#It’s funny back then saitama was even denial about it

[ginniesfangirllife]

Sonic to Saitama

sof ?

He’s not wrong.

[epickiya722]

Y'know, the thing with dudebros getting mad at gay shipping and opm... It's pretty funny, because even most of these guys agree that Genos is in no way normal about Saitama lmao. I have a couple of theories:

1- It's a gag, so his over enthusiastic loyalty doesn't have to be taken that seriously or looked into.

2- He is constantly vocal about it, in a way that denial doesn't work, unless you literally just haven't read the story.

3- They have a more easy going relationship that is easy to take as wholesome/funny than others like bakudeku that are more complicated, and well y'know how dudebros think about complicated.

One, how am I just seeing this ask?... well, I've seen it now!

Two, okay, that is pretty funny.

And I have to agree with those theories. They all work!

Working as a gag will kind of trick people into not thinking about it because "Well, it's just a joke. No point of thinking too much into it. Can't take it seriously enough to make an analysis on it."

I haven't read the story, but I know enough to be fully aware that Genos is indeed vocal about how he feels about Saitama and you are right. He can't deny it, probably doesn't even want to. When you're vocal about something (or someone) you're passionate about, it would be hard to deny it.

And yes, with complicated relationships, dudebros, antis, fans, any and everybody will go back and forth with their own interpretation of what the relationship is because "I'm the only right one 😠". But when there's a relationship like the one with Genos and Saitama, it's clear, it's easy. There is no need to interpret anything because that's just it.

[gofancyninjaworld]

OPM Webcomic Chapters 119 and 120 Review: Just because the icebergs are melting doesn’t mean we can’t have a sale

The webcomic continues where it left off, with us finding out what Amai Mask meant by his ‘Supreme Hero’ project.   This is the sort of story that reminds me of just what it is I find special about OPM: it’s funny, absurd and at the same time deadly serious and moving.

The Story

Cutting the Gordian Knot:  When ‘can I beat this evil’ is not a valid question,  possibilities open up to resolve once tricky problems.  The story opens with Saitama intervening in what is a staple of many adventure stories -- forsworn good guys battling equally dedicated bad guys to prevent the release of a difficult to contain greater evil.  As Saitama is infinitely strong, he solves the problem (and puts both sides out of work) by grabbing one of the baddies, summoning the cruel dragon and killing it in one shot. Without missing the sale.

ah, how I’ve missed One-Punch Man logic!

He makes the sale and meets up with Genos, and the two of them start walking back to their former A City home, only to find the way blocked by a Sweet Mask, who wants words with Saitama.

Saitama appears the next day at the cafe, where Sweet Mask immediately offends him by ordering a drink on his behalf. [Totally agree with Saitama on this]  Since Saitama hates direct confrontation, he does the passive aggressive thing of ceasing to listen.

Sweet Mask’s pitch is this. Someone to be as much an aspirational symbol as to be a plain bloody strong hero, is what Amai Mask is looking for.  With a world going to hell as quickly as it is, having a hero as a symbol people can look up to and be inspired by really does matter.  I’ll let Saitama’s face do the speaking.

Really cool: Saitama stops the tirade by turning the conversation back on Sweet Mask and asking the latter about his own motivations to be a hero.  And then the ugly truth comes out.  That his name is Beauto, which is a cruel name for a guy ashamed of his plain looks.  Who plunged himself into working hard as a hero, while hiding his face from a world he was sure would reject him.  And who got very strong... only to find out that it was as a result of becoming a monster.

Heroes don’t act because someone says ‘please’.  But it’s true that they are encouraged by people saying ‘thank you’ -- knowing that they’re making a difference matters hugely to heroes.  Fame, fans, media presence,  Amai Mask has taken them all and leveraged them to build the profile of heroism.   Even while the monster within eats his conscience and soul.

Saitama may want fans and recognition and look with envy at Genos, who has both but ignores it. But he’s not willing to create a curated image of himself in order to do so.  After making that point forcefully,  he escapes from the gondola, leaving Sweet Mask to ponder his next steps.

As ever, the chapters end on an annoying cliffhanger -- a killer clown striking dead people with a mallet.

Meta

Honestly, I made a mistake here -- there’s way too much to unpack!  But I can pick up on a few things. :)

The Crapsack World Gets Crappier

Normally I laugh at the ‘As you know, Bob’ trope, but we’ve been so starved of context in OPM that I’m glad for Sweet Mask’s infodump on the history of the world.

I think I understand why the natural monsters hate human beings: they’re creatures who evolved directly as a result of all the fighting, environmental damage and climactic change that human beings inflicted on the planet.   Those monsters have taken over all the planet save the one super-continent that people have retreated to.

While we don’t understand why the third great crisis is upon humanity,  it looks like the problem is now that people themselves are turning into monsters.  With increasing frequency.   The last iceberg of humanity is melting.  And that’s leaving aside all the death cults that seem to exist!   People seem almost in denial about it.  The government was resisting calls to establish a rapid-response force to deal with monsters all the way back in Saitama’s school days. People still do amusement parks.  And there are still sales.  [Minus the monsters (okay, and geography, though not destructive world wars), it sounds like a commentary on our world]

I’m not sure that heroes are entirely the answer, but I sure appreciate why they exist.

Evolving the Hero Association

I have been very interested to learn how the Hero Test used to be: a much easier test.   All heroes initially started in Class C, thus forced to struggle amongst themselves to prove their worth. And also thus being massively set up to fail.  90% of heroes quit inside the first two months. It’s no wonder that the Hero Association created Class S, and allowed heroes to be placed directly in a higher class -- the infighting and chicanery between heroes must have been incredibly vicious.    It also makes more sense of why the Hero Association no longer takes candidates who are not ‘street ready’: they’ve learned that if a person is not ready for the realities of hero work, they’re only going to drop out.  It raises a very interesting challenge to the Neo Heroes. They tout that they’ll train up potential heroes, but it’s going to be very interesting how many of their 2000 candidates are working three months down the line.

That said, it’s been very cool to see that Sweet Mask is of the same mind as Child Emperor that the Hero Association needs to support its Class B and C heroes better so the latter can achieve more. Unlike Child Emperor, Sweet Mask actually has the clout to get his ideas through management.   If only they could have talked and worked together!  

Sweet Mask has a more controversial proposal: abolishing Class S.  The manga is clearer on this, but as a group, they’re ill-disciplined and don’t work together, which was a key factor in the debacle of the Monster Association. And it looks like quite a few have quit or transferred after one defeat.  If they’re the shining beacons on the hill who are supposed to inspire other heroes, if they’re the ones the Hero Association can look to when the big threats arise, then they’re not doing a very good job.   He seems on the fence about following through with that proposal.

“I understand why it poisons, therefore it is safe to drink,” said no one of cyanide ever.

One of the troublesome ideas that crops up in discussions about fiction -- and unfortunately in Real Life too if you follow politics at all --  is that to understand is to forgive.  It’s good to understand and even empathise with the place a person is coming from, but doing so does not mean that you sanction their behaviour.  I like that ONE is able to give us context and understanding of characters’ behaviour without attempting to minimise the troublesome and even toxic aspects of that behaviour. Cyanide doesn’t become harmless because you know *how* it will kill you.   Nor does he protect them from the consequences of their behaviour.

It’s hard not to feel for Sweet Mask and understand his desperation to leave behind something good. But, it doesn’t minimise the terrifying reality that he’s going to blow up into an extremely dangerous monster at some point.  He has the self-awareness to know that he’s becoming a monster, but he’s had the self-control and imagination to harness it to extending how much good he can do thus far. He’s honest enough with himself to accept that it’s a losing battle.  Nor does it make his other, assholish things okay.  Presuming to order for Saitama,  talking at him, trying to mould him into an ‘ideal’, not to mention all the crap he’s pulled to date, none of them are okay.

We really get his perspective. He was someone who lived by a strict moral code;  he was not too proud to pick litter off the streets, all the while being willing to fight monsters. And yet, it wasn’t until his mask broke and revealed a handsome face that recognition and media opportunities started flooding in. The good deeds he wanted to be known for?  Barely acknowledged.  

“Because I cursed my ugliness, I had become a monster.”

I think this is a pointer to the puzzle of monsterisation in OPM.  Lots of people in the story have very strong interests, even obsessions.  But Dr Genus’s words ring true: it’s the individual’s attitude to themselves as people (their self-hatred, lack of self-acceptance, inferiority complexes) that couples with their obsessions to make a person a monster.  That said, OPM is big on showing that however true individuals’ lived experiences are for them, they’re never the whole story, nor the only way to understand their experiences.  Even while Amai Mask is talking about only getting recognition after his mask cracked, it’s also the case that he did get fans.  Fans keen to get to know him.  Which terrified him.

Amai Mask is not entirely a monster yet.  Saitama has challenged Sweet Mask to confront his shame about his looks and stop worrying about how he looks to others.  It looks like Mask is listening.  Let’s hope it’s not too late. 

Acceptance has its Perks

It’s been welcome to see that Saitama isn’t concerned about having a good fight any longer.  He’s the strongest and that’s that.   So the challenge he sets himself with the Cruel Dragon isn’t to see if he can get a good fight -- he knows that a monster chained up for 800 years isn’t going to be worth squat. His challenge is to see if he can gather all the magic items, summon, and defeat the monster in time to still make the sales.   Which he does, so he’s happy.   That’s a much healthier attitude for Saitama to take.

Also heartening is to see that he’s agreed to a series of spars with Genos so the latter can systematically gather information,  even though that’s of no benefit to Saitama himself.  And that he takes it seriously enough that he cuts short his session with Amai Mask so as to make it back in time for the first one.

Amai Mask may have offended Saitama greatly, and annoyed him by yapping at him. And yet, Saitama is willing to come back and continue listening.  Provided there’s good food on offer.

Not Retconning That

I realised that I’ve heard the conversation that Saitama had with Genos before. It’s in volume 15 of the manga, with only minor differences.

Huh! I have been making note of how big a difference has arisen between the way Genos is written in the manga and the way he is in the webcomic, which I won’t reprise.  [link if you want it]   So I’d wondered how ONE was going to resolve the gap and thought that the dragon-fighting upgrade Genos received  in the webcomic in the aftermath of the MA raid would bridge that. 

Evidently not.  No shortcuts to grinding, it seems. It kinda makes my head spin when I look back at the webcomic and realise that after fighting the demon-level threat G-4 (who had just one form), the next monster Genos fought was Overgrown Rover, and then he was setting Black Sperm on fire. 

Looks like ONE’s not afraid to let differences stand between webcomic and manga. It makes me wonder long-term whether he’ll take the character down different paths in the stories and if so, how far it could go. Might it be that ONE will end the webcomic in a different way to the way he’ll end the manga?  We’ll have to read on and see. 

Easter Eggs: 

Beauto’s  ‘Secret Mask’ uniform bears a striking resemblance to that of another ONE character.  From Mob Psycho 100:

yes, he was self-conscious too

7-11 is very special in Japan, so I’m liking the store named ‘Heaven Eleven’, nice little nod. :) 

Also, Saitama and Genos have definitely not conferred with each other because they’ve bought the same things (other than the AAA batteries).  Bless.