Amai Mask Learns the Truth About Saitama – One punch man chapter 174 review
So this chapter opens up without seeing Fubuki in the Blizzard Group driving somewhere, and Eyelashes is like, “Why on Earth do you want to go to this place anyway, with the entirety of the Blizzard Group, and fully armed no less?” And Fubuki says, “I’m going to meet someone. There’s a chance things will turn violent.”
So the big question here is like, where are they going? Who’s she going to meet up with? Nothing was really established for us to really know what’s going to happen. I mean, if you read the webcomic, you know where this is going, but things happen differently in the manga than they did in the webcomic, so the connective tissue is going to be much different.
And I’m not going to spoil anything, of course, but I’ll just say that in my opinion, I think that things are going to turn violent with the person that she meets. Like, we’re going to see a big Fubuki fight eventually happen. I could be wrong about that, but I’m pretty sure that’s where this is going.
And whatever happens as a result of that fight is going to take us into what this arc is going to comprise of. And I know that my mask is taking up like the majority of this chapter, and we’re going to talk about him, and he will have like an arc dedicated to him pretty much, or at least I think that he will.
But that’s going to happen down the line, or at least I think it is. But speaking of my mask, we’re coming to him in the Handsome Castle Talent Agency, and he’s talking to the director there, basically telling him about the new idol group that they have, and that they even passed the Pro Hero exam, and they’re the future for them, essentially.
And they’re going to try to make them big sellers the way that my mask is, and he’s trying to get my mask to endorse them, saying, “Hey, I’m hoping that you’ll give them a few nuggets of advice, too, maybe some tricks for surviving in this cutthroat entertainment industry.” So this group is called the Bubbly Boys, and they’re kind of like, I don’t know, the BTS of the One Punch Man world.
I mean, they’re not on that level obviously yet, my mask is, but they’re trying to build them up to be like BTS. But my mask doesn’t even care, and he’s like, “You know, I have zero interest in phonies, so don’t speak to me.” But we see that he’s looking at his phone, because he’s reviewing the security camera footage from two days ago when Saitama went to the Hero Association with Black S and Rover, and it triggered Metal Knight’s defense system, and his robots attacked him inside, destroyed that.
Now he told the Hero Association that the robots malfunctioned and exploded on their own, and that’s what they all believe, except for, like, my mask and Metal Knight, of course. And he sees that, yeah, it’s actually Saitama that destroyed these freaking robots, and this is like the beginning of my mask realizing the truth about Saitama, which we’ll get into.
But the director keeps pushing my mask about the bubbly boys, and my masks, like you know, don’t talk to me. It’s like you used me as an example, and this is what you come up with. And then we see the bubbly boys come in and they’re like, “Senpai, why you gotta be mean to us, calling us phonies and fakes? If you get too cocky just because you’re the favorite, maybe we’ll catch up to you before you know it.
We’re talking song, dancing, looks. I’m confident we’re just as every bit as good as you. And of course, we got raw power too.” And that’s right, two of us passed the hero exam too, C-Class and A-Class. What’s the difference anyway? Maybe you want to find out. And this is like hilarious of course, because they just made the bare minimum of the hero cut, like joining C-Class, which is I guess somewhat impressive for this world. I mean, not just anybody can become a pro hero as we saw in the first season.
But obviously, this is like classic one punch main character delusion as to where they don’t even realize the huge gap between an A-Class and a C-Class, let alone my mask and them, who we all know is truly S-Class level. And going further, they’re like, “Yeah, even the director told us that it would be better if my mask could just concentrate on entertainment. He tries to maintain his persona at all times, so it’s hard to handle it, but we’re practical.
So we’re going to use the lame title of hero as a stepping stone and aim for the true top idle spot, unlike a certain someone who can’t make up their mind whether he’s a hero or an idol, and he’ll go more into this afterwards. But as we’ve seen throughout the series, my mask is like a hero first and foremost, that’s like the most important thing to him.
Yes, being an idol is very important as well and keeping up appearances and everything else that he’s contracted to, but he is like a true hero. I mean, yeah, he doesn’t have the best morals and whatnot, but he does have a strong sense of what he believes Justice is. And unlike them, he doesn’t see being a hero as like a stepping stone to being an idol. Being an idol is more so just secondary to him, if anything, but still very important.
But going further, in my mask is like hero is not a title that can be easily used as a stepping stone, and he’s like, then what would you do if I was a monster if one appeared in front of you like this? And that’s really interesting, going more into what is going on with my mask, really, because we talked about this in the previous review, because it was brought up to the rest of the group in that meeting with Saitama.
You know, they now know that of course humans become monsters, but also monsters can here to be humans, and my mask was kind of acting oblivious to it, and let me just replay what we had talked about with him. So this is interesting, of course, that my mask would be saying this, because way back in the previous Arc after my mask had defeated Super S, we thought that he had killed her, but it turned out that he actually didn’t, and when she woke up, she tasted his blood because she had stabbed him in the eye previously.
She was like, this is Monster Blood. So that, along with my mask being able to regenerate from said Grievous injury, along with him being ripped in half by if you’re ugly and having his face smashed in, it’s looking like my mask is pretty much a monster at this point, or something like that at the minimum.
So it’s like, yeah, does he know that he’s a monster or does he not know, or is he not a monster, or is he like something in between, the way that Garo was? The verdict’s still out, but I’m sure we’ll eventually find out what’s going on with them, right?
But anyway, in response to my mask saying, like, you know what would you do if I was a monster, the bubbly boys say, well, then we’d beat you up, you know, it’s seven on one, and then my mask starts getting Vain and then activates like his conqueror’s hockey on them, and they’re just All Shook and they start shivering and they can’t move, and he’s like, that’s your instincts warning you.
You and I are far too different biologically. And it’s like, again, is he just saying that to show the difference between how much better he is than them, or is he saying, like, you know, biologically because I’m a freaking monster? Then he goes into classic veiny my mask mode, and he’s like, none of you have it. You don’t have beauty. Beauty like his. And then we see him picturing Saitama, the beauty of overwhelming power. So it’s like, yeah, that’s the key word there.
My mask knows that Saitama is pretty much the One Above All, which is huge because now we have another character who knows the truth about him, believe it or not. We don’t have many characters that know the truth at this point in the series. I mean, there are some of them that know Saitama’s strong, but they’re still kind of in delusion about it, like Flashy Flash, for example. So, like, my mask acknowledging this is a big deal because he’s just as delusional as Flashy Flash and just as pompous as well.
So, like I said, this is a big deal and my mask is going to be pursuing Saitama after this. He’s not just going to stop here, and this whole sequence setting up how the Bubbly Boys are going to be the successors of the new top Idols. This is kind of establishing what my mask is looking for. He’s not looking for the Bubbly Boys, he’s looking for Saitama. And like I said before, we will come around to what my mask ultimately wants to do with Saitama here, but it’s probably going to take a while to get to that.
There’s a lot of other things that need to happen before that. But then we’re coming to Saitama in his apartment and he’s finally meeting up with the A-Class Heroes that are his neighbors: Forte Butterfly DX, Enchant, and Chain and Toad. They’re introducing themselves and he introduces himself to them, and we find out that Chain and Toad is wearing this mask because it gives him character and he becomes more popular with the kids as a result. We saw him in Death Gatling’s group that went against Garo.
Butterfly DX also just kind of says that he’s popular. We don’t really get too much insight into his abilities, but I guess he can kind of fly. We saw that he was with the group that was taking on Hunter’s Octopus with Flashy Flash. And then Forte says that he listens to music and battles with his rhythm and that he’s kind of popular too.
Saitama’s like, ‘Is it working up a rhythm every time you fight really pointless?’ And that angers Forte, and he’s like, ‘You and Meatball, outside right now. I’ll show you my strength.’ And that’s where the chapter ends, and it’s like, yeah, he obviously doesn’t understand what he’s getting himself into.
And if I’m thinking that this is gonna play out the way that it does in the webcomic, the opening sequence of the next chapter is gonna be amazingly hilarious, and you can’t even really guess what’s gonna happen. All I can say is that it’s just really funny and just so one. Like the way that One writes these awesome comedic sequences is just perfect. But that’s pretty much it for the blog today, guys. Let me know what you thought about this chapter in the comments, and I’ll see you in the next one.
That’s me, Andreea Blaga, author of the blog anime-everything.com. I work as a content creator in the US. I am also passionate about Japanese Anime.
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