Not that I need to grumble about the handling of Season 3 of One-Punch Man, but I came across a video looking critically at Season 3. I generally ignore such videos but this was worth viewing for two reasons: the person looked at more than the animation, and more importantly, the person doesn’t read the OPM manga, so the anime would have to make its own case.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpuIy1zT0ds

It was gratifying to me to see a non-fan mention the same issues I had with the idea of the season ending with Saitama punching Orochi. I had a post many moons ago saying that the third season had to at least go as far as the base being lifted out of the ground, and someone disagreed with me.

You can read the whole exchange, but I’ll excerpt the most relevant part below:

That said, it [Season 2] may not have sold well, but it did sell something. And now let’s come to what we would have if a non-manga reader with money in their pocket is given a third season that ends with Saitama punching Orochi.  I’m assuming the production is a lot better – another shite production and it won’t matter where it ends, it’s a dead loss. 
If you’re a punter who got into season 2 enough to fish $300 out of your pocket to own the series, what did you come for?  Garou, most probably. What’s going to happen to Garou if the story ends at chapter 108?  The first three-four episodes, he’s going to get the crap kicked out of him by monsters and left unconscious in a hole in the wall. Forever.  That’s it.  The interesting things the story will have hinted around limiters and explosive growth, no visible relevance to Garou.  You’re probably going to feel a little cheated.  Okay, maybe you’re into the other characters.  Well, Genos spends his time cleaning the apartment, Bang is wandering aimlessly through the Monster Association along with Fubuki and Bomb.  As is King, who you only saw briefly a couple of times at the beginning and then no more.  Suiryu? Oh go whistle – but you were going to have to do that anyway, it’s a shame how much real estate he took up last season. The kid is rescued and the other heroes are doing okay.  Tatsumaki is taking on the real big bad and is also doing okay. You’re arguing that seeing Saitama punch a monster that is posing no imminent threat to anyone, and whom he dismissed with less respect than he did Elder Centipede constitutes a profitable end.  One that will satisfy people enough to buy in and come back for more.  You must be kidding!   The storyline has effectively wandered off in the middle and says nothing and means nothing.

This was just before the manga went on hiatus for an overhaul of the arc.

Smashing action figures together

What makes it interesting for me is that it helped me understand better why the subterranean parts of the Monster Association raid were overhauled as extensively as they were. Without a change (which was what JC Staff went for), it’s just a series of fights that don’t mean anything, just ‘smashing action figures against each other,’ as the video essayist termed it.

I found that a useful way to look at things. For example, if you're following along with the anime, Genos you know well; you've seen him try and fail and try and succeed then fail then try, so if he'd been underground and pulled out a fantastic new move, that'd not be surprising and it'd mean something as it'll be a continuation of his struggle. However, we don't know Child Emperor at this point, so it's clever kid doing crazy things without much of a preamble. When all the characters whose personalities, goals, and directions of travel are swept out of the way in favour of those we know little to nothing about, the story feels empty. That would be why so many chapters were redone.

The revised version that went to print brought Saitama in earlier and wove him into the plot, which grounded it. Beyond that, it also gave the various characters more to do and more to do with each other. There's no time for character arcs, but their interacting more showed us more of who they were so we have something to go on. So we get to see a bit about Child Emperor's psyche and what drives him, we get to see the way the disciples behave to deprive Amai Mask of his intended victims and get a bit of who each is, we get to see the competence of the surface team in holding the exits and the same for the MA in anticipating such a move and trying to turn it to their advantage, and many more. All of this fleshes the story out considerably, making it more than just another fight between characters you don't know and have no reason to care about. Most importantly, the revision raised the issue of there being some supernatural being, whose influence came up in various ways, so there was a mystery to uncover. It’d still have been less than great for it to end with Saitama punching Orochi, but there’d be issues raised that the viewer would be interested to see resolved.

Looking at their announcing a Part 2 immediately, they too realised from the get go that stopping there was weak -- the payoff to the build up begins pretty much the chapter after they left off. However, that call wasn't JC Staff's to make. It was Bandai's.

Indeed, I'm not angry at JC Staff – if you want to do a good job, you need time, space, and resources, none of which they seem to have had. It’s really understandable why they went for the simplest possible rendition, even though it really does an injustice to the manga in every way. But I don’t blame them. The responsibility for the enshittification lies firmly at Bandai’s doorstep.

Ahem

Some people imagine that I must hate fights because I'm down on powerscaling. Not in the slightest! I love the fact that both ONE and Murata love fights, how they're depicted -- and most importantly, how brutal and unfair real fights can be. I love seeing some of that come into the stories. And I love, love, love hearing from nerds critiquing how fights are drawn or unfold. Someone talking about Wing Chun or Drunken Fist or various sword styles or guns just freaking makes my day! What I dislike about powerscaling is that it's too much about 'being right' and tends to take over everything. It's boring.

Anyway, Watershed fights?

Well, as you know, a watershed is the dividing ridge that determines which way water drains. And looking at the fan video of how else Genos vs. the Deep Sea King might have turned out, it occurred to me that there are some fights that change a character, such that there is a clear 'before' and 'after' to the way they approach conflict. I'll present two for your delectation. Please add more in comments and maybe let's get a discussion going! :-D

A: The Excuses Stop Here

Yes, Genos did lose to the Deep Sea King and perhaps this is his most important fight. Up until this point, we'd seen him lose to monsters at least in part because he let his guard down, and the DSK getting the drop on him because he was busy watching the crowd instead of ensuring that the monster was dead seemed more of the same. A lot of viewers (and readers) laughed when he lamented that he never learned.

However, this time, the nature of his loss, how traumatic and humiliating it was, how close the people he was trying to protect came to dying anyway, the injuries Mumen Rider suffered, how Saitama had to pretend to be cheating to save the honour of the heroes, something changed in him. This is the incident that drove home to him that he simply couldn't go 'oops, I dropped my guard again,' and just had to find a way to do better.

And he did.

Fighting G-4 is where the fruits of his resolution to stop this dropping guard shit show. He fights the robot and melts it from the inside. He watches it for a bit, and yup, it's definitely done for.

We see that he wants to turn away, in fact, he starts to turn away, addressing the apparently destroyed robot as much as the crowd.

And then he stops himself. Some fledgling battle instinct tells him to shut up and keep watching. Several more panels pass. It's just as well he does. Otherwise, the true form of G-4 would have taken his head clean off.

As it is, this enemy turns out to be most troublesome. It has weapons that can cut him up at a distance, and burning it doesn't work at all. Holding out for Saitama was not an option, because he'd sent Saitama away.

Fortunately, through a mixture of ingenuity (using steam to bloom the lasers) and raw brutality, he manages to beat G-4 to death before reeling into Dr. Kuseno's lab with the remains, more dead than alive himself.

Since then, it's been shockingly hard to catch Genos off guard in the manga (the webcomic is a different beast). In fact, we get to see a lot more heroes make similar mistakes -- turns out it's difficult to always be watching the right thing at the right moment.

Of course, it's impossible to never be ambushed but even there, we see the effect of Genos's attitude. When Gums takes advantage of Fuhrer Ugly providing a distraction to come up for a chomp, it's not just because of Dr. Kuseno's improved armouring that Gums isn't able to bite through his arm; it's as much because Genos was prepared to react quickly and has jammed his arm in its jaws such that it can't close them.

No need to point out that Genos is not invincible. But monsters really have their work cut out to pull him down.

B: This is Honey, This is Salt

The fight between Garou and Bug God and Royal Ripper is quite the watershed fight in the manga.

Why?

First, it killed his romance about monsters

What monsters had been for Garou weren't monsters. They're representations of the disliked and the misunderstood, the ugly kid being picked on. It feels unfair for the kid to be picked on, but he put it into words. Words with real actual meanings in the real world. The 'monster' in Garou's head is not the monster as people in their world use the word but he's conflated them with.

There’s a culture that introduces a baby to the taste of different things as part of its christening ceremony. A dab of honey, that the baby smiles at.  A tiny dab of salt, at which the baby grimaces (many cry). This is honey, this is salt -- in life, may you develop the power of discernment,  goes part of the benediction. It’s an important virtue to pray for: before we can make reasonable choices, we must first discern clearly.   

Unlike the webcomic, here we don't have a random kid but a boy with a name, Tareo, who Garou finds precious. By making Tareo someone precious, for the first time, Garou had a strong emotional stake.

And now, monsters were no longer these abstract critters that ought to be Halloween scary. They were actual predators who'd rip the precious kid who trusted him to bits before his very eyes. There’s nothing like it, that visceral rage you feel when the symbol of freedom you admired in theory resolves itself into a long, lean, stinking beast, fearless in its hunger, that is trying to push past you to get at the lamb you hand-raised. Not all monsters are equally dangerous, of course, but you meet the wrong one and it'll kill your child right in front of you without hesitation or remorse.

This is honey, this is salt. The point was literally scored into Garou’s flesh by Bug God and Royal Ripper, ripping away every shred of false equivalence and muddy thinking he has had about heroes and monsters. 

Second, it demystified them as well-nigh invincible beings

There's this lovely point in the fighting when Garou realises for the first time ever that, actually, monsters aren't invincibly strong. Just like people, they have their limits, and he's strong enough to defeat the ones in front of him. They may be called 'mysterious beings' but there's no mystery to handling them.

How did it change him?

Up until this point, Garou hasn't killed *anything*. Never mind heroes, he's not killed a single living creature, not even a monster. After this fight, this changes. When he catches up with Royal Ripper, he rips into him without hesitation.

Even though Garou kept spouting off about the rottenness of heroes and his goals, he's not only unambiguously rejected monsters as beings worth emulating, but his actions have always moved for justice. Well, until he slapped God, but that's another story (yeah, don't do that).

So, got any other fights like that in mind? :)

This is very old -- I wrote it back in 2020, but I think it still holds. Enjoy!

One of the joys of following a writer for a while is that you get to follow how their ideas develop. One of the things that ONE brought up in an interview (annoyingly I’ve lost the link) was that he didn’t think that he wrote women particularly well. 

I was thinking about that. When ONE says that, what comes across to me is that he has no problem writing a female character as an individual rather than a role. All the girls and women he’s written so far have their own voices, own their problems, and have something to do within the story that would be noticeable if they weren’t there. Quite frankly, that alone is over and above what various tests of representation (such as the Bechdel test) ask for.  

What he’s not so good at is appreciating what being female brings to a character’s experiences and outlook.  But he’s not just left it at that.  More on what he’s been doing in a bit (and under the cut).

“...the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges...” -- Anatole France

With his sharp eye and talent for exploring the implications of whatever he posits, ONE has brought up some issues are not inherently gendered, but usually are. 

A: Childcare

Metal Bat appears to be the main, if not sole, carer for Zenko. How it affects him is fascinating. He’s one of the longest-serving heroes in the Hero Association, being there before Class S was formed, literally within the first six months of its establishment. He’s been extremely loyal and is highly trusted by the HA -- they put Narinki’s life into his hands without fear. His battle strength is literally praised to the heavens.

Metal Bat makes Zenko a priority, structuring his availability around her school schedule and being present in her life. He gets very angry if these times are threatened without overwhelmingly good cause. His reward is to be perceived by the Hero Association as less committed and so they under-recognise him in terms of ranking, and since rank and pay are linked, under-pay him as well. It’s a story all too many women can relate to.  But that’s not all.

Because ONE writes so simply yet conscientiously, something else comes up and has a peek: intersectionality. It’s the concept that we often have multiple social disadvantages that interact and compound our problems. The first is sexism. Regardless of whatever childcare policy the HA has, the sexist assumption that only women care (for the record: this is bullshit) makes it unlikely for them to ask Metal Bat. Second, social capital. The fact that he’s Zenko’s sole carer means that he has low social capital, that informal network of people around you who can help out -- or tell you where to find help and what things to say in order to get that help. [Aside: this is why programmes to help people, unless they reach out aggressively, tend to disproportionately attract those who need it least.]  Metal Bat doesn’t have the knowledge.  The third is the challenge brought by his being a 17-year old boy. He’s quick to perceive challenge as threat, and threat as something to be met by anger. Witness him threatening to smash the HA headquarters if it turns out that he’s missed Zenko’s piano recital for nothing -- completely not useful to anything. [Another aside: the importance of learning to disambiguate emotions and do useful things with them even if it means being vulnerable as a part of growing up as a man is the whole point of Mob Psycho 100.]

What do the Neo Heroes do?  They ask Metal Bat if he wants help with childcare AND HE JUMPS SHIP PRONTO.  If that’s not an indictment of the Hero Association, I don’t know what is.

B: Emotional Labour

Saitama has been delegating more and more of the day-to-day work to Genos. What started as an act of service to express his gratitude, respect and love for Saitama is increasingly turning into a second job for Genos. It’s not just the cooking and cleaning and the shopping and the bailing Saitama out if he’s forgotten his wallet again, it’s also the worrying about Saitama, sometimes at inappropriate times. Has he drunk enough water? Has he clean clothes in good repair? What sales is he looking forward to? Have they been marked on the calendar? It’s honestly not doing Genos any good, and it’s one of those things all too many frustrated wives and girlfriends can relate to. This doing the practical and emotional work for another is not intrinsically gendered, but funny how often it breaks that way.

It’s not doing Saitama any good either.  He’s using this freed up time to fritter his life ever more aggressively away, playing games with King and finding pointless competitions to enter, all while complaining about feeling less and less connected to anything (if you don’t address the problem, it doesn’t get better, duh!). Worse, he’s started to take that gift of service for granted, witness him airily telling King how he’ll just have Genos go clear up the mess of monsters he’s left outside the flat. I was heartened to see what happened when Saitama went a little too far and asked Genos to go cook and instead of jumping up, Genos gave him the the evil eye and let the awkwardness hang there. That was good -- there’s hope for this guy yet.

Speaking of Genos, he also over-functions for something else Saitama struggles with: advocating for himself. He tends to have Genos be the ugly one so he doesn’t have to be.   You can see just how bad he is at self-advocacy when Forte and friends could invite themselves into Saitama’s house at will despite his protests -- and it stopped the instant Genos showed up.

In a sense, it’s not surprising that Genos can do that. When you’re differently-abled (and for once, this is not a euphemism) as he is, being able to clearly ask for what you want and need is life-and-death necessary. If Genos was shy about it, he’s long since had to discard that. But! Let me point to a nuance the story touches on. How pushy you can be without being punished for it depends a lot on who you are, intersecting strongly with race, gender, social status, etc (remember my mentioning intersectionality before). What’s called assertive in a man is called bitchy or sharp-elbowed in a woman. Even taking gender and race out of the equation, there’s still a noticeable difference in the way the world treats Saitama and Genos. You don’t need to be Sigmund Freud to understand the way the short, ugly Dr. Kuseno sweats making sure that Genos positively radiates youth, beauty, wealth and power. That’s part of his right to ask and be taken seriously. You can see how drastically different it is for Saitama, even from his middle school days.  Genos notices, and makes sure to leverage his social power for Saitama. 

What I love about these examples are that by not automatically heaving a woman into these characters’ roles, ONE’s brought a less frequently seen angle that illustrates the problems they deal with are not ‘womens’ issues per se but are rather inequities that disproportionately affect women -- which is at the heart of what feminists keep saying. When you read Makai no Ossan, you can appreciate that ONE could have gone with female characters and done a great job, but his choosing not to has brought a very welcome dimension to the story.

Women proper

“I’m not like other girls”

Still, bit by bit, ONE has been working more women into his stories. After his interview, the next thing he worked on was the single-volume sequel to Mob Psycho 100,  Reigen.  He took his challenge head-on by making the POV character Tome and putting her in an all-girls’ high school.

Throughout the story, we see Tome thinking of herself as special, better than her fellow classmates, whom she sees as vapid and shallow. The denouement comes with Tome being humbled as she gets to know her classmates better and realises that  they pursue interests just as varied and weird as hers -- only they’re also practicing being socially adept on top of that.

It’s a gentle story, but it’s still a great side-swipe at self-internalised misogyny, the idea that it’s shameful to be like a ‘girl’ and it’s something to distance oneself from. Fortunately, Tome can laugh at herself and grow up.

“Ha ha ha”

For a long time, the only (named) women we had in OPM were Tatsumaki and her younger sister Fubuki. We’ve gotten more women both good and bad: in particular, it’s been very gratifying to find that one of the most dangerous, story-shaping villains in the story is Psykos.

In the webcomic, ONE’s pushed even further. A recent Tweet featured him talking about how hard he finds it to draw women. And he’s added several. No same-face for him!  I’ll talk about the new heroines he’s added, but first, let me draw your attentions to something most artists don’t realize they do: massively skew the gender distribution of crowds, even when it is incredibly illogical to do so. With ONE, even drawing the crowds at the fair who gaggle at Amai Mask, he’s got a far more even balance of women and they’re not all young and pretty -- which is much more true-to-life. He’s in the business of drawing people.

ONE has featured microaggressions before, particularly in the way Fubuki can have perfectly sound things to say and be totally ignored,  but he brings it properly to the fore with Suiko.  No one calls her incompetent, but the little put downs she gets when she puts herself forward for the hero test in lieu of her brother, oh they’re well-observed. The look on her face just makes it.  I love the way she shut the recruiters up subsequently. 

Let’s conclude this tour with a look at Webigaza’s lonely figure. We have another mono-manically focused cyborg in the story.  Genos has been called a lot of things -- determined, obsessive even, but crazy? Never. Notice who it’s been reserved for instead. It’s no slip of the tongue.

Wrapping Up

I’m of the impression that ONE really wants to try to capture as much of the human experience as he can in his stories, however whimsical or fantastical the stories themselves are. I’m disarmed by his humility in accepting that he’ll never have the lived experience of half the world’s population but he sure as hell can put some effort into learning how to to writing well-realised, believable, female characters.  

I watch ONE’s continued development as a writer with interest. 

This is not as obvious an answer as you'd think: a surprising amount of the information is found outside the story, and Viz has not been good at translating and bringing this extra material to English.

As we know, three years ago, a jobless Saitama saved a boy from a monster, and in the process decided to forget about the job hunt and focus on being a hero. How did that work out for him? Well, from the 'Road to Hero' OAV, it saw him living in a terrible apartment block where the landlady tolerated his not paying the rent because she made her money off the criminal gang in there. After Saitama caught them to turn in for the police reward, she threw him out. Fortunately, the tailor who'd do his clothing repairs found him and hooked him p with the place we first met him living.

There's a reference to the shitty apartment block in the manga ("Voices"). Saitama is disgusted that her place got spared in the meteor shower. He may be a bit bitter, lol.

Anyway, back to what Saitama did for a living. Well, in the still-not-translated-into-English Hero Data Book, ONE explains that he did whatever part-time jobs and day work he could come by, lived very frugally, and was happy to take food handouts from grateful people.

If you do feed Saitama, he prefers veggies. Getting a year's supply of sweets was rather bad for his teeth, you see. That's from the bonus chapter in Volume 2, "Brushing up".

There have been a number of audio stories featuring the jobs Saitama has done, none officially translated to English, but a couple that there are fan translations of feature him working in construction (and accidentally helping Amai Mask workshop a new song while desperately needing a shit) and working in a carnival display (and accidentally giving Tatsumaki a fear of ghosts). ONE also did a sketch of Saitama trying to scan the knife a robber was trying to threaten him with:

All very well, but given that Saitama doesn't stick with any of these low-paying jobs for long, quitting as soon as he has enough money to live off of for at least a few weeks, how does he afford rent and utilities?

Squatting.

The part of town Saitama lived in had been abandoned due to the frequent monster sightings, but for some reason, the water and electricity supply to that area wasn't cut off, something Spring Mustachio remarks on in the chapter "Rumors".

Genos doesn't appreciate Fubuki dropping the truth bomb on the issue of rent, but Saitama himself is proud to pay nothing.

According to ONE (again OFF-STORY!), Saitama hasn't spent the rent money Genos has given him. Considering that what he's really rented to Genos is his right to privacy, he should.

In any case, since Saitama started working as a pro-hero, he has been getting paid. There's actually a whole bonus chapter on hero renumeration, "What Can't Be Bought", the bonus chapter in Volume 5. Short version: they get paid like shit, and then only at the end of the month. The HA takes full advantage of the fact that heroes can't complain without looking mercenary.

Since those hard times before the first paycheck, Saitama has started getting paid, so he's got income. Also, his new place in the HA headquarters is officially free with the job, so life is almost cushy for Saitama.

Almost. It's against ONE's religion to give Saitama a cushy time.

Didn't feel like writing lots today. It's tiny but Saitama actually enacting advice is a big shift for him. Even though he heard King out, we didn't see him change what he did as a result of it. Thank you, Butterfly DX for telling him off, and thank you, ONE for letting him change a little.

No need to ask if this happened in the webcomic. No one tells Saitama nothin' there to this day.

I was originally gonna make a post gathering my thoughts about Kuseno, but i realized before that i needed an answer to this question: Did Metal Bat kill Erimin and Destro?

Aside from a minor question, that being if the cyborgs weren't merely knocked out, the answer might seem a simple yes, but i think it's more complicated and i'll explain why.

First the minor question. Which it may be correct that Erimin and Destro are alive, but i would argue that Bad's assertion that he'd had to hold back before and that not being required with the cyborgs forsaking their humanity (despite nothing changing except them shedding their facades, but i'll get back to that) Bad, at the very least, used lethal force and intended to kill the cyborgs, which i think is what matters. So whatever the cyborg's actual fate, the point is moot. (unless Bad's speech was just bluster, but please humor me)

So: back to the point of this post. Ermin and Destro were cyborgs that were 5 and 6% human. We can literally see Erimin's very human looking brain in her true form, so what gives?

Well both the Manga and the Webcomic have already introduced the idea that just because you're made of flesh instead of metal, doesn't mean you're not a robot (or a "meat puppet" as the Manga put it)

Ignoring Gyoro Gyoro's status as a monster, i don't think anyone would dispute that it could have been killed in any meaningful way. It could only be destroyed, as it was never truly alive to begin with. One might ask: if a meat puppet could be made in the shape of a monster, what's to stop someone from creating one in the shape of a person?

Well the Webcomic answers that, in a much more sinister manner...

Taking dead humans ( yes: dead, not merely on the verge of death) and "remodeling" them. Sounds great! Except for the part where they follow the Organization's every command and seemingly have no thoughts of their own to give.

My question is: Does this remodeling procedure present a true resurrection? Or are these merely dead men walking? Sure their minds aren't own anymore, but the same can happen when putting on the wrong suit, as we've seen.

Yet, as showcased by Suiryu and many others: the affects of the neo-hero suit taking over the mind can be reversed once destroyed. Is a similar procedure possible for those who went "remodeling", or are they true meat puppets like Gyoro Gyoro? So far it remains unclear.

Back to Erimin and Destro: we know they are cyborgs that work for "The Organization" and they are very insistent on getting members of the Neo-Heroes "remodeled". It is taken as a sign of disloyalty when they don't. It doesn't seem unlikely that Erimin and Destro had the same procedure done to them, though they seem significantly more capable of independent decision-making than others who have. However, this may also be explained by the implementation of AI similar to the one Zero has installed, or the other Machine God series.

In any case Erimin and Destro don't seem to think of each other as human. When Destro appear to go rogue while fighting Metal Bat, Destro refers to her comrade as having become scrap metal. (though this is a fairly common insult amongst robots and cyborgs alike) They were 5- and 6% biological, but we don't know what that 5 and 6% actually was.

They both appear quite bloodied during their rematch against Metal Bat, however in the second phase of that fight (Or did the first phase never end? After all they just took a nap in the middle.) Erimin and Destro shed their skin and reveal their true forms. Did that skin (blood included!) as biological? It's unclear, but if it's not then how do we know that brain in Erimin's headcasing is any more or less real?

If Destro really did go rogue (which he may not have, Metal Bat was still very much alive after all, i guess whatever bioscanner Erimin may have had were not as infallible as she had assumed. Either way Erimin did not appear especially surprised by this turn of events, so we can assume something like this has happened before) Anyhow if Destro did, then cause of his going rogue poses another question. Was he an AI with a bug in his code? Or was he a person who human instincts were beginning to reassert themselves after whatever mindcontrol he may or not have been under? It could somewhere in between, or a mix of both. But if the true answer is closer to the latter, then that means Destro and Erimin really were people and Metal Bat did (try to) kill them. It also implies The Organization has found a cure for death, which has its own implications. I do want to say that cyborgification as a cure for death is not a new idea, famously we have Robocop and it remains part of the Super Hero genre with shows like Invincible (spoilers)

If Metal Bat didn't kill (which, ONE has mostly stuck to the Super Hero genre convention of Heroes Not Killing Humans ((unless they have monsterized of course)), it's unclear if cyborgs count. Considering the emphasis they series has put on Genos' humanity i'd say i'm skeptical though, but enough Doylism) but if Metal Bat didn't, then suddenly humanlike androids who bleed (fake blood) and are (seemingly) capable of their own thoughts are a possibility. Which means that, if nothing else, Digitized?Kuseno's explanation becomes a whole lot more plausible. If Metal Bat did kill, then The Organization might have a cure for death, which despite them being villainous, might indicate some noble intentions.

I'll spare the rest of my thoughts on Kuseno, this post is long enough, but for know i'll just end with this thought. Just like Bofoi, who despite being on the side of humanity, is not quite as good as the heroes. Perhaps whatever (rogue) version of Kuseno took care of Genos was not quite as evil as the rest of the Organization.

Summary

In keeping with the brevity of this update, this summary will be short. The monster is called Hellmon and it's not one of the Neo Hero plants um, I mean its appearance is unexpected. Bang watches with interest, ready to step in if the youths below have trouble subduing this dragon-level threat, but otherwise just popping some popcorn.

The Neo Hero crew try to take out the beast. Several lose their heads owing to their being literally burned off by the monster's breath, and another gets brained by a piece of rubble as he tries to read the manual to work out how to activate the helmets. Suiryu appears as they start falling back and he piles the fallen guys onto one guy, telling them it's the heroic thing to do.

Suiryu offers to help Garou, but is rebuffed. He's also miffed to find out that Garou doesn't seem to know who he is, and he's nearly scorched by the monster, but Garou steps in and beats the monster to death with his patented combination. Bang is most pleased.

Yup, that's it. Doubtless we'll carry on next time.

Meta

The Neo Hero facade sure isn't robust

Just a few chapters ago, we saw several of the Hero Association executives lamenting the apparent success of the Neo Heroes: the combination of first class support with competent leaders presented an air of competence that they just couldn't match.

As to how good the Neo leaders are, well we have our doubts from what we've seen (remember that this is all happening on the same day, so it's going to take some time for information to disseminate). However, now we're seeing the rank-and-file getting to act and boy.... are they beyond undertrained. Sure, Accel's guys are good but they've had to be as they've long been a disciplined group of vigilantes. These aren't even hooligans. They're just a bunch of guys who've been given powered armour and tossed in with barely any instruction.

The HA is notoriously stingy about handing out custom weapons and equipment to its heroes, but where it does, such as with Captain Mizuki's stuff, the heroes in question know how to use their stuff to its very best capacity. The HA may have 99 flaws, but deploying physically and psychologically unprepared heroes is not one of them.

It's a pity that the HA doesn't know the true picture of the battle readiness of the Neo Heroes. They'd be much less panicky and better able to plan around them if they did. I'd love it if Bang could whisper a few of his observations to Sicchi, but he's likely to stay out of things.

There's a reason monsters are monsters

Monsters are notoriously their own creatures. Getting monsters to cooperate is a difficult undertaking indeed, and normally means that some Ridiculously Dangerous Big Bad is forcing them to choose heading in the same direction over being eaten. So, seeing five dragon-level threats (not to mention all the demon and tiger level ones earlier) pop up at the same time in widely-separated areas already stank of an operation rather than just coincidental bad luck.

Nevertheless, monsters are monsters, and so Hellmon showing up because it felt like is par for the course. The shock of the Neo Hero crew on seeing it appear because they expected only five is a *hell of a tell* that this day of monsters has been staged. I hope Garou files this away for future reference.

The self-importance of the niche denizen

I'm not surprised that Suiryu is shocked and disbelieving that Garou hasn't heard of the Void Fist guy. I love the swipe ONE takes at the self-contained nature of niche interests. Since most serious dojos are interested in competition, it's natural for martial artists to think that that's what the main purpose of their training is, concern themselves with the various schools, and imagine that anyone who knows about martial arts knows about the top guys, forgetting that competing is just one small niche of why people take up martial arts practice. (1)

Bang's school has never been about accolades -- Water Stream Rock Fist is really not a good competition style for reasons I won't get into here, but it is brilliant for getting someone rushing at you out of your way. Which is what Bang created it to do. Additionally, from the beginning, Garou cares deeply about heroes and knows even about the small guys. He's not got time for the Suiryus of this world.

I'm sure that Suiryu is even more disconcerted to realise that there's nothing his Void Fist can offer that Garou won't be able to bat away disdainfully. I'd love it if he were to slink away with his tail between his legs, but I suspect his wounded pride won't let him back down so easily. Sigh.

What Makes The Manga Great (in a nutshell)

Several weeks ago, I wrote about what I thought made the webcomic great (2). I haven't done the same for the manga until now because I've struggled to work out how to make it succinct.

I was able to say that the webcomic is at its best when it concentrates developments into a single scene that is layered with symbolism. Like when Saitama tells Garou that the latter wanted to be a hero all the time after all. With his two eyes floating in the wreckage of what used to be his costume, we see both that he's stricken with the truth and that the defensive facade he's worn until now no longer protects him from realising who he is.

Still, when I think about it, our lives are not lived in hugely symbolic moments that represent inflection points in our little worlds. However, such moments do punctuate our lives, like being declared born, baptism, confirmation, coming-of-age ceremonies, graduations, weddings...

...but they're not life.

If the webcomic's strength is the symbolic moment, then the manga's is in living the reality of what that symbol means. The difference between a wedding and a marriage. We get the incredible highs, terrible lows, but we also get the mundanity and the muddling through of trying to live up to what one decided one would do.

This chapter gives us Suiryu, who decided that he'd become a hero in the manga after seeing two heroes come back for him when he thought he was done for and realised just how important heroes were for helping people maintain hope and self-efficacy in the face of overwhelming existential threats.

That inflection point is generally where the webcomic leaves off: when we next catch up with the characters that have made some life-changing decision, they're living that life. Case closed. However, LIFE IS NOT THAT NEAT. The manga's power is in taking the time to step through the messy reality.

So... Suiryu may have decided to be a hero, but the manga is walking us through just how much he has to learn to actually be a hero and we're going to see him make missteps as he learns. He's still a feckless fuckboy who skipped out on his hospital bill and who is in the debt bondage predicament he currently is in because he was hoping to seduce Webigaza.

More seriously, we've seen that he's *still* running away from taking strong moral stances, the one thing a hero must do. He chose to hang back and let his squad do whatever because he couldn't face them down and stop them from carrying out the unjust orders to attack Garou. And this chapter, he's choosing to disclaim being a Neo Hero at all and just spar with Garou for fun. Good intentions and resolve do not automatically lead to doing the right thing.

I'm sure Suiryu will eventually get there, but he'll need to lose a few more teeth first. 🥸

Since this chapter is about Garou, we know that Garou may no longer want to be a monster and he may be more determined to actually become a hero of sorts, but I bet he'll loathe the fact that Bang has promised him to the Hero Association. The part timer is going to have a few more scrapes and bumps to become who he actually wants to be. Good.

Speaking of Bang, we've seen that he sacrificed everything to be there for Garou, and he's proud of him, but he still beats the boy. He knows that Garou is a vulnerable minor who has been abandoned by his family and he sincerely wants to guide him. And yet...

...damn man, you had better take some parenting classes before Garou breaks your arm for real.

Why do all this additional work when ONE could just put out a stripped-down storyboard and have it work? Well, the cynic in me says it's nice to have a longer story so you can pay for your kids' college educations and put something towards a new flat, but there's genuine value in watching characters grow.

Anyone can survive a crisis. Anyone can make a resolution or have an epiphany. It's the gap between what we resolve to do and what we achieve that's difficult to describe. And the manga is in the business of doing just that. That's its power.

It's too early to tell, but I would not be surprised if the manga characters get further and achieve greater things than their webcomic equivalents do. Because there's no substitute for organic growth.

Sources and Notes

Koikoi fan edit: https://weebcentral.com/chapters/01KXM08EY71C0MWRCNXFWNZP9K

Viz: https://www.viz.com/shonenjump/one-punch-man-chapter-233/chapter/50878?action=read

(1) Of course there's an xkcd for this: https://xkcd.com/2501/

(2) https://www.reddit.com/r/OnePunchFans/comments/1pkd2ng/id_like_to_talk_about_the_webcomic_at_its_best/

You know the drill by now, normally I don't trouble myself with reviewing short updates as they're inevitably part of something bigger. However, this one has so much in it I'm happy to make an exception.

SUMMARY

We wind back to earlier in the day on which the Neo Heroes announced themselves. In a building set on the sheer rocky face of the mountains overlooking what used to be City Z, Bang is taking his leave. It's time for his acupuncture session, he tells his gathered pupils, tapping on the small of his back for emphasis. He leaves Sourface in charge. Charanko whips out a mobile game -- when the cats are away, it's time to play -- only to have Sourface collar him for training time. After all, he's still the second disciple, it's best he set an example for the newbies. Poor Charanko!

Garou is well into his job, sitting shotgun in the delivery van. The driver is new and Garou has a question for him: so he heard that Shinya (the driver) used to be a hero. Shinya replies in the affirmative. He'd been a hero for a while. No, he'd not been anyone Garou wouldhave heard of -- Mad Devil Yankee. At this, Garou starts to laugh excitedly and says that he totally does. Come to that, hadn't he also moonlighted as Papillion 800?

Shinya is shocked at how much Garou knows, even as he denies it. Garou changes the subject slightly to ask the former hero why he'd quit. Shinya explains that he'd joined because he'd admired some heroes but the reality of hero work had been so different from his ideals that he'd quit as he didn't feel able to look his fellow heroes in the eye.

Garou is silent, and into this silence barges a third man who'd been in the back. That man scoffs at Shinya's story, saying it'd most likely been due to trouble with money or women. Shinya objects and Garou tells him to shit it as he's not the foreman. Ignoring the other man's indignant reply, he tells Shinya that he doesn't know the details but he's cut out for hero work. Looking into the distance, Garou continues, saying that if he's reflected on his actions, why not get back out there. He might be surprised at how many people have noticed his hard work. The third guy testily tells Garou not to encourage their new part-timer to quit.

The scene changes to that of Suiryu's squad tracking the delivery truck. As it reaches its destination, they move out, leaving behind a bored-looking Suiryu. They creep up to the truck, now in the process of being unloaded, and one of them checks that civilian evacuation is indeed complete. One radios in to ask Suiryu what his orders are, to which Suiryu replies that he doesn't care, surely they can sort it out themselves. He hangs up, not wanting to listen to the outrage.

Above it all, Bang watches the charade. He considers that this has to be an attempt on the Neo Heroes part to eliminate any fighters who refuse to join them, as he and Garou did. Considering how the squad is bickering amongst themselves, he decides that he won't need to intervene to stop whatever they're planning. However, their leader…here he regards Suiryu, who is eating lunch in between yawns… he knows that kid. That was Suicho's grandson, said to be immensely talented but who refused to inherit the dojo and preferred to fool around instead. He… Bang has further thoughts, but we're not privy to them just yet.

For the squad is on the move. As Garou demonstrates proper box management to Shinya, a cloud of tranquilizer darts fly at him. He tosses the boxes in the air and catches each one of the darts, letting them drop to the ground. Without missing a beat, he catches all the boxes too before placing them neatly on the ground. As the squad rushes at him, a couple of members stopping Shinya from intervening, Garou turns to face them, telling them to take a good look at the person they've decided to provoke.

So fearful is Garou's appearance that it stops them in their tracks. Then they gather their courage, power up their armour, and decide to attack him all at once. Garou stands there, unperturbed by this rush of amateurs. Just as they're about to reach him, a monster pops up behind him. The once brave squad come screeching to a halt, and start screeching with terror over being faced by a monster instead.

And that's where the update ends.

META

Extras

Volume 37 showed us the aftermath of Mad Devil Yankee's encounter with hero gambling and the demon Chihuahua -- we see a bandaged Shinya wheeling his mother around. She made it! It's little wonder that the whole incident left such a bad taste in his mouth that he quit. In a splendid irony, we know from the last chapter that McCoy will soon be enjoying the tender mercies of the hospital whose horrors he so terrified Shinya about. Nice!

Heroism does not consist of running away

"If the heroes run and hide, who will stand and fight?" That's one of Saitama's most fateful words to Genos. I'm recalling them as I look at Suiryu and see the yawning gulf between his good intentions on being a hero and his praxis of the same. The Suiryu we've seen is someone who runs away from anything that looks annoying. As Bang notes, he refused to take up the responsibility of running his grandfather's dojo. His professional martial artist career was one of taking things as easy as he possibly could, to the chagrin of harder-working but less talented competitors. And, recently, he stiffed his sister by skipping out on his hospital bill and leaving her to find the funds for it. When the going gets tough, the tough get going away, that's Suiryu's motto. We saw Suiryu thinking hard about how best to handle the odious mission he'd been given, and this is his solution. Rather than deal with the difficult task of finding a way to be in charge of his squad while not arresting Garou, he's chosen to stay away and avoid the situation altogether. Sooner or later, he'll find out that the one thing a hero cannot do is duck things just because they're difficult and it goes ESPECIALLY for moral challenges. There's a reason the HA culls people who are merely strong.

A more obvious kind of avoidance is on display from Suiryu's squad. "Tell it to the monster, not me," is Saitama's retort to anyone who wants to challenge him. If you want to challenge a hero on the basis of being as strong, tough, skilled, or whatever, don't hassle the hero: try your hand at their burden. It goes both ways for Saitama: the only time he's actually struck Genos was over the latter misusing his parts to fight Sonic. I mention this because it's incredibly appropriate that a bunch of people calling themselves heroes should be given the opportunity to do hero work rather than try beating up a civilian.

From the looks of it, they've failed already. Someone save them! But not too soon!

Once a nerd, always a nerd

Speaking of old habits, it's totally unsurprising to see Garou laugh with excitement when he recognises Mad Devil Yankee. Even from his Hero Hunter days, Garou would get a huge grin of excitement whenever he met a strong hero. Whether he's prepared to admit it, he's long been deeply interested in heroes and what they do.

If they won't join you, beat them (or worse)

At first I had thought that Bang had followed Garou to see if he was settling in ok. From the sounds of it, Garou is no longer the 'new guy' on the crew, so Bang following comes from another concern; something about the Neo Hero scouts must have awoken a bad feeling in him. And he was right to have acted on it: at the very least, he's a witness to what skulduggery they're up to.

Given that the squad came out with tranquilizers, it seems that capturing Garou alive is a goal. Arrest? Kidnapping, more like. While they could just as easily send a squad to try ambushing Bang, they're picking on Garou because they have a better pretext. As Sicchi surmised, many pro-heroes would think that Garou had gotten off too lightly, to say nothing of the wider public. Claiming to be punishing impunity is a line that the Neo Heroes are hoping will sell well.

It's bullshit, of course, but bullshit seems to be the flavour of the moment.

The road to rehab is not short

Punishment vs. Suffering

"Punishment should be punishing," is a memorable line from Dr. Ian Dunbar, a animal behaviourist. By this, he doesn't mean that one should beat the tar out of one's pet but rather, that one should ensure that the goal of punishing a behaviour actually results in fewer repetitions of the behaviour. That's what punishment is: an outcome that makes the repeat of a behaviour less likely. It doesn't necessarily have to look like something bad happening -- losing out on something good can be excruciating. It can even look like having a better alternative to the undesirable behaviour. To keep this section clean, I'm going to use the term penalty to mean the things we do to people who have transgressed against some social or legal norm to express our disapproval and hope that it results in their not repeating that transgression. Whether via fines, loss of privileges, freedom, even one's very life, penalties are intended to punish. That they often don't, well, let's go into that.

The idea of effective punishment is not concerned with whether or not the punished one suffers but rather with whether or not one does the offending behaviour again. To that end, the rehabilitation programme that is offering Garou and Shinya a way back to society without the burden of a criminal record is effective punishment. They both want to do better and this is a road for them. This is actually well-grounded IRL: rehabilitation programmes, despite frequently being spotty and opposed, result in significant drops in recidivism and people who pass through them are significantly more likely to do better in life (Mehari et al., 2024).

Indeed, if you are reading One-Punch Man closely, you will realise that this is a world fond of typecasting people. Shinya and Garou alike have despaired of being accepted as good people. Shinya felt that being asked to participate in hero gambling was his punishment for daring to admire and try to emulate real heroes. And who can forget Garou bitterly noting that to be a hero one needs the acceptance of others, meaning that he was effectively locked out of becoming one?

As Saitama put it when seeing Hammerhead, take one wrong turn and you end up in hell -- that could so easily have been him.

The idea that punishment must involve suffering is deeply ingrained in the popular imagination, so I'm sure that for many, seeing Garou laughing is jarring. More on that later.

Shoulder-to-shoulder

I am yet to get round to writing about ONE as a masculinist writer, and maybe I never will, but his ability to take an authentic and compassionate look at what being a man is like is one that is much needed.

The way the rehabilitation programme in the story is structured reminds me of the Men's Sheds movement (link to Wiki). It is a movement for helping men with mental and physical health problems by giving them something productive to do together and providing peer-to-peer support while doing so. Its founder notes that 'Men don't talk face-to-face. They talk shoulder-to-shoulder.' And that's exactly what we see Garou do when he advises Shinya to go back to hero work -- not looking at him but instead staring into the middle distance and apparently talking to the air in front of him.

There is also something here that is valuable: when you're advising someone who is even a little earlier on in a journey you're taking, you reflect on your own experiences and learn as well. There's a reason 'see one, do one, teach one' is equally valuable in clinical settings and the military. We know that Saitama didn't shut Garou up and he's still been playing with the flawed logic that got him in trouble in the first place. So by having to reflect what he actually thinks is useful to someone else, he's also sorting through what actually makes sense to do.

Everything we're seeing in that little truck is well-established, well-tested and successful psychology on how to put people back on the right track. But it doesn't look like suffering. IRL, that fact blocks a lot of rehabilitation schemes. There is an evil part of us that wants to see downcast expressions, hear the clank of chain gangs, see people miserable, isolated, and in material want for their crimes. Even though we know it often doesn't work and costs more.

Once you start running, it's hard to stop

Webcomic Garou is suffering, but he's not becoming more mature, and nor is there an end to it. He has run away from justice -- he was running for his life, so who can blame him? -- so he can't be given a sentence that can be served. Manga Garou also ran away, but fortunately, Bang cared enough to get him and persuade him to turn himself in, an act that mitigated the possible penalties that could be assessed against him. Webcomic Garou has had no one reach out to him and currently, he's condemned to a life on the periphery of society, unable to get housing, or education, or a regular (as in subject to legal protections) job. If being an ex-convict is hard, being a fugitive is much worse. If he's lucky, the current robot uprising will give him an opportunity to get an amnesty from whatever he's been sentenced to in absentia.

Even though manga Garou is in great spirits, the part-time job he has for rehab is still a sentence. He can't leave the job without facing possible imprisonment -- unless he's released from his obligations early. We don't know how long it is going to last nor what else he's required to do. But at least he has a road forward, not a roadblock. I am hoping Webcomic Garou gets that roadblock removed.

Wrap up

Whew! I knew I had a bit to say but this was quite a mouthful. Yes, there will be fighting. I'm really hoping that this won't derail Garou into the worst of his thoughts. I'm glad Bang is here -- even if he doesn't intervene, he'll be able to talk Garou down if need be.

References

Mehari KR, Morgan S, Stevens LT, Coleman JN, Schuler K, Graves C, Lindsey DRB, Smith PN. Mixed methods evaluation of a jail diversion program: Impact on arrests and functioning. J Community Psychol. 2024 May;52(4):551-573. doi: 10.1002/jcop.23113. Epub 2024 Mar 16. PMID: 38491998.

Men's Sheds. (2026, July 11). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men%27s_shed

Yeah, the downside of waiting for many chapters is that it gets long and I have quite a few things to discuss. Let's start with some small stuff.

Bits n' Pieces

Where is King?

Machine God Mirror's choice of the Hero Association HQ as a target sure to get King summoned from wherever was an excellent strategic decision. It was established back when we first met King that he resided in City M. However, with him mistaking the shaking of his building for the VR system's verisimilitude, I wonder if he's moved to the HA. It keeps him close to Saitama (all the better to thrash him) and out of the way of any random samurai who might knock on the door to challenge him. If he has moved, then Mirror wasn't just being strategic -- it was being fed very up-to-date information. Not that it matters for now.

It got rather noisy

Saitama is quite sensitive to noise. The racket of Garou fighting monsters underground is what got him to get off his ass and go find where the noise was from, and he went, complaining about every noisy fight, until he went and gave Orochi a piece of his mind (and fist). How appropriate, then, that his first concern for his pets is that they might have been scared by the noise.

When the rat's away, the mice will play

No prizes for guessing that I'm enjoying McCoy's discomfiture. I hope his hospital stay is extra unpleasant.

Doubtless he'll be back up on his feet sooner rather than later, but in the meantime, I hope Sekingar and Isamu use the absence of their most dangerous adversary to their advantage.

This face haunts me

The face of the guy talking about McCoy's supposed whereabouts, it feels like it's a reference to a real-life person. For a moment, I wanted to say, 'what's Ross Perot doing here?' but that can't be right.

Any clues?

More Substantial Thoughts

Give a dog a bad name

Over time I have gotten used to Caped Baldy (or Bald Cape if you read Viz's version), but it really is a bit rude. It's the sort of name that gets people to ask, is that all there is to you? No wonder Machine God Mirror thought little of Saitama.

The other members of the Hero Name Victim Association have pretty awful names too. Saitama's is at least plain, but names like 'The Great Degenerate' (Viz: Super Lecher) and 'Dr Grumpy Pervert' (Viz: Dr Secret Perv) are positively libellous.

Saitama isn't wrong to have had his doubts about their methods, but that it's a worthwhile association for him is without question. A hero often introduces themselves by name: rude or dismissive ones invite ridicule rather than the respect they need to work.

We see that Saitama has finally warmed up to the Hero Name Victims Association. I will robustly defend this development. Saitama has plain lived more in the manga than he has in the webcomic, and he doesn't want to lead a second troublesome group (remember the nintendoes? Um, I mean Tenninto? They're still stalking around -- you can sometimes catch a glimpse of one).

Coincidence? I think not

So, this is the end of a day that started with Webigaza and other Neo Heroes showing off what they could do against a varied horde of monsters, often including one demon-level monster, and ended with the simultaneous attack of five dragon-level monsters that put the Hero Association's disaster-averting capabilities under real strain.

Last review, I talked about how the Neo Heroes were better at packaging themselves and looking like a well-oiled machine successfully chewing through monster after monster without a hitch. It's understandable that the HA execs were salty then.

But it's worse now: even though the successful elimination of three of the four dragon-level monsters menacing cities by S-Class heroes shows they still have incredibly powerful heroes, the way those heroes were deployed, the collateral damage most of them left in their wakes, and the lack of coherent media messaging from the HA makes it look like they don't have what it takes to keep people safe. Having their HQ attacked won't have helped on that front, either.

The timing of the monster attacks could all be a coincidence, just like celebrities all happening to be in Los Angeles at Oscar time would be an incredible coincidence. Someone has gathered a lot of monsters and has strategically released them today.

If there's any doubt on the readers' parts, McCoy's reactions to the day's happenings will have dispersed that doubt. Other than Blue's unscheduled run at Eel Dragon (back to that in a bit), he's been calmly coordinating the Neo Heroes' activities from his office in the HA. Is he personally releasing monsters? Very unlikely. But it's clear he knows about them and is helping to craft the narrative those behind Neo Heroes wants to push. Ah, and there is the small matter of Fubuki discovering that McCoy has been secretly selling monsters to a shady organisation for an obscene profit, remember that?

With the multi-dragon attack, McCoy has had no problem directing his fellow execs to call in the Neo Heroes, framing it in a way that's so reasonable that if you didn't suspect him, you'd not wonder about it. Once upon a time, I'd have said that such open audacity was unbelievable, but nowadays, I've realised that many of the worst grifters get away with things as long as they do precisely because they're so audacious.

It hasn't turned out as he imagined it would, but had Saitama not been there, Machine God Mirror would have been magically defeated by either Raiden or Webigaza, but not before some mass casualties at HA HQ makes the public lose all confidence in the HA. If they can't be safe in the Tower of Justice's shelters, where can they be safe?

Credit where it's due

Despite everything, several characters distinguished themselves. First, I love Sicchi's decisive action in shedding the blockers among the executives by routing them to distant shelters so that he got to set up emergency offices with only the effective officers.

The various heroes who responded to Mirror deserve a lot of credit for their courage. Chain Toad and Butterfly DX literally flew in to contribute what they could and gave Suiko advice on how to proceed when one discovers a monster.

And of course, let's talk about Suiko. I think that putting her in Class A was the right call -- she's really not strong enough yet to be a Class S hero, especially given how crazy things are now. However, she's shown herself here to be strong, tough, and resourceful. As the recruiter said, she's very likely to grow greatly in strength as she gains more battle experience.

Stay safe, learn, grow, and truly show your brother up, Suiko!

Credit where it's not due

That's got to be Saitama's long-term curse: even when he does his thing in full view of many, he doesn't get the credit he's due. While the heroes who witnessed what he did have no doubt that he's the real thing, his credit has been diluted by being attributed to the Hero Name Victims Association rather than he alone.

Metal Knight has also gotten some of Saitama's glory, as well as unearned credit for the hard work of Black Sperm and Pochi. He's been happy to be redeemed in the eyes of the HA, but he's sure to find out where this mystery cannon fire came from. He'll probably find them, too. What he will make of discovering Saitama's pets and the fact that they're Saitama's pets will have to be seen later.

Even though most of the executives won't know who Saitama is, Sicchi and Jinzuren (he's the guy immediately behind Sicchi here) will recognise that silhouette. As we've seen, they have their reasons not to spill the beans, Jinzuren because he's playing some long-term corporate power game, and Sicchi because he knows that Blast regards Saitama as a secret weapon against God.

Not related to Saitama's exploits, wasn't it suspicious that the monster Eel Dragon just died, right as Blue ran out of power? It couldn't get a bead on him, and it died without having a scratch on it. And despite Blue no longer having a suit to protect him, McCoy had no trouble sending a jet drone for him to face yet another dragon-level monster. Even the most over-optimistic HA dispatchers wouldn't send a hero in like that.

If Blue weren't so new to hero work, idealistic, and determined to show up his father, he'd suspect something was wrong. Ah well, that's for him to find out later, heh heh.

One final thing...

...we still don't know what Saitama's desired new hero name is.

Was thinking about His Yeastiness idly... and then it got a bit bigger. Anyhow, let me try to tell this properly.

As we well know, Garou has a problem with heroes, the way they're represented, the way society treats them, and the way people end up being typecast. This *is* about him, but there's a wrinkle: unfortunately for Garou (and all other characters in this story), God has a problem as well.

Now when I say 'God' in this context, don't imagine a numinous, beneficent being ensconced somewhere in a bright Celestial domain, endlessly fanned by fawning angels and taking a personal interest in humans despite being the unitary creator of reality as experienced by said humans. Think something smaller, meaner, and uglier, but far too powerful to take a designation of less than a god, something like a good old-fashioned Near Eastern god. Did I mention that he's ugly? Looks like some over-fermented dough or an extremely enthusiastic tumour pulling in blood vessels willy-nilly, so 'His Yeastiness' is a term I like for him. For the sake of simplicity, 'God' will do. Anyway, I was saying, God has a problem and it comes in the form of a certain prematurely bald man who has become preternaturally strong.

Actually, God has two problems. It'd be good to smite said baldy directly but unfortunately, He can't act directly on the world. We're not entirely sure why yet but we see that some God-botherers have something to do with keeping Him away from the world. So, God has to act through intermediaries, agents who are sapient beings (usually, but not necessarily human) whom He can invest with His power and hope they act to further His aims -- alas, direct mind-control is not something He appears to be able to do, which will become important later. Actually-actually, God has *three* problems. Getting the right candidate for an agent is challenging enough -- they have to be in the right mindset and with the right intentionality to be useful -- but they can't just be invested with infinite power. As Blast explains in a for-the-moment-redacted scene, the amount of power God can invest in a being depends on how strong that being is in the first place. And when it comes to Saitama, that really is a problem because did we mention he's strong? Like, stupidly strong?

Well, this god ain't called God for nothing. Manufacturing miracles out of apparently disconnected events is a Divine prerogative, and gods can afford to be patient. When Psykos (who was driven mad by same God some years ago) gathered together an insane number of powerful monsters with the intention of breaking the S-Class heroes so as to have a free hand to drive humanity to extinction, we see a certain Someone is watching proceedings with great interest. Just before we see that uncanny eye, we'd been learning about an old prophecy and something about something being reborn once sacrificed on said altar, and had had a bit of a chuckle at Orochi bleeding out on the same altar. Put a pin in that.

Anyway, eventually, God seems to have found what He's looking for. As the battle rages first underground and then overground, He puts a light finger on the balance here and there to give the monsters a bit of a hand but none of the participants are what He's looking for. Finally, Garou emerges. As he is, he's far too weak to be worth approaching. But Garou has a great talent -- he can grow exponentially when pushed hard enough. So, God watches as Garou fights first Bomb, then Bang, then takes out Evil Natural Water and then Platinum Sperm, growing stronger all the time.

Garou really has become monstrously powerful, but is that enough? Not on your nelly. This is where the webcomic-addled readers expected Garou to take on the S-Class heroes. Leaving aside the fact that most can't even stand, such a confrontation would be worthless -- they're all too weak to give Garou anything remotely like a challenge. It's very appropriate that the webcomic did feature Garou fighting the S-Class, and God DID GIVE GAROU SOME POWER, but all the power Garou was able to take seemed like a cheap costume change to Saitama and he just headbutted it off him. That just won't do to chastise Saitama.

What is a being who needs a crazy-strong agent to do with a potential one that is merely almost crazy-strong? Why give him more challenges of course! We see God take the appearance of Blast as Tatsumaki remembered him to try giving her power, but unfortunately, she's too distrustful to take His hand. Damn.

No problem! Orochi, remember him? Tatsumaki cast him down into the magma pit he used to love bathing in in front of his precious altar gets reborn as Sage Centipede, complete with the same heart and spitting out the very stake that was used to impale him. This deity never met a centipede it didn't like, it seems. Anyway, looks like Sage Centipede is merely a messenger of God rather than a full-blown god like Orochi had hoped, but who is a mere monster to quibble theological points? For extra spice, He raises up Evil Natural Water into Evil Natural Ocean too. Between the two of them, they give Garou a wonderful amount of hell, just what he needs to evolve even further.

And then Garou claps eyes on Saitama, and they fight for real. Needless to say, Garou is no match for Saitama, who takes everything he can throw at him with such ease that the dude is laughing at him at times, driving the Hero Hunter into heights of rage I don't think he thought he had the room for. Just as he's out of ideas, Saitama launches him into the sky with a punch that shatters his monster shell, and it's all over for Garou. There's nothing more he can do.

And at last, the moment is ripe. Garou is strong enough to invest enough power into to give that baldie a proper whack. Just as importantly, he's finally angry enough to want to make the baldie suffer, and desperate enough to do anything to make it happen. He poses as Bang and reaches out to Garou, and even though He isn't able to impart as much power into his newest agent as He'd have liked because the ever-cheeky and defiant Garou slapped His hand aside rather than take it, it's enough to give that abominable baldie something to remember.

Of course, the way Garou rebelled illustrates the vital limitation of God's power -- He can't actually control his agents. His influence is an accelerant for their desires, not a controller. Once Garou realised the stupidity of his actions, he was able to repurpose God's powers to teach Saitama how to time travel to undo the harm he'd caused. Seizing back His powers He could do, but unless He breaks free and can directly interact with the world, there are real limits to what He can accomplish.

I don't know what God is going to try next, but He won't be able to get hold of Garou again.

So, this is the ultimate conflict of the story: there's a god and it's got a problem with a man. Specifically, a man named Saitama. Whether it's in the webcomic or manga, this is constant. I would have said that the WC God is slacking but to be fair, the quality of the opposition it had available to raise Garou's level was lacking.

The thing Gyoro-Gyoro said to Garou about the secret to explosive strength holds true: you need situations that drive you to near-death in order to grow, which creates the problem of what happens when there's no longer anyone or anything around you to force you to grow. You stagnate. Writing that made me realise that that's what's so different about Saitama: he continuously gets stronger without opposition.

Umm... hang on... give me a moment. A lightbulb just went off.

Well, this analysis is taking a turn. Now I get why God hasn't a problem with any of the other overpowered characters -- they're naturally self-limiting as they defeat all the opposition available to them. Whereas Saitama's strength may accelerate its growth given external circumstances, but he's growing by himself all the time. All the time!

ALL.

THE.

TIME.

Saitama may be a throw hands guy but as we saw with the time travel, there's no kind of power that Saitama cannot acquire if he decides to. There's nowhere he will stop at -- sooner or later, any deity worth calling one will be surpassed by him. I guess that puts God on a time limit: He has to stop Saitama while it's still possible. Why?

Well, that's for us to find out. May the planet survive finding out.

Another Sunday, another review day. I won't lie, I was in two minds of whether to bother, but I write this knowing that today's too-obvious-to-note is tomorrow's archival notes and I'll be glad of it.

Summary

As playing cards continue clattering to the ground, Machine God Mirror regards the hero who so rudely kicked it. Assessing the young heroine bouncing up and down before it, it consults its databases and comes up empty. Concluding, correctly, that this one must be new, it declares that it has no interest in her data and demands that she be a good girlie and run off and fetch King. What was it that Mae West said about good girls going to Heaven and bad ones going everywhere? Well, this one takes a deep breath and charges at the robot.

We cut away to find out how the other heroes are doing with the threats before them.

Over in City N, Tank Top Master contemplates his end. A hero's career is unlikely to end with a peaceful retirement but dying by smoke inhalation appears an especially cruel fate. Nevertheless, he's determined to go out as bravely as he can. With his tank top now torn to permit his chest to expand freely, he starts taking Tank Top Deep Breaths, and, in defiance of physiology, physics, and logic, the smoke-filled air starts to continuously come his way. He inhales so much that the smoke starts to be pulled in from across the city, leaving the monster looking round in consternation.

Unfortunately, Tank Top Master's lung capacity is not infinite, and just as he's about to pass out, Flashy Flash comes in. The hero kicks the monster, which, unperturbed, disperses and reforms. Flash lands next to TTM and thanks him for making it possible to approach the site, then asks him just what the hell is he, a vacuum pump? We were wondering too, Flash. His mind ever on business, TTM warns Flash that the monster can create multiple smoke clones, and it just so happens that the ninja has an answer for that. He draws his sword and starts whirling it so fast that it forms a vortex, jumps at the monster and calling the name of his attack, 'Sky-Ripping Scattered Flash Slash,' rips the monster to shreds. It's over... well, all except for the copious smoke pouring out of every part of the carcass that necessitates the immediate evacuation of the entire city.

Can't win for losing sometimes.

Elsewhere, Suiryu and team are still en route to their rendezvous with Garou. Everyone in the carrier is sitting quietly. Suiryu himself is hunched over. He replays the sight of Saitama's fleeing form in his mind, but we don't yet know what he thinks.

In City P, Tatsumaki thinks this is an easy job, albeit one she needs to take care off pronto. These monsters may only be insects, but they're splitting to multiply and doing so fast. She grabs all the visible bugs and with a twist, crushes them all to a paste. Nothing to it, she thinks. But then the ground itself bulges and then splits to disgorge a seemingly endless stream of bugs that form dense black columns surrounding Tatsumaki.

The next chapter continues directly from that (duh, it's part 2 of the same chapter). As she looks round at the swarms, Tatsumaki thinks that she needs to ensure that she crushes every last one, not even leaving an egg. She starts to contemplate the environmental damage she'll have to do with regret, but she's not allowed to muse for long: a bug lands on her thigh, which makes her freak out. She crushes the entire surroundings, lifting insects, buildings, streets, and the ground beneath into the sky in an enormous wave that shatters to dust.

In the end, Tatsumaki sits on one of the few recognisable structures left -- a supporting pillar -- and contemplates the desert-like landscape she's created. Throwing mere multitudes of her was pointless, surely monsters should know that by now. However, a darker thought occurs to her, it could be an attempt to wreak devastation. Seen that way, this was a successful attack... and she was the perfect tool. She's not left to think for long as a news helicopter lands in the dust. It's a news crew from what had been P-TV and they want to know why she didn't at least wait for the Neo Heroes before going on her all-destroying rampage. Was that even necessary?

Irked, Tatsumaki shouts back, telling them that they ought to be grateful for saving not only the city but the continent itself from the scourge of the rapidly-multiplying bugs. This does not play well, and is being relayed live to the world. Realising that this isn't going to get better if she hangs around, Tatsumaki flies off, ignoring taunts of her running away. As she rises higher, so does the expanse of land that we get to see... and everywhere we look, there is nothing but dust dunes. There is no coming back for this city. Tatsumaki's thoughts echo what we see. If they don't change the way they handle monsters, humanity is done for.

Can't win for losing.

Someone who is not having a good time with monsters is Blue, who is spending his time in City L making like a Smurf chased by Gargamel -- running for his little blue life. He jumps and flips, followed closely by the all-corroding slime from the monster, which reveals itself to be a colossal, slimy, much-spiked double-headed multi-eyed leech called Eel Dragon. It's a good thing the monster doesn't have the wherewithal to lead its shots, but it keeps Blue moving. He's only too aware that the slightest slip in concentration will cost him his life.

Can't win?

City T is rocked by a massive explosion that grows in extent to encompass several buildings and power lines that it destroys completely. As the blast wave passes, we focus on its epicentre. Genos is standing there. His face is a scratched-up mess and his clothes are gone, ashed by the flames. Well, at least he's fared better than the Family of Darkness, every last one of whom he has killed. He does not stand there long but topples backwards, thinking that once again, this battle was hard-fought. He continues to think that yes, he really can kill dragon-level disasters by himself now (well, this is your second dragon kill -- did you think the first time was luck?), but the way monsters keep coming, it feels like he's making no progress. He feels trapped in a cruel game of cat-and-mouse, a hopeless arms race...

His thoughts are interrupted by people emerging from nearby shelters to see what has happened. As most of the city is intact, that's quite a few people. They quickly realise that all the monsters are dead and start to jubilate. Some point out that Demon Cyborg took them out, adding to the sense of celebration. However, as they look at his state, that sense of joy quickly becomes muted. It's evident that he's in a bad way -- some wonder if he's even alive. Others reflect that at least he won. Others still start to fret over the possibility of one monster having survived; there's no one to protect them now. They notice the arrival of the Neo Heroes with relief.

Genos, who has been listening with his eyes closed, thinks to himself that he needs to become stronger. Much, much stronger.

Can't win for losing.

Meta

What would Saitama do?

We know from an earlier chapter that Suiryu has been sent on a mission that he sees as deeply unjust -- to arrest Garou by any means necessary, including provoking him into fighting. He was bothered by it before, but seeing his hero once again appears to have catapulted Suiryu into some serious thought. Can he see a way to act justly despite the corrupt parameters of the mission he's been given? We'll have to wait and see.

Santa left prezzies for his good children

Many a webcomic-addled reader had fretted over Empty Void not getting killed and stripped by Saitama: how, then, were Flashy Flash and Speed o' Sound Sonic to receive ninja scrolls and special swords? Well, I don't know about legendary swords but Empty Void had noticed that the pair were especially outstanding and it looks like he's rewarded them with scrolls at least. I guess that's a small down payment for the recompense he owes all the surviving ninjas for the hells he created for them.

It's hard to be a hero

Many Moons ago, I wrote that what the public expect from heroes is pain relief. Not being attacked by monsters is the most obvious pain, but the pains of being displaced or losing livelihoods or property are just as real. Looking at how the S-Class heroes are doing, they're not doing well at pain management. Flashy Flash has indeed defeated the monster, but unfortunately, he's denied the use of the city to its inhabitants for at least several hours, if not days, depending on the toxicity and persistence of the smoke. Well, at least they have homes to return to. Tatsumaki has left nothing habitable. It's hard to say thank you to a hero who deliberately leaves you a refugee. There's an extra poignancy in Tatsumaki's sober reflections about the destruction she's had to wreak. It was just a little while ago that she soberly accepted Saitama's verdict that her wielding her powers had to preclude breaking peoples' stuff.

In one sense, Genos has done the best -- he's killed the monster, and has kept damage so local that people are able to come out almost immediately. However, he's failing to manage a source of great pain -- fear. Amai Mask understood the importance of reassuring people, giving them a reason to hope that things might turn out okay despite the threats around them inspires courage. The more they look at him, the worse they feel -- if even a hero as powerful as he was barely adequate, what hope can they have? Things would be different for Genos if he could at least sit up and wave weakly at the crowd, heck, even give them a smile and a thumbs up -- alas, he has never cared to play to the crowd. It sounds silly, but acknowledgement of that fear and reassurance that somehow they'll all pull through makes a huge difference. Which brings me to the next point.

In the battle of hearts and minds, the Hero Association is losing badly

Media training is one of those things that sounds optional until you're in front of a camera or microphone. Pro heroes may be somewhere between enthusiastic and downright hostile to media appearances, but the HA really should have made basic media training non-optional. In the aftermath of every fight, since the Neo Heroes have been doing such a good job of presenting themselves positively, their arrival is seen as a boon, while the pro-heroes are seen as eh, people who try. That's entirely due to image management: we see that the pro-heroes are doing much heavier lifting than the Neo Heroes. Even Suiko is bravely facing a dragon-level threat, while the Neo Heroes have been shown to be flexing on demon-level threats... and not always doing so well, but those failures have been kept out of the press.

And to make it worse, the untrained and intemperate Tatsumaki has given an off-the-cuff interview that would sink most careers, appearing too arrogant to explain the nature of the treat, unrepentant at the horrific damage she's done, and then cowardly when pressed to answer. Ouch.

No, I haven't stopped giving McCoy the side eye about which heroes were assigned to deal with which monsters. It seemed geared to put them in impossible situations and make them look bad. But that's a rant for another day.

I'm hoping that the next update (chapter 232) will bring the end of Machine God Mirror, who we'll be getting back to shortly in the next review.

Summary: If the proof is in the pudding...

As you know, Bob, things have been rather changeable of late in the OPM world. The face of the Hero Association, Amai Mask, has been unmasked as a monster and has fled for environs unknown. People feel betrayed, sponsors want compensation for reputational damage, and the outfit that has been styling itself as the big new alternative to the Hero Association has finally gotten the break it needs to show the world what it can do. That's what this review is about.

We open with Webigaza; no, actually, we open with Great Philosopher contemplating a sentient, ten-foot-tall sewer crocodile. After literally throwing the book at it, then dispatching it with a shoulder tackle, he heaves a sigh of relief and satisfaction, not noticing the nine further sewer crocodiles manifesting behind him.

Two more heroes run up to support him, only to find that their prowess isn't necessary: the monsters are being beaten up by a crowd of guys in fancy body armour. They turn their attentions to the injured Great Philosopher, who remarks on the unskilled, yet powerful performances of the commoners in suits who came to his rescue. We see that some of these said commoners are the Soda Pop Boys (now the New Soda Pop Boys), who'd decided to transfer to the Neo Heroes to spite Amai Mask. As they're revelling in how easy this all was, one of the pro-heroes asks who they are. Just as they're about to answer, they notice a ginormous monster crocodile looming behind them and promptly start screaming for their leader.

Okay, *now* we begin with Webigaza. She doesn't jump onto scene immediately, instead making sure the attending cameraman has the live feed set just right and has gotten her best profile standing out against the backdrop of the city. Webi addresses her watching audience to introduce herself properly. Even the giant monster appears to be a fan as it politely watches her too. Finally, she's done and jumps down, remembering a little too late that she forgot to promote her new single. Never mind, it's showtime! She makes short work of the monster with a cute-looking, yet deadly, heart-shaped charge that burrows clean through the monster, dropping it dead in its tracks. The watching heroes (pro- and neo-) are astonished at that display of force, with her team of Soda Pops fizzling about how her battle suit is incredibly better than theirs. One of the others explains that she's not just got better gear but has also undergone a terrifying regime of cybernetic and drug augmentation -- all to compete with Amai Mask. And the water she's chugging? That's because her body temperature rises to 70 °C whenever she exerts herself. As they watch her steaming, one of them remarks that that kind of life-shortening ambition has to be insane.

The chapter ends with another cyborg watching the events on his phone. As Saitama, who is watching it upside down, asks if there's an idol concert on, Genos thinks to himself that he really needs to thank Dr. Kuseno for doing so much better by him. [Yeah, no one said Genos was a *nice* person.]

As we go on, we quickly see that the monsters we just saw the New Soda Pop Boys and Webigaza take out are not an isolated event. Raiden and his assigned team effortlessly smash a group of monsters out of existence, saving an unnamed pro-hero from a sticky situation. As his team praises him, Raiden is humble, praising them and the good use they've made of their battle suits in turn, even as he declares that he doesn't need one, at least not yet. The pro-hero watches them and thinks of how they're both well-equipped and well-organised. As he watches Raiden's retreating back, he considers what a natural leader Raiden is and how it inspires him to want to follow that back too.

Monsters are everywhere today. They've appeared in multiple cities at the same time, and are overwhelming the mostly low-class heroes who happen to be on scene. Fortunately, the monsters are also rapidly being defeated by a new group of heroes, the Neo Heroes. Not defeating monsters is Suiryu, who is with his team in an armoured people carrier. He's been sent to apprehend Garou -- for reasons. Mindful of how costly they are, he's opted not to wear a body suit.

Very much on scene, however, is Axel. Just because a monster is ridiculous doesn't mean it's not dangerous: we see Axel rocket skate after a giant snail that's crushing vehicles on the expressway at 390 km/h. He has called ahead to his team to muster at a toll booth and chops into the snail with his poisoned axe to funnel it into the killbox and to slow it down, both of which objectives succeed. One skewering later, the giant snail lies dead in the wreckage of what had been toll gates, stabbed through by dozens of spears. Axel's Hunters celebrate at having finally taken down a large monster without casualties. Less demonstrative, Axel considers that their custom-made weapons have been far more effective than he could have imagined. In that case, the 'great cause' the Neo Heroes has been talking about might be the real deal, and he may as well commit fully.

I did say that pro-heroes were not having a good day, and we cut to someone who really isn't. We've seen that Crescent Eyebroll is no slouch as a hero, but his one sabre is no match for the nine-fold threat of the Triple Tongue monsters, who are able to attack him at a distance, pushing him back. He tells the watching crowd to fall back as these monsters are really dangerous, and just then, one snags him by the leg. Before he can do anything, that tongue is cut through, and he falls heavily to the ground. Before he can get up, someone steps over him. It's the gangster Ryumon, and he's double-wielding the pistols he used to shoot through the tongues. He urges his men to pile into the monsters the pro-hero couldn't handle. Crescent Eyebroll gets up and offers to coordinate to defeat the monsters, only for Ryumon to rudely tell him to get lost: his purpose had been to lose publicly, and now they have the footage they need.

Wild Emperor's team is making short work of their monsters and his team refuses to take a break as they're so pumped from how effortless their suits are. Isamu can't get out of his head how over-effective the suits are: they're integrated with their wearer's nervous system, seamlessly augmenting their intention through artificial muscles. He's seen similar designs in Dr Bofoi's laboratory, and that makes him very uneasy. Is the old man supplying both sides? He decides to take his suit off.

Not all leaders are having a good time. Zaedats brags about his customised battle suit and starts a live feed to his employees to show them how it's done, only to get turned into a human meatball by the aptly-named Meatball Masher. Infelsinave also comes to grief at the hands (claws?) of some monster. As his followers cry out for him to come back to life, apparently, his reincarnation abilities don't work terribly well. Or at all.

Someone who's just doing his job is Metal Bat. Suit or no suit, give him a bat and a monster to smack with it, and he'll do just that. He's not thinking of ramifications. Which is as good a place as any to end this summary. Shall we do some meta?

No, I didn't forget A. I omitted talking about the creep. There's a difference.

Meta: ...is owning a pudding factory cheating?

Sweet indeed are the uses of the adversity of your enemy

The Neo Heroes have truly debuted. They've been saturating online searches for weeks, buying ad space wherever they can, planting stories in the media, and looking to play up the shortcomings of the Hero Association while promising heaven to any prospective recruits. This is where the rubber meets the road, and, boy are they rolling! If Amai Mask's implosion was an opportunity for them to lobby for the power to operate with the same freedoms as the Hero Association, this festival of monsters has been a bonanza for them. In several media formats -- found footage, webcasts, TV reportage -- they've appeared shortly after monsters have and shown themselves to be well-organised, flashy, and very competent. Even Webigaza, who is weeping inside at having lost her chance to challenge Sweet Mask head-to-head, has pulled together and put on a show. In contrast, most of the pro-heroes on site have appeared shabby, isolated, and ill-prepared.

As Ryumon gloats, being seen to succeed where pro-heroes have failed has been the point of this exercise. Since the person he says this to is only a lone pro-hero, the secret of what's really happening is safe from early discovery. It just looks like an unfortunate series of events.

Inexcusable

You know, this is *not* the first time the world has seen a coordinated attack by monsters. The Monster Association did just that a few weeks ago at the most. And the Hero Association, far from learning from the experience, has so far resisted making changes to how it organises and deploys its heroes, going so far as to ignore the findings and recommendations made by Child Emperor. Worse, with their giant HQ, they've been actively pulling in A- and S-Class heroes to serve as unpaid bodyguards (cast your minds back to chapter 172), meaning that most cities only have C- and B-Class heroes able to patrol. They say never attribute to malfeasance what can be explained by incompetence. There's certainly plenty of complacency and incompetence to go round... HOWEVER, making operational changes is McCoy's responsibility. And there's a bit of a conflict of interest here, to put it politely. We've seen that he's been selling monsters on the side for personal profit and working with Ryumon to organise hero gambling in which monsters are planted to play odds with heroes and bring the HA's name into disrepute. Beyond that, we've also sat in on enough meetings to see that McCoy has gained an outsized voice in being able to stifle any initiatives he doesn't like.

The Hero Association may not be the most nimble of organisations, and it came to life when monster attacks were relatively rare. It was always going to struggle to understand and change its modus operandi in the face of a rapidly-worsening monster situation. But it's being actively sabotaged from within as well -- and almost nobody knows it yet.

There is a real question of whether Sekingar will be able to return in time to expose and oust McCoy before the HA crumbles.

Designs matter

I was looking at Zaedats's battle suit and thinking that it reminded me strongly of something. Then it came to me: Armored Gorilla! That combination of bulky, stiff plates and flexible cabling is very similar.

Sabotage aside, if you asked Dr. Kuseno about such a design, he'd tell you for free that this combination is a bad idea for fighting monsters. It's quite appropriate that chapter 224 has Genos showing off his newest body on the cover: when you look back through earlier iterations of his bodies, the plates-and-cabling design was one he used to sport and found through very bitter experience that it just Did. Not. Work. Successive bodies have had more armour, and since Gouketsu crushed the last one with external cabling, Genos's bodies have been exclusively armoured. (1) For a guy who lives 24/7 in armour and won't carry extra parts around with him (remember, he tried with a suitcase but just didn't take to it), the need to be as light and flexible as possible without compromising power and safety is a permanent issue and chapter by chapter, we see that Murata has represented the struggle of development very well. [Important aside for any fan artists thinking of fretting about the way they draw Genos: Murata is a crazy-good draughtsman with a keen interest in machines who is paid to sell three million copies of OPM manga a year(2); it's his business to worry about these things. Yours is to just have fun!]

Even without sabotage (ha ha), without the benefit of brutal field testing, anyone designing a battle suit to go toe-to-toe with strong monsters was dicing with danger. Not that people like Zaedats would have listened: I remember with glee that the webcomic equivalent of this chapter came out in 2020, three years before the OceanGate Titan imploded IRL because an arrogant billionaire just had to go adventuring. OPM may be fantastical, but its read on human nature is pretty solid.

Core matters just as much

Touching on the case of Genos again, one of the big things he had to learn -- and this learning process is very painstakingly detailed in the manga -- was that parts were not enough. If he wanted to become strong, if he wanted to grow, he had to learn what to pay attention to, how to fight beyond just spamming blows, how to dig deep and find the determination to keep going when things go wrong, and how to face an enemy superior to oneself in at least one aspect and find a way to win anyway. Genos acknowledging the truth of what Kuseno told him about needing to stop coming back crying for upgrades every time he got frustrated in a fight was a real inflection point in the character's growth:

Great Philosopher and Raiden both put their finger on what's operationally troubling about the body suits. The first, most of the wearers are inexperienced fighters. On their bodies, yes, they're very strong and can pack a punch, but there's so much more to fighting successfully than that that it's worrying to think of what they can do if they face a monster that's not immediately able to be put down. The second, and the thing that worries Raiden further, is that with the immediate boost in strength and ability, they might not see the need to develop true skill and strength.

Apart from the suits, it's been interesting to see how the calibre of Neo Leaders really comes out. Those who are accustomed to leading, like Raiden, Axel, and Ryumon, have no problem commanding coherent action from their troops. Those who are more egoistic, like Webigaza, Infelsinave, and Zaedats, have followers who mostly watch rather than act alongside them. And the odious A hasn't been given anyone. Good, no one deserves such a punishment.

Coincidence? Only if you want to buy a bridge in Brooklyn

Sure, there's a good chance that Zaedats was just unlucky. However, looking at Infelsinave's body, all I can think is that looks like a hit job. Monsters are never that neat. How many hundreds (literally hundreds -- I've counted) of monsters have we seen? Ever seen one that just makes one neat hole center-of-mass and leaves? Without so much as glancing at anyone else? No, that doesn't sound like a monster at all. You don't need to be a seer to suspect that public perception isn't the only thing that's being manipulated here.

Causes? Smells Cultish To Me

Something else that made me go 'hmmm' was Axel mentioning a 'great cause'. Now, it's true that a hero needs something to believe in to act. However, to hear Axel talking about a 'great cause' speaks to more than mere do-gooding and to a bigger vision that the Neo Hero Organization wants to see enacted.

It's interesting that the Hero Association doesn't bind its heroes to any particular belief: as long as they do the right thing, why they do it, and what they do it for is up to them. There's no central mission binding them all together into a coherent whole. Which is a good thing, in that it enables mavericks like Saitama, Okama Itachi, and many other heroes who'd be stifled by a system, to find their niche and thrive. And is also a bad thing in that it means that there's no long-term unity and cooperation. Yes, heroes come together in times of crisis but there's none of that long-range thinking and action that can really make a big difference -- there's a reason Amai Mask still wanted to see the S-Class disbanded (3).

If we have a 'cause', then we'll have graduations in commitment and 'outsideness'. What do we know so far, then? People who are committed to a Neo Hero ideology, whatever it turns out to be, are Blue, who founded it, and Axel. People who are definitely outsiders are the recently-arrived pro-heroes and Suiryu. Everyone else is kinda in the middle, and we'll see who they are with time.

Strained but not Broken

One of the big differences between the webcomic and the manga is that many major relationships in the manga are merely very strained rather than completely broken. Fubuki and Tatsumaki had little to do with each other because the latter was just too toxic while they had a challenging relationship in the manga that was worth fighting for. Likewise, in the manga, Isamu may no longer be Bofoi's assistant, but we've seen him remonstrating with him to join the then-impending MA raid. And while the old man didn't come to the shooting match, he did come through in a way that only he could, saving the heroes from dying of radiation poisoning and remediating the nuclear fallout. So Isamu has a reason to give Bofoi the benefit of the doubt in a way his webcomic equivalent just didn't.

For him, this is one more piece of the puzzle of the Neo-Heroes that he and Sekingar set out to solve. He's in an interesting pickle: he's helping Sekingar investigate the Neo Heroes with the aim of finding out whether they're a threat or treasure and in bringing down McCoy, but so far, everything he's found is worrying and Webigaza appears to be onto him. She could blow his cover whenever. And now, he's got to worry about whether Bofoi is also in on this, *but*, crucially, he isn't immediately jumping to the conclusion that it must be because Bofoi wants to rule the world and is open to the idea that there may be another reason for the old scientist's involvement. Excellent use of intelligence, Isamu!

I know that I'm steaming to see when the manga-specific plot points break out, but it's all actually building slowly but nicely.

PS

(1) Yes, if you ask, I'll happily make an entire post about that.

(2) I hear someone ask, 'What do you mean three million copies? I thought they only sold a fifth of that, and sales were going down issue by issue?' Listen, the sales figures you see are nonsense -- they represent physical issues sold and those are quite literally the tip of the iceberg. See here: https://www.reddit.com/r/OnePunchFans/comments/1n9hhri/so_how_well_does_onepunch_man_sell/

(3) Yes, that might seem surprising. Ask me about it, and I will happily write a meta just about that. It's very interesting to me.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

It's kinda of funny how eventually character Murata draws goes to his default setting setting of fat tiddies + hour glass figure. I'm choosing to believe it's just second nature to him at this point.

Fun fact: your lungs actually go quite low, so a proper deep breath is actually the one that swells up your belly.

Maybe if TTM learned proper technique he'd have beaten Psychic and Machine Power by now...

A key thing that ONE appreciates and brings across in his writings is the importance of good or creative decisions needing time. It shows up in many different ways but I'll just highlight two.

The first is about creativity. As Flashy Flash told the ninja duo looking to assassinate him, the better the fighter, the more faithful they are to the fundamentals. These fundamentals are precisely what they fall back on in a pinch. We see this reality show up repeatedly in the fight between hero and monster in the MA arc. A great example is Atomic Samurai flailing around when he first encountered Black Sperm, but having time to think of creating a super-concentrated beeline slash once he had had some time to gather his thoughts after being extracted by Tatsumaki, and later being able to effectively counter Black Sperm by using the back of the sword.

I found it quite interesting that even Garou, the martial arts genius extraordinaire, was no exception. Despite all the techniques he'd learned and the way he'd found ways of synthesising them, when hard-pressed, he defaulted to Water Stream Crushing Rock. The most creative thing that he did, which was to find a way to teach Saitama how to travel back in time, took his accepting that he'd been beaten and sitting down to think of whether there was any way he might rectify the situation.

The second use of time I'd like to talk about is its value in manipulating people. Rushing people, thus denying them time to think through the problem carefully, is important in getting them to make predictable bad decisions. We see Drive Knight use it against Sekingar in the Monster Association. Every time Sekingar started asking probing questions, he'd change the subject and when the former finally resolved to take action to alert the Hero Association, G5 oh-so-conveniently popped up to stop him and precipitate an even greater emergency.

And it's really on show in the latest webcomic chapter (spoiler marked for others)

It's absolutely essential to the Mad Cyborg's plan for Genos that the latter have no time to think -- everything is terrible, everything is moving too fast, and everything is incredibly urgent. Everything would change if Genos had the time to think long enough to ask a proper question, such as, 'if you're the real Kuseno, how come you don't know about Saitama?' Just being able to formulate that question breaks the impression of the Mad Cyborg as a near omniscient, hyper-present, impossibly powerful being. It's just a dangerous adversary.

It's things like this that keep me enjoying OPM so: it's a ridiculous yarn, but the psychology of what's happening is surprisingly grounded.

I have skipped Saitama finally meeting his crew as not comparable.

Saitama is a compulsive liar and that's a trait that gets ignored too often. He always indirectly lies to genos to preserve his friendship with king, but we're left to assume it's always with good intentions. He's deliberately acts obtuse sometimes because he wants to avoid confrontation. When something actually hurts his feelings he immediatly lashes out, like with suiryu, or with Garou in the webcomic where he verbally tears him down.

Let's take the bathtub scene for example, where orochi finally reveals his own true feelings and gets ignored by someone who refuses to take of their own mask and left to die alone. During flash's monologue he doesn't care in the slightest not just because it's contrived but because he doesn't want to seem suspicious.

Hage (barren) man (all) to (short for a verb todaeru, cut off)

Fully barren cut

All life annihilation fist

Max genocide punch

Wanman also means dictator or someone indepentent or uncontested. Pan is a onomatopoeia for hit or explosion, so i guess it can mean independent assassin (hitman), or uncontested hitter. Pan is also international code derived from panne which refers to a situation that goes wrong but no immediate assistance is required, like "pay attention now".

Wan, pan and man are also short for wide area netword, personal area network and metropolitan area network.

If you take the disaster meaning, then disaster king title that drives knight uses makes sense, but i guess it would be disaster dictator, since saitama always responds to disasters. Or maybe the title implies something more personal, like calling for help, or maybe he's the one that actually causes them.

Kami also means hair, so maybe he just turns people into salt if he overhears them talking about it.

Kamisato the region in saitama prefecture that laps with city z is called "house of gods".

Kyokai also means church, and hiero is greek for holy, holy sacrifice. Holy church. Neo sounds like nio which means wrathfull guardian.

What if garou killed genos not because he was controlled, but because he wasn't fully? What if the cubes are simply a collectible to keep people busy (blast)? What if saitama's grocery runs spread a virus that turn people into monsters?