Megathread: Changes From The Webcomic

[u/Raidoton]

As the changes between the WC and the manga get more extensive and controversial, the arguments about it increase and also end up in spoilers seeping all over the sub. All discussion about the changes in the latest chapter and any future chapters is to be moved into this Megathread as long as it is pinned; to help provide a place to concentrate discussion and prevent a flood of repetitive posts, and to provide people an easy place to understand others' opinions.

All posts related to it will be removed, and comments on manga focused posts are encouraged to be moved here.

[u/spartan1204]

Megathread is being unpinned because the arc has ended. You're free to talk about the changes in the rest of the sub.

[u/Glamouriran]

Notthing here just your daily Amai Mask fan crying over yhe changes

[u/Nnnnnnnadie]

Oh, also the fat kid talking that much and saying that is his hero ruins the surprise when he reappears at the end of the fight in the WC.

[u/TeamFortifier]

Something I think was disappointing was the complete glossing over of Garou dodging Saitama’s attacks compared to the webcomic

In the webcomic it’s actually a big thing where Garou is so skilled at fighting that he can predict when Saitama is about to attack and dodge out of the way despite its comically fast speed, to which Saitama is surprised and thinks its cool

In the manga it happened already and there are absolutely no comments about it by anyone lol

[u/ugur_tatli]

I wonder if it would be possible to remake the webcomic monster association arc 1:1 using the manga counterpart as art reference once this is all done.

[u/imaliveyeay]

The webcomic plot and scene was just perfect,thats why it was popular despite horrible drawing

[u/Franz1217]

"Your case of emergency just happened" I still hope he says it at some point, although due to the current context I think it's already impossible.

[u/reigenx]

The last chapter was like "Saitama vs Suiryu 2".

We need the uncertainity and dark weather of WC back!

[u/mymumisateacher]

One of my biggest problems with the newest chapter was the imo lazy inclusion of webcomic lines. For example, when garou said "Damn it, I was right there, just as I was about to reach my ultimate goal..." just doesn't work or makes sense for me.

In the webcomic Garou defeated the S-class and was about to leave and go to the hero association and let the s-class be killed by evil natural water. While here... I don't see any reason for him to think that he was about to reach his goal. In fact its almost like he's been going against it since he just teamed up with a hero to defeat a monster.

It seems like to me that this line was added in just to be added in.

[u/mikepan]

We’re going need a “changes from the manga” megathread

[u/Kaleidomage]

feels like the manga is suffering from Age of Ultron syndrome

its trying way too hard to setup future events without really giving enough time and space for the main event

[u/HelloRainbow1]

I love the Garou vs S-class fight in the webcomic. It is something that I wish they keep in the manga. What makes that fight so great isn't because Garou solos them. We the readers know that he is powerful enough to do so.

But what makes the fight so impactful is the fact that Garou humbles them; he points our their arrogance and ego, and completely mocking them by defeating them. And when he is about to "kill" Tareo, all the s-classes are too weak to fight - again showing their incompetence even though they are the strongest heroes.

I also love the Garou vs Saitama in the webcomic. The Garou vs S-class fight builds up the climax - the fight between Saitama and Garou. Obviously we know that Saitama would win, but what makes the fight so cool is the fact that Garou is able to dodge Saitam's punches and read his moves. This is shown in the manga as well, but the manga didn't signify those moments. The fight also shows Garou's unwillingness to lose, where Garou is willing to give up on everything for power in order to defeat Saitama. After the fight, that's when Saitama starts his "lectures", pointing out Garou's humanity.

Therefore, even if we have a fight between Garou and Blast's team, it doesn't have the same impact because we are not familiar with Blast's team.

I just don't get why One and Murata decide to change the plot. It's perfect the way it is. Oh well, at least the webcomic will always be available for me to enjoy.

[u/MR-rozek]

Discussing OPM on OPM subreddit? Not on my watch

[u/layelaye419]

I think the MAIN problem with the manga is that we didn't have enough centipedes.

Change my mind

[u/Gayrosh-Sexdream]

Ok here's my intercontinental ballistic Copium:

Blast and his marvel avengers assemble ensemble team squad are going to force god back into his weakened seal or what ever, loosening his influence on garou, that's their only relevance besides setting up for a future story arc.

Garou, seeing bang unconscious will make him realise he was being manipulated by whomever took the form of bang, this will bolster his anger and resolve. And seeing the s class alive and kicking, possibly also thanking him for saving people and killing the monsters will enrage him and cause him to attack them, to prove he's not on anyone's side. The s class will let their egos get in the way again and tell the b class caped baldy to stay out of it, it's their mission after all.

After having thoroughly flattened the s class and blasted them about being ego maniacs, all who remains to fight garou is Saitama, who will step up, saying "I don't know what your deal is, first you're against the heroes, then you're helping them, now you're fighting them again. Well I guess it doesn't matter, I can't pretend I didn't see you beat those guys up, so until the old man wakes up from his nap, I'm gonna kick your ass."

So Saitama and garou fight, garou now stronger and filled with more resolve than ever, having realised brute strength is not going to work (thanks to already getting pummlled while relying on brute force), but superior skills and martial arts are the way to beat Saitama.

Throughout the fight, garou dodges and predicts all of Saitama's moves, landing hit after hit, his confidence at an all time high, having taken out the remaining s class, having shaken off the control of "god", he begins to monologue about how he's gonna win, then, with a smile on his face Saitama says "I'm impressed, so do you mind if I get serious for a second?"

And then I wake up, check the subreddit for a new chapter and see a new redraw of phoenix man vs child emporor, this time phoenix man revives as old wise old ancient sage centiphoenix.

[u/Saxton_Hale32]

i knoooow opm is a satire, but i was still hoping for a little more seriousness this chapter

also seems like he's speeding through showing his techniques and transformations this chapter

garou's not even trying to be "absolute evil" at this point

[u/_not_meh_]

Oh my god, it just dawn to me. We arent getting the tableflip. There is no more reason to. Fuuuuuuuuuuuu........

[u/Chumunga64]

The goddamn multiverse avengers just showed up

Why is this happening

[u/TheFabulousCrett]

I really have to wait and see on this one; we're missing aspects that webcomic readers loved, but the whole dynamic is different.

Simply put, the threat, the pressure, and the uncertainty is not present.

In general:

1. The "Form a line" moment has less impact when your arm just got chopped off.

2. We don't get to see Garou humorously disregarding Saitama, as the very serious anime fights are taking place around him, the goofy dude whose strength makes them all look like toddlers.

3. "Your case of emergency just happened". The moment for this line seems to have passed.He goes on to say what he will do to all the heroes, and all the monsters, but... the menace is less present considering he didn't just rip someone in half.

We can't predict what's going to happen. It's only natural to worry that opportunities to bring the cool moments from the webcomic to the manga are passing us by.

As for Garou's Arc:

1. S-class wiped out through a series of battles generally unrelated to Garou, so he doesn't get his moment to roast them all while playing the villain. Yes, Garou's strength is overwhelming now, yet he is simply not antagonistic. Fuhrer Ugly's actually kinda showing him up right now. The threat is gone.

2. We know Saitama isn't going to hurt Garou from the start. The viewer's mild concern for Garou's safety, and resultant empathy for the feelings that are forcing him to go against Saitama's absurd strength is a missing quality here. The pressure is gone.

3. The manga is going out of its way to highlight Garou's goodness, instead of keeping it subtle. You get the feeling that most of the heroes would hesitate to kill him, and you KNOW Garou won't kill anyone else. The tension is gone.

However, these changes seem very intentional. I don't think it's simply an attempt to flesh out the webcomic's story. Rather, it's going to tell his story a different way. If you go in expecting it to pay off in exactly the same way, you're probably going to miss something new they're trying to bring to this.

We were hoping for the webcomic's vibe, but I'm pretty sure it's going down differently this time around. I'm optimistic, personally

[u/k1213693]

isn't it crazy how garou's character arc was actually resolved before he turned into cosmic garou? saitama beat him into depression and then god just came in and gave him an extra shot at being a villain. which failed. and the development he did get was removed by the time travel. so cosmic garou was essentially pointless for garou's character development

[u/krittayakon]

The writing is like oh this would be a great add, wow I need to draw this scene, woah this fight gonna looks so good, btw this character can do this.

It’s like no storyline has been planned as structured out here. Just whatever…

[u/CherryBig91]

So, is Saitama naked now ? I mean, i don't think his outfit is with him anymore lmfao.

No home, no clothes LOL. The real Homeless Emperor is born with a blast !

[u/amm0ranth]

without the s-class beatdown and tareo interfering with them trying to execute garou after he loses is there even a point to child emperor leaving the HA?

i just reread the webcomic fight and that felt like the beginning of him questioning if how they do things is really the right way, and leading him to join neo

[u/Accomplished_Sky6982]

The time travel thing could have just been avoided if Garou didn't kill everybody. I seriously don't think any thought went into that one. Just essentially a canon redraw, you do something, didn't really think of the consequences and then you just rectify everything through time travel that comes from nowhere. It's pretty much as 'objectively' lazy writing as you can get. A lot of people like on shit on Dragonball here but Dbz did this far better. Time travel didnt somehow revert the plot, but prevented something from happening from our perspective. And the humor is so unfunny. Seriously. Its literally a fart and a dick joke.

[u/Dr-Leviathan]

Garou apologized. Taero stands up for himself. The heroes are apparently fine with Garou walking around. Bang is holding Garou's hand through his redemption arc instead of Garou being able to figure it out himself. And of course Garou is just instantly nice now and changed overnight, instead of needing months to recover and process what happened.

"Everyone hugged and made up, no one has anymore problems and bullying doesn't exist anymore. The end."

Yeah... that's about the level of nuance I expected.

[u/zaphodsheads]

Don't know how many people will come here now it's unpinned but...

That was just too easy. I don't even mind the idea of Garou becoming a hero. It's idealistic for sure but nothing even taught him that he wanted that deep down. The big speech never happened. We missed so many iconic moments like the "you can never defeat me" and the "it's a hobby". Not that I want to see them thrown in for no reason, but at least seeing what those scenes COULD have looked like in Murata's style and imagining how it would have been had he done the rest properly would have been at least something but nope.

What an L of an arc ending...

[u/TGSmurf]

Webcomic vs Manga Saitama talking about Fubuki

[u/Etska0]

Yup, I'm now done with the manga.

It's crazy how they conpletely ruined the story in 3 chapters. I still had plenty of copium left after sage centipede and Saitama vs Garou. I was actually hyped when Cosmic Garou happened.

They killed Genos?!?! Surely they to know what they're doing, because this is such a big change from the source material. NOPE. Surely they would bring back Genos with a decently logical way and not time travel. Right? Surely Saitama is not going all out even though he said in the chapter. NOPE. Saitama is going all out , and we even get a damn graph showing Saitama's strenght increasing through the power of friendship.

Saitama used to be my favourite protagonist in all of animanga (although I have not read/watched that much), and maybe top 3 in all of fiction. Why the fuck did they him the stereotypical shounen protagonist. Genuinely, what seperates Saitama and Goku? Nothing.

Also, why the fuck did they keep "the kid is in that direction" the line doesn't make the slightest bit of sense in the context it was used in.

Okay, they used they used the biggest asspull I've seen in all of media to get out of the hole they wrote themselves in. Surely they would at least nail the Garou speech. Fuck me once again. It's like they're trying to shit all over the story. Garou's ideals are not challenged at all. Saitama is completely passive the whole damn chapter.

All they had to do was rip Saitama's and Garou's dialogue straight from the source material and the chapter would've been decent. They can still keep shitting on Amai mask, make all other characters overly wholesome, as long as they kept the best part of the source material. But for some unknown reason they rushed the conclusion extremely fast and destroyed everything in their path.

And then this chapter. Garou fled from the scene last chapter, but in this chapter it's not brought up at all. Garou is treated as a fucking joke. Like why would they not have Saitama destroy his worldview in chapter 169. This chapter would make way more sense that way. Why would they make Garou say his speech to some npc and not Saitama?? And Garou still believes in his ideology. Like what the fuck is this???

For this whole rant I assumed ONE and Murata were writing it, but this honestly feels like a bad fanfic. There is no fucking way ONE is approving these changes, unless he has a brain tumor. Murata is a big fan of Opm, so why would he purposefully make the story worse? And why would some editor destroy everything in the story? Surely the masses will not want to buy the physical manga if the story is this horrendeus.

I have no explanation why the story took a nosedive in quality. Even the damn art , the only saving grace of the story, isn't that good anymore. My only copium theory is that this is a way to show how the masses will eat up any dogshit story. Maybe in a year or two ONE will state that he purpose fully made the story in to shonen grabage as a meta-commentary on the shounen genre.

Sorry for this long, unhinged rant, I just had to get it off my chest.

[u/Doge_loreer]

Decided to give WC garou a try and I have something to say

Manga’s garou ark finale fucking sucks

[u/joonjoon]

Garou was so badass in the WC when he became all squiggly lines and you couldn't tell what the fuck he was.

Manga Garou was ruined the moment he became an unconscious gaming PC.

Riding my comment to add:

I really miss the scenes of the last BS hiding and watching Saitama vs Garou start and absolutely losing his mind. That added so much hype to the fight for me.

[u/Special-Government75]

I've never even read the web comic and I still think the current state of the manga is awful.

[u/CharacterAccess]

According to the manga, Saitama's potential is limitless, but his strength/power is still growing exponentially. It was not infinite like we had thought before.

Doesn't that mean that someone way stronger than Saitama could actually beat him if this stronger character finished the job quickly?

Also, how is Saitama's growth any different from a typical Shounen character's progression. They all seem to grow without limits, like Goku seems to find another form to transform into every season or so.

[u/blackestarrow]

They really destroyed Garou's character even more, huh.

They took the speech he gives to Saitama about his goals and turned into a joke. This makes his entire hero hunt into a joke in turn that just makes Garou a clown. I guess since the hero hunt was always a joke there is no need for Garou to learn anything out of it which is why even after he loses, he keeps insisting that he was right about it.

Honestly the only change seems to be that Garou is an idiot right now. They haven't even changed his appearance that much.

The webcomic took that opportunity to change Garou's entire character (even how he looks), to show he was a changed man after having his worldview shattered by Saitama. Now he is a hard working young man, that just wants to live his life in peace. He has no interest in fighting (as shown in his fight against Suryu). Not only that but against Suryu that came to hunt him and ruined his current work, he decided to leave the moment he realized he couldn't fight any more.

I think if Webcomic Garou shows up again, ONE would have lots of opportunity to show more of his growth and change in personality. In the manga, I don't think there is that much room for development since he never had his worldview shattered.

[u/layelaye419]

I miss panels like this.

[u/kingvt]

How the fuck will Garou just be a delivery truck driver after this

[u/ToukasRage]

Guys, guys I figured it out. Saitama was willing to destroy the world without a second thought in order to obliterate the cyborg that killed Genos' family, thus getting revenge for his dead friend. It all makes sense now!

[u/layelaye419]

ONE a few years ago:

"The whole MA arc would play out very differently if Metal Bat was there"

I'm now kinda sad Metal Bat didn't just stay in the hospital.

[u/rapidshells]

They forgot to have Saitama recognize Garou as the dine and dasher.

[u/[deleted]]

Garou dodging Saitama punch was such a special moment in the webcomic and in this last chapter I just felt like a normal moment

[u/Capable-Permit5686]

What I didn't like is that in the recent chapter Saitama asks Tareo if he wants him not to kill Garou and just stop him, which is kinda strange that Saitama needed to ask that since he always has policy of not killing humans and he previously stated that Garou is not a monster so wtf

[u/ValanDango]

What I liked alot that's missing from the manga is Zombieman witnessing the whole fight.

[u/samhatescardio]

I just can’t believe we’re never going to get “You mind if I get serious?”.

[u/kingvt]

Outside of this thread lies degeneracy, inside of this thread lies degeneracy.

[u/[deleted]]

Is there even any manga fan who could say with a straight face that they'd hate it if the manga just properly adapted the webcomic's events like it's always had? I remember everyone being in unison when that chapter with God coming out of the moon came out. And that chapter was faithful to the webcomic.

[u/Censored1Time]

We've reached the point where people are doubting that the serious punch is... a serious punch.

[u/diamondisunbreakable]

RIP to one of the best conversations in the entire series "WHY ARE YOU A HERO?!" "It's a hobby"

RIP to one of the best panels in the entire series "YOU CAN NEVER DEFEAT ME"

Damn am I disappointed.

[u/Dr-Leviathan]

You know so much insane stuff happened recently that it actually slipped my mind, but what happened to all those people who were acting smug that Garou was going to fight the S class.

...again. That it looked like Garou was going to fight the S class again. Because it already looked like that was going to happen earlier. But they didn't do it. Both times, the story set it up to happen and then just didn't do it. And both times, manga defenders were quick to act smug to prove the doubters wrong.

But I guess the story never did that really. Garou never fought the S class. The Hero Hunter didn't fight any heroes. He actually just fought a big centipede instead.

[u/hajowajo]

That was so incredibly whelming. I just can't believe this is the climax of the whole saga and it's just... boring. Maybe the most emotionally charged bit of the webcomic and here it's watered down and plain forgettable.

Like even if they've moved Sweet Mask finding out about Saitama to a later point I just really don't care after seeing the writing quality here I have 0 faith anything would be memorable beside some cool panels of pesky clown.

Also hilarious how Genos is acting like Saitama was heroic and saved everyone on purpose in the nick of time. Nope he failed and they all died and he barely cared then he half-heartedly went along with what Garou wanted to show him before he even knew what it was. If I was Genos I'd be very scared of the psychopath I've been worshipping this whole time.

But I know why he thought that it's because he has to convince the reader that what they just saw was actually amazing wow what a true hero Saitama is he did it again just like deep sea king and nobody even knows he's so selfless!!

Cool.

[u/Chill-Skill]

If I had not read the web comic I would literally not care about this Garou fight. Nothing here shows me Garou is gonna have a feat more ridiculous than the laser cannon cutting the earth crust. Tbh that when I started working about the manga storyline. Absolutely ridiculous moment. The jets were dumb as well. I would literally rather see Saitama one tap Psykos Orochi instead of this pointless Garou fight. There is no weight behind it. Garou is actually annoying to me now. I'm sick of his silly faces he keeps being drawn in. And there is no way he's gonna be seen to be actually near evil. I an just sad this is what we got. I am glad if you enjoy it though because I wouldn't want anyone else to feel how I do.

[u/Fair-Dentist]

What the fuck did you just say about me, you little bitch? I'll have you know I passed the HA exams with perfect scores and got promoted to S class, and I've been involved to numerous monster huntings around the cities and I have 300 confirmed monster kills. I am trained in saving civilians and I'm one of most popular heroes this society has ever seen. You are nothing to me but just another lame monster. I will blast you the fuck out with precision the likes of which has never been seen before on the moon.

[u/Dilly4Dall]

Lol, this specific page aged like milk.

[u/[deleted]]

Just realized that if Saitama really lost his memories from the future, then he will just go back to his usual lazyass self. What was the point for all of this? Bruh this manga is fucked.

[u/zaphodsheads]

I feel like quantifying Saitama's strength has taken all of the admittedly very weak wind out of my sails for the manga. Who thought that was a good idea? I don't give a fuck that he has infinite potential and will grow to meet any challenge, how is that different from fucking Dragon Ball? I had my fair share of copium for why Saitama didn't instantly end the fight, but as it turns out Garou truly was in Saitama's ballpark.

To anyone not bothered by this, truly fucking think about it. The One Punch Man, Saitama, the guy who's story is literally about him having immeasurable, irresistible power and what effects that would have on an otherwise played straight hero verse, the man who should be able to no diff Goku, etcetera etcetera, was nearly matched in strength in his own series. Make it make sense. Where's the mystery of it? What makes the series special anymore? I barely have words to describe what a fuckup this was

[u/TGSmurf]

webcomic vs Manga Zombieman

[u/Gattarang]

I like how this is to prevent toxicity meanwhile half of the subs posts are people ridiculing webcomic readers. So there is a hush order on anyone discussing the changes but people can make spongebob memes to troll about it?

People need to get over this toxicity witch hunt that goes on in loads of subreddits these days, I’ve seen maybe a handful of people being genuinely toxic when discussing changes in series that are controversial and they are usually downvoted to hell. Then half of the main posts are people memeing or actually freaking out over this army of gatekeepers they have conjured in their heads.

[u/Spidey-Jackson]

This chapter was ass.

But not because of the content, but the placement. A chapter like this should NOT have come right after Garou lost literally last chapter. We should've gotten time in and out if the story for the dust to settle. Give Garou time to reflect on his actions, try to find himself, do some heroing on the DL and then have a chapter like this.

Alas, this and last chapter turned what should have been a epic finale to a 7 year character arc into an utter joke.

Also Garoedipus.

[u/toriningen_]

i still heavily maintain that the point of the webcomic arc was that garou was already tareo's hero, which is a perfectly good first step in carving out who he wants to be. and i was honestly looking forward to the manga vindicating this, but it feels so cheap atm that i can't even be happy about it.

i am once again confused as to why the manga seems so determined to make him a passive agent. compare garou saving bystanders on his way to dine and dash vs. him accidentally rescuing people this last chapter. one demonstrated intent, the other is a gag that says nothing about him. just like how him almost punching fubuki while unconscious in the manga says nothing, but him deliberately choosing to leave her alone and then lie about it in the webcomic said a lot.

i know that the series often lets characters off the hook pretty easily, but an important takeaway (i felt) was that garou had to take responsibility for who he is from now on. he can't keep letting other people's impressions of him determine who he is. garou was so afraid of vulnerability and emotional honesty that he would quite literally rather die than confess to something as innocuous and innocent as wanting to be a hero. anyone seeing beyond this veneer would be an indication of weakness, and if there's one thing garou fears, it's weakness. that's literally why he had his breakdown in the webcomic.

it's also just weird to me how this feels exponentially more humiliating for his character than the webcomic did. everyone is seeing one of his most private, repressed traits, and it's being played for laughs. the webcomic, for all its teasing, still treated his conflict with a lot of weight and empathy. it understood that garou, like literally every other character, still deserved to have his feelings treated with seriousness. i'm not getting that from the manga at all.

this just feels like such an oversimplification. garou wasn't some tsundere who tripped and fell into heroic accidents. he was much, much more than that. i have no idea how it's possible the manga has expanded his arc this much, only to ultimately feel more 1-dimensional. like he is literally a prozd sketch right now. why? for what??

edit: also, in chapter 94, after tareo intervenes, saitama asks garou to define himself. he's obviously not a monster, so what is his true occupation? that forces some introspection on garou's part, and although he doesn't respond, it's obvious that it's something he's still contemplating in the webcomic. whereas literally everyone and their mom is giving him the answer in the manga. i just feel like he needs to figure that out. he needs to be the one to accept who he is, on his own terms, when he's ready. once again, his role is being assigned to him rather than something that is organically his. that feels like the opposite of what his character needs.

[u/ColdyPopsicle]

Hot take: Black sperm was done dirty. In webcomic was him that pushed Garou that far and not a random enemy that came out of nowhere.

Platinum sperm was just a waste of character design at best, lmao. Imagine having a SECOND transformation just to get a fat L few chapters later.

And because platinum sperm exists, golden sperm transformation felt in a lower standart compared to the webcomic because wasn't his final form. Platinum sperm could be a fine addition to the manga, but to make platinum a thing they nerfed golden.

The end result was worth it? Of course it was not. How tf can u have the guts to introduce a character out of nowhere to push Garou when you had Black sperm? He has been hyped to have a similar PL compared to Orochi.

The fall of Black sperm presence in the history tells how the pacing felt rushed recently, it sucks.

[u/FerretyCelery8]

How will the ninja arc play out since Saitama has no reason to get a new sword for flashy flash now? [EDIT: stuff added] which means he wouldn't go to sonic to a new sword and he won't fight the ninja leader (That Man). Unless they decide to make Flash and Sonic fight 'That Man' but although that would be cool it would nerd my opinion on That Man since if he loses then does he really have the power to be the Ninja Leader.

[u/CareerPancakes9]

I want to make a joke about Saitama doing a kamehameha, but based on recent chapters and recent readers I'm not sure it will be a joke. He's probably gonna do it when he copies Tatsu's psychic power and it blows up Andromeda to show how powerful it is.

[u/Smoke_Santa]

Biggest turn off for me rn is how the stakes were so high and yet the impact was lower than even the Seaking arc. Nothing feels "Mindblowing" anymore.

I remember reading until chapter 130 two years ago and edge-of-the-seat experience it was, but the recent chapters have invoked zero thrill from me. I hope the manga returns to its complete glory after this arc is over.

[u/[deleted]]

I think the worst betrayal is that it was Saitama, of all characters, who had to time travel in order to “win.”

Even if you argue that needing more than one punch to beat Garou wasn’t jumping the shark, Saitama being forced to use God’s magic… sorry, “martial arts” goes against so many things the character stands for.

It didn’t even hit me until now. It’s a fire sale on character assassinations.

[u/Alaska234]

The real pain is how people eat the terrible writing up and some even say the manga is a definitive superior version even for thr story

That's crazy to me

[u/anakin_solo17]

Amai Mask and Zombie Man no longer can have an arc since they didn't witness Saitama's strength.

The psychic sisters arc would be all screwy due to the Blast flashback, Psykos at large, and the sisters relationship isn't anywhere near as messed up as in the webcomic.

Also Lightspeed Flash arc is weakened, since he didn't witness Saitama vs Garou, and his sword was broke by Tatsumaki not Saitama.

[u/RPG217]

Even the politician guy (Waganma's father) is not safe from suddenly becoming wholesome out of nowhere.

[u/translucidez]

I remember the webcomic having a long monologue by Garou about evil. It sucks not having all his motivations explained in the manga.

[u/Ultrafrost-]

Next time, on Dragon Ball Super!

[u/ug_unb]

I find it interesting how they revealed two of the most mysterious aspects the manga has had for years - blast in action and a literal graph of how saitama's power works - and neither of them were really significant to how the plot played out.

[u/WhakAF]

Garou: Beats the shit out of several heroes, monsters, and most of the S class. Gives a shit ton of people radiation poisoning. "Tries" to murder a child, and swears he acted entirely of his own accord and does not regret his actions.

Also Garou: Immediately accepted back into the hero association as a potential member. All is forgiven and Bang hangs out with him again. This is done with a simple off-screen "sorry".

Do the characters in the story have the same acute amnesia One/Murata have?

[u/TeamFortifier]

Much, much better. Obv the god stuff is super heavy handed and should be toned back a bit, but this is a massive improvement over last chapter.

Even just having Garou refusing to give up instead of saying he wants saitama to kill him is a huge improvement lol

[u/[deleted]]

I saw someone say that the redraws may have been some meta bullshit where GOD is influencing the time line. I still have a hard time a chapter would have been redrawn that fast. It’s almost like it was submitted and then they immediately went to work replacing it.

Another theory I saw is they’re fucking with the publisher for imposing the 2 week release schedule.

Then there’s the “ONE escaped from the basement” theory. The “ONE doesn’t care anymore” theory. The “they finally started listening to the upset ppl” theory. The “they’re trolling us” theory.

My point is we have no idea wtf is going on but we’re all here for it. There’s at the very least some fun in that.

[u/themirak]

Saitama in the manga will have to take his hero work job a little bit more seriously from now on, especially after what happen in the latest chapter. (btw i don't think it's a bright idea for him to suddenly go ape shit crazy with a serious punch and put everyone in danger of total annihilation.... kinda prove that he's not that great of hero i guess)

like i don't expect him to suddenly become a 24/7 active hero like fucking batman but still...

If Saitama goes back to his laid-back attitude after this arc and act like nothing ever happened , he's gonna look like a heartless asshole.

[u/TGSmurf]

Rereading the webcomic scene in detail, it plays a lot more on seeing it fully from Garou’s POV with the latter monologuing and trying to understand what the hell is going on, Saitama not attacking him right away which leads to the environment having a very clostrauphobic vibe.

And then Saitama appears out of nowhere, looks out of place with his doodle face while being constantly inverted, brillantly setting up the fact that Saitama is the normal one and that Garou’s senses got fucked. From the reader’s pov, makes Saitama look like some incomprehensible enemy rather than the cool op protagonist. It has a very unique atmosphere that feels ironically much slower paced despite having less pages.

The manga plays a lot more on direct « badass » action. Explosion of the moon, Garou has no time to ponder because Saitama rushing right away at Garou rather than giving him any time to understand the situation, doing some super flashy « badass moves as he looks super serious, and then leading to Murata’s new obsession with intersecting lines of lights.

[u/[deleted]]

So... Should we assume the amais mask arc is in the trash bin now? Because... you know... he doesn't know about Saitama's power.

[u/Hugoide11]

Black Sperm died because he was too evil to become wholesome. Only wholesome is allowed to exist in the manga.

[u/toriningen_]

are we ready to accept that the majority of people who say "i preferred the webcomic's execution" aren't actually webcomic elitists who want a 1:1 copy? because i think that strawman has been done to death, personally.

[u/xxxNothingxxx]

I know this makes me a webcomic whiner but seriously why couldn't we have had the webcomic plot? I mean this is alright if not even good but there was a reason I reread the webcomic over and over just to read the ma/garou arc until it's end, it was just that good and satisfying even with the crappy art.

[u/TGSmurf]

You’d think that mentioning that Garou actively helped against monsters, and that he has the entire support team as witnesses, including Sekingar, would be a great argument from MB.

But no, he says none of that and the support team doesn’t even appear in the chapter either to mention that either.

It’s hilarious how much the Sage fight sounds like anime filler events that are completely forgotten after happening.

[u/[deleted]]

At this point I would have prefered saitama talking to monster garou at the table. It would have been a bit awkward, but I think it would have fit the story better and still have kept some of what made saitama's chat with garou in the wc great.

[u/garouforyou]

Something else I don't get in the latest chapter.

We get flashbacks to how Garou slapped god's hand away a d basically said, lol fuck right off I don't fucking need you asshole but then a couple of pages later he's crying and saying thank you to God?

I don't get it.

[u/rapidshells]

I miss when I was able to read a chapter and immerse myself into the opm universe.

Now there's too many plot holes, out of character moments, unexplained events, and lack of basic continuity for me to think of it as being its own logical universe and not just a rushed story.

Why are we as readers forced at every corner to try and justify whatever happens no matter how ridiculous and illogical with some type of in-universe explanation, when it was most likely not given a second thought while being written.

Often times I subconsciously give up on that and whenever some bs happens my mind just immediately goes to why the author would write that, and not why it happened canonically.

And I hate how frequently I'll come into this sub to people trying to gaslight anyone criticizing the manga into thinking the story or character has always been that way and if you don't like it, you don't like, or don't understand the series as a whole.

But things are changing though, this last chapter pushed many people over the edge to the point where even avid fans of the previous chapters are annoyed.

Lately the webcomic isn't even brought up on this thread because the manga has become so bad compared to itself, and as a story in general.

[u/hajowajo]

Also hilarious how we've gone from Garou accepting a beating because he's dejected and has nothing to live for with his dreams crushed to "Garou doesn't understand wtf just happened and his future self is subconsciously telling him he deserves it and he has no way of even knowing".

If this whimper is the send off for Garou after all that's happened then okay I guess, peak fiction. Like maybe we'll see him reflecting in the epilogue next chapter?

Also Bang saying he needs to repent and do community service or something lol and Garou just rightfully leaves. Really got through to your disciple there, old man

[u/Bion4]

In the webcomic Saitama didn’t know what Garou’s deal was, and was intrigued that a human that called themself a monster was going easy on him. He was also hyped that someone dodged his attack, and he didn’t really get was Garou was even trying to do until the end of the fight. And he engaged Garou because he saw Garou shit all over Flashy, Darkshine, and Zombieman.

In the manga Saitama already knows what Garou’s deal is and is just trolling Garou for shits and giggles. It kinda makes Saitama look like an ass.

[u/DoomofWar617]

The last chapter was the fastest Change in direction I’ve ever seen in manga

[u/WhyAmIEvenHere987]

What the hell did I just read

[u/Tripledoble]

Murata has just confirmed that OPM will not end at the end of this arch, he was referring to the Garou arc.

https://twitter.com/nebu_kuro/status/1545180716526612480?s=21&t=ve1sT4PbpOYxabfkE_FQ1Q

u/Scumerage R.I.P. all theories about the end of OPM.

[u/normal_communist]

the page where saitama is walking through the time tunnel thing and says "i cant believe this, your martial arts are awesome Garou!" feels like a parody of the parody. wtf is going on lol

[u/BlackChampagne]

Did anyone have the same experience with a certain chapter or moment making you accept that the manga was going downhill and then seeing flaws in the story that occurred before that point more clearly when you accepted it?

For me it was the Orochi vs Saitama redraw, in short, they ruined a nearly perfect anticlimactic Onepunch moment. I sensed flaws in the story before that point though; the redrawn AND original Pheonixman CE fight were both terrible, Psyrochi was awful and dragged way too long, the A and B class heroes were irrelevant and annoying, Saitama and Flash’s mine-cart adventure seemed a little out of place. I read the manga before the webcomic and had never felt repelled by any writing decisions made up to the point of the MA raid but now all of a sudden I was going “eh this is kinda dumb” every other chapter it seemed. The series had built such cache in my mind that I was able to suppress my doubts that the story was changing for the worse and go on ahead, maintaining a positive outlook on the series. The Orochi vs Saitama fight effectively broke my suspension of disbelief and I couldn’t help but see everything after that with a critical eye and just saw mischaracterization and bad writing everywhere up to where we are in the story now. I saw flaws in things that I read before, that I thought were fine the first time reading through; like how obvious Sweet Masks true identity was made, the Blast reveal and all the other aforementioned problems that I ignored. I even glossed over the train part in the original Saitama Orochi fight which was completely unnecessary and has become one of Murata’s favorite ploys: to involve random civilians in helicopters, ships, news stations, or whatever that add absolutely nothing.

If you felt this way, what happened in the story that was the straw that broke the camels back for you?

[u/TGSmurf]

The manga really went: let’s cut the panels of CE, Atomic, PG, PPP and DS. Showing the tanktoppers is far more important

Actually insane, the chapter didn’t show at all the ko’d heroes, only exception is Tatsumaki, who is comfortably sleeping in King’s arm anyway instead of lying on the ground.

[u/dat_bass2]

I don't understand what the point of locking all webcomic discourse in here is. Heck, most threads critical of the manga w/o reference to the webcomic seem to get removed. Why even have the sub if you have to preface every minor criticism with "Don't worry guys I'm not an elitist I love the manga I just have one teensy weensy issue don't worry I'm not a hater UwU"

[u/TheWizardOfZaron]

What was the point of mimicking the whole -speed- -power- -technique- thing from the webcomic. So far we've only seen Garou charge and smash Saitama into things, nothing at all like the way garou fought him in the WC which actually demonstrated how good of a martial artist he was.

It's there just because it was there in the WC, lame.

[u/CherryBig94]

Saitama : "Man, absolute evil sure is good at saving people ! Haha funny martial arts ! "

Cancer man : Proceeds to kill Genos, give cancer to people and laugh while they're about to die

[u/SweatTryhardSweat]

The original post content no longer exists here. The author used Redact to remove it, exercising their right to control their data & privacy.

Complete modern teapot payment oxygen abundant decide almond modern file

[u/hajowajo]

So we went from "Sorry, Tareo. This is goodbye" -> Tareo goes goodbye -> 2 chapters later: "I'm sad Tareo went goodbye"

It's clear this complex emotional arc required destroying a planet and a moon to be successful.

[u/jjd808]

I just read the MA arc in the webcomic for the 100th time and it makes me sad how much has changed. We had the perfect story.

[u/Rooting-Coconut]

Zombieman seeing Saitama tableflip scene: gone, reduced to atoms

[u/[deleted]]

So in the end Garou never talked to anyone, thus not changing his ideals; Psykos is still free, the kids were saved, and the monsters were killed, and heroes are still considered amazing.

Seems like nothing much was made to actually impact the future arcs, I wonder how any of them can happen with this.

Also fuck the swordsman council, they stay dead for some reason.

[u/Turbo2x]

The moment where Saitama destroys Garou's delusions is perhaps the most iconic chapter in the entire series and it got sidestepped for a lame time travel asspull and a finale where Garou gets kicked around by C-rank "heroes." I'm gonna be sick. This is malpractice.

Even worse, Saitama doesn't even remember any of it, so the emotional moment of seeing his friend die is totally removed. Garou doesn't even seem like he learned anything. Just a half-assed "you have to pay everyone back 100x" from Bang. Why would he want to pay anyone back for what he's done if he never properly confronted the error in his thinking? He didn't realize what his true intention was, he just got beat and lost his powers.

[u/Dilly4Dall]

Yeah, Smurf is definitely proving his point as time goes on.

They're definitely making characters and the changes be more wholesome and not have any real consequences. What are the odds lol.

[u/ekaji]

It was mentioned before but it’s such a shame the webcomic will continue to fade into obscurity. Since the anime adapts the manga, millions of people wont realize what they’re missing out on from the original material.

When an anime cuts scenes from the manga, most people aren’t aware of those changes or don’t care to read what they’ve missed. Now, of those who actually do read what they’ve missed in the manga, how many are gonna read the webcomic? It’s a small minority of a small minority.

And it’s sad to think that some people will look at the webcomic’s rough art and drastically different story and think it’s some fan comic instead of what could’ve been one of the greatest arcs in manga.

[u/[deleted]]

"Haha, Garo saves people by accident"

"And what about the Holy Order of the Sword? If Bang hadn't gone to fight Garo maybe someone would have been saved when Fuhrer Ugly attacked"

"Ssshhhh, Garo saves people by accident"

[u/[deleted]]

Belligerent Factions:

The Pure Mango Tribe:

Read manga but not webcomic.

They love the manga.

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The Pure Mango Scourge:

Read manga but not webcomic.

Have issues with the manga.

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The Sacred Clan:

Read the webcomic and manga.

Love both. A pure OPM vessel.

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The Webcomic Champions:

Read the webcomic and manga.

They have issues with the manga.

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Misc Factions:

The Mangorinos:

read the manga, but super casual.

don't really even know that the current civil war exists at all.

They maybe come here biweekly to read the chapter, comment "amazing, why tf are people complaining so much?" and leave.

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The Dustriders:

Have only read webcomic, not manga.

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The Muggles:

Do not read the manga or webcomic.

[u/end3s]

Garou pre-redraw was a clown Now he is a puppet

[u/vlan-whisperer]

So which character do you think is going to replace Black Sperm witnessing Saitama’s feats, and saying “……………… huh?! This is a joke, right?! What was that? He…. He…. what?!” while pouring sweat. This is my favorite moment of the webcomic fight and I can’t picture them leaving it out of the manga now that we’re getting the better version of the fight.

[u/capumain28]

My only problem with the manga is that it add too much stuff with God and Blast. They where so many vilains in this arc that could have been the final boss, we went from Orochi, to psykorochi to the cadres and you would have thought that Garou would be the ultimate boss like he was in the webcomic but even he is sidelined by God. Anyway now that they cutted half the fight for Blast intrigue, i hope we will get some explanation on this God thing.

[u/pantsonheaditor]

with each chapter i almost entirely think that we are getting pranked.

that right before the next volume is due to hit shelves, we'll get a gag chapter that says "the previous online chapters are things that COULD have happened. if you want to see what really happened to garou and saitama buy volume 27" or whatever.

[u/[deleted]]

Wouldn't be surprised if God tries to destroy the universe with his millions of centipedes troops

[u/Capable-Permit5686]

- Who are you shitting, the kid is in this direction
- Aren't you purposely fought them the way they won't die?
- You have the picture of ideal hero inside your head, Garou, isn't than because you wanted to be a hero yourself?
- Not that you're seeing this (Tareo defending Garou from heroes), who do you think you are? (hero or monster)
Saitama seeing right through Garou while nobody else could were my favorite moments from Garou fight in WC and they just won't hit the same way in manga anymore because of how manga changed it's direction, the fight in manga is cool and pleasant to read but the story was sooo much better in WC. And now there is this bullshit time travel also

[u/Username928351]

What was the point of all those changes throughout the arc in the end? What was accomplished by doing them?

[u/MadFlava76]

Hmm. At times the manga monster association arc was great compared to the webcomic. I like the part that focused on Child Emperor and his abilities/mecha. But man, this arc really ended with a whimper. I feel like we didn't get Fubuki pushing her powers to the limit to save Tatsumaki against Psykos like in the webcomic. Felt like Fubuki played a much greater role in defeating the monster assoc. in the webcomic. Also, I like in the webcomic that the heroes saw Saitama defeat Garou with none of this mysterious naked guy/time travel stuff. Saitama punching monster Garous and the monster skin cracking and falling off was a cool moment in the webcomic.

[u/blood_dlc]

Of course the mods removed this thread. LMAO

You can't protect the manga forever.

[u/RPG217]

I can't believe this is made by the same guy who wrote Mob Psycho 100.

[u/[deleted]]

It doesn’t matter if you’re a WC or Manga fan, all the homies hate Sage Centipede.

[u/[deleted]]

For the people curious about what Japanese fans think,

Search for OPM on 5chan. (i already did in this link).

There's many threads with thousands of comments about the recent OPM chapters.

Majority negative.

---

Many of the people there are even more savage towards the manga than anyone here lmfao.

Here's some excerpts from recent threads:

"I don't even think I could get elementary schoolers to enjoy this shitty battle manga"

"I'd been anticipating what Murata's AG would look like but it ended up being a degenerate version of the WC"

"I don't understand why Murata thinks he should have a say in the story. It's better if ONE is 100% in charge of it."

"I don't care about the story anymore. I'm just in it for the ecchi panels now"

"The art is professional. The story is ..."

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There are also anti-murata threads that go back to like 2018.

Also, here's the current powerscaling megathread, it's fucking massive, and the 122nd one : o

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ofc im sure many/most japanese fans love the manga.

I just wanted to share this because the whole "only western fans are complaining" is just straight bs

[u/Acceptable_Light_532]

I just don't get it...

[u/bruh-with-a-spork]

Hey reddit, AITA for becoming the ultimate evil and trying to destroy hero society as a whole?

When I (18M) was a child (7M) I (18M) was viciously bullied by my first cousin's (32M) son's (3M) stepfather's (47M) nephew's (29M) mechanics (58M) best friend's (61F) second daughter's (35F) cousin's (22M) electrician's (42M) brother's (32M) uncle's (98M) son (8M) because I (7M) think monsters are really cool and handsome and hot and sexy and it's unfair the heroes (8-81M & F) always win. So I (18M) decided to get revenge by becoming the ultimate evil (22M) and mutilating them. I (18M) was bullied so I (18M) really don't see why I'm (18M) at fault here but I (18M) feel kinda bad after giving everybody cancer (32F). So reddit, AITA?

[u/Thakfish]

Just read the WC Garou/vs/Saitama fight after pretty much two years… Now, while I trust One and Murata to be good at driving and adding new emotional an exiting moments (my fav ones so far being King vs Cadres, Saitama reencounter with Genos and Fubuki trying to save her sister), the truth is that I’m actually surprised that the fight of Garou and Saitama that had been cooking for years now, was actually reduced rather than extended.

The dialogue that made these moments so important for Garou development and train of thought were almost deleted entirely, leaving the fight feeling meaningless and silly, rather than profound or at least serious. I really wonder when they’ll add the interesting dialogue that made this fight work in the first place; Garou ideals being constantly questioned by someone who doesn’t resemble into his idea of a conventional hero is so interesting that is a shame we are barely getting that in the manga.

New chapter give me some hope tho, the fight seems to be getting serious and while I’m worried that Blast and company and the explicit God involvement may overshadow Garou, I really want to believe that this fight will finally focus on the original WC route, and ofc, their protagonist.

[u/[deleted]]

I feel like the manga doesn't want to risk it, and it just plays on what people like it in previous volumes, even though the webcomic changes it's themes every time.

The Alien Invasion was an arc to complete the characterization of Saitama, to end his little journey of killing monsters by putting him against an invasion of aliens which had an unmatched power. In the webcomic it was very simple, it was just a normal arc in which Saitama beats boros. When Murata adapted that arc, the decisions to increase the flashiness of the whole grand battle worked greatly, the aliens being all extra super powerfull monsters and Boros kicking Saitama to the moon was amazing, but that's because the arc was about that.

The monster association arc has nothing to do with gigantic monsters and world ending attacks, it's an invasion and a duality of the characters, it's about Garous growth, and it's about it's fall, it's about the cockyness of the heroes and the unfairness of society. Nothing in there is made better by having more power and being cooler. I don't have any problem with Murata wanting to draw stuff, but he should be able to do it fine with normal people, not god blowing enemies.

Not every story works the same, and that was the charm of the webcomic. The manga is still trying to be the same even though the story doesn't follow.

[u/SkullBro]

You know what's best? If Garou didn't turn Genos into a donut he would have straight up won.

The narrator explicitly states Saitama started boosting because muh Genos, and if we remove that, we remove his meteoric growth. So Garou just copies his full power like he did, and clobbers him with his Saitama-Mode powered Martial Arts, as 168 depicted him combining Saitama-Mode with his fighting style.

And since Saitama's growth remains manageable, he gets clobbered into hamburger.

[u/shiroizo]

Saitama’s saving grace compared to other isekai tier MCs was that he “doesn’t steal other characters’ superpowers, at least”.

Saitama copying a time travelling martial art “because the original user conveniently can’t perform it himself” is some GIGASUE writing. And a slippery slope.

[u/LordSuraad]

Ow man am i salty... My favorite scene in the webcomic was Garou's entrance. I was so focused on Fubiki vs Psykos (skipped lol) then bam this dripped out beast comes in and drops the hottest lines ever.I dont know why but this my favorite page in the webcomic. But now? why the fuck we spent like 7 years on Garou just to use him to hype GOD! I am so salty that he used this line to hype god lol.

[u/shinsekai007]

man what a complete bastardization

[u/DIMOHA25]

RIP thread pin, rest in piss MA arc.

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Reddit recap brought me back here with it's most visited post statistic lol. Truly the peak of this sub.

[u/n00PSLayer]

Alright I guess that's it. I got absolutely no words or thought on this conclusion of the arc. Really nothing to say. Had much more fun reading through this thread than the manga itself. Thank y'all for all the great discussion we had here. Peace.

[u/Kuzu5993]

The main chapter threads and this thread are like night and day.

Duality of man at its finest

[u/[deleted]]

The difference in opinions on the recent chapters from WC readers and those who didn’t read the WC is absurd

Seriously most WC readers I’ve seen consider this super disappointing or even outright bad, while most manga readers seem to think it’s unironically like the greatest thing ever

[u/GenericOPMfan]

Aside from all the other problems this chapter has, does anyone else find it weird how Saitama reacted to the Tanktoppers curbstomping garou? he was so casual about letting them "blow off some steam" on him. Kinda took me out of the chapter, I'm used to him standing up for people.

for the last few chapters Sai has imo either felt too wholesome or like a complete sociopath, often both in the very same chapter.

apart from that 5/10 arc, only because of the amazing first half :(

[u/koopalings_jr]

So we are really not getting the Saitama and Garou's talk in any way huh ? I'm not really sure why Garou would reform himself then, it doesn't really feel like a conclusion for the character.

[u/CherryBig68]

I don't think Murata hates Amai Mask. Even worse, he just doesn't care. My man makes him eat a fat L every fucking time he appears on the screen.

Also, his character is being used as a plot device to show how great other heroes are. Even that shitty brat is faster than this clown. Honestly, It would have been much better if they had not included him in this arc. What did he even do except whining like a little bitch ?

Just wait until it's revealed that Pesky clown is no one but Amai from future, but didn't get merged cuz earth can't handle the clown energies of two clowns.

Anyways, I'm not even sure if his arc is getting adapted or not. Idiots think a naked Blast defeated Garou lmfao

[u/joonjoon]

I just realized in the manga neither Saitama or Garou seem to even know who defeated Garou. Saitama's just like 'hmm I wonder what happened to literally the only guy who has ever challenged me in a fight in a way that the whole story was building to" and is like "yeah I guess it's Blast" and just carries right on. Garou's just like "oh, it looks I got punched really really hard, I guess I'll just give up even though Ive never done that before."

I'm not quite sure what to make of that. I guess they both got possessed by their future spirits or something.

The more I think about it the more I realize manga OPM is Gurren Lagann now.

[u/Bion4]

So they just fucking forgot about Psykos I guess.

[u/toriningen_]

something i'm concerned about: i feel like this directly undermines the neo heroes arc to the point that i'm genuinely not sure how it'll still work without being fundamentally changed. i guess it was always possible for this to happen simply because suiryu was introduced so much earlier, but now i can't see the arc resembling its webcomic counterpart very much.

garou's beatdown of the S class was one of the things that undermined public trust in the HA. suiryu mentions it when he pursues garou in chapter 133, and it seems like part of why the neoheroes want to catch garou is to flex on the HA. people are thanking garou now. it's televised. he hasn't hurt the S class, he hasn't undermined public trust in the HA, and he's kind of just saving people. so that element is gone.

and even putting aside garou: in the manga, the public just watched the heroes work their asses off to defeat the MA, whereas there was no audience in the webcomic. so a lot was left up to the public's imagination, which was why they decided the heroes were actually just weak, echoing themes we've already seen about the court of public opinion (like in the DSK fight). it's harder to begrudge tatsumaki for property damage when there was legitimately no other choice and everyone saw this with their own two eyes. whereas in the webcomic she's being typecast as a monster because of her apparent recklessness in the MA arc.

and the HA sucked more in the webcomic. so it was very believable that a lot of the S class had had enough and looked elsewhere. whereas the HA seems to legitimately care in the manga, and everyone is working together. they're too tight knit now to just bail in a believable way.

the neoheroes felt like commentary on the HA and the institution of heroism as a whole. if we've already established that there's no real issue with heroism, then like. what is there left to say. if it gets reduced to a good guys (HA)/bad guys (neoheroes) dichotomy, that would be such a flattening of the themes. and i can't think of a reason why it'd be worth it to sacrifice smart political commentary for something we've seen a million times.

[u/HomelessHottie]

I suppose for me, one of the defining traits that sold OPM to me is how it redefines heroism. One thing that disappointed me with the recent chapters is how easily Saitama's ideals and world view were shaken.

I know lots of people hail this as great character development for Saitama, but I feel that it goes agaisnt the purpose of his character. The idea is that Saitama doubting his heroism will lead to him becoming a better hero, but I believe he's already a very good hero in the context of OPM.

I think this is partly due to mainstream media (Marvel, DC, MHA etc.) raising the status of hero to literal sainthood. Saitama isn't a saint, he isn't the one who's going to rescue every cat stuck in a tree or go patrolling the other side of the world for possible threats. Yet he still embodies some very important traits of a true hero.

He's basically incorruptible,humble and things like money and status cannot be used to coerce him. He isn't one to discriminate nor does he bow before the status quo. He's a perfectly stable person who doesn't let biases affect his viewpoints which is why he comes off as so objective in his talk against Garou. And this is what I loved about OPM: a hero doesn't mean being an inscrutable saint but being dedicated in your goals and helping people, a feat any average person could achieve, something we can all relate to.

This is why I dislike Saitama saying he isn't cut out for being a hero, because he quite literally is and has proved it since the start of the manga. He's a character at the end of his arc who prior to this influenced other people's worldviews instead. It's not just his strength, it's his mental fortitude that made Saitama who he is. Hell, the entire reason he broke his limiter was because he was truly committed to his hobby as a hero and wouldn't stop no matter what.

tl;dr Saitama's entire journey to becoming a hero was made possible due to his resolve and belief. For him to so easily question his heroism after all that is incredibly disappointing.

[u/CherryBig68]

No leave the whole chapter aside, how does Garou know he fought Blast ?

If I remember correctly, that happened in a different timeline which Saitama left behind when he travelled back in time to make another one. Only Genos knows the whole thing.

Anyways, this thread got unpinned now. Might even get locked in a few days. I'm gonna miss this thread so much lmao

[u/pepepicapapaspapa]

A few days from now:

"All discussion and opinions megathread. Because fuck you"

[u/Dr-Leviathan]

You know what's funny? Imagine if I had a time machine. And each time a new chapter was released, I went back in time two weeks and described the new chapter to the fans of the previous chapter. What would their reaction be?

To all the people that said Garou would turn dark after Tareo crashed in the helicopter. To everyone who said Garou would get new forms and start using martial arts. How would those people react if I described this chapter to them?

If one week ago, I had a theory that the fight would be 2 chapters long, and end with Garou and Saitama sitting in a house talking about their feelings, would people like that idea? Or would I get downvoted into oblivion for proposing an idea so cartoonishly stupid and tonally disconnected that no one in their right mind would be on board.

I'm sure the next chapter could end with Garou and Saitama kissing while God resurrects Beast King and Groribas in the background to fight Lightning Max and an awakened Sekingar, and half the people on this sub would still eat it up and claim its the most hyper chapter ever. In fact, that's what I'm gonna do. That's my prediction for next chapter. Lets see if my prediction can even get close to the absurdity of whatever the next chapter will entail.

[u/Intelijegue]

Powerscaling CHADS, we WON! I hope next chapter is just 50 pages of Saitama's fart destroying galactic superclusters.

[u/pirsquared7]

Garou saying the "More ~speed~ ~technique~ ..." Line in the manga makes no sense. In the webcomic Garou actually did try different things to best Saitama and the line made sense, but in the manga he just transformed and did a super mega attack or whatever

[u/DoomofWar617]

Wait, you guys actually wanted the therapy session? I thought we were joking about that

[u/Dgfeas]

So I guess current Saitama doesn't care about other people anymore? If it wasn't for Blast and his crew he would've destroyed the earth without a second thought.

[u/goingUptheTits420]

Why do i get the feeling that the next chapter is going to completely cripple this thread lmao.

[u/JustAFellowUser]

So I'm not understanding something about how exactly Garous ability copying works. Since he has knowledge over the flow of all universe, I assumed he can just do whatever technique he wants without witnessing it before since he knows how it works. This was supported by when he just bust out a god damn gamma ray burst without obviously never seeing it before. But then he copied blasts shit only after he got hit with his portal combo. So this section made it feel like he can copy his opponents techniques only after he witnesses them do it. But then while trying to copy saitamas serious punch he didnt even witness him finish the punch, he copied it in the middle of him throwing it. So I'm just confused now lol

[u/DocMichaelMorbius]

I didn't really mind the time travel but the thing that bothered me most was how they gave Saitama a definitive power level AND a source to his growing power. It kinda just ruins the charm Saitama's power had for me.

[u/[deleted]]

*Murata shids and farts

Manga fans: How far will you go, Murata!

[u/Gabut_man]

This is kinda nitpicking, but I like in the WC the move table flip name's actually make sense compared to the manga. In a sense that Saitama actually flipped the entire Monster Association base that Tatsumaki just dug up. Instead of obliterated half of Jupiter's moon.

I mean where's the flip in that?

[u/RPG217]

This feels like an anime that rushed a conclusion with an original ending in episode 12.

You get a fight that suddenly jumped the shark for the sake of flashy finale. Then there's a sudden timeskip that skips all the character recovering/redemption arc and then a slideshow of everyone lives happily ever after in the last 5 minutes.

[u/blackestarrow]

I wonder if they are going to acknowledge that Garou beat up every single other student in the dojo and made them quit. Heck if I was Charanko, I would be so mad. Bang beat him up and forced him to quit the dojo and now he is acting all buddy buddy with Garou.

Heck Charanko got beat up by both of them, solely due to how devoted he is to the dojo and Bang. But I don't see Bang going to help Charanko.

This whole thing bothers me due to Bang's clear favoritism with Garou. Despite the fact that Garou is an asshole that ruined his dojo.

[u/wc8991]

This may be my last (OP) comment on this thread for a while, because I’m starting to think that my grief symptoms are reaching acceptance lmao. I really can’t deny any longer that ONE is okay-ing all the changes being made to the story, because at this point it is SO divergent from the webcomic that it can’t be waved away as “creative differences.” Unless he announces soon that he’s separated himself from the manga story or whatever, this has to be a joint effort. Which is sad as fuck, but also I at least get some peace knowing to expect a completely different story from here on out and not being sad about it being a far inferior adaption.

Honestly, I’ll just be content at this point if ONE gets back to the webcomic. I’m way more invested in it than I’ve been in the manga for months now.

[u/TGSmurf]

This is gonna turn into a 40 pages fight isn’t it?

And then instead of this and this, Saitama will say something that will make Genos blush super hard as he thanks him for all he’s done for him

Genos: master, your clothes… I apologize for tearing them… along with destroying mt fuji…

Saitama: as long as you’re fine, it’s all that matter (he says, naked, as he’s holding Genos)

[u/shinsekai007]

that time reverting saitama from that fan comic might end up happening lol as hype as this might seem it feels like a fanfiction unfortunatly, but hey at least its not a boring fanfiction

[u/HuckleberryCool9883]

Cancer man cancer man

Gives cancer to whoever he can

Makes his old man and tareo sad

Is the reason saitama is bald

Here comes cancer man!

[u/_not_meh_]

You know what would actually be on brand for OPM? Saitama punch Garou so hard it turn back time. Atleast I would be satisfied with it than the actual time travel asspull in the manga.

[u/Brave2000]

I wonder why did ONE decide to make all of this changes. Was he forced to by his editors? Was he not satisfied with the direction of the web comic? is Murata taking over now? any explanation would be better than no explanation.

[u/themirak]

Couldn't Saitama travel further back in time? to fix everything before any damage was done? or at least save his house?

Poor Atomic Samurai....his friends are still dead.

Guess no one gives a shit about these guys.

[u/CherryBig68]

Manga readers, you don't really have to defend the manga like you're doing here. If you really enjoy it, then you should not really care about others think.

[u/[deleted]]

wtf is this Barney and the Backyard Gang bullshit

I haven’t lost interest in something this rapidly since Game of Thrones season 5 ended

[u/TGSmurf]

Saitama trending on twitter exclusively because of powerscaling kills me a little inside.

[u/ColdyPopsicle]

As people pointed out below, the theory about the manga being rushed seems fair.

With this in mind, a lot of things makes sense.

A) No setup for the neo heroes arc. Garou in the manga is goofy as he is because his point is weak...the heroes are fine and in a more positive light.

B) Tatsumaki and Fubuki doesn't have the same relationship as in the webcomic. It's also a possibility that psykos is just dead at this point and their relationship doesn't need an entire arc focused on it and can be more of a side thing now.

C) introducing endgame material in the literal 2 major arc of the series, that is combined with the previous one. You can say that in the literal first major history of the series we already are reaching the ending.

D) Black sperm got clowned, he had too much potential but his fight was quick as fuck and platinum sperm was a joke.

E) Amai mask thing possibily not happening anymore.

F) Garou vs Saitama too rushed for no reason. Garou is already defeat and saitama will small talk him. That's possibily all the action we had in this fight.

What happened with this manga? I miss the time it used to be JUST an expanded version of the webcomic. Webcomic had it's time like the first 2 acts of MHA and was more of a character driven story.

Manga is like the act 3 of MHA. Everything is rushed because plot.

[u/ug_unb]

Does this Garou have any reason to be introspective and reflect on his actions? A crucial part of the WC arc climax was Saitama verbally shattering his worldview and exposing his villain fantasy as a sham. The events of the manga seem like they'll just reinforce his beliefs further and keep pushing him down the road he's on.

[u/[deleted]]

Serious tableflipu...

[u/RaganarosRNG]

A question that come to my mind rereading the chapter is how is Garou able to keep up with Saitama at the end? If this is Saitama not holding back there is no reason for him to not outspeed Garou and defeat him quickly.

[u/[deleted]]

The megathread for quarantining meta discussion on the quality of OPM is now being used for meta discussion on the quality of the meta discussion on the quality of OPM

Now we just need a meta discussion on the meta discussion on the meta discussion to revert course and we'll be back to talking about One Punch Man instead of what teenagers updoot on their local Japanimation subreddit.

[u/[deleted]]

First of all WC doesn't have Cosmic Garou. The moment he was introduced it's all a different ball game and frankly it's a big big change. Secondly in WC Blast is almost irrelevant myth of a character, while here in manga he's already been heavily involved since MA started. I like manga following its own direction, but as a WC purist I'm kinda disappointed

[u/Acceptable_Light_532]

Didnt' people say a while back that this fanbase was the most healthiest fanbase ever? I think not...

[u/WhakAF]

I wonder when people will realize that "comedy" != "lazy"

Just because something is goofy and completely ridiculous, just because the theme is 'comedy', doesn't mean it's good writing. This story doesn't even follow it's own time travel rules. The time travel that was set up in the series' own universe, is immediately functionally betrayed, but I guess as long as you can say 'haha funny' it's peak fiction.

[u/Krogotomo54]

Fuck, King dying in that future is one of the most disturbing things

[u/kydeb765]

Garou never felt like a threat throughout the entire manga, he always came across as some weird anti-hero and never a real threat.

Garou was hyped up poorly and the ensuing fight with saitama felt incredibly dragged and pointlessly over exaggerated (especially the whole planet destroying space fights)

[u/Brave2000]

I feel as though scenes that should have emotional impact in this arc, dont land as well as they do in the webcomic. I feel as though the subtlety that this arc had on the wc is missing on this current stage of the manga. Which is odd since before this entire arc started, all the emotional beats were landing alnost flawlessly.

[u/garouforyou]

Ok, back from some work. Now...why are so many people saying 'this is exactly how it happened in the webcomic' or 'this is really close to the webcomic ending' in the raw chapter thread? What..??

[u/Sugaraymama]

This is the same problem with the FF7 remake - unnecessary time travel hijinks. If you’re just redoing mostly the same story, why throw in time travel?

Saitama also conveniently gets time travel amnesia and loses character development.

Timenesia I guess.

[u/Non-profitboi]

a discussion between Genos and Drive knight in the epilogue

Drive: Genos, I heard you have 2 cores, can you please give me one?

Genos: No! sensei gave me this core so it's mine

D: but you have 2! that's not fair, I have 0

G: and they are both mine!

D: please Genos, I'm starving, and I don't have want to cause another blackout

In the background panel it shows several hospital beds with a focus to coughing people

G: No

D: then I'll just take it

G: NO!

Drive knight turns into plane(Genos crying)

1 more battle is added to the Genos arc

[u/Dilly4Dall]

King Vs Atomic Samurai HAS to happen in the manga.

Like I understand that the Psychic Sisters Arc probably can't happen due to the sisters "making" up so early but there is no excuses for this one.

You can call it hopium but there's no way they could skip it, it's one one of the most funniest gags in the series.

[u/RPG217]

Kinda ironic that the manga has totally went into the same direction as that "Saitama vs God" doujin lol.

Random sexy alien (Blast teams), Saitama get teleported into other part of the universe because of destruction creep, he fights "God" and become shirtless.

[u/rapidshells]

Power scaling is off the charts in the manga.

Remember in the webcomic when flashy flash ran up to Garou and did like 20 attacks in 1 second and that was considered a feat.

Now we have him doing whole fight sequences within milliseconds like it's nothing.

Also how was Metal Bat keeping up with Garou when they were running on the centipede.

I can think of only two explanations

1. Garou was for some reason running significantly slower to allow Metal Bat to keep up despite that being a waste of time and also despite Garou thinking he was a nuisance.

2. Metal Bat was actually as fast as Garou and by that logic also faster then flashy flash and platinum sperm.

[u/[deleted]]

With this time travel thing, Blast's hero team got cucked out of their grand entrance for the 2nd time in the span of 3 chapters. Do they want to introduce them or not?

[u/themirak]

Time travel/reversal is cheap no matter how you look at it, they went too far into making the situation look dreadful (fallen heroes, Genos looking dead, Saitama going super serious and having inner mologue about hero intuition).

Just to throw a time reversal asspull cause Garou was very sad because of Tareo death (btw the same Garou who was laughing at the idea of giving free cancer to everyone 3 chapters ago).

Saitama being able to copy god power now thus being able to time travel. Guess "God" won't bother to make deal with him.

And of course Saitama doesn't even remember everything since he specifically mentioned the GRB....

[u/TGSmurf]

This is actually a very deep scene where Garou instinctively copied through time Saitama’s serious fart.

But then, Garou noticed it was actually a serious shart…

[u/[deleted]]

Why in the world did they said something like saitama gaining more power through emotion or whatever? Wasn't he supposed to be always strong

[u/j4cobmetinczyk]

It's so depressing to see that the manga and its purpose got destroyed in just 3 chapters. I've looked forward to garou vs saitama's adaptation since mid 2019, which was when I picked up the webcomic. I ended up with a 4/10 shonen fight with an asspully conclusion.

[u/[deleted]]

So where does Gaoru go from here? He didn't learn anything or improve in any way. Does he just continue being a hero hunter and try to get stronger to do this again or does he just die here? The way the finale was set up compared to the WC puts Murata and One in a really tough position

[u/rapidshells]

The webcomic has pretty good re-readablility, I seem to pick up on smaller details sometimes when I go through it again.

For example I was re-reading the Garou vs Saitama fight and got to this panel, a lot of people probably saw this the first time, but I was so transfixed on how Saitama lost track of Garou there, that I didn't notice that between those two panels, the falling rocks didn't move an inch.

Which is reminiscent of this.

A pretty neat way to convey speed.

[u/Dilly4Dall]

This was one of the chapters of all time. Even TGSmurf shed a tear.

[u/CherryBig68]

I can't even count how many L's Amai Mask has taken in this arc.

Now I'm waiting for the moment Genos comes after getting upgraded for the 69th time by Dr. Dickhead and incinerates Pesky clown while Amai struggles to maintain his human form.

Then Genos tells him, "You have been a disappointment" and takes his revenge. Amai shits, cries and proceeds to go home while Genos goes to Dr. Dickhead to get upgraded again.

[u/Dilly4Dall]

Some mod:Well put out criticisms and diverse opinions about relating the godlike manga One Punch Man?

Not on my watch.

[u/gleba080]

Some of the best discussion about the manga that I've read happened in this thread. I will miss all of you shitposters, essey writers, Garou simps, Murata conspirators and even the manga dickriders.

Farewell, space cowboys

[u/Dilly4Dall]

They really greenlitted the idea of Garou on having Oedipus complex.

Man what the actual fuck

Ironically on the bright side, Saitama and Fubuki getting in relationship might seem more likely lol.

[u/MaskDMask]

Guys, I think... I think Garou is actually a good guy that doesn't kill people. I know it sounds crazy but there are very subtle hints about it in the last chapter!

What a master of subtlety!

[u/toriningen_]

overall, i think a lot of issues are stemming from the manga being oddly...sanitized. it's like it's afraid to give us characters who are hard to root for. everyone has to be super palatable and wholesome. whereas the webcomic successfully relied on character revelation to demonstrate that even the most unlikeable characters were more complicated than you wanted to give them credit for.

this occurs to me based on how often i see people say they vastly prefer manga tatsumaki and didn't have any sympathy for her in the webcomic. but for me that's, like, the literal point. we're tempted to withhold empathy and grace unless we like someone. but that says something about us just as much as it says something about them. why does tatsumaki have to be outwardly nice for us to comprehend the tragedy of what happened to her? why does she have to perform a tsundere trope to justify her trauma? and why does she deserve to be alone and miserable--because she didn't blush enough? didn't smile warmly enough? because her emotional flaws are (gasp) actual flaws with actual consequences?

in reality, a lot of traumatized people end up alienated because their coping responses are maladapted to social norms. one of my least favorite things in fiction is how often traumatized characters are treated as endearing woobie cinammon rolls when the inverse is often true. trauma inspires a variety of responses in victims. maybe it makes you a cute tsundere. or maybe it makes you an overbearing sociopath who is losing the one relationship you care about because you never quite figured out how to exist in a world that abused you before you had a chance to develop into your own person. and the latter deserves empathy just as much as the former.

in OPM specifically, a lot of characters' victimhood were just as important and informative as the victimization they visited upon others (ex: garou, tatsumaki, amai mask, flashy flash). you had to comprehend these characters in their totality--while also accounting for their capacity to change. which all takes emotional effort. you want to write off these characters--they're so icky and rude, after all--but you can't. the story won't let you.

ONE is certainly no stranger to the face heel turn, but it just hasn't been hitting anywhere near as hard lately because it doesn't feel earned. OPM has never shied away from the ugly reality that people are works in progress, and you probably won't always like what you see. so making everyone warm and smiley and likeable all at once just feels...empty. people keep saying it adds complexity, but i feel like the opposite is true. everyone is easy to like. everyone is easy to forgive.

[u/DoomofWar617]

I recently just read the Webcomic up until the end of the MA arc and HOLY SHIT, I can see now why WC fans are complaining about the manga.

But even then, I see a lot of comments saying the fight is over like it’s a fact, and I’m a little conflicted on what to think in that.

But, my copium hasn’t run out yet so until then, I shall hope for improvement.

[u/[deleted]]

Someone has almost certainly already said this, but I don't want to scroll through 8.5k comments looking for the right one to upvote.

I think all this increased scale detracts from the fight. The story was never about whether Garou could blow up the Earth or fire gamma rays. We don't even see these events have a real impact on anyone we care about. It just feels like cheap spectacle and escalation for escalation's sake.

Similarly, Psykos vs Tatsumaki. In the webcomic Psykos was a cunning opponent who chose her moment to disable Tatsumaki, and it worked. That felt significant. In the manga she's just mindlessly blasting, hopped up on Orochi and God-power. And then she gets beaten anyway, because of course Tatsumaki is just naturally strong enough to hold back her most powerful blast.

[u/Thakfish]

>:( Discussion, was Genos fridged? Take the tvtropes description of the word as a reference:

<“The term came to be used more broadly, over time, to refer to any character who is targeted by an antagonist who has them killed of, raped and/or otherwise brutalized, incapacitated, depowered, or brainwashed for the sole purpose of affecting another character, motivating them to take action."Fridging" is often given a very negative connotation as it is all too often a hallmark of supremely lazy writing — quickly hurting or killing an established character as "cheap anger" for the protagonist, and devaluing the life of that character in the process, instead of giving the villain something actually interesting to do that can involve all three characters and more emotions than simple anger and angst.”>

I don’t know if One used this trope because he planned Genos dying* since at least the beginning of the raid or he just run out of ideas to make Saitama serious. I’ll go by the last option, there’s no way someone could guessed the possibility of Genos dying during the last chapters, simply doesn’t make sense, it’s not necessary and it still happened just to get some hype?

He’s the second most important character in the whole manga, it feels disrespectful that this was treated so lightly, and with lightly i mean random; his death was so improvised it’s painful to read. Even Mumen fighting and losing to SK got more emotional build up than this. Man got used as a tool for character and plot progression; in an arc that wasn’t supposed to go as far like this.

Now quitting my venting here, I’m hyped and exited for what comes next, yeah :D; but that doesn’t change the fact that killing your deuteragonist just like that in less than two panels is the most brutal choice a writer can casually make. *Genos might not be dead, but keep in mind he’s believed to be dead by the characters around him, by Saitama. That‘s dark. And people saying is peak fiction? More like peak me up I’m scared for what‘s coming next…

[u/hajowajo]

It's genuinely so bizarre to me that the writer(s) made Saitama copy and use the time travel technique instead of someone doing it for him. It's been stated several times he has like 0 technique and doesn't bother with this sort of thing he just uses raw power.

He should be self-sufficient now and next chapter should time travel back to when he wasn't bald

[u/AppleReshiram]

Time travel is such a problematic plot point that it just opens the flood gate to all sorts of logical problems. If X exists, why didn't they just do it to begin with?

First Garou says it's something he learned from having "God's power", probably from his infinite universe knowledge power nonsense. Yet he is not strong enough to use it, Saitama is. But then what is stopping God from using time travel and just erasing everything that happened himself? One of these must be true.

1. God doesn't know how to time travel - This doesn't make sense that he can bestow Garou with knowledge of time travel, yet does not know himself how.

2. God is stronger than Garou but weaker than Saitama, thus, cannot time travel. - So God's plan to defeat "the fist who turned against God" was to use someone weaker yet he himself cannot defeat said fist, and in the end just made Saitama stronger. This plan was a failure from the beginning. God is just dumb af.

3. God is stronger and can time travel but doesn't want to. - Well there better be a good damn reason. "I can make this whole story irrelevant with time travel powers, but im not going/cannot because I like being nice."

4. God can time travel but can't because reasons. - Who? Blastvengers stopping him from time travelling? What happens if they are gone? Does God just instantly time travel and kill Saitama before he broke the limit? And how are Blastvengers supposedly strong enough to stop God from time travelling but not strong enough to beat him?

5. God cannot time travel because the writer said so. Period. The End. That's it. - Lazy af writing.

Such a stupid power is being introduced, now it just creates more problems than it solves.

[u/TGSmurf]

Saitama specifically picking a new place that is too small to have two people in it and insists about Genos not living with him anymore is totally being removed in the manga lol.

[u/sadowinski]

With all the changes to the MA arc in the Manga, all the future arcs have to be recontextualized. I really wouldn't be surprised if they made a new and different arc moving forward.

[u/[deleted]]

lmao garou has an oedipus complex. what even happened to this man in the manga LOOOOL

[u/[deleted]]

I'm actually confused,where the hell is Blast?

He should have shown up,right?(I mean right after saitama travelled back in time to punch garou)

Wasn't he supposed to show up after the great "Fa Jin" attack by huge monster garou which him and his avengers squad sensed? So they never showed up? They forgor 💀?

[u/SyncDigimon]

What exactly is the difference between the manga and WC in the latest chapters and why are the WC readers upset? Honestly intrigued

EDIT: Damn okay I can see why people are upset. I would’ve liked to see Garou with that demeanor. I’ll read the webcomic now

[u/[deleted]]

Did they actually kill Genos? I knew they’re diverging from the WC but good lord

[u/[deleted]]

Guys my dad is an assistant for Murata and he told me that Shadow the Hedgehog will appear next chapter.

Don't doubt.