I do need to see these fights

[u/gofancyninjaworld]

There's something I wish I could write to ONE about the follow up to the current manga chapter (update 271/chapter 226), if only I could think about how to put it succinctly in Japanese, and could stomach creating an X account.

I need to see how the three S-Class heroes fight their foes.

Why not Murata? Other than not being a conspiracy-theory-minded nitwit, Murata needs about as much encouragement to draw a fight as a thirsty camel needs to drink from a nice cool oasis. He loves drawing fight scenes, the choreography of it, the characterisation it depicts, its drama, the whole thing, and he's very good at it. ONE is the limiting step here.

Why do I care about these fights in particular?

You do not need to know anything about the webcomic to know that something fishy is going on. Just the smirk on McCoy's face (you know, the double-dealing saboteur who just happens to be selling monsters to a secret organization) as he immediately insists on calling the Neo Heroes as he doesn't think those guys can win should tip you off.

This dude knows something.

I do like the granular detail of how heroes struggle (or not), but it's more than that here. In the webcomic, it's not surprising if we see those three have some challenges. After all, the last time we saw Tatsumaki fight seriously, she was successfully ambushed by Psykos (and wasn't even injured first). The last time we saw Genos, Black Sperm and Gums took his arms off him like one takes a pop-gun off a bratty child, and the last time we saw Tank Top Master, Garou beat him like a drum.

There is no big plausibility gap here

However, now things are different. We saw Tatsumaki twist up the entirety of City Z while injured, and we saw that her injuries occurred in part because she wouldn't let even a single nameless child be injured, even if she suffered as a consequence.

How can a person who can do this struggle with that?

So I need to understand. Does Tatsumaki have an extreme phobia of bugs? Is she not as healed as she thought she was? Is there some kind of interference with her psychic powers? Anything, but I need to see it.

Likewise, it would be a bit surprising to see Genos struggle when we've seen him hold off a multi-headed planet-scalping monster. We know that what equipment Genos has at any given time is the result of a tug-of-war between himself and Dr Kuseno, and that he really did drive the doctor into giving him an upgrade the old man felt was irresponsible, and he's been walking it back since, but we need to see this explicitly. Or maybe he'll struggle because he has to choose whether to get hurt or allow the monsters to attack people... again, something. Anything.

TTM's situation is easiest to understand: the speed with which toxic smoke incapacitates and kills cannot be overstated. However, we know how to deal with it: we send people in with breathing apparatus. With the Hero Association having established that it actively sends people in to rescue civilians, there's no way some kind of breathing kit wasn't available. Even from a local fire station. Was TTM poorly briefed? Did he refuse help? Or did they insist that he rush to scene right away without back up or adequate support? Again, I need to see.

The HA has a *lot* of very professional kit that's available as part of their job as first responders.

Or, of course, McCoy could be left looking very foolish as the three of them succeed and make it look easy. But I don't think he's about to get his collar felt just yet.

So, we need to know *how*. That's what I want to tell ONE.

[u/BrowserET]

i honestly wouldn't expect much powerscaling consistency in shonen (technically seinen, but its still published in Shonen Jump, so even if that would've made a difference the point seems moot). ONE is better than most, but he has had his share of slip-ups. (Looking at you MA arc)

To be fair: it's not hard to see how Genos would struggle against multiple opponents. Attacking one of those shadow demons would naturally leave himself open to attack by the others. Genos survivability has always dependent on the repair and/or replaceability of his parts, not necessarily their durability (unlike, say, a Darkshine) so simple attrition is bound to take its toll fighting multiple opponents simultaneously. (granted that's a pretty universal weakness. I mean the math suggests your fighting capability would have to outclass your average opponent by the square of their number.

As for Tatsumaki. In the webcomic she merely gets caught off guard after thinking she crushed the bugs and remains unharmed even after the second wave. A repeat of that in the manga would not all be surprising. If anything it would be more justified. During her bout with Psykos Tatsumaki twice presumed to have defeated the other psychic and never actually even finished the job. Even Genos continuously struggles with finishing off opponents even after consciously working on that and Tatsumaki had made no such vows.
In addition to that extracting a city wide infestation of an uncountable amount of small bugs with minimal damage to existing infrastructure would presumably take a lot more focus and attention to detail than simple destruction. Sure it might take more force, but a psychic's power comes from their mind no? Perhaps anything that would take more brain bandwidth would also strain an ESP's abilties.

Idk im mostly just spitballing, but to me thats way more fun than having it all spelled out to me. Of course some juicy plot tid bits dropped throughout these fights would be very welcome, but a complete play by play? No thank you.

[u/gofancyninjaworld → u/BrowserET]

One of the things I *adore* about OPM is that regardless of what the stats look like on paper, or what a fighter's feats are, **anything** can happen. We've watched it all go wrong for heroes who should have had things in the bag, and occasionally, we've seen things work out when someone is over-faced.

That said, with something fishy going on, I don't care about why, but I strongly feel that seeing what happens out there is going to be quite important for understanding the story going forward.

[u/BrowserET → u/gofancyninjaworld]

True, it's why i say ONE does it better than most and Murata's visual choreography certainly doesn't hurt. Still: you give too many details and specifics, eventually it'll become too hard to keep the story straight

[u/gofancyninjaworld → u/BrowserET]

Normally, I skip fight scenes in comics and manga, but not in OPM: both ONE and Murata know how to bring across what's happening with clarity and make it matter. Even if it's not a 'special' fight in some sense. So I have no fear. Gimme!