mobsplainer

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you build up that stamina kiddo

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remember when they put reigen in the eternal torture dimension on that train and everybody else was just having a normal time at a spa

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*tentatively pulling overused terms off the high shelf for discussion* does it seem fair to consider shou suzuki to be “doomed by the narrative”? it’s not like he dies or gets tortured for eternity or anything, but the only reason for his existence as a character at all is so that he can fail to defeat his father. if this were any other story, the conclusion of touichirou suzuki's plotline would belong to shou by birthright - he is the brilliant young spitfire Hero incarnate and confronting his evil father is not only his responsibility but his destiny, and the climatic final boss battle should by all means belong to him. it's not that this feeling is entirely absent from the anime, but in the manga version of world dom arc especially I think it's meant to feel like set-up for a central father-son conflict: there's emphasis on the dramatic shots of shou and ritsu standing on the rubble just before the cultural tower, and on touichirou looking down from above and heralding in his son's arrival (he was deliberately avoiding detection).

it's not insignificant that afaik this is the only time touichirou really acknowledges any of our main characters as they are steadily charging towards him. it's both an interesting and very deliberate choice that mp100 doesn't even have touichirou react this way or even really take notice of shigeo at all despite the fact that he is the actual protagonist, and neither does he pause to sense teru's group as they cleave through his cadre by force, not even when they take down shimazaki (shimazaki, who is the only member of the super 5 that was explicitly deployed with orders to stop a particular person - that person, of course, being shou). the one and only character who receives this attention from our primary antagonist here is shou suzuki, which seemingly inflates his plot importance and, if only for a little while, makes him seem like the main character of this arc. it plays very nicely into the tropes that the manga wants you to buy into for the purpose of subverting them later.

and subvert them it does. the nature of mp100 means that the straightforward blood-and-sweat struggle against a tyrannical father was never going to happen, because it wouldn't be satisfying - or maybe because, for at least one character, it would be unsatisfying: and that's... part of the point. simply put, human relationships can't be defined by something like "winners" and "losers." after everything so far, in what universe would power or strength or righteousness really be the deciding factors here? this just isn't a world where anything meaningful could come out of a contest of strength. and it absolutely, fundamentally cannot be a world where a 12 year old child can take up the burden of bringing his own father to justice and have that end in a success story to celebrate.

so shou as the hero bound to a responsibility that Only He could ever possibly carry out is not the truth of his character, it's the story he actively tells himself to rationalize his situation. he tells himself constantly that if he only has enough strength, if his wit is clever enough, if he can be responsible enough, then he will be the one to fulfill his purpose and stop his dad before it's too late. the catch is that he is all of these things. shou proves himself again and again to be incredibly strong, profoundly clever. and when he is beaten and alone on top of that tower with only his father and serizawa chiding him for his naivety, he is absolutely, unquestionably the most responsible person in the room beyond a shadow of a doubt. the problem is that from the very beginning, he was never going to succeed. he did everything right. he could've been the most powerful esper to ever appear on the page and it never would have mattered. because he can be who he is only in the context of mp100, and that means one thing - shou suzuki was always going to fail from the start. shou is the protagonist of his own life, yes, but by the same token he can't be the protagonist of anyone else's; he couldn't make his father become his antagonist.

there's a contrast here between shou and ritsu. where shou is put together out of the tropes used for action heroes and tragic protagonist boys, ritsu is constructed around long-suffering supporting roles meant to uplift more important characters while having little will of their own. I mention ideas of "agency" pretty much every time I talk about ritsu in any context, but it's a difficult concept to unmoor from his character - it's the primary reason behind his penchant for self-sacrifice and generally self-effacing behavior. the thing about ritsu - without getting into larger ritsu-centric meta that I will never feel like posting - is that he is viscerally aware of the tropes he's supposed to embody and desperately wants to get away from them. he consistently spends his character development on throwing his whole weight against the roles he's cast in, and he has arcs about working to grow into someone he enjoys and embracing his true self wholeheartedly. despite being designed to endure pain for the development of others, ritsu, of his own choice, becomes a fundamentally hopeful character over the course of mp100 - managing to supersede the archetypes that previously defined him in favor of his own distinct sense of self.

but where ritsu rankles against his "limits" and the framing that is assigned to him, I genuinely think shou actually likes the hero-side character set-up they have going on. although maybe that's not all that surprising. in general shou has a weird thing going on with the kageyama siblings that is very reminiscent of shigeo's thing with tsubomi, especially but not exclusively on ritsu's part. like shigeo with tsubomi, who views her as a way of obtaining the humanity he feels excluded from, shou projects onto the kageyamas the different aspects of himself that he does and does not like - he sees in ritsu everything about himself he's proud of and hopes he can be, and he sees in shigeo everything about himself he hates and fears he will become. they're essentially part of a coping mechanism to shou, and they're that to him before they are people - though, in all fairness, it's not like shou sees himself as a "person" either, given that he treats himself like a Vehicle for Accomplishing The Purpose (and of course the kageyamas don't exactly see themselves as people either, although that's a different story). regardless, shou has a habit of pinning all his hopes on ritsu in a way that's not unrelated to a view of him as shou's Supporting Character and own personal foil. pouring unbelievable amounts of faith into ritsu is another way of reinforcing shou's faith in himself as the Hero, after all.

if we're talking about agency, it's worth noting that while ritsu is usually forced into his archetype against his will and rejects it, shou throws himself at his with vigor. shou as a character is practically seeping autonomy, because it's a necessity for being a protagonist and also again because this role is something he has chosen for himself, eagerly and as the best source of comfort he has available. however, while pushing against his fate allows ritsu to break free from the direction he's being pulled in, pushing against his seems to do nothing for shou but dig him deeper into the hole; the harder ritsu tries to resist his archetype, the more he becomes himself, whereas the harder shou tries to embrace his archetype, the less he is actually able to follow it. but either way, neither of them actually end up as the conventional tropes their characters play with. character who was built for suffering who will no longer suffer VS character who was built for justice who will never get any. is knowing what you want really enough to get you there?

[mobsplainer]

"This place is not a place of honor... no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here... nothing valued is here.

What is here is dangerous and repulsive to us. This message is a warning about danger."

[mobsplainer]

It's Fictional Throwdown Friday!

This Week's Fighters....

Deku vs Mob!

Conditions:

Both at their canonical peak towards the end of their stories.

Scenario:

Deku steps in to intervene against ???%'s rampage in the final arc of Mob Psycho, believing it to be a new villain attack.

[mobsplainer]

I need more fanfics with Kitsune!Reigen. I can't write, but I can draw.

[mobsplainer]

“You’ll get there!”

For @creatingblackcharacters melanin beam challenge!

[Image ID: A digital drawing of Serizawa Katsuya from Mob Psycho 100. Serizawa differs from his original design in that he has dark brown skin and a larger build. On the left is Serizawa in his blue suit. He has his hair cut low, but lined up and with an afro texture. He also has cleaned up facial hair. On the right is Serizawa in his claw era outfit. The Serizawa on the left puts hand on the right Serizawa’s shoulder. He smiles gently. The right Serizawa cries as he places his hand on the other’s arm. He holds his umbrella. End ID.]

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FUCK vriska happy baldiversary teru

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like obviously the fact that touichirou acts like teru is a narrative choice to demonstrate the escalation/evolution of the basic foundational themes teru introduces but the fact that he has so many of touichirous exact villainous mannerisms is so retroactively funny to me. like touichirou literally kicks dimple out the window like a soccer ball. if you think about it it basically goes like touichirou made himself the president of a terrorist organization, then he told claw to start kidnapping psychic children, then claw began routinely attempting to kidnap this one isolated kid so much he essentially grows up fighting them, then that specific kid just kind of happened to develop an incredibly similar personality and behaviorisms to the president of the company that keeps trying to kidnap him… damn guy yuore so good at being an abusive dad you managed to do the Abusive Dad Effect to some kid you’ve never even met before that’s amazing. we should give you some kind of medal for this

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KPDH X MP100 AUUU YAYY!!!

Some extra stuff^_^

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the fact that josuke is a millennial is really funny to me

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we are rewatching mob and I'm remembered my favourite one. he brought josuyasu backto me

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au where everything is the same except they go trick-or-treating in japan

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shigeo

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nightmare

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Drawing Serizawa like he's my dead wife

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driving in my car