with infertility for multiple years, late that year I got pregnant with my one-and-only child. Probably because of that, mainly the immense fatigue that came along with it, I didn’t have a lot of energy to watch anime. I was really happy that the final season of Mob Psycho 100 was coming out, but I was chronically sleepy and had trouble finishing the episodes I was watching. Around episode 5 I reached a point where I felt like I’d have to re-watch episodes and that’s a difficult prospect for me even in more typical circumstances. So the series sat unfinished from that point on until I picked it up again in early April 2026.
I re-started the season, because history told me that it would be worth giving it my full attention and while I vaguely had some recollection of what was going on (giant broccoli, Dimple being conniving) I was missing a lot of the core emotional details of the story. I’m glad I gave it a second shot, because I think taking the season in full reveals the real power of the story.
For all its eye-popping action sequences, which are apparent from any trailer or AMV that uses the series as a source, the aspect of the Mob Psycho 100 story that has really kept me engaged over the years has been its handling of protagonist Shigeo’s emotional growth and the story’s insistence that being gifted in some way doesn’t absolve one of their duty to act with humanity. Shigeo is a boy with immense power at his fingertips; one snap of his fingers could severely damage any building, object, or person that happens to get in his way. And yet while the story certainly provides some opportunity to indulge in this type of material, Shigeo himself is shown as kind, sensitive, and hard-working. Rather than rely on his telekinesis, he joins the Body Improvement Club to work on his physical health (and if you’ve ever wondered about what non-toxic masculinity looks like, look no further than those boys). He has a good relationship with his sibling, whose social successes would make a more insecure person envious. He’s pure of heart to the point that he can work with a swindler like Reigen and motivate him to be a better person.
For many years I had a difficult time understanding the appeal of a character like Superman. He seemed to entirely lack nuance – he was a goody-two-shoes who used his immense powers to aid him in acts that were almost inarguably good. It wasn’t until someone in my life who was a big fan of the character explained the to me and helped me realize that Superman’s goodness was the nuance. With so much power at his disposal, Superman could easily subjugate humanity and demand whatever he wanted from them through force. And yet he chooses (due to the luck of his upbringing and other factors) to be a helper. More recently there have been several “what if Superman bad?” pieces of fiction, and while that kind of character and scenario exploration can be interesting in its own way, it also falsely professes a kind of uniqueness that doesn’t pan out. We live in a world where there are plenty of real life “Superman bad” examples – people whose toxic combination of shitty upbringing and immense wealth and privilege has lead them to abandon their humanity to dominate and subjugate – mostly via class exploitation rather than violence, though there’s some of that, too. It’s exhausting, and it’s sometimes helpful to be able to turn toward counter-examples as a way to heal.
Shigeo is interesting because he’s a good person who, despite living through some situations where his emotional fortitude is put to the test, chooses the path of kindness. Over the course of the series he crosses paths with several people who manage some flavor of “Superman bad,” and while the plot progression does a good enough job of revealing what these characters’ issues are and why their behavior is wrong and even goes so far as to help us develop some empathy toward many of them, what I’ve found really special about the series is that it blatantly calls out the laziness of those individuals who rely on their “specialness” to make demands and assume superiority over others. Reigen Arataka himself, who despite dealing with his own issues and turning to half-truths to make a living, explains that having a particular gift, even one that can literally move mountains, doesn’t make one person superior to another. I think that’s a lesson that so many people, especially those with gifts, need to be told more often.
When I was in 6th grade I was still living under this illusion that being designated as gifted (which I had been since I entered public school) meant something substantial. I had a particular math teacher who liked to say that “nerds will rule the world someday.” I think her intentions were good – many of us, including myself, didn’t get treated nicely by some of the other students and I think in some way she was trying to bolster our confidence. But being good at math is just luck most of the time. When that luck finally ran out for me and poor executive function, zero study skills (since I didn’t ever have to develop them) and absolute disorganization reared their ugly heads in conjunction with the absolute shit-show that was adolescence, I was ill-prepared for the absolute obliteration of my self-esteem that followed in its wake. It was enough to make me resentful for years, because in my case I’d clearly been sold a myth of what “specialness” provides, when in fact being good at something can only really carry one so far before it becomes irrelevant in the face of actually having social and life skills. Imagine that resentment coupled with the power to “do something about it” and I’m sure you can see the issue at play.
Mob Psycho 100 III reiterates all of these themes and ties Shigeo’s story up well. I don’t think it would be wrong to call the season predictable and in this case I would consider that to be a compliment. It manages several major character actions, including Dimple finally learning a valuable lesson about friendship, Reigen finally being truthful about his psychic powers (or really the lack thereof), and Shigeo finally confessing his feelings to his crush, with the natural and correct result of that action occurring.
Ultimately the series (including the final season) is sort of the perfect culmination of lessons-learned that continues to remind us that being worthy of care shouldn’t be based on some inherent skill that’s mostly out of our control, but on the way that we choose to engage with others and with life. Hard work and dedication to a goal is worth so much more than ill-gotten power, the same way that friendship and family (in whatever form they exist) are worth farm more than relationships formed through force.