Untitled

Well…

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1sHieEwLNry5meL-MVWfAku0xPDyeaCzT?usp=sharing

There’s about 3 hours of music. These are -very- rough little recordings- just my voice and my guitar on my phone, but I thought that people might be interested in them, since it will be a while before they are in a different, more polished form, if they ever are.

Included are:

Canto 1: Concerning Elu Thingol and Doriath

Canto 2: Concerning Barahir the Bold, the treachery of Gorlim, his death, and Beren Erchamion’s vow for revenge

Canto 3:  Concerning the meeting of Beren and Lúthien Tinúviel

Canto 4: Concerning Beren’s capture and the bride-price of Lúthien as laid down by Thingol: a Silmaril

Canto 9: Concerning Huan’s battle with Thû, the destruction of Wizard’s Isle, and the freeing of Beren

As well as large parts of Cantos 5, 6, 7, and 8.

Would really love to hear what people think- I’ve been working on this since 2020 in a vacuum with almost no feedback, ha

I'm counting 3 separate youtubers, it's seriously getting old, annoying and disrespectful to the author.

If y'all love One punch man so much, stop being do disrespectful and entitled. He's not a douche, he would have come out and announced WC had ended officially.

Garou would break 4th wall and kick all these people's asses for being so unfair.

Boros fight alone had to be redrawn like 3 times because it didn't convey what he wanted properly. Such as that Saitama did not actually like killing Boros and he felt bad about it, which is only NOW becoming more apparent. And Boros going out with dignity.

And that by writing this new series, he can't focus on writing OPM.

That's not how it works, my god.

Like idk it's apparently impossible for a person who wrote OPM and Mob psycho simultaneously to not have any room in their brain and creative outlet to write two series at once too.

Like bro, OPM story has so much foreshadowing the story outline was already finalized when the manga came out. There's a game that foreshadows Garou fight that came out in 2020. Themes surrounding God are referenced in episode 1 of season 1 that came out in 2015.

If it takes a year+ to write an entirely new series from scratch, it doesn't take 10+ years to finalize another one.

Then all these wild theories that editors/murata are writing the manga and not ONE.

It's a good thing ONE is an author who actively uses his brain capacity when he's writing something and publishing it.

Clearly 164 redraw, which decided whether or not Saitama and Garou would talk or fight, was written on the fly. Couldn't even figure out such a crucial point beforehand. There goes the multi year master plan of writing theory. The Boros fight was redrawn because Murata wasn't satisfied, not ONE. In the interview Murata said his old fight was too silly so he asked ONE for advice.

People have the right to be worried, but spreading rumours that are blatantly untrue is just disrespectful to the author. Those who already have negative opinions about OPM will continue to just take this as fuel to the fire and remain bitter and unfairly blame ONE for having other creative interests. That he should have, because it's his work, he has finances to manage too.

164 redraw though... one cannot seriously believe it wasn't actually planned out well in advance, because the decision to redraw it came immediately. They don't actually read fandom critique and won't let it affect their storytelling, this is something they've pointed out. It's even hinted at in Genos speech. It is one of those really subtle points that you can miss and you will think it's just a redraw but no, it's a large meta level troll from ONE that gives a ton of insight into OPM God's actual powers and what it is trying to achieve.

If you want to read the actual meta, I have it posted here.

Also... have a little bit of faith? ONE is a professional writer. And a really good one at that. Nobody read Mob psycho or One punch man because they looked like murata-senseis art, let's be real here. The plotline was always more interesting. From artist and drawing perspective, ONE's style was never about raw technique like you'd find from other mangakas and OPM started as a hobby.

Does it matter though which person was dissatisfied with how the Boros fight was portrayed though, if it did not capture the right feeling? The end product is very satisfactory and it remains as one of the best fights especially on the anime standards and there is a lot of additions and lot of subtle additions to the anime you can't find in the manga as foreshadowing that suggests ONE did have a large hand in how the anime was supposed to be portrayed. Those would be easter eggs.

How they develop how the manga proceeds and storyboarding has no doubt been more greased up to be smoother over the years of their continuous cooperation. No process is without some hitches though, as we know from the redraws of Saitama vs Orochi and Phoenixman and CE fight. People are not perfect and ONE obviously decided after that he wanted to foreshadow more in those particular fights. I find it hard to fault them heavily for those.

Not to mention Saitama vs Garou is an easter egg foreshadow in OPM game that came out in 2020. You can't write a character driven storyline unless you fully flesh out the interactions between the characters first. You can't just fart that stuff out of the blue and expect it to be good or professional.

But the thing is, manga and wc divergence is intentional because the character relationships are different and so, how they interact and drive the plot forward is going to be different. ONE's works have always been character driven and how they interact with the story, not how plot drives the characters.

The differences between manga and wc are only going to be more amplified from here on forward. They are comparable as contrasting types of character development and large character studies into how personality types would act if put into different kind of circumstances. It does not mean manga does not need wc though, far from it or neglects it in any way.

Just because it's a different route, does not mean it's bad though. Or rushed. Or unprofessional.

The contrast between manga and wc development will probably end up as being a major plot point because parallel worlds were confirmed in universe by Genos. Who has one of the highest IQ in the entire series too and narratively is a reliable narrator (aka speaks the objective truth), so if he explains a hypothesis, then it has a high chance of being factual evidence. The entire character's logic revolves around scientific skepticism and how he has to withhold it because Saitama keeps breaking logic.

Ergo, manga and wc timelines have separated now and are their own continuums. Expect more and larger divergences.

That we're suddenly back in wc plotline all of a sudden is funny just for the uncanny feeling because we have a comparison point. Which allows for the uncanny feeling that something is not quite right, something that Saitama also points out that he has a bad feeling.

It would be impossible to have such a buildup if it wasn't for manga and wc continuums both.

Oh, fan reaction? Maybe, maybe not. Or volume editors, as while online ONE technically has full freedom... neither her nor Murata are the final authority for what gets printed. That's Shueisha's discression, not theirs.

Yes, I read your meta... complete headcannon. There is absolutely nothing, nothing, zero, evidence of God having time travel. Like too many people, you using reverse logic "Obviously the story has to make sense, therefore any logic that justifies it is correct." No matter how honestly smart an idea that might be, it's the author who writes the story, not the fans.

Yes, professional writer... that's an insult, not praise when it comes to manga authors, there's a reason why so many manga start off good then go downhill, "franchising" and "arc structure" by its very nature puts commercial interest before the literary integrity. Just because ONE wrote two webcomics does not suddely except the manga from being spectacle based, simply because those webcomic cannot be appecriated for artistic beauty alone... while the manga can. So any story criticism in the manga is blunted.

Different does not equal bad, as shown by very, very few critics the tournament and early MA arc, compared to later. But different doesn't equal good later, no knowledge of the webcomic is required to show the manga's decline, the earlier manga tournament and pre-redraws are superior enough. Were the same people who loved the tournament and the retcons because of it, the same people who criticize the manga for ruining Saitama/Garou/Blast/God's characters?

Ahhh, thank you!

This is sort of weird response to this, but I've been working on it in the background since I started posting a few years ago; I just fell off posting because I'm not great at recording and was sort of lost on how to do that for such long pieces or how to host/share them...

But Cantos 1, 2, 3, 4, and 9 are fully written at this point, though they only exist as voice memos, as well as significant portions of 5 and 7 as well, haha

It it so wonderful and amazing to hear you have been laboring for so long to adapt so great and arduous a work as the Lay of Leithian. When I found the separate parts of Cantos I, II, VII, VIII, and X posted years ago, I was thankful for such a beautiful rendition of those few cantos, which you freely gave to the world, but saddened by the longing to hear the rest of the lay recreated in the same way.

Haha, how much like Tolkien you are! Just as when others such as Lewis, the Inklings, and publishers begged to see more of his work, when in secret he had been writing the drafts for Lord of the Rings, the Legendarium, and even the Lay of Leithian itself, unknown to the world, even fully by Lewis himself.

I'm counting 3 separate youtubers, it's seriously getting old, annoying and disrespectful to the author.

If y'all love One punch man so much, stop being do disrespectful and entitled. He's not a douche, he would have come out and announced WC had ended officially.

Garou would break 4th wall and kick all these people's asses for being so unfair.

Boros fight alone had to be redrawn like 3 times because it didn't convey what he wanted properly. Such as that Saitama did not actually like killing Boros and he felt bad about it, which is only NOW becoming more apparent. And Boros going out with dignity.

And that by writing this new series, he can't focus on writing OPM.

That's not how it works, my god.

Like idk it's apparently impossible for a person who wrote OPM and Mob psycho simultaneously to not have any room in their brain and creative outlet to write two series at once too.

Like bro, OPM story has so much foreshadowing the story outline was already finalized when the manga came out. There's a game that foreshadows Garou fight that came out in 2020. Themes surrounding God are referenced in episode 1 of season 1 that came out in 2015.

If it takes a year+ to write an entirely new series from scratch, it doesn't take 10+ years to finalize another one.

Then all these wild theories that editors/murata are writing the manga and not ONE.

It's a good thing ONE is an author who actively uses his brain capacity when he's writing something and publishing it.

Clearly 164 redraw, which decided whether or not Saitama and Garou would talk or fight, was written on the fly. Couldn't even figure out such a crucial point beforehand. There goes the multi year master plan of writing theory. The Boros fight was redrawn because Murata wasn't satisfied, not ONE. In the interview Murata said his old fight was too silly so he asked ONE for advice.

...is reading how people who are unhappy about the state of OPM and complaining about something like and I quote: "Saitama becoming a little baby over Genos dying" and another person stating "he went emo shounen protagonist and got upset upon thinking Genos died", is them exhibiting this same type of behaviour of toxic masculinity and emotional constipation and condemning showcase of actual emotions as something unwelcome and out of character.

Which is exactly the type of thing ONE is trying to tell is is dangerous and self-destructive. That they complain is poor storytelling.

Because humans are not robots. We have emotions and bottling them up will only cause unhappiness in the long run.

If someone has taught you that it's not ok to cry when your loved ones die because it's emasculating?

Honestly? Fuck those people.

It truly saddens and aggravates me that this is how some people are taught irl to deal with their emotions. Men specifically. Women have this luxury of not being judged for being sad or feeling emotional. It is regrettable that emotions are seen as weakness because guys have to be seen as strong or the society expects and depends on them to be like this in order to function.

You are not less strong because you show emotions, you're just human.

Express yourself, be kind to others and be honest with yourself. And if you need help, reach out to people.

We live in a very unstable age that contributes to existential crisis where we may regret many things if we keep on procastinating.

I think this is a fine message to send in terms of storytelling and the deeper themes is what makes the story in OPM so great.

If person does not like those kind of themes? That's fine.

But it is a story ONE wants to tell with OPM, something he feels is important because he and Murata-sensei are passionate about their work and it is not poor storytelling nor poor thematic because some people disagree with the theme and I honestly cannot say it's problematic or presented poorly either for point of critique, but that is my personal opinion and people are free to disagree with that as well. And everyone has the option to put the series down if it no longer interests them. One can absolutely curate their own interests online.

It does feel though that critiquing this aspect does miss one of the points of what ONE is trying to narrate however.

Probably the amount of emotion in OPM is why it has a ton of female fans too. For a seinen that appears to be battle manga on the surface, it thrives on the social interconnectivity between all these characters.

Saitama not showing emotion was dangerous and self-destructive? What? Far from it, Saitama being consumed by emotion was far worse, almost annihilating all of humanity... because his roommate died. Killing others because of your own pain makes you a monster, not a hero.

Yes, bottling up emotions is a bad thing and can lead to emotional outbursts... but that was never Saitama's problem... until recently of course.

A story about a man trying to block away his emotions to avoid the pain of caring is a deep concept, and has been executed beautifully in many, many works of fiction. But that was not and never was the story of One Punch Man... well... that is until recently.

The original story arc of One Punch Man was about a man who overcame every challenge and found success alone through his own strength and will... but found victory unfulfilling. Leading to his journey to find meaning in life outside of victory.

-Sorry, a rant-

Despite most of the discourse I have seen about him getting me like this:

‘How can people say the most foolish things with such confidence?’ It’s been explained to us that he doesn’t work like that! And-He-Is-A-Cyborg.

You won’t be able to do it yet, but I’ll tell you this anyway. Ignore the emotional cripples who think the ideal man should be like a hamster, something that needs to be all alone because every other individual is someone to fight or someone to fuck. Leave them to their loony anti-human projections and performative tough guy on the internet ramblings. They have their audience.

That said, I keep wondering how much more positive the reaction to Genos would have been if he’d been a guy with a regular flesh-and-blood body? I’ve read enough and listened enough and watched enough to feel that there’s a real unspoken thread running through much discourse too and it goes like this: “Only the characters I can physically identify with, the ones I can see myself in, are worth feeling any sympathy for.” And this is the same constituency that argues against any broadening of representation in popular fiction.

Sometimes it just becomes fascinating how people go out of their way to downplay him and “correct” people that don’t, for reasons I can’t fully comprehend. What is it about Genos in specific?

As you say… I wonder if something like a “bullying flashback” or the like would change the attitude even a little…

I have seen so many people say that he doesn´t deserve things because he is a cyborg, because that’s cheating and not his own… just…

I’ve thought too much about this but in a nutshell, Genos is Different. And not in a way that flatters them. Therefore he is suspect.

At the same time, his development is super subtle at times so it can seem like he does the same thing over again and that he puts his failures on the strength of the enemy and not on himself and his flaws (both of which are wrong but…), so those who don’t bother to look a little deeper see, well, an idiot.

I do think that, with all the backstory and flashbacks we get of Tatsu, Sonic, Amai, that ground their traumas, the lack of such for Genos also keeps his basic character premise firmly in the Joke category - so it’s easy to just look at everything Genos does as a joke, and therefore, he is the joke.

It’s an awful lot of work for the punchline of don’t like? Don’t read.

I hope it’s gotten a good reception on Reddit. Thinking about your characterizing the webcomic adherents (I won’t call them lovers. I love the webcomic and they don’t speak for me) as dismissing manga-only material as filler. if so, then people really are shooting themselves in the foot. It brings to mind of an arrogant and not quite as smart as they think student skipping much of a maths class because the axioms stated in the first two lessons were obvious and the intermediate classes seem to be tedious and then being poleaxed come mid-terms because the ‘easy’ and 'obvious’ and 'barely relevant’ stuff has started being put together Very Fast and they’re utterly lost at where it’s got to. The smarter, more humble student goes 'damn, I guess I should have paid attention’ and goes back to review so they can salvage some grade at finals. The less smart one? 'Stupid teacher.’

It’s true that first tastes linger; even a shitty restaurant has a clientele that it alienates when it changes the menu for the better. And the webcomic is far from shitty. But I think that complaining about the manga and complaining about people complaining about the manga has turned into its own self-feeding cultural phenomenon.

Not that it’s my concern. When I think about engaging with the shit-fest over on Reddit, it boils down to two key questions.

Do I want to read, think about and talk about the story I love?

Or do I want to read, think about and talk about people I don’t know from Adam, none of whom I’d care to meet IRL?

Not a difficult choice.

Season 2 ended at the wrong time.

Not to say it was a bad spot to stop a phase of the story. Saitama punched the centipede ending an epic battle and Garou is being taken away by the MA, it works.

But two chapters more and you end with the hot pot, the cadres being hyped up and Garou getting back up in the park. Four chapters more and you end with Garou fighting Orochi and Saitama lifting the manhole. Five chapters more and you end with the battle in the surface and Gyoro-Gyoro having a strategy meeting with the cadres.

And then you have a very long and chaotic battle where there is no appropriate time to stop because you are always in the middle of something. The previous structure of the S-class fightin the easy opponents-Saitama punches Orochi-the cadres enter the fray is no more, those fights got shuffled. The next stop is the slideshow with the S-class getting their asses kicked, and that is still stopping in the middle of something, and then Tatsumaki lifting the hideout.

So season three will have the next few acceptabble finales happen in the first few chapters and then won’t find one until we reach a point that the tankobon have not yet reached.

More pertinently for the story, the chapters of season 2 cover the actual ‘hero hunting’ phase of Garou.  When he’s carried away by Phoenixman, that’s the end of his life playing hide-and-seek with extra punches with heroes.  He’s going to be confronted first-hand by monsters and see what they’re actually like when they’re not ideas and it’s the beginning of a new, much more serious phase in his life.  That’s what makes chapter 84 work for me as a stopping place.  It puts our focus on what’s happening with Garou.

Chapter 85 recaps what happened and starts the build up to the next phase of the story, the grand disaster of a battle. It makes for a really good first episode of season 3.  And of course, we see how everything changes for Garou.

Yes, absolutely, the story takes a steep uphill climb ever higher and higher after Chapter 84. "But why not add another chapter?" is the catchphrase for the entire Monster Association Arc pacing if there ever was one. As a primarily anime viewer, ending 24 episodes Garou vs Orochi would have greatly alleviated the rushed 12 episode pacing to Elder Centipede.

But have to disagree, the S-Class slideshow and Tornado lifting the base are not stops in any sense of the word. Both are battles with no conclusion, slap in the middle of the action. Genos evacuating the kid and S-Class/Tornado "killing" Orochi are the only clear onscreen conclusions, at least without further anime story rearranging (such as for Saitama vs Orochi).

Probably everyone among my family and friends know I love One Punch Man above all other series (except Tolkien’s Legendarium of course). Most non-fans smile and wave “Ah well, just a weird Japanese Cartoon”, while anime fans have naturally varied opinions “Meh, One Punch Man isn’t that good for x reasons” or “Eh, I guess it’s okay” to “Yeah, One Punch Man is pretty awesome!”

With the sole exception of my best friend.

I’ve probably only talked to him about the series around five times… in the past five years. The first time was right after I finished the webcomic, and was raving about Garou’s story arc. Which recieved the understable, negative response “Meh, One Punch Man isn’t that good for x reasons”. Disappointing, but understandable. But the other three times? Just a passing reference to One Punch Man “Oh, the crazy cool thing happened in the manga!” which recieved the weird, almost ignoring response, “Huh, ok, whatever”. I didn’t realize it at the time, but that is exactly what he was doing: ignoring any reference to One Punch Man.

Finally, this year, I decided to try and broach the subject directly. I was fully prepare for a broken down negative respone “One Punch Man is a horrible series for x, y, and z reason” which sure, I would argue with and disagree with, but ultimately it was his opinion and preference, not mine.

I was whole unprepared for his visceral, short response. **“Don’t ever talk to me about One Punch Man ever again.”**

In a last ditch effort, I asked him for one simple answer, why he hated One Punch Man. “Because I despise Saitama”. And that was that was the end of that. I was completely confused. Like myself, he is not a non-argumentative person. He and I would debate any and every topic, media included. Even series we both agreed were awful, we could go over and discuss every reason why it failed. But not for One Punch Man… it was too painful for him to even discuss it.

Then it dawned on me: Of course he despise Saitama, why wouldn’t he? Because his two of his favorite characters in fiction are Goku and Superman… which Saitama is a direct parody of.

Superman is the moral and physical ideal. He will always make the right choice and he will always succeed. Because he’s not “a hero”, but “the hero”… that is what makes him Superman.

Goku strives to be the physical and moral ideal. He loses, he makes mistakes, he can be selfish and morally wrong, but he keeps trying. He is the everyman hero rising to become the ideal hero.

But Saitama? He is the physical but not the moral ideal… but is sometimes presented as the moral ideal. Saitama can be lazy, selfish, rude, and uncaring… so how can he be presented as the moral ideal like Superman? His training exercises are not special, every other hero far surpasses his training, so how does he deserve his strength like Goku?

Worst of all… he cannot be punished morally or physically. Any insult can be ignored, countered back, or just backhanded physically. And any physical punishment, Suiryu style? Doesn’t matter whether Saitama is invincible or not, he can’t suffer physically. Either he wins, proving him right by might makes right… or he loses, and enjoys his struggle, furthering justifying his obsession with a good fight. Morally speaking, Saitama can’t lose. He’s an invincible asshole.

But do I agree with those criticisms? Yes and no. Yes, Saitama can be an insufferable asshole, and yes, he can come off as hypocritical for citing the heroic ideal “Because I’m a hero” while being a a very flawed hero himself. Why? Because even if Saitama is not the heroic ideal, which King called him out on… Saitama believes in the heroic ideal in principle. “I may not be the ideal… but that doesn’t mean the ideal isn’t worth honoring.” Which is why Saitama respect moral ideals like Mumen Rider, Glasses, and Child Emperor.