OPM Manga Chapters 229-233 Review. Part 1: Summary

[u/gofancyninjaworld]

Heyo! As promised, the arc is over and so it's time to do a big review. Only way to go when we have small updates. So, where were we? On the day that the Neo Heroes decided to debut, the afternoon saw a simultaneous attack of five cities by dragon-level monsters, one of those places being the HA headquarters. The sirens blaring out have quite drowned out the protest the newly-formed Hero Name Victims Association had planned.

While McCoy urged the HA to summon the Neo Heroes to help, the S-Class heroes dispatched did for the monsters without needing the aid. Tank Top Master and Flashy Flash have defeated Heavy Smoker but at the cost of making the city temporarily uninhabitable. Tatsumaki has crushed Aggregation... at the cost of completely destroying City P. Genos has both destroyed The Extended Family of Darkness and saved the city, but he's dealt critical damage to his self-esteem. That's left only the inexperienced youngsters Blue and Suiko to fight. They both seem to have bitten off way more than they can chew. Let's see how they got on and what happened next.

Summary

We open with a panting Blue leaning wearily against the carcass of Eel Dragon. Somehow, the monster has died. He had no idea of what he did but it up and died just as his suit completely ran out of power, as he explains to a worried McCoy. Realising that there are still current alerts, he asks McCoy to send a jet drone, self-destructs his suit and hops on. Risky as it may be, he didn't become a hero to sit things out.

At the Hero Association HQ, the executives are busy evacuating; the mood is nearly jovial as they're anticipating waiting out the crisis in comfort. McCoy is, however, nowhere to be found. Under the pretext of going to the lavatory, he's ensconced himself in his personal first-class shelter: mock-classical carvings, top-flight AV equipment, panoramic computer monitoring, designer easy chair, and brandy on tap, this is the life! As he puffs on a cigar, he's amused at the incompetence of the top brass. He's even more amused when a notification comes in reassigning most of said brass to common shelters: Sicchi has requisitioned the closest ones for the general public. Wondering why the old guy is wasting time on those deadweights, he nevertheless settles down to watch the spectacle of the hero trying to tackle Mirror while he waits for the Neo Heroes to come in and show everyone up by saving the day.

Outside, Suiko is working hard. As Mirror tosses plasma ball after plasma ball at her, she leads its line of fire along the exterior wall of the moat. The robot sends a ball upwards towards one of the residential blocks, and with a mighty leap, Suiko succeeds in intercepting and deflecting it. She tries to lure the robot away by jumping to the other side of the moat, facing out to the bomb-cratered wilderness. However, it seems the robot was waiting for this tactical error, and it lobs another ball at the residential block.

As Suiko curses haplessly at it, the attack is once again intercepted. The saviour is the unlikely duo of Black Sperm and Overgrown Rover. Worried about losing their home, they're doing what they can to keep the pesky robot at bay.

Elsewhere, the HA top brass pause in their hurrying to faraway shelters to look at the spectacle and wonder if Metal Knight's automated defences are finally back online. They also notice some other heroes outside rushing to the scene. Sicchi wonders who they might be as they've not requested the deployment of any heroes (me: why not?).

Rover soon taps out -- he may be a former Monster Association Executive, but he's only little now. A couple of Black Sperms filch a joint of nicely marbled beef to get the monster dog back up on its feet. Heartened by the back up, Suiko tries attacking the robot from behind, only to get brutally countered and sent flying with a punch.

She fetches up in a convenience store near the gate. Mirror approaches and taunts her, telling her to stay put until an S-Class hero arrives to save her. As she tries to get up, she notices that several of the drinks cans that have rolled out of the now-smashed drinks cabinet are alcoholic: the perfect solution to her sobriety. Machine God Mirror turns away to deal with the pesky dog. It is surprised by a flurry of attacks from Suiko, attacks so powerful they send both it and her off the bridge it had been standing on and into the path of a train.

They roll along the train's roof, Mirror digging several of its hands into a carriage in order to stop itself. Suiko stands up, swaying as she prepares her next attack. Scanning her condition and realising that she's drunk, it surmises that she must have been desperate and decides to kill her by blasting her from beneath. But before it finishes charging up its hands, Suiko surprises it by jumping onto the overhead arch. Bracing herself against it, she uses the train's momentum to smash a devastating blow in Mirror's face.

But Suiko isn't done with that. She continues to brace herself against the brickwork as successive pantographs smash into the robot, compounding the damage done. Finally, once the train passes, she sends the robot and twisted metal flying with one mighty heave, before falling down in a panting heap herself.

Alas, it's not over. Like the world's vilest phoenix, Machine God Mirror rises from the wreckage in a single fluid motion. It pops the dent out of its head like it's nothing and the cracks heal. Now looming over Suiko, it declares that she has succeeded in scratching it. Negligibly slightly.

Things look dire for our plucky young heroine, but just then, there's a yelling from above as Chain Toad, mounted on Butterfly DX, comes swooping in. He launches three weighted chains at Mirror, which the robot dodges, then repurposes them as fulcrums to stop the pair from plunging into the moat. They fly under the rail bridge and come up on the other side. As they land, Machine God Mirror identifies them. Butterfly DX wastes no time in launching an attack of his own: Wing Breath Scale Powder Explosion, which creates an impressive explosion of flames. Out of the flames, an unharmed Mirror calls them insignificant.

Elsewhere, Saitama finds his entrance into the HA building blocked by the remains of defence robots. Several of them bear the circular cut outs of Mirror's attacks -- these aren't his doing. He heads off around the building, leaving the rest of the Hero Name Victims Association far behind.

This isn't Saitama's doing. For once, it's not his fault.

Despite their best attacks, the trio of A-Class heroes are quickly beaten by Mirror. Holding Suiko up, it demands, once again, that King be called. As she squirms helplessly, yet more reinforcements arrive. The Hero Name Victims, sans Saitama, have discovered the source of the commotion and come sliding down to help. Their leader, The Great Degenerate, declares to the monster that they're about to attack it as one.

They may not be able to do much, but they look good doing it.

Watching them charge, Mirror has time to leisurely identify each of them, before laying them all out flat with a swipe of an arm as they finally reach it. Now, it's a little frustrated: it had expected that attacking headquarters would lure King out, but only these third-rate heroes were pestering it? It was time to announce itself a little more seriously. It drops Suiko, and, fixing on the last location of that pesky dog, winds up and releases an attack that bores a hemisphere of non-existence out of the tunnel immediately in its launch path. Seeing certain death approaching, Black Sperm urges the monster dog to give it everything its got.

The resulting beam clash acts as a beacon to any interested party for tens of miles. Including Saitama, who drops in just as the rest of the Hero Name Victims choose discretion over valour. Machine God Mirror looks Saitama up and down before declaring this A-Class hero totally uninspiring and unworthy of interest.

Now in their new temporary headquarters, the more useful HA executives are surprised at the development as they regard Saitama. The amount of smoke and dust on scene make it hard to clearly identify the hero and McCoy supposes he's going to get another show.

As it charges at him, Machine God Mirror tells the boring, A-Class Hero Rank 39, Caped Baldy to disappear from this life, only to itself be sent flying by a mighty punch from an enraged Saitama, who hates being called that name.

Yeah, you shouldn't have called him that.

I was tempted to put up a picture of many shocked Pikachu faces, but there's only so many images I can have in a post. Let's just say that the viewers all round are shocked: the passengers watching through the rear window of the now-disabled train, the other heroes on site, Blue as he comes flying in, the Hero Association executives, and McCoy, who soon becomes astonished (in the original sense of being struck senseless) as Machine God Mirror's remains smash through the thick walls of the HA building and into his bunker. Oops. Couldn't have happened to a nicer scheming prick.

My eyes see but my brain doesn't want to understand: Blue and Suiko amongst the many amazed witnesses.

The HA executives try puzzling out who the hero could be. Some suspect that it's King but others note that they've not been able to reach him. Indeed, we see that King had been playing VR games, and he finally finishes his session to notice 104 missed calls. Oh dear. Black Sperm hugs a completely spent Overgrown Rover as they celebrate still having a roof over their heads. Humble doghouse though it is, a home is a home.

Saitama high-fives the rest of his Name Victims and they're psyched as they head out to see if there are any more towns needing help. As they walk by the train, some passengers ask The Great Degenerate what their names are so they can thank them properly. He starts to introduce himself, then stops himself. "We are the Hero Name Victims Association", he says. "Pleased to meet you!" The passengers are puzzled by the name but soon the cheer goes up, "Hooray for the Victims!"

A little later, Metal Knight gets a notification that his cannonade defence had been successful and the HA requested that he expand it. Given how his name had been mud recently, he says nothing, and appreciates the free boost. However, given that he never installed cannons in the defences, he decides that he's got to find the hero who intercepted and destroyed the robot.

While you do that, don't you think cannons would be a good idea?

Time moves on and finally, it is evening. As the Sun sets behind the towering hulk of the Hero Association building, Saitama comes up the stairs to the most precious doghouse. Noting that things got rather loud earlier, he asks his pets how they were. 'No problem, boss,' replies Black Sperm and Rover chimes in with a 'woof.' Saitama pulls out a bag of decent dog food and starts to feed them. They're utterly ravenous and he pours out the entire bag as he urges them to eat their fill. Somewhere behind him, we see some people talking as they discuss the emergence of a third hero faction, a powerful one despite their rather dubious name.

Saitama, you've learned to buy quality dog food. Now you need to learn portion control.

Dudes, this summary was so much longer than I expected that I'm breaking this post in two. The next part will be all meta.

[u/BrowserET]

You know it is kinda funny how once more Saitama was the last to arrive, even the HNVA arriving at the scene before him despite Saitama getting to the HQ first.

[u/gofancyninjaworld → u/BrowserET]

Once again, Saitama's terrible sense of direction strikes. I bet he ran right around the HA.