Shigeo Kageyama, nicknamed "Mob" and "White T-Poison", is the main protagonist of the Mob Psycho 100 series. He is a third-year student at Salt Middle School and the vice-president of the Body Improvement Club who is also a former assistant and disciple of Arataka Reigen. Shigeo has jet-black bowl-shaped hair and dark eyes. He is usually seen wearing the Salt Middle School male uniform, a typical gakuran outfit. Shigeo has a rather nondescript expression on his face. However, whenever he reaches 100%, his eyes glow red or white, and his hair is affected by his psychic powers, causing it to float and become spiky. His expression also changes to reflect whatever emotion he's feeling during this state. As a child, Shigeo learned that his psychic power was linked to his emotions. Strong negative emotions can cause him to hurt others, something he strongly dislikes and avoids (as shown in the 7th Division Arc where, after going 100%, he hurts several teenagers). Therefore, he generally tries to keep his emotions in check. However, in some cases, he can control his powers, e.g. when he is at 100% courage. This could imply that pure emotions, such as courage or the honest and genuine desire to want to help or protect others, can allow Mob to remain in control, while negative emotions such as rage cause him to lose control. He is reserved and struggles with "reading the atmosphere", which has led him to have a lack of friends, and even to come across as aloof and distant to others due to his constant inexpressiveness, like in the (LOL)cult arc. He's also easily scared in public, as seen when he stood in silence for 5 minutes on the podium during a student presidential election speech. Shigeo is a very kind and understanding individual, never holding grudges or resentment towards those who've hurt him. This was first seen with Teruki, who relentlessly attacked Shigeo and choked him to try and fight back, but despite this, the two became close friends. With Ritsu, who gained psychic powers and wanted to fight Shigeo to prove he was stronger while trying to break their bond, Shigeo pays no mind to this, later commending Ritsu for his intelligence and other skills that Shigeo lacks, leaving Ritsu in tears. The most notable example of his capacity for forgiveness is with Minori, who ruthlessly bullied him for six months in a mental world created by Mogami and brought him to the brink of insanity. Despite having been hurt like this, Shigeo instantly forgives her and chooses to view his time in the mental world as a valuable lesson that both Minori and Keiji taught him, actually saying that he was glad they could meet. Perhaps most remarkable about Shigeo is his seemingly nigh-limitless compassion. When fighting villains, he often refuses to use his psychic powers unless necessary, preferring to talk with his enemies and try to reason with them. With Katsuya, despite being the enemy, Shigeo offered to be his friend and helped him to become a better person by no longer hurting people. With Toichiro Suzuki, despite having destroyed most of Spice City, Shigeo still offers the hand of friendship and continues to try and reason with him. During their fight, at some point, he empathizes with Suzuki due to the lonely life he leads, and actually cries after his rage get cooled, and didn't want to hurt him anymore, but had no choice at that point, conflicting with his previous rage. Then, when Suzuki is about to self-destruct, Shigeo makes the incredibly selfless decision to stay by his side in his final moments because leaving him to die alone would be too sad, finally causing Suzuki to change. In the Keiji Mogami Arc, he lives for half a year in a fantasy world created by the bitter former psychic, Mogami. There, he is friendless, without a family supporting him or anything else. Despite that, it takes great emotional manipulation, along with physical harm, for Mogami to make Shigeo become angered with his tormentors. Even then, he wants to offer them forgiveness. Moreover, instead of being bitter and viewing the world in a more negative light after this torment, he viewed it positively. It meant that with all the horrible people and circumstances in the world, he was lucky to have his friends and family, and vowed to be even more grateful, demonstrating his very noble and pure character. He is also morally opposed to using psychic abilities against other people. He is, however, willing to cast this principle aside in cases of emergency, such as when Ritsu is kidnapped. Another principle of his is that psychic ability does not make him or others inherently better and that his psychic ability is not something that he requires in life. This belief leads to conflict between him and Teru, Mogami, Toichiro, and even his own brother, Ritsu. Even so, if the situation is dire enough, for example, his brother being kidnapped by Claw's 7th Division, he will use them without hesitation. Because of this principle, and because he believes that he is greatly lacking in many other areas, Shigeo has a low opinion of himself, despite being one of the most powerful espers in the series. As a result, Shigeo was initially very silent and did not often voice his opinion, mostly keeping his thoughts and emotions to himself. But as time passed, he began to speak out more and state his opinions on many things. This primarily affected his relationship with Reigen; at first, Shigeo would follow Reigen practically anywhere at almost anytime and do whatever he told him with almost no objection. The only exception was against Ceiling Crasher when Shigeo reminded Reigen that he'd asked his master not to summon him on such short notice. However, even then, he wasn't particularly irritated. But at the beginning of Season 2, Shigeo objected to Reigen's wishes more fiercely, telling his master in a somewhat aggravated tone to stop forcing Shigeo to drop everything for him. This more confident side and the growing suspicion towards his master appeared to finally hit its peak after Shigeo lived in Mogami's world for six months and Reigen called him out of the blue once again to deal with an evil spirit when Shigeo was going to have a very fun and socially engaging activity with his friends. After Reigen claims that his friends are simply mocking Shigeo and telling him to prioritize his job over his social life, going so far as to call Shigeo gullible, this is the tipping point that makes Shigeo finally go against his master. He realizes that not everything Reigen said was true, and states that he wasn't as gullible as Reigen believed him to be. From this point on, he stops going to work and leaves Reigen for an unknown period of time to enjoy himself with his brother and his friends, actually being happy and not being worried about Reigen. Shigeo also had a somewhat naive sense of how cruel the world could be, due to being shielded from a harsh environment by a loving family--especially the honor student Ritsu. This was why Mogami decided to put Shigeo in a mental mindscape where he didn't have his powers and was surrounded by horrible people he couldn't fight back against. After six months of torment and being subconsciously motivated by Mogami, Shigeo had had enough. He was almost ready to unleash his psychic powers on his bullies, but he was stopped by Dimple, who reminded him of who he was and snapped him out of his amnesia. Despite the bullying he endured for six months in Mogami's mental mindscape, he didn't appear to be traumatized after escaping, even declaring that, since the world was full of terrible people, he should be even more grateful for the amazing people and family he has around him. Even though Shigeo wasn't turned by Mogami the way he'd initially wanted, Mogami and the six months of torment impacted Shigeo and his view of the world. Although he didn't appear psychologically traumatized by the experience, he appeared to have become less naive and more knowledgeable about the world around him. It's possible that after seeing the horrible people in the world and the way others used Mogami, he began to grow even more suspicious of his master and became less gullible as a result, which was why he left Reigen after concluding his master was beginning to use him and treat him more like a tool instead of a person. Moreover, he appears to have become harder on his friends and allies after Mogami told him to be harder on people when the time came. Perhaps the most dramatic example of the effect Mogami may have had on Shigeo was how Shigeo became more willing to use his psychic powers in excessively aggressive ways when the time called for it. The primary instance of this was when he began to violently and painfully twist and tear Toichiro Suzuki's body to end the fight, something he likely would not have done before. Despite his honorable and humble nature, Shigeo is not immune to praise and flattery. This was primarily shown after the Divine Tree arc when it appeared that he was becoming more popular and girls were talking to him or talking about him, and when he became aware of the Psycho Helmet cult having a meeting to worship their "leader". This caused him to enter a new 100% state: 100% Getting Carried Away, where his face morphed to become more defined, and he began to speak in a more self-righteous tone. This new overconfidence was noted by Reigen when Shigeo explained that a cult was created because of his actions, an overestimation of himself, and something Reigen thought sounded awfully cocky. However, this inflated confidence appears to have disappeared sometime after Shigeo discovered Dimple had taken his place as the leader of the Psycho Helmet cult at their meeting.
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