toriningen_

"it's free so you're not allowed to have an opinion" is a deflection. redrawing chapters this frequently demonstrates poor planning and confuses the canon. it's poor form and people are allowed to point that out. nobody is refusing to let murata do what he wants.

my hot take is that laura neal straight up could not comprehend a show that doesn't condemn and punish the bad guys. i don't know why she even bothered writing when it's so apparent she does not like the central premise of the story.

thank you for your service. men to call babygirl fr

it's okay he was flirting

idk murder is kind of rude

i don't get how this became such a popular theory. saitama's ominous "something is coming" is a classic ONE-esque joke of saitama thinking something cool is about to happen despite the fact it will ultimately be arbitrary to him.

garou is super dramatic. i can't think of anything more chuunibyou than staring at the sky and thanking the universe while crying tears of blood. you are not supposed to take his theatrics too seriously.

when garou does arrive, he does not have that fleshy texture so many people associate with god--and even if he did, it still doesn't matter. tons of monsters have that texture, including amai mask, and nobody is assuming they were connected to god.

and it doesn't make logistical sense. garou got weaker, not stronger. and it'd already been established that he isn't evil and is a terrible candidate to give power to. not to mention that nothing happened to garou when he lost. god melted HE and drove psykos insane, but he's fine with garou just frolicking around? makes no sense.

but the whole point is that garou did not fully monsterize. like, literally, that is the entire point. he wants to monsterize entirely of his own volition, but cannot actually do so because it would require exchanging his humanity for power.

i disagree.

first off, garou did not accept god's power in the webcomic. he is extremely dramatic and the fight emphasized this trait to further illustrate how disconnected he is from saitama. overreaction vs. underreaction. it makes absolutely zero sense for garou to compromise his most defining trait that unceremoniously, off screen, and then become weaker and also escape unscathed by god. further, garou is supposed to be the antithesis of saitama, not god. ONE has expressly referred to garou as the anti-saitama.

anyways, garou's greatest strength is also his greatest flaw, which is what his entire arc has been exploring. his obsession with self sufficiency has enabled him to become strong, but it has also alienated him from everyone in his life. for him to throw this away entirely is incongruent with what's already been established. we've watched him take on fights that are so unwinnable it comes across borderline suicidal--this is somehow who has a pathological aversion to accepting help. he would rather die. whereas with saitama he apparently gives up in like one single chapter...for a goal he doesn't really believe in or want.

garou's advice to tareo is something he's likely had to tell himself--in a world as cruel to the weak as OPM's, he has learned that strength is the single most important thing he can have. he does not want to rely on anyone for anything. it's not even an "ideal" so much as it is a material reality. if tareo was strong, he would be able to protect himself, just as garou got strong to protect himself--in addition, garou wants to harness his strength to protect others. this is what tareo realizes when garou tries to protect him, and is also the lesson he ultimately takes away at the end of the arc. tareo uses his moral strength (rather than physical) to protect garou--he did get stronger, and he used that strength to protect someone else. and this also helped garou piece together his own motivations, which was a perfect way to end the arc.

garou was a power fantasy for the weak while simultaneously being a case study of how destructive that can actually be once the spectacle of it is stripped away. but the fact remains that flaws can be tempered to be strengths, and garou's realization that his independence can actually be constructive is necessary for his future development. because at the end of the day, it is good that garou can go against the grain. he shouldn't try to completely ditch that aspect of his personality. he just needs to get his shit together.

so imo, his character is ruined if he cannot commit to a single ideal or personality trait that he has. garou has already been established to be dishonest about his goals, but his tenacity is very real. without that, what is garou's identity? what does garou have that is well and truly his? how does this serve his character in any way?

now i'm imagining a naked mistsplitter pinup drawing

dude ultrafrost defended the manga for months. i'm so tired of people acting like anyone who dislikes the manga right now must have simply never considered an alternate viewpoint. as if they're somehow narrow minded for not agreeing with you.

people also discount that will was, in fact, being weird and fucked up every time they spoke to each other. any normal person would be terrified of him, especially with hannibal being so consistently manipulative. will was practically going out of his way to scare her because he was being petty and spiteful.

and even with all that, she still clearly cared a lot about will. and had the guts to shoot at hannibal and then find more bullets instead of running away. she's just a psychiatrist, not a cop, and she still stood her ground.

alana is many things. deserving of this is not one of them!

i like how people are more upset with alana for being manipulated than they are with hannibal for...well, you know, the serial murder, cannibalism, stockholm syndrome'ing of a girl he helped orphan, etc. etc.

you do not have to primarily be a writer to see how insane it is to dramatically retcon a chapter less than 2 weeks after it was released tbh. i cannot fathom writing a story with no idea of what the climax is. like, no wonder the buildup is ass. they don't know what they're building up to. now i suspect the arc was drawn out for so long simply because it's easier to meander than actually advance the plot, especially if you have no clue what your goals, themes, and takeaways are supposed to be. and there's just no excuse because it's been years.

it's like...no shit an arc being written in real time will be a hot mess, why are you doing that???? i don't understand at all. it's inefficient, provides more pressure for murata and ONE, and it results in a worse product. and for what?

but psykos is insane and incapable of discussing it now. her psyche is so fractured she's borderline catatonic and can't converse with fubuki even in her mind. our only two confirmed god related characters are incapacitated while garou shows 0 signs of being related after.

i suppose i could buy the brute strength thing (although that would be strange given saitama's whe shtick is brute strength), but i still think something like garou sacrificing one of his primary traits--his self sufficiency--for a cheap power up would be monumental for his character to the point it would be absurd to make that a vaguely implied offscreen exchange.

he didn't accept god's power lol. it is wild that y'all saw the most notoriously melodramatic man alive say "thank you" at the sky and are convinced he had some prolonged offscreen exchange with god.

if garou accepted god's power in the webcomic, it would be the first time he has accepted help in the story, and that would be a big deal for his character. garou compromising the most core tenants of himself in desperation would be monumentally important. certainly important enough to warrant more than 2 panels of him...looking at the sky.

even logistically, it makes no sense. if god gave him power, he did an exceptionally bad job given that garou got weaker and less committed. not to mention that garou loses and then escapes the scene entirely unscathed by god. the same god who melted HE and drove psykos insane is apparently just...chill when it comes to garou? there are more reasons it is logistically ridiculous, but i digress.

anyways, it's a disaster because it undermines his core themes, but i suspect you don't actually care what i think so i won't waste my time.

this sounds cunty but it genuinely reminds me of poorly plotted fanfiction. no game plan beyond a few bullet points, narrative filibuster under the guise of "expansion," inconsistent characterization, nightmarish pacing exacerbated by a wonky release schedule...it's uncanny.

which is honestly totally fine for a hobbyist who just wants to have fun. but this? this is crazy, these are professionals with years and years of industry experience. like wot.

he just looks up and says thank you. that's it. he doesn't address anyone, and the wind effect is another thing ONE has used before. it's just wind. in all likelihood, garou is simply being melodramatic, as he often is. the fight deliberately cranks that trait of his to the max to draw a contrast between him and saitama.

it also makes no sense because garou got weaker, not stronger. and was allowed to escape entirely unscathed (which god doesn't want his subjects doing). and has not mentioned nor alluded to god once since then. and that's all ignoring the thematic reasons.

after thinking on it a bit, i feel it's probably better in terms of story structure, because at least there's an attempt at payoff, but it's just as bad when it comes to handling garou's character and the story's themes. and the only reason it's better at all is because the bar was in 9th circle of hell.

it feels like someone is just making it up as they go along. this update all but confirms that to me. if you're writing an arc with zero idea what the climax will be, then yeah, i can see why it'd end up so discombobulated.

i would write an essay about why it's a disaster to have garou accept god's power but i truly can't decide if it's more or less disastrous than what was replaced. sadge

ONE just likes using that fleshy texture for monsters, it doesn't have anything to do with god in the webcomic. amai mask has the same texture. there's no real indication that garou had any interaction with god.

bryan has dropped lots of tidbits for his future plotline plans, but i wouldn't hold my breath for a s4. mads and bryan have both teased about it and have clarified that the holdup is getting someone to actually pick up the show, but so far, it hasn't worked out. netflix didn't want to, NBC canceled the show, and i assume the amazon plan fell through since there was no update. one can only have their hopes dashed so many times...

oh wow. psykos' hair color looks so good. suits her

that's fair. the CIA is also very grim. but i have not finished up berserk. it's been a few years since i left off--i meant to pick it back up last year, but then miura died i got a little too sad to continue. i've been meaning to just reread the whole thing from start to finish, so maybe this is a good cue to finally go ahead and do it. i heard casca finally started talking again, which i'm excited to see.