#monsterisation

[gofancyninjaworld]

The OPM Manga in 2023

By the numbers:

23 updates (most 14 days apart, shortest interval: 9 days, longest: 33 days).

662 pages (range 12 - 41 pages, mean page count: 29 pages).

Volumes published: 2 (Volumes 28 and 29). 1 bonus chapter included in Volume 28 -- Olfaction.

By the story:

Psychics and Temper Tantrums (chapters 176 - 184)

Well, the Monster Association is behind us but the fallout from it is slowly beginning to settle. Most of the heroes are now back at work and some of the consequences of a world that's increasingly scared of monster attacks are beginning to show up. The first quarter of the year was taken up with Tatsumaki's temper tantrum -- and Saitama once again daring a strong person to do their worst -- it's like he didn't learn his lesson with Garou, which disappoints me. [I love Saitama, but when brains were being handed out, he was not at the front of the queue.]

That said, even though I did not care one whit for Tatsumaki throwing Saitama around (it wasn't terrible, but really it could have been condensed into 1-2 chapters), the start of the Psychic Sisters arc was fantastic, and its ending was very interesting. I made a nuisance of myself at the start of it, pestering everyone in earshot with my excitement that Tatsumaki was taking Fubuki into her confidence to try getting Psykos out rather than trying to do everything herself.

Her complex feelings of disappointment, betrayal, and the sense that she'd made a mistake were some of the most complex and nuanced we'd seen in the story. She may be paranoid and misanthropic, but she's not crazy: there's a basis for her actions, and being knocked back just when she'd taken the risk of opening up was harsh. Unfortunately, Tatsumaki's default response is rage.. and I'm not going to waste time on recounting what happened then.

I felt pain for her here.

The end as well, expanding as it did on Tatsumaki's thoughts about how she'd accidentally woken Fubuki's psychic powers by scaring her so badly and the guilt she felt at having made her sister a target, was great. Her feelings about Blast are great, as this is the first time we get what she actually thinks of him. I still want her to learn that Blast doesn't work alone -- it'll blow her mind. The session ending with her giving the Fubuki group a chance to grow stronger and prove themselves is a fantastic development.

Even when she's giving someone a chance she still has to be scary.

Schemes (chapters 184, 187 - 191)

I really love how seamlessly the Psychic Sister arc flows into the next big theme: that of schemes and threats to the Hero Association's future. ONE has done a lot of work reworking the webcomic story so that the storyline is a coherent whole rather than two-three apparently unrelated storylines. Fubuki taking advantage of the chaotic aftermath to extract Psykos while securing immunity for her sister, and Tatsumaki brazenly using the HA's need to keep the rich clients sweet to scupper an investigation into Psykos's whereabouts was all clever. However, they're just amateurs and their antics played beautifully into McCoy's hands, who leveraged the crisis to make himself appear indispensible to the HA, thus making it very hard for him to be removed, even as he works to implicate the Hero Association in scandals (many of which he's running).

You can't call McCoy hasty: this guy has played a good long game.

The Hero Association is already having issues recruiting new heroes as they're going to Neo Heroes, which is also pinching existing heroes. However, it's not 100% going McCoy's way. Something I started praising in my review of chapter 173 is the greater self-efficacy of the characters in the manga. Sekingar and Sicchi haven't just been sitting on their hands watching McCoy sell the HA down the river. They've teamed up with Child Emperor to find out what he's really up to.

I think that this is the best cover of 2023: a collection of individuals who embody heroism, whether or not they're recognised as such or work in 'regular' ways. Well, there's one impostor…

Critically, they're not assuming that the Neo Heroes are necessarily evil: they want to understand what this outfit is actually doing. After all, heroism is heroism, no matter what guise it takes. To see that Sekingar has so earned Metal Bat's respect that the latter follows him into the heart of danger did my heart good [1].

Please, my poor heart, it'll burst if things get much more awesome.

Ninjas, Ninnies, Nintendos (193 - 199, ongoing)

That Blast has some connection to the ninjas from Sonic's Ninja Village has been clear for a long time in the webcomic. [2] However, it is only here in the manga that we're getting a full explanation of what that connection is.

Yes, yes, my partner may be a monster but he's a useful monster.

The intertwined story of Blast and his attempts to reach his former partner, Empty Void, who was also running a horrifying 'school' for grooming boys into assassins, and that of Flashy Flash and Speed o' Sound Sonic isn't done yet, but it looks to be reaching at least one turning point. It's a pity that the fan translators stopped translating the cover text because that for chapter 199 was incredibly pertinent: 'Staring at the back of a friend you used to stand shoulder to shoulder with.' Sonic has so much to process.

And like that, Sonic's world has been turned upside down.

Since Blast has an ongoing relationship with Empty Void, we get troubling questions as to how long Blast had known about the Village and whether he disapproved, or had been content to ignore it as long as he had his partner by his side and found his talents indispensible. It's going to be interesting when those two meet! Also, if Blast is hoping to reverse Empty Void's monsterization, he'd better hope that the guy isn't like most people who became monsters. Most ex-human monsters *want* to be that way and there doesn't seem to be a good way to undo it. Well, maybe if you chop them up, have Phoenixman (oops, he seems to have lost his powers) resurrect them, then shock them incredibly hard, that might work. It's unlikely that anyone present can deduce what happened to Gale Wind and Hellfire Flame, much less put all the working parts of that together.

Still, they're going to try. This *is* going to be interesting. Also, potentially heartbreaking.

Reappearances

Genos: the disciple returns to his duty

Unlike the webcomic, Genos has not been completely absent. He's been quite busy: helping Saitama recover their apartment, meeting the Hero Association to discuss important matters, and also, hanging out with Saitama as a friend rather than as a disciple. It's been fun to see that he's finally ditched his flip phone for a smart one, heheh.

Nevertheless, it's not until Dr Kuseno finishes his new upgrade that Genos sets foot in Saitama's house, formally reporting for duty, so to speak. I praise Saitama's self-discipline and good sense in not breaking eye contact and in politely ignoring his disciple's new-found exhibitionism until he had the sense to put a shirt on [3].

Less positive, it's been painful to see that Genos is frustrated at how he doesn't seem to have grasped the kind of growth he's looking for and is unsure whether Saitama truly sees him. It's not been helped by Saitama trying to reassure him, pulling his best 'Reigen' face and instead made everything worse. There are two interesting shames, which will surely be built on at some point. 1: We see Saitama seeing Genos's strength but he doesn't say anything. 2: Genos is right that the strength that comes from within is different from that granted to one by upgrades. We see in another chapter from Nichirin, that having artificial parts is no hindrance to pulling out that great inner strength. The funny thing is that Genos has shown that kind of strength before, when he was fighting Elder Centipede, but he doesn't know it.

Ah, despite everything, those fools are no better at speaking to each other than they were before! It'd be hilarious if it weren't so tragic.

Rarely have the words 'open your mouth and solve your problems' been more apposite. Sadly, that's exactly what they don't do.

Garou: the other disciple tries to learn duty

Now this really threw a lot of fans for a loop -- ONE making clear that he's aware of how young Garou actually is. It was very easy to read Garou as a guy in his early twenties, but strip away the pretensions and he's really young. His over-simple understanding of what was wrong with the world and his over-large sense of responsibility to fix it are thoughts of a teen. It's just a good thing that teenagers don't have world-shattering power, and so can be extreme and wrong without hurting anyone. But it has really jarred with a lot of fans.

I may be giving Bang the side eye as he implements his idea of reformation (apparently, it involves hitting Garou over the head often), but the sense of lightness Garou feels at having a reliable mentor, the relief he undoubtedly feels at having a way to work his crimes off -- being a social outcast may seem cool in a 'reject-the-corrupt-world' way but it gets old fast -- and being able to contribute meaningfully to the dojo's re-establishment is palpable.

His life is sure to start sucking again soon, but for now, it's a joy to see him.

Let him gambol for now. Go Garou!

King: ugh

Sorry, King just irritates me some days and this was one of them. Not because he was running around trying to find someone who could help him: that was fine. But because, unlike the webcomic, once Saitama told him to work out, he's continuing to stick around and play videogames. In a world where everyone is trying their best to make sense of their world and help themselves in some way, however imperfect, the sight of this poster child for mediocre white men overpromoted for looking the part continuing to laze about just pisses me off.

Let him start helping himself and I will praise him.

He's been told what to do but he's not doing it.

GAY!

This year, ONE said: here, my children, I have brought you a pint of homo milk. Drink. What else are we to make of Fubuki triumphantly cradling Psykos as she makes a clean getaway?

This has to be the smuggest 'got the girl' face I've ever seen.

Or Blast continuing to call Empty Void his partner, despite everything that the guy has done, including turning into a monster? He wants him back so badly, and though he says it's strictly professional interest, we think the man doth protest too much.

And then whatever's going on with these two:

Flashy Flash, you ain't got no business calling Blast soft when you're handing Sonic tissues and smiling at him.

Fandom Follies

Do we need to do this? Yup! This year, we discovered that a lot of dudebros who have been against the idea of romance in OPM have just been shippers afraid to come out and own it. The sheer number of Saitama x Tatsumaki fans has been incredible. Nothing wrong with SaiTatsu but the obnoxiousness of fans new to shipping has been hard to tolerate. Learn some manners, folks!

Asides

[1] I think this is great foreshadowing of something Forte says later in the webcomic to paraphrase, risking your life for another hero is something you do as a favour for a friend, not because someone's declared themselves the boss of you and ordered it. It's nice to see Sekingar embodying that ideal.

[2] It's hard to believe it, but to this day (chapter 149), Blast is not yet seen in the webcomic. At this rate, he'll show up at the very end to get jobbed by God (no ID), but not before giving an over-long exposition about what he's been up to. That is, if he's not already dead, only nobody knows yet.

[3] I can see SaiGenos shippers worried that my saying that it's good that Saitama isn't taking Genos up on his obvious attraction means that I might be disapproving of the ship. That is not the case. I'm going to assume that most of us here are old enough to vote, enter into contracts, and pay taxes and so can think of things with nuance and context. A fandom that needs the reassurance of canon to decide what's permissible is a weak, timid, and pallid imitation of one, and one I want no part of. For certain, we're here to discuss the story as it exists, but please, we're also here to consider and explore scenarios and make works that cannot and often should not exist in the canon because they are FUN. Even more pertinent, ONE is on record as LOVING that fans spend their time and creativity doing things with his stories. So please, don't allow any in-universe discussions on what is helpful or unhelpful in the story affect what you draw and write! PLEASE SHIP! Gimme!

[delicatebluebirdruins]

I would love to see the concept art and a book of monsters for Sweet Home because they are so cool looking

[onequeermushroom]

"not that i imagine it would devastate you if she got monsterised" oh he knows, he's teasing her on purpose

[txttletale]

youve mentioned offhand ur issues with thirsty sword lesbians, have u talked at length abt this somewhere before and if not do u want to? i want to hear ur thoughts hehe

now before i get into this i want to clarify: i like thirsty sword lesbians, overall! i think it takes some of the best stuff from monster hearts and refines it -- i think it does great and exciting things with pbta playbooks -- i think anyone making a pbta game should check it out because it's full of valuable ideas -- and i've had a lot of fun playing it!

however, i think it's just as flawed as it is brilliant. there's a few different flaws but the biggest one for me is a catastrophic clash between two things the game is trying to be. one on hand, it wants to be a catradora rpg. there's no shame in that, i love games that wear their influences on their sleeves--TSL¹ wants to be a game about kissing your rival after you've both been disarmed, about having a fraught and complicated relationship with your girl best friend who abandoned you to serve the dark lord, about having homoerotic sword duels where your blades lock and you stare into each other's eyes for just one second too long before one of you kicks the other in the chest. i think that's an admirable goal for an RPG and one that TSL hits a lot of the notes of--the fact that the move to "Figure Someone Out" has special questions you can only ask someone when you're duelling them is incredible design. the Strings system, adapted from Monsterhearts, the ability to fluster your enemies when you use the Entice move, the constant focus on what characters desire and how their actions conflict with those desires--so much of the game is working towards that!

unfortunately, the game also wants to be about queer resistance to homophobia and capitalist/imperialist hegemony. this is clear in its sample settings, with their eyerollingly on-the-nose conflicts like defending 'queertopia' and fighting the evil sorceress 'repressia'. but much more importantly, it's clear in the game. several of the playbooks are defined by their relationship to sexual hegemony--the beast is about someone who is othered and monsterised for expressing their existence and the seeker is about someone sheltered and prejudiced moving past that and discovering themselvs and others. like, it's not subtle--

and to be clear, there's nothing wrong with that, either. just as i like a lot of TSL's swashbuckling girl-romancing flirting-at-swordpoint mechanics, i really appreciated how (although the game's outlook on what these forces are is predicably liberal and its tonal approach to these things is one that i personally find teeth-grindingly insufferable) these things are actually integrated into its mechanics. playbooks like the beast and the seeker (and the rest!) imply something about the world the game is set in and its sexual politics. this game is meaningfully queer in the way something like dream askew is, in that its mechanics ask you to actually explore your character's queerness specifically. this is good, and it's something that elevates it above about 90% of ttrpg stuff that sells itself as queer.

so if both these things are good, what's the problem? well, it's that they're two great (or at least--interesting) tastes that go fucking horribly together. the fundamental problem that i have with TSL and one that i think takes a lot of work to get around in your own campaigns is that it simultaneously wants you to be fighting (on the individual level) a lot of antiheroic ultimately sympathetic hot girls you can flirt with and kiss--a lot of 'i can fix her's or 'she can make me worse's--and on the broader narrative wants you to be fighting institutional queerphobia (and often, although this is nowhere near as actually supported by mechanics, a more generalized 'imperialism' or 'capitalism' or 'bigotry'). so you end up fighting 'those stupid sexy homophobes'--people who are according to the text (not just 'lore', but the rules text, the mechanics you're playing with!) simultaneously the violent enforcers of cisheteropatriarchy and a bunch of fuckable lesbians with sympathetic backstories.

& i just think those things are fundamentally at odds. the result is a game that if you try and play it at face value works at cross purposes with itself, attempting to do two perfectly valid things without considering what happens when the streams cross.

it also has a few other flaws--like many other PBTA games, its balance falls apart if you play any long campaign (my group and i had to figure out special alternative level-up rewards!) but it comes with no inbuilt way to neatly conclude a campaign or character. its tone is something that, as i often mention, i absolutely cannot fucking stand--it has a certain sense of humour that feels profoundly dated to me and was never my cup of tea when it was in vogue. this is something i try not to hold against the game bc it is very much a personal taste-level 'cringe' reaction but the game lays it on pretty fucking thick.

more to its detriment, it is profoundly, gratingly liberal in the exact way people who deploy that tone usually are. its understanding of anything outside queerphobia specifically is just a purely aesthetic & thoughtless 'imperialism is bad!'. it manages a more nuanced understanding of homophobia, but it only manages it on the individual level--for a game about queerness and about fighting systems of cisheteronormativity, it has no systemic or material understanding of these systems and no interest in establishing one.

and finally--and this is just one paragraph but it's so fucking awful i feel the need to complain about it here because i think about it often as an example of something i never want to write:

this sucks! real bad! so deeply fucking silly to reassure people in your game that you called Thirsty Sword Lesbians that it's okay if you want to be cishet. like, it would be one thing to make a game where you can neatly extract the lesbianism and have the same game, a surface-level aesthetically queer game with no actual interest in queerness except as a marketing term. it would fucking suck but this paragraph would at least describe such a game. but TSL isn't that!!! . 'thirsty sword cishets' would be a very different and much worse game! awful and self-defeating paragraph. deeply silly concern to address and give airtime to. i didn't buy a game called 'thirsty sword lesbians' to be told 'its okay to be heterosexual i pwommy'

so yea just to reiterate: i like the game overall, i think there's a lot of good valuable stuff in there designwise despite all this. but i'm very ambivalent about it--ironically, i feel a love-hate relationship with this game about love-hate relationships. i admire it and yet i despise it! i long to put it at the tip of my sword and slowly tilt its cover up so that the pages look up at me coquettishly but with burning anger in their page numbers. if this book was a person id hatefuck it, is the joke, thats the joke im making, here, in this post. thanks

¹ i call it TSL whenever i can because the name 'Thirsty Sword Lesbians' makes me cringe out of my fucking skin. genuinely horrible name. i'm sure it's funny the first time you hear it, i got a mild chuckle the first time i heard it to, but it's such an obnoxious thing ot have to say repeatedly when seriously discussing it. should have stayed a placeholder name amiguitas

[the-nysh]

I've been wracking my brain as to why yellow was chosen as the colour for the volcanic monster armour he has in the surface fight but now I reckon it might be coming from his eyes, and it's part of the reason his eye is given such focus when the armour breaks a bit. And more specifically his *left* eye, the eye that for the longest time remained untouched by monsterisation, as if it's a literal indicator that Garou's true nature, his softness, is still buried underneath it all. in this essay

🥹👍👍 I......also thought about how the glowing golden fissures kinda resembled the kintsugi effect. With him getting constantly battered and broken yet still enduring it with the determination to quite literally reconstruct himself (and armor his emotional pain) even stronger. :')) our hidden golden boy~ Also the fact that when it breaks over that eye that's when his character's real golden strength shines through~ (plus later his fists with the glowing gold bhudda theme too!)

[webtoon-devourer]

i don't think it's necessarily the ruling opinion, but there are no doubt some people upset with the end of the Monster Association arc and how everything was "fixed" with time travel. i would like to express the level on which i disagree with this sentiment.

this dislike of the arc's conclusion likely stems from the general dislike of "it's okay, we can just go back in time!" and "it was all a dream :)" style endings, specifically the idea that these endings, under any circumstances, are cop outs. i disagree. if One Punch Man ended there, with saitama travelling back in time to stop everyone's deaths and his fight with garou, i would be immensely dissatisfied with the ending. i think that would be fair. however, vitally, it does not. those events are only the conclusion to a single arc. it brings us to a similar situation as the ending of the lord boros arc, with a city destroyed but none of the important characters dead. therefore, i would argue that such a conclusion to an arc is par for the course for One Punch Man. but there is also the vital matter of "it was all a dream :)" situations and how, in my opinion, while often used as cop outs, they are not inherently so, and dogmatic insistence against them is detrimental to good writing. having every possibility on the table is important in order to develop a plot in the way best suited to it - it's simply lazy writing which misuses these possibilities.

the vital question here is: was the time travel ending of the Monster Association arc a cop out? no, it was not. in my opinion, the events which were reversed could nearly be considered expositional. the cosmic garou vs saitama fight and the events which caused it tell us a heck of a lot about the characters. that garou retains his humanity even after becoming monsterised - when he sees takeo dead, he realises that his actions have not led the world in the direction he hoped, which was always a fairer existence. (he's really not a bad guy at all.) what saitama is capable of - man caused untold destruction during this fight without much of a care, including nearly destroying the earth if not for blast and co; on the technical side, we are shown that his power increases exponentially in response to another being even beginning to approach his level of power, leading him to easily beat a puppet channeling the power of literal GOD. that saitama actually cares a heck of a lot about genos, and clings to him for his sense of humanity, which he is barely hanging onto. it also gives us a taste of god's power, for future reference. the only reason i don't consider it expositional - that is, a "what if" scenario purely for the audience's benefit, which fleshes out the characters under otherwise inaccessible circumstances - is that genos remembers. therefore, these events actually do impact the plot through him. (there's a chance that blast and co also know, which would also affect the plot, but i'm not sure.)

the ever-increasing stakes are vital. we're still within the time frame of shibabawa's great prophecy of a god-level threat. at first, we thought it was lord boros, then garou, and now it's looking like the god-level threat might literally be god. whose power we have gotten a taste of, thanks to the cosmic garou fight. things are very much not hunky dory. there is still plenty of opportunity for things to go terribly wrong, even if it didn't happen this time. especially now that we know that saitama is barely clinging to his humanity. the deaths of everyone he knew affected him for sure, but particular emphasis was placed on the death of genos, because he's saitama's hinge to humanity. (if you deny this, i will be forced to call into question your reading skills.) this ups the stakes in a unique way. before, the concept of genos' death carried far less weight. genos fans would be upset, naturally, and saitama would be pretty sad, because it was clear before this arc that he cared at least somewhat about genos. but now? we know how saitama will react to genos' death. and it's not in a sane manner. genos' death now carries with it the stakes of the earth potentially being destroyed and saitama losing his sanity. at least personally, i will look upon any close calls genos has in future with greater anxiety. this newfound knowledge that we have only gives more ground to the idea that the final enemy might be saitama. either the final enemy of the earth, if he turns into a villain (quite possibly due to losing his mind), or the final enemy of saitama himself, as he battles his depression and struggles to stay in touch with his humanity.

the time travel ending was not a waste, nor a cop out. i encourage you to look at the bigger picture instead of allowing your instinctive reaction of "time travel clutch bad" to inform your opinions. there is still the problem of time travel now being on the table as a solution, but this can be avoided in various ways. for example, the existence of the alternate universe where everyone died and saitama fought cosmic garou as a parallel universe created by time travel, therefore not really fixing the problem, but merely rerouting it. or having time travel somehow taken off the table as a possibility. for example (this is just conjecture and not supported by canon), if god dies, perhaps time can no longer be manipulated, and saitama will have to make a decision between destroying god or saving everyone but letting god live and continue to manipulate events, a decision which he can never bypass because he ends up at the same crossroads no matter which path he takes leading up to that. i understand the concern, and am somewhat concerned myself, but i trust ONE and Murata not to end the series in a dissatisfying way. also, i think it adds another level of interest, even. if saitama's power is so great that he can manipulate time, that he can do basically anything, then hitting a single roadblock which he cannot bypass regardless of his power would undoubtedly have incredibly interesting effects on him psychologically. he could be glad to not be all-powerful, and have to actually fight for something for once, or - much like the events with cosmic garou - he might realise that finding a difficult opponent (in the form of a fighter or an impossible decision) at the expense of the people he cares about doesn't actually make him happy or excited. that perhaps he should have turned his search for feeling and a reason to live elsewhere, beyond fighting, a long time ago. idk 🤷‍♂️

[wholelottatransbians]

For love and Justice: Akatani first villian act, monsterise Shiragaki

Yeah, I guess we're doing this.

His Quirk is called "Nomu", which tells you all you need to know. It temporarily turns the target into a pseudo-Nomu, with no will of their own and augmentations that help push their base Quirks to their absolute limits. It's also incredibly painful.

Nomu!Shigi would be a mass of black hands, all loaded with Decay and pointed in the general direction of the Heroes.

[anonimusunnoan]

Me with severe depression watching sweet home: Why the fuck do they wanna live so bad if it were me I'd just monsterise!!!!

Also me with severe depression realising it may be because of the severe depression: oh...

[britishraptor]

God’s Love Game is not a good infinite flow novel - the pacing is all over the place, the translation isn’t particularly good, the plot is boring and they immediately ignore how MC definitely shouldn’t adapt so quickly to being able to see, considering he was BLIND FOR MOST OF HIS LIFE

and yet it’s the only series that offers transformation/monsterisation as a legitimate strategy available to players, especially without MC harping on about something something humanity and morals. So I persist

[jpf-sydney]

Takashi Murakami - Unfamiliar People - Swelling of Monsterised Human Ego

Book review:

Spamming kindergarteneqse flowers with happy smiley faces, seemingly choosing colour combinations by how highly the contrast clashes, absurdly sexual male and female characters. Takashi Murakami does it all. Now also branching into NFT art. His exhibition duly projects a cheerfully psychedelic, cute but ferocious vibe.

From September 2023 to February 2024, the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco held an exhibition featuring the recent decade of Murakami's works. A follow-on installation of sorts only recently concluded in July. Produced in conjunction with the exhibition is this catalogue by the same name "Takashi Murakami: Unfamiliar People - Swelling of Monsterised Human Ego".

This large, oversized A4 hardback features a compound cover. The underlay consists of nothing but the exhibition title in exaggerated, cartoon-like balloon letters. Lurid but completely in-character with an on-point palette of bright solid colours on a hot pink background. Overlaid is a full wraparound clear plastic jacket with the anchor feature of saw toothed aliens in suits. Loud, manic and unsubtly subtle. The book does touch on works from earlier than 2013.

Takashi Murakami is also the pioneer of the Superflat art movement. Ironically, the term has been observed as expanding to greater dimensions beyond the initial meaning. The visual style it defines can actually be retroactively ascribed to the style of much of Japan's historic art. There is the flattening of time - in the sense Murakami has been critiqued as taking art styles and subjects from different eras and combining them into a single work. He also flattens his business model; conversion of his art pieces into consumer-friendly merchandise seems to be highly efficient and streamlined.

Shelf: 702.16 MUR Murakami : unfamiliar people, swelling of monsterized human ego. edited by Laura W. Allen.

San Francisco : Asian Art Museum, 2023. ISBN: 9780300273182 (hardcover)

141 pages : chiefly coloUr illustrations ; 32 cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

Table of contents:

Monsters on the mind / Laurra W. Allen.

Hiropon reloaded : Takashi Murakami and the transformation of otaku subculture / Hiroko Ikegami.

Clone X : the key to the future / Masako Shiba.

[gofancyninjaworld]

OPM Manga Update 232 Review: Butterfly and Back

Story: Place Yer Bets!

The chapter opens with Murata casually flexing his rendering skills with a hand-drawn bicycle. This man!

The story opens to a defeated looking hero with incongruously-small butterfly wings on his back. Wondering why he's doing this. McCoy calls to ask if he's ready, and soon, he's on the trail of a monster for the benefit of a select group of punters.

The 'demon'-level monster turns out to be a giant, terrified monsterised chihuahua, which advances down the road uncertain of what to do. It's a planted Wolf-Level monster, intended to give the falsely-badged C-Class hero the appearance of a tough win against the odds.

But life turns out differently. Under the stressor of its most feared situation (being outdoors), Shiverhuahua blows up into a genuine demon-level monster, and soon, 'Papillion 800' is locked in a real life-or-death battle, all while McCoy thinks that he's acting to perfection.

As the odds lengthen, Mad Devil Yankee (the real identity of the hero) forces himself to face the monster, driven by the twin imperatives of wanting to save his mother from whatever harm McCoy has planned for her, and the desire to live up to the example of his hero, Mumen Rider.

Just as it gets hopeless, with characteristic timing, Saitama comes in and blows the monster away.

The major donor looking forward to an upset win is furious, and McCoy storms onto the scene to tell Saitama and Genos off for interfering.

Saitama may ask himself who cares about credit. Genos does, when it comes to making sure his master is recognised for his work. McCoy is about to find out why the Demon Cyborg lives up to his moniker...

.... but luckily for him, and for his role as bad-guy fixer, Child Emperor interrupts to mock him for having his rigged game upset. McCoy excuses himself quickly. Child Emperor explains the hero gambling ruse (more on that to follow). I'm just going to step out a bit to note that it's quite heart-warming to see that when Genos asks why the kid is giving them this information and Child Emperor admits to having been the one who'd been suspicious of Genos, Genos doesn't blow up but lets it slide. I like his little reassuring smiles.

After finding out what this is all about, we see Saitama sleepless in bed, furious at the idea of being thought so ill of as to deserve a x20 rating. However, he also smells opportunity.

The next morning sees him discussing with Genos the possibility of betting on himself to make money. He starts to portray it as a way to teach the Hero Association a lesson but Genos sensibly points out that it makes no actual difference to the house, which puts him on the spot. Luckily for Saitama, the odds start rolling again, meaning the game's afoot again. Saitama runs out the door, Genos following in hot pursuit.

They overtake the heroes assigned to the monster, and Saitama is just about to place his bet (his multiplier having risen to x25) when there is a scream: someone's purse has been snatched by a race-car driver! For a moment, Saitama is torn as to what to do, then...

... the lady is overcome with gratitude for having her family jewels saved. Saitama is also overcome with emotion, but it is not gratitude. At least he's getting a better public image!

However, he's then overwhelmed with a blackness. His depression is back, fuelled by his realising how close he came to the edge of becoming a corrupt money-grubber.

Temptation is never far away, and the lady offers him a diamond ring as a reward. After a long struggle, Saitama refuses it, saying he's not doing this for money.

Well done, Saitama.

Lots to say under the cut.

Meta: A Tawdry Affair

Method in the madness

A race car to snatch purses? Man, it seems anything can happen in this story! Still, when I look at how unsurprised the public is that Saitama caught the driver, I think there's method in the madness. Heroes are really super humans. Even your regular C-Class hero is impossible to out-pace on foot or on a push-bike. Modern problems call for modern solutions.

A world in which people are not surprised that the no-name hero catches a race car is a scary world.

Dirty laundry

The first thing I have to say about this is that it's tawdry. Not a great crime that leaves a giant stain to be dealt with but rather dirt, grubbiness, an all-pervading grubbiness that greys the entire fabric so that no amount of washing can make it look clean. Let's dig into this pile of dirty laundry, shall we?

Nothing wrong with aspiring to be more

I've got to give it to Mad Devil Yankee. In a world where people are often typecast for life (see Garou's despair at being considered a monster), his being able to turn his life around is testament to some serious mental fortitude. Furthermore, he's B-Class Rank 4, all without having joined the Blizzard Group: that takes serious strength.

If you remember nothing about the story, you might think that a high-ranking B-Class hero working independently is no big deal. If you do, you know this guy is the real deal: Fubuki is a hero-crushing asshole.

Turning heroism into bloodsport

It's inevitable that people would bet on heroes. Heroes are very much public figures, and the monsters are an unpredictable lot, so that makes for a highly exciting spectacle. As we can see, a lot of the people watching Papillion 800's predicament aren't anything to do with the HA.

The Hero Association getting a cut of the action is morally reprehensible. And as we see, it leads to moral conflicts. McCoy may be organising it, but the HA is facilitating it. As long as the money's coming in, look the other way.

Like a rotten apple, McCoy being allowed to operate unchecked taints everyone by association.

Unforgivable is what this betting did to Mad Devil Yankee. In a world where people often feel typecast for life (like Garou), turning one's life around in two months from infamous ne'er-do-well to hero has taken an incredible amount of mental fortitude as well as physical prowess. Additionally, as B-Class Rank 4 and yet not press-ganged into the Blizzard Group, this guy is really something in toughness. He's admired Mumen Rider, but his work ethic is all his. And for him to have nearly tossed this all away, thinking himself unworthy to think of himself as a hero, that's a crime.

Getting a guy to think that he deserved to die for making the best of an impossible situation? God, that's ugly.

McCoy bet that Mad Devil would not be psychopathic enough to bet his mother's life and dare him to threaten his mother's health. Even though he'd been coerced, he thought that a true hero wouldn't have taken up such an impossible task under any circumstance. And yet he hung in there and did his best to fight.

Threatening peoples' families is truly the lowest of actions. Using the very benefits given to heroes as leverage digs a basement under that cesspit.

It was good that Mumen Rider put it in perspective for him: no matter what had happened, he'd been faced with a very strong monster, and he'd stood up to it anyway, knowing that it was unlikely to end well for him. That's the stuff a hero is made of. I'm glad that Mad Devil looks to stay a hero, but for him to have been brought this close to despairing over his life and choices, is unforgivable.

Mumen may not have the best muscles, but he has the best words. Often imitated, but never equalled.

Take one wrong step...

Speaking of corruption, it's scary how easy it is to try to play the odds if there's money to be made. Saitama realising how close he'd come to actually participating in the hero betting game for profit was a salutatory reminder that this shit is easy to do and dangerous. If he'd chosen a little differently, he could be several hundred thousand yen up, but he'd have sold his soul to the worst of human impulses.

It's as Saitama said in a much earlier chapter, take one wrong step, and you're in hell.

Came real close to selling your soul there, didn't ya?

It's one of the things that has most endeared me to Saitama. His recognition that no matter how hard he works, there's still a lot of chance in how things have turned out for him and he remembers this when he looks leniently on people like Hammerhead, who he sees as not too different from him. Just one or two bad choices and that could have been him. That kind of wisdom and humility serves him well.

With friends like this...

I'd love to say that Genos would stop him, but damn, that guy… It's a pity he's a cocksucker has such a narrow viewpoint. Every so often, Genos reminds me that he's far more observant and intelligent than he usually gives out. He's noticed the odd rankings and monster disaster levels, and it made sense to him that it was a gambling ploy. So did he investigate the oddities? No man, he filters everything through the metric of 'does this threaten my access to Saitama sensei?' and if the answer is no, he doesn't give a shit. Seriously.

Yeah, yeah, corruption and problems at the Hero Association, but does it actually affect anything *I* care about?

Also, seeing him see what's wrong with Saitama's proposal to gamble but following Saitama to see what happens anyway… no, man, this fixation of yours is wrong. A healthy reminder of why King is so necessary. He'll not just point out what's wrong, but he won't go along with it.

Genos sees clean through Saitama's scam but stop him? Hell no! He's coming along to see what happens.

The Grab Bag of Pop Culture is Back, Baby!

This story reminds me of what's at the heart of One-Punch Man: its love of finding and referencing popular works while making them something of its own. If you know Squid Game, the rich guys betting on human lives will feel very unpleasantly familiar. If you don't, that's fine too: it's self-contained enough to not need familiarity with its references to work. It's true that a lore-heavy story such as this would often be put in an extra chapter, but because what's happening here is exceptionally germane to what happens next, it's here as a main chapter. I liked it quite a bit.

I am VERY GLAD not to see Narinki as one of the major donors betting. I would like to believe that he appreciates too much the actual sacrifices made by heroes to want to bet on their lives.

More on Monsters

I also liked a lot the fact that the HA has had to raise Saitama's ranking to maintain their fiction of a demon-level monster otherwise, it'd create more problems. Heh heh, suck it, fools. Although as it turns out, it was accurate.

Something else about monsters. When you see a monster, you see a monster. They're living creatures, and they don't rampage all the time under all circumstances, not even the newly-transformed ones. Given that most monsters (including the late Shiverhuahua) gain the power of human speech, they could have just talked to it to understand it better. It's a problem because I'm sure that Shiverhuahua was a very inoffensive monster indoors -- just looking at its sweet look and trustingly wagging tail as it was faced with a guy with a handgun and an electrified prong gives me a nasty pang -- but under the right circumstances, many a monster can blow up into a true terror.

Under the right circumstances, this monster would never have hurt a person

And so it happened here. To the end, the thing was terrified and confused. The nasty human habit of exploiting monsters is perhaps inevitable -- where anything occurs, humans will find a way to exploit it -- but the short-sightedness and failure to understand the beings they are exploiting just adds to the outrageousness of it all.

Where is this going?

So what's this leading up to? Not too sure. Saitama might have another bad night if he thinks about how close to the edge he danced, but he's not the reflective sort of guy. Oh yeah, he really didn't like the idea of being thought of as trash. Now imagine how your disciple feels. It's interesting to see that Child Emperor is continuing to dig. Naturally, this isn't the first of the wrong doings.

Come to that, if Child Emperor moves over to the Neo Heroes, he's going to have a nasty shock to find McCoy there too. That's going to be something worth seeing.

I digress. Back to what this is all leading to. There's going to have to be some precipitating event that starts giving heroes a push in a big way, and that brings the Neo Heroes out. Looks like it's going to be a target-rich environment whenever that happens.

[lovelyheart502]

" If you fundamentally think these things ( pedophiles) are terrible or evil you're going to be tough on crime and punish, punish,punish . You're choosing to monsterise rather that saying people need help. We need to protect our kids [ from them] , but the only way we're going to do that is by actually offering proper support to ppl " Julia Shaw

If you don't believe in providing psychological help to them , you're a psycho sick retarded person as well YOU NEED HELP yourself

[newborn-vessel]

A little drawing of my Sona in a monsterised form because it's gender and swag for me

[wordsonly]

Monsteriser.

The over-stimulated nerve misfires

Morse contracting

Muscle fibres.

A torso, limbs

Needled

Pinned

Electro-convulsive treats

Switch in

Lobes jerk in the unsheltered brain

Stitching

Super-human blame.

The snow-moon’s malady,

Effectuates spasticity

Paralysing lips, jaw, tongue

Wide-eyed words

That cannot come

Lamented moans and stifled screams

Begging, helpless, whimpered pleas

As stomach flutters

Eyes cocoon

Defensive mutterings

Resume

Vanished to the gaping lack

Sink hole of the deepest black

Strapped into the Monsteriser

The fear defined de-youtheniser Romanticised (It’s alive)

Wretched Loony goon

Terrorised (its alive)

Thunderbolt buffoon

Table cranked, electrode caged

Gears creak

Power craves;

Quartz programmed

Super-bass

X sequalised

Ferrous-oxide ape

With raging obsoleted scream

Rips free it’s master’s grief machine

Press play to start, button down

Hard

Upon the cuboid crown

Push-in

On

Dolly

Directing passion

Camera, Speed

Seductive action

Gushing

Seminal fluid

Thin

In sweaty efforts

To pass

Or win

Same.

Stain

Come Again.

Scrambled neurological pain

Bowing lower, in lowed repent

High-volume

Opportunities

Referred,

Spent.

Perhaps mis-spent ?

or simply missed ?

A thousand erroneous turns n twists

Points in an irresolute decree

Capitalised energy to infinity

White wired hairs

Cling to mastery

Fencing secrets in,

Defensively.

Demarcating obstructively

Within blood daubed mind and boundary.

To gift wisdom freely,

Is accordingly proscribed to be

A crime against the sweat

and upset

Of self-made productivity.

So under weight of souvenirs consumed

The master paints himself into a room

Old colour codes, violently shaken

‘Flamingo tears’ ‘Rose faced’ ‘Awaken’

Such

Vanity

Projects,

Case by case

The Pink-red sun

Exacerbates

Afloat above the halophilic thalassics

Of tears and arterial perquisites.

Transformed brute

Stares out

or in.

At distant iron imaginings

For this and that, and so and so

Sunken eyes watch memories go

In oh so, slowed

So-so

Slow-mo.

On the misted horizon

In containers levitating

Vessels shed

Dinghies and a sun-bleached

Life-ring

Moving imperceptibly across the distance, bleak

Til lost

To the esoteric

Heavy-mentalised deep

Strapped into the Monsteriser

Fear defined de-youtheniser Electrified, de-vitalised (in the name of God)

Monsterised (it’s alive) Sad n hulking mass of want

(Bridge)

No gift to give

No short-cut

No nepotistic lift

No leg-up

For the re-assembled

baby face

Esconded

In its cut-out place

Alone and sat converting leads

Coveting nubile Nubian genes;

A being supreme

A perfect ten.

Ogled by oil tanned leather head

High U.V non P.C inappropriate lech

Exhaling stale tobacco breathe

on a face, younfilled

Flawless

Her perfectly beautified brand messaging

A smiling goddess shining

Straight teeth’d insincere compliments

Lips flick pity

Upon cantankerous incompetence

A home with old insight and tools

Sensing redundancy

A gatekeeping fool

Her disdainful pupils burn

It is feeling the twitch return.

With eyes too sore to open,

To read the thrills or entertain

The lie of ecstasy

A natural human

Chained

To a deep bed of stratigraphic sheets

Hard chrono-blocks of cooled molten sleep

Where heavy anchor rots

Strapped into the Monsteriser

Fear defined de-youtheniser

Terrified. (it’s alive)

Monsterised (it’s alive).

[the-nysh]

Garou hanging from the ledge staring down at Rover is easily in my top 10 Garou panels. The look of defiance and anger after achieving yet another level from his monsterisation is so good!

It's a good one of his silent focus after learning, adapting and now preparing to deal the final blow. So rather than 'monsterization' or anger per se I see it more as a mark of his truly impressive tenacity, endurance, and adaptability (which are natural/innate traits of his character) for him to have dodged & tanked so many nukes point blank (which he thought he wouldn't survive from; what doesn't kill him only makes him evolve stronger~) only to come out so calmly unfazed and unimpressed! (Also literally steaming aha.) At this point he's had enough of Rover's 'playing' rampage - Garou's locked on target from a higher vantage point and is ready to discipline an unruly mutt from getting too carried away! Like a nocturnal hunter with precision effortless grace and style.

[brutalcore]

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╰    †    𝐚    𝐬𝐭𝐮𝐝𝐲    𝐢𝐧    :    graveyard    dirt    perpetually    stuck    underneath    fingernails,    martyrdom    fractured    like    a    bullet    through    a    church    window,    off    road    𝙜𝙖𝙨    𝙨𝙩𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨    &    𝙝𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙬𝙖𝙮    ⁶⁶    as    halfway    homes,    love’s    held    like    a    dead    animal    in    your    petrified    hands,    reticent    behind    god’s    shadow    the    way    brothers    would,    a    nervous    dog    with    a    terrible    bite:    you’ll    always    find    yourself    back    at    his    doorstep    waiting ...

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