MOB PSYCHO 100 III (2022)

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when something's amiss, check the episode director. i've traveled through much anime keeping such wisdom close, and it is unfortunate that such wisdom had to be called upon in the case of beloved mob psycho 100's third, final season. i use 'beloved' strongly, by the way, because i completely adore the last two seasons of mob and co along with all the adventures and character development they had, the reigen arc such a showstopping tearbuster that i got to watch both my friends cry in real time at its conclusion, reigen and mob sharing a sunset moment of understanding. indeed, that episode concluded with both on common ground for once, a silent admittance of fraud with warmth. at least, that was what i had drawn from such masterful dancing around the concept of "show, don't tell" in which one (writer, creator) wrote (created) "tell, but don't really". i guess i and all my friends had completely misinterpreted what i thought had been a mature conclusion to the arc as season 3 opens with backpedaling where we're practically back to square one with reigen and mob in terms of understanding or, in other words, "wait, he's still keeping up the fraud thing? mob doesn't know? huh? what? are they stupid? is one serious?" and speaking of one, he's not the episode director i referred to earlier. he's the writer (creator), remember? and no, i'm not talking about yuzuru tachikawa either--he's been directing mob since episode one (number). nah, we're talking about takahiro hasui. who's he? when it comes to mob psycho specifically, he did episode six back in season one (number). there's an absence for season two... and then he's a full on, every single-ass episode director for season three. and you might ask yourself--is this guy putting all the blame for whatever he thinks sucks about season three on just this guy? no, not completely... the other half of the suckage can be attributed right to one (writer[creator]). like i said, things are amiss with season three: multiple, multiple things, and i argue that such suckage is a two pronged attack: hasui's senseless pacing and one's decayed writing. let's be clear: i haven't read this shit. frankly the animation's so gorgeous and inviting (and still is, though not nearly as remarkably as previous seasons) that i aimed in watching mob psycho to its entirety to have said gorgeous invitations of frames and sfx and sound and music regale me in addition to its sourced art and script. this method of consuming psycho served me well in seasons one and two, but it's partway through season three's opening episode i thought to myself: "am i getting a poorer experience watching this?" i asked this because mob psycho season three has a horrendous pacing issue. scene by scene, viewers will find little congruence to it all--there are no neat packages tied here. let's compare season two's brilliant first episode with the stinker of season three's for a moment. in season two, before viewers are blasted with reminders of who's who and what you might've forgotten and what you didn't, we're treated to a slice of mob and reigen's "work"--season one veterans are no doubt familiar with such "work" and indeed know what to expect, but newcomers are just as well filled in on what exactly's going on through this just-another-day-in-the-life moment, one filled with action and wit and nasty ass tomatoes, all culminating in the reveal of season two's brand new opening. following this, viewers are treated to a subtle five minutes of reintroducing characters by centering it all around a school election... one mob disastrously fails, but one which leads to the latter half of the episode's plot. episode one is so unbelievably well oiled of a machine, the episode glides through its pacing to the point where, and i am dead serious: mob psycho season two's first episode could be its own self contained indie short film. it's that good. season three time! it opens with the new opening. yup, lol, that's it. viewers get to see the same sort of mystical introduction seasons one and two have, and then it's just straight to opening theme time. great. what happens next? ten fucking minutes of recap. dead serious, that's exactly what it does, and if you don't believe me, slap that bad boy right into vlc and start the watch the moment that opening theme (lol again). you might try to make a point that season three has the unfair task of having to recap two seasons worth of content versus season two only having to work with one. to which i hit the buzzer--BZZZT, wrong. the recap in this episode focuses on all the same fucking characters season two's pilot episode does. this time there's broccoli. that's the difference. similarly, the recap centers around a school activity, only this one's pretty much completely in mob's head while season two's is a s-i-t-u-a-t-i-o-n. i'm spelling it out because i'm sure it has to be. season two: class presidential election with a massive audience and a crippling, hilarious end. season three: whaddya wanna be when you grow up mob lol if you've noticed, we're not just talking about crappy pacing now, for this is a writing problem just as well. one's decayed writing, specifically, and i too speficially use the term 'decayed' because that is exactly the state one's found his pen in lately. like i said, i've not cracked open a single book of mob, but you better believe i'm all caught up on one's incredible one punch man webcomic. incredible to a point--i didn't really understand it at the time, but there comes a certain point in the webcomic where things feel off. schmaltzy's the word i finally settled on, because one turns his punching hero into an overly saccharine voice of reason. things were always heading that way of course--saitama's got his bald head on straight versus a world of psychos, but it was never to the point of going "... oh, okay." sorry, i'm trying to dance around spoilers for such because, well, this is a mob psycho review, not a... the point is, i noticed something wrong with one then. and it's around the time of such schmaltz that mob psycho ended too, and holy SHIT is mob psycho season three schmaltz city. i don't know if it's a case of a creator losing his edge, but episode eight is an unbelievable piece of shit. yeah, i really dom't want to take a deep dive into each and every episode, but episode eight has got to be one of the most unbearably steven universe things i've ever watched that weren't steven universe. its sappiness goes to an extreme--it's an episode that's afraid to conclude its alien obsessed protagonist's arc in any way that isn't just outright giving her exactly what she wanted (and while a supposed adult is around, somehow). there's growth in accepting and moving on, not accepting and surprising with a cake hidden under the table, and good lord do these characters spend a long, long, long time eating that cake. ten minutes, to be exact. ten fucking minutes of steven fucking universe. "hey, what's wrong with steven universe, i love that show!" i know you do. in addition to this mess is a newly arrived character of the preceding episode--his entire arc is a nonstarter, and quite purposefully, but to little gain. what i mean by this is one clearly means to subvert a character that teeter totters into evil eventually by having him pacified through mob early on. that's well and good, and it's not a bad subversion, but the next part to writing such a thing is to answer the following question: now what? okay, you subverted having this suspicious on the edge guy eventually betray the group or whatever. now what? okay, the viewer watched these two episodes expecting something to happen with him, and nothing happens. now what? now what? now what? i'll fucking tell you what's now: nothing. not a goddamned thing. one introduces a new and interesting character seven episodes into the series and forgets about him in two more. what the fuck. why did he even bother? hey, on that note, what's up with the unbearable samurai guy from episode 2? why? again, WHY? hey, wanna compare episodes again? i do. season two's second episode is a freak-of-the-week episode just as season 3's is... but there's a difference. season two's expands the world of magic and spiritual mediums in doing so as well as laying the groundwork for even more characters in just a couple episodes later. meanwhile, season 3's second episode... certainly lays some groundwork. for something. and then the construction crew decide to just fuck off and leave the site abandoned. the end. the starring character is never seen again save for a brief cameo at the season's conclusion. masterful writing, one. and masterful pacing, hasui, for those ten solid steven minutes mentioned a paragraph above (because i'm not even remotely over it). seriously, apparently that whole ending sequence towards the end isn't even IN the comics, so who the hell's to blame for that? easy: the director for not frowning at the idea and going "erm. no." we could easily spend another few paragraphs detailing the utter childishness of dimple's "death", both in how mob wasn't affected a single fucking meter once that episode's credits rolled (and neither was anyone else who knew him, lol) as well as dumpster diving right into fan service with his return. we could also spend paragraphs complaining about the utter waste of serizawa's character (go on, tell me one piece of dialogue he uttered that was not centered around mob) as well as one's strange forgetfulness towards hanazawa (that dude was left in the broccoli when it rose into space. he was fucking left there). we could spend an eternity, really, picking apart each and every misdecision made throughout the course of mob's final season, but there's something depressing about it all: you end up realizing that there's more than a few good story beats and character developments, but none of them are told well at all. mob and dimple's confrontation has the right key moments, but ddddrrraaawwwwssss them out. suzuki and son's team up to take on an out of control mob is a great idea: pacing it so their fight and development's just half a fucking episode isn't. and then there's mob finally coming out of his shell... to only become a smoothed over nothing. it's frightening, actually, watching mob in the finale's finale sequences: he's the epitome of a Generic Good Guy, and We All Should Do Our Best! give me a fucking break. season three is a failure. it fails to resolve character conflicts in meaningful, interesting ways. hasui's horrible pacing is not only a lack of experience (for his MAL page reveals as much) but a lack of understanding of mob psycho itself. there's no homework done on WHY nearly each episode of season two works, and there's nothing learned from his experience in season one. episodes are not paced like episodes--it's all one segmented block of story that's arbitrarily chopped up twelve times, and that's good enough, let's go! it's a director looking at the comic and, rather than reinterpreting it all into the medium of 24 minute episodes, thinks "oh fuck it, let's just do this thing like a longform movie". but it isn't a movie. mob psycho's final season is twelve episodes of tv, twelve episodes of tedium, twelve episodes filled with one asleep at the wheel, a creator who's likely losing his no-men while being surrounded by those who say yes and smile and give him thumbs up--cause he's one! and let's be absolutely clear on my position here: whatever one makes next is when the real descent starts. you better hope i'm wrong.