Genki Life Magazine 35 - Spring 2019

…the spirit’s, that is. He first explains himself. His
name, in fact, is Keiji Mogami. He was, in fact, a powerful
esper. He used his powers to help people, and he
won celebrity in the process. His mother fell ill all the
same, and he lacked the money to care for her. To get
that kind of scratch quickly, he turned his abilities to
help people into tools that killed them, doing assassination
jobs on the side. One dirty and dehumanizing
job after another wasn’t enough to save his
mother though, who rather than pass peacefully
on or thank him for all the trouble he’s
went through, becomes a spirit that spites her
son. This experience, combined with all the
wretched moments he’s had to put up with until
now, turns him into a raging misanthrope.
Swearing vengeance on humanity for tricking
him out of blessings and cursing him
back as thanks, he resolves to die and rise
again as a vengeful spirit of immense
power. He begins executing on this plan
by hunting down and absorbing as many
powerful and malevolent spirits as he
can find and catch, leading to his past
encounter with Dimple.
All throughout his piece’s telling, Mob is
stuck in a hell by other people’s making. Mogami
sees himself in Mob. He sees a naivety in Mob
that he once possessed. Whether because he genuinely
wants to help Mob out of his starry-eyed
naivety or finds twisted satisfaction in breaking an innocent
boy’s mind, Mogami subjects Mob to an alternate
version of his life. It is a cruel parody of Mob’s junior
high until now, or is it? All the support figures and
role models in his alternate life are absent. His meek
demeanor and social awkwardness makes him the target
of relentless and malicious bullying. Mob endures this
mistreatment and misery for so long (minutes of real life
stretched out months of because of apparent time relativity
to espers), with Mogami all but explicitly daring
him to use his powers to fight back. Worst yet, the girl
that he risked his consciousness to save is the instigator
of the better part of his harassment. Mogami assures
Mob that her behavior towards him is absolutely genuine,
the worst side of
her given form in the
right circumstance (her
attempts at quickly fitting
in as a transfer student at
Mob’s school).
This hellscape of a
sequence is builds on
the themes of an episode
before. Obnoxiously
awful college students
demand Mob exterminate
a family of ghosts
minding their own business.
Mob is accosted by
70 Genki Life Magazine • Spring 2019