does mob is autistic?

Uhh... I feel like everyone who's commented here has either never met an autistic person in their life, or doesn't know enough about their own autism. I'm autistic and around the same age as Mob, and I've done a lot of research on autism since I was diagnosed, and Mob is definitely, undoubtedly autistic. Whether or not this is intentional is up for debate.

There are three major sections of core autism symptoms and Mob dispys behavior in all three categories. All of these were taken from WebMD and personal experience. Autism Speaks is completely unreliable.

Lets start off with his social and relationship issues. First of all, many autistic people have difficulty with nonverbal communication, such as eye contact, facial expression, and body posture. Its hard to tell whether Mob makes eye contact or not from an outsiders point of view, but he definitely emotes very little with his face and body. Failure to establish friendship with people the same age is another thing. This is something he's gotten better at throughout the course of the manga, but at the beginning his only friends were Reigen, an adult, and Ritsu, his brother. Lack of interest in sharing activities with other people is another part of this. Mob is the only kid at his school who is not in a club at the start. (More on the body improvement club later.) And he seems perfectly okay with this. He immediately shuts down Tomes proposal of finding extraterrestrial life with his psychic powers simply because he's not interested. In flashbacks, he's shown to not laugh at the same things other people did. lastly in this category, lack of empathy. I know what you're thinking. "Mob represses his emotions because of fear of his powers!" But he seemed to display a lack of emotion even before the incident with ???% that caused him to start repressing. Not to mention a lot to autistic people repress emotions because we are told by society that our emotions are wrong. We often express our emotions with body movements, vocal sounds, and other "abnormal" ways. So we are taught to suppress emotion.

Verbal and nonverbal communication is the next category. We can skip delay or lack of talking, since we know Mob talks and we have no way of knowing when he learned to talk. Difficulty initiating and continuing conversations is the next symptom. In chapter 2, Mob initiates a conversation. Reigen remarks that this is the first time he has initiated. The first time in three years. Also, Mob often shuts down conversations because of lack of interest, like, again, when Tome proposes to seek extraterrestrial life. This is something I do too in a very similar way. Repetitive use of language is something we can skip, I think. Difficulty understanding the atmosphere, or, you know, Getting A Clue? This is a huge one because it has been used as a plot device. You know the LOL cult arc? Yes, this basically happened the way it did because Mob is autistic. He didn't notice how suspicious the cult was because he couldn't read the tone. He also is shown to have difficulty understanding sarcasm, like when he infiltrated the girl school and they were being sarcastic with him.

The last section only has one trait that Mob shows in canon but it is there nonetheless. It is having a focus on one specific topic. This is referred to as a "special interest" in the autistic community. What is one thing Mob is very preoccupied with? Muscles. He is shown to work so hard he passes out. Yes, he showed a lack of interest in clubs before, but now he's found a special interest. The transition from going home club to body improvement club does not make Mob any less autistic.

Those are just the core traits. Miscellaneous traits that Mob exhibits are: Over- or under-reaction to sensory stimulation. It varies from autistic person to autistic person. Personally, I can't stand loud noises or people unexpectedly touching me. I overreact. Mob underreacts. During LOL, Mob gets a mask forcibly put on his face and it is specifically pointed out by Dimple that he does not resist. Also, when he gets tied up and kidnapped in the Idiots Only Event, he doesn't seem too bothered. These are only a couple of examples.

And I'm saving the most important one for last. The whole concept of 0-100% with Mobs emotions are almost exactly what being overwhelmed and having a meltdown is like for autistic people, except in real life we mostly just isolate and break down crying and screaming rather than... having psychic powers. Emotions are suppressed because, like I said before, we are taught to suppress them because we are seen as weird and stupid. But that builds up until we cannot contain it anymore and we break down. The scene where Mob gets to 100% in LOL BECAUSE people are bullying him about his autistic symptoms is very relatable for me. The phrase "Get a clue" or "Can't you read the atmosphere?" is a trigger for mob. It raises his explosion meter exponentially.

tl;dr: You have either got to know nothing about autism or have not watched/read the series at all to think Mob isn't autistic. I could tell from the first episode. Listen to autistic people, please.

(link to the original thread)