The Value of a Fraud | Mob Psycho 100

[Music] i wish this show existed when i was in middle school i don't know if it would have changed my life but a story about a kid struggling to figure out his own life despite his natural talents that story would have been just the tiniest bit comforting mob cycle 100 was a series created by one best known for his smash it series makai no osan in 2012 and the slightly lesser known one punch man in 2009 serialized from 2012 to 2017 with an adaptation by studio bones airing in 2016 mob psycho 100 follows shigeo kagayama also known as mob a shy and timid middle school boy with godlike psychic powers as he works for reagan a self-proclaimed psychic with absolutely no powers at all it's a show that exudes childhood innocence taking one's intentionally crude and amateur art style and leaning into it it's a uniquely beautiful show and much like one punch man before it this story is very much a deconstruction but instead of superheroes this one is aimed squarely at the kids with supernatural abilities genre where the main character's personal growth is tied to the strength of their powers it's a fairly standard formula a great way to externalize an internal struggle mob cycle 100 takes that formula and breaks it entirely by making the main character the most powerful being on earth from the start that in itself is a lot of fun the story breaks a lot of conventions and is filled with subversions i think my favorite one is with the body improvement club i mean obviously one doesn't do the lazy thing and subvert the jock archetype by filling the club with scrawny dudes or playing up their vulnerabilities to make them seem weak a subversion that i find a bit distasteful because it tends to feed into some of the worst stereotypes instead one dials up their desire for self-improvement to 11 and turns them into the most wholesome group of muscle heads that deserve nothing but love as i often say though i think deconstructions work best when you have something interesting to say about the pieces of the thing you break and in the case of mob's psycho the thing one wants to say is pretty obvious in stories like this a character's growth is tied to their abilities the closer they get to self-actualization the stronger their abilities become but i've always found that there are some weird implications that can come from telling a story like this because sometimes it can be very easy to read into the opposite instead of self-actualization being the reason for a character's strength the strength becomes the reason for a character's self-actualization when the story is focused heavily on some inherent ability the message you can take away from that isn't the best if only i was gifted or talented in some special way then all my problems could be solved i don't think that message is intentional and that isn't to say that stories with this structure are automatically bad for that reason this formula is prevalent because for the most part it works but it's very clear that this was the thing one wanted to comment on mob starts off with the power of a god but just because he's gifted that doesn't mean he doesn't have problems mom's powers and abilities are just one part of him and that doesn't make him special or immune from the struggles that everyone faces because and i wish i realized this back in middle school there are times when natural talent don't mean a damn thing more often than not there will be people out there that are more talented and there might be times when your natural abilities don't help with getting what you want and to me that's what makes this such an effective deconstruction it doesn't just pick apart a genre to point out how absurd it is it also puts it back together to create a coming-of-age story from a different perspective one that's more focused on personal growth don't get me wrong though the show is still pretty ridiculous and that's a lot of fun but uh back to what i was saying the idea that you're not special is the most blatant message that the story presents but just like before it can be easy to take this message in the wrong way too and i think one is aware of that which brings us to reagan [Music] in the story of mob psycho 100 i see reagan as the perfect compliment to mob a man with no latent psychic powers but is so savvy and sociable that he can seemingly bend people to his will through sheer charisma alone you could argue that ritsu is mob's compliment as someone who's successful without powers at least in the beginning but i think there's an important distinction between them here's something i find really interesting about the way reagan is characterized he's someone who would arguably gain the most if he became an esper ritu eventually gained psychic abilities like he always wanted but finds out pretty quickly that it doesn't really fulfill him in any way regan on the other hand would stand to benefit if he suddenly got powers his job would be a lot easier he wouldn't need to rely on mob so much and he could make more money that way but at no point in the show is he ever jealous of mobs or anyone else's psychic abilities and while you could say that there's no reason reagan would be because he's lazy and knows he can call mob at any time there are a lot of points in the story that imply that this isn't how he feels when reagan gained powers briefly through mob he's quick to point out that those were mob's powers doesn't even humor the idea that he might have awakened powers because of it and in general doesn't really dwell on the experience at all when mom stops showing up to work reagan makes a point of taking on jobs he thinks he is capable of and doesn't even try or wish that he could do more he's completely indifferent to the idea of actually becoming a psychic even though he knows how useful having powers would be for him that's a really interesting mindset to give a character like reagan a quiet acceptance that this is just how he is that's sort of why i think reagan serves as a better compliment to mop they have opposing characteristics one has powers the other doesn't one is not socially adept the other has god-given charisma but fundamentally they both believe the same things they don't think they're special and it's through reagan that i think one adds a bit more nuance to the message of the story because reagan's arc seems to imply that this way of thinking isn't always good there are a couple of ways you can take reagan's downfall one way to look at it is that this is his comeuppance reagan was taking advantage of mob said terrible things to him and started to believe just a bit too much in his own hype his downfall is karmic justice for leeching off of mob's work i think this is a perfectly fine way to read these events it lines up with the message of the show it's an arc about humility but for me personally i think there's a bit more to it because reagan isn't like any of the other antagonists in the story while he might be full of himself at times he's very cognizant of his own abilities and doesn't think he's special in any way that's the lesson he passed down to mob and the show hammers home this idea reagan and mob are constantly telling larger than life characters that their natural born abilities don't make them special success admiration praise are things you have to work for not something people are entitled to so here's the big problem for reagan because despite believing in all of that and despite having no powers whatsoever he somehow managed to find success as a psychic anyways and i think that disconnect between what reagan knows he's capable of and what he's achieved eats away at him it's a feeling i think he could push off with mob around but the moment ma walked away it was something regan couldn't ignore when he tries to reform himself as the brand new reagan i don't see that as a rejection of mob it isn't really if it was he would try to do the exact same things without mom's help just to prove that he could but he doesn't try to do what mob could he doesn't take on jobs he would if mob was around reagan knows exactly what he's capable of and doubles down on those things and in some ways that's admirable pushing yourself to your limits to see what you can do is generally seen as a good thing but this is not that what i see in reagan is a personification of imposter syndrome or a specific version of it the idea that your success is not due to anything you've done but the result of luck and at any moment your life can come crashing down once people realize how much of a fraud you are and that's what reagan is a fraud a con man a fake psychic who has to lie his way around to make a living he's the feeling of imposter syndrome made literal reagan never intended for this to happen he was about to walk away from this whole thing until through sheer luck mob showed up and because reagan believes so strongly that you have to earn success there's no room for luck people made reagan out to be special they gave him admiration and praise the only way to reconcile that with what he believes is to prove that his own efforts the things he can accomplish on his own are worthy of those things mob walking away was a product of reagan's actions he was a jerk but everything after that was the result of his own insecurities but nothing can really change the fact that reagan is a successful fake psychic no matter what he does no matter how big he makes it that will always be true and in trying more and more to feed into a figure of everyone else's making he eventually reaches a point where his abilities aren't enough and when the floor finally falls out from under him and reagan is exposed that feeling of being an imposter is just something he has to accept i don't think that feeling ever goes away that's the thing he comes to terms with in the press conference along with atoning for the way he treated mob accepting that nothing he can do can turn him into the person everyone thinks he is but that isn't the important part reagan always knew that he wasn't special so i think deep down he always knew that nothing he could do could justify how people saw him and while coming to terms with that might be good it doesn't really help and so reagan's question to mob at the end of this whole thing is a little heartbreaking it isn't really a question because what reagan wants most in that moment is to be judged by the person he thinks he deceived most for pretending to be someone special when he knew he wasn't reagan asks mob if he knows he's an imposter and mom's response is that it doesn't matter regan might not think that he's special and it's good to be humble but there comes a point when that humility can be self-destructive reagan left his job built a business from the ground up tried to help people the best he could and for some reason reagan thinks nothing of accomplishing those things even if reagan doesn't think they're worthy of praise that shouldn't undercut just how difficult those things are to do he should take some amount of pride in the things he's done no matter how small because sometimes those small things can mean a lot to others seeing the moment reagan and mob meet from different perspectives reveals a lot because while reagan didn't intend for his kind words to mean all that much those words changed mob's life regardless maybe it was luck that mom showed up in the right place at the right time but it wasn't luck that he stayed around and reagan gets to experience how little things can change your life firsthand because mob returns those kind words to reagan words that saved him and allowed him to be seen mob tells reagan that even if he might not be what everyone thinks he is even if he feels like an imposter he's still a good guy trying his best and that in itself is enough [Music] as always thank you so much for watching this one was not as long as the last one but it was still a lot of fun to make if you want to see any of the extra stuff from this video and i'm pretty happy with how everything turned out check out my twitter i'm at it's kyle robes i really do appreciate all the support

Channel: Kyle Robes

Views: 1,218,997

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Id: JkyfiQmGD2s

Length: 12min 8sec (728 seconds)

Published: Sat May 15 2021