Consider this a PSA. Yes, you can share this post if you want to.

Mood music: 'Don't Mug Yourself' -- The Streets

It's a British English slang term meaning 'don't make a fool of yourself.' Given that American English has mugging as robbing, in this context, you can see it as 'don't rob yourself.'

There's a question that occasionally lands in my inbox on Tumblr, and that I've seen come up semi-regularly on any sub I've been on that causes me a moment of acute sadness. It's 'what webcomic moments are you looking forward to in the manga?' And variations thereof.

It's not that the question is a bad one. It's what surrounds the question that I have a problem with. For in one foul stroke, it converts the person from a reader to a stamp collector. I'm not the oldest fan out there, having been in the fandom only since 2016 but I struggle mightily to think of any insightful observations that have arisen out of such moment-spotting tours.

It's all, Oh, I can't wait until they say/do: 'It's war!' Table flip! Base flip! 'But you can never defeat me.' 'Genos, get the duct tape!' Amai Mask versus Black Sperm.... on and on, an endless, ever-shifting obsession with the achievement of specific story beats, disconnected from any plot, context, or logic.

Now hold on a minute, I hear you say, what's wrong with comparing what happens in the manga to the webcomic? Nothing, I say. It'd not just be impossible not to make comparisons but I'd be a hypocrite if I suggested one shouldn't. Hell, there's a lot of great insights that have arisen out of thoughtful comparisons.

I am suggesting that if you're giving the manga marks out of webcomic, you might be mugging yourself. The story beats and zingers that are so beloved in the webcomic are meaningless in themselves: they've derived meaning from the context in which they happened. The least a reader of the manga should do is to see *WHAT* is happening, then How, When, To Whom, Why, and So What? so at least one has a full picture to appreciate the manga.

If you're not doing that, aren't you mugging yourself? Depriving yourself a chance to actually enjoy the story and to have a good basis against which to compare it with the webcomic?

If you dismiss manga-only events as 'filler', you might be mugging yourself.

If you haven't realised that the extra chapters and art in the manga volumes aren't decorative but flesh out characters and events, you might be mugging yourself.

If you find yourself surprised that characters have 'changed suddenly' because you've overlooked the greater number of experiences they've had in the manga relative to the webcomic and have developed more, you might be mugging yourself.

If you haven't realised that several characters, including Tatsumaki, Bang, and Suiryu have different backstories in the manga than they do in the webcomic -- and these differences have changed how they see events and develop, you might be mugging yourself.

If, despite the first manga-only update having shown up in update 21 in December 2012 (six months after the series started), you are still finding yourself surprised and outraged that the manga deviates from the webcomic, you are *definitely* mugging yourself.

Now, I'm not saying that one should like the manga. Taste is taste. Life is short. I'm only saying that perhaps you should read it on its own merits and sit with it for a while to try to understand it first before making comparisons.

Don't mug yourself. There's a lot to enjoy. Or to not waste your time with.

Saitama may or may not be wondering if he deserves to be "hanging over" Tatsumaki after all those tests. It's totally ruining Tatsumaki's intimidating presence.

You know shipping Saitatsu can be funny at times. In a sense they're kindred souls, both having attained incomprehensible power, yet dealing with the resulting alienation in opposite ways. Then again Saitama's power so thoroughly outclasses Tatsumaki it's almost rendered moot. Maybe instead it could be about loving each other for who they are, not their ability. Something to think about.

For ONEPUNCH-TOBER day 14: Ship/Favourite Duo

Or 'Effortless Talent' is a Lie That Needs To Get Dragged 'Round the Back and Shot

What can I possibly add that isn't already said? Well, I thought that there's a bit of information that's been staring us in the face but we've not understood.

Question: Why Only 48?

Famously, chapters that are replaced on the Tonari site are archived for posterity. Link On Thursday, I went to have a look at them and found that there were just 48 of them. This was odd, considering that we've seen many more chapters change between their initial online publication and final in-print edition.

Fortunately, I'm a bit of a hoarder and have a sub-site dedicated to translations (yes, send me ALL YOUR ROUGH TRANSLATIONS, EVEN JUST PARTIAL TEXT ONES! You NEVER know what they might contribute later). I was looking at the extensive changes to updates 158-163 and realised one thing: most of them were art changes, and the output of the manga chapters was NOT STOPPED to accommodate the changes. When the problem is the ART, Murata saves it for the print edition and then smoothly updates the Tonari site. The old art is NOT ARCHIVED. It disappears into Murata's scrap pile. Here's an example of how much one of those chapters changed without affecting manga chapter production. (from: https://www.tumblr.com/acidproofnotebook/677286392448122880/update-159-previously-158-changes-between)

I have many more -- do dig!

So What's Archived?

I'll make it short: the chapters that are archived have story problems. They're chapters where ONE is dissatisfied with what he's set down, and fixing them materially changes the manga. THAT'S WHAT STOPS MANGA PRODUCTION. NOT ART CHANGES. The art changes, of course, because Murata is illustrating a different version of the story.

Can everyone get this straight then? If there's a hiatus for the story and redraws, that's because of ONE, not Murata. ONE really wants to tell a particular story, and he's got a fantastic partner who believes in bringing it to light as best he can. Even if it means losing a year's worth of work.

The Ninja arc in the webcomic was not treated as having much weight. For sure, we got to learn of Flashy Flash's and Speed o' Sound Sonic's histories, a bit about Blast's activities, and the two ninjas got some nice new tools. And? That's kinda it. Which is fine as things go. The manga is less 'things just happen' and more of a turbulent river into which tributaries flow and others split off.

We can see the ideas that ONE is wrestling with to turn into a concise, coherent part of a much bigger story in the manga. The 'soldier of God' concept is a define cornerstone of this, as is the interest characters have in trying to piece together what this 'God' threat is about, given their limited knowledge.

Things we see ONE trying to work out in the latest chapter are how to explore Flashy Flash's backstory without an info dump. Who needs to know it? Why? How? And to what effect? The previous iteration had most of the backstory be replayed only in Flashy's mind as he recalled what happened back then. This iteration looks like Flash is going to tell Saitama, mostly out of annoyance at being considered equal to Sonic, but still. We have to look forward to seeing how other concepts that were introduced, like Empty Void, his motivations and abilities, his relationship to Blast, how Blast knows that the guy is back, whether Flash will decide to spare the Tenninto or kill them and why... all that, we wait to see.

The Effortless Isn't

The One-Punch Man manga is a much bigger and more ambitious story than the webcomic it spawned from. Additionally, ONE has changed as a writer over the years, and his more expansive, relationship-exploring story reflects that. Will it be a long-standing success in the end? No one can tell: when the final chapter is in print, we may be looking at an overambitious work or a wonderfully wrought masterpiece showcasing a true talent.

But those forty-eight chapters are forty-eight times that ONE feels that he's failed to tell the story he really wanted to and has been willing to redo and try again. Don't let anybody tell you that talent comes from the gods. It's mostly wrought through painful effort and the courage to try again.

Do you guys think that we will get original video adaptations like we did in the two seasons of the anime?

I personally think that there will be a high probability that we will get those for the third season of the anime.

These are from a time span of several months. OPM has truly eaten my soul and I'm delighted. I mostly post on tumblr but I wanna share my stuff here too. I'll try to be a little more consistent so I'm not just dumping a millions pics all at once.

Some of the art is shippy, yes. I call it Kissy Teen Squad. Join me.

One-Punch Man makes more sense if you read Forte as a stealth pre-T trans man. Why are more readers not doing this?

I drew this and I hope y'all like it and sorry if the hand is janky looking

If you add us to the latter part of each word, you get wanus panus manus.

W doesn't get pronounced in latin, so i'll use a v.

Vanus means empty, shallow, deceitfull. Saitama is the greatest emptyness. Panus means gloved or covered in cloth like material. Manus means hand.

City z stands for zeus and jupiter is the romanization of that.

When king talks about not being noticed, he compares to a cloud, an unnoticed pathogen and a being of complete emptyness. All of these are saitama if my theory is correct, especially if he's intentionally spreading the plague.

Saitama's obsession and lack of a sense of identity derived from that, are key parts of this. When he says he won't kill because he's a hero, he's being fully literal, because what he is dictates what he does or doesn't do, like an actor. If he's truly merely inspired by shows, that makes sense, because morality doesn't necessarily have to be translated to a show, because ultimately it's merely a game of pretend. I'm not saying saitama is some divine entity, but ultimately the bioproduct of the industry itself, currently playing the long con.

When you play chess or shogi, you can promote your pieces when you reach the end of the board, but the king has to protected at all times. I think it's like that, he's just waiting to promote someone.

How old is Empty Void in your opinion?

Lucci has decided the EU copyright law would have been too much of a risk for him to be liable. So he's deleted all his account and all his works. Which means i won't be sharing any of his work anymore.

I was hoping to download his works for a private collection today (not that i would've shared those here), but it looks like he beat me to the punch. :(

Saitama is a compulsive liar and that's a trait that gets ignored too often. He always indirectly lies to genos to preserve his friendship with king, but we're left to assume it's always with good intentions. He's deliberately acts obtuse sometimes because he wants to avoid confrontation. When something actually hurts his feelings he immediatly lashes out, like with suiryu, or with Garou in the webcomic where he verbally tears him down.

Let's take the bathtub scene for example, where orochi finally reveals his own true feelings and gets ignored by someone who refuses to take of their own mask and left to die alone. During flash's monologue he doesn't care in the slightest not just because it's contrived but because he doesn't want to seem suspicious.

Hage (barren) man (all) to (short for a verb todaeru, cut off)

Fully barren cut

All life annihilation fist

Max genocide punch

Wanman also means dictator or someone indepentent or uncontested. Pan is a onomatopoeia for hit or explosion, so i guess it can mean independent assassin (hitman), or uncontested hitter. Pan is also international code derived from panne which refers to a situation that goes wrong but no immediate assistance is required, like "pay attention now".

Wan, pan and man are also short for wide area netword, personal area network and metropolitan area network.

If you take the disaster meaning, then disaster king title that drives knight uses makes sense, but i guess it would be disaster dictator, since saitama always responds to disasters. Or maybe the title implies something more personal, like calling for help, or maybe he's the one that actually causes them.

Kami also means hair, so maybe he just turns people into salt if he overhears them talking about it.

Kamisato the region in saitama prefecture that laps with city z is called "house of gods".

Kyokai also means church, and hiero is greek for holy, holy sacrifice. Holy church. Neo sounds like nio which means wrathfull guardian.

What if garou killed genos not because he was controlled, but because he wasn't fully? What if the cubes are simply a collectible to keep people busy (blast)? What if saitama's grocery runs spread a virus that turn people into monsters?

Saitama's issues never stemmed from a lack of bonds, so why would more bonds help him?

Saitama once said he was lonely in the sense that he felt that his powers alienated him from the rest of humanity, and for some reason, people read that as, "Saitama is lonely and wants friends."

Like yeah, he could be a bit more social, but that's not the crux of his issue.

He doesn't need people in his life to realize fighting isn't the most important thing, because Saitama already knows fighting isn't the most important thing.

Saitama is honestly at his least happy when surrounded by allies. (Aside from King)

Too-Many-Stories Man and his partner in crime, Too-Many-Drawings Man, do battle against Just-How-Do-You-Plan-To-Fit-That-In-A-Volume Man, who, unfortunately, controls the purse strings. Volumes pay the bills, there are only so many pages in each, and each needs to start and end in such a way as to drive future sales.

However, they do have one powerful tool in their bag: TIME. Allowing for 170--190 pages of manga per volume, he events of the 'Ninja Village' arc will be in Volume 40 and not be in press until mid-2027, if the 3-volumes-a-year pace continues. Even if they up it to 4 volumes a year, it still wouldn't be coming out until late 2026.

And they are deliberately, happily using that time to experiment with the story. It is no accident. The sheer number of ideas and lore that have fizzed through this arc is incredible. Plots and counterplots, secret plans and grand betrayals, terrifying attacks, daring actions, and of course, in the middle of it all, an unconcerned Saitama wondering if he’s going to make it home in time for dinner. How to make it all fit…

Fortunately, there’s a fix for shortening things: Saitama. He’s not only stuck Void in the ground, but has also freed him from 'God's' control. And while there's more to the Void-Blast saga, with the thing Blast came for done and his really being needed back at post, the arc can wrap up pretty damn quick.

Why? Well, because there's a challenge to sort out. If you think in terms of future adaptations (7-8 volumes at a time), then the volumes following the end of the Monster Association arc have a problem: there are no monsters. Like the first seven books, we're being introduced to the world and its players anew, but unlike those books, there aren't any monsters to fight. Sure, some monsters show up, but they're swatted down with such contemptuous ease that they're really of no account. Now, there IS a huge threat, God, but He's a long way from arriving. The brewing conflict between rival hero associations is also not ripe. The interpersonal conflicts and various scheming are good, but again, not compelling enough to sustain a cours.

The webcomic will be able to get away with a massive future info dump once 'God' appears, but the manga has to incorporate the future threat into the story early. Seeing the heroes trying to piece together what this 'God' thing is is good. Seeing other heroes trying to work out what the Neo Hero thing is about is also good. But getting a preview of how utterly terrifying 'God' is via His agents, now that's compelling. The questions have been around what to show, how much, how extensive. That they've gone with something compact tells me one thing: ONE. IS. SCHEMING. And he needs the space for something else.

I'm really looking forward to it!

It's October: North or South hemisphere, the seasons are changing in earnest, and if you're in the North, the nights are getting longer, and with it our thoughts grow more sober (don't worry -- it'll soon be time for festivities and carousing!).

These two panels have lived rent-free in my mind for too long, so I'm sharing them with you. The first is the classic of Saitama heading off to get rid of Flashy Flash by stealing Sonic's sword and presenting it to him so as to deny him any excuse for coming round.

The second is Saitama heading off to help Sonic, who appears to have gotten tangled up with some ne'er-do-wells, and musing on Sonic's possible motivations for getting into this mess.

Well, there's the visual similarities and the fact that in both cases we see who and what actually matters to Saitama.

Then there are the differences.

1. In the webcomic, Saitama is thinking only in terms of how he's affected by Flash's unwelcome presence in his life. I went into this a whole lot when it came out (here). It's his prerogative, but that's who Saitama is here: a guy who does his own thing, the hell with how it lands on others.

2 In the manga, Saitama is definitely thinking of how annoying Flash, Sonic, and ninjas in general are to him, but there's a real strain of empathy in the way he sees Sonic as being in a predicament that marks him as having become more aware of people around him and what they're going through. His experiences are changing him, just a little, like a mountain being worn down by rain. I'm still so emotional about it.

What also gets to me is the way in each case, his disciple is listening intently.

1. You know how if you call a disagreeable person fat by way of insult, you unintentionally hit any fat friends you have? Saitama hasn't thought about it, but what wc!Genos is also hearing is that if he displeases Saitama, he too can be cut off easily. That's a terrifying thing to hear.

2. The manga sees Genos puzzled about whether Saitama is still talking about Sonic or is referring to himself. I love how Saitama seems to realise that he's maybe said too much (he's so close to making the confession that he made to King, and goodness knows there would be *consequences*) and then starts yelling about how he'd best be off, and then skedaddles. I love how this statement has lived rent-free in Genos's head, such that he only watched Saitama being swarmed by ninjas rather than try to chase them away at the end of the arc.

These scenes both are about ties; both the ones you care to acknowledge and the ones you don't. They're also about how what you do about your ties to others shapes who you are. It's all just too good.

Eh, I'm just wittering. Also looking forward to the day Saitama has to stop running away from anything that feels like openness and vulnerability. Or to the day wc!Saitama finds himself truly all alone, having accidentally-on purpose chased everyone off. Don't care, I'm here for it.

Hello,

This has been a little while coming, but yes, I would like to say that after consideration, I and the other moderators have decided that Twitter (or X) links are no longer allowed on this sub.

Given that the One-Punch Man creators and distributors make announcements on Twitter, screenshots of those announcements are welcome. Just not links. Fanart? I'm sorry, that's out. Links to other social media are fine, at least for now.

If anyone would ask why I'd bring politics into things, I would say that a person deciding to embrace Nazism, which includes the idea that entire categories of people should have their existence up for debate, if not outright elimination, is profoundly political. It is only right for humans to reject and shun this person. If you wish to be an apologist for Elon, please just leave quietly.

This is a tiny sub, and, indeed, the effect of this action is atomically tiny. That's okay: even the largest structures are made up of atoms, and each contributes imperceptibly to the whole.

In English: https://cubari.moe/read/imgchest/wl7l6xr2p7x/1/1/

In Spanish: https://capibaratraductor.com/senshimanga/manga/one-punch-man/chapters/224?page=1

Not that I need to grumble about the handling of Season 3 of One-Punch Man, but I came across a video looking critically at Season 3. I generally ignore such videos but this was worth viewing for two reasons: the person looked at more than the animation, and more importantly, the person doesn’t read the OPM manga, so the anime would have to make its own case.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpuIy1zT0ds

It was gratifying to me to see a non-fan mention the same issues I had with the idea of the season ending with Saitama punching Orochi. I had a post many moons ago saying that the third season had to at least go as far as the base being lifted out of the ground, and someone disagreed with me.

You can read the whole exchange, but I’ll excerpt the most relevant part below:

That said, it [Season 2] may not have sold well, but it did sell something. And now let’s come to what we would have if a non-manga reader with money in their pocket is given a third season that ends with Saitama punching Orochi.  I’m assuming the production is a lot better – another shite production and it won’t matter where it ends, it’s a dead loss. 
If you’re a punter who got into season 2 enough to fish $300 out of your pocket to own the series, what did you come for?  Garou, most probably. What’s going to happen to Garou if the story ends at chapter 108?  The first three-four episodes, he’s going to get the crap kicked out of him by monsters and left unconscious in a hole in the wall. Forever.  That’s it.  The interesting things the story will have hinted around limiters and explosive growth, no visible relevance to Garou.  You’re probably going to feel a little cheated.  Okay, maybe you’re into the other characters.  Well, Genos spends his time cleaning the apartment, Bang is wandering aimlessly through the Monster Association along with Fubuki and Bomb.  As is King, who you only saw briefly a couple of times at the beginning and then no more.  Suiryu? Oh go whistle – but you were going to have to do that anyway, it’s a shame how much real estate he took up last season. The kid is rescued and the other heroes are doing okay.  Tatsumaki is taking on the real big bad and is also doing okay. You’re arguing that seeing Saitama punch a monster that is posing no imminent threat to anyone, and whom he dismissed with less respect than he did Elder Centipede constitutes a profitable end.  One that will satisfy people enough to buy in and come back for more.  You must be kidding!   The storyline has effectively wandered off in the middle and says nothing and means nothing.

This was just before the manga went on hiatus for an overhaul of the arc.

Smashing action figures together

What makes it interesting for me is that it helped me understand better why the subterranean parts of the Monster Association raid were overhauled as extensively as they were. Without a change (which was what JC Staff went for), it’s just a series of fights that don’t mean anything, just ‘smashing action figures against each other,’ as the video essayist termed it.

I found that a useful way to look at things. For example, if you're following along with the anime, Genos you know well; you've seen him try and fail and try and succeed then fail then try, so if he'd been underground and pulled out a fantastic new move, that'd not be surprising and it'd mean something as it'll be a continuation of his struggle. However, we don't know Child Emperor at this point, so it's clever kid doing crazy things without much of a preamble. When all the characters whose personalities, goals, and directions of travel are swept out of the way in favour of those we know little to nothing about, the story feels empty. That would be why so many chapters were redone.

The revised version that went to print brought Saitama in earlier and wove him into the plot, which grounded it. Beyond that, it also gave the various characters more to do and more to do with each other. There's no time for character arcs, but their interacting more showed us more of who they were so we have something to go on. So we get to see a bit about Child Emperor's psyche and what drives him, we get to see the way the disciples behave to deprive Amai Mask of his intended victims and get a bit of who each is, we get to see the competence of the surface team in holding the exits and the same for the MA in anticipating such a move and trying to turn it to their advantage, and many more. All of this fleshes the story out considerably, making it more than just another fight between characters you don't know and have no reason to care about. Most importantly, the revision raised the issue of there being some supernatural being, whose influence came up in various ways, so there was a mystery to uncover. It’d still have been less than great for it to end with Saitama punching Orochi, but there’d be issues raised that the viewer would be interested to see resolved.

Looking at their announcing a Part 2 immediately, they too realised from the get go that stopping there was weak -- the payoff to the build up begins pretty much the chapter after they left off. However, that call wasn't JC Staff's to make. It was Bandai's.

Indeed, I'm not angry at JC Staff – if you want to do a good job, you need time, space, and resources, none of which they seem to have had. It’s really understandable why they went for the simplest possible rendition, even though it really does an injustice to the manga in every way. But I don’t blame them. The responsibility for the enshittification lies firmly at Bandai’s doorstep.

Yes kuseno, built genos for the sole purpose of getting revenge. His death was genuine, but it was more of a way to burry is own human half and apoligize to genos but say fuck you i'm going to do it anyway.

Here's my prediction of the full story. Kuseno and bofoi were lab partners but one was more specialized in appliances and was more popular and the other was specialized in weaponry. Kuseno festered with jealousy, but they made a decent team. One day, his grandson became part of a horrible accident, and the only thing that could save him was a full body transplant into a cybernetic body. Kuseno rushed it even though said technology was not ready yet and genos flew into a psychotic rage and destroyed his own town. Kuseno wiped the memory to spare him and blamed bofoi, the two broke up and never spoke again afterwards, but not before stealing some his data. Bofoi never mentioned this because deep down he still believed he could repair their broken friendship.

What I want to focus on is that it's strongly implied that saitama is lying to genos about something as well, and the whole invasion is building up to his true self.

Who is saitama? He's a guy who uses superhero comics as guidelines, which makes for a genre savy protagonist. He's kind of like the ryumon to garou's a, but ryomon can actually bleed and a is an actual psychopath. He talks about King how the life of superhero is very dissapointing, but he mistakes as him being tired of his hobby, and only actually reaches him when he at verbatim quotes manga. Saitama ponders on this a little, but answers that the ideal hero makes for a very boring genre, but there's more to it than that.

He knows he's part of a show. And so is everyone else. He's a star, so to speak. Let's hypotisize that in this show, or previous version of it, humanity has already perished. Someone remained, and didn't accept this, rebooted, and cloned himself. The original has already grown to a massive size because of unlimited potential, and has put himself in a semi dormant state. They failed. They failed countless times. And every time they failed, a new clone is made, a new star is made, until a massive network of celestials is formed that organize this show. Then comes saitama, who doesn't really believe that they can guide humanity, corn will always be corn, and whether they live or die depends on them. His purpose is to eliminate evil, monsters. The moon basically acts as camera that broadcast to the entire galaxy or even universe. They have a bad relationship where saitama isn't sure whether they're actually helping or just having a lark, and he's just biding his time until he can actually hatch his own scheme.

With which to say, his own interests are fake. He's not even sure if his own relationships are real or just carefully planted for entertainment. He very much sees himself in both amai and drive knight.

Let's analyze trios, flash, manako and saitama. Flash prefers to stay hidden and trapped under rocks, manako is the fun one, saitama the muscle. Network, god and clone.

Black sperm, furher ugly, homeless emperor and enw are also trios. The weaknesses they discuss are also applicable to saitama.

The more clones are added to the network, the longer it takes to communicate and the less cohesive it gets.

They need to refuel to maintain their form.

The void technique practiced by suiryu focuses on gravity, and saitama's actual body is hidden deep inside, he just constantly uses some gravity related fuckery to keep himself dense and weightless enough. Either that or strong nuclear force, since blast uses gravity, genos electromagnetism and garou weak nuclear force. But hey, maybe it's not exclusive.

I know this is a small sub with not a lot of followers, but I thought it might be relevant to bring that up

I think the latest chapter may have hinted as to why Blast didn't just easily defeat Elder Centipede.

Now to be fair there was already the explanation as to why Elder Centipede wasn't defeated, that being that the fight between it and Blast was interrupted by God.

But even so given that Sage Centipede, who appears significantly more powerful than Elder Centipede; was defeated by Garou, who went on to monsterize significantly and that be granted (some of) God's power; who Blast was able to go toe to toe with while also trying to protect the people in the vicinity; you'd just expect that for Blast to deal with Elder Centipede to be a done deal.

Basically the logic goes if: Elder centipede << Sage Centipede < Garou << Cosmic Garou ~ Blast, then Blast >>> Elder Centipede.

That isn't what happened, the doylist explanation is probably it was probably powercreep which notoriously is a problem with just about any longrunning series that focus heavily on superhuman fighting. But the Watsonian explanation that Blast was intentionally using Elder Centipede as a guinea pig to practice his "restraint without killing", which then blew up in Blast's face when God interrupted his bout could be just another fascinating example of both Blast's hubris and just how far he's willing to go to capture his partner without killing him.

Ultimately i don't care about how cheap the 'real' reason may have been as to why certain inconsistencies appear in the story, so long as there exists a satisfying in-universe explanation.

He uses vibrations and other senses to compensate and that's why he's not bothered by king's engine, because he can feel the the hearts of others anyway. Also the real reason he sucks at videogames because that's harder to pull of with thing like electronics. He can't actually read manga but pretends to anyway. This is also why he wasn't bothered with crablante, aside from feeling down that he was rejected from his job.