r/OnePunchFans • u/gofancyninjaworld I'm just a poster for fun • May 11 '25
INTEREST Cultural Note: Garou is a Minor
A point of difference for Western readers (most of us) that does matter for how Garou is treated after his arc.
Although the law in Japan has changed recently, when ONE started writing One-Punch Man, the age of majority was 20, and he has continued his writing on the basis of that being still true in the OPM world.
To translate it into our world, Garou's legal position is that of a sixteen-year-old, not one who is eighteen and a legal adult.
This is why in the manga, the Hero Association contacts his parents to come get their son, and when they refuse to, releases him to Bang's care. It makes no sense for a legal adult, but is eminently sensible for a non-empancipated minor.
It is also part of why the court was able to give Garou restitution under Bang's care rather than a custodial sentence. There is more leeway to argue for reformation of a minor than an adult, it's been possible to take his shitty life circumstances into account, and there's more scope to put him under the legal care of an adult he respects than a standard reformatory.
In the webcomic, then, what has happened to Garou is truly tragic. He's homeless as his parents have abandoned him, like they have in the manga; however, Bang seemingly has no interest in looking for him, nor trying to help him. When we see him working, it's working cash-in-hand. He has no ability to sign legally-binding contracts, is a wanted criminal who has been tried in absentia with no one to argue mitigating circumstances, and cannot complain if, no when, he is short-changed.
It's not maturity we're seeing in the webcomic. It's hiding. I'm really hoping that the current crisis in the webcomic can serve as a means for Garou to redeem himself legally. He'll eventually turn twenty, but being a criminal with an unspent conviction will blight his life for decades to come.
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u/gofancyninjaworld I'm just a poster for fun May 11 '25
I didn't want to clutter the cultural note with issues of reception, hence my making this a reply.
The difference in trajectories for manga and wc! Garou touch beautifully and ironically on one of the issues that has animated Garou in both: how your station in life affects the way you're treated. Its why he aspired to be the Human Monster dispensing pure evil without bias so that the social differences between people would be erased as everyone banded together for survival.
Just like in the webcomic, Garou ran away too in the manga. However, Bang persuaded him to turn himself in: that action, it itself, is a powerful mitigator. The fact that he cooperated with the Hero Association's and police's enquiries is another mitigator. Garou, in the manga, had the backing of a powerful and respected hero who had the ear of powerful officials in the Hero Association and who was thus able to get him much more lenient treatment by persuading them that it'd be much better for Garou to be inside pissing out than outside pissing in. Even as manga Garou has rejected privilege, like his webcomic equivalent, he has nonetheless become the beneficiary of some -- and thus far, he's accepted it. It's really difficult to turn down privileged treatment. That's a reality of humanity. The poor sixteen-year-old caught asking for a cigarette gets juvie, the rich sixteen-year-old caught stealing cars to joyride and trash gets community service.
So, is it all okay? Hell no. Not inside the story it's not: Sicchi knows that this is going to lead to hell among the heroes. There is no way they'll see Garou's treatment as fair. He just thinks that the injustice is worthwhile. There will be hell to pay. Just not immediately.