Time and Resource Management Sets Studio Bones’ Mob Psycho 100 Apart From MHA

The Fall 2022 anime season saw two beloved series began airing their most recent installments. They’ve both been popular within the anime fandom since their debuts in 2016 and have loyal fans worldwide to this day. My Hero Academia and Mob Psycho 100 are renowned anime produced by Studio Bones, also known for its work on Soul Eater, Ouran High School Host Club, both adaptations of Fullmetal Alchemist and more.

However, despite coming from the same studio, one series is outshining the other this season. While Mob Psycho fans are enthusiastic about Season 3, praising it as Bones’ passion project and shouting out specific animators for their work, MHA has received less praise. Particularly after Episode 9 of Season 6 aired, fans on social media are complaining about poor animation quality during Deku’s fight with Shigaraki. This song and dance has happened with MHA before, but the trend is hard to miss. That said, the reason for this disparity may lie in the one thing these series have in common: the studio.

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The Differences in Animation Quality Between MHA & Mob Psycho 100

Mob Psycho 100 shows true appreciation for animation as an art form, taking creator ONE’s comparably rudimentary drawings and giving them so much life and personality. The anime regularly uses dynamic camera angles and seamless animation to bring the source to life. It even brings other mediums into the project when possible. Season 1 is known for its paint-on-glass animation, while Season 2’s opening pays tribute to earlier animation forms like zoetrope and picket fence animation. This dedication and attention to detail persists into Season 3. It’s hard for any viewer to dispute that Mob Psycho is, if nothing else, a visual treat.

Meanwhile, My Hero Academia’s adaptation has beautiful, detailed art by creator Kohei Horikoshi to work with. Yet, the anime constantly lessens this quality. While animation can’t achieve the level of detail that manga panels can, it should make up for that by excelling in what animation does best: motion. For years, MHA fans have been complaining about Bones cutting corners in certain scenes, especially when a big Deku fight is coming up.

For example, Mirio Togata’s fight with Overhaul in Season 4 isn’t much more than still images with music and sound effects, while Deku’s fight against him showcases the best the studio has to offer. The sakuga moments are incredible, but the treatment other events receive makes some wonder why they bother watching. A similar uproar happened in Season 5 when Himiko Toga’s Quirk awakening was drastically changed, and now Season 6 has caused another outcry.

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What’s Causing the Difference in MHA & Mob Psycho 100’s Animation?

To a lot of fans, what sets these two series apart is how they are managed. There are three years in between releases of each season of Mob Psycho 100, while My Hero Academia gets a new season annually. The typical counter to this argument is that Bones has limited staff, which they allocate to different projects as they see fit. By this logic, all the best members of the staff have been working on Mob Psycho 100 in order to make it look the way it does. With it and MHA both currently airing, it isn’t a stretch to think they were in production at around the same time. This can explain MHA’s lackluster moments this season, but this issue has persisted even when it was the only anime Bones released between 2019 and 2020.

Staff jumping between projects does not seem to be the issue. Bones has five animation teams in separate studios who work on different projects at any given time. Each is led by its own producer, and they typically stick with a project for future installments. For example, Studio A handled Noragami in 2014 and did so again with Noragami Aragato in 2015. My Hero Academia was originally handled by Studio A, but was moved to Studio C for Season 2 and has stayed with them since. Meanwhile, Mob Psycho 100 has been handled by Studio B for all three seasons.

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However, works being on separate teams does not mean their workload was equal. Studio C has produced My Hero Academia yearly since 2017 and is credited for nothing else in the meantime, save the MHA movies. Studio B has a firm hold on Mob Psycho, its only title in years aside from Blood Blockade Battlefront & Beyond in 2017. Even if the members of Studio B were signed on to help other studios with their projects, it can be presumed that Mob Psycho is currently B’s only project.

This on its own addresses the issue at hand. Where Studio B has years between releases and has no other credited work, Studio C has to crank out a new season of MHA every year along with working on the movies. Ever since this has been the case, the anime has had lackluster animation. This disappoints My Hero Academia fans because the first three seasons looked great, and many think it should have stayed that way. If MHA got the same treatment that Mob Psycho 100 has — more time between seasons and fewer movies to worry about — the quality should return to what it once was.