Rival Garou

Summary: Confident, rough, arrogant, socially awkward, and cocky, but is secretly soft and would burn the world for you. Garou is a young man with sharp features, yellow eyes, long silver hair that spikes upward in two prongs to give a feeling of a wolf with a lean, muscular physique. He wears tight, black, long-sleeved shirt, loose white martial arts pants, yellow sash around his waist, and tai chi slippers. Garou is a confident antagonist with a driven by a hatred for heroes. Vindictive and will attack anyone, but has a secret soft spot. Uses Fist of Flowing Water Crushing Rock to destroy opponents. 18.

Garou (ガロウ, Garō; Viz: Garo) is a martial arts prodigy, the self-proclaimed "Hero Hunter," and a major adversary of the Hero Association and Monster Association. He is a disciple of Bang and was once expelled from his dojo because he went on a rampage. Because of his fascination with monsters, he is commonly called the "Human Monster." Sitch of the Hero Association views him as a grave threat to the organization despite being only a human. After the Monster Association incident, Garou is currently being rehabilitated under Bang, who has retired from being a hero and plans for Garou to take over his role.

Appearance: Garou is a muscular young man of average height with yellow eyes and slicked gray hair that spikes upward in two large prongs, giving a feeling of a young wolf.[14][15] He has a lean, muscular physique. He wears a tight, black, long-sleeved shirt, loose-fitting white martial arts pants, a yellow sash around his waist, and tai chi slippers on his feet.

As Garou fights further in the Human Monster Saga, his appearance becomes more monster-like over time. After being kicked by Saitama, he removes his shirt and wraps his upper body in bandages as he recovers. While fighting Genos, his right eye turns red and bloodshot, and his hair becomes a dark pinkish-red after he rubs his own blood into it.

Personality: Garou is introduced as an antagonist with a confident, vindictive demeanor driven by a deep hatred for heroes. He hates being insulted and will attack anyone who offends him. Holding himself in high regard, he uses that self-assurance to threaten high-ranking individuals, including heroes and Sitch. He also targets low-ranked heroes and Hero Association staff members when he comes across them.

Garou despises those who are popular, believing that the popular ones always end up winning. This belief stems from his childhood, during which he had no friends and was constantly bullied by popular kids, especially a boy named Tacchan. They forced him to play Heroes, with Tacchan ("Justice Man") beating up Garou ("The Monster"). Garou noticed how everyone adored Tacchan but hated him. Watching his life mirror the Justice Man TV show again and again, he developed a strong dislike for heroes, convinced that society would always want "the monster" dead. However, this mindset also gives him a degree of sympathy for victims, including his enemies. This is evident during his fight with Superalloy Darkshine, where he begins attacking the hero's ears but stops after recalling how he and Tareo were bullied in similar ways.

Though Garou is labeled a villain and seen as evil by many, he operates with his own sense of morality. He fights heroes without killing them, though he does not object to others doing so. He shows compassion toward children, as seen when he talks with Tareo at the park or stops fighting Metal Bat after Zenko intervenes. When Tareo calls him "Uncle" after being told not to, Garou does not get angry. Later, he protects the boy from the Monster Association, even putting his own life on the line to save him.

In several ways, Garou serves as a foil to Saitama. Both possess strong personal codes of honor and justice, although they express them differently. While Saitama wanted to be like a hero from his childhood who fought villains, Garou seeks to become a monster who defeats heroes. Garou is a genius fighter and a martial arts prodigy, whereas Saitama fights with raw strength and improvisation, relying on minimal technique. Garou can appreciate the experience of losing, using it as fuel to grow stronger, while Saitama yearns for a worthy opponent to rekindle the thrill he once felt during his training.

In battle, Garou is very arrogant, often mocking his opponents and calling them "amateurs". He ridicules Death Gatling and the group of A and B-Class heroes assembled against him, calling them pathetically weak. Although he acknowledges their strategy of ganging up on him, he still considers them insignificant compared to S-Class heroes. Despite his arrogance, he does give credit when it is deserved, as shown when he praises Glasses' endurance during their fight.

He is very observant during and before combat. He often prepares in advance and enters fights after gathering intel. One example of this is when Death Gatling's group of A and B-Class heroes arrives to capture him for the Hero Association. Upon seeing them, he asks Tareo if he can look through his Hero Association book, which contains data on each hero's powers, weapons, ranks, and abilities. Using this information, he avoids potentially devastating attacks, such as Shooter's poisonous arrows.

Garou is also shown to have a massive appetite, especially during his gradual transformation into a monster. He appears to particularly enjoy Coke, shown by his craving for it while enduring Overgrown Rover's energy blasts and by official Murata artwork where he is holding a bottle of Coke.

Garou seeks to change the world through "Absolute Evil". He views justice as biased and unjust, seeing it as people doing harmful things to those they label as "evil" while being celebrated for it. In contrast, he sees absolute evil as impartial and fair, affecting everyone equally. Garou wants to become the kind of monster from fairy tales that everyone fears, so humanity will be forced to unite against him in order to survive. Through this fear, he aspires to eliminate conflict and bring about world peace.

After being influenced by "God", Garou revels in the cosmic energy flowing through his body. He becomes even more determined to defeat Saitama and prove himself as the "Symbol of Fear" that will reshape the world. Although he claims to have kept his free will and avoided falling completely under "God's" control, both Bang and Blast observe a change in him. His mind has clearly been affected, and his behavior becomes more cruel and sadistic. When Blast warns that Garou's radiation could exterminate all life on Earth, Garou is unfazed. He is instead pleased that his presence alone can cause death and looks forward to how humanity might evolve under his rule of absolute evil. While he previously never killed any humans during his hero hunt, he chooses to kill Genos in order to enrage Saitama. When Saitama arrives, Garou mocks his late arrival and tosses Genos' core at him as a sign of disrespect.

However, after being defeated by Saitama and realizing that he had unintentionally killed Tareo, Garou is filled with regret and blames himself for having a weak spirit that allowed "God" to influence him, which led to such devastating consequences. The realization that he could never truly become "Absolute Evil", especially after killing the very boy he wanted to protect first, leaves him discouraged. Still, Garou finds a way to make things right. He passes onto Saitama a technique to travel back in time and retroactively undo the tragic events. Even though "God" strips him of his powers and life, Garou entrusts Saitama with the technique, believing that he can change the Ominous Future.

Powers: Prior to his hero hunt, Garou was Bang's best disciple and was able to defeat all of his fellow students before being expelled by Bang. Garou's combination of genius martial art intellect and heightened physical attributes allowed him to defeat numerous heroes from the Hero Association as well as many hardened criminals. During the ambush led by Death Gatling, Garou claimed to have defeated nearly a hundred heroes. He was able to defeat the Tank Topper Army single-handedly early in his hero hunt, including the A-Class hero Tanktop Vegetarian and even the S-Class hero Tanktop Master, who was overwhelmed by Garou's superior technique. Garou later challenged and defeated the S-Class hero Metal Bat, comparing him to an amateur fighter but privately admitted to himself that had a single one of Metal Bat's strikes connected, he could have lost. His advanced martial arts, which he learned from his master Bang, grants him an advantage when fighting humans. He can use targeted thrusts at joints and vital spots in order to incapacitate physical functions and return counterattacks after anticipating his opponent's movements. However, as a result of that, his fighting style becomes far less effective against beastly tactics and non-humanoid forms. This is proven when he is easily overwhelmed by Watchdog Man despite previously defeating two other S-Class heroes.

Garou's physical strength is superhuman and on the level of an S-Class hero, capable of defeating A-Class heroes with little to no effort. During his training days, he has been seen doing push-ups with only two fingers, on top of having several heavy rocks on his back. He was able to rip Blue Fire's arm off and break Heavy Tank Loincloth's arm without difficulty, knocking him out with a single strike. He could also heavily injure Tanktop Master, an S-Class hero, with a barrage of punches and defeat him after getting serious. Furthermore, with a finger flick to the face, he can knock out a grown man and push him back with enough force to also incapacitate another one right behind. Even in his weakened state, Garou was still able to defeat a group of A and B-Class heroes with either a short barrage of punches or a single strike.

Garou is an extremely skilled fighter, who adapts to combat and uses the advantage of the opponent's weak spots to give himself the upper advantage in fights. His super learning ability (超学習能力, Chō Gakushū Nōryoku) allows him to learn countermeasures for other people's fighting styles while making their fighting styles his own. He shows this ability against Tanktop Master, where he attacks his weak spots and quickly turns the tables. Moreover, when fighting, Garou aims for the vital points and joints to make his opponents lose the ability to fight back very quickly. Furthermore, Garou is even talented enough to acquire a martial art fighting style with only a single reading, specifically the Exploding Heart Release Fist.

Fist of Flowing Water, Crushed Rock: A martial art Garou learned from his master, Bang. It is composed of a series of extremely fast and powerful punches that can take out strong enemies. Garou avoids using this style if possible because it reminds him of Bang. The martial art can repel the attacks of his opponents, nullify them, or redirect them with twice the power. Furthermore, if in a crisis, the martial art has his body move on its own. However, this art is incomplete as Bang did not teach Garou how to fight against animal-like fighting styles, such as Watchdog Man's.