My counter to this criticism on saitama’s characterization.

I don’t know what’s this person perception of saitama’s character but there is a reason I always said mumen rider is the greatest hero in this story. Saitama has done a worst things than fighting recklessly with garou and almost causing causalities.

Example: When boros wiped out A city, he didn’t even care to check for injured civilians. Instead he went straight to fight the boss cause in his mind “aliens” sounds exciting and must be powerful. Saitama is selfish and is aware of his it. He always said being a hero comes second to his desires. He ain’t Superman, he ain’t a symbol of a “perfect human beings or a hero” he’s just an overpowered decent guy.

Saitama is the most unbiased character in the story, he looks at your actions to determine your character and Garou proved to be human and heroic. He didn’t took him seriously, he was toying around with him and having fun. All Saitama previously opponents made it clear that they were monsters.

Genos is to Saitama, what Tareo is to garou. Genos humanized Saitama by making him reconnect with the world and made friends and experience a lot of interesting things. Genos death was the first loss he experienced, saitama has shown that he can “loose it” because of emotions before. He could’ve killed suiryu when he was about to land a powerful punch and held back the last second cause he didn’t like his ideology on heroes. Saitama let loose on garou but didn’t expect him to counter with the same punch and force. At that moment they’re equal in power so it’s not like saitama could’ve easily blizt and knocked him out. Cosmic Garou was a prime example of how dangerous God really is, even Saitama can’t subdue something like “cosmic garou” without total destruction of the earth. Garou did became absolute evil at point in time. It’s like watching the ultimate force of evil and good clash causing Armageddon.

Also please read the manga, Garou resisted conversion and was aware of his actions. He killed genos because he’s a cyborg first of all, plus do you actually believe Garou would’ve ruled the world without killing a few humans to make an example. Garou is far from innocent at this point. To be absolute evil he has to fully commit to it, he can’t half ass it.

The story never wanted you to think saitama is cool or even a “winner” because there was no winner here except God. Saitama failed to save his fiend and was a disgrace as a hero and protector of earth. You asked why he’s “naked” one love to use symbolism. Being naked is used to indicate humiliation, guilt, shame, and punishment. Saitama was a disgrace, a failure.

Garou too failed, he was doing all this for tareo and ended up killing him, saitama admitted he’s not a hero and didn’t wanna kill him so he felt like he did all of this for nothing.

At the end he realized he and saitama are the same, they both depend on the people they let down (tareo and genos) for hope. So they erased all their mistakes, garou erased the ominous future. His dream became his nightmare, and saitama dream of a worthy fight was never as fulfilling as he taught it would be.

In the end they sympathize with each other as two fools and tried to fix their mistakes.