Well… this episode was unexpectedly dark. I don’t think I was mentally prepared for how dark this episode was going to be. This had to be the most amount of actual blood we’ve seen from this series and this had to be the first actual death of a person we’ve seen on screen. But before we get into that, the episode starts out innocently enough… well, minus the very first scene of spirits getting exorcised by an unknown exorcist in front of Dimple.
ANYWAYS, Reigen and Mob end up taking a job for a rich CEO who had gathered a bunch of psychics together for a job. There we meet a variety of psychics and even meet up with Shinra again. (To which I’m mildly salty about since we have yet to see Emi again before this guy) We also get our first returning former Claw member, Matsuo who was that guy with all the spirit pets. Which was pretty funny seeing how freaked out he was to see Reigen and Mob again. Though I’m glad to see that he’s actually trying to run a legit psychic business now. And while this seems like a pretty shady gathering (which it totally is), the rich CEO Asagiri had gathered all of them to help his supposedly possessed daughter.
And upon hearing the CEO claim that he will pay any price to save his daughter, Reigen “valiantly” steps forward. To make things fair on who gets to try first, the psychic engage in a battle royale of rock-paper-scissors and boy did I start laughing at how Reigen was trying to mess with all of them by claiming he’d throw down paper but then changed his mind to scissors. I ended up laughing pretty hard when Matsuo was desperately wondering if he was going to go with paper or scissors. Reigen’s plan certainly succeeded. How does one never lose in rock-paper-scissors??? Well, I guess Reigen does have a knack for going against all odds lol.
In any case, I gotta give Reigen props for understanding people and how they think. Especially when it seemed as if the daughter was actually the sane one and it was her father that was actually possessed. Even the other psychics started to doubt the father’s intentions. Even the head psychic Jodo claimed that she was perfectly normal. It was kind of amazing for Reigen to catch all the inconsistencies in how she spoke to him. I bet most viewers wouldn’t have caught all of that because of how subtle it was. The other psychics surely didn’t. I admit I was fooled until Reigen claimed otherwise.
It was rather amusing and exasperating to see the other psychics try to rid the child of the evil spirit inside of her. I have to wonder if there are actually decent psychics besides Mob, Teru and Ritsu out there considering all of their methods had no effect whatsoever… In any case, the evil spirit happened to be Mogami Keiji who apparently was a psychic back in the day who served as an entertainer before disappearing after becoming insane and wanting to become an evil spirit himself. Things go from 0 to 100 real fast and everything just starts spiraling out of control when it literally becomes a slaughter fest. Like I mentioned before, we never really saw too much bloodshed in the first season so seeing people actually DIE in this episode was definitely shocking. Especially that even Mob couldn’t stop it. The first season made it feel as long as Mob was there, everything would be alright. But the fact that he COULDN’T stop Mogami from attacking the other psychics or the CEO’s death made the situation feel hopeless. He even messed up by accidentally causing the girl and Mogami to fuse into one. Mob is kind of like All Might from My Hero Academia in a sense. He’s like a beacon of hope and he could always be counted on. But the fact that he couldn’t stop this foe, made it so that it felt like all hope was gone.
The show feels like it has actual stakes now and I’m not sure how I can handle it. Things are looking even more dire when Mob takes what we found out was possible last episode by having to go through an out of body experience to try and force Mogami’s spirit out from the inside, which unfortunately leaves his body defenseless. And that’s where Dimple comes in, which poses as a pretty serious problem considering Dimple only chose to stick around Mob in the first place so that one day he could take over his body. This was basically the moment Dimple has been waiting for, which makes me pretty nervous but Mob seems to believe it will be alright. If you think so Mob…
Though I must admit that it actually pretty amusing to see Dimple’s face on Mob’s body~
Mob goes in to confront Mogami and despite Mob having feelings of possibly attacking people from the last episode, he still doesn’t attack Mogami until he shows his evil spirit face. And despite his hostility, he still feels uncomfortable attacking what it looks to be human. I couldn’t believe how graphic this episode was just showing Mogami’s shred up body with blood streaked around him. IS THIS THE SAME MOB PSYCHO 100 I KNOW AND LOVE??? But Mogami’s words were pretty interesting. Saying that emotions are the driving force for psychic powers, which we have seen true whenever a certain emotion of Mob reaches 100%. Though negative feelings tend to have a stronger effect which the first season has shown as well. Mob does tend to be stronger when his negative emotions fester, which is a scary truth.
Not gonna lie, this episode FREAKED ME OUT. Things like spirit possession freaks me out, especially when they’re portrayed in this way. I’m generally okay with the way Dimple possessed someone since it always feels more comedic, but this was straight up demonic which was really unsettling for me to watch. Not to mention it was TERRIFYING to see Mogami start breaking his puppet’s body, like HOLY CRAP, WHAT AM I EVEN WATCHING ANYMORE?! Hopefully Mob can pull through this illusion and come out on top like he usually does. Especially since Mogami is going to put him through a trial where Mob is to live out his daily life without psychic powers to change his perspective. I’m scared of what will become of him. He’s been slowly changing himself each episode that has aired so far in the second season. Compared to the first season, Mob is starting to feel more rounded, showing a little more emotion and actually voicing his feelings and thoughts and I’m proud of him for it. But that positive progression can go south and morph into something sinister if negative experiences rule over his heart and mind… And it’s true that life experiences make the person who they are. PLEASE DON’T LET MY CINNAMON ROLL BABY BE TAINTED.
