This review may contain spoilers
It nearly made me went Psycho.
I love Mob Psycho. I've watched the anime, I read the manga, I even watched a bit of he stage play adaptation. It changed my outlook on life. I see myself in Mob, and seeing him trying to improve himself made me believe that I can change as well. I still struggle a lot, but it made me slightly happier. Case on point, I love the original a lot. This adaptation though...
I remember watching this adaptation and thinking that it's definitely an adaptation for sure, and then just forgot about it. Recently, I got the itch to get into Mob Psycho again, and like any normal person I rewatched this because nobody else is sane enough to watch this.
It's actually so much worse than I remember...
There's a lot of problems with this show, from the cinematography, the editing, the tone (it's so edgy for some reason), at least the music is ok i guess (far cry from the anime's iconic ost though), but imo the worst thing about it is the changes to the story.
Of course, changing some stuff isn't inheretly bad. I even like some of the alterations they made, like reducing the amount of side characters (the anime/manga had TONS of them) and making the ones that remain pop up more. I found this iteration of Tome pretty fun! It's just... the writer this does NOT understand the point of the original story AT ALL.
Let's compare them by the prologue. The manga simply explained what espers are with slightly menacing atmosphere before straight up jumping into Reigen's absurdity. The anime added another prologue before that with Mob fighting until he hit 100%. Both did it well in my opinion. The manga immediately set the tone, the anime added some intrigue regarding the whole 100% thing. In here, we see... psychics beating up each other. It's really edgy for some reason... the adaptation isn't even that edgy! ...unless you count overabundance of fake blood as being edgy.
Speaking of 100%, it didn't really explain what it is here. In the manga & anime, the percentage is referred to as "progress toward Mob's explosion". It's not clear what it does initially, but you could guess from the context clues. This adaptation doesn't even bother ATTEMPTING to explain that, instead replacing it with a simple "Mob x%". I wonder how many people who only watched this adaptation understand what the explosion is supposed to be lol.
There's also the charaters. Most of them aren't even close to the original character! They're changed so much, to the point they're just... different. Mob came off as a creep, Tsubomi didn't even seem like the "ideal" girl that everyone could fell in love with, Ritsu is... way too kind. Again, changes like that could be fun! But because they don't understand the story, it ended up ruining the story instead.
A prime example of this is everyone's favorite tumblr twink/dilf conman himself, Reigen. In the original, he lied a lot. But ocassionally, we see another side to him. I mean, we still see that here... but they leaned to the "funny conman" aspect so much so that you couldn't help but wonder what made Mob stick around for so long. The worst offender is the way they adapted Mob & Reigen's first meeting imo. They only changed the order of events slightly, but it made him seem like he simply wanted to take advantage of him!
On top of all that, there's a LOT of writing inconsistencies that will make you spin your head around. The original is clear about its messages, but this adaptation feel... empty. It's saying the same stuff as the manga/anime, but since they twisted the story so much, by the end of it, it just.. doesn't hit at all. You can even say emotional impact 0%. You can see it by how other reviews saying it doesn't have anything substantial in it.
There's a lot more I could yap about, but I don't want to be here forever, nor I'm a good reviewer...
TLDR: on top of being mid, the writer misunderstood the story, completely ruining the message of the show. Read the manga or watch the anime instead so that you can properly appreciate the cutest baby that is Mob.
I remember watching this adaptation and thinking that it's definitely an adaptation for sure, and then just forgot about it. Recently, I got the itch to get into Mob Psycho again, and like any normal person I rewatched this because nobody else is sane enough to watch this.
It's actually so much worse than I remember...
There's a lot of problems with this show, from the cinematography, the editing, the tone (it's so edgy for some reason), at least the music is ok i guess (far cry from the anime's iconic ost though), but imo the worst thing about it is the changes to the story.
Of course, changing some stuff isn't inheretly bad. I even like some of the alterations they made, like reducing the amount of side characters (the anime/manga had TONS of them) and making the ones that remain pop up more. I found this iteration of Tome pretty fun! It's just... the writer this does NOT understand the point of the original story AT ALL.
Let's compare them by the prologue. The manga simply explained what espers are with slightly menacing atmosphere before straight up jumping into Reigen's absurdity. The anime added another prologue before that with Mob fighting until he hit 100%. Both did it well in my opinion. The manga immediately set the tone, the anime added some intrigue regarding the whole 100% thing. In here, we see... psychics beating up each other. It's really edgy for some reason... the adaptation isn't even that edgy! ...unless you count overabundance of fake blood as being edgy.
Speaking of 100%, it didn't really explain what it is here. In the manga & anime, the percentage is referred to as "progress toward Mob's explosion". It's not clear what it does initially, but you could guess from the context clues. This adaptation doesn't even bother ATTEMPTING to explain that, instead replacing it with a simple "Mob x%". I wonder how many people who only watched this adaptation understand what the explosion is supposed to be lol.
There's also the charaters. Most of them aren't even close to the original character! They're changed so much, to the point they're just... different. Mob came off as a creep, Tsubomi didn't even seem like the "ideal" girl that everyone could fell in love with, Ritsu is... way too kind. Again, changes like that could be fun! But because they don't understand the story, it ended up ruining the story instead.
A prime example of this is everyone's favorite tumblr twink/dilf conman himself, Reigen. In the original, he lied a lot. But ocassionally, we see another side to him. I mean, we still see that here... but they leaned to the "funny conman" aspect so much so that you couldn't help but wonder what made Mob stick around for so long. The worst offender is the way they adapted Mob & Reigen's first meeting imo. They only changed the order of events slightly, but it made him seem like he simply wanted to take advantage of him!
On top of all that, there's a LOT of writing inconsistencies that will make you spin your head around. The original is clear about its messages, but this adaptation feel... empty. It's saying the same stuff as the manga/anime, but since they twisted the story so much, by the end of it, it just.. doesn't hit at all. You can even say emotional impact 0%. You can see it by how other reviews saying it doesn't have anything substantial in it.
There's a lot more I could yap about, but I don't want to be here forever, nor I'm a good reviewer...
TLDR: on top of being mid, the writer misunderstood the story, completely ruining the message of the show. Read the manga or watch the anime instead so that you can properly appreciate the cutest baby that is Mob.
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