TATSUMAKI GOES BERSERK – One Punch Man Chapter 176 review

TATSUMAKI GOES BERSERK – One Punch Man Chapter 176 review

So, coming over the previous chapter, we found out that the Hero Association had Psychos in prison this whole time, and they were planning on selling her off to this esper group called Tsukuyomi. And Fubuki came to the Hero Association in hopes of trying to stop this from happening. And as she was making her way down with Saitama to get to where Psychos is being held, we went into like two different flashbacks. So, the first flashback was right after Garo was defeated.

We saw that Fubuki had found where Psychos was hiding, and that brought us into a flashback of them apparently being classmates in high school. And that brings us to the beginning of this chapter, and we’re essentially seeing Psychos’s descent into madness, I suppose, where we see her being really obsessive about this group that she’s in with Fubuki called The Society for Supernatural Research. But going further, we see Psychos reading this book trying to learn this new ability called the Third Eye. She says, “If I can manage to pull this off, I’ll be able to predict a future just like the great prophet Shibawa.”

So that’s a reveal right there, I guess, confirming or kind of confirming that Shibawa was an esper. And like before, I found this out, I didn’t really think too much of Shibawa and her abilities. I thought she was just kind of unique in the fact that she could do that, but no, turns out that she was an esper who could utilize the Third Eye ability.

I guess she was like the master of it because she did accurately predict the future. I mean, that was her duty before she died. She would foresee all of these great disasters that would happen and then let whoever needed to know, you know, Hero Association, whoever, before that, and that’s how they would be able to stop these disasters from happening until, you know, she eventually saw the prophecy, you know, the end of the world thing that started off the series, and she died from choking afterwards.

And speaking of that, it turns out that Psychos pretty much saw the same thing that Shibawa saw, only much earlier than she did, because this was like years ago when she was in high school, and Shibawa only saw this prophecy like two months ago or something in like the current timeline of the story. Hey, also guys, if you like my One Punch Man content, please subscribe if you haven’t already. It’s fine if you don’t want to, but if you just need a reminder, here you go, thanks.

But yeah, this is like the beginning of Psychos going crazy essentially, because when she sees the vision, it’s presented as just all of these lines and whatnot. Like, of course, we don’t get to see this because this is a big deal. Maybe we’ll see what their visions were eventually, but it sends her off into this crazy psychotic rant where she’s basically saying that humans suck more or less and that there’s no point in even taking over the world and like ruling them.

The only thing left to do is just essentially kill them all. And yeah, this is where she goes insane and starts telling this to everybody else, including the group which we saw in the previous chapter, and this is more or less what caused Fubuki to seal off her powers. Not necessarily because she was going to kill everybody or had these crazy plans, but more so because, keep in mind, this high school Fubuki, but Fubuki wanted to rule over everyone, and if Psychos were to kill everyone, then Fubuki would have no one to rule over.

Everyone, and if psychos were to kill everyone, then Fabuki would have no one to rule over. So she sealed off psychos’s powers in some unknown way, but yeah, this is the reasoning as to why. And I don’t know how psychos unseals her powers either, she did it through training or God did it for her.

We’re coming back to the end of Psychos taking on Fabuki, and Fabuki somehow defeats her here, and this is pretty impressive, of course, because Fabuki is, you know, B Class Rank One, which is technically like a Class Hero, but still, Psychos is designated as a Dragon, and yeah, Psychos came into the battle weakened, fatigued, or whatever, but still, Kabuki doing this is incredible.

I mean, Fabuki was doing her stuff too, you know, healing people and everything, and surprisingly, it’s not being explained in the Manga version how Kabuki is defeating Psychos, explained in the webcomic, so I don’t think it’s going to be retconned. I think how she’s defeating Psychos here is going to be explained in like the next chapter or the next two chapters because there is a specific way that she’s doing it, and it’s kind of integral to Fabuki as a character as well as her power set, so I assume this will be explained a little later.

But she asks Psychos, like, you know, what is it that you saw in the future, and after she knocks her out, she kind of goes into her head. She’s like, you know, what exactly changed you? Is this a source of your madness? Something we’ll find out when the future comes. And then suddenly, God appears above them, and Fabuki is definitely aware that, you know, something is going on right now.

I mean, she’s not aware that it’s God, of course, so yeah, this definitely proves that obviously God is behind prophecy and everything, as we knew, and is able to tap into the third eye or something. And it seems like if you’re a good, morally just person, the way that Shiba was, you could possibly die from seeing the vision because she choked on a cough drop or something, but it’s possible that God forced her to do that.

I don’t know, but it seems like if you’re evil or be able to be manipulated into becoming evil, the way Tychos was, then he’ll just make you his disciple essentially because this is all part of God’s plan, like influencing the person who’s capable of orchestrating your plan, like planting these thoughts into psycho’s head so she eventually makes the Monster Association and eventually makes a roach because Orochi is prophesized to be placed on the altar to bring God back to Earth. It’s all part of his plan and it has to start somewhere, although I’m sure he’s tried this many times.

But we come back to Fubuki and Saitama finally making it down to where Psychos is being held, and they meet up with that Joker guy from the Tsukiyomi group, and she’s like, ‘This visitation’s over, everyone has to evacuate this room immediately. You guys added Psychos to the incarceration list, so now this information is accessible by any Pro Hero,’ meaning that my sister, Tatsumaki, is probably going to see it and she’s going to come here to finish her off. And what do you know, she does that immediately and she rips the ceiling off, and Saitama’s like, ‘I see the person behind the destruction of my house.’

This is important because this is kind of like Saitama’s little mini quest right here or what’s been going on after he defeated God, trying to figure out who destroyed his apartment, and technically it was Tatsumaki, you know, when she was fighting Orochi, but don’t you think that it probably would have been destroyed sooner or later in that massive battle that was going on? But still, somebody has to take the blame, I suppose, and it’s going to be Tatsumaki, essentially. So just keep that in mind that Saitama is kind of upset about this.

So Tatsumaki busts in and she’s like, ‘Why is she still alive?’ and she tries to throw rocks on her, but the Joker guy and Fubuki kind of shield Psychos from her, and then Tatsumaki just sends the Joker guy into the wall easily, and it seems like Fubuki and Tatsumaki are about to fight or something. Like Fubuki’s protecting Psychos from Tatsumaki trying to crush her, and she’s like, ‘What are you trying to pull, Fubuki? Did you get brainwashed or something?’

No, turns out that this is actually a ruse orchestrated by Tatsumaki, and that they’re actually not at odds here, kind of just putting on a performance, because we’re going into another flashback, and this is seemingly happening sometime before they meet up here, and Tatsumaki is telling Fubuki that, ‘Yes, Tsukiyomi, you know, the group that the Joker guy is a part of, she says that they’re the psychic research organization that locked me up and used me as a guinea pig. Those guys are after Psychos.’

So this is pretty cool. This is what we speculated about in the previous blog, that the Tsukiyomi group is probably the same group that had Tatsumaki when she was a kid and running experiments on her and stuff like that. And Blast eventually saved her from that place, but he also had a cube in his hand, and I was like, those guys probably, you know, were doing Cube research as well and probably know more or less what God is, or at least that God is out there.

And turns out, yeah, it’s true. This guy is coming from the very same group, and Tatsumaki wants to work together with Fubuki here to protect Psychos from being taken by them. And she says that she has her reasons, but I think it’s because, first of all, she doesn’t want that group to get Psychos because that’s not good, but also because I think she knows that Psychos is being manipulated by God, or at least by someone.

I mean, she kind of figured this out when she was fighting Saitoroshi, but maybe more or less came to that conclusion afterwards, especially when she was encountered by God himself impersonating as Blast, although she was kind of like half awake when that happened. I’m pretty sure she realizes what’s going on here, so she’s trying to give Psychos a redemption, possibly while also, you know, not having the bad guys take her and then manipulate her and use her to their benefit.

But then the Joker guy gets up and like destroys the security camera and knocks out the Hero Association Executives, and Tatsumaki is like, huh, I guess there’s a tiny bit of progress in the development of artificial psychics after all, so that’s interesting. Turns out that that Tsukiyomi group is making artificial psychics or espers.

This is something that we didn’t really know before, but it makes sense considering all the research that they’re doing. And I don’t know exactly how they’re doing it, I’m sure there’s some kind of operation you can do, but it’s possible that they’re also using the cube to make this happen as well, because they were kind of using the cube to make monsters or something, so they could probably make espers from it too. If not, it’s kind of just figuring out how the esper brain is wired and then them trying to replicate that on somebody else.

But this guy’s pretty powerful despite not being like a naturally born esper, and it’s even stated by Fubuki. So I also said that this guy’s probably Dragon level, and it seems like that’s probably the case. But Saitama’s like, you know, hey, I came here to say a few words to you for destroying my place, but it doesn’t seem like you’re sorry at all about it, so remember not happy about this.

And Fubuki’s like, I’m lucky you came alongside, Dama. I see great strength in you. You’ve been playing dumb about it, but I think you’re the one who defeated Garo. And Saitama’s like, no, I honestly don’t remember. And this is of course because his future self fused with his present self, and I don’t know, the memories of everything that happened between him and Garo in space and a little bit before that kind of just got wiped along with the power increase that he got.

So he generally doesn’t know that he defeated Garo, which is good and convenient for the story going forward. But Fubuki’s like, Garo was someone who had reached a peak and ascended.

Having taken him down, you’re probably somebody who has ascended as well. It’s interesting how “ascendant” is being used here. This could be a way to indicate somebody who has gone past the limiter, removed it in Saitama’s case, broken it in Garo’s case, or have just been given power beyond the limiter from God, possibly.

I don’t know that for sure, but it seems to be the implication here. But the Joker guy clashes with Tatsumaki psychically or something, and the ground splits underneath Saitama, and he just falls beneath and lands inside of this monster attainment cage with all these demon levels. I’m assuming that Metal Knight put these monsters here for research and development, making his robots as strong as they are and whatnot.

But there’s probably also a nefarious element to this that Metal Knight doesn’t condone or maybe isn’t even necessarily aware of, which I think we’ll get into in the next couple of chapters. Saitama’s down here, and obviously the stakes aren’t very high. I mean, even if they were all Dragon levels, the stakes would still be non-existent.

We know that Saitama could just snap his fingers and they’ll all explode, but there is more to this. That’s where the chapter ends. Let me know what you thought about this chapter in the comments, guys.  Have a great day, and I’ll see you in the next one.

Andreea Blaga

That’s me, Andreea Blaga, author of the blog https://anime-everything.com. I work as a content creator in the US. I am also passionate about Japanese Anime.