Crunchyroll Expo 2022

Mob Psycho 100 III World Premiere

Fans clamored into the Crunchyroll Stage room to get an exclusive look at the first two episodes of the upcoming season of Mob Psycho 100. The third season of the series, best known for its perfect blend of emotional earnestness, comedy, and amazing animation sequences, brought the audience back to Seasoning City where a giant broccoli is now a central fixture to every day life. However, Mob's concerns are decidedly more mundane as he tries to grapple with closing the book on his middle school life.

The story's primary strength has always been giving Mob's adolescent struggles equal footing with its outlandish supernatural elements and that's handled well in this opener. The trio at the Spirits and Such Consultation Office visit a man who is convinced he's cursed because his life is in shambles (due to his own failure to take responsibility for his own actions). The encounter hits home for both Mob and new hire Katsuya Serizawa who both feel adrift despite being at different life stages. Mob doesn't know what to put on his career form, a common but somewhat ridiculous tradition where middle school students are supposed to list their planned career paths. Serizawa is just terminally 30 and realizing he hasn't achieved what he thought he should by now.

The second episode introduces the classic school festival subplot and Mob along with three other classmates are tasked with creating the costumes for the haunted house. His compatriots are satisfied with simply phoning it in, but Mob has a nagging feeling that approaching challenges that way is wrong. A newly introduced character, Haruaki Amakusa, a trustfund baby who has taken up yokai hunting, hires the team to clear out a building that contains the a yokai infestation and the supernatural army's leader. As you might suspect, the experience serves as inspiration for Mob's costume dilemma.

The season's plot is supposed to begin in earnest starting with episode three, but there are plenty of hints dropped through these first two entries. For anime-only viewers who are going into this blind, it looks like Dimple is up to something less than savory involving the giant broccoli. The season's trailer has also laid some breadcrumbs for a cult related to the massive vegetable that are likely to pose a threat going forward.

If anyone was concerned that the directorial change over from Yuzuru Tachikawa to Takahiro Hasui might spell some kind of stylistic or quality change, let me reassure you this is still the Mob Psycho 100 you've come to adore. Tachikawa has not left the production, instead taking on a chief director credit. The fantastic supernatural battles are still here in full force and the oil painting on glass images by Miyo Sato are here too, both to highlight emotionally intense moments and as the third season's ending sequence.

The October anime season is extremely stacked and while many of us (myself included) are eagerly awaiting Chainsaw Man, you won't want to miss Mob Psycho 100 III, either. Three cheers for our psychic best boy and his deadbeat dad.