Speed-o'-Sound Sonic (音速のソニック, Onsoku no Sonikku), known as Sonic (ソニック, Sonikku), is a recurring antagonist and the supporting anti-hero in One-Punch Man series. He first appeared as a bodyguard hired by Zeniru and the former member of the 44th Graduation Class of the Ninja Village, nicknamed The End (終わり, Owari; Viz: The Final). Sonic is also a self-declared eternal rival of Saitama.
Appearance[]
Sonic is a slim young man. His long black hair is normally tied up in a topknot, and bangs fall over his face. A noticeable feature of his is the purple marks underneath his large gray eyes. He usually wears a tight black latex bodysuit highlighted by metal plating on his shins, arms, shoulders, chest, and waist, as well as a long purple scarf that falls to his legs. During his fight with Genos, Genos ripped his scarf and tore off his topknot, leaving the ninja with short hair. In the manga, when Sonic later appears during the fight between Saitama and Tatsumaki, he is seen with his long purple scarf and long hair again.
Personality[]
- Despite his normally calm demeanor, Sonic loves fighting, motivated by bloodlust against weak opponents, motivated by the thrill of battle and his superiority against strong opponents he can beat, and motivated by competition against a strong opponent he can't beat.
Sonic has a large ego, and when he sets his mind to killing someone, he refuses to give up until he succeeds, unwilling to tolerate the existence of someone more capable who has directly beaten him. He has no regards for human life other than his own, and even takes pride in the fact that he has never let an opponent live.
To that end, he holds considerable disdain for the world, being quite cynical, especially towards heroes. As shown when meeting Genos for the first time, he tells him that heroes can neither win against a truly strong opponent nor can they truly protect anything. Despite the way he presents himself, he has a soft side, something seen when training to fight against Saitama. During this period, he spent a great deal of time with Frank, a hunter who had almost been killed by a bear and confides with him his inner turmoil. While he is pacing himself, Speed-o-Sound finds and befriends a little piglet as well, naming it Ino, thus showing his more noble side. When Sonic leaves to search for Saitama, he gives his words of wisdom to Frank, saying that if he is too confident in his fighting style and loses, the result will always be the same. It is unclear as to how far this side of him goes to, as he was willing to warn Genos of the Deep Sea King, yet fought him when Genos interfered with his battle with Saitama.
Due to constantly losing to Saitama, Sonic is shown willing to do anything, even trading his own humanity, to defeat him by becoming a monster through the consumption of a Monster Cell provided by Gale Wind and Hellfire Flame. He also respects Saitama for fighting monsters and even promised to himself to never fight Saitama while the hero is fighting monsters. He holds a very negative view of the Hero Association and some S-class heroes after observing how they treat a powerful hero like Saitama like a low-ranked and worthless hero because of his looks. Ironically, he is also rather judgmental as he assumes Tatsumaki exploits her childish cuteness and that those with benign appearances are weaker than himself, displayed in his fight against Saitama and Kamikaze.