One Punch Man Season 2 : The Varieties of Pride

Episode 11

Sorezore no Kyōji” (それぞれの矜持)

My review of the previous episode ended up being a review of how much I love the character of Garo and this episode didn’t do much to change that view point.

Whilst I skipped most of the other stuff, OK pretty much everything else, in the last episode to talk about the wonderful creation of a character like Garo and how the show managed to make you root for him even though you know he is the bad guy this episode was just all about him so I’m happy to talk even more about him.


I think this episode really hit home what I was trying to say in the last review if I’m honest.

Monsters are Monsters because they are different and Garo didn’t see that difference, whilst he has gone on to “hunt” the Heroes and all of that kind of stuff he does it from a place where he see’s the good in other things more then the actual Heroes do. Another flashback to when Crab Demon was fighting Heroes, the kids around him were happy that the Crab Demon was killed as were eggs that it was protecting whilst Garo pointed out that Crab Demon was just trying to protect the water and maybe something they were all too young to understand but seemed obvious to me was that it was trying to protect its babies.

Did Crab Demon go on a rampage beforehand? Was it actually a bad guy?

I mean to be honest I don’t know because we just saw child Garo up against shadowy figures of people fawning over Heroes. It didn’t sound much like it had but who really knows.

Simple fact is that it becomes a self fulfilling prophecies at this point doesn’t it?

Giant crab is seen, giant crab becomes a Monster that needs to be defeated and whether it was doing something negative or not isn’t in the end the important thing. Whether it was protecting its children isn’t important. Whether it wanted the best for its own land isn’t important.

Where are all these Monsters right now?

In run down areas away from humans.

We know nothing about how the Monsters came to be or why they are segregated from humanity and whilst Garo might be wrong in his assumptions that humans just treat Monsters like they aren’t worthy of being cared about he does have a point.

These fights can become lop sided fast because being a Hero means that if you gang up with 5 other people to defeat one Monster it is fine. When the Monster loses it doesn’t matter how many people took it down or how long the fight went the Monster was weak and we celebrate the Heroes.

This entire way of thinking was played out in the episode.

Garo who was injured and trying to protect the kid in the shack was that Monster, he was facing eight people for the crime of being a Hero Hunter. OK fair enough we know he’s the bad guy and brought this on himself but we didn’t have moralising Heroes who were doing the best for the world, we had Death Gatling who very much was fed up of being treated differently to S Class Heroes and therefore got a band of Heroes he trusted together to prove that the S Class Heroes are no different from them. Death Gatling might have been doing the right thing in so far as Garo is obviously the villain, but he teamed up with eight other people just to prove a personal point and elevate his own name.

Saitama himself started off wanting to be stronger but right now is only looking for a fight that stops him being bored.

Then you have King who isn’t even really a Hero but will take the pay and glory that comes with being a S Class Hero.

In other words Garo is right to a point that Heroes aren’t really Heroes.

Not many of the ones we meet are good guys. The Tank Tops attack Saitama all the time, ones like Blizzard and Death Gatling are there to prove points whilst others are there to make money or be famous. Sure we’ve met Heroes that want to be Heroes to help others but they are also blinded by being a Hero must mean they must defeat Monsters.

Garo has broken the status quo by becoming a Monster. It should shake everyone’s opinion on what a Monster is after all a Monster is meant to be a freakish thing that just attacks people for no reason. Garo is a Monster in human form who keeps getting called a Monster because he’s stronger and better than others and he actually has a pretty decent thought process even if it has sent him down the wrong path.

I thought the kid might come around to Garo’s way of thinking but I think it actually worked better having him scared by Garo.

It proves again to Garo that in the mind of most people a Hero just by being a Hero can’t do no wrong. It didn’t matter that whilst he was injured, vocally trying to protect the kid and actually just defending himself the fact that he fought a group of Heroes and beat them was enough to terrifying someone.

This episode not only did a lot in once more just making me love Garo as a character but it had the inciting fight against him and Genos that was cut short because Bang and Bomb finally arrive.

I know to a point Bang and Bomb might be a jokey thing, two old men and all that, but I honestly was like “OMG THIS IS SO COOL” when they showed up. It was cool, they’ve built them up as the ultimate threat to Garo other than Saitama, obviously Saitama, and now we get to see them fight it out. They were just so bloody cool.

Maybe this is why I love this series just a little more then the first. I haven’t seen it be talked about as much as I did the first series but I think taking the action away from Saitama and building other characters, making the episodes about others and using Saitama sparingly has worked a lot to make it nearly on par with how good Mob Psycho is. Anyone who knows me knows I prefer Mob Psycho not because I dislike One Punch Man but because there is something about Mob Psycho. One Punch Man might be more comedy then that but it has actually managed to be gripping TV every week due to focusing on other characters and building threats you can actually believe in.

Just really love Garo honestly.


2 thoughts on “One Punch Man Season 2 : The Varieties of Pride”

  1. “Maybe this is why I love this series just a little more then the first.”

    You’re not alone. I really liked the first season. I liked its OP. But you just talked about what made the second season so much more powerful.

    “They were just so bloody cool.”

    They really were!

    I’m looking forward to what you have to say about episode 12!

    1. Yeah I honestly didn’t know where they would go with a second season or how much they could squeeze out of a joke like Saitama’s power. I knew no matter what I’d enjoy it being a fan of superheroes and all that but I thought the quality of the first season wouldn’t be matched because we got the joke now.

      Expanding their universe to make us care about other Heroes and Villains and giving us that break from Saitama without just having him disappear, giving him something to do that made him absent for a legit reason, kept the drama going throughout the series and turned it into something much more rounded and interesting then you’d ever think a comedy about a guy who defeats everything in one punch could ever be.

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