Mob Psycho S2E6-7: "Poor, Lonely Whitey" and "Cornered ~True Identity~" (continued)

First, a point of correction: the other psychic who's getting revenge on Arataka now is actually one of the ones with an illegitimate grievance against him. It's been a while, and Arataka has antagonized a lot of psychics, so I didn't remember which one this was. Regardless, while that makes him being the deliverer of Arataka's comeuppance a bit of a cruel irony, it doesn't really change much.

Anyway, the televised event!


It starts with a softball interview by a TV host that only ONE could have designed, in which Arataka is able to lay down the charm and weave the bullshit well enough. He's a little concerned to see another psychic also present for this interview, and it being one of the psychics who he knows has a grudge against him, but he manages to play it cool. Then, a demon-possessed boy is brought out, and the host claims that both of the psychics will try to exorcise him. Arataka, as a big rising star in this field, should go first.

Arataka quickly realizes that there's no way in hell this kid is actually possessed, and that he probably doesn't even think that he's possessed. It's tricky, navigating a world in which real psychics and real spiritual phenomena exist, but are also much rarer than charlatans and false alarms, but after observing the boy and thinking about the circumstances Arataka is reasonably sure that he's safely in the fake side of mysticism. Which is good, that's his home turf. So, since the kid is obviously acting, Arataka should play along, do a big dramatic exorcism ritual that plays to the live audience, and trust in the child and host to do their own parts. Ratings go up, everybody profits.

Except that that's exactly what the rival was hoping Arataka would think.

After letting Arataka's act go on long enough to start wearing thin and for the drama and pacing to be ruined, the host finally has the kid get up and credits him for his acting...with the live cameras rolling and the audience watching. Surely, a genuine psychic would have been able to tell that there was nothing supernatural going on here, no? It doesn't help that Arataka did his usual shenanigans, narrating out loud over exactly what the demon is supposedly doing, how he senses and sees it clearly, how he hears the suffering thoughts of the possessed boy, etc.

The rest of the show's runtime is devoted to the host and the rival psychic dude relentlessly mocking and berating Arataka to his face and making sure nobody watching this, nobody they talk to, and nobody who the people that they talk to talk to in turn ever even thinks about paying him a single yen for anything ever again.

Karma genuinely is a bitch.

On one hand, like I said, it's hard to argue that Reigen doesn't deserve every bit of this, and watching it unfold is incredibly satisfying. On the other, well...the storyline doesn't end here. The subject matter changes, somewhat, as the fallout of his public unmasking develops and escalates. By the midpoint of "Cornered ~True Identity~" the two-parter has become a story about cancel culture.

He wanted to "be someone," and unfortunately for him, he got his wish.

Arataka's former clients complain, obviously. Some start demanding their money back. Even the ones who he had Mob actually help. Even the ones who he himself actually helped by curing their muscle tension or rearranging their furniture. You can argue that he might have overcharged some of the latter for the services provided, but that's not the tone of the accusations. Just as he kept Mob down to feed off of him financially and emotionally, Arataka himself becomes a clout pinata for anyone who's ever interacted with him, or who even pretends to have interacted with him. Just post about how Arataka ripped you off, and you get to be a web forum microcelebrity for a couple of days. Parasites attached to the parasite (previously) attached to Mob.

Naturally, the fraud accusations and embarrassing antics are soon accompanied by sex abuse allegations, ties to criminal organizations, and all of the other shit that internet scapegoats always get accused of. In Arataka's case, though, it's not just confined to the internet. The inciting incident being on public TV means that local news reports on him too, and even national news companies make some short segments at his expense on slow news days.

His business effectively dies, along with his prospects of getting hired anywhere short of a legal name change and possibly a facelift. Stalking, of both the internet and meatspace varieties, becomes a fact of life for Reigen Arataka.

He can't even run off to his shitty bar to feel better about himself anymore.

Funniest part of this montage is where Arataka, both under pseudonymous accounts and with his bots, tries to defend himself online, only for everyone to keep seeing through it and calling him out. It's a mood lightener, on account of it being another case of him still just digging himself deeper. The rest of it, though, stops being cathartic and starts being uncomfortable as it drags on and on for weeks and Arataka is visibly falling apart. For all that Arataka is a scumbag, there are people so much worse than him who aren't getting any of this at all. The people who get called out and targeted like this aren't the people who are powerful enough to do REAL damage; they're just lightning rods for the rest of society to vent their frustrations on and to get their momentary glory by conquering.

It's an interesting dynamic. Reigen is a deserving target, but that just serves to highlight how poorly this works as an alternative to justice. Arataka might not be getting any worse than he deserves, but the hows and whys of the punishment he receives just make the whole thing feel dirty and sleazy.

Meanwhile, Mob is just kind of oblivious to this whole thing, except when a friend or family member of his mentions it to him. When they do, Mob is...well, I'm actually not entirely sure how to read this. This is sort of where the confusing aspect of this plotline starts.

You'd think that seeing Arataka crash and burn without Mob's help would convince Mob more than ever of how big of a liar he was. Or, at best, that Mob might be overwhelmed with guilt at seeing this happen to someone he knows as a result of his actions, and start thinking in terms of "what have I done?" But no. For some reason, he now has a renewed faith in Arataka, apparently.

The conclusion of this two parter comes when Arataka decides, on his mother's suggestion, to try and use the trouble he's in to get out of the trouble he's in. Hold a press conference for all the reporters who have been hounding him, and use their platforms to make a public confession and apology. Make it a good one, with real admission of guilt and no ukeleles, and hopefully the public will feel like there's nothing left to squeeze out of Arataka and he'll be able to rebuild some kind of life for himself.

I'm getting increasingly curious about Arataka's parents. Both his concerned, relentlessly patient mother who's still hoping he'll come back down from this multi-year scamming fugue, and the distant father she refers to in her emails. The phrasing at the end of her message also suggests siblings, though that might be a translation hiccup.

But yeah. Arataka is the kind of character who you don't naturally think about having a family, and Mob Psycho 100 is the kind of cartoon where weird characters kinda spawn out of the ether and disappear back into it without the audience being expected to think about it. So, even going here in the first place sort of moves Reigen Arataka out of the "cartoon weirdo" category that he's managed to stay in despite being a major character from the pilot onward, and starts grounding him in a way that nobody else besides Mob and Ritsu really have been so far.

...

This show really is a case study in intersecting levels of reality, isn't it?

There's the mundane versus supernatural worlds, in typical urban fantasy style. There's the material and spirit planes. There's one level on which psychic phenomena are rare and debatable enough for at least many (if not quite most?) people to be sceptical of their very existence, and another on which psychic superhero battles periodically level city blocks in broad daylight.

There's the Dragonball-ish version of the world where lightshows and explosions are used to express relatively minor scuffles between relatively low-powered characters, and even the most brutal and intense-looking violence results in nothing more than cuts and bruises. Then there's the version where people can be seriously hurt or killed by things that would realistically seriously hurt or kill someone.

What this two-parter brings into focus is that this multiplanar existence applies to characters as well as the story itself. There's one level of reality on which these bizarrely drawn freaks of animation with the most what-the-fuck personalities just exist and you're not supposed to question it, and one on which the characters are human beings with families, backgrounds, and internal worlds. So far, Reigen Arataka is the only character to actually cross that boundary rather than just stretch or push against it. But if he did it, who knows who else might?

In one of my early MP100 reviews, I drew a Scott Pilgrim vs. the World comparison. Now, though, I'm actually thinking just as much about FLCL. It kind of has that same sort of world-filtered-through-hormones-and-unstable-imagination feel to it. The protagonist is also a kid of right around that age.

Does this all work to MP100's favor? That, I'm not sure of. It hits the same nostalgic funnybone as FLCL. It has some of that same energy. It uses that energy to tackle a lot of the same themes about growing up and dealing with the reality of how special you are and - more importantly - how special you aren't. On the other hand, where FLCL makes it very clear that you're not supposed to take any of the surface-level plot seriously and should treat the whole thing as psychedelic allegory, Mob Psycho 100 kind of seems like it wants to have its cake and eat it. It expects you to care about the outcomes of the battles, the worldbuilding stuff about the noosphere and spirits, etc, and also to dismiss all of that as insubstantial fluff before the emotional drama of Mob trying to deal with his family and peers. It wants you to think of the characters as cartoon anomalies or as actual characters in turn. The streams are constantly, unpredictably crossing.

It's not that MP100 doesn't know what it wants to be. It does. It's just that it wants to be a *lot,* and keeping all those parts from grinding each other to a halt isn't easy. Sometimes it manages. Sometimes it doesn't.

To be clear, this two-parter doesn't have any issues related to this, and we're not even doing all that much (if any) of the series' usual plane-shifting at all within these episodes. Its handling of Arataka is just spurring me to think about the series as a whole.

...

The climax comes with Arataka's press conference. Funny, how he has the power to call a press conference *by virtue of everyone hating him.* Once again, the irony of this kinda sorta being a variation on his lifelong wish is well noted.

And, here's where the episode starts to baffle me.

Arataka is about to give an apology speech as per his mother's advice, but then has a last minute bout of "fuck all this shit." He instead spins it around and starts challenging the press to PROVE that he's ever defrauded anyone. Prove that he doesn't have psychic powers. Go on, prove it.

Only to then have another turnaround when one of the reporters asks him about that high school yearbook quote of his that some internet sleuth dug up. "I want to be someone." Arataka freezes. Has a genuinely introspective moment.

It is here that we get most of Arataka's extended flashback sequence, about the details of how he quit his job, rented his office, spent a week or two as a new age grifter, and then met Mob and learned that magic was real. He realizes how, since then, he's been trying to steal Mob's specialness, and hurting the boy physically, mentally, and socially in the process. Realizes that he might have done more to make Mob's life harder than his powers and his autism combined. And that doing so hasn't made himself any less of a nobody than he was as an office drone.

He looks back up at the cameras, and addresses Mob directly. Hoping that he's watching this on TV.

And, after he says these kind, and genuine, words to Mob, the reporters' chairs and microphones start flying around the room in a wild display of telekinetic force. Arataka calmly leaves the building while everyone else screams and runs around as the furniture flies around and the lights cut out. And also kinda smugs at them as he leaves, in a way that implies that he's doing this, even though he clearly isn't.

Out on the street, he runs into Mob and Dimple. Apparently, Mob was already headed this way after seeing the beginning of the broadcast. Reigen asks him if he knows what his master really is. Mob's response? "I've always known that my master is a genuinely good guy."

Also, Mob wishes him happy birthday. Nobody else but his mother had done so.

And, then they walk into the sunset while emotional music plays. End of two-parter.


So, what happened here, and what is the takeaway supposed to be?

Is Mob still Arataka's employee after this? Going by the episode after this one, the answer is yes. But like...how can the show even do that, after these episodes? At the very least, how can it do that while still expecting the audience to not despise Arataka with every fibre of their being (which also does not seem to be what it's going for)?

Are we supposed to accept that like...Arataka is going to be nicer now, and therefore him taking advantage of Mob is okay? What is Arataka supposed to have actually learned from this?

As for the poltergeist episode at the press conference...did Mob do that to bail him out? I certainly hope not, because that's insanely out of character for Mob, even now that he's using his powers a bit more proactively in general. Is Reigen actually starting to manifest powers of his own now? Is he still somehow channelling Mob's powers without Mob realizing it, thereby making this display just another case of him using Mob to make himself seem special? Is there a third party manipulating things for some inscrutable reason?

...you know, there was that one moment, back with the broken vase scammers, where Arataka thought that Mob had used telekinesis to scare them away, and Mob thought that Arataka had done it. I think this might be a continuation of that thread? Some other psionic agent trailing them in secret and stepping up with its own powers when Mob can't or won't. That would make sense. The way it interacts with the thematics and character development of this two-parter, though, is...not great. At least, not with this ambiguity about who's actually doing it.

The ending with him and Mob is touching and all, with the subtext that following Mob's example in being a kind and genuine person is what Arataka can and should be getting from him, and that that's his best route to "being someone." But it...I dunno. There's a lot of mixed messaging surrounding it.

...

I guess the intent might be that the only person who Arataka actually hurt with his scamming was Mob, and therefore if Mob forgives him then the audience should forgive him too.

I just really don't think Mob should have forgiven him, though. Or, at the very least, even if he forgave him, there's no way in hell he should still be working for him.

...

Brilliant two-parter until the last couple of scenes. Still a very good one even with them, but one that leaves me a little confused.