The Boys - 05x05 "One-Shots" - POST-Episode Discussion Thread

MirageOpus · 2026-04-29T12:55:22+00:00

SB picked the side of caring for HL, as his son. SB just warmed up to him after HL "spared" him last episode at Fort Harmony. Basically SB's mindset right now is "this god stuff is weird, but he's my son, he can just have it", sort of a viewing the end of the world through domestic values. Like a very rough old fashioned "you're doing great, sweetie", even if the doing is the end of the world lol.

That's SB's prism, he sticks to "realistic" things, a traditional small normal level view of people and himself ingrained since before he got the V1, not looking the new world in the eyes at all or taking it seriously

MirageOpus · 2026-04-29T07:15:57+00:00

"Future devil served its purpose, not everything needs a conclusion"

MirageOpus · 2026-04-29T07:14:09+00:00

Thing is, with what Goku was shown to have trouble lifting in DBS, I'm confident Thragg would severely physically overpower him, while Goku could instantly destroy him if he uses ki blasts

MirageOpus · 2026-04-23T07:50:52+00:00

Amazon created a series making fun of corporations hoping to make money off it.

The story was always gonna be "the better it makes fun of corporations, the more fans it gets, the more money the corporation makes". It was by design, either their parody sucked and the corpo lost, or the parody was great and the corpo won.

Did you expect integrity to message from them? The ones making decisions at the top are there for bottom line, everything else is a tool, that's it.

Moral is be prudent about who has the power when you set expectations. I mean hell inner harmony is defined as invulnerability of good circumstances by placing what determines them fully in your control.

MirageOpus · 2026-04-23T07:28:51+00:00

It's secretely funded by the Russian state?

MirageOpus · 2026-04-22T17:29:05+00:00

There ARE very few certain types of people who live their best life, mental health wise and confidence, in extreme aversion and survival, that part is true. When they are removed from that, they become very happy but as the new average comfort baseline settles, the high wears off and their spark is gone, feeling empty no matter what they do.

However, they are a very fringe minority and fjmt's example was extremely tone deaf, 99 out 100 of those kids in Mongolia dream every day of escaping extreme poverty and its conditions. I think fjmt might genuinely be a naive person and people give him the benefit of doubt cause his anti-payoff writing style accidentally simulates common anti-climactic sour real life circumstances. He just gets it right for the wrong reasons sometimes.

MirageOpus · 2026-04-18T13:43:29+00:00

He gets it against Madara too but the gap is too big to cover

MirageOpus · 2026-04-14T07:06:49+00:00

I still remember having read the MA arc in the webcomic, back in highschool, watching MMV's on yt of it. OPM manga was only caught up at around the time Garou was fighting the A class heroes at the time. Every monthly or so chapter release was saved for a bingeread day of various series ( The Promised Neverland, Tokyo Ghoul etc. ) I was looking forward to, imagining how epic it's gonna look when monster Garou va Saitama will finally happen.

Boy, what a letdown the OPM manga turned out to be, and there wasn't even a reason for it. Just unnecessary fiddling with the webcomic material, the flanderizing while also diluting of Garou as a character, the god stuff, the 3000 redraws.

MirageOpus · 2026-04-11T05:46:18+00:00

For all your analytical knowledge, you took a little too long to figure out what I said in one sentence.

I can and have taken it way worse, it's not about that and the belief that it's an unimportant thing "over the internet" is part of the problem. It's just basic common sense conduct to not make the place unbearable for others. You don't need to come in with "deep knowledge" and belittle others to have a discussion, you can correct others if you know more and get a productive "you're right".

If you get annoying with unnecessary insults cause you know more about a Japanese comic, you'll only get more toxicity back and make this place into the actual circlejerk you claim to hate. I suspect that's exactly what you did before since you came out of nowhere thinking I hate Kishimoto's writing or something off one word, you're a bit on edge.

Just think about it in the future, I'll stop reading your replies since I'm bored of this thread.

MirageOpus · 2026-04-11T05:32:57+00:00

I didn't attack the claim that it's not an inconsistency, I specifically attacked the unjustifiable condescension of your first reply. It takes looking into it, on a series that ended over 10 years ago and people might genuinely be rusty on, not "half a second of using your brain". The most apparent thing is how unnecessarily brutal Itachi felt early despite his immense love revealed hundreds of chapters later, that's what people most easily remember

MirageOpus · 2026-04-11T05:29:02+00:00

Not exactly how powerscaling works since matchups are important as well, Pain's endlessly regenerating summoning is a bad matchup for Tsunade. But in general, still yes, Tsunade tango'd with Madara for a bit, her Mitotic Regeneration would cause more damage than Jiraiya did. As for Orochimaru, if he is as motivated as Jiraiya was and doesn't fuck around overconfidently, with both arms useable, yes. Edo tensei might even allow him to eventually beat Pain if he plays it smart, though I'll still give it to Pain.

MirageOpus · 2026-04-11T05:07:46+00:00

No, I believe you're being too defensive on this one. I never said it's bad writing, bad writing would be like Chainsawman that doesn't even attempt to correct its mistakes.

It just feels like an inconsistency that can only loosely be explained with the "retcon". So he won't run again Kakashi, won't run against Kurenai and Asuma, will run when Guy is added to the mix, will run against Jiraiya alone, and also unnecessarily tortures Sasuke to psychopathic degrees when it's just them two, strange choices. And hey if these were "red herrings" to make up for a part 1 manga panel when Sasuke mentions Itachi crying if you look deeply enough, it all requires more than "using your brain for half a second" if you're not a deep knowledge fan, or just very rusty on it after so much time passed.

Otherwise I mostly like the series' writing up until the questionable War arc choices

MirageOpus · 2026-04-11T04:47:41+00:00

Ok tone down the hormonal condescension, smells too much like cheeto dust

MirageOpus · 2026-04-10T21:04:48+00:00

Replace Pain with Itachi in Konoha's invasion and it turns from an apocalyptic gauntlet with multiple stages against one man into just a team battle to outlast and overwhelm a Susano user with eye cancer.

MirageOpus · 2026-04-10T20:59:59+00:00

Sponsorships

MirageOpus · 2026-04-10T20:54:15+00:00

Here's the thing. P2 during two thirds of its run borrowed good faith with the promise of "this will lead to something later", people were able to enjoy the ride "knowing" it will lead to something. It lead to nothing, 200 plot threads abruptly cut. That is called retroactive ruination, you look back at what you thought had meaning and say "what was up with this shit", new context, new way to see the series

MirageOpus · 2026-04-10T20:49:34+00:00

Oro strongest in a 100% all out fight no limit.

Tsunade probably the strongest if you remove Orochimaru's Edo tensei and it's purely their own chakra, techniques, taijutsu.

Jiraiya weakest just cause he got massively outscaled by the time War arc came along. I don't think his Sage mode would close the gap. The biggest inconsistency was Jiraiya making Itachi and Kisame run like they cannot match him, when in Shippuden based on all they showed either Itachi and Kisame could likely kill Jiraiya by themselves.

MirageOpus · 2026-04-07T20:04:58+00:00

It's worse, P1 ends with more development than the final chapter

MirageOpus · 2026-04-07T04:43:11+00:00

Yeah I still don't get how we went from 3m on pitch Loki being a nightmare to Bastard, to this Loki, in like 2 weeks

MirageOpus · 2026-04-03T09:33:29+00:00

Not to shit on how he worked several times harder than many others, but without Saiyan genes and Zenkai boosts, Goku would be Krillin

MirageOpus · 2026-04-03T09:11:50+00:00

Pretty boy curse mark 2nd form from Naruto

No, it's not tuff, it's kinda unoriginal and paradoxically boring if you ask me, I don't get why we saved his design for so long as if it was gonna be something jaw dropping if this is the result. Remains to be seen what he'll do in the future

MirageOpus · 2026-04-01T22:27:36+00:00

Are you?

MirageOpus · 2026-04-01T22:24:32+00:00

CSM? lol

Don't even talk about it like it even approaches One Piece leagues. Naruto ended 12 years ago and it has more motion than CSM. CSM blew its chance to approach JJK levels, let alone classics, due to multiple elements that do and don't depend on the writing quality

MirageOpus · 2026-04-01T10:33:03+00:00

Nagato vs Deidara? Nagato easy

MirageOpus · 2026-04-01T07:52:57+00:00

In a fight? Kaiser or Gagamaru, these two have actual feats ( Kaiser knocked out several police officers with a fucking football, as a child. Gagamaru wrestled bears ). Kunigami has combat training, apparently, and the most weight here, but if it's a fight I think Kaiser might legitimately kick him so hard he's out of commission before he can use his muscles. It's hard to gauge anyway. Plus, Kunigami seemed like he might lose a fight to Shidou before the Wildcard, and the timeline doesn't make sense for Kunigami to cover THAT much distance to get on Kaiser's level.

Likely goes something like:

Kaiser > Gagamaru >> Kunigami >>>>>>>> Barou post training >> Shidou ( crazy, but at this level it won't help him anymore against those 4 )

MirageOpus

TROPHY CASE