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One Punch Man: Chapter 169 concludes the Monster Association Arc. Garou was officially defeated in the previous chapter, and now the heroes must decide what to do with him. In this One Punch Man Chapter review, I’ll be sharing my thoughts on this chapter, and go into some of it’s details, talk about future storylines that may spawn from this arc. As always if you’d like to read this chapter for yourself, you can do so by clicking on the link here.
Thank you in advance for reading, now let’s get into my One Punch Man: Chapter 169 Review.
What Is Chapter 169 of One Punch Man?
To be honest I wasn’t really thrilled with this chapter. It’s possible that I may have been coming down from the high of the Garou versus Saitama fight in Chapter 168, which was an absolutely insane fight. When Chapter 169 opens we see Saitama and Genos examining the second core, which came from the death of Genos, which is now a completely separate timeline. We learn that Saitama has no memory of what happened or at least he acts as if he doesn’t, and Genos gets to learn how truly epic his master is. I’m glad Genos knows about the fight and his death as this can better help Genos avoid such a fate in the future, but as far as Saitama, I’m disappointed that he doesn’t know or at least it’s implied that he has no memory of what happened.
Chapter 168 and 167 gave us so much depth to the character of Saitama and now that all seems to have been washed away. I’m curious to know if other readers experienced similar feelings. Genos proceeds to explain in detail to Saitama what happened, and but as we know of Saitama he isn’t one for the details. A ghostly form of Garou appears and briefly speaks to Tareo, this wakes him up and draws his attention to the heroes interacting with Garou. I really enjoyed Garou’s arc here, having him become a hero in the end really felt like a fitting end to his character arc.
The Heroes Try To Kill Garou
The next big moment we have is the group of heroes deciding what to do with Garou. Immediately, heroes begin to dish out punishment towards Garou and beat him continuously. I think this is a direct contrast to Saitama and Garou’s fight. When Garou was defeated by Saitama he mentions how heroes just wield around their own version of justice and this is what you see in full display here. It makes since that all of the heroes would gang up on Garou, but we know he can take much more punishment than this. Garou seems to be purposely taking the punishment, and this could be due to the intervention of his alternative timeline. Out of all of the heroes, there is one that is leading the charge in killing Garou and that is Amai Mask.
Amai Mask Wants To Kill Garou
Not all of the heroes agree to killing Garou. Bang, and Metal Bat disagree with the others, but Amai Mask is adamant that Garou must die here. He makes the argument of Garou being beyond redemption, but knowing what we know of Amai Mask this is a little bit hypocritical. You can learn more about Amai Mask in a previous article I’ve written fully explaining the character. For those of you that don’t want to be spoiled, I’ll just say their is a much darker side to Amai Mask that is slowly being revealed here. Even in the earlier chapters in this arc we see Amai Mask do some rather questionable things. He’s generally scene as ruthless, and enacts his own sense of justice, which means that every opponent must die even without the situation being heard or investigated.
Personally, at this point I don’t think Garou deserves to die. He clearly hasn’t killed any heroes at this point in the timeline. He’s only beaten many of them up so badly that they need to take time to recover. The heroes egos were bruised more than their bodies in my opinion.
Garou Flees
After being interviewed by Zombieman, Amai Mask, and many of the other heroes, Amai Mask takes it in his own hands to strike a killing blow to Garou. Tareo grabs Amai Mask’s legs and protest this action of the heroes. Tareo begins to plead with the heroes, and other characters also interject such as Bang, Metal Bat, and even Saitama.
Garou eventually jumps in the air so fast that many heroes cannot see him, with the exception of Saitama of course. Shortly after his departure, Metal Bat shows up the battlefield, and let’s the heroes know that they have all been contaminated with nuclear radiation and must go to his lab for decontamination as soon as possible.
My Thoughts On The Chapter
This chapter was one that needed to happen, and at first read I wasn’t too thrilled about it. Personally, I think I am still coming down from the high of the Saitama versus Garou fight. I did enjoy that Genos got to see the fight, and I think this will have some significance in future events of the story. Maybe somehow Genos will be able to show everyone what Saitama is truly capable of or this data may fall into the wrong hands, but even so, what possibly could any potential villain due with this data?
From what I have heard and seen online, there should be at least one more chapter after this. We still have to see what happens to any of the remaining monsters on the battlefield. There may be one Black S out there, Overgrown Rover, and Psykos are still on the battlefield and should be severely weakened. If they encounter Amai Mask, he is surely want them all exterminated.
I’m also curious as to the whereabouts of Blast and his team. I did predict that Blast was there to take some of the credit when it came to defeating Garou. I would assume he still has to show up, but if so the question that continues to plague my thoughts is how much of the conflict does he remember? I hope he does remember, and if so he will try his best to recruit Saitama. Which can be a comedic element to add to the story.
Now it’s time to hear from our readers. What did you think of the latest One Punch Man chapter? Did you enjoy it, and what are your theories for the next chapter? Let me know by leaving a comment below.
