OPM Manga Ch 235 Review + What Makes The Manga Great
Summary
In keeping with the brevity of this update, this summary will be short. The monster is called Hellmon and it's not one of the Neo Hero plants um, I mean its appearance is unexpected. Bang watches with interest, ready to step in if the youths below have trouble subduing this dragon-level threat, but otherwise just popping some popcorn.
The Neo Hero crew try to take out the beast. Several lose their heads owing to their being literally burned off by the monster's breath, and another gets brained by a piece of rubble as he tries to read the manual to work out how to activate the helmets. Suiryu appears as they start falling back and he piles the fallen guys onto one guy, telling them it's the heroic thing to do.
Suiryu offers to help Garou, but is rebuffed. He's also miffed to find out that Garou doesn't seem to know who he is, and he's nearly scorched by the monster, but Garou steps in and beats the monster to death with his patented combination. Bang is most pleased.
Yup, that's it. Doubtless we'll carry on next time.
Meta
The Neo Hero facade sure isn't robust
Just a few chapters ago, we saw several of the Hero Association executives lamenting the apparent success of the Neo Heroes: the combination of first class support with competent leaders presented an air of competence that they just couldn't match.
Inferiority complex much?
As to how good the Neo leaders are, well we have our doubts from what we've seen (remember that this is all happening on the same day, so it's going to take some time for information to disseminate). However, now we're seeing the rank-and-file getting to act and boy.... are they beyond undertrained. Sure, Accel's guys are good but they've had to be as they've long been a disciplined group of vigilantes. These aren't even hooligans. They're just a bunch of guys who've been given powered armour and tossed in with barely any instruction.
The HA is notoriously stingy about handing out custom weapons and equipment to its heroes, but where it does, such as with Captain Mizuki's stuff, the heroes in question know how to use their stuff to its very best capacity. The HA may have 99 flaws, but deploying physically and psychologically unprepared heroes is not one of them.
It's a pity that the HA doesn't know the true picture of the battle readiness of the Neo Heroes. They'd be much less panicky and better able to plan around them if they did. I'd love it if Bang could whisper a few of his observations to Sicchi, but he's likely to stay out of things.
There's a reason monsters are monsters
Monsters are notoriously their own creatures. Getting monsters to cooperate is a difficult undertaking indeed, and normally means that some Ridiculously Dangerous Big Bad is forcing them to choose heading in the same direction over being eaten. So, seeing five dragon-level threats (not to mention all the demon and tiger level ones earlier) pop up at the same time in widely-separated areas already stank of an operation rather than just coincidental bad luck.
Nevertheless, monsters are monsters, and so Hellmon showing up because it felt like is par for the course. The shock of the Neo Hero crew on seeing it appear because they expected only five is a *hell of a tell* that this day of monsters has been staged. I hope Garou files this away for future reference.
The self-importance of the niche denizen
I'm not surprised that Suiryu is shocked and disbelieving that Garou hasn't heard of the Void Fist guy. I love the swipe ONE takes at the self-contained nature of niche interests. Since most serious dojos are interested in competition, it's natural for martial artists to think that that's what the main purpose of their training is, concern themselves with the various schools, and imagine that anyone who knows about martial arts knows about the top guys, forgetting that competing is just one small niche of why people take up martial arts practice. (1)
Bang's school has never been about accolades -- Water Stream Rock Fist is really not a good competition style for reasons I won't get into here, but it is brilliant for getting someone rushing at you out of your way. Which is what Bang created it to do. Additionally, from the beginning, Garou cares deeply about heroes and knows even about the small guys. He's not got time for the Suiryus of this world.
What Makes The Manga Great (in a nutshell)
Several weeks ago, I wrote about what I thought made the webcomic great (2). I haven't done the same for the manga until now because I've struggled to work out how to make it succinct.
I was able to say that the webcomic is at its best when it concentrates developments into a single scene that is layered with symbolism. Like when Saitama tells Garou that the latter wanted to be a hero all the time after all. With his two eyes floating in the wreckage of what used to be his costume, we see both that he's stricken with the truth and that the defensive facade he's worn until now no longer protects him from realising who he is.
Still, when I think about it, our lives are not lived in hugely symbolic moments that represent inflection points in our little worlds. However, such moments do punctuate our lives, like being declared born, baptism, confirmation, coming-of-age ceremonies, graduations, weddings...
...but they're not life.
If the webcomic's strength is the symbolic moment, then the manga's is in living the reality of what that symbol means. The difference between a wedding and a marriage. We get the incredible highs, terrible lows, but we also get the mundanity and the muddling through of trying to live up to what one decided one would do.
This chapter gives us Suiryu, who decided that he'd become a hero in the manga after seeing two heroes come back for him when he thought he was done for and realised just how important heroes were for helping people maintain hope and self-efficacy in the face of overwhelming existential threats.
That inflection point is generally where the webcomic leaves off: when we next catch up with the characters that have made some life-changing decision, they're living that life. Case closed. However, LIFE IS NOT THAT NEAT. The manga's power is in taking the time to step through the messy reality.
So... Suiryu may have decided to be a hero, but the manga is walking us through just how much he has to learn to actually be a hero and we're going to see him make missteps as he learns. He's still a feckless fuckboy who skipped out on his hospital bill and who is in the debt bondage predicament he currently is in because he was hoping to seduce Webigaza.
More seriously, we've seen that he's *still* running away from taking strong moral stances, the one thing a hero must do. He chose to hang back and let his squad do whatever because he couldn't face them down and stop them from carrying out the unjust orders to attack Garou. And this chapter, he's choosing to disclaim being a Neo Hero at all and just spar with Garou for fun. Good intentions and resolve do not automatically lead to doing the right thing.
The living manifestation of the gap between resolutions and actions.
I'm sure Suiryu will eventually get there, but he'll need to lose a few more teeth first. 🥸
Since this chapter is about Garou, we know that Garou may no longer want to be a monster and he may be more determined to actually become a hero of sorts, but I bet he'll loathe the fact that Bang has promised him to the Hero Association. The part timer is going to have a few more scrapes and bumps to become who he actually wants to be. Good.
What's that? He's adjusting awfully well to being a nepo baby? Well, yeah, principles are all very well but a prison cell sucks. The upcoming clash between his values and lived life is going to be fun to watch.
Speaking of Bang, we've seen that he sacrificed everything to be there for Garou, and he's proud of him, but he still beats the boy. He knows that Garou is a vulnerable minor who has been abandoned by his family and he sincerely wants to guide him. And yet...
It's funny how quickly we get back on our bullshit even after we say we'll change.
...damn man, you had better take some parenting classes before Garou breaks your arm for real.
Why do all this additional work when ONE could just put out a stripped-down storyboard and have it work? Well, the cynic in me says it's nice to have a longer story so you can pay for your kids' college educations and put something towards a new flat, but there's genuine value in watching characters grow.
Anyone can survive a crisis. Anyone can make a resolution or have an epiphany. It's the gap between what we resolve to do and what we achieve that's difficult to describe. And the manga is in the business of doing just that. That's its power.
It's too early to tell, but I would not be surprised if the manga characters get further and achieve greater things than their webcomic equivalents do. Because there's no substitute for organic growth.
Sources and Notes
Koikoi fan edit: https://weebcentral.com/chapters/01KXM08EY71C0MWRCNXFWNZP9K
