One Punch Man plot twist has Saitama almost break character in chapter 184

With the release of One Punch Man chapter 184, fans got to see Saitama almost break character in the manga. The latest chapter featured a commercial to recruit new members for the Hero Association, which featured Tatsumaki. As expected, the commercial was successful but was also the reason behind Saitama's latest antics.

The previous chapter saw Fubuki convincing Hero Association Director McCoy to portray the A-city being attacked by demon-level monsters, who were defeated by Tatsumaki. In doing so, Tatsumaki and the Hero Association's image improved, while Fubuki managed to get Psykos outside the HQ.

Disclaimer: This article contains spoilers from the One Punch Man manga.

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One Punch Man chapter 184: What caused Saitama to almost break character?

Tatsumaki as seen in One Punch Man chapter 184 (Image via Shueisha)

One Punch Man chapter 184, titled Scout, saw Tatsumaki being asked to be in a commercial after her image improved in the previous chapter. She did not like the idea of a commercial to recruit new heroes as that would only attract weak-willed heroes.

However, that's when she remembered Saitama's words on how he himself was once very weak, not even able to defeat a wolf-level threat. Hence, Tatsumaki accepted the offer, since, just like Saitama, new strong heroes could very well join the Hero Association due to the commercial.

Nevertheless, Tatsumaki was not ready to be cutesy for the commercial and decided to showcase her enormous strength to show possible recruits what form of strength they should have if they wanted to join the organization's ranks. However, the commercial's producer Sweet Mask did not think that was appropriate for the commercial and doctored it.

Sweet Mask used Artificial Intelligence to generate a cutesy Tatsumaki from the existing footage they had taken. Using the footage, he produced a commercial which saw Tatsumaki act all cutesy towards the possible recruits, threatening to twist them if they did not apply for the same.

Tatsumaki left enraged due to her commercial in One Punch Man chapter 184 (Image via Shueisha)

While the commercial was highly successful and helped improve the Hero Association's image, Tatsumaki was filled with rage as she felt embarrassed by the commercial.

Saitama almost broke character after viewing Tatsumaki's cutesy commercial. He spat out the drink he was having at the time after seeing Tatsumaki in a way that seemed a false representation of her personality. From what Saitama knew about her, Tatsumaki was a bad-tempered woman and acting cute would be the last thing she would want to do.

Saitama spitting out his drink in One Punch Man chapter 184 (Image via Shueisha)

Saitama isn't the kind of person who laughs out loud or gives an extreme reaction to an event. However, upon seeing Tatsumaki act all cutesy in the commercial, he could not stop himself and happened to spit out his drink, presumably to laugh out loud.

That being said, there aren't many characters to whom Saitama would react in such a way. This led fans to believe that Saitama had come to know Tatsumaki well enough that he knew that the S-class hero herself would be embarrassed by the commercial, which inadvertently caused him to spit out his drink upon viewing the commercial.