Summary
- Garou’s childhood, bullied and powerless, shaped his hatred of heroes and desire for strength.
- Perfectionism and a lust for power led Garou to attack heroes as stepping stones for improvement.
- Corruption within the Hero Association justified Garou’s extreme violence in his quest to become a human monster.
When viewers are first introduced to the self-described hero hunter Garou in One Punch Man, his motivations might seem strange. This ex-disciple of Bang sees himself as a monster, despite being human, and identifies more with monsterkind than he does humankind. This personality trait has led to an intense hatred of heroes, to the point he wants to beat and destroy them all.
While this motivation is communicated simply enough for those who watched One Punch Man, some may wonder just how Garou has come to hold these ideals. This article will attempt to uncover just why Garou possesses this hatred of heroes so deeply.
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Garou’s Backstory
A Unique Perspective
|
First Mentioned |
Season 1, Episode 10 (By Bang) |
|
First Appearance |
Season 2, Episode 1 |
In Season 2, Garou’s childhood is briefly shown to explain his obsession with hunting heroes. As a kid, he would watch a stereotypical good-defeats-evil superhero show revolving around the adventures of Justice Man. However, Garou would always root for the villain in the show and would be furious that the hero stopped their plans. Garou saw the monsters as the underdogs worth rooting for and objected to them being killed by Justice Man.
Despite his current state as a powerful fighter, Garou spent much of his childhood as a helpless kid. He was bullied by other children who cast him as the villain in their hero roleplaying games. These events reinforced to Garou at an early age that heroes were self-righteous and unjust hypocrites. One object of Garou’s ire, a kid known as Tacchan who bullied him, was always happy and liked by everyone despite the way he treated Garou.
Eventually, Garou became tired of being powerless and became consumed by a determination to right the wrongs in his life. This led him to seek out martial arts training in S-class hero Bang’s Dojo. He then became Bang’s student, discovering a natural talent for martial arts that led to him excelling and becoming a top disciple.
Quietly Sharpening His Blade
Garou’s Turn From Student to Destroyer
As Garou improved his fighting skills, he began to develop issues with perfectionism, striving to be the best at any cost. This obsession with being powerful led to his need to improve, no matter what, constantly. During one training session, Garou spectacularly smashed ceramic plates, but his master Bang pointed out he still missed breaking one, causing Garou frustration.
In the end, his martial training ended up amplifying the negative aspects of his personality traits. This eventually led him to decide that he needed to attack all the other students one day because he couldn’t learn anything else from training. At that moment, Garou gained a lust for overcoming strong opponents that melded with his childhood dislike of heroes to set him on a path to become the hero hunter. He saw the heroes as hypocritical cowards who lorded their power over others and deserved to be punished, but also as strong fighters he could use as a stepping stone to perfect his fighting abilities.
Garou would enter a martial arts tournament in disguise to fight stronger opponents and eventually made his move against the Hero Association directly in Season 2. Much like he did with the students at his former dojo, Garou defeated, maimed, and massacred a gathering of heroes assembled by Hero Organization officer Sitch. After this event, Garou decides to pursue his goal of becoming the strongest human monster and actively hunt heroes down.
At the core of his issues, Garou’s negative worldview is constantly being reinforced throughout his life. No authority figure comes to his aid while being bullied as a child. The only solution he sees is to train himself to overcome his problems with violence, which society in the world of One Punch Man encourages and rewards. The show goes out of its way to show corruption within the Hero Association’s leadership and even among some top-ranked heroes. This gives Garou an easy justification in his mind to go on his rampages, believing he is ultimately contributing to the greater good with the same extreme violence that heroes inflict on monsters and others.
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One Punch Man can be streamed on Crunchyroll.
