One Punch Man Season 2 Episode 4 Review: The Murder Case That is Too Impossible

Just as I thought we’d get to see some serious martial arts ass-kicking, we got served something completely different instead.

Plot

The episode begins with a very vintage approach to Garo’s past; he is seen watching TV as a child, and the shot is in an off-sepia b/w tone. Garo seems to be rooting for the bad guy in some ancient TV show and being disappointed that the hero is constantly winning. He has a monologue where he explains that he is very supportive of monsters cause they’re trying their best too (what). Then it cuts to a shot of Garo waking up in the trash, not remembering much.

The hero association, realizing that Garo is after not just heroes but the management of the association itself, decides to issue an alert to protect their own asses. Naturally, King, being an S Class hero, gets summoned to act as a bodyguard for them. He dully refuses as he’s too busy playing video games. The hero association then approaches Metal Bat, a new character who will probably have a part to play as he is in the opening video. His job is to protect a really douchey member of the association who wants to go to a sushi go-round with his spoiled brat of a son. Metal Bat appears to be a very ethical character, as his internal monologue seems to be a realization that he is wasting his time in trivial missions while he could be doing some real work. However, two seemingly strong monsters do show up and try to kidnap the kid, so Metal Bat finds room for some action. To my dismay, I think his fighting style includes ball throwing. With a bat. After beating the monsters, their extremely ugly senpai show up, along with a plant-looking grossness that crawls out of the sewers. Ugh. Just kill them already.

In the meantime, Saitama does go to the martial arts tournament. He even wears a little wig (probably a part of a floor brush, from the looks of it) to pass for Charanko. He meets with one of Charanko’s senpais, a guy with the biggest chin in the history of humankind. God, he’s ugly. His part in this is explaining how amazing the tournament (even Silverfang won it once and now he’s an S Class hero), and draw our attention to the fact that entering the tournament disguised can cause you to get unqualified as a hero, because the person who won last year beat up one of the contestants and entered under his name (of course, that was Garo). Saitama looks more worried than usual, but for all the wrong reasons. In yet another flashback, massive-chin-dude finally tells us the story of why Garo was expelled by the dojo. In a nutshell, he just beat the shit out of everyone.

Garo, after having recovered from sleeping in the trash, pays a visit to his kid-friend and has another look in the kid’s hero catalogue, trying to find a next target. He looks interested into Watch-Dog Man, a guy who looks exactly like Saitama and just sits at the same spot all day waiting for something to happen. Unexpectedly, the city alarm goes off because of Metal Bat’s fight with the weird bugs. He is giving it his all, and thank the LORD, he is not using balls; he’s just smashing the bugs with his bat. Cool move.

And just as I thought the battle was over, another bug shows up. A really, really big bug. Great. Are we going to get an answer on why the bug monster society is rampant? Probably not.

Episode Highlights

No depth: I was expecting some more profound explanation as to why Garo supports monsters. I thought he was getting there for a moment; I thought he would go for the ‘real life is unfair, bad guys win sometimes, and cartoons are not showing reality, so I’m going to make this reality on my own’ approach, which, a little bit cliche as it might be, it would still be a little bit more valid that a child that naturally enjoys the death of innocents and the prevalence of evil. Unless he turns out to be a psychopath, that is. But he doesn’t seem like one. He looks very caught up in his feelings.

Monster Centisenpai: As far as names go, I have to admit Monster Centisenpai is pretty damn excellent. Also, even for a monster, this damn creature is extremely damn ugly. I’m not even going to comment on the other gross creature that looks like the back of a bulbasaur.

Secret move: I have seen a lot of secret moves and explanations, but admittedly, Metal Bat’s one is… scientifically mind blowing? He smashes his own head with his metal baseball bat and gets PUMPED. WHEN HE PUMPS HIMSELF UP, THERE’S NOTHING HE CAN’T DO!

Centichoro: Well, I gotta hand it to you. I didn’t expect the last bug to show up; it looks like a rollercoaster. It is also ridiculously ugly. Damn bugs.

Themes & Trivia

Tennis player Ryu: What is Saitama reading? According to the Japanese wiki, in his school years, he created ‘Sun Man’, or Tennis Player Dragon Ryuu, along with other characters. Very little information is known about them.

Can’t wait for the next ep

I do like a good fighting tournament, therefore I’m looking forward to one.

How did you find this One Punch Man episode? Let us know in the comment section! And don’t forget to check the rest of the Spring 2019 anime reviews on MANGA.TOKYO!