“Mob” is a boy who will explode if his emotional capacity reaches 100%. This boy with psychic powers earned his nickname “Mob” because he does not stand out among other people. He keeps his psychic powers bottled up so he can live normally, but if his emotional level reaches 100, something will overwhelm his entire body. – ANN
Episode Summary: Shigeo “Mob” Kageyama has an after-school gig working for Reigen Arataka, an exorcist of questionable talent with an eye toward making a profit. Otherwise, he’s an unremarkable boy who happens to have access to some of the most powerful telekinetic abilities most people have ever seen. However, Mob’s friend Mezato has reason to help (force?) Mob to overcome his bland existence. Without his knowledge, she’s positioned him as the leader of a budding psychic group, and she needs for him to take on a more impressive stature so that her ruse doesn’t fall through. This is easier said that done, however. Mob makes a run for student council president, but freezes when it’s his turn to speak, destroying Mezato’s dreams.
Unexpectedly, Mob receives a love letter in his locker. When he meets its author, Emi, behind the school, she says that she was so impressed by the courage it took him to get on stage for his aborted speech that she’d like to go out with him. The two spend a week together before Emi lets on that this was all a ruse. As Mob starts to walk home, he discovers Emi being bullied and uses his powers to reassemble the manuscript the other girls tore into pieces. Emi is impressed by his kindness, and makes a pledge to be truer to her own feelings.
Yuu, a young healer with the power to heal the hearts of monsters, receives a mysterious bottle from his father as a gift. When Yuu touches the bottle, Merc, a girl made of liquid, appears from it. Merc has no memories from before she met Yuu and wants to learn more about who she is, so the two of them set out on a journey through various countries. – ANN
Episode Summary: Yuu is a young man with a developing ability to heal agitated beasts and monsters. His adventuring dad brings him home what looks like just a weird bottle of water, but inside is a magical water fairy named Merc with a snappy personality and a desire to lead Yuu out on his own adventures.
As Yuu and Merc plan to embark on a quest (since Merc’s horoscope leads her to believe that it’s the best time to do so), they get involved with a small, fluffy monster who seems insistent that they follow him. Their fluffy friend leads them to a large monster in need of healing. Though Yuu’s abilities may be somewhat untrained, his natural talents are able to calm the beast. To show thanks, their fluff ball companion elects to join them as they adventure into the unknown.
Masaru Saiga is a fifth-grade boy who aims to become a puppeteer. After Sadayoshi Saiga — the CEO of the giant home telephone maker Saiga and Masaru’s father — passes away, Masaru inherits 18 billion yen. Masaru is targeted for his wealth, and is saved by two people. Narumi Katō is a man who has studied Kung-Fu and has a weird illness called “Zonapha Syndrome,” and Shirogane is a silver-haired woman who controls the puppet “Arurukan” (Harlequin). Together, Masaru, Narumi, and Shirogane get thrown into various conspiracies by those who would try to steal Masaru’s fortune. – ANN
Episode Summary: Narumi is a martial-arts expert, but you wouldn’t know it from his day job as a costumed advertisement for a circus. As he’s handing out flyers to passers-by, a boy runs into him with his luggage. This young man, Masaru, is on the run from several very threatening men-in-black who seem immune to physical attacks. Narumi and Masaru escape from them onto a train, but their safety is only temporary; these dark figures, who are soon revealed to be puppet-like automatons, attack their car and derail the train, crashing it into Narumi’s circus tent.
Inside, Masaru and Narumi find themselves cornered, until a silver-haired woman wearing a sparkling unitard descends from a tightrope above and takes control of the huge marionette in Masaru’s luggage. This woman, Shirogane, has a long-standing commitment to Masaru’s family, and uses her skills to rescue him. Still, she doesn’t know much about the lay of the land, so as Masaru receives medical treatment, Narumi and Shirogane reach an uneasy truce.
Seth is a boy who seeks to become a great magician, and a group of witches who seek to travel to the Radiant. Radiant is a mythical land that spawns monsters called “Néméses” which fall to the world from the sky. While traveling, they are also hunted by The Inquisition – ANN
Episode Summary: The demonic “Nemesis” have mysterious origins; they might be Heaven’s punishment or they could be monsters ejected from Hell. Those who encounter these beasts, should they survive, are forever changed by the experience. Most become “cursed” by magical power, which they in turn use to defend the rest of Humanity against the Nemesis. Seth is one of these cursed sorcerers, or at least he aims to be one; currently he’s just an apprentice to Alma, an experienced magician and Nemesis-hunter. His enthusiasm for magic is not matched by his actual skill, and this tends to cause friction between Seth and the rest of the local town.
One day, Seth and his friend Tommy witness something horrific streaking across the sky – Seth recognizes it as a Nemesis egg and he sends Tommy to evacuate the townspeople. Seth decides to take on the challenge of defeating the Nemesis on his own since Alma is off fighting elsewhere. The task soon proves overwhelming as the monster rebukes every one of Seth’s tricks and weapons. Just as he’s about to be crushed, the monster is blasted away by a group of 4 wandering sorcerers who’ve arrived just in the nick of time.
Naples, 2001. Giorno Giovanna is a small-time crook with one big dream—to become a “Gang-Star.” No ordinary thief, Giorno has a connection to the remarkable Joestar bloodline, and possesses a Stand named Gold Experience. His dream starts to become reality when he meets Bruno Buccellati, a mobster from the gang Passione and a fellow Stand user himself. Realizing that they share similar ideals, and both disagree with the gang’s harmful affairs, Giorno reveals his goal to Bruno: with Bruno’s help, he will reform Passione by overthrowing the boss. – MAL
Episode Summary: Naples, Italy is a beautiful city drawing tourists from far and wide, but it has a darker underbelly filled with drug use and crime. Teenager Giorno Giovanni exists somewhere in between, committing petty crime for profit and paying the police to look the other way, but also occasionally also thwarting the efforts of local gangsters. When he crosses Leaky-eyed Luca, a violent gang member after protection money, Giorno uses a mysterious power, called “Golden Wind,” to turn the tables on Luca. The gangster’s defeat draws the attention of his associates and puts a target on Giorno’s head.
In the mean time, Koichi Hirose arrives in Naples on the orders of Jotaro Joestar; he’s been sent on a mission to gain information (and perhaps a DNA sample) of a young man named Haruno Shiobana, who Jotaro believes may be the human son of DIO. After encountering Giorno multiple times (and being duped by him), Koichi is positive that Giorno and Haruno are on-and-the-same; Jotaro agrees, and believes Giorno’s un-Japanese blond hair is likely a symptom of the awakening of his stand powers. As Koichi mulls over how best to fulfill his mission, Giorno is cornered on the trolley by a gangster named Bruno, an associate of Luca and someone with frightening powers of his own.
Summary: Kagayama Shigeo, aka “Mob,” is one of the most powerful psychic forces in the world. However, Mob is employed by local spiritualist (and thinly-veiled con-man) Arataka Reigen, whose newest money-making scheme involves a novelization of their adventures from his clouded point-of-view.
Review: Fans hoping for a genuine bonus OVA or sequel to the wildly-popular Mob Psycho 100 will likely be disappointed by this special event episode, as it’s mostly a clip show summarizing the events of the anime’s first season. However, with a first-cour as strong as Mob‘s, there’s something to be said for the experience of reliving its best moments distilled into an action-packed and humorous hype-fest for the show’s upcoming second season.
Reigen the Miraculous Unknown Psychic is a retelling of Mob’s adventures through the eyes of Arataka Reigen, who in actuality played a small (but deceptively important) role in the original story. True-to-form, Reigen sees himself as the hero of this tale, and as he dictates his autobiography to Shigeo the recollections are embellished with his presence in situations where he didn’t, in actuality, have an active role. Most of the humor is derived from the absurd visuals of Reigen’s head pasted on Mob’s or Hanazawa’s body, as well as nagging feeling for those of us who are familiar enough with the original series to know that Reigen’s version isn’t quite right.
What’s interesting to note is that, despite Reigen’s puffery, he’s actually the storytelling conduit for the main theme of the series – having a talent doesn’t make one superhuman or above common-sense or responsibility – and this is evident even when he’s stretching the truth about his involvement in defeating the Claw group or mentoring Mob. It’s amusing that we the audience can immediately see the value in his words and mentorship, but Reigen himself seems to place more value on what makes him look good and how he deceives those around him.
I think perhaps the major draw of this event episode is the “big reveal” at the end that a second anime season is currently in production, but those who pay attention to anime news were probably already aware of that since the information had already been posted on the various news outlets. Still, despite the fact that this episode is mostly extraneous, it’s an amusing rehash of a series that could have been just another shounen action joint, but which happily coupled its awesome action animation with a perceptive story about giftedness and bullying. If you haven’t watched Mob lately, it might be worthwhile to check out this abridged (and slightly-altered) version of the show, if only as a pleasant reminder that it manages to hold-up to multiple viewings.
Since he was a young boy, Tomoki Sakai has been in love with the sport of diving. After years of practice and stalwart determination, there’s no place where he feels more at home than in those brief seconds of flight before he’s submerged into the water. Unfortunately, he and the other boys of the Muzuki Diving Club (MDC) aren’t doing enough to please their sponsors, and the club is on the verge of being disbanded. Enter coach Kayoko Asaki, a fiery woman who is determined to pull the boys of the MDC back from the brink. Her mission: get the MDC to the Tokyo Olympics in one year’s time. Tomoki and his friends have a long road ahead of them as they begin their fight to fulfill their dreams. – ANN
Episode 1 Summary: As a youngster, Tomoki Sakai had a chance meeting that changed his life forever. He caught a glimpse of Yoichi Fujitani flying through the air as he dove into a pool below. It was then that Tomoki fell in love with diving. Tomoki’s road to being a competent diver was fraught with challenges, including his fear of opening his eyes before hitting the water, but having Yoichi as an inspiration (and occasional teacher and mentor) has helped give him the confidence to keep going. Tomoki’s personal life, however, isn’t quite so successful; though he accepted a request to go out from a girl named Miyu, he’s unenthusiastic about the relationship and would rather spend his time worrying about his sport. When rumors start going around about the closing of the Mizuki Diving Club, Tomoki’s place of training and home-away-from-home, all the members of the club are understandably stressed. In reality, the arrival of new coach Kayoko Asaki marks the beginning of a new, ambitious goal for MDC; get the club members to the Tokyo Olympics in one year’s time. But is this a goal that’s within the team’s grasp?
Impressions: Amazon seems to have a pretty firm grasp on many of the anime that piqued my interest this season, and Dive!! is no exception. As a part of Fuji TV’s long-running noitaminA anime programming block, it’s also part of Amazon’s current exclusivity deal. Years ago I was quite the noitaminA devotee, having been attracted to its penchant for broadcasting anime aimed at an older (and often female) audience. In more recent years its reputation has become more spotty, but at the very least I can still say that most of noitaminA’s programming is somewhat off the beaten path.
Yoichi demonstrates his skill. Copyright 2017 (c) Zero-G
This series will obviously invite many comparisons with Free! due to its similar title stylization and penchant for portraying young men in Speedo swimsuits. It’s also a sports series that seems to deal more in character dynamics and emotions, which was one of Free!’s strengths as an anime. Whereas KyoAni’s famous outing made a name for itself by combining sports action, character development, and great animation, not to mention fanservice aimed at individuals attracted to the male body, this series is, thus far, much more subdued in tone and execution. Whereas the episode ends with the introduction of a huge goal – get to the world stage by qualifying for the Tokyo Olympics – it spends much of the rest of the run time telling a much quieter, more contained tale of one young man’s internal conflict between what he feels he should like – having a girlfriend and spending time with his friends at school – and what he feels compelled to do – achieving even greater heights (literally!) in the sport he’s come to love. This fits in well with noitaminA’s catalog, which contains a lot of anime series that speak to the realities of human existence in ways both large and small within almost every sort of genre context. Despite Tomoki’s status as “yet another teenage male anime protagonist,” I actually felt like his struggles were relateable, because they’re also much bigger than high school. Many of us find ourselves pulled in multiple directions, and part of life is learning to balance our wants and needs in order to create a satisfying existence.
One moment that really pierced through some of my misgivings was the flashback to Tomoki’s one-on-one mentorship with Yoichi, the one time Yoichi seemed to find the time and inspiration to give direct instruction. Tomoki is told that he needs to keep his eyes open, to see where he’s going and orient himself to the water (this is after failing several times to enter the water cleanly from his dives and looking like a doofus). There’s an element of technical instruction to this advice, of course, but there’s also a broader message within it about facing challenges head-on with open eyes. One thing I was always told as a child when playing catch or tossing a Frisbee, was that I needed to keep my eyes open and not shy away from the object flying quickly and painfully towards my face. Practically, there’s a better chance you’ll catch the ball (or enter the water better) if you’re watching what you’re doing. There’s also a much higher chance of achieving success in life if you handle challenges head-on with as much knowledge as you’re able to gather. As someone with anxiety, this is a challenge that I have to face every day, and sometimes what essentially amounts to large-scale self-imposed exposure therapy is a terrifying proposition (and not one that works for me all the time or would work for anyone/everyone else regularly, either), but I find myself better able to cope now that I’ve at least made an attempt to face my fears. I was surprised to find myself relating to the show on this level so quickly.
Tomoki isn’t sure about his feelings for Miyu. Copyright 2017 (c) Zero-G
The unfortunate thing is that this isn’t a great looking show. This tends to be the case with a lot of noitaminA series, at least in my experience. They’re caught in a space where they’re meant to appeal to a more mainstream audience, but that means that there’s not really a built-in guarantee of financial success like there might be for a show related to a big-selling game, book, or manga property. I suspect that makes it less attractive to animators in some way, or there’s not as much energy and time devoted to scheduling and planning something that’s slick and produced in a way that’s meant to “wow” people. While the promo art might give the impression of shiny male abs and sports action, there’s ultimately not a lot of focus on that element. There aren’t high detail shots of abs or bodies in motion (there we go, comparing it to Free! again), but again I feel like that’s not really the point here. I do think that viewers might expect that kind of thing from this series, though, and if that’s the case there’s bound to be some disappointment.
There’s also a little bit of juvenile humor in this episode that feels really out of place considering how subdued the tone is. One of Tomoki’s friends at the MDC can’t seem to get over the fact that a beautiful woman has come to visit their coach, and there’s a much-longer-than-necessary scene in which this character melts down over the fact of the woman’s curvaceous body and his default assumption that their coach must be having an affair with her. It’s the episode’s one real attempt at being silly or funny, and beyond being generally out of place it’s also pretty crass and doesn’t add anything to the episode. I maintain that teenage boys aren’t nearly as stupid as anime makes them out to be.
Though there are a few missteps, I’m actually, surprisingly still interested in this series despite how it went against a lot of my initial expectations (or possibly because of it). I think it runs the possibility of being a little generic, and with only 11 episodes it doesn’t have much time to bring all the characters where they need to go, but I like that it seems very self-contained and doesn’t seem concerned with being bombastic and intense like a lot of other sports anime. This might be a show worth spending a little time with.
Pros: Seems to have a pretty deep message about facing anxiety and balancing the various elements of one’s life. The tone is pretty subdued.
Cons: The production values are lacking somewhat. There’s some juvenile humor that falls flat.
“Saitama is a hero who only became a hero for fun. After three years of “special” training, though, he’s become so strong that he’s practically invincible. In fact, he’s too strong—even his mightiest opponents are taken out with a single punch, and it turns out that being devastatingly powerful is actually kind of a bore. With his passion for being a hero lost along with his hair, yet still faced with new enemies every day, how much longer can he keep it going?” – Daisuki.net
Review: I do a panel once a year at the Anime Detour anime convention focused on “Anime for Grown-Ups” – anime series that older anime fans might enjoy. I try to pull anime series, old and new, from several different genres that have aspects that might appeal to folks who are older, have a lot of life experience, and might not identify very closely with the typical anime protagonist (teenage male high school students, specifically). There are people who tend to misinterpret this as me saying that popular anime or anime aimed at younger audiences is “inferior” in some way to these shows and movies that I’m suggesting in this panel, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s just that, sometimes, it can be difficult being an older anime fan and never seeing yourself represented in the shows you like to watch, especially in the popular ones.
The upside is that, when the overlap between popularity and representation happens, it’s like striking gold a hundred times over. One Punch Man isn’t a complicated show and its action animation and humorous writing have made it really popular with the anime viewing masses. But the element of the series that resonated the most with me and which I think makes it more successful than anime with a similar focus is that its central character embodies a lot of the things that can make life as an adult an emotional struggle.
Let me just say, I really like being a grown-up. I like handling my finances, being able to hold down a job, and having the ability to decide what to do with my time. Driving a car is really great, and watching all the R-rated movies I like is pretty nice, also. But there are struggles, too. Navigating treatment for mental illness sucks, mortgages are complicated and scary, and even a good job can get really boring and tedious if you aren’t in a space where you feel like challenging yourself. Possibly one of the worst parts of coming into your adulthood is eventually gaining enough knowledge of the world to become cynical about it. If you’re careful and lucky this might be avoidable, but I think for most of us it’s easy to allow the gleam of adulthood’s privileges wear off, or perhaps you’re in a situation where you’ve never really even been allowed access to the things that others take for granted. Either way, arriving at the realization that “this is it” can be kind of sucky.
Saitama dreams of a challenging encounter. Copyright Madhouse Inc.
What I loved about this show is that this is exactly where we meet Saitama. Currently stronger than just about every monster, demon, or alien that shows up to harass the people of his city, Saitama’s internal desire to fight for justice and defend the citizenry is currently at a low simmer. He’s reached a point where life no longer holds any challenges, and waking up from a wonderful dream where he’s in an all-out fight for his life, only to realize that the hot-blooded danger he envisioned in his mind’s eye was all an illusion, is depressing. There’s actually some humor in this situation, but I think different audiences will laugh for vastly different reasons. Young people will likely giggle at the utter absurdity of Saitama’s battle power and how his low-key attitude about it all is so incredibly different from your typical bellowing shounen anime protagonist. But for those of us who have been around long enough to have come to the realization that, most of the time, you don’t end up in some career that uses all your talents and pays enough to allow you to live your dreams, and most of the time life isn’t an endless parade of doing whatever the hell you want with your time, the laughter definitely comes from a place of understanding. For a show about a guy who punches dudes through buildings and causes enemy bodies to explode, I’m starting to make it sound kind of depressing.
One of the things that saves this series from being entirely cynical is the relationship between Saitama and his eager student, the cyborg soldier Genos. It’s clear from the outset that Genos doesn’t really need anyone to train him since his robotic body affords him all sorts of power, so much so that he’s immediately recognized as one of the top-ranked heroes in Japan. Even though he could survive well enough as a loner, he thrives when he looks to Saitama as his master.
There are a lot of times when I wonder why, at the age of 34, I still attend a college anime club. Most of the time when I’m there I get really irritated at the other attendees and their inability to settle down and watch the shows, or the fact that they might not appreciate the full scope of why some series are classic or important (not just older shows, but some really great newer ones, too). But I also get the experience of being around people who are plenty smart and full of real talent, and for some reason some of them want to talk to and get to know me, too. It’s easy to look at anime fandom and think, as an “older” fan, “there’s nothing left for me here.” Fandom keeps getting younger while I stay the same, or at least it seems that way sometimes. But when I see my younger friends’ artwork or hear about the new cosplay they’re working on, or if they want to talk to me about lolita fashion, there’s something about those interactions that remind me that there isn’t such a wide gulf between myself and these people, and being around them helps remind me that I don’t have to let go of all the shiny things in life just because life itself isn’t a constant stream of shinies and rainbows. I like to think (and have interpreted the situation as such), that Saitama gains a little bit of the same perspective being around Genos, whose earnestness helps to offset Saitama’s ennui very well.
Saitama (unwillingly) takes on a protege. Copyright Madhouse Inc.
The other aspect of the series that reflects its underlying youthful joy is the way that this show was animated. As much as I would love to be an expert on key animators and the animation process in Japan, it’s just not a sense that I’ve had time to develop and so I leave it to the experts. There’s an excellent article over at Anime News Network written by contributor Kevin Cirugeda regarding what makes One Punch Man‘s animation so special, complete with commentary and some informative gifs that should give you a pretty good idea of what has gone into making this show look the way that it does. The biggest takeaway I had, though, and what I think is especially relevant to the spirit of this series, is that the production team for this anime wasn’t working with some extravagant animation budget or an abundance of time in which to draw it all. What it is, according to the chief animation director, is simply the work of passionate animators doing their best. Knowing anything about the Japanese animation industry, with its ability to work its animators to the bone and pay them salaries that keep them in a state of poverty, it seems almost impossible to think that there are animators left with the ability and drive to push their art to the limit. But once again I think that’s one of the lessons worth learning from this series – it’s easy to be cynical (and sometimes grossed-out) once you know how the sausage is made, but it bears repeating that there are many people who, either because of their young age or some magical ability of theirs to keep from becoming completely jaded, truly exemplify why there are things worth caring about.
If I had to levy a complaint against this anime, it would probably be that it gets bogged-down by introducing a lot of side characters and “plot” (defined very loosely) in the second half that drag the show down a bit. With a title like One Punch Man expecting high art would be stupid, and the show appropriately spends most of its time being, how to say, “dumb as hell.” That’s fine and doesn’t bother me. Even with a paper thin plot I still managed to somehow draw a lot of personal meaning from the show. But once the series achieved “dumb as hell and full of other dummies, too” by introducing a slew of other hero characters in the latter several episodes, I started to get a little annoyed. Some of the characters are interesting – I especially liked Silver Fang, the old man with high level martial art powers. But some of them are downright irritating, namely Tatsumaki, the green-haired esper with a bad attitude who spends most of her screen time being snotty for no reason. In any case, because the anime is so brief I felt like there really wasn’t time to utilize the large cast of characters very well, and if there had been a good way to keep things simple (at least for this season of the show, as there will surely be more to come later on) and focus on Saitama and Genos for a while, I would have preferred that. Because the final confrontation is so purely focused on Saitama, specifically him finding someone with whom he can have a (nearly) fair fight, I think this would have been do-able with a little tweaking. But surely that would have upset fans of the source material, so it’s just another no-win anime adaptation situation.
The aftermath of one of Saitama’s encounters. Copyright Madhouse Inc.
Being an adult is complicated, and it doesn’t always feel that great. For every awesome splurge, there’s also an accompanying bill to be paid. The ability to do the fun things you want to do is coupled with the lack of energy that keeps you from doing it. You can buy any anime DVD you want, but there might not be a lot around that you want to own anymore (not my personal problem, but then again I’m a hopeless weeb 4 lyfe up in here). In some cases, it can feel a little bit like there’s not much point to going through the motions every day. I think it’s great, then, to have a reminder that there are still thrilling experiences to uncover (even if you have to wait until you’re discovered by a disgruntled space alien with a penchant for violence… yeah, sometimes anime isn’t all that realistic). I wouldn’t have expected that reminder to show up in the form of an incredibly popular shounen series, but it serves as a great reminder that there are plenty of younger people out there with valuable things to teach us, and that listening to them might just keep us young.
Pros: The show, possibly somewhat by accident, is sort of insightful about the struggles of adulthood. Dat animation.
Cons: It gets bogged down with too many characters (some of whom are very irritating) in the second half.
