More Doodles

To celebrate the end of Mob Psycho 100, I made a compilation of every time Reigen and Mob say each other’s name throughout the series (including the Special and OVA).

Beware of spoilers!

Link to YouTube

Flustered Mob goes wob wob wob

Teru’s soft little smile tho my life span has extended as a result of watching it on loop

sometimes i see mp100 fans picking the quote “you’re the protagonist of your own life” for their artwork and blog and im like “ah yes, reigen said that :) i like that quote” and then i remember he looked like this when he said it

one thing i feel like (disappointingly) wasn't elaborated on enough in mp100 is reigen's own loneliness.

sure, we got that whole episode with the separation arc, but that never really resolves reigen's loneliness. that doesn't change the fact that even down to the end, he has only one adult friend and the rest of them are a gaggle of teenagers that like to hang out around him. and sure, that's not inherently a bad thing necessarily, it's probably the most friends he's had his entire life and that's why he cries when they get him a birthday cake.

but i feel like he's the kind of guy who does actually want adult friends to talk about adult things with. someone at the same stages of life that he's at, or even older.

reigen is so used to helping other people and giving other people advice that i feel like HE needs someone to be there for him, to give HIM advice. someone to scratch HIS back for once.

but another thing is that i feel like part of him thinks he doesn't deserve it, because of all the lying he does.

there is not a doubt in my mind that reigen has so much guilt stockpiled inside himself about all the lying, and (in my own personal headcannon) part of the reason he can so easily jump into danger at times is because he quietly hopes that maybe if he punishes himself enough with enough injury, or even with death, that'll somehow make up for it.

obviously that's not how it works, and reigen is a good person because regardless of the lying, he is still on some level helping people with their very normal problems by giving them very normal solutions, and is just attributing everything to spirits and exorcisms. not to mention everything he has done for mob (despite initially using him for his buisiness). he's a lot more of a grey person than he thinks he is.

i think he really needs some good adult friends, but he just can't really get ahold of any because deep down, as much as he gets on mob for being socially awkward, i think he's just as socially awkward, deep down.

i mean, the guy had to google how to ask someone out to help mob figure out how to talk to tsubomi. i don't think he's as great with people in a social context as he thinks he is. in a business context, sure, he knows exactly what to say because he has all the scripts and all the excuses in the world, but in a personal, social context, i think he can be quite clueless.

he doesn't really know how to talk to people or where to find friends as an adult, so his only friends are any coworkers he potentially has, and half the time he didn't even want to be friends with his coworkers (hence no mention of friends in his previous office job). it's different at spirits and such though, because he has mob, and later, serizawa.

i think for a long time, he considers mob "enough" of a friend, even though he still understands his role as the adult in the relationship and thus can't *actually* discuss adult things with him or treat him like an adult friend, as it would probably be inappropriate. he considers mob a friend even though he's more his student, because mob is one of the only people he sees on a regular basis until serizawa starts working there, and that's when things get a little different.

he realizes that he doesn't have to treat serizawa the same way that he treats mob, because serizawa is an adult, even if he's an extremely, openly awkward one who doesn't know how to socialize very well. but that's okay, because reigen can work with that, he's also very awkward deep down, even if he won't admit it. not to mention that mob, reigen's other friend, is also socially awkward, and reigen successfully navigates conversations with him all the time.

i think once reigen realizes that he doesn't have to hold back as much as he normally does around mob, he finally understands that his best friends can't all just be a million still developing teenagers who aren't on his level with life, and it gives him a kind of emotional release to finally have an adult friend.

serizawa also feels the same way, having only had exactly one friend in the past like fifteen years, and it was his previous boss, who was evil, and told him to attack and kill people. now he has a boss that is his friend, and has him helping people, and frankly i think it gives him much more peace of mind.

anyway i think they're besties.

I feel like what separates Tim Botsford from other bumbling dad characters is that his bumbling doesn’t bleed into his parenting. Like he can expertly de-escalate an argument between his kids but he also tried to get his wife out of jail by “trading cool stuff” after first putting on his “danger pants” I also really like that “sibling” was one of the few words of the day he already knew, even if he didn’t necessarily know how to give a definition of it. He can be comic relief while also being a very competent dad when he needs to be.

In the same vein I like that even though Sally is more sensible than Tim is some respects, she doesn’t fall into the “mom who basically parents her husband” trope. She’s just as goofy as he is, but her goofiness is something she turns on and off, when she’s having fun with her family/husband it turns on, when she’s in professional settings or when she needs to be more serious for her family, it turns off. 

so basically the Botsfords live up to animated sitcom parent archetypes with the parts of those archetypes that would be detrimental to their children and marriage cut out. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

“I wanted it to be something that feels kind. When I came up with the concept, I was thinking something along the lines of ‘kindness’ or ‘the connections between people’. It ended up being an action manga, but my original idea was a slice-of-life that happened to include superpowers.” 

-ONE, creator of Mob Psycho 100

Tsubomi Takane!!!

A traditional doodle comic I drew a while ago, cropped some panels so they'd be easier to read. Anyways Sally Botsford was already one of my favorite characters but now it's even more fun imagining her interactions with The Detective. I think they'd have a fun dynamic especially since she's so friendly I bet they'd be work buddies. Also named him Cedar Hargrove just because it's an old man name and tree themed pfft

(also side note but giving him a soft spot for kids because that's my favorite trope lmao)

one of the many themes of mp100 is that both selfishness and generosity are important. rage and temperance. confidence and humility. fear and courage. happiness and sadness. you have to find the balance! and sometimes other people who are wildly different from you are that balance

Sobbing

Idk idk something about how broccoli arc is about looking someone you love in the face and seeing the best part of them and knowing they won't hurt you and confession arc is about looking someone you love in the face and seeing the worst part of them and knowing they will hurt you and loving them anyway. Mob stepping forward into the spear that crumples when he moves is one side of the coin and Reigen running barefoot through the hurricane that's battering him to pieces is the other, but the coin always has both sides. Everyone is simultaneously the best and worst parts of themselves and loving someone, seeing someone, is about accepting that totality.