Me: Goes To The Fullmetal Alchemist Exhibition Once Also Me: (shhh, I Know This Scene Could Never Have

Enami on pixiv

Spoilers for REIGEN spinoff.

out of the 90 or so panels that ONE devotes to the mental fight between shigeo and mob in mob psycho 100's confession arc -- from mob's conscious awareness of shigeo's presence to shigeo's eventual dissolution and assimilation of mob -- just seven show us that the child can actually be heard arguing with himself from the outside.

since the anime concluded its run last year, i've had those panels on my mind. studio bones only animated the largest one and relegated shigeo's speech on it to internal dialogue (much more on that decision here). they're so compelling that i decided to redraw them in my own style.

this is the seventh and last of them. it occurs just before shigeo smacks reigen in the head with a chunk of fallen city in hopes of scaring him off (it doesn't work).

its text reads:

｢他人が”僕”を飼い慣らすことはできない。モブの本当の姿を知ればあの人は僕を開放するよ。」 tanin ga boku wo kainarasu koto wa dekinai. mobu no hontou no sugata wo shireba ano hito wa boku wo kaihou suru yo. 'no one else will be able to tame me. now that he knows mob's true form, that man will set me free.'

[image ID: amidst swirling teal winds, hair wild and eyes aglow, a teenaged japanese boy wearing a gakuran and an eerily neutral expression muses 'tanin ga boku wo kainarasu koto wa dekinai. mobu no hontou no sugata wo shireba ano hito wa boku wo kaihou suru yo.' storm clouds are gathering around his eyes as he speaks, partially obscuring his face.]

ONE's original panel:

この一連の他の絵 kono ichiren no hoka no e other drawings in this series panel 2｜panel 3｜panel 5｜panel 6

#tomeweek2023 Day 4: Telepathy

(0) Unread Messages

confession for mobtober

Things I love about this exchange:

1. It’s really funny.

2. Reigen refers to being the bodyguard and right hand man of a megalomaniacal esper terrorist as “Serizawa’s last job” which is a perfect example of his attitude towards everything. “Yes I know you kidnapped the prime minister but have you, personally, got any customer service experience?”

3. It’s clear from this scene that Serizawa’s job interview was saving Reigen from a giant ball of psychic power and at no point did either of them discuss what he’d be doing there.

4. “Smack them with my umbrella.” Obviously this is a translated work and I don’t know if this nuance was in the original line at all, but I love the phrasing here. I don’t believe for a second Toichiro told him to “smack” people with his umbrella so much as "eliminate them without hesitation or mercy" and the fact that Serizawa would frame it in such an innocuous way speaks to the level of denial he was in.

5. Reigen, who recently had to knock out a client that pulled a knife on him: Yeah, things aren’t that different here.

[Image ID: A page from the Reigen manga. Panel 1: Reigen stands in a forest looking exhausted. He says, “At least I bought bug spray this time …” Panel 2: He sprays himself down. Panel 3: A closeup of his face. He’s dripping with sweat and his eyes are sunken. He says, “Preparations complete.” Panel 4: Reigen loosens his tie as he staggers towards the viewer. His face is sweaty and he has a haggard expression. He says, “All right then …” End ID.]

Okay listen it’s been a month since i read this and i CANNOT stop thinking about “At least I bought bug spray this time…” It’s just. It’s so Reigen.

This man is dying. He is being eaten alive by a curse that will kill him in less than 3 hours–probably closer to 2 by this point because this place is pretty far outside of Seasoning City. Since Serizawa couldn’t destroy the curse, he knows that Mob is the only person who could get rid of it–and he doesn’t think that he’ll get there in time, if he comes at all. Reigen’s last-ditch plan is to try to trudge into the most haunted forbidden evil woods he knows about in the hope that he can make the curse that’s killing him fight a different, worse curse, and if that doesn’t work at least he’ll die in a place far away from other people and the curse will be prevented from victimizing anyone else.

And what does he say when he arrives at the Evil Death Woods? “At least I brought bug spray.”

One of the things that makes Reigen’s character work is that he is Just Some Guy. A deeply bewildering, paradoxical guy who lies for a living, but still just a guy. Different characters in MP100 are trying to exist in slightly different genres, and for all his absurdity Reigen is the character who is the most grounded in the real world. He worries about his fire insurance during a psychic terrorist attack. He’s the one who goes “Hey, this is illegal?” and “Kids should not be dealing with this” and “You’re supposed to be adults, what is your PROBLEM?” when he’s introduced to the shonen-anime-villain Scars.

And he’s the sort of person who thinks, yeah, dying of a horrible curse in the woods would be bad, but you know what would be worse? That and bug bites. And he’s not … wrong, but it’s not something that anyone else in the series is going to think of. It’s such a normal worry in such an abnormal situation. It’s so grounded.

And it’s also … weirdly hopeful? I feel like a lot of people talk about this part of the manga like Reigen’s given up and is just marching to his death, but he really isn’t. Yes, he was willing to take on the curse to save Tome, and he’s well aware that he might die, but he’s still trying to get out of it with everything he’s got. He doesn’t have powers, but he’s really clever! He goes into a place with a time distortion effect in the hope that it will buy him more time! He manipulates the curse into turning around so that it gets attacked by the Mimic spirit but he doesn’t! If it had been a more even match between them like he’d hoped, he might have been able to get out of the woods even without Mob coming to save him.

He’s aware of the danger and how much the odds are stacked against him, but he hasn’t given up! And the bug spray feels indicative of this. He thinks he might succeed in getting rid of the curse. He thinks he might need to get out of the woods on his own. And if that happens, he’s going to be so happy about not getting covered in bug bites this time.

happy birthday shou suzuki! 💚🥳👋💥finished with 10 minutes to spare LOL

love this little dude. love drawing him wearing random shit... little man is always DRIPPED 😤

If you put them together they almost form one(1) functional adult.

Also bonus doodle because I couldn’t get this post out of my head

Sketchy manga redraw, I'll probably color it when I have more free time ^^

Original panels here !!