Mob Psycho 100 vol. 15

Mob is about to graduate middle school, but he hasn’t decided on the direction he’d like to take in high school.  That’s nothing compared to the issues facing Tome Kurata, head of the Telepathy Club.  Not only has she made it through middle school without encountering any aliens, but her fellow club members have treated it more as a hangout session than anything else.  Wanting to do right by her, they enlist Mob’s help in trying to track down a telepath that can communicate with aliens and wind up turning up someone surprising in the process.  Meanwhile, Tsubomi, Mob’s longtime crush, will be moving away after the end of the school year.  So if he wants to confess his love, he’s going to have to do it now.  But how’s he going to do it?  And is confessing even the right thing to do in this situation?

After delivering the climax to a surprisingly, and satisfyingly, large-scale storyline in the previous volume, mangaka ONE doesn’t try to top himself here.  The stakes here are all small time as Mob and a bunch of his friends try to make the best  of the time they have left at this particular stage of their school life.  The results are weird, funny, awkward, and even a bit touching as they always have been for this series.  It shows that, even as the series enters its Winding Down Stage, it remains true to itself and a very entertaining read as a result.  This is also the case for the bonus content for this volume, which is a lot more than usual but no less enjoyable for it.

However, “Mob” can’t help but end on a cliffhanger as it tries to goose the drama for the series finale.  I’d say it’s utterly shameless and pointless to boot, because ONE really can’t be serious about what this ending portents.  Can they?