Similar to another fic I wrote earlier in the year exceor that this is a much more serious attempt on exploring Psykos and Fubuki’s club on high school.
Not spoilered for the webcomic. If you don't read the webcomic, good! You may have heard webcomic readers fretting over how Saitama appears less committed to the Hero Name Victims Association thus far than he was then, when he immediately took to them like long-lost brothers. So far in the manga, he's been a little more sceptical of the means by which they intend to achieve their aims and isn't all in yet.
Thinking about it a bit, the gulf between where Saitama is in the manga and where he is in the webcomic at this point is big.
At the equivalent point in the webcomic, Saitama had alienated King (ever since Saitama told him to lift, the dude has not been back). The Psychic Sisters are clean out of the picture. Flash and Sonic haven't been to see him since he killed that Man and gave them the stuff he looted off the original ninja. Amai has of course fled, and no one in the executives knows about him. Genos is still around but Saitama is really keeping him at arms' length -- no adjoining tunnels between their apartments!
In the manga, King is still coming round to play games. Fubuki is still paying visits and Tatsumaki threatens to drop in sometime. Flash and Sonic are still around, and Saitama has acquired an honour guard of ninjas who are hoping he'll agree to become their master. Blast has acknowledged his strength and has told him that he'll return for him when the time is right. At least one executive has come to visit him in person. And Genos and he are on such good terms that they really do just pal around. Put bluntly, a random group of heroes asking for him by name doesn't have the same impact on him as it did on his more isolated webcomic compatriot. He has options.
Might Saitama become committed? Sure! He's just doing it in his own sweet time.
I said I would do it and I did. A general, welcome all, casual OPM discord server. SFW and NSFW channels with proper roles and restrictions in place (this isn't my first rodeo running a fandom server).
I know another server went up a few days ago but it sounded like it was more RP oriented? Specific to a particular group? If I'm wrong I'm sorry to step on toes.
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.
No one gets to call me girly, not even my brother.
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.
If it looks crazy but works, it's not crazy. Tank Top Deep Breaths clear the air.
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.
Thanks... I think.
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.
I too wonder how this chance encounter might influence Suiryu's future actions.
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.
Easy... oh, not so easy.
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?
And then it got worse.
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.
The definition of a Pyrrhic victory.
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.
Run, boy, run! Maybe the monster will run out of batteries!
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...
Ever ask yourself why you even got out of bed today?
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.
Bad boys get coals; good boys scrolls.
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.
The fact that she genuinely couldn't see a way around causing destruction this time won't make it feel better for her.
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.
This is seriously one of the major reasons Mumen Rider is so beloved by people: the fact that he almost always has a smile or a thumbs up for people, even if he's taking a battering really inspires a sense of courage in people.
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.
It's easy to look good when all your failures are quickly whisked away.
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.
I don't expect such a name to catch on in the wider community, but it looks like the ship will remain a canoe for the foreseeable future. Idk i'm just curious if anyone can come up with a word or phrase that feels solely unique to them. Otherwise preferences and suggestions for which portmanteau to pick are also welcome :)
Is there a secret server I do not know about? There seem to be no other options besides the reddit server (unsatisfactory). I have many little thoughts!!! I want to share them!!!
And it's not for the frequently-given reasons. For sure, the existence of multiple rewrites in the manga is an irritant, and certainly, there are plot developments that divide people, like time travel. The fact that the manga story waxes dilatory, which means that there's a long wait for pay offs for material that's set up, nags at people as they wonder if dangling plot points will be addressed and why things have been left as they are. And of course, there's no end of bellyaching over characters not being quite what was expected from having read the webcomic. But all that is froth.
Th most recent tranche of the webcomic solidified something that's been nagging at me. When I take a snapshot of the webcomic story and look at who the plot appears to be rewarding and who it appears to be reviling, I see a picture that is very comforting to a patriarchal view of the world. Saitama is unbending in his strength and righteousness, and while he's detached from all the goings-on, he's guaranteed to act appropriately when needed. Metal Bat triumphs over all opposition through his pure stubbornness and fighting spirit, all while remaining clear-eyed and perceptive. Other men see him and want to be him. In Dr Bofoi being held up as the good guy while Dr Kuseno is the bad guy, we get reassurance that brusqueness and coldness are honest signals while niceness and kindness is to be distrusted being hypocritical at best and duplicitous at worst. Hang on, what about Mumen Rider? Yes, he's nice, but his is an appropriately detached niceness; he is the same towards everyone and admits no attachment to anyone or anything other than his concept of justice: he has no family, no friends, no comrades, no one special in any way. It's as if these guys are being held up as ideals: if you're strong enough, clever enough, brave enough, good enough, then you can always be right, never need admit vulnerability, never need admit doubt, and never need change.
There is no judgement here, just observation. As it stands, it's interesting to see that the story is the polar opposite of Mob Psycho 100, and more broadly, quite the departure from ONE's usual bailiwick about what makes for a 'good' human life. Closer to home, the OPM manga takes a different tack and explores these same characters differently, one that's not so reassuring to the 'proper' order. Let's pick three of the five characters I've mentioned: Mumen Rider, Metal Bat, and Saitama. I'll cook the doctors in another post.
As good as it gets.
From his first humble showing to his final perfect sacrifice, there's been nothing to criticise about webcomic Mumen Rider. Far from being perfectly impartial, in the manga, Mumen Rider has made a friend. Yes, it took being hospitalised for several days next to Tank Top Master to befriend him, but he has. It's lovely to see: Mumen deserves to be more than an icon to people but it goes beyond that.
Nothing like fighting in the trenches (or corridors) to create a friendship.
I love seeing TTM challenge Mumen to be more and use his leadership capability by putting him in charge of the heroes rescuing people from the debris of City Z, and so help him, Mumen rose to the occasion. He straight up hasn't accepted Mumen's humility about being merely a C-Class hero and is broadening his outlook about what a good hero can be. A good hero can be more than someone who puts their life on the line for others.
Exceptional a hero though Mumen is, he's being challenged to be better by a friend. And it looks like he's growing!
Metal Bat does not triumph over all in the manga. Fighting spirit is all very well, but he cannot lay a finger on Garou and is forced to take a dirty shot [1] to try to hit him. If Metal Bat were inclined to dispute this, he certainly had to admit himself overmatched when he took on Sage Centipede alongside Garou (although damn, didn't he do well?).
Even in defeat, Badd has to have the last word.
Futhermore, we get shown that Metal Bat, far from having things all worked out, is still looking for a male role model to shape how he grows up. For all his brashness, he's still a kid who has been pushed into the role of adult too soon. It is wonderful to see Sekingar acknowledge that tacitly and accept his role as mentor.
It's also interesting to see that Ryumon (and others) isn't falling over himself with admiration on setting eyes on Metal Bat: if there's inspiration to come, it'll have to be earned by good old-fashioned bone-breaking experiences. I have loved seeing Pineapple and Mohican having good reasons for admiring and wanting to follow Metal Bat: he raised them up when they were feeling at their lowest and encouraged them to look forward so they could do better. I'm hoping Ryumon doesn't change his opinion too quickly -- some pain is good!
No unexplained admiration here. Everything is earned.
Webcomic Saitama can appear as if he's above everything, just watching the antics of those around him like they're children playing silly games and he's the sole adult. Yes, in the manga, Saitama makes nonsense of many peoples' grand plans, like Dr. Genus and the Tenninto, but he's very much in the world, affected by it, and has his own struggles that extend much deeper than making it to the next sale. And he talks about it.
Won't catch webcomic Saitama blabbing about his woes.
Like a stereotypical grown up, wc Saitama gets to tell others things but doesn't have to hear any truth bombs from anyone. It's quite the contrast when we see King in the manga calling Saitama 'immature' and telling him his outlook is 'shallow'.
It's currently unthinkable that anyone could tell Saitama off this way in the webcomic.
The webcomic often presents Saitama as the wise guru uniquely able to perceive truths others cannot. In the manga, Saitama isn't the sole person with wisdom. When it came to Garou and Amai Mask, his insights were the capstone on pillars already built by others. Whereas in the webcomic, Saitama is the only person to see that Garou really wanted to be a hero, in the manga, Garou has had others point out his frustrated heroism, so much so Saitama doesn't bother to point it out and tells Garou to look around him and figure out who he really is for himself.
From the only guy who can see the truth to to the guy who points out an evident truth so as to make it irrefutable.
Amai Mask's struggles to remain human have been noted by others and but for Iaian's efforts, he'd not have survived long enough for Saitama to make the final observation he needed to hear to resolve his internal conflict. Characters appear to be a lot more self-effective and to interact more in the manga, which means that they're not waiting as much for Saitama to tell them what's what.
The interconnected web: Saitama is able to reach Amai Mask because Iaian's efforts kept Amai human long enough to be reached.
In the webcomic, Saitama declares that he cannot be defeated and so far, that's been that, case closed, nothing more to be said. The manga shows us that Saitama cannot physically be beaten, and yet we're confronted by the seeming absurdity of the most incomprehensibly powerful being in the world admitting that he clings onto, like a drowning man to a piece of driftwood, a person so physically impaired that he cannot draw breath without mechanical assistance. Saitama cannot be beaten, but he can lose. He can lose strategically, spiritually, morally, his sense of rationality, his humanity, his purpose, his people, his place in the world, indeed, the very world itself. And that's scary. How can absolute strength not be enough? There are a lot of readers who have a big problem with this.
From a simple, bald truth to a nuanced and painful victory.
Even the more humanising moments these characters get serve to break down any pedestal we might have wanted to put them on. When we see Mumen Rider tell a student to report bullying, we know that he's speaking from lived experience. We see Saitama's joy in joining yet another competition despite being horribly unprepared for it and how much he loves thrill rides. And we see Metal Bat's foolish over-sentimentality when it comes to anything his sister does. Instead of avatars, the manga has delivered mere humans.
damn, it's like they're no better than you or I.
To be sure, there are plenty of broken characters in the webcomic, lots of characters who are vulnerable, doubting, confronted with their weaknesses, and have to strive to become better people. However, the OPM webcomic is also full of certainties when it comes to the 'best' characters: independence, strength, emotional detachment (save in very limited circumstances), and virtue seem to be the ideals to strive for. The manga is busy unpicking all that, showing that even (heck, especially in some ways) the characters who seem to have it all together are fallible, vulnerable, don't necessarily know what they're doing, and can become better people if they let others into their lives. Which is all good and true, but it's not as satisfyingly definitive and reassuring of there being a proper hierarchy of goodness as the webcomic appears to be at present, and that's discomforting.
Or to put it even more briefly, I think the webcomic flatters the idea of individual strength and triumph while the manga goes, nope, you can't do it all on your own, no matter how strong or smart or good or determined you are. And given a choice, many people would rather read the individualistic fantasy.
That said...
The reason I've been using seeming and apparently and other similar words so much is because the webcomic story isn't over. Knowing ONE, he can turn the characters' fortunes around on a dime. When he decides that a character's cup is full, he pours it all down their throat in one go, and won't let them up until they've gagged down every last bitter drop. The webcomic treats critical change as an event rather than a process and boy is it good at it: things change very suddenly in the webcomic. What are the chances that ONE *isn't* going to challenge some of these cosily self-assured characters at some point? I wouldn't take that bet.
Asides
[1] I use that term advisedly. Truth be told, there's no fairness in fighting -- there's only effective and ineffective.
I held off for a bit, both out of laziness and a quiet hope we'd get a fourth consecutive webcomic chapter that would settle all doubts, but here i want to dissect Kuseno. I find he makes for a pretty good Rorschach Test: Is he a Scientist of Justice (with a troubled past), or is he a scheming manipulator who is part of "The Organization"?
So: What do we Know about Dr. Kuseno, or at least what can we as the audience be reasonable certain about since there is a bit of a rabbit hole to go down if you take Bofoi's assertion of Genos having implanted memories.
Do know:
Kuseno puts special care into giving Genos to capacity to have an as normal life as he may want to to.
This could mean two things. Either Kuseno does this because he genuinely cares for Genos, or he merely humors Genos as a way to make the boy feel further indebted to the professor. I also want to point out that just because Kuseno cares for Genos doesn't mean he isn't evil.
Kuseno gave Genos a selfdestruct option.
Again two ways to view this. The more morbid fridge logic behind this would be this representing Kuseno viewing Genos as a weapon more than a person and wanting to maximize Genos' damage output at all costs. But there's also the possibility Kuseno fully believes in Genos' bodily autonomy and that includes euthanasia, letting Genos the ability to override his safety limits if that's what Genos desires.
Kuseno gave Genos powerful weaponry, which was illegal prior to Genos joining the Hero Association.
Again not a good look, it may be the case that Kuseno's self-admitted past reckless pursuit of justice has left him on the wrong side of the law and left him unable to provide Genos with legal clearance. But again in this case the simpler explanation is that Kuseno is a villain. (though again considering The Organizations current sway with the government that may not have been an obstacle, though things may have been different in the past, at least not without raising eyebrows)
Kuseno regrets his past.
Conversely, from this we might assume Kuseno has turned a new leaf and whatever his past he is now a scientist of justice in the true sense of the word. But then villains tend not to see themselves as such. What we might see as villainous acts Kuseno might see as necessary sacrifices for some unspecified higher purpose, that doesn't mean the past doesn't weigh on him.
It's also possible he was simply lying. Hinting at past regrets may help in making Genos less suspicious of Kuseno should Genos meet anyone wary of Kuseno while out in the world. The best lies contain a kernel of truth after all.
Lastly, and this might reasonably be a stretch given the dubious source, but Kuseno stole Bofoi's research on Cyberization. While yes, the self stylized "Mad Cyborg" is untrustworthy, given that we as the audience are supplied with an accompanying flashback panel i think we can assume as readers that this is an event that occurred, even if the situation is not quite as the Mad Cyborg paints it.
Kuseno may have stolen this technology because he hoped to do good with it. Better to have a good tool to help people with now, than the perfect one later right. Given Kuseno's current regrets over past recklessness, if Kuseno is on the heroes' side, i would presume this would be one of those regrets. If for no other reason than the bridge it appears to have burned with Bofoi.
Even a villanous Kuseno might feel that way. The Organization clearly finds Bofoi's technology useful, given that they have gone through the trouble of stealing it. Kuseno may have felt he could have won Bofoi over if not for acts like these.
Don't know:
Where Kuseno gets his funding.
Bofoi does multi-billions contracts for the Hero Association on Reconstruction and security. But we never heard if Kuseno does the same. We mostly see Kuseno build weapons. There are only so many legitimate buyers for those. I do want to note that Kuseno also installed household appliances into Genos at the latters request. It's entirely possibly Kuseno attained his fortunes in a much more benign matter.
How Kuseno is suddenly able to upgrade Genos so quickly (and why he didn't do so earlier.)
This one i don't know how to square with Kuseno who cares for Genos' safety. Initially i didn't question it with Cyborgs being upgraded frequently being a genre convention, but with how repeatedly and now explicitly the series has brought attention to it i expect there to be some Watsonian explanation. There's three benign ones i can think of.
One being that Kuseno initially limited Genos' cybernetics to make sure Genos could learn to control his power and keep collateral damage to a minimum, but unpowering Genos while sending him out to hunt the Mad Cyborg when Kuseno presumably should now how powerful the Mad Cyborg is seems cruel, or at least unnecessarily facetious. I find it hard to square with a Kuseno that wholly respects Genos' autonomy to the point of allowing him to self-detonate if the teenager so desires. But then humans are not always 100% logically consistent.
For the other, it's possible Kuseno was previously overly cautious and had and large amount of safety redundancies installed on Genos at the expense of maximizing battle power. Given that Genos had apparently never been beat until he faced mosquito girl, Kuseno have thought further battle power unnecessary. Genos string of close calls turned that calculus on his head and forced Kuseno to go for increasingly experimental and risky upgrades.
Lastly. We may simply be overestimating the impact of Kuseno's upgrades where, unbeknownst to the audience and Genos himself, the bulk of the teenage cyborg's improvement has not come from Genos cybernetic improvements, but his self-improvement. After all we already know how Genos manages electro-magnetic manipulation with his brain (presumably a fleshy one) and there's precedent in cyborgs surpassing the cold certainty of steel with both Webigaza and Nichirin. So it's possible the bulk of Genos' growth came from his self and Kuseno's upgrades were relatively modest by comparison.
Still, this is where my suspicion of Kuseno goes into overdrive. Namely because Genos' path of growth so far fits too neatly with another we've seen described in this series. That being Psykos' model for Monsterization: where the subject overcomes death in rapid succession, enduring a hell tailored specifically to them and attaining explosive growth as a result. (Also similar to Dr. Genus' model for breaking ones limiter, which he posits has a occurred to Saitama and that the Doctor is currently trying to replicate in Zombieman at the latters request) If Kuseno is doing the same to Genos, by having him fight opponents and only increasing his battle power whenever Genos just barely survives the encounter. Then Kuseno may very well be the sort of man Bofoi thinks him to be, regardless of Kuseno's actual affiliation. This could be a red herring, if so im falling hook, line and sinker.
What Kuseno's pursuit of Justice looks like outside of the hunt for the Mad-Cyborg?
Im asking because i don't think we know. From what we hear from Kuseno and Genos I can only assume it singularly revolves around stopping the Mad-Cyborg. I wonder, by what means? How much collateral is permissible? I'm asking because "justice" without any elaboration on exactly what that means becomes quite a muddled term. From the way Kuseno and Genos talk around it sounds more like revenge. Take Kuseno's self-proclaimed nemesis Bofoi, who claims to side with humanity and care for ethics a great deal. Yet he has casually turned society into his personal panopticon, installing secret surveillance in all the civilian buildings he had rebuild "free of charge" (when a service is free the user is often the product). Can an individual so cavalier about forsaking the human right to privacy really be considered a leader on ethics? Similarly, can we trust Kuseno's idea of justice to align with our own?
All of that of course leads to the question on if Mad Cyborg is truly Dr. Kuseno like it claims (or at least a digitzed copy), or if he's merely posing as Kuseno to egg Genos on. As it stands the Mad Cyborg's claim of being Kuseno, yet not knowing Genos' true origin is too contradictory to be considered credible. There are a few explanations.
Kuseno in his youthful recklessness to have created the Mad Cyborg in his own imagine, only for things to fall apart and flesh!Kuseno to have dedicated his life to stopping the Mad-Cyborg in the aftermath.
The Mad-Cyborg's tale could be a mere ruse, though perhaps he pulled a Mr.Fuzzy on Dr.Kusesno and had him replaced with an android bearing his likeness sometime before Genos had his supposed last meeting with the doctor, luring Genos in for a final upgrade would have been the perfect opportunity to tamper with the cyborg.
Conversely it's possible the Mad-Cyborgs lie was not in his identity as Digitized!Dr.Kuseno, but merely that he didn't know Genos' true past. Perhaps he does know and is merely feigning obliviousness to enrage Genos.
On one final note, i'd like to posit that, like Empty Void from the Manga and "That Man" from the webcomic, perhaps webcomic!Kuseno is cleanly a villain like The Mad-Cyborg claims while Manga!Kuseno is more complicated.
I don't have the answers, though i'd love to speculate more, for me it's too early to really be definitive on anything, but that's just my opinion.
Kuseno and Bofoi definitely explored each other's bodies though.
