Something about Mob Psycho 100 I truly adore is how beautiful and real the platonic love is. I know this has been said again and again but as a younger brother it just slaps me in the face sometimes. I feel like casual platonic intimacy between people who care about each other is so undervalued in media in general, and the way Mob loves people unabashedly and with open tenderness is so important to me.
His open adoration for Ritsu, despite the hurt underneath. My sister and I have hurt each other like breathing over the years, but there is no one on this Earth I would give my life to protect like her. No one else knows me like her. And I see that in Mob and Ritsu.
Mob’s deep love and appreciation for Reigen. The way Mob sees his own loneliness reflected back in Reigen. The way Reigen is the only person who can tell Mob it’s going to be okay and make him believe it. The way Mob collapsed into his arms when he said his family was okay, even when Reigen was lying through his teeth. Not even Dimple’s word was enough. He finally felt safe enough to sleep. How Mob disrupted and terrified an entire room of reporters on purpose, when he’s already scared of his powers, so Reigen wouldn’t have to look so sad and cornered and alone anymore. Remembering his birthday, even when they’d been apart for a long time. Reigen always crouching down, hand on his shoulder, eye-to-eye; mutual saviors. They both entered each other’s lives at the perfect time to say, “You’re going to be okay.”
Even Mob’s love for the ones who have hurt him. His unwavering resolve to help Toichiro Suzuki apologize to his wife and his son—to see them again, to make amends, to build a better life than the one that saw him wandering the world for years and years alone, looking for something more. To channel his vision and his drive into a future that Shou deserves. The way he embraced Serizawa when he felt his fear and his pain and welcomed him into a better life without a shadow looming over his shoulder, accepted him as a peer and a friend that he never had. How Shou burned down his house and nearly made him destroy the world in horrible grief for his family, but still he was roused with anger to defend him from his father’s hand. “I’m sure you have a lot going on. I mean, look at what your own father has done to you.” Look at what the pain has done to all of you. What has it done to me?
Mob and his heart full of love, and the story of how, eventually, that loving heart learns to love itself. God. Shit.
