Mob Psycho 100

Mob Psycho 100 is an antithesis to self-insert fantasies. This isn't about a bland, blank character wreaking havoc when showing off their cool power. This is about a genuine person as protagonist with his own personal philosophy and take on the superpowers. This isn't about the protagonist being admired by regular people because of his great power. This is about the protagonist admiring regular people and looking up to those who managed to improve themselves through their own efforts. These days, "reverting expectations" has almost became synonymous with "we did it worse than the audience expected, praise us". Thankfully, Mob Psycho reverts the readers' expectations ina well-crafted and enjoyable way, taking a jab at those "silly" superpower action fights and dragging them back into the reality by force with a take that I haven't really seen anywhere else. Make no mistake though, as Mob Psycho has its portion of exciting battles too. Yep, it managed to have its cake and eat it too, by not taking itself too seriously while also seriously exploring its themes. In its core, Mob Psycho 100 is a coming of age story carrying meaningful message of being honest to yourself and not losing the grip on reality wrapping itself in a pleasant mix of comedy, action and slice of life. What I especially like is how it stays away from the usual overused situations of "teen with powers" genre, such as "omg I have to hide my superpowers, nobody can find out or I'll be hunted down" and the absolute shocked overreactions of everyone when the powers end up being revealed for a cheap dramatical turn. No, here we have a protagonist who doesn't mind casually revealing his powers, he just prefers not to use them and values the "regular" way of doing things more, with the cast coming to accept the existence of those powers with similar causality, a reaction that just feels way more natural for modern humans. The weakest part of this manga is without a doubt the art. It fluctuates between being bad, okay and "artistic decision of artstyle" with occasional really good shot thrown in. Thankfully it works in the framework of this work and doesn't deduct from the reading experience at all, which is the most important part. It shines from time to time, but it could certainly use some improvement. Finally, is this worth reading if you've already seen the anime? Not really, no. The anime adaptation is great and better with every aspect (and mainly improving the visuals), so you're perfectly fine with reading just the last three and a half volumes that haven't been adapted into anime yet. Which I would really recommend doing if you enjoyed the anime.