Garou is the antithesis of majority consensus. An interesting theme many stories with probably the best example being psycho-pass try to tackle is the value of individuality in contrast to the average happiness of people, the overall consensus.

What most stories do with this theme is exploring the question of whether this "greater good" is a good thing taking the individuality one loses into account. Series like the afforementioned psycho-pass do this tremendously well because of the infinite potential the premise has.

One punch man does not have this setting, in fact it doesn't have much of a consistent setting at all. Pretty much every part of worldbuilding correlates to the themes and this can make it a mess if you don't want to think about or understand these.

But if you do, this type of storytelling can open up new layers and layers for the viewer to find. One punch man's main theme has to be obsession as seen in the exploration of obviously saitama's character but also the existence of monsters in this universe.

Whatever someone starts obsessing over is what they become but in a monstrified way as to say that this conczpt is bad. And that it is. It's a real world issue these days.

Due to lack of individuality in modern society people start to cling and obsess about one specific thing to actually gain an identity through this. This is what the monsters are, they're evil, but what are the heroes? Are they inherently good? Well the answer is obviously no

Hypocrisy is another big theme in opm and it is always shown through the heroes. They may be doing the right thing but only because they gain something from that. The most recent example of this phenomenon can be found in the garou vs superalloy darkshine fight.

Here is revealed in a sublime manner that, while darkshine himself believed that he was fighting so he could have that feeling of having a good fight again, he was actually fighting to get the feeling of overwhelming victory.

Our own desires can sometimes hide themselves after our actions. Maybe deep down we feel that we are deriving joy just from decimating our enemies but we cannot ever accept this without it being pointed out directly.

And this is garou's main purpose in the story. His flashback may seem silly, but if you truly believe that, you fail to look a little deeper. Kids are often the most pure examples of what humans are, their morality and mentality is not twisted by society.

Yet Garou already has this feeling of non-conformation, he does not agree with this overall consensus, that mind you, is built upon hypocrisy and because of this, he got bullied and rejected by society. But who are we to reject those whom we simply can't relate to?

Do our numbers matter? In most of those dystopian stories the answer would be no, individuality is more important yet in the real world be still can't accept this. This is the hypocrisy of mankind, and thus Garou departs on his mission, his mission to point this out.

Garou is a contrarian, because of the events that took place in his upbringing his goal itself has become being the antithesis to overall consensus. he says he wants to be a monster but never takes accepts monsterization middles himself.

The reason behind that is that the only reason he says this, is to oppose the majority, not to actually become one himself. He hates heroes, but never kills them, since opposing them ideologically is enough. Instead of killing them, he forces his philosophy on them with strength.

From here on out, there will be webcomic spoilers sprinkled throughout, you have been warned!

Getting back into that point of his strength is interesting since throughout his entire character-arc he doesn't only develop as a person, he also does physically. Some are quick to write this off as typical shounen power ups that opm takes the piss off, and they're right, partly

Even if that is true, this is opm which means there is almost always something deeper and yup, that is the case here too. I've heard some people say that because Garou is free of the shackles of society and can even see its hypocrisy, he is able to maintain his identity.

Frankly, I disagree. One punch man isn't scared to show change through (however simple they may be) metaphors while backing those up with the writing and Garou's strength is an example of that.i

I have already established that becoming a monster means to obsess over something, this causes physical change which is the metaphor for this mental inability. Garou is also changing physically without really any training or anything, so does that mean...

Yes it does, instead of being obsessed over something trivial like some of the minor monsters Garou is also obsessed, he is obsessed with opposing the fraudulent society he lives in and his physical change in this case, is giving him this strength to overcome every obstacle.

Every obstacle... Until one of course, saitama that is. In this epic fight, garou keeps changing and changing seemingly growing in strength every page, but actually as saitama points out he is only getting weaker.

Nothing is a challenge for saitama anyways so he is actually talking about garou's mental strength which is undoubtedly fading away to become more and more desperate and obsessed. Normally his obsession pushed him through his fights but then why not this time? It's all saitama.

Saitama does NOT represent this flawed hypocritical society Garou lives in. Saitama is genuinely a hero just for fun, no alterior motives or hypocrisies and that is why garou will never be able to oppose saitama, since he does not represent what garou is fighting against.

At first garou's entire will to live fades away, after all his obsession and by now, only purpose for living has been crushed. But actually that is not the end. Sometimes we do lose ourselves, our identity but what we have to do after that is not be depressed.

We have to think about ourselves, and form a new identity and that is what saitama knows and points out to garou, letting him live despite the majorities consensus saying to kill him.

Democracy is important, but if we don't offer insight and forgiveness to those in the minority, we will never reach a world where everyone can be happy, maybe even if we do we won't be able to, but in my and saitama's opinion it's still worth the effort

Feedback is appreciated