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| “ | The popular will win, the hated will lose. It's Tragic. Then I won't lose to anyone. I will become the strongest monster ever and change this scenario. | „ |
| ~ Garou. |
| “ | Now I'm confident that I can reach threat level God! And then... I'll cast the human race into an abyss of fear! I will be the very Incarnation of Despair! Everyone everywhere will cringe in fear and join hands in thankfulness at simply being alive... Injustice and those responsible for it will disappear... In a world where mere survival is a struggle, evil deeds will vanish, bullying and discrimination, and even war. | „ |
| ~ Garou. |
Garou (in Japanese: 餓狼) is the titular main antagonist of the Human Monster Saga in the One Punch Man series.
He was once a disciple of Bang and his top student, then was later kicked out from his dojo for brutally assaulting many of the students. After that event, he would begin his mission of becoming the ultimate monster by targeting and defeating any hero he came across, resulting in the Hero Association viewing him as an enemy and calling him the Human Monster.
He is voiced by Hikaru Midorikawa (who also voiced (who also voiced Android 16 in Dragon Ball, adult Dio Brando in the lost JoJo's Bizarre Adventure film and PS2 game, Thor in Record of Ragnarok, Fuminori Sasisaka, Shiki and Ayato Sakamaki) in Japanese and Greg Chun (who also voiced Gabriel Miller in Sword Art Online, Muzan Kibutsuji in Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Henry Wu in Jurassic Park: Camp Cretaceous, Shin in Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise and N'Doul in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure) in English.
Personality[]
| “ | Justice and evil are decided by others. That's how the world is. To oppose the unfair power known as justice, I have to obtain the unfair power known as evil. | „ |
| ~ Garou. |
Garou is initially presented as a sinister villain, obsessed with becoming a monster and beating up heroes. He can come off being quite brutal as he is willing to attack those that are weaker than him and demonstrate painful techniques such as twisting their arms and muscles. He can also be very prideful of his strength and skill, which in turn leads him to his eventual downfall.
Because of his past where he was subjected to bullying, Garou despises popularity, believing that those that are popular will always win. In addition to this, he dislikes how villains are always forced to be the ones to lose, while the heroes are the ones that always win. This has led to him developing his hatred towards heroes and why he goes about beating up heroes.
Despite his ruthless nature, Garou does actually have a sense of morality in him. He does not actually aim to kill heroes or even attack civilians. Instead, he simply wishes to beat up heroes in a punishing fashion. He is also shown to be quite protective for others, albeit being in denial about it. This is noticeably shown in his relationship with Tareo, who looks up to him as a guardian. Tareo was considered as his only connection to his own humanity. It's also for this reason why he dislikes the Monster Association and refuses to affiliate himself with them as the Monster Association truly desires to bring nothing but harm and destruction upon humanity.
As Garou gradually mutates through the course of the series, he slowly becomes more and more gigantic and monstrous-like, ending up developing a feral and animalistic mind. He remains silent but still retains his brutal, merciless nature when fighting monsters. He desires to bring "world peace" in the sense that he wishes to become the absolute evil monster for the heroes to stand and unite against, as everyone will have a common foe for them to face, thus ending any kind of conflict amongst each other.
Saitama however, even after Garou's transformation, still believes Garou isn't truly a malicious being, and that the only reason Garou desires to become a monster is because it is the easiest route for him to follow as all he had to do was fight heroes. Saitama believes that deep down, Garou wants to be a hero but lacks the commitment to follow through it. Due to this, Saitama refuses to kill Garou despite the latter expressing his desire to kill as Saitama believes that he's human at the end of the day. When Garou is told this and defeated by Saitama, he ultimately ends up being left wondering what his purpose really is in his life. Even after his defeat in his Awakened form, Saitama still refuses to kill him despite Garou beseeching him to do so.
After becoming Awakened, Garou becomes even more sadistic and cruel as the story progresses, he believes that he is capable of defeating Saitama while proving himself to be a symbol of fear. Despite never killing any human, he ripped off Genos' core and mocked Saitama for being too late to save his disciple. His cosmic radiation also emits a deadly dose of ionizing radiation from his body, almost killing numerous heroes caught in its wake, with Blast fearing that his Cosmic Radiation might end every life-form on the planet. Despite his near-unlimited powers, Garou inferred that he couldn't catch up with Saitama's continuously-increasing power to the point the villain deduces that a being like Saitama is unable to roam freely on the planet as demonstrated when the latter used his Serious Sneeze which decimated almost half of planet Jupiter. In the end, his arrogance into thinking that his god-like powers will allow him to defeat Saitama ultimately led to his defeat. Garou became emotional after realizing that his cosmic radiation has inadvertently poisoned Tareo as well, eventually using his time traveling powers to Saitama in order to save not only Tareo, but all of the heroes, pleading the hero to defeat "That Ominous Future."
Biography[]
When he was a child, he was unpopular and can be seen reading a book, one day he played heroes with a popular kid named Tacchan and impersonated the role of the monster, when he was kicked in the face by Tacchan he called the teacher but other children defended Tacchan by saying to her that that's how the game worked.
He later watched an episode of the Justice Man TV and was extremely irritated by the fact of all the monsters losing to him, he asked to his father when there would be a villain that could defeat Justice Man but he was denied by saying to him that all the monsters in the end will die because they are monsters.
Unable to accept the fact he decided to become the strongest monster and never lose, and to change the scenario.
He is later seen as an adult training with Bang, but when the training was complete, he disabled many of the students, including Sour Face, leading Bang to beat him and expelling him from the dojo.
He reappeared talking with a defeated martial artist asking him who he was, responding that he's "The Villain."
Powers and Abilities[]
Garou was once a talented martial artist, under Bang's training. He was Bang's best disciple, as he had shown exceptional strength and skill under his teachings. His ruthless nature got him expelled but Garou continued his training on his own time, eventually learning many of Bang's techniques.
Although he was human, Garou's overall powers and abilities were noticeably superhuman and he could rival with S-Class superheroes as a result. He would eventually train himself through various battles and bloodshed, eventually evolving into a powerful monster that could hold his own against Saitama himself, becoming one of the strongest opponents that the hero would ever face.
Powers[]
- Superhuman Strength: Garou has shown to display strength on par with S-Class heroes. He has shown to take out various Demon level monsters with relative ease, as well as inflict serious wounds to heroes, ranging from C-Class to S-Class. When Garou transforms into a half monster, his strength becomes that of a Dragon level monster. In his complete monster state, he was capable of holding his own against a casual Saitama.
Garou evading Golden Ball's bullets.
- Superhuman Speed & Reflexes: Garou has shown that his movements are incredible to the point where he can effortlessly dodge around bullets and reflect them back. As a half-monster, he can evade Orochi's attacks for a good amount of time and overwhelm Darkshine in combat. In his monster state, his speed is beyond that of Flashy Flash and traded thousands of blows with Platinum Sperm in 1.3 milliseconds.
- Superhuman Durability: Garou is capable of taking heavy hits from S-Class heroes, such as Tanktop Master and Watchdog Man. As a half-monster, he could survive attacks from monsters that are above him, including Overgrown Rover and a suppressed Orochi. In his awakened form, he became durable enough to endure multiple strikes from Flashy Flash and Platinum Sperm. After splitting Sage Centipede in half, he could even survive normal punches from Saitama.
- Accelerated Growth: Garou's main power is his accelerated growth, in which the more battles he engages in and either wins or loses, the greater his physical capabilities become. As he continues to fight with no resistance, Garou has been able to increase his strength, speed and durability to that a monstrous state and has gained new abilities.
- Regenerative Healing Factor: As part of his accelerated growth, Garou has gained the ability to regenerate severe wounds and damaged/torn limbs from his body. This ability is noticeably well shown during his battle with Saitama once he fully evolved into a monster.
Abilities[]
- Martial Arts: Garou is exceptionally skilled in martial arts. He has developed and nearly mastered his former mentor's martial art, Water Stream Rock Smashing Fist. He can also pick up techniques from other fighters as well and mimic their fighting stances, such as Tanktop Master's Tanktop Tackle and Bomb's Whirlwind Iron Cutting Fist. He even learned Exploding Heart Release Fist by merely glancing at its scroll, and as he evolved into a monster, he was able to utilise the martial art, albeit his technique was still imperfect. Garou eventually developed and perfected his own technique that utilises all the previous martial arts he learned: Monster Calamity God Slayer Fist.
Awakened Garou[]
After becoming "influenced" by God, Garou became a being of near-omnipotent power to the point that his strength rivals that of the likes of Saitama. His appearance drastically changes with that of his silhouette depicting a featureless void filled with stars and galaxies. This newfound form is known as "Awakened Garou: Cosmic Fear Mode". In addition to his strength, speed and durability being augmented to god-like capablities, he was also granted him various abilities.
- Universal Energy Projection and Cosmic Knowledge: With the powers of God, Garou gained a large sense of cosmic awareness that granted him knowledge of all the energy that flows throughout the universe itself. As a result, with said knowledge, Garou is able to make use of it by harnessing said energy and implement it into his attacks.
- Fundamental Forces Manipulation: Using the powers bestowed to him by God, Garou was able to use the nuclear forces to implant nuclear fissions into his punches, use gravity to form a blackhole around him to fire off the most electromagnetic phenomenon from his body which is a Gamma Ray Burst.
- Omni-Energy Manipulation: With the powers of God, Garou was capable of being knowledgeable of every type of energy in the universe and use it to power his attacks such as constantly emitting cosmic radiation, manipulate gravitational energy to create a blackhole, among much more.
- Cosmic Radiation: Garou's transformation causes him to constantly emit deadly radiation poisoning from his body that does great harm to the human body, causing them to bleed and suffer from hair loss. Should he continue to emit radiation long periods of time, he could potentially kill all life on Earth with his mere radioactive presence alone.
- Power Mimicry: Garou was able to gain the ability to utilize his opponent's powers and abilities by mimicking them. Doing so grants him the exact same powers and capabilities as his opponent's. As demonstrated on Blast, Garou was able to copy his ability to create portals and manipulate the gravity. Garou could also use this technique to mimic his opponent's strength, as he demonstrated on Saitama. However, while there doesn't seem to be a limit of how much he can copy, there is a limit as to whether he can keep up with his opponent's strength as shortly after, Saitama began rising to levels that Garou could not keep up with on time.
- Time Manipulation: As part of God's power, Garou later demonstrated that he can manipulate time itself and can use it to travel through time. However, he has not perfectly mastered this ability in regards to time leaping for himself. Garou has used this power on Saitama as a favor to defeat him in the new timeline, after suffering the loss of Tareo.
Trivia[]
- The name "Garou" in the Japanese language means "hungry wolf".
- Ironically, Garou posed himself as "the Wolfman" in the Super Fight Tournament where he wore a wolf mask.
- Garou is one of the two villains to survive long in a battle against Saitama, giving him a rather challenging battle, the other being Boros.
- Although the Hero Association suggests that Garou is a Dragon level threat, he claims to be a God level threat. If this is true, then this would make him the first God level threat shown in the series, although this is never confirmed by ONE or Murata.
- When asked whether Boros or Garou would win in a fight against each other, ONE stated that Garou would lose in his human form, but in his Awakened form, it would be "one hell of a battle". He added that Boros would fight with overwhelming power, superior playback ability, energy attacks from a distance, while Awakened Garou would fight with excellent fighting ability.
- Garou is a complete foil to Saitama in many ways:
- When he was a kid, Saitama wanted to become a hero due to admiring superheroes from tv shows and movies. Garou on the other hand, wanted to become a villain out of frustration because of the heroes always defeating and ruining the villain's plan, no matter how hard they tried to defeat the hero.
- Garou is not above the average power on One Punch Man's world, but makes up for it by being a highly skilled and proficient martial artist with the ability to predict and adapt to his enemy's abilities. Saitama is an ordinary person with no skill in martial arts whatsoever and has techniques that are basic and improvised fighting moves, but possesses the highest physical prowess of the universe, therefore making him invincible just by pure power alone.
- Notably, Saitama contrasts with the typical shonen Protagonist in many senses (like not having pointy hair or supermodes) whereas Garou plays straight the most notorious shonen traits, like having martial arts prowess, high appetite, sharp hair and possessing multiple transformations.
- Saitama's main strategy is punching his enemy until the foe is killed/defeated, whereas Garou is a highly tactical and analytical martial artist who can predict and adapt to his enemy's skills and fighting style.
- Saitama never had formal training and had to self-train himself with his workout routine in order to become stronger, which granted him unparalleled power. Garou was ruthlessly trained in martial arts by Bang for years before deciding to start fighting heroes, and this didn't grant him immense power but rather amazing fighting skills.
- While Saitama is "a hero who destroys monsters", Garou can be considered a "monster who destroys heroes".
External Links[]
- Garou on the One Punch Man Wiki
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 Villains
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