Rewriting One Punch Man's Monster Association Arc

Hey, if they can redraw, I can rewrite.

In a way this is acting as therapy and an exorcism for me.

So let's accept these premises:

1. The Monster Association is literally hundreds of times larger in the manga than it had been in the webcomic. (Seriously, the original Monster Association was like twenty Demons and Dragons.)

2. The Hero Association is actually organized and can expend resources. (In the webcomic, only maybe one guy took the whole thing seriously.)

This is my mentality:

1. The webcomic exists. It is a fallacy to try to do something "better". You can only do something different. It is better to be experimental than repetitive.

2. ...At the same time, one should understand what makes the original content work and what would be sacrificed.

3. Drawing the manga is Yusuke Murata, who excels at heroic characters and feats. His weaknesses, interestingly enough, are in drawing monsters, or ugly things in general. It is clear that he can greatly expand and embellish on an action scene, yet only for a limited range of antagonists (for example, the noble warrior archetype i.e. Boros). It's possible Murata is the type of person to not like evil generally, and does not enjoy drawing horrible things. Seeing that there is no difference in our production except for Murata's participation, we'll continue with the plan of "keeping the webcomic's arc but with embellished fight scenes."

4. Above everything, the goal is to be entertaining. And we acknowledge that storytelling meta-elements like continuity and theme serve the purpose of the work being entertaining.

Oh, and one more thing.

5. Future arcs be damned.

What are we keeping?

I'm not sure if the redraws messed up the order of the chapters; nevertheless, going by what VIZ has uploaded, the cut-off point is Chapter 120, which is right after Child Emperor confronting Evil Natural Water and before Tatsumaki encounters Gyoro-Gyoro. I'm indifferent to the reputation of the series being a gag comic; the action scenes up until that point were really well-choreographed and entertaining. Yet for whatever reason, Tatsumaki and Gyoro-Gyoro's confrontation is really boring. So let's start from there.

Workinonit

Psykos's character is very...odd. She acts like a mafia boss of monsters.

Of monsters. Things which cannot understand logic or adhere to a notion of normalcy.

In the webcomic, her relationship with the Dragons was that of give-and-take - they respected, or at least acknowledged, their strengths, and understood they were stronger together. Their working relationship changed depending on who was able to effectively seize and use power. The Monster Association is an autocracy, and Psykos was the leader until someone got sick of her and deposed her.

Of the monsters she has created, Orochi is the only Dragon; she with some consistency can make Demons, which the other Dragons can tear apart. Needless to say, she can't really trust her peers all too much.

After her Gyoro-Gyoro construct is destroyed, in the webcomic, Psykos is formally revealed but we do not catch a profile of her face whatsoever. This is preferred. The scene does not really work as Psykos is gloating over her superior ability to hide from the heroes; to understand her arrogance, we have to hide her from the audience as well. Psykos's self-image is that of a shadowy leader, not a bespectacled woman cozily sitting with a book in an Anthropologie catalog.

On the other end of the exchange, Tatsumaki's character needs to be clarified as well. In the webcomic (I'm going to be saying this a lot, aren't I?) her fishing for Psykos is quick and brutal, just like her character: she immediately upends Z City, as she is genuinely unconcerned with the well-being of the superpowered individuals in the Monster Association hideout. The rhythm of the scenes is perfect, with Tatsumaki devilishly finding Psykos and taunting her for being a regular human being.

There should be no ambiguity in the manga; Tatsumaki's moniker is the "Tornado of Terror". The whole concept of the heroes is that, in contrast to Saitama, they are extremely negligent of normal lives because they themselves are so extraordinary and are equipped for extraordinary situations. We should not waste our time with Tatsumaki and Psykos's little tiff underground.

What should happen instead is that Psykos gives a little bit of a struggle when being fished, forcing Tatsumaki to conclude she needs to pull up the entire base (as callous a decision as that is). Like a dog helplessly fastened by a leash, she pulls on Tatsumaki's tether relentlessly, clinging to corners and floors, hoping to delay the inevitable and find, at some point, a helping hand. She eventually stumbles on Orochi who readily assimilates her.

My phrasing is deliberate. Orochi assimilates her, not the other way around. He is the King of the Monsters. If you're going to hype up a character, at least make sure they live up to the hype.

The Orochi - Psykos combination is a twisted amalgamation of anger, resentment, and revenge. It has an obsessive need to demonstrate it itself is the strongest, and at the top of the world. Much like Tetsuo at the end of "Akira", it has limited control over its body, which has a constant need to devour. Because Psykos is a psychic, the overall creation has a "weird" look - it looks like an Eldritch Horror, fitting for the Monster King. Perhaps we can use Praetor "We will devour the very gods!" Rykard as an inspiration. (Thematically, Orochi could look similar to the supernatural being dubbed by fans "God", whom he fanatically looks up to.)

Now here we have to address the loli in the room. Tatsumaki's character, and possibly every S-class hero from rank 5 and up, is synonymous with power. What makes her presence in the fiction work is that she is unbridled power, which does whatever it wants. We can't have Tatsumaki be outmatched in a fair fight. ONE wisely put Tatsumaki out of commission almost immediately after her incredible stunt of psychic power. We shall do the same here.

After its genesis, Psykorochi (the name fans have latched onto, out of affection or, most likely, derision) is... confused. Perhaps it is initially unsure of its power or its placement in the universe. Like an animal, it pounces on Tatsumaki with an incredible amount of psychic energy, directed precisely at her brain; as our favorite esper had not expected such a dramatic spike in power, the ploy works and, for a moment, she is unable to bring her mind together. Since the Dragons have been rudely dug up, they take the opportunity to cruelly attack her.

Leaving Psykorochi, in its confusion, to see the Hero Association headquarters in the distance; in its hunger for supremacy it stumbles towards it, desiring to crush it once and for all. (Her fellow Dragons are indifferent, perhaps hoping she will actually be killed from the attempt.)

So that is the dilemma every hero faces: either help Tatsumaki or stop Psykorochi; save one, or save millions. Admittedly this setup is a bit messy - usually it's best to frame a situation in a specific location. Perhaps Psykorochi is continuously "growing" towards the headquarters, threatening to crush it through sheer mass alone. This would be reminiscent of Emperor Ganishka of "Berserk".

Psykos, with her elevated psychic ability, broadcasts a message of horror to everyone on the planet: "I am an ascended being, I am your new God." This is the event of planetary emergency.

The scenario can play out in multiple ways, though it's clear Metal Bat, Tanktop Master, Drive Knight and Metal Knight (maybe) would protect the headquarters. This is my thought on who stays behind to help Tatsumaki: Amai Mask, Atomic Samurai, Pig God, Zombieman, Child Emperor, """King""" in several quotations. Meaning Genos, Bang, Fubuki and Puri-Puri Prisoner (if we remember him) will stop Psykorochi. (You can have a funny scene with Bomb running off into the distance. "Where are you going?" "I need to make sure my dojo is okay!")

Many will understand why I made this distinction: the characters who stay behind to fight the Dragons are the ones who have been most hurt by the Dragons. This is in effect a kind of grudge match. They must prove that they are truly heroes after facing the depths of despair.

In fact, this can work thematically with what has been said about them earlier: they can actually work with each other, in contrast to their usual stance of working alone. Zombieman can "fight" Gums (well, distract him I guess), Atomic Samurai can cut up Fuhrer Ugly, Pig God can eat Black Sperm (as gross as that sounds and is). The monsters and their powers are one of the more interesting things in the story, it's fun to set them up with various characters.

Meanwhile, Fubuki surmises that the best course of action is to separate Psykos from Orochi, thus leading to their confrontation - she wades through the flesh forest and fights Psykos, much like what had happened in the webcomic. With Psykos debilitated, Orochi, still weakened, either tries to destroy the headquarters in one last suicidal attack or runs away, depending on how we want to depict his character. The former may be preferable, as I just remembered now Orochi is a "fighting genius" and this would be the last time to show that off. (This can be seen as his last act of defiance against Psykos, showing once and for all he had agency throughout the story.)

One more thing. We hardly make mention of "God". I want to discuss this at length.

I'm a little frustrated that this "being" or, rather, "concept" called "God" is being taken seriously by the fans and even the authors themselves. It's very odd. What made this "God" character interesting is that we weren't sure what precisely it was. Known only to Homeless Emperor, it may very well have been a hallucination, or an imaginary justification for being such a jerk to people. If it is a real character, that's fine, but the manga needs to retain the ambiguity to keep the character interesting. Therefore this rewrite has almost no mention of "God" outside of Homeless Emperor.

And so now we are racing towards the end. Psykos and Orochi are defeated and the Dragons are falling one by one.

Black Sperm, his quid pro quo relationship crumbling, needs to take action. But his presence in the plot is troubling. In the webcomic, he may be the most threatening Dragon in the Monster Association; he may be the most threatening Dragon ever encountered, beyond Boros. Yet in the manga, and our version as well, he is overshadowed by other feats of strength - namely, Orochi's and Psykorochi's. Undercutting him also is his indifference to Psykos and Orochi - if he was truly so strong, then he would have made a move against them ages ago. Perhaps he could eat the rotting corpse of Psykorochi to gain in numbers, but this takes away from his ultimate character - what makes a villain so dangerous is that they have enabled themselves to be such a threat.

Another angle we can take is to flesh out his character a bit more, and give some nuance to his character. Black Sperm is so appropriately a "One Punch Man" monster because he is something weak given ultimate strength - that of the sperm cell, something of unrealized potential. He is strong because he is "many", he is not strong in of himself, which would be a source of insecurity. We don't need to literally show his backstory, we would subtly show it in his character: that he wanted to be this big boss of "evil", he wanted to be a head honcho of all sorts of criminal organizations and be universally seen as important. But, as he has no charisma, he could only come to rely on himself. This would make Black Sperm appear like a mafia boss - a true one, unlike Psykos, and in reality he acted as eminence grise - who was rational enough to let Psykos do all the work, so long as he benefitted from it.

With that out of the way, Black Sperm finally undergoes ego death, seeing that all the power players, heroes and monsters, are weakened, transforms into Golden Sperm, and sets out to put the world under his thumb once and for all. He takes Busaiku hostage, fights the recovering Tatsumaki and orders the other heroes to get in line. Furthermore, he has secretly made Evil Natural Water his pet (or has found some way to avoid its hostility). All the pieces are coming into place - that is, until Garou arrives.

The spotlight returns back onto Garou, who is fresh off of beating Darkshine into submission. Bang is conveniently many miles away, having stopped Orochi's charge at headquarters.

Garou is specifically placed in the plot after Psykorochi and Black Sperm. The latter two can be seen as having a "compromised" ideal of evil, being egoists primarily. Garou, though he had been resting during the events above ground, had some sense of what was going on and looks down upon the defeated Monster Association, doubling down on his ideal of being an "absolute" evil.

It is up for debate whether we want to still keep Sage Centipede in the story - I like the idea of Garou's ascension being forecasted by his tile feat, and it foreshadows what he will attempt to do to the Hero Association headquarters, able to do what Orochi himself was unable to. As writers, the implication is enough, this is merely to demonstrate Garou is a threat; the reality is that his character arc has little to do with the Hero Association and more with his own internal image of what a villain is.

To the delight of webcomic fans, I don't think I would change any details with the plot from here on out. Everyone tries to take a piece out of Garou, but they all fail. Fubuki, inconsolable, states that Garou is fear incarnate. We get the famous "A kid is going to die. ...Can't you at least stand up?" speech, followed up by Saitama's "What are you supposed to be?"

Saitama flips the entire story on its head. Up to this point, it had been a story centered thematically around "power" and the self-worth and delusion that comes from having power. We went through escalating threats - Psykorochi, Black Sperm, Garou - who continued to use power more and more forcefully against those whom we look up to use power judiciously. The conflict up until this point resembled an actual existential conflict between two forces. Yet Saitama is so powerful that once he becomes the focus of the story, the idea that power can be used to control people is thrown out the window. He is not even a wall; he is an overwhelming reality that is logically impossible to overcome. He immediately makes the wielder of the most so-called "power" neurotically obsessed with their own position in the universe and just what it is that made their self think so highly of themselves.

This is what makes "One Punch Man" funny: this conflict between what other people must take so seriously and what to Saitama is, like, hardly an issue at all. He even has more trouble with flies.

Because Garou is a martial artist, power represents two things. One, as Garou had been bullied, it represents the ability to recreate the world to one's liking, which is really what every human being desires. Two, it represents beauty to him - martial arts is about tempering the body and the spirit, and so the person with the most power possesses the most virtues, therefore he harbors the false idea that the most villainous person is secretly the most virtuous. Of course, he does not think that simply being a caring, empathetic person is a virtue in of itself; this is the ruthless pragmatist within Garou.

So I can see Garou and Saitama fighting in what coincidentally looks like an arena, a la "Dragonball". Garou believes martial arts is beauty, and so he tries to defeat Saitama with stunning technique (much like Suiryu had earlier). Saitama is entirely foreign to this concept. Then, almost as if he is taunting him, Saitama flips the arena - and the ruins of Z City - over his head, as if to show, once more, that he really is opposite of the idea of elegance, restraint, and sportsmanship in martial arts.

As a side note, having Saitama throw up Z City versus one of the moons of Jupiter is more interesting because you can kinda imagine in your head Murata drawing Garou slipping in and out of upturned highways and houses trying to get to Saitama. Pretty neat visual. In fact, this is the perfect place to show that Garou is indeed the Hero Hunter - regardless of the environment, he is the ultimate predator. Forests, shopping malls, power plants, Garou adapts to each and every one.

If we want to embellish things a little, for Garou's "More what?" speech, we could have Garou and Saitama exchanging punches in the re-ruined ruins of Z City, where each of their strikes causes an earthquake (showing that Garou is trying to keep up with his opponent in strength). The idea is that the conflict has become nearly mythological. This is the true Garou: deep down, rather than the apex predator he perceives himself to be, he has always seen himself as "punching back" against his enemies. In a way this is the most noble part of his personality.

This is the last phase of the conflict where we opt for flashy effects; once Garou takes on a true monster's semblance, then we opt for pure character building. We could try for something unique, but that would take away from the fact that this form is merely an image in Garou's head of what a monster ought to look like. The reality is that he has subtly given up on his ideal by becoming a monster in appearance, acknowledging that the whole thing was really ridiculous; Saitama with great clarity calls this out.

And the rest... the rest is (the webcomic's) history.

Reflection

I'm not particularly interested in reinventing the wheel - I'm not that smart to begin with. The easiest thing to do is to reuse elements of the webcomic, as otherwise why call it "One Punch Man". (I understand I inadvertently walked into my own criticism of ONE in this other article. More on that later.)

Let's be frank and say that virtually all of the fans of the manga are fans of Murata's art. I'm being deadly serious. I can't speak for each and every fan, but my intuition argues that, if you're really just a fan of the story, you wouldn't be all that impressed with the manga's departure. I know this because I speak for my own case - I have been extremely indifferent to the manga and anime, except when it comes to Murata's talent for composing action scenes.

The most logical thing to do, which would upset a lot of critics, is to chuck the idea of a story out of the fucking window. What I mean is, Don't bother working more on the story, you have the story already. Just work on setting up cool action scenes that work within the story. Again, George R. R. Martin is not in your production team, you only have Murata as fresh talent.

As demonstrated, it's actually very easy to make this work within the manga's framework. It sounds obnoxious to say, but these thoughts were common sense. I took the path of least resistance.

Given the latest chapter of the manga, some suspicious, though possibly mistranslated, comments by Murata, and this speculative analysis, it seems pretty clear at this point that ONE and Murata are starting over on a completely new slate. People should not be surprised if the whole Neo Heroes thing comes to fruition - why shouldn't it? those ideas are sitting rent-free in ONE's head - but the story will dramatically diverge from the webcomic to the point of being unrecognizable. Which, to tell you the truth, makes the manga's future all the more interesting.