One Punch-Man is one of the most beloved anime and manga series today, and it is not for less, since the long-awaited fight between Saitama and Garou finally began. Like everyone else before him, this villain is shocked at Saitama’s ridiculous strength, but is quickly able to find a way to deal with him.
Something that we find quite striking is that One Punch-Man chapter 163 shows that Garou’s fighting style is actually throwing Saitama off his game, to the point that the bald hero has to admit that “the way strange” that Garou moves in causes him to miss his hits.
For his part, Garou acknowledges Saitama’s superior physical abilities, but is still confident that he can win due to his opponent’s lack of technique. As a master of martial arts, Garou can predict Saitama’s moves and exploit his many openings.
Saitama, in fact, lacks traditional combat training like his own disciple, Genos. He relies on his monstrous physical abilities to win fights, and his supposed techniques are nothing more than regular punches or basic moves. Garou, on the other hand, developed his own unique fighting style, the Monster Calamity God Slayer Fist, the fusion of the many styles he has learned and absorbed during battles with him.
Garou’s former master, 3rd rank S-class hero Silver Fang, has already shown how a supremely refined martial art can allow a normal human to defeat a monster with superior physical qualities. In this case, Garou also has a “monsterized” body, which keeps evolving as the fight progresses, so he possesses the perfect combination of power and technique.
Finally, he is aware that as tough as Saitama is, his internal organs can still be damaged, and that is what he aims to achieve. However, despite Garou’s best efforts, Saitama continues to toy with him, holding back his power and reducing his hits, because he already realized that Garou is not actually a monster. Saitama does not fight to kill, like he does against normal monsters, but to make Garou realize his mistakes.
In the original webcomic published by One, Garou was the only enemy that made Saitama slightly serious, but he was completely defeated in the end. It will be interesting to see if the digital manga will follow the same story or, as it has in the past, take a different direction. Regardless of the outcome, Garou correctly identified that Saitama’s only weakness (besides being terrible in video games) is his lack of technique and martial arts training.