I’m definitely not as down (and haven’t been) on this season of One Punch Man as many seem to be.  Admittedly part of the reason is that I wasn’t as sky-high on the first as most were – I liked it a lot (it just cracked my Top 10 in a decent year) but Mob Psycho 100 has always been more my jam.  So while I freely admit the first was better, this season hasn’t been a huge disappointment to me – and the narrative side has been the bigger letdown than the undeniably tangible decline in visual presentation.

That said, it’s rare that we get an anime episode that’s so clearly superior to every other (I suppose the finale of Tokyo Ghoul √A would be the ultimate example) as this ep was in this season of OPM.  It was a clear step up from the first 10 in every conceivable way.  There was obviously some budget saved up and well-spent (with good reason – this was a wall-to-wall combat episode), and the choreography was a clear improvement.  The pacing was on-point, and for a change that strange disconnect with what was happening on-screen was absent.  I was totally in the moment from start to finish.

A good deal of the credit for that has to go to Garou, who’s certainly emerged as the most interesting thread in the pattern of One Punch Man Season 2.  Saitama can be an engaging character – he certainly was at times in S1 – but he hasn’t been this season, even when he’s been on-screen.  The Monster’s Association is pretty much a standard superhero comic villain outfit, without any particular quirks or curveballs to make them surprising or relatable.  And “Super Fight” was an on-again off-again amusing distraction, no more.

What really makes Garou stand out, I think, is that in this season full of transparent motives and disinterested slackers, he’s actually passionate about something.  He’s a child, no doubt, but his self-belief and work ethic can’t be questioned.  As misguided as his drive for monster-dom is, there’s a kind of purity to it.  And he doesn’t fit in any of the boxes the rest of the cast does.  Overconfident S-class heroes, brazenly envious A-class wannabes, a guy so strong he’s utterly bored with saving people, a cartoonish villain guild.  Garou is weird, kind of twisted, and interesting.  There is a bit of the Hero Killer in the Hero Hunter, no question – Garou isn’t on the same level as a character to be sure (and neither is the series), but he’s come to occupy a relatively similar niche.

For all those reasons, I was flat-out rooting for Garou in his battle with the boring squad of A-class-ers under Death Gatling.  They were just doing their job, but Gatling made it clear what their real motivations were.  One of the things that makes Garou someone you can get behind in a fantastical series like this is that he’s genuinely strong – probably at the top level of A, with the potential to jump to S-class.  Also, he never backs down for a fight or bitches about the odds – he takes on a group all at once, and they show no concern over the unfairness of those odds (to be fair, there’s no reason why they should).

The most tense moment of the episode comes when Garou tries to get Death Gatling to stand down because of the presence of the hero kid in the shack.  Gatling doesn’t buy it, though I suppose that’s to be expected.  Garou does in fact save the kid’s life by absorbing Gatling’s ultimate attack before putting him down, but when Genos shows up the worm definitely turns.  Garou comes close enough to fighting the new-and-improved Genos to a standstill that it’s fair to wonder if , were he not exhausted and gravely wounded, they might actually be on level pegging (which would make Garou S-class strong).  But it’s pretty clear how this was going to end, before Bang shows up.

To be clear: I don’t blame any of the heroes for trying to take Garou out – he’s given them no choice.  And Bang has strong personal reasons to want to do so, as Garou’s rampage is effectively a massive failure on Bang’s part.  Still, as with Stain, knowing the character is in the wrong doesn’t mean you can’t empathize with them, and so it is with Garou.  He’s saved hero kid more than once; he disgustedly rebuffs the advances of the Monster Association.  He’s not a monster himself in either the literal of figurative sense – just a seriously fucked-up dude with a twisted worldview.  But there’s something in there worth saving, and a power that if channeled for good could be of huge value to the heroes (in the figurative more than literal sense).  And that makes him by far the most compelling part of this mixed bag of a season.