Summary
The following contains minor manga and webcomic spoilers not yet adapted to the anime.
Genos, the demon cyborg ofOne Punch Man,is no doubt incredibly strong. During the final episodes of Season 2, he was able to inflict damage onto Elder Centipede, a dragon-level monster who once fought against the #1 S-rank hero Blast, and survived.
Despite his obvious strength, which continually increases with each upgrade, Genos is still ranked among the bottom half ofOne Punch ManS-ranked heroes at # 14. This means that he has only managed to advance three ranks in two seasons since being officially placed in S-class. In light of what we have seen from him, what rank doesGenos actually deserve to be?
Fight Against Elder Centipede
Evaluating Geno’s Power With a Direct Comparison
The best way we can compare the S-class heroeswith Genos to see if his strengthdeserves to be ranked higher is to look at how each performed against Elder Centipede. We know several other S-class heroes fought Elder Centipede directly: Metal Bat, Metal Knight, and Silver Fang.
Shorten it to 20 words or less, my master is very busy man! -Genos
Metal Bat’s Fight
First, let’s look at Metal Bat. When we are introduced to Metal Bat in Season 1, he is ranked at #15, just ahead of Genos who was ranked #16 at that time. During Season 2, Metal Bat squares off directly with Elder Centipede in a 1v1 and is able to do very little with his attacks. While hitting Elder Centipede’s carapace with his bat, he remarks how tough it is and feels his bat vibrate back at him from the blows. He then tries to attack the monster’s face, but again, the damage he is able to do even to this exposed area is minimal.
Compare this directly to Genos, whose dual blade rush attack is able to severely damage Elder Centipede’s face. During the fight, the demon cyborg is also able to destroy a tooth and even nearly crack the monster’s carapace from the inside with his ultra spiral incineration cannon attack. Clearly, Genos has much more destructive firepower than Metal Bat, but at the time of this fight, Genos was only one rank higher at #14.
Metal Knight’s Weapon Test
Metal Knight, the #6 S-rank hero at that time, attempted to test some of his weapons against Elder Centipede when it emerged from the ground in Season 2. However, his attacks proved completely ineffective against the fearsome centipede monster. In terms of showings,Genos demonstrated a much higher attack potencyin his fight.
One could argue that Metal Knight was not actually trying to defeat the monster; thus, it is inconclusive whether a full-power assault by Bofoi would yield different results. However, if Bofoi was even going to test a weapon in the first place, it is a fair assumption that he would have expected it to be somewhat strong or do at least some damage. The fact that his attacks do virtually no damage means he overestimated his payload and possibly his own abilities. This suggests that if Metal Knight deserves the spot of the #6 S-rank hero, then Genos deserves to be much higher than #14.
Bang and Bomb’s Combo Attack
Further proof thatGenos deserves to be ranked higherin the hero rankings comes from Bang and Bomb’s fight against Elder Centipede. Bang, aka #3 S-class hero Silver Fang, coordinated with his older brother Bomb for a large combination attack that only managed to force Elder Centipede to shed its skin. In this fight, Genos definitely had a better showing against Elder Centipede than Bang because he was able to inflict more damage. In this kind of analysis, where we compare the performance of heroes directly against the same opponent, it seems Genos deserves to place much higher than #14 if he competes better than the #6 and #3 S-rank heroes.
Genos’ Actual Rank
What Rank Does Genos Deserve to Be?
If it’s true that Genos is being underrated by the Hero Association, then where does he actually deserve to be placed? It’s tough to nail down a definitive placement for Genos since the specific criteria the HA uses to evaluate S-rank heroes are still unknown.
Still, at the very least, Genos should be ranked somewhere in thetop half of S-rank heroes. When looking ahead to fights in the manga and webcomic, Genos has performed spectacularly against powerful foes. However, despite these great showings, including one where he easily defeats the dragon-level monster Forest King without breaking a sweat, he still only manages to advance to the S-class rank of #11. Hopefully, in the future, the demon cyborg will get the hero placement that he deserves in theOne Punch Manuniverse.
