Future ~Career Paths~

Mob Psycho 100 has always tried to argue that psychic powers don’t make you special. Mob specifically has embodied this theme. He’s never been eager to show off his powers; instead he hopes for a more mundane life, making friends, gaining muscles, and dating. So far he’s only managed to make friends but this episode opens with Mob and his classmates are tasked with filling out a career path survey for school. 

Mob has no idea what his future is. While he’s working for Reigen at the Spirits and Such Consultation Office. Mob has never dreamed of using his psychic powers for profit. Tome Kurata plans to “go to school that studies UFO’s,” Haruto Kijibayashi wants to work for a game company, and Mameta Inukawa wants to be a “plain old office worker.” 

Reigen believes that Mob’s calling is to be a “spirit consultant”, but Mob just sees it as a part time job. Mob asks him if he “wanted to run a spirit consultation office” when he was in high school. Reigen claims that he did everything he wanted in his old job so he needed to do something else. Surprisingly, Katsuya Serizawa has taken a job at the Spirits and Such Consultation Office, he’s still awkward and desperate to please Reigen. While this is a similar dynamic to one he had with Toichiro Suzuki, I trust that Reigen won’t take advantage of him like Suzuki did. 

Roaches, smoke, and despair

Reigen begins a consultation with a new client who claims to have purchased a totem at an antique store and it’s causing him problems. Reigen of course senses nothing but Mob warns him that “bad things are swirling within it.” Serizawa successfully exercises it. Elsewhere, the broccoli tree from last season has remained in the middle of Seasoning City. Some people have formed the Psycho Helmet Religion and come to worship the tree, calling it the Divine Tree. 

Mob, Serizawa, and Reigen meet with a weird client. Her claims that an evil spirit caused him a number of unfortunate consequences. The client keeps a discussing home and it’s filled with garbage and full of roaches which scare Reigen. He leaves Mob and Serizawa to speak with the client. Who tells them he has nothing but loneliness and despair. Serizawa can relate. He recounts his experience with being a shut in. He acts as a cautionary tale of sorts for Mob. 

Don’t go with the flow

He says he “just went with the flow,” and “kept choosing the easy way out.” He wasted fifty years of his life and has nothing to show for it. While he’s speaking the neighborhood begins to fall asleep as a spirit appears. It encourages Reigen to stop working too hard and “just go to bed.” Together Mob and Serizawa exorcized the spirit together. After the exorcism, Serizawa and Mob have small meltdowns. They are concerned that they won’t overcome their current obstacles.

Reigen tells Mob the real reason he quit his old job was because he got “bored,” and started spirit consulting on a “whim.” He says whatever you do “doesn’t have to be work.” Mob seems encouraged. This episode’s main point seems to be that the pressure to make choices, especially regarding careers, can be suffocating, but you never know what life will bring. 

What do you think? Was deciding your future career difficult? I still have no idea and I’m 35. How did you like the first episode? Not enough action? Do you think people will start eating the broccoli tree? 

Let me know with a comment.

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