Summary
Ever since Chapter 109 of theOne Punch Manmanga, fans of the series have been speculating about the identity of the mysterious God from the very few details we have of him. His first appearance came in this chapter when the monster cadre, Homeless Emperor, revealed his backstory as a homeless man who was down on his luck and how he was granted powers that allowed him to rise to"Monster Level: Dragon", turning powerful enough to defeat S-Class heroes.
After this, the next time we saw God was when he appeared to Psykos when she was about to merge with Monster King Orochi in the battle against Tatsumaki in the Monster Association arc. He spoke to Psykos about granting her extraordinary powers and following her destiny, and we saw him again when he appeared to Saitama and Flashy Flash when they were together, offering them his power. This shows that by offering his powers, God furthers a goal of his that, right now, we can only speculate.
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What We Know
Despite being very clearly hinted asthe main villain of the seriesthat Saitama and the rest of the heroes will eventually have to go up against at the very end, God is still largely a mystery that we barely know anything of. However, even then, there is speculation as the writers of the story have made God’s appearances and possible locations purposefully confusing. There is even some debate among the fandom that there is more than one of these creatures as we have seen the character in different situations from before and appearing in ways that are not exactly conducive to how we saw him before.
So, one of the main takeaways of what we know about God so far is the fact that he desires to bestow his powers upon people on Earth. This is seen throughout the latterhalf of the Monster Association arc, where we see numerous characters being offered some of God’s powers, starting with Homeless Emperor. Other such characters that are offered such power ups are Saitama, Tatsumaki and Garou and the main reason for this is mostly speculation, but it might be because of the worthy sacrifice, which we will get into later. This power is so great as only a mere fraction of it can turn someone as weak as Homeless Emperor into a Dragon Level threat, and it’s only exacerbated if the person getting it is even stronger, as seen with Garou, who went from an already extremely powerful opponent toCosmic Fear Mode Garou, who was as strong as Saitama (at the time) and easily eclipsed all other characters in the series. Plus, this was done by only a small touch to God’s hand instead of a full embrace of his powers.
Another thing that we know about God is the existence of the infamous Black Cubes. According to Blast, God uses these Cubesas a way of communicatingwith those he wants to bestow with his powers and for the past 20 years, Blast has been in search of these Cubes all across the Universe. He has been doing this to prevent more and more beings from gaining these powers and helping God cross the dimensional barrier into the main timeline. We have also seen that this endeavor of Blast is not one that he has undertaken alone as he has amassed a team of characters who are seeminglyjust as powerful as himto fight God in the Universe, and this group has been going around collecting the Cubes to halt his plans as much as possible.
God is a character that has a great amount of confusion around him, and purposefully so. Whenever he has appeared to those that he wants to give some of his power, we have seen him appear to them in different ways, whether it’s in a vision or in the form of someone that the characters know, such as when he took the form of Blast when he appeared to Tatsumaki. Despite this, however, we have seen his bare back exposed on the moon where Saitama landed in his fight against Lord Boros. This scene always made it seem as if he was trapped there, however during Zombieman’s interrogation of Homeless Emperor, we saw that God crawled his way up to the moon beforetaking away Homeless Emperor’s powersand killing him. We also saw him in a fetal position when Saitama looked through the portal in Chapter 138, which seemed to show him in a completely different dimension. This is all done on purpose to show how powerful and mysterious he is, making us all speculate as to what his true goal is and how he will achieve it.
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What Could God Be?
Since God is shrouded in mystery, we have no way of properly knowing who or what he is until we are officially shown in the manga. However, this is where fans and their theories come in! Many fans of the series have taken the very few details we know of God and have tried to piece together who he may be or what hisultimate goals and motivations are.
One such thing to consider is the cave mural that Monster King Orochi found in the underground shrine. This mural was ancient and seemed to depict Orochi himself with his many subjects groveling at his feet and saying that a worthy sacrifice was needed in order to resurrect God. He thought this to refer to himself, which caused him to initiate his plans for a sacrifice so he could turn into a God. However, during his fight with Saitama, the underground shrine collapsed and revealed the rest of the mural with God standing above even Orochi. This went on to show that God’s resurrection plans were incredibly ancient and that he had been planning this for millennia.
One theory is that God bestows his powers upon people that he believes will eventually turn into worthy sacrifices for him to return to the Earth and this giving of power eventually proves who the worthy ones are. Another very popular theory that is making the rounds within the fandom is about the identity of God, whom many fans claim to be a different version of our very ownCaped Baldy; Saitama. The justification of this theory is mostly speculation, with 2 main reasons given.
The first of these reasons is that there is a confirmed multiverse within the setting ofOne Punch Man. This is because, after his fight with Garou, Saitama uses the formers most powerful technique and is able to travel backwards in time, eventually forgetting everything and stopping the old version of Garou in his tracks. However, he did this time travel with the core ofGenos in the previous timeline, which he gives to the current Genos who is able to extrapolate all the data from it to see what had actually happened. Though this moment is played for laughs, it shows Genos confirming that there is indeed a multiverse and the second reason states that God is targeting Earth because he is searching for something.
The reason why many believe this to mean that God is another version of Saitama from another Universe is because they share the parallel of being the most powerful being there is. The theory states that this ‘evil’ version ofSaitama is much olderand has had the same experience as the main one, which has led him to amass all this incredible power. He hopes to use this power to find another version of himself and to prime them, so the 2 versions of the character can have a bloody fight to the death where they are both able to go all out.
Though this is a great amount of speculation for the future of the series, this theory does nicely tie into who Saitama is as a character and what he wants most. In the very first chapter, it is revealed to us that Saitama isso much stronger than his peersand enemies that he can never fight anyone the way he wants to, which is by going all out. This is something that has led to his life being incredibly boring and with no excitement as there just isn’t anything left to challenge him, making everything incomprehensibly boring for him.
So, until we see God properly introduced in the series with his true plan and powers laid bare, all we can do is speculate. Whether he is an evil alternate version of Saitama or is just an incredibly mysterious and powerful new being that we have never even heard of before, we cannot possibly know until either One or Murata eventually writes about it. What we do know is that he is most likely the final boss of the series and thatBlast has some sort of connectionwith him so fans that are willing to see Saitama fight an equal opponent will just have to wait a little longer!
