Roles and videogames

The MA arc officially starts with saitama finding out the truth about king by being one of the only people who'd care enough to actually ask for an answer and care about how he's doing instead of making up his own reasons. He's still too scared to come clean and saitama simply tells him to get stronger, maybe in character or litterally. In the mean time, they play games together and king is still a wimp who just goes along with what everybody expects from him.

Kinda like garou, who became a monster because he accepted that role from other people.

Back to king, he picks cutesy anime girls versus saitama's large and imposing monsters. This is already pretty telling of their respective characters, King uses complex combos to give himself the edge while sticking true to personal taste. Saitama picks things like large monsters he thinks are cool and uses the meatheaded spam approach, which is the same approach he picks for heroing, which is how he got so strong in the first place.

But why monsters specifically? Because bosses aren't playable.

Ultimately, the boss is always more powerfull than a player, but always destined to be defeated. They can't change. They can't cooperate. A boss that can't be defeated has no purpose. Like a hero that always wins.

Kind of sounds like garou's plight doesn't it?

Then again, he was always just pretending. Just wanted to play a game on his own terms, but found a hero that didn't match his longwinded roleplay and only responded with sincerity.

Or perhaps saitama is more sincere a monster than garou ever was. At least, he's got more in common with them.

He, just like bug god, black sperm, sage centipede, sees right through garou and doesn't consider him a monster, probably for different reasons. Well, at the very least he's more succesfull than them.

• Got fubuki's attention. Psykos
• Got ultimate power. Orochi
• Convinced his opponent about his costume. Phoenix man
• Mimicked and improved techniques. G4
• Lives right above their hideout, already cementing his place.

So in a way, Garou got what he wanted. The monster did win, but he was too grief stricken to notice it.

So saitama's sessions with king also serve as a metaphor, with king being the weaker combatent still being able to shine, and saitama actively trying to defy his own destiny and still fit into the framework of being a hero despite his own strength already having barred him from it.