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russenoire · 1 year

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the teruki hanazawa arc seized me by the brain almost two years ago and still refuses to let go. teru is just warped in a slow-burn-horror kind of way, despite his apparent good cheer, and i find him tragically fascinating.

i looked up a word he attempts to bludgeon intimidate shigeo with in episode 5: 上下関係。

it's read じょうげかんけい (jougekankei). for context, here's teru's dialogue where it appears:

｢聞きたいことはいくつかあるけどその前にハッキリさせとかないとね。上下関係ってやつを差！」ききたい　こと　は　いくつ　か　ある　けど　その　まえ　に　はっきり　させ　と　かない　と　ね。じょうげかんけい　って　やつ　を　さ！ k'kitai koto wa ik'tsu ka aru kedo sono mae ni hakkiri sase to kanai to ne. jougekankei tte yatsu wo sa! 'i have some questions i want to ask you, but first i have to clarify something. between the two of us, who answers to whom?'

the english subs translate 上下関係 as 'hierarchy', though it's a little closer maybe to 'pecking order' or 'senpai/kouhai dynamics'. i couldn't even find it on a 15000-word japanese frequency list. fortunately, this 四字熟語 (よじじゅくご・yojijukugo・four-character idiom)'s individual components are common and easily assimilated; i was able to understand what it meant on sight:

上下 = among other meanings, high and low, top and bottom... the ruling and the ruled. kanji: 'up, above' + 'below, down, inferior'.

関係 = relationship, connection, concern. kanji: 'gateway, connection' + 'thread'

the katakanized english loanword for hierarchy, ハイアラーキー, is far more common in japanese. so why would teru use this word? why might he just drop it on shigeo without explanation as he does?

much of the vernacular co-opted by criminal organizations -- at least in anime -- tends towards the archaic and/or formal, in keeping with samurai ideals they profess to uphold. was this language he picked up from fending off claw mooks, alone, throughout his childhood?

knowing the exact word teru uses for 'hierarchy' lends even more hilarity in japanese to shigeo's bafflement when he hears it. it's unlikely that he would know teru's peculiar choice of expression, given his lack of interest in academics. the joke in the english translation falls a little flat IMHO, as the boy doesn't seem so poor a student as to be unfamiliar with the word 'hierarchy' or the concept.

i... i want to examine more of teru's language now in this arc, to see how much of it is as elevated as this word and his sense of self-importance here.

an edit (2023.03.31) for some minor errors in this post:

上下関係 actually isn't a yojijukugo... not all four-character expressions are four-character idioms, of course. i should have consulted the monolingual japanese dictionaries i use on this. ごめんなさい！

my transliteration of the line 「聞きたいことはいくつかあるけどその前にハッキリさせとかないとね。」 should have been: k'kitai koto wa ik'tsu ka aru kedo sono mae ni hakkiri sasetokanai to ne. i still get stumped semi-regularly by 〜て＋おくcontractions in the wild. thank you @listlessnss for this and the previous erratum! させとかない is just させる (to cause or make someone do. usually taught to JSL learners as an inflection of する) in its conjunctive affirmative form させて + 置く (as an auxiliary verb, here meaning to do a thing in preparation for something else).

'formal' would have been a better word choice than 'archaic' for describing 上下関係。上下関係 is not an archaic word, but it is uncommon-ish and more likely to be found in formal writings.

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luciferstit · 1 year

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lowkey not big on when people say in the 7th division arc Teru and Mob killed the pyro and chin guy. And Like I totally get where people come from when they say that cause yeah we never see those to again and in Teru's case that guy was literally burnt to a crisp But I think it leaves a bad taste in my mouth because that idea puzzles me a bit with what Mob Psycho is about. Mob doesn't even show its villains murdering people. There's so much emphasis on making sure kids don't have to deal with that kind of dirty work because theyre kids. And ONE wrote Mob Psycho in an extremely dense and almost perfect way that a part of me feels like he just forgot about those two claw guys because I just have a hard time believing he wouldn't see the issue with having them die. Specifically in Mob's case it makes me uncomfortable for obvious reasons. But while I can see why Teru killing someone is more believable I still don't like the idea. Even if he hasn't fully changed he's still a kid and I just remember his reaction when Mob passed out after he choked him.

Oh yeah, I totally agree. Don’t get me wrong, I think the fact that Mob and Teru destroying those two guys and then ONE having them completely and ominously disappear from the narrative forever is objectively funny in a morbid way, I don’t legitimately think there’s any possibility that happened as canon fact.

I 100% guarantee that ONE just forgot they existed. Like they served their narrative purpose and then their continued existence as characters in his work was completely erased from his mind lol. I mean, ONE completely forgot about the existence of the Shiratori twins during the entire last half of season 2, including the Shimazaki fight and the finale, where all other Awakening Lab kids were involved. He even made an omake about it, I’m pretty sure. And this is the same man that made a series of MP100 omake involving Asahi and Toshino that were so fleshed out and in-depth that he turned it into a small spin-off feature lmao.

I’m sorry if the post where I joked about this was in bad taste. I wasn’t trying to imply that it was good or in-line with their character arcs. Mob would literally rather die than hurt others (he pleads for Teru to fight back and kill him during Confession Arc because it was preferable to hurting people) and Teru was so appalled by his actions in S1E5 that he really starts to panic after Mob goes unconscious (more apparent in manga). I just thought that the extremely suspicious silence on those two claw guys was funny in a shocked and absurd kind of way.

#mp100 #mob psycho 100 #mp100 meta #ask #mp100 analysis #i would never be rooting for the kids to hurt anyone #but it’s a little funny in juxtaposition to their characters

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yomiel · 2 years

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love how wholeheartedly attached to dimple mp100 my ma has gotten. we watched s1e5 and i had to assure her dimple wasn’t dead for real bc she didn’t want to keep watching the series otherwise

#personal

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chameshida · 3 years

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ITS NOT A MOVIE ITS NOT A MOVIE ITS A WHOLE SEASON! I wonder how long it’s going to be and if they needed some original content to make it a bit longer. It would be nice to have some new content, we haven’t had that in a while!! Also, I HOPE THEY ADAPT SHUT UP AND EAT! EITHER WAY IM HAPPY THO

Yeah yeah yeah I think they can do 12! Like you said They can either adapt many omake content and intregate them seamlessly into the plot of the episode much like they've done before for season 1 and 2 (Pot omkae to reflect Ritsu, Tsubomi omake during marathon) I think Summer omake is a prime material for that with it being the more serious and longer omake(especially with a lot of teru content in season 3). If not omake then extended fight scene as they seem to love doint that too. Also keep in mind that season 2 skipped and sacrifice a lot of manga content to fit that many chapters into the season 2 so having less content to adapt can also mean having plenty of time to explore things more. The first arc is a slow burn psychological horror that would benefit from the slower pace.

if not 12 then I think 10 would be comfortable enough number for the material they have if they dont want to extended anything too much.

and yes I really want shut up and eat XD

#mp100 #mob psycho 100 #mp100 spoilers #i'm just so relieved #and so happy it's not a movie you know #it has become one of my greatest fear for the adaptation #100.1-100.5 deserved a whole episode all by itself to mirror s1e5 change my mind

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russenoire · 1 year

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we like to talk about the kind heart beating at the center of mob psycho 100...

its eminently huggable and relatable main characters...

the surprising maturity and accessibility of its psychological themes, the tightrope it walks between pathos and absurd humor, the abundance of sensitive neurodivergent representation within, and—for a story with a predominantly male cast—its largely unsexualized and refreshingly real girls and women.

i could keep listing more aspects of this story that i adore, honestly. but for me, it was one specific aspect of the writing that struck me the hardest.

as a person who used to inhale film and TV criticism like folks in the US devour breakfast cereal, i live for subversions of tired, well-worn storytelling patterns (call them tropes if you must). MP100 is full to leaking with subverted expectations. but only rarely do i ever see a writer subvert a done-to-death pattern and then subvert the subversion.

studio bones and ONE's writing work together to pull this off in the fifth episode of MP100's first season. on my first watch, i had to pick my jaw up off the floor at what i was seeing.

this got... long... more below the cut.

first, a little bit of framework.

the concept of single combat drives much of the action (and comedy) in shōnen fighting series.

it simplifies the conflict between cultures, between ways of life, between ideals, to a question of who is stronger in a no-holds-barred match between two people. the answer decides the fates of whole nations, hopefully but not always spares both sides from further bloodshed, and it's older than dirt.

the cathartic appeal of such distillation is not entirely lost on me, but i also crave novelty and nuance? and seem to be aging out of the shōnen demographic as a result. 'my kung-fu is stronger than yours!' 'yeah? well, i'm fucking bored with attempts to settle this question with fists or magic and no longer care.'

i do not count MP100 as a fighting series; the story doesn't conflate personal growth with increasing skill at punching shit and would hold up as a coming-of-age story quite well without battles. while MP100 flirts shamelessly with many fighting series clichés, it actively refuses to commit to those it engages. it rejects this one entirely by story's end.

when teruki hanazawa first becomes aware that shigeo kageyama exists and shares his easy facility with ESP, he and the audience are led to believe that the two boys will enter into a showdown like those we've seen so many times before. they'll fight it out like the real men they'll be soon, and a clear victor will emerge from the wreckage in their wake.

shigeo, of course, is flatly uninterested and baffled at this stranger fighting him unprovoked. teru figures he can preserve his view of the world by simply bringing the boy to heel, just as he has with everyone else around him. even after the little blond chuunibyou twists him until his bones crack... waterboards him in the depths of black vinegar middle school's swimming pool...

[image ID: a teenaged boy in his physical education uniform of white tee shirt and red shorts is shown from the back and below him... at the very bottom of a swimming pool. he has been plunged in against his will; a barrier of sorts can be seen around his body -- his own defense against the middle schooler attacking him.]

demolishes much of the school grounds, wielding his spindly body as a wrecking-ball...

shigeo will not yield. nor does he indulge teru in his pointless lust for battle.

he doesn't see him as an enemy and, more importantly, doesn't want to hurt him. the child is painfully aware of how easily he could kill this boy, so he endures the abuse, though not without protest. i'd never seen a shōnen anime series that even presented refusing to fight as an option.

[image ID: a bowl-cut-sporting teenage boy in a white tee shirt with a red collar stands hunched over and facing his antagonist offscreen to the viewer's right, in anticipation of another attack. he is saying 'i told you to stop that.' in the background is a statue of a human figure with arms raised above its head in victory. it will soon be made to topple onto him.]

though shigeo refuses to play this game at all, the lack of damage teru is able to inflict on him with ESP and his concise verbal summation of the profound insecurity driving teru's behavior already prove shigeo's superiority. teru needs to feel supported and justified in this unwarranted attack on another boy just like him, and so he demands, over and over, that shigeo fight back... that he show his powers. but it never sinks in for him that he's seeing them in action.

in the end, teru gives up on forcing shigeo's submission with ESP and uses his raw physical strength to strangle the young kageyama... who then plays this trope straight and utterly traumatizes teru into adopting a different outlook on life. after he passes the fuck out.

with teru's one-sided, tragic attempt at a brawl between himself and another esper child, ONE sends up the entire concept of magical single combat so hard it hits low earth orbit.

to make abundantly clear just how ridiculous this shit actually is? shigeo strips teru naked, then drains him dry of psychic energy by way of his fucking groin (in the anime) for even forcing him into this. you know, just for the extra humiliation. the boy's already been shaven like a fallen samurai at this point.

and teru's need to resist the challenge shigeo's existence presents to his way of life? we are made to see just how much harm that resistance to reality actually causes.

shattered glass, crushed concrete, wrecked doors, busted faucets spewing everywhere and wasting water—the camera lingers on these in-story, real-world consequences. actual shōnen fighting series rarely address such collateral damage outside of personal vendettas or playing it for comedy. (the comic bits here are almost necessary to leaven the pathos we're seeing, and are inseparable from that sadness.)

teru nearly commits first-degree murder twice and causes major property damage i doubt he had the power to fix. don't you dare look away, MP100's creators say. we need you, gentle watcher, to bear witness. teru is wrong. THIS WHOLE APPROACH to conflict is wrong. look again. does this remind you of anything?

and shigeo doesn't get off the hook either, though i'm inclined to give him a pass because reasons. he summarily flattens the rest of teru's school, finishing the job, and launches it (and him) above the clouds, but at least murder isn't on the table? the child suffers greatly for this unconscious act of retribution and continues to punish himself for this madness for some time... even after cleaning up the mess they both made when he returns to his senses.

no one wins here. what is 'winning'? what is 'losing'? are we even asking the right questions?

this arc—but especially this 'fight'—is darkly, absurdly funny, thought-provoking, and one of the most heartbreaking and moving things i'd seen in a long time. it sold me on this story and keeps me coming back in astonishment and gratitude.

(this is an expansion of part of a recap i wrote for this episode. you can read it here.)

#mob psycho 100 #mp100 #philosophy #mp100 meta #mp100 s1 rewatch #mp100 s1e5 #peak tv #my kung fu is stronger than yours #single combat #damn good writin'#double trope subversions #what did i just watch #誠にありがとございました #links to my writing elsewhere #kageyama shigeo #hanazawa teruki #分析

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