One Punch Man

Overview

One Punch Man was the hit anime of 2015, and yet I just got around to watching it yesterday. I’ll be honest, I wasn’t expecting much from this series despite all of the hype surrounding it.

I figured it was just another “normie” anime like SAO, and the fact that Netflix had the rights to it didn’t help since it aired at a time when Netflix wasn’t exactly known for having good anime rights all to itself. However, I was pleasantly surprised when I watched this series.

While One Punch Man is an action-comedy anime, it really doesn’t skip out on the action in favor of comedy, which is something I liked about it. Mixing action with comedy is something I don’t feel is done successfully very often (such as Marvel movies), but One Punch Man pulled it off.

In the world of One Punch Man, professional heroes are ranked much like they are in My Hero Academia, however, along with individual rankings, there are also grade rankings. The ranks go, C, B, A, S, with C being the weakest heroes and S being the strongest.

While there are a couple hundred heroes in the C class, there are only 17 in the S class. Because of this, C class heroes have a weekly quota of heroic deeds they must achieve, otherwise they’ll lose their sponsorship by the Hero Association.

Characters

Saitama is the protagonist for the series and is also where the title “One Punch Man” comes from despite being called this in the series. As the title suggests, he’s so powerful that he can defeat any opponent in just a single punch.

While this may seem like a blessing, for Saitama it’s actually a curse. He originally became a hero for fun and enjoyed fighting against monsters and enemies alike. However, he’s now become so strong there isn’t a single worthy opponent for him and so he’s bored of fighting.

Basically, Saitama is just a thrill seeker who’s looking for that next high he’ll probably never find.

Once he joins the Hero Association, he gets a perfect score on the physical exam, but fails the written exam. Because of this, he’s placed at the very bottom of the C class of heroes despite his immense power.

Genos is the other main character of the series. He’s a cyborg in his late teens who is on a mission to find and destroy another cyborg who attacked his hometown a few years back. After being saved by Saitama and witnessing his power, Genos decides to become his disciple.

While Saitama’s power comes from brute strength and physical ability, Genos, who is also strong and has superhuman physical abilities, tends to use laser-like weapons built into his hands. You could think of these like the weapons Iron Man has on his palms.

Despite being Saitama’s student, after taking the Hero exam he’s immediately placed into the S class. This is because he got perfect scores on both the physical and written portions of the exam.

You might think that because of this, Genos would technically be a better hero than Saitama, but Saitama’s pure strength is enough for him to overcome any obstacle so he doesn’t really need whatever was on the written portion of the exam.

I’ll mention one final character who appears as a recurring supporting cast member, Mumen Rider. Mumen Rider is the top ranked C class hero and is literally just a guy on a bicycle.

He has no amazing powers, he just has a bike. However, what he lacks in ability, he makes up for in spirit.

Much like Deku from My Hero Academia (before he gained the power of One for All), Mumen Rider doesn’t think about what happens if he loses, all he knows is that as a hero it’s his duty to do whatever he can to save people. However, this doesn’t always work out for him since this is a parody anime.

Conclusion

One Punch Man was a better anime than I expected it would be. For now I’m going to rate it as an 8/10, but I’m feeling like it could also be a 7.

It was cool and entertaining enough for me to binge the whole thing in one day, but it didn’t make me feel anything which is why I really can’t rate it any higher than an 8. Even among the other anime I have rated at 8, this one doesn’t particularly stand out to me.

I’m not sure if an official date or even season has been announced yet, but a second season of One Punch Man is on the way. However, this time it will be made by J.C. Staff instead of Studio Madhouse so we’ll just have to wait and see if the quality is still there.

The OP for One Punch Man is available here.