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This article contains major spoilers about this sexyperson and/or their source material. Please proceed with caution. |
Arataka Reigen (last name Reigen, first name Arataka) is the deuteragonist of Mob Psycho 100, who sweats a lot and was sexified by the anime adaptation.
Basic Information[]
Reigen is the 28-year old mentor figure to Shigeo, or Mob, the protagonist of MP100. He is a con artist, a fake psychic who does fake exorcisms, but uses Mob, a real psychic, to take care of real exorcisms. Despite his job description, he is a kind and well-meaning person who does genuinely try to help people, and somehow ends up sort of rounding up a whole team of psychic middle schoolers.
In the original MP100 manga, no one was really drawn sexy, Reigen being no exception. However, when it was adapted for anime by Studio BONES, Reigen was animated to be very flamboyant, and there were a lot of shots where he is animated really sexily, like you can just TELL the animators were horny, and the fans caught on. Additionally, multiple interviews with various people on the team (most notably character designer Yoshimichi Kameda and the paint-on-glass guest animator Miyo Sato) showed the lengths to which they went to make him sexy and also how sexy they personally found him.
He is also known for being an "internet sex symbol" as a meme. Just Google "internet sex symbol" and you will come up with a lot of pictures of Reigen.
He has a much more detailed description on the Mob Psycho 100 Wiki.
Archetypes[]
Con Artist[]
Despite running an exorcism-based business, he is not a psychic and his entire business model revolves around conning others for their money.
Distinctive Voice[]
Both his Japanese and English dub voice actors clearly had a lot of fun with the role. His voice is very confident-sounding which, in-universe, seems to serve to make his scams seem more believable. Also, he makes... a lot of... noises.
Note: Neither the author of this page, the Sexypedia Admins, nor any of the editors of this page support his Japanese VA's and English VA's actions.
LGBTQ+ Coded[]
In the anime, Reigen uses dramatic hand gestures and body movements defining him as a rather flamboyant character. He is popularly headcanoned as gay due to his lack of canon attraction to women.
Seriously, what is the heterosexual explanation for this.
In May 2019, after the release of MP100 season 2, official anime art was released that shows Reigen with his male coworker Serizawa (the two of whom make up a popular ship among MP100 fans) in wedding attire, with Reigen wearing a traditional robe and Serizawa wearing a suit. Both men are holding flower bouquets and Shigeo and Ritsu are throwing flower petals. It is unclear how this is intended to be read heterosexually, as it appears that Reigen and Serizawa are getting gay married.
Morally Grey[]
While Reigen preaches about kindness and not hurting other people, apparently conning people is still okay. He genuinely believes in helping people, but lies to them about what exactly he is helping them with (ie. giving a massage to a person who believes they are being exorcised of a spirit). He lies to Mob throughout most of the series and initially hired him just to exploit him, eventually coming clean at the end of the series about how he had been lying the whole time. He's like if Jimmy McGill got better instead of worse over the course of his respective series.
Pale Twink[]
Reigen is usually depicted as slim and pale, and is taller than the average height for males in Japan.
Parental (Mentor) Figure[]
Reigen is a mentor figure to Mob throughout the whole series, and encourages him to be a good person. Reigen also ends up being sort of a chaperone to several other psychic teenagers around the same age as Mob.
Reigen flinging Makima into the sun for the sake of everyone's sanity
There is a popular fanon AU in which Reigen cares for the esper children with neglectful parents in canon as well as Tome, who becomes his new mentee in the post-series spin-off. Another popular crossover AU has him swap roles with up-and-coming sexywoman Makima and take in Denji of Chainsaw Man rather than Mob.
Theme Song[]
"Reigen's Theme" from the MP100 soundtrack is an easily recognizable instrumental song that often plays during scenes in his office.
"GO GO REIGEN!" is a faster version of Reigen's Theme that plays when he's making an idiot out of himself and has kind of a meme status on its own.
Well-Dressed/Uniform/Suitguy[]
Reigen wears a suit to work, and is usually seen in his gray suit and pink tie.
Subverted Tropes[]
baby reigen
Angst[]
In MP100, angst is often subverted in interesting and/or funny ways. A good example is when an antagonist states his tragic backstory and Reigen responds by saying he empathizes because of one time when he felt like an outsider at school.
An important character arc for Reigen occurs when he is separated from Mob and goes on a wild ride of bad decisions. He is shown depressed, humiliated, feeling extremely guilty, and otherwise being put under a lot of pressure, but subverts the angst trope by also admitting that he brought it upon himself. The view most people have of Reigen here is that he is pathetic and kind of deserved what he got rather than feeling sorry for him. By the end of this arc, he receives character development that makes him feel more real and likeable to the audience.
In the onsen OVA, Reigen gets trapped on an infinite ghost train of hell and nightmares for a while. Although he becomes filthy, lonely, and starving, his predicament is played for humor rather than angst because all of the other characters have no idea he is suffering and are having a great time at the onsen.
Fanon Tropes[]
Fanon Splintering[]
In a post-canon drought, twitter kiwi_pasta made an evil, fucked up dark version of Reigen; something that singlehandedly kickstarted a massive wave of fanon splintering, dubbed The Reigenverse.
Fan Reception[]
Reigen is the most popular character in MP100. He is very charismatic and well-animated, which makes him attractive as an anime character. Reigen is memed on and lusted after in practically equal amounts, and there is definitely some overlap. This video is a good summary of this duality.
Reigen is commonly shipped with his coworker Serizawa, the evil spirit Dimple, or even both at the same time because people think that's hot. There is also a lot of self-insert shipping with Reigen.
the original babygirl
Reigen is also the origin of the "why does x call you babygirl?" meme; the original image is an edit of an MP100 panel where instead of saying "please drive safely," Shigeo asks "why does Serizawa call you babygirl?" Reigen's response, "how about we stop talking for a little while," is unedited. Reigen is sometimes referred to as "the original babygirl" because of this.
His popularity has led to trends like #redrawreigen on Twitter, where people redraw memes and other images but with Reigen. He has also made a background appearance in the PBS Kids show Molly of Denali as a celebrity called Clark Newman, though it was never confirmed that they were the same person.
The Sans v. Reigen Tournament (2022/09/07)[]
Telling my kids this is how she died Credit
Reigen is somewhat infamous on Anime Twitter ("anitwt") for somehow winning a lot of anime men tournaments despite arguably not being qualified. In September 2022, he won a "twink-off" where anitwt voted on which of a set of popular anime characters was a "supreme twink," and not a week later he won a similar "DILF-off," drawing attention to the fact that apparently he is simultaneously the Supreme Twink and the Ultimate DILF, and reigniting controversy over whether or not he even fits either of those descriptions. He is arguably too old to be a twink, and to young to be a DILF while not having any children. Here's a video of Reigen sweeping both of these polls, featuring this very Sexypedia page, and drawing attention to the characters that he beat directly who probably qualify way more than he does.
Reigen was subsequently entered in several other tournaments, sweeping them all, to the point where he was disqualified from some tournaments (such as the "pathetic man" tournament) because of the assumption that he would #reigensweep them again... until the Tumblr Sexyman poll, where Reigen made it to the final round against Sans. And, by a margin of literally .1%, with 244 thousand voters, Sans finally brought Reigen's sweep to an end. #SANSSWEEP achieved #2 on trending as Sans was crowned Tumblr's ultimate sexyman, although it is remarkably impressive that Reigen got so close to beating an Apollyon-class sexyman. Here is the link to all of the polls Reigen won during this time in one thread.
If this wasn't crazy enough, there was a reply to the results on Twitter from none other than Toby Fox himself, which was simply a screenshot of a short drabble that he assumedly wrote:
Having cheated his way to the last round of the competition, Reigen finds himself face to face with Sans, who got there by doing literally nothing. Although Reigen has an early lead, he decides if he wants to cinch this, he's going to have to collude with the competition. He's surprised when Sans, who was entered in the contest unwittingly by his brother (he didn't know what the competition was for) is glad to help him win free of charge. They both run a series of debates where Reigen dismantles Sans by proving how utterly unattractive he is. As the debates continue, Reigen puts on boy-band-style makeup and works out to become extra attractive. However, mysteriously, Sans's vote only seems to be increasing despite this. Sans mentions that Reigen forgot that being unattractive is one of the key tenets of becoming a popular guy on tumblr.
Emotionally crushed that he possibly ever wasn't attractive at all, Reigen considers falling out of the competition. However, he's cheered up by Mob, who says that Reigen should to remember what he taught him: He should have confidence regardless of what anyone thinks of him.
On the final day of the campaign, Reigen shows up with rings under his eyes, a five-o-clock shadow, and a dad bod. Without saying anything, he takes out a sandwich on stage and stuffs it into his mouth. He follows up with his "special attack," putting his fingers in his mouth like that one picture of Peter from Spiderverse. The audience cheers, and Reigen's polling makes a massive comeback.
In the end, the results are revealed. Sans won by a single vote.
Reigen can't believe it. One vote!? How could he lose by ONE VOTE!? Even that stupid skeleton voted for him!
Mob shows up and says offhand that since tumblr sexymen are unattractive, he wanted Reigen to have self-confidence, not rely on what other people think of him. Therefore he voted for Sans. Reigen doesn't know how to feel about this.
This is especially notable considering that Toby Fox generally refrains from making any comment on fandom goings-on; he stayed silent when "Megalovania" was played by a live band for the Pope, but he chose to respond to a Sexyman poll. What a legend.