Last write up and good bye lovely people 🥹👋
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Hi everyone…
They say the opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference. And with today’s chapter I realized how completely indifferent I have become to the OPM manga. I have said ever since the surface fight that when the manga gets to Garou’s delivery job/Suiryu fight that it was going to be comedic and/or wholesome and I was completely right. I thought I’d be passionately angry when it finally comes out, just like I was when Garou vs. Saitama was happening. But all I felt was mild irritation and a bit of cringe and then mostly nothing.
I also had an aha! moment when I read the translation as to why I no longer relate to Garou as he has been portrayed since the surface fight. Like a final piece of the puzzle finally fitting into place and so I wanted to take the opportunity to do one final Garou write up so I can get this realization down on paper (figuratively speaking) because it’s something I think I have struggled to put into words in the past and now I finally can.
For those who know me, well, you already know how passionately I feel about Garou! So I hope you’ll find this last little analysis at least a little interesting!
For those that don’t know me, I’m quite a hardcore Garou fan and I have spent a lot of time and energy in the past on writing Garou analyses and why his narrative became bitterly disappointing from the surface fight onwards. I’ve also made a lot of Garou fanart and written a lot of fanfiction in my time too. I have had Garou on the brain since 2018.
The core issue (for me, as I see it, personal opinion etc): since Garou appeared on the surface of the MA arc, he has been far too expressive.
What do I mean by this?
Garou has always been a character who easily and passionately expressed anger and threw punches. He had no issues spouting his philosophy, making rage-filled monologues, telling heroes exactly what he thought of them in no uncertain terms. However, what he always never openly or easily expressed were feelings that would show any softer or vulnerable side to him. I don’t think he did this consciously. It was just an effect of the chronic childhood bullying/trauma etc. He never openly or easily expressed joy, affection, doubt, fear. And never in front of other people. It was something he held tightly hidden inside and pretty much tried to deny the existence of. This is something that made him a compelling and complex character to me personally. When he did express anything of the sort it was usually wrapped in rough delivery (think of his interactions with Tareo), or with cockiness or privately (like when he was walking back from dine and dashing wrestling with Gyoro-Gyoro telling him to bring back the head of a hero).
He was a young man that could not express anything other than anger openly and honestly because of a troubled and possibly abusive past (speculating about his parents from the info we know).
So what’s the problem, then? Surely him now being a happy cheerful silly chap shows character development??
My answer is that, yes, it does show development. It does not mean the development is done well or logically. The reason the WC seems more compelling to me is because this development is happening but happening slowly and cautiously. It shows Garou reintegrating into society but at his own pace. Still guarded but trying. It is consistent with his past and characterization. It shows that this journey isn’t emotionally easy and that the effects of his past and his defeat by Saitama linger. That they have had a deep effect on him. It shows growth in a hard-earned way.
The manga, on the other hand, portrays a very sudden 180 degree turn in his personality. Suddenly, this angry, lonesome young man who never let anyone close and could not for the life of him openly express vulnerable type emotions or thoughts is suddenly sharing his personal life with others, smiling like an idiot, bantering like a rough but affectionate big brother with co-workers, happily telling people they should pursue dreams of being heroes, making goofy faces etc. And it’s completely jarring.
It’s not that I want Garou to be depressed or unhappy. It’s just that the narrative sets up a story of someone seriously troubled and struggling emotionally and psychologically and then the manga resolves it with a click of the fingers. It’s cheap. It’s unsatisfying. The reason the WC does it better not because it’s the WC and WC supremacy or anything like that, it’s because it’s consistent with the messy difficult narrative that has been set up around Garou. It’s like the wheel of fortune. He spent so much blood and sweat climbing to the almost top and then fell so far and now slowly he has to get up and rebuild and let his walls down a bit at a time. It’s not glamorous but it’s rewarding.
The manga, by making Garou so silly and happy and expressive so fast, in my opinion, undercuts all the hard work he has to do to reintegrate which is like the WC version of his redemption. In the WC it feels like he has to work for it. He has to sort out his emotional life bit by bit. He hit a breaking point literally and figuratively and now he is rebuilding. It somehow gives him a sense of dignity.
The manga makes him get over the trauma of his past and the trauma of his defeat in literally a few days. It’s a joke and to be honest I feel it's a little disrespectful to his character who is all about hard work and independence. It would have been much more satisfying in the manga to see him open up to others little by little, making progress in an earned, measured way. And this is why I hate the goofy faced comedic relief he has become. It’s undignified and it’s not even cute to me, if that’s what they’re going for. If they’re going for sweet, something much more sweet would have been to see him show a vulnerable side of himself in a small quiet way where we can see it’s something that doesn’t come easily to him yet. In my opinion, that’s much sweeter and interesting because we could have see the struggle under it.
I’m not even going to start on the narrative change they made with Garou facing the monster at the end of today’s chapter.
The OPM manga started out so bloody brilliantly. But now it feels like a generic Hollywood blockbuster. It’s very ‘Hallmark’-y. There is no tension, just grand spectacle with very little emotional substance or tension. There’s nothing in it that holds my attention anymore. It’s like someone you used to be best friends with but over time you have drifted so far apart you don’t even recognize that person anymore. That’s how I feel with the OPM manga. (Though I’m still eagerly awaiting new WC chapters!)
I already haven’t been here for a while because OPM has not been at the forefront of my mind and after today’s chapter, it really hit me that I’m just not a fan of this manga anymore in any way. I still love Garou passionately but it’s the WC Garou, the manga A-Class fight Garou, the underground Orochi Garou, Hero Hunter Garou. I will still continue making Garou and GarouxEiko fanart and post it on my empty Tumblr. I’ll still write fanfics, in fact I’m in the middle of writing one right now, and post them into the void. But the manga has become so bizarre to me that I’m bowing out. I’ll still probably watch S3 part 2 because I love Garou’s Japanese VA a lot. Maybe I’ll pop in then to see what memes are being made but until then… I’m going to concentrate on my own thing.
I want to say a huge thank you to this sub. It was such a refuge to fans like me who were flabbergasted by Garou vs Saitama and I will always greatly appreciate how you gave us a space to vent and analyse and dissect things in way we could never on the main sub. Thank you for all the people that engaged with me and my posts in interesting and respectful ways. Thank you to the people who didn’t make fun of me for my little ship lol! You are honestly the best part of the OPM fandom for me 💖💖
As for this write up/opinion… I didn’t write it to debate anyone. So if you’re itching to tell me how wrong I am and how Garou’s characterization has been peak fiction or anything like that… you can reply but I’m not going to engage with it as I’ve already spent a lot of time and effort in the past debating and discussing with people. If you love the manga as it is, I’m honestly glad. I don’t want the manga to disappear completely and I’m glad if there are fans that are keeping it alive. However, it is not for me anymore and I wanted to express that here, in the space that allows us to do so.