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gofancyninjaworld · 8 months

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OPM Manga Update 233 Review: Evaluation

I had initially postponed writing this until the next chapter, but I've come to realise I have so much meta to write that it's best I do each chapter individually.

Summary because it's been a moment

The first part of the chapter is set in the mountains above City G where the Council of Swordmasters is based. At their building, the three disciples are reviewing what they've been able to unearth about Sweet Mask. It's precious little, with nothing available before his signing up as a hero. Iaian surmises that this fits in with the information that Bushidrill has been able to uncover on Amai's shifting appearance. They consider that the shape-shifting could be a special power, but in light of his behaviour towards Do-S's hostages, was much more likely a sign of progressive monsterization. Iaian expands on it by recounting what he'd seen of Sweet Mask at the surface when he'd seen a monster struggling to keep its humanity. With surprising empathy, Iaian states that it's often those who've lost something who know its true value. They decide to keep a careful eye on Sweet Mask but say nothing to Atomic for now. Okamaitachi hopes that they end up glad to have kept Sweet Mask's hands clean.

Elsewhere, we see Kamikaze (it is not right to call him Atomic Samurai in this context) and Nichirin paying their respects at a shrine dedicated to successive generations of the Swordmasters. They are accompanied by two young people, here to take the places of the slain Swordmasters. We are treated to Yuta's thoughts of hunting down whatever remains of the Monster Association. Nichirin apologises to the pair to say that if he'd been stronger -- but Shido cuts him short. His father lived by the sword, after all, and falling in battle was an honourable death. Besides, as a bodyguard, seeing Nichirin alive would have pleased him.

Speaking of that, given how gravely Nichirin had been injured, it naturally leads to Kamikaze asking after the old man's health. Nichirin sits on the ground and hitches his robes up to show a pair of cybernetic legs. His entire lower half is now mechanical and he's apparently no worse off for it [Aside: I guess the doctors who butchered Air back in Chapter 182 weren't joking about Metal Knight's skill in cyborg medicine].

He stands up, and, declaring that circulating one's chi through body and weapons made them part of a whole -- artificial bodies included -- unsheathes his sword and slices at an apple that he tossed into the air. The apple is apparently unharmed, but the cliff face in the background is cleaved. The apple falls to the ground, and Shido and Yuta marvel at the accuracy of the old man's cutting the cliff but sparing the apple. Nichirin states that he did cut the apple as well. Kamikaze picks up the apple and explains that this is Nichirin's special technique: it's so fast and finally that the Apple rejoined itself, apparently unharmed. He is relieved the old man is his usual self.

It's now Nichirin's turn to ask him a question. Now that his rival Bang has retired, will Kamikaze stay at the Hero Association? Kamikaze looks wistful for a moment as he recalls himself leading the charge to take down Psykos-Orochi. He says that, indeed, he'd initially gone only to challenge himself, but now he had experienced something that he couldn't get anywhere else. Besides, he still had one more person whose strength he needed to fathom -- we are shown that it is King. He'd decide after then.

As he takes his leave, Nichirin thinks that Kamikaze has changed. Being thrown among a variety of strong fighters with vastly different strengths had broadened his mind. Maybe being a hero wasn't so bad after all. He says that last part out loud to Yuta's puzzlement.

We cut to the hero Association and to Saitama and Genos approaching it. Inside, Forte is putting the finishing touches to a dog house Black Sperm is disgusted, but shelter and food, even if it is only dog food, are what he needs right now, at least until he rebuilds his cell count. Saitama and Genos heave into view and Forte greets them. Black Sperm rushes behind the dog house in well-justified fear. His life wouldn't be worth a scrap of cigarette ash if Genos caught sight of him. Fortunately, Genos is a bit distracted, first by the dog's name, then by the news that Forte lives next door to Saitama. He wastes no time in evicting Forte.

I have a feeling the dog is going to be trouble

Finally, we're in the M-City branch of Mouse Sushi, the cheap rotating sushi place with the infamous nasty t-shirts Saitama loves. Atomic Samurai is there with his disciples, having paid a futile visit to King's residence. There's only one problem with this place: someone keeps taking every plate they have their eye on. After the fatty tuna plate is taken, Atomic stands up to confront the person only to find that is King. The chapter ends with Atomic standing over an anxious King and asking if he could talk to him for a few minutes.

Whew, if you think this is meaty, wait until we get to the meta. Grab a drink!

Meta

I really struggled with thinking where to even begin with this one. Well, let's take it like a hot bowl of soup, start on the outside and work our way in.

The Real Kaijin Shows Up

Small things first. It's hilarious that Genos invokes more fear than the actual monsters do at Saitama's residence. Surprising that he's been visiting Saitama for a while but has never run across Saitama's neighbours or pets until now. You'd think that Saitama had brought home a tiger. As if he were extolling how the beast is still barely half-grown and tame, and all everyone else could see is how it's already the size of a large fridge with cruelly-curved claws longer than one's fingers and fangs sturdy enough to bite through one's skull. Forte may know not to mess with Saitama but he's so aware of Genos's capacity to do actual violence to him that the latter doesn't even need to breathe a word of threat to commandeer his house.

the really big dogs don't need to growl

Don't Panic, It's Just A Monster

I love thus story: people are not blind or stupid. It's hard to keep secrets when someone takes an interest. The disciples are on Amai Mask's trail, and while they're fairly certain that they've uncovered a monster hiding as a human being, the circumspection and nuance they're showing is remarkable.

Despite their misgivings, they're prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt and see him more as a person struggling to retain his humanity than as a monster biding its time to strike. In this, Iaian leans towards the former interpretation, while Bushidrill would rather err on the side of caution. Okamaitacchi is in the middle but is of the mind that this is a fluid situation that could go either way.

It's really neat that what was once a one-off gag, with Iaian telling Meltzegard that he could read the latter's murderous intent, has been repeatedly revisited ad deepened in the course of the story to create what is a wise and sympathetic response to a potentially dangerous situation. The disciples aren't blind to the danger of a monstrous hero, but because they can read intentions, they're willing to be heroes to the core and risk reaching out a helping hand to a struggling person.

Iaian's taking a risk in hoping there's a person in Amai who can be saved. But what else is a hero about?

Decisions and Inspirations

So, what will you do, Kamikaze? Had Nichirin died, what he'd have had to do would have been simple. As the new head of the Council of Swordmasters, Atomic would have had to resign as a hero and raise up a new generation. Thankfully, he's been spared that.

It's refreshing to get more insight into Atomic's character and find that he's been looking for both a source of challenge and inspiration in his life. Bang had certainly provided both while he'd been a fellow pro-hero. However, Atomic deciding to lead a charge to the very skies rather than stand on his pride and be an old man shouting impotently at the battle raging overhead had been a revelation. Terrible as the Monster Association showdown had been, it had also been a peak experience unlike any he could have imagined. He's hooked. [Since this is so late, Child Emperor's suggestions of a specialist dragon-slaying team would have found in Atomic an enthusiastic sponsor]. But he still wants a rival, so off he is to challenge King.

a new fire has been lit in this guy who thought he understood everything

Coming to Nichirin, I have three things to say:

A: Words Are Best Eaten Cold, With Salt

Despite having a disciple working as a hero (Spring Mustachio), Nichirin hasn't thought too highly of heroes. Depending on the translation, he'd called them hunters... or pest controllers. It's nice to see that he's had to eat his words.

I hope those words are tasty

B: The Old Lie

'Dolce et decorum est pro patria mori' . I don't blame Shido for clinging onto a view of his father bravely laying down his life. He needs all the comfort he can get.

We know the truth. Zambai was not felled by a superior foe but by a sentient barf bag spitting in his face.

Amahare's desecrated remains were so fragmentary that his coffin needed only a single pallbearer. A cruel duty indeed for Yuta to perform.

Nor can we forget Spring Mustachio fighting desperately to stop Nichirin's transected body from being burned, then Fubuki frantically keeping him alive, his guts kept from spilling out by what had been Genos's precious designer jacket.

a tableau of horror

This had been an actual conflict, not a carefully-managed test of skill vulgarly called a 'fight', and there was nothing sweet, fitting, nor fair about it.

C: Sword and Spirit

AND NOW FOR THE PART I'VE BEEN WAITING FOREVER FOR! Forever being from December 2017. It also ties into more recent chapters. The border between living and non-living has always been a bit porous in One-Punch Man and it's amazing to watch Nichirin make no distinction between his biological body, his sword, and his prostheses to forge a whole that is much greater than the sum of its parts. Once again, it comes down to spirit and willpower.

Had Genos witnessed this, he'd have asked Saitama for a leave of absence to study under Nichirin. This is the missing part that has been nagging at him, the question he'd asked Saitama about whether his parts truly made him stronger, to which Saitama had had no answer. Heck, just being able to observe Nichirin would have been profoundly inspirational for Genos.

ONE, however, is not in the business of giving Genos anything cheaply. No, on current headings, he's going to have to work it out for himself. Indeed, he accidentally and instinctively touched on the answer when he seamlessly rejoined himself after being bitten in two by Elder Centipede. He didn't think about what he was doing then: he was just totally determined not to be dismissed by that miserable worm. [It goes without saying that Kuseno did not get a distress call, nor brave monsters to see what the fuck was going on for himself because of a mere broken leg and some loosened plates of armour.]

Before and after: plates laid on a bias rejoining so perfectly there's no damage to see. And all the internals are fine too. Black magic shit that got the old engineer out of bed to do a field inspection.

Come to that, Saitama does know about the importance of will but does not know it consciously. Yet another gag that has become very much not a gag is that any object Saitama holds that he does not want to break becomes unbreakable. Cheap store-bought chopsticks catch a falling man -- and his clothes, in turn, don't give way. They become an extension of Saitama, like Nichirin's sword does of himself. Speaking of swords, it's notable that when Atomic Samurai managed to draw the sun blade, it was impossible to tell where the man ended and the sword began. Saitama just has no idea that that's what he's doing, so he can't teach it to his increasingly frustrated disciple.

the same principle, played very differently, but each in a life-or-death situation

And like that, another piece of the puzzle of the power scheme of OPM has been shown to us. No one character has the whole picture. We will hopefully get to piece it together by the end, and we hope that the right characters understand it well enough at the right time to make for good outcomes.

Next chapter review will be much shorter!

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nyxrev · 11 months

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Details

Just some stuff I noticed, from small to serious.

旦那 (dan'na)

K so I found it funny Black Sperm calls Saitama “dan'na” bc the term can mean different by its context, eg. an honorific for husband, patron, or master, etc. I believe it's translated to English as “Boss” which is most fit but when I first read it I automatically associated it with “master” of the more softer nuances and not the rougher casual “hey boss” sort of vibe, so I was surprised like, huh BS is unusually deferential to Saitama, esp. bc the rest of his speech pattern is fairly casual. But, makes sense bc he's seen enough to know. Also makes sense bc on one hand, rn he has to pretend to be a benign, goofy “monkey” …idk how ppl see a black teletubby n just believe it's monkey but s'ok, story logic… to get by heroes, hence the casual goofy monkey speech, but on the other, he absolutely does not want to cross Saitama, so he chooses to refer to him politely.

master (of a house, shop, etc.)

husband: can be used to refer to your own, or smb else's husband (add honorifics). Some other ways of address: 夫 otto, 主人 shujin,

sir; boss; master; governor: used to address a male patron, customer, or person of high status

patron of a mistress, geisha, bar or nightclub hostess; sugar daddy (パトロン)

alms; almsgiver: Buddhism, usually written as 檀那 for Buddhist context

As you can see, a non-exhaustive list of what it can mean. With automatic association to house -hold and patronage nuances, my mental image got mildly confused for a moment. Like can you really see an obeisant, nice little BS who humbly serves Saitama with utmost formality??

I feel myself make an uneasy face I cannot quite describe.

Also it was good to see him ask about Manako, but I do want to know if she's alive and safe.

Homewrecker? No it's (unlicensed) Demolition. Opennenoorn Get Out

^after the scene when Forte got hit, Fubuki told Saitama to go with her and said:

あなたの住処を破壊した張本人に会わせてあげる

Basically the reason she gave for their excursion was, “I'll let you meet the person responsible for the destruction of your residence.”

Whom I thought was Psykos bc at the moment, we saw parallel scenes of Tsukuyomi guy at her cell and Tatsumaki had not arrived, but Saitama doesn't know Psykos yet, so when Fubuki made her speech, Saitama confused without so much as context to who all the ppl on scene are, then Tatsumaki arrives most destructively, he must have thought it could be absolutely no other than the “chibi” who threw Genos on a wall.

Which is why Saitama went “I see, the one who destroyed my home was…(Tatsumaki) ಠ ◡ ಠ##”

But I had to wonder who did Fubuki really mean to refer to with “the person who destroyed your place”? If Fubuki meant Psykos how would Saitama react?

Fortress Haven or Death Maze?

Hige Coffee: lit. Beard Coffee (lol)

Well it's good to see Max and Shadow on break, but an emergency call cuts it short, and amidst the commotion, one of them (I assume it's Max) laments the place is so big it's easy to get lost.

What can I say, it's almost like the new HQ, with its concentrated yet puzzled pyramid structure, complete with a moat of self-isolation, remotely omniscient surveillance, a manufactured façade of paradise with luxury security atop seven hells of hidden disasters eager to be released, and so on…almost like it's a direct visual representation of HA's operation hierarchy: centralized system of power and economic monopoly, yet rife with office politics, factions at tension, dysfunctional management, corrupt unstable foundation, and unsavoury secrets to hide.

Cohesively staffed, an impregnable fortress. Yet improperly managed, an exit-less death maze.

And I say it bc the place is not only complicated and spacious but also uniform. Its grand Jenga-Lego stack of cluster structures look so similar, if not literally the same, from every angle, if you rotated it on a turntable, I couldn't tell the sides from each other nor which faced NESW at first.

Of course, part of why they got lost is, it's newly built, heroes just moved to residency, obviously, it's not out of expectation for heroes, or anyone who's never step foot there for the matter, to be unfamiliar with exact floor plan details of such a vast, complex structure, its design sleek at best and dystopian at worst.

But I must wonder, for I feel like it will become a problem later, HQ's isolated vast complexity… If it doesn't fall apart from its core first, what with overpowered resident, destructive visitors, and let's not forget the basement full of a nasty little monstrosity of pets the corrupt executives keep for cash flow they don't use to pay heroes.

Air and Blue Fire: Cyborg Surgery?

On a scale of beneficial to suspicious, question.

Notice the text right next to Air? It's an SFX.

キュイーン kyui—n (onomatopoeia): like a whirr sound effect, low sounds of machinery at work, usually small technical ones which contract or spin. For example, camera lens… how ominous, don't you think?

While Forte is eager to get out of bed and make a quick work of the noisy monsters who disturb his already bad day, blow off convenient steam, it looks like Air can't even emote natural, human facial expressions, and it unsettles me so!

If you look long enough it almost looks like he is controlled like a puppet Σ(-᷅_-᷄⁉︎)

As for BlueFire, I can't tell if it's an empty sleeve or a prosthetic arm but hopefully he got an arm with extra spicy flamethrower fingers so he can be extra terribly efficient. He'd probably max his specs to roast evildoers out of spite. I sense one step to Genos. Same age, similar personality.

Bonus: List of Every Hero Present

aka. faces you see the last moments of your life, if you happen to be a mischievous monster at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Top panel: Golden Ball, Spring Mustachio, Red Muffler, Funeral Suspenders, D-pad, bottom L hat prolly Gun Gun, Shooter, Smile Man, Skunk-Boy Gasmask, top L corner Eyelashes, Mohawk Hacker, Brass Knuckles guy, Great Philosopher, Magic Trick Man, Darkness Blade, Bones, prolly Blue Fire's back (front of Bones), All Back Man? (didn't he quit?), Butterfly DX, Kusari-Gama, Mushroom, Horse-Bone, Twin Tails, can't tell who the mop of dark hair next to her is but prolly Blizzard member, Tank-Top Al-Dente, Tank-Top Rockabilly, another two Blizzards by the suit,

Bottom: Eyelashes, Brass Knuckle, Spiked Club Blizzard, L- Max, Genji, Stinger, Tank-Top Mask, Tank-Top Racer, Crescent Eyebroll, Green, Wild Horn, Skunk Boy Gasmask, Tank-Top Al-Dente, Tank-Top Rockabilly, a sliver of Darkness Blade, Heavy Kong.

Fubuki Group? More like Mafia?

Look at how they stand. Look at how they walk. Look at their formation. If each of them were as strong as Needle Star got, fought as well as the support team cooperated, if equally valued and given opportunity to contribute their expertise, they truly would be formidable, fearsome foes, and reliable allies Fubuki can trust to hold their own and not constantly worry about. Of course part of the problem is Fubuki's own insecurities but we know she has the potential to be a great leader if she put her focus on the right path and used her power to maximum beneficial strategy

Counted around 33 members without Fubuki or Saitama. Rowdy Suit Gang. Mountain Ape n Lily stand out and you can see them from far away.

Extra Bonus: Spot the Spy 6-6

Nah cuz I really need to talk about the cursed Tsukuyomi guys. I brewed some praises n some toasty roasty jokes. I need to cook some wacky, juicy conspiracy about them. Just a little gentle speculation.

#opm #one punch man #opm manga #hero association #thoughts #saitama #overgrown rover #black sperm #tatsumaki #fubuki #forte #air #cyborg #body modification #organization #suspicious #blizzard group #traitors #among us

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