I like the original design of Tatsumaki a lot more than her new design in this one. Also the part where her sister is mentioned and we get a twitching eyebrow is a nice nod to what will happen in the future. Can't wait for the next chapters. The real fight will begin next.
Atomic Samurai is ONE billion years too young to even grasp the basics of the Cellular Cut Slash, not even talk about King Quantum Slash nor Ultimate Hellfire Wavemotion Cannon.
King is broken as hell, just too OP, nerf King please!
Even Saitama could not beat King! He destroyed Saitama with his Infinite Combo.
@aFFi I agree, and I'm glad I'm not the only one noticing this as well. What was once a decidedly ironic take on the genre is becoming a very unironic part of everything it mocked. The action is pretty af, sure, but feels so empty more often than not, and the narrative as a whole is devoid of focus and meaning seen in the original webcomic. There's just too much going on and so the important things become needlessly spread out and attention is diverted away from them towards the inconsequential. The whole chapter can be summarized as follows: "An assorted group of heroes begin their attack on the Monster Association HQ but are met with retaliation from lower-class monsters with a few Demon-level ones mixed in. As the fight goes on, more powerful monsters appear. Despite the escalating power level, the heroes ultimately prevail with some of them injured but no casualties otherwise. The S-class prove their superiority once again. Gyoro-Gyoro draws some kind of conclusion based on what she's seen." See how despite being this long, the chapter tells us so little? It feels exactly like
Garou's transformations during his fight with Saitama: despite becoming bigger and more imposing and shit, his attacks actually become weaker and less effective with each subsequent transformation.
And it's exactly the same thing with this manga as a whole, because in its attempt to please everyone and show everything, it's spread itself too thin and lost its narrative edge which made the webcomic a cult favorite in the first place. It's now almost entirely carried by the art; take it out, and what exactly will remain?
I agree as well, this arc has been stretched so hard to please those who asked for character development it's now over-bearing. I love this chapter tho, it's just the arc as a whole that's taking way too long without Saitama doing anything so far.
This chapter had a lot of interesting heroes, uber-well drawn fight that draws out the epicness of said heroes, I loved the interactions between them, etc. However, we really need Saitama to end this soon because ffs, this has become way too stretched...
@Shyning The problem isn't even in the character development per se because the characters aren't actually being developed. If you compare what we know about the prominent characters (e.g. those whose actions and motivations affect the plot) from the manga to that which we know from the webcomic, you'd be hard-pressed to find any differences at all. The martial arts tournament in particular was just filler through and through. Remove it from the story, and it won't lose anything of consequence or narrative value.
I may sound as a heretic right now, but I do think the manga would gain more from having less fights. Or at least less screen time devoted to them.
@Galaemar356 Saitama's role in the story has devolved from the true protagonist to a near-afterthought character who provides comic relief and delivers the punchline to conflict setups (pardon the pun). I do love the political subplot brewing in this arc which will pay off in the next one
where the present Hero Association will split into two factions spurred on by the whimsical, unheroic behavior of the S-class members demonstrate here
, but it's hardly enough of a reason to put Saitama so far on the sidelines. Writing a story is a zero-sum endeavor; what you gain in one aspect you lose in another. The conflict between the S-class and the lower classes could have been handled in a less self-indulgent way without losing any of its poignancy. I, for one, would like the story to focus more on Saitama once again because his character, often dismissed cause he's a bland OP egghead, is actually one of the most interesting in the manga, and possibly in the genre overall. Others, while certainly more colorful, do not have the kind of depth he has. Which will hopefully become more obvious by the end of this arc, or at most the beginning of the next one. Saitama deserves better.
Man, what a cool chapter. The fact that I can unironically enjoy the fights while keeping in mind that Saitama could pop up anytime and finish it all in a second is actually one of the things I enjoy the most in this manga; then again, I'm not really an expert on this genre, and I'm a sucker for great art.
Am I the only one who got WTF at the bullet piercing bullet moment? Situation like that is only possible If they were aiming for each other heads, which clearly is not the case.
Sure it's fiction and stuff, but basic logic should still apply. Unless he can control the bullet trajectory somehow, which probably isn't the case as well.
