An actual lull?  Yes, however brief, and I almost didn’t know what to do with myself (which is a problem, as it lasted all of about three hours).  I figured I’d better try and cover something from the backlog, because it’s loaded – even the OVA folder is overflowing.  I could have jumped back to one of the Netflix trio (maybe it says something that I’m not that buzzed to do so) or tried to catch back up with Hunter X Hunter (no urgency there – looks like I have plenty of time) but I decided to cherry-pick one of the specials instead.

I actually didn’t realize that Mob Psycho 100: Reigen – Shirarezaru Kiseki no Reinouryokusha was a recap, which I guess says something about how out of the loop I’ve been.  As such, there isn’t all that much to cover here – although as recaps go, this was one of the better ones I’ve seen.  Partly that’s because it was fun to see some of Mob Psycho 100 in all its glory again, but also because probably 20% of this hour-long special is new material.  This is Tachikawa Yuzuru, so you know nothing is going to be mailed in here – even a recap episode is going to be done with style and creative brilliance.

The new plot centers around Reigen – after seeing a sham psychic pimping her BS book on TV – deciding that his path to fame and fortune is to write a BS book chronicling his own adventures (as he tells them).  And he decides that Mob should be the one to write down the BS (for his usual hourly pittance and .2% of the grosses – this poor kid is paid like an in-between animator).  This is a fairly clever setup for a recap, actually, because it gives a valid excuse to show all that stuff while interweaving a touch of new story.  And the clever thing is that Tachikawa puts some subtle changes in here to reflect Reigen’s fantastical twist on events.

It’s nice to see Reigen in pure scam artist mode again, since he was in badass form for most of the last part of the first season.  There are some good sight gags here (like Reigen holding fries when he talks about Claw), and the ending is fitting – Reigen spending all of his crowdfunding money (2500 ¥, which he donated himself) on ramen for himself and Mob. That’s the thing about Reigen – as big of a bullshitter and asshat as he is, he always manages to right the ship in the end.

The best thing about the episode, though, was the way Tachikawa used the postscript to drop the bombshell Season 2 announcement – we knew it was coming sooner or later, but that was one of the best ways I’ve even seen it done.  With ONE having wrapped up the manga, we’re pretty much guaranteed now to get a complete telling in anime form – and while it’s sad the manga ended as quickly as it did, that’s certainly something it deserves.  Whenever we see S2 (I’m guessing 2019 sometime) it figures to rank as one of the very best series of the year.