One Punch Man follows Saitama, the strongest and most bored man on Earth who can kill anything in one punch. We follow him during his daily life as he works as a hero for fun and trying to find a challenge while also having really bad luck. He also has a great supporting cast such as his disciple Genos, gaming buddy King and Bang who is a joy to watch. This is more of a parody of the standard shounen story. Unlike most Shounen characters who start off underdogs and become overpowered by the end through incredible means, Saitama is overpowered to begin with due to a very basic muscle training program he went through so there is no real tension when he is around because he is practically invincible. Not even a massive laser beam could stop him because he could just punch it and the problem is gone. This is a massive downfall of the series while I will get into later but this problem is mainly covered up by its supporting cast and world building. While Saitama is lacking character growth and any form of challenge most of the time, the background cast is what makes up for this lack. Genos covers for Saitama’s lack of character growth by constantly getting better over the series while all the other heroes help add stakes to fights because unlike Saitama, they aren’t the most overpowered thing in existence.
For me, the side characters is what makes One Punch great. Since Saitama is pretty much a blank slate most of the time when he isn’t displaying angry or greed, other characters fill in the blanks with rather over the top personalities. Genos is your super keen stereotype of a disciple who takes everything too seriously and has a rather big revenge boner in most of his scenes, Fubaka is one of the many pompous asshats in the series with an massive ego to boot and King is a great foil to Saitama with his wimpy attitude and just being in general a massive pussy. It’s these sort of characters that make One Punch brilliant and that also counts to its world building. Throughout the many moments across the series, the world is constantly being fleshed out and what I like most about this if you pay attention to the small details, you can see that the world the series is in has consequences for everything. One of my favourite examples of this is the fact the whole Hero Association was started by one guy saving the director’s grandson which inspired him to make the whole system. Now if you connect the dots like how this event took place three years ago and the director has a similar chin to the kid Saitama saved, you can see that Saitama pretty much inspired the whole association. It’s little details like that which makes this series brilliant and it’s something you don’t see most mangakas do this so this little thing makes me very happy and do you know what else makes me very happy? That’s right, the anime (as well as the art style).
I am going to do two birds with one stone here and talk about the anime as well as the art style across the two manga series so let’s talk about the original by ONE because I’m not going to dance around it, it’s butt ugly. ONE is more of a story teller then a drawer if his original drawings are anything to go by because they are more like a six year old’s scribbles than an actual piece of art which is why they probably got Yusuke to redo all of the art for the Jump publication which is definitely for the better. The Jump published version of the series is way better since it actually makes the characters presented look amazing while ONE’s style suits more of a comedy series which does benefit the many jokes of the series but Yusuke’s style is way better because it’s not as painful on the eyes and he makes some brilliant spreads for the series. It also brings life to the amazing fight scenes in the series and that’s my Segway into the anime which does its job of being just really good. Like, I don’t want to say anything about it because the quality speaks for itself. Both the subbed and dubbed have great voice acting, the animation is great and it does its job well selling you on the series. Alright, that’s enough praise now so let’s get to what I more or less hate about the series which is Saitama.
Now, this doesn’t mean I hate Saitama. I find him to be a great main character and protagonist to follow around. I just hate what he represents which is the deus ex machina of the series. True to his name, Saitama defeats everything with one punch because he is that powerful but that comes with a price and while in the context of the story, it’s the bored existence that Saitama has to live but for us, we have zero tension or invest in fights. Because Saitama is literally god in the manga, he can not be hurt and nothing really poses a real challenge to him which means when he does have this over the top fight with the villain of the week, he just needs to throw one punch and the problem is dealt with. There is no ten chapter long fight scene or spectacular fighting moves when Saitama is involved because he can deal with it with ease. Because of this, you can’t really enjoy the fights with Saitama and if you really gets to you, you can’t enjoy any fights in the series because you know that Saitama could easily walk in and deal with it, as displayed in the Sea Invasion arc. To its credit, the writers have been trying to deal with this issue by reducing Saitama’s role in the newest arc but I think it’s pointless because Saitama will eventually show up and duel with the threat and to be honest, I am not that invested with the other heroes outside of the ones Saitama is friends with. It’s just really ruins my fun with the fight scenes and it’s one of the few things I hate about this series.
In the end of the day, I do kind of dislike One Punch Man but unlike other Shounen titles (looking at you Bleach), I do like it more and I think it’s brilliant example of shounen being done well and I still enjoy it at times so 8/10. Now before I end this, I would like to say I am sorry for disappearing for two weeks. I just finished my schooling and I was busy trying to sort my life out but don’t worry, I am going to be doing these reviews weekly again and I don’t have a plan for next week so that’s fun. Anyway, see you next week and don’t forget to check out my other content in the sidebar if you want to support me on my other endeavours.
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