Warning! Contains Spoilers for Mob Psycho 100 Season 3!Oftentimes knowing a little Japanese can enhance the experience of watching an anime, and the Season 3 premiere of Mob Psycho 100 proves that this is no exception. Of course, the subtitle translation is superb and is great at capturing the spirit and meaning of the original dialogue. But sometimes the subtler double meanings of specific words can be harder to capture.
Mob Psycho 100 is an anime produced by Studio Bones based on the manga of the same name by ONE, who is also the author of One-Punch Man. The series follows a young but incredibly powerful psychic named Mob as he goes through middle school and deals with supernatural threats like evil spirits. One of these spirits, Dimple, grew to become Mob's friend after the boy exorcized him, although he always maintained that he was only hanging around Mob so that he would eventually be able to possess him in a moment of weakness. But his evil nature has largely been overlooked throughout most of the series, with him being more of an ally than an enemy. However, this looks like it might be changing based on the ending to the third season's premiere.
The opening episode of Season 3 features Mob struggling with figuring out what he wants to do as a future career. Seeing this struggle, Dimple starts thinking about his own future and what he wants to accomplish. This results in an after-credits scene featuring Dimple drifting to the top of the giant broccoli stalk that Mob created at the end of season 2 and stating that his time has finally come. This is implying that it is finally time for him to try and enact an evil scheme to take over the world, which is made even clearer in the original Japanese.
Dimple's Japanese Dialogue Hints At His Evil Intent
His original line in Japanese is “Kita ka, Oresama no jidai”, which roughly translates to “I guess my time has finally arrived” like the subtitle translations convey. But the exact choice of words here have some deeper meanings behind them. Oresama is a first-person pronoun just like “I” in English, but it is one that conveys that the speaker has a great sense of arrogance. Of course, Dimple has always been incredibly arrogant in Mob Psycho, but the “-sama” suffix may also hint at what he seeks to become as that suffix is often used when addressing rulers and gods. The word “jidai” is similarly packed with meaning. It can be used simply to refer to the times, but it is also used when referring to Japanese historical eras. Since these eras are often tied to specific emperors and dynasties, saying that he wants to usher in a new era also indicates Dimple’s intentions to rule.
Japanese is an incredibly different language from English, so these subtleties must often be omitted from the translation of anime like this. And Dimple’s line in the subtitle translation does a fine job at expressing what he is saying. But having a deeper knowledge of what Dimple says in the original Japanese reveals the horrifying implications of his final line for the future of Mob Psycho 100’s world and characters.
Mob Psycho 100 is available to stream on Hulu and Crunchyroll.
