Y’know, I Think I Finally Figured Out Why Mob Psycho 100′s Broken Pot Omake Is So Important To Me.

y’know, i think i finally figured out why mob psycho 100′s broken pot omake is so important to me.

it’s just, it’s such an important display of the best parts of reigen’s character, and it’s so viscerally fucking satisfying. like, he walks in and immediately understands the situation, blatantly points out that the pot looks cheap but the salesman says “it’s clear you don’t know how things work,” and whoo boy, m8, are you in for a wild ride. it’s just such a brilliant moment for reigen, who goes, you think that’s how that works? no, this is how it works, and i can do it better than you. this isn’t reigen’s first rodeo, he knows every trick in the book, and he’s not afraid to throw it back in their faces.

but i mean, there’s a reason reigen went off at these two, beyond the fact that they were trying to extort his kid, or that they were going to try and make him pay for it. reigen and these two salespeople, they’re both cons, but for very different reasons.

reigen, he talks to people seeking help for ‘spiritual problems’. sometimes these are real, sometimes, not so much. when it comes to legitimate spiritual issues, he’ll let mob handle it, no problem. when it comes to the type who’re certain they’ve got some kind of curse, or haunting, or whatever, then sure, that’s where reigen does his business. it’s a very different sort of con, though. like, sure, he’ll pressure people into buying certain courses and talk them in circles all day, but we don’t really see him extort people. he doesn’t try to take money from people with none to give. he does help, through a sort of placebo effect, often entertaining the fantasies of people who would’ve thrown money at the nearest person claiming they could solve their problem. take the people who are determined to think that their heavy shoulder is some kind of curse. yeah, they’ve most likely just been sitting or sleeping in the wrong position, and they’ve got stiff shoulders. reigen could tell them this, and recommend a chiropractor. instead, he gives a legitimate, good massage, and lets his client believe what they want to believe, because hey, the problem’s gone. in the manga, it’s made clear that a lot of the clients reigen deals with have money to waste. compare that to the pot salespeople, who grab easy marks off the street (a fuckin middle schooler who makes it clear that neither he nor his family have much money) and essentially terrorize them into thinking that they’re going to have to find some way to pay for something they neither needed nor wanted, and can’t afford. i think one of my favourite changes from the manga to the anime was this line from reigen, after he and mob leave the pot shop: