Before I jump into this week’s episode of One Punch Man, I just want to address the elephant in the room.  I’ve decided this about the issue with animation quality and J.C. Staff: I’m not going to talk about it.  It might seem like I’m burying my head in the sand, but I just don’t see the point.  Why?  Because it’s pretty much all anybody is talking about everywhere else.  It’s not that I don’t care, because I do – I just don’t see any benefit to being part of a feeding frenzy.  I get it, we all get it – but I’d rather talk about the story and the series as a whole.  Of course I won’t stop anyone else discussing it in the comments, but I’ve just decided not to engage in that exercise myself.

With that said, the story didn’t exactly kick into high gear this week – season 2 is off to a relatively low-key start on the whole – but the wheels of the larger plot do seem to be in motion.  We have a new major player in Garou (Midorikawa Hikaru, who seems to be in everything lately), who’s joined in Sitch’s rogues reception.   He’s not there to listen, though, but to slaughter everyone in the room.  As best I can tell Garou doesn’t seem to be directly connected to the prophecy, just an overpowered nut job who sees himself “on the side of the monsters”.  But the three A-class heroes Sitch brought in as bouncers certainly prove no match for him – nor do the ruffians aplenty.  Whoever he is, the guy is strong.

We’ve certainly not heard the last of this storyline, as the higher-ups at the hero association seem laughably complacent about the threat Garou provides.  But the focus quickly shifts to a couple of considerably less powerful figures intent on annoying Saitama.  Speed-O’Sound Sonic (for once, a Kaji Yuuki character who’s supposed to be annoying) shows up at the mansion, but Genos decides to take him on himself as a way to test out his new parts.  That leaves Saitama alone when Blizzard from Hell (Hayami Saori) shows up, two henchmen in tow, and demands that Saitama join her faction (she’s the #1-ranked hero in B class).

In many respects, this seems like the part of One Punch Man that ONE is really most passionate about – the deconstruction of the hero profession as the same slog of politics and drudgery as any other salaryman career in Japan.  Blizzard, if we’re honest, is a small-timer in every sense of the word.  She allows herself to stay in B-class because she knows she’ll never reach the top rank in Class A, and everything she does is guided by her grudge against her S-class younger older sister – Tornado.  She chooses to be a big fish in a small pond, and prioritize tribalism over actually being a hero.  If you could point to two heroes with absolutely polar opposite reasons for being in Class B, it would be Blizzard and Saitama.

Is Blizzard eventually going to – in an ironic twist of fate – become part of the “Saitama Faction”?  That certainly seems possible, now that she’s seen the utter pointlessness of her obsession.  Saitama may overtly resist factional politics, but he’s already developed a tribe of followers whether he wants to or not.  That it’s almost all based on his actions rather than his ambitions is to his credit, but Saitama’s perspective as a hero is so unique in this mythology that he seems destined to rise to the top and become a de facto leader whether he wants to or not.