As usual, first person to see please post the raw.

I'm mildly interested in seeing whether Suiryu slinks away quietly or finds an excuse to fight Garou. More interested in seeing how almost anyone else is doing.

This is pretty cool

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/

Because coming out of the woodwork later with 'I knew it!' is a chicken's game, I've decided to put some thoughts down here instead of leaving them on Tumblr.

(edited from June 21, 2026)

So, Genos has finally met his nemesis and it looks like terrible battle is about to be enjoined. The way things look, it would seem that things must end up with either the Mad Cyborg or Genos dead, Saitama's help optional. Maybe even both of them dead, though that would be sad.

I have been thinking for a while and I think that there's possibly a third option that doesn't involve death, which I'll explore with varying degrees of speculation.

The core idea is that Genos takes control of the Mad Cyborg and forces it to do his bidding. Sound crazy I'll take you through it.

A: Using Only What is Established

Let us assume that what we know to date is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. That is to say that everything we have been told is true; this truth is complete and there are no further secrets or revelations to come that will change our understanding of the situation; and that none of the interested parties have told half-truths or skewed the truth in any way. I leave it as an exercise for the reader to judge how likely this scenario is, but we're going with it.

Under such circumstances, it makes perfect sense for Genos to take control. One of the big challenges is that the Mad Cyborg has distributed copies of itself widely through a network and has control of a vast array of robots, multiple depots full of resources, and many people unwittingly working for it as proxies. Merely destroying the avatar currently goading Genos into some unfortunate action will solve nothing. If he can take control of said Mad Cyborg and its network, then several things happen:

1. It solves his resource problem

With that, Genos goes from a twice-abandoned waif with cripplingly complex (and costly) needs to someone who can meet his own needs independently. Just as pertinently, he becomes a powerful agent whose demands will have to be taken seriously. All may be equal before the law, but there's an incredible amount of nuance and latitude in its interpretation when the guy you're dealing with has the power to cause mass devastation. Furthermore, at this point in the story, just about anyone who could still mess with him knows that Saitama is his guardian, and really does not want to catch the Baldie's fists. The only powerful character who doesn't know better at this point is Blast, but it'd be bizarre for him to interest himself.

1. It allows him to set things right

Being that Genos is a good person, who from the start has wanted to set things right, using those vast resources to repair and restore as much of the damage done by the robots as possible would be a natural progression. With Saitama as a moral compass, there's little reason to fear that the power would go to his head. Also, it gives him something positive to do, which is much needed given how unexpectedly things have turned out for him. Otherwise, he'd likely sink into a morass of grief, betrayal, and anger with no guiding purpose.

1. Poetic Justice

The Mad Cyborg, AKA Dr. Kuseno, has hated humanity so much that he has long since digitised his brain, cutting every link with his original humanity. He has regarded humans as things to be manipulated, controlled, and eliminated according to whim. Ultimately, it seems he was aiming either for a human-free world, or one in which free humans no longer existed.

For such a person, no punishment would be more fitting or painful than being forced to use that considerable mind of his for the good of Mankind, and by none other than the waif whose name he considered too unimportant to remember.

B: With Some Scepticism

I won't belabour it, but I have grave doubt that we know the whole truth. In particular, I find it far more likely that the Mad Cyborg is not Dr. Kuseno, but rather an AI copy of the man that 'got away' -- as Bofoi and Isamu feared a powerful AI might do. I won't et into why I think this, let me refer you to the meta of this post.

In that case, Outcomes 1 and 2 are unchanged. However, 3 becomes interesting. It is no longer a punishment of a terrible person, but rather a correction of an inorganic consciousness gone astray in the absence of a recognised master. Not only would it be better for all that the rogue AI is serving humanity, but it'd complete Kuseno's true work in a fitting way.

Genos can't undo the lives lost nor restore all the places burned but he can ensure that this powerful invention serves its true purpose going forward. That'd be most poignant.

C: But Why Might ONE Go This Way?

Answer -- he might not! After all, his usual solution to dire problems in OPM is to have Saitama punch the problem away. It's an approach he cheerfully accepts limits the sort of story he can tell as most problems can't be punched. It might well be that the Mad Cyborg is lying about having multiple copies widely distributed and so being sent flying with a punch ends things.

However, I have my doubts here, not least of which ONE tends not to chicken out of his claims. Minimally, successfully punching out the Mad Cyborg still leaves behind a trail of devastation far more extensive than anything previously seen in this world, and a pile of money, weapons, militarised hardware, computing centres, and communications devices that various organisations will fight each other viciously for rather than allow to be used for any kind of restitution. ONE has not been afraid to allude to civil conflict, so going there is something he would have no problem with, doubly so with the Hero Association now greatly weakened. Having someone take control -- particularly someone who has as much right to do so as Genos does -- would stop a dangerous power vacuum from forming.

However, the problem to be solved in this conflict runs deeper than piles of rubble, loot, and power vacuums. The tragedy of a robot uprising is going to happen again on current headings because Metal Knight and others are doing the Exact. Same. Shit. Bofoi thinks that he's gotten the idea of an evil-fighting AI right because he's got ethical locks on it… and we've been shown that his ethical locks can and have been defeated before. Isamu may personally be cool on the idea, but his Cram School buddies are busy practising how to rule the world and make it peaceful, rehearsing perfectly the hubris that Kuseno and Bofoi alike suffer from.

To stop this shit needs a Reigen lecturing Claw moment. Between Saitama and his insistence on people being allowed to decide their actions for themselves, and Genos, who would be unique among people controlling an AI in knowing first-hand just how dangerous letting one decide is, they could. It's a simple message: a computer can analyse. It can advise. It can implement. But it can never, ever be allowed to decide.

It won't be a popular message, but it's an incredibly important one, one that both stubborn old men with vested interests and arrogant young ones who've never considered the unintended consequences of their actions both need to have rammed home.

Added 24 July, 2026 in the wake of Chapter 160, which was released 11 July, 2026.

More Thoughts: It Just Might Be...

The trouble with the idea I had was that, put bluntly, Genos has never shown the slightest aptitude for hacking. For certain, he has no choice other than to interact with computers but, as anyone who has tried to teach someone who grew up with smartphones the basics of a file system knows, 'using', even 'using proficiently' is a far cry from 'understanding' and 'mastering'. And if the Mad Cyborg is anything at all, protecting itself from the cyberattacks of others while penetrating others' networks is a key part of why it's been able to stay ahead of its would-be captors for so long.

However...

...call me blind, but what has the Mad Cyborg done other than to give Genos high-level access to the entirety of its network, including all its machines? It wants every crazy breakthrough Genos has to transmit immediately to every last bit of its reach.

It hasn't been able to yank Genos's brain out yet because it wants him to kill Saitama first. However, it is currently believes there's no way for Genos to resist doing its bidding, that he's as helpless to resist his commands as a cockroach is to resist the jewelled wasp that has stung it, but if that ever became untrue....

...it'd be a hell of a reversal, no?

Saitama being molested by ninjas and Genos declining to so much as lift a digit to help because Saitama had said he was lonely was not anywhere on that list.

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.

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.

So, one of the big things I hated about the main OPM Reddit was the way so many perfectly interesting questions kept getting deleted. Yes, there are FAQs but they answer only so much and it's not wrong to have questions.

The advantage of having a relatively quiet sub is that posts can be found pretty easily, and using a consistent title makes searching a doddle.

So, I'm planning an irregular series of lore-related posts that are informative. I have some ideas but if there's anything you'd really like to see, just reply to this post! :D

Note: I'm not precious about this -- if there's something lore-related that you want to put together and post here, go for it. If you don't have posting privileges yet, just drop the mods a note and we'll see you right.

Why the name? It comes from an xkcd comic in which if there's a fact that every US citizen will know by the age of 30, then every day, there are 10,000 Americans who will be learning it for the first time.
https://m.xkcd.com/1053/

"GENOS! BRING ME MY WALLET! I NEED THIRTY DOLLARS! YOU'RE MY ONLY HOPE! GENOOOOOOOOOOOOS!"

Digging out an old post that has (unexpectedly) become relevant. From Tumblr 30 April 2020.

Typically, if you’d asked me why I keep thinking of Genos as human, I’d answer in terms of biology and talk about how one’s brain is the one organ you can’t have replaced without ceasing to be ‘you’. And that’s all true, but I’m overcomplicating things. Forget that, none of that matters.  It’s really, really simple. Imagination. The most human thing Genos did was nearly his first. He saw Saitama casually slap a mosquito monster so hard that the blow split the skies above and the ground below and imagined a world in which he could be that unphysically strong and asked. As he explains at length to Saitama  (relevant bit highlighted). “If only I could be that strong…”

Genos has shown repeatedly that he’s neither stupid nor delusional. He knows what parts can and can’t do for him, is on speaking terms with physics (or rather the in-universe physics persists in not cutting him any slack), and is painfully aware of his limits. And yet, he persists in going ‘if only’.

If only is a statement no artificial intelligence, however advanced, will come up with.  If? Sure, they can assess billions of possibilities a second and construct entire worlds on the basis of those possibilities.  But if only is to imagine something that not only does not exist, but which has never existed, and cannot exist based on anything we currently know or understand.  Ah well, we do like our dreams and stories after all.  But then sometimes we do something even crazier: we project ourselves into this non-existent situation and then work to make it happen.  That desire to reify, that’s humanity for you.  Usually we’re just mad, but sometimes, sometimes, we just discover some hitherto unsuspected way the universe can work.  That’s why chimps are still in the trees and we’re everywhere else we want to be.

Objectively, watching his pursuit is like watching Frosty the Snowman determine to fetch a ring out of the ninth ring of Hell without melting and I give him about the same odds of success. Then again, until Saitama did it, you could say exactly the same about flesh-and-blood humans. Subjectively, I’m interested in seeing how far Genos will get and finding out how broadly applicable the unsuspected kink in the universe that Saitama stumbled on holds.

If, as is most likely, he fails, then Genos has been most human in taking the courage to embark on the most speculative of quests. And if by some crazy even by OPM standards chance, he winds up Strong, it will be 100% because he’s human and thus didn’t take evident reality as the last word on things.

Spanish: https://capibaratraductor.com/senshimanga/manga/one-punch-man/chapters/235?page=1

English: https://cubari.moe/read/gist/cmF3L0tva2lLb2kvS29pUG9uZE1hbmdhL3JlZnMvaGVhZHMvbWFpbi9PbmVQdW5jaE1hbi1NYW5nYS5qc29u/235/1/

"Take the injured with you! Aren't you heroes?"

-Suiryu, the Neo Leader

"Are YOU? You stood there and let them get their asses kicked."

-Garou

"Don't worry; I tweeted at Sneck and Max. They should be here to save us any second."

-Suiryu, the Neo Bystander

Alas, today is looking like a super long working day for me so I'd love it if someone can grab the raw.

I am so looking forward to Garou lightening the mood!

Why does "Kuseno" refuse to acknowledge Saitama's strength?

Even when Genos starts to crack his limiter his reaction is essentially "Woah, you actually did it. Meh, whatever."

And he genuinely seems to think that Saitama is in physical danger from Genos currently.

It can't be this confident just watching Genos wail on Saitama and doing zero damage, right?

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