One-Punch Man vol. 33
In this volume: Saitama and Garo fight. A lot. To the point where Garo gains cosmic awareness, powers up, and starts throwing punches with the strength of nuclear explosions. He even whips out a Gamma Ray burst at one point that we’re told would annihilate the Earth if it touches the ground. While this is going on, various heroes start succumbing to the cosmic radiation Garo is now putting out. Things are bad enough to the point that Blast is forced to intervene, but it looks like even his vaunted abilities can’t put this monster down.
Neither can Saitama’s, it appears. Despite having a level of strength that serves as the title for this series, Caped Baldy’s Consecutive Normal Punches aren’t able to stop whatever Garo has become. Writer ONE and artist Yusuke Murata serve up their usual spectacle here, and they even manage to get a little juice out of the idea that the title character may be facing a divine entity here. For all that grandeur, however, the most affecting moment comes at the end when it looks like the death of a friend is going to finally send Saitama over the edge.
If that sounds like a rather matter-of-fact and dispassionate summary of this volume’s events, well, I think it’s because diminishing returns are finally setting in for “One-Punch Man’s” formula. When I compared its approach to “Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt’s” over two years ago, I felt that this title was doing its thing a lot better than that mecha series was. What with its consistently inventive fights that kept changing things up between heroes and villains while also becoming more spectacular with each one. “Thunderbolt,” at the time, felt like it lacked focus and the fighting between both sides felt more chaotic than engaging.
Two years later and the tables have turned. “Thunderbolt” got its act together and is barreling towards its conclusion in two volumes (which will wind up having been six volumes from when I wrote that review, as opposed to the ten I was fearing) with a lot of dramatic momentum on its side. “One-Punch Man” feels like it’s reaching its apex here… except it isn’t. With Saitama unable to defeat Garo with one punch – something that feels like it should’ve been a much bigger deal to focus on in this volume – and the villain now becoming the unstoppable avatar of some evil god, you’d think the series would be wrapping up relatively soon.
Except it isn’t. Vol. 33 ends with chapter 171 and the potential annihilation of Earth. Out of curiosity, I checked Viz’s website to see how many more chapters there were in the series. As it turns out… IT’S STILL GOING! Chapter 231 was published two weeks ago and I’ve not heard anything about the title wrapping up in the news. That said, it looks like something happens after chapter 192 as there’s a two-year break between it and 193. So maybe that’s the end of Garo’s storyline?
Whatever it is, I’m thinking I might just go ahead and read through what’s there on the website rather than continue waiting for Viz to catch up to the Japanese release of the collected editions. As a series that, for a good long while, did superhero spectacle better than the American comics that inspired it, “One-Punch Man” looks to have speedrun to diminishing returns. All I can say is that when I do sit down and read through the current archive, I’m expecting to find a good reason to stop buying this series in print at chapter 192. I’d like to be proven wrong, so let’s hope that writing it out here will make it true.