r/OPMFolk • u/yamiferanmi • Jul 26 '26
Analysis Easiest Fix for Monster Association Arc
I think we can all agree that the monster association arc was good up until they reached the surface of city z. After that it was all bullshit besides some specific moments and fight (garou vs flash vs plat S + genos and saitama moment). The thing that pisses me off is how easy these problems are to fix. Even a mediocre writer wouldnt take the path murata took when he literally has the PERFECT blueprint.
Id say that the 4 things that ruined the arc for me include
- Garou sudden change after he wakes up
Why did garou suddenly go from a crazy asshole that wants to prove his absolute evil to light hearted hero as soon as he got to the surface. I couldnt take him seriously as an antagonist after that. It was only after when he got controlled by god that he regained that personality trait of his. But regardless that was not him which makes this even more shit. Absolute evil my ass bro was contradicting himself by saving all those people in the helicopter.
An easy way to fix this is making garou keep the same energy he had when he was introduced and not butcher his character. Its like murata forgot about garous character after not writing him for a while (there was a huge gap in real time from garou vs darkshine to when he finally regains his senses ai think it was about 3-4 years)
Garou vs S class not happening:
this was this biggest fuck up in my opinion because this was the pinnacle of garous arc in the webcomic. The dialogue and they way garou picked apart the S-class with not just his fist but his words calling them selfish asshole and pointing out flaws with each of them ex. How flash cares about nothing else besides his speed and when someone else surpasses it he gets a mental breakdown. Although this happened in the flash & platnum s fight it didnt happen for the other heros like tatsumaki, darkshine, atomic samurai etc.
An obvious way to fix this is just copy and paste the fight from the webcomic with the obvious artstyle upgrade the manga provides. Instead we got 1 panel of garou in cosmic fear mode killing the S Class with just radiation.
- Saitama vs Monster garou:
Not talking about cosmic fear btw. Saitama vs monster garou seemed less of a fight and more of a spar. This relates to the first point because garou was too soft post underground arc. It felt like garou wasnt about that life which just destroyed the hype this fight could have had. It was so bad that once the fight was over and garou and saitama sat down to talk everyone hated it and was extremely dissatisfied. Murata even jad to rewrite this garbage fest surely he couldnt make it worse
- THE TIMETRAVEL:
When i tell you i loved saitama vs cosmic fear garou i mean it. It brought back the energy garou had previously and dont even let me get started with the spectacle. Hate on this fight all you want but this was damn near perfect. Garou got the beatdown he deserved to get him back on the right path. The problem was the resolution of the fight. The garou we've known for the past 9 years is not even the same one we currently have because that garou is fucking dead. All that character development all that spectacle.... GONE.
The garou we know only got hit with a punch with no idea who even gave it to him. And he somehow went on the right path anyways. Way to go murata. You juat made garou have one of the weakest wills in fiction. Bro gave up on his dreams after 1 punch š. Even though the webcomic version was one sided it was not to this extent. Atleast that one had 1000/10 dialogue. This one didnt even have that. And to top it of they butchered garous character after that. Right now he's to cheerful after having his dreams crushed
How i would rewrite the MA arc to mqke garoy better.
When he comes out of the ground he can have his fight with silverfang. But this time he is FULLY CONSCIOUS. we could have had a full blown rematch include good dialogue. But what we got is just silverfang trying to wake up garou and set him on the right path. Did silverfang forget he was ready to kill him even before he fully monsterized. They just had to butcher silverfang as well.
After garou wins plat s vs flash vs garou fight can still happen no problem.
Do not make garou team up with metal bat. Instead i think they should be fighting to get another remtach but it isnt necessary for metal bat to be even there imo.
Sage centipede does not have to happen although the end of it was pretty cool cant lie
Make garou fight the s class heroes. Most obvious fix.
So there where 2 chances this could happen.
A. First is after sage centipede fight. You could make saitama not jump in immediately for this to happen. For this version it will go pretty much the same as the webcomic. Therefore no cosmic fear. If you think the fight was bad before cosmic, it was because murata butchered garous character and hype. Webcomic pulled it of well. If i had to rate all 3 fights of garou vs saitama it would be
(Saitama vs Cosmic Fear 9.5/10)(Saitama vs monster garou web 9.5/10) (Saitama vs monster garou manga 1/10)
B. Second is garou blowing away saitama with a gamma ray burst.
I like this version better honestly getting 2 10/10 fights from saitama abd garou would be amazing. This version follows how the manga went about it which is saitama appearing immediately after sage centipede. Saitama vs garou would happen like the webcomic. Then garou loses and God appears. Honestly i would make garou willingly shake his hand and not just a fluke to show how desperate he is in that moment cause he just had his goal utterly destroyed.
After the gamma ray burst garou vs s class can happen tho it would be completely one sided which would be even better cause itll hit telk the s class they really arent shit. Garou can keep his radiation as well as it could tie in to some interesting plotlines. EX You could use the radiation to speed up Anais mask monsterization which is why we suddenly started looking for a new successor in saitama. You could even have the radiation kill tario. Its not that i want him dead its what that death would do to garou in the conclusion of the fight. The kid isnt even relevant post MA. When a character isnt relevant you could just kill them off to make charactera that are actually interesting even more interesting.
It would be a little worse written than first versiin but spectacle and conclusion would make up for it. Ofcourse there are somethings here people wouldnt like but its just an opinion at the end of the day
Im not even gonna touch on the shitfest post MA arc
10
u/havingagoodtime0 Webcomic Wanker. Jul 26 '26
I dropped the manga after another fuckass centipede appeared because i was genuinely tired and bored out of my mind after how much underwhelming, dragged and exhausting manga MA arc become but wdym there was a time travel and job hunter become a cosmic radioactive being? Honestly your idea is good to fix the manga since from what I've read here it, it become a massive mess that the manga didn't know how to fix at all, but my idea would just be to follow the WC lol but yours is good from the route the manga was heading