One-Punch Man Season 3 Will Completely Change How You See This Villain

If there is one thing that the One Punch Man series does exceptionally well, it’s the characters. Although many have been introduced mostly for jokes or just as side personas meant to add more depth to the world, they often have incredibly layered backstories that make them some of the most nuanced characters in the entire industry. There is perhaps no better example of this than Garou.

Fans of the One Punch Man anime remember the villain as being introduced in Season 2, where he proved to be one of the most powerful and gifted combatants that the world had ever seen. However, another aspect that was teased was that he was more than just an evil man who was out for world domination. This is set to be further expanded upon in Season 3 of the anime, so let’s see how it will change the way you see Garou.

Garou Will Be Far Different From A Thematic And Story Standpoint

The Hero Hunter

When fans were first introduced to Garou, he was shown to be a sadistic and battle-crazed villain who wanted to defeat every single hero in the Hero Association. His reasoning for this was eventually teased with a short backstory, where it was explained that he was always more sympathetic to the monsters after they were beaten by the heroes, due to which he became the subject of relentless bullying.

However, in the Monster Association Arc, which Season 3 of One Punch Man is set to cover, this was expanded upon, as it was revealed that Garou’s true motivation was to become the world’s greatest evil by reaching Disaster Level God. While this is undoubtedly immoral, the reason he wanted to do this was to inject fear into the hearts of all wrongdoers so that they wouldn’t prey on the weak or commit crimes, ensuring a perfect and peaceful society governed by Garou himself.

While this is undoubtedly the wrong way to go about achieving such an overly ambitious plan, it expands upon Garou’s character quite a bit. Throughout the Monster Association Arc, Garou gets astronomically stronger with each passing chapter, but is ultimately tied down to humanity due to his relationship with Tareo, the same young boy he looked after in Season 2. This arc is set to show Garou’s incredible ambition and his pursuit of these goals, which eventually bring him face-to-face with Saitama.

Eventually, by the end of the arc, Garou’s emotional plot line comes to its tipping point upon him unlocking his strongest form. Here, a lot more nuance is added to the character, and it offers the perfect opportunity for his rehabilitation and, perhaps, even his integration into the side of the heroes. The way that the Monster Association Arc ends regarding Garou is great to see and definitely changes the way that he is viewed in the world.

Garou Will Also Be Far Different From A Strength Perspective

The Second-Strongest Being

• Garou eventually becomes the second-strongest being in the entire series.

Fans got a hint of Garou’s incredible strength in Season 2, when he managed to defeat some S-Class heroes, though, towards the end of the season, he struggled greatly against some of the strongest in the class, namely Genos and Bang. However, the Monster Association Arc is poised to show Garou unleashing his full potential, eventually becoming the strongest character in the series after Saitama himself.

This doesn’t happen at once, though. From the start of the arc, Garou polishes his innate talent to adapt and copy the techniques of those he goes up against, allowing him to fight some of the strongest heroes and monsters in the entire world. Through this, he gains many new, insanely powerful transformations that catapult his power far above what was previously thought possible by fans, gradually making him stronger than every S-Class hero and Dragon Level monster.

In the final fight of the arc, Garou inadvertently takes a little bit of power from the mysterious being known only as God, which allows him to unlock his Cosmic Garou form, making him the greatest threat that the universe has ever seen up to that point, surpassing even Blast, the number 1-ranked hero in the entire Hero Association. At that stage, the only person who could stand up to him was Saitama. The entire premise of the series is the hilarity of Saitama being so overpowered, but for the first time, he has to fight a little seriously.

Saitama vs. Cosmic Garou proves to be one of the best fights in the history of the manga industry as a whole, with the scale tipping both ways at times and both fighting harder than they ever have before. Not only does Garou cement himself as the greatest combatant in One Punch Man in the Monster Association Arc, but he also proves to be one of the most layered and complex characters in the series in this arc.

One Punch Man can be streamed on Crunchyroll.