Overview

One Punch Man 2nd Season (ワンパンマン), while being the sequel to the highly acclaimed One Punch Man anime, is a very different beast. In fact, I’d argue that it has almost nothing in common with the first season other than some recurring characters.

For many, the obvious difference between this season and the first is the change in animation studio from Madhouse to J.C.Staff. This definitely changes the series, and is something I’ll touch on later in its own section, but I’m not sure that’s even the biggest difference.

The story which is told and how it was told this time around are completely different from the first season. But let’s hold off on discussing how the storytelling in this series differs from what came before and first focus on how the story itself is inherently different.

The first season was all about fighting against monsters, with everything leading up to the final battle against Boros. On the contrary, the second season’s main antagonist isn’t a monster, but rather a human. However, there are still monsters to be defeated, but they have now rallied together to form the Monster Association.

As for the main antagonist, Garou is a human who has always sympathized with monsters due to their status as the underdogs. As a child he always questioned why the heroes always had to win, and as an adult he’s set his sights on being the first human monster.

However, it’s important to keep in mind that he isn’t really doing this for the monsters. He’s not a member of the Monster Association, and it seems his real goal is simply to be labeled the “strongest.” And, since heroes are currently considered stronger than monsters, that’s who he fights against.

Shift in Focus

Along with the change in story direction comes a shift in focus. While Saitama is technically still the main character of the series, he doesn’t actually have all that much screen time. And, aside from the martial arts tournament, we don’t really see anything from his perspective.

Instead, Saitama is basically just around so that the other heroes, and villains, can be compared to him. For example, and this is going to get into spoiler territory, when we see Saitama destroy Garou without even realizing what he had done.

Throughout the season Garou is built up to be one of the strongest people in the series. He may not be on the same level as Boros from season one, but he’s able to take on both S-class heroes and groups of lower class heroes single-handedly. He’s even strong enough to hold his own against Genos.

However, despite how powerful Garou clearly is, Saitama sees him as no more than a fly when they cross paths. He doesn’t even realize that Garou is the so-called Hero Hunter, and instead thinks it was some random guy trying to pick a fight with King.

This is what I mean when I say Saitama is used simply as a comparison piece for other characters. Another character we see compared to Saitama in this way is Suiryu. But, the change in Saitama’s role isn’t the only shift from season one.

With Saitama taking more of a back seat, the other heroes get more time to shine. This season is less about the struggles of one man, Saitama learning what it means to be a hero, and more about the struggles of heroes as a whole. Why do they choose to be heroes despite being so (comparatively) weak?

J.C.Staff

Now it’s time to talk about the elephant in the room, the switch from Madhouse to J.C.Staff as the animation studio. Let me be up front about this by saying that J.C.Staff can’t stand up to the likes of Madhouse. Action anime have never been their strong suit, and they were doomed to fail from the start.

That’s not to say that J.C.Staff are a bad studio though. They make plenty of good anime, they just don’t do action anime or anime with excessive animation. And that’s the root of the problem. Not only is One Punch Man an action series, but what made the first season so good was the focus on high-quality animation.

But the vastly inferior animation quality of season 2 isn’t the only place J.C.Staff dropped the ball. In general the artwork itself is all around worse than it was in season one. Just look at the screenshot below of Genos. Characters’ faces are longer on average, and they used blurry-looking CG for anything metallic or large.

I’ve also heard an interesting argument from people defending J.C.Staff’s work on this series. They say, “if J.C.Staff had done the first and second seasons, then nobody would be complaining.” This is just plain false. If J.C.Staff had done the first season as well, it would still be bad.

Sure, we wouldn’t have Madhouse’s work to compare it to, but even comparing the art and animation of this series to other anime, you can see that the quality here is sub par. If J.C.Staff had animated the first season, I can guarantee you that One Punch Man wouldn’t be as popular as it is today.

Conclusion

So after all that, what do I rate One Punch Man 2nd Season? It’s a 5/10 from me. The art and animation are passable at best, which isn’t something you should want people to say about your anime. Luckily, the story of the series still holds up.

It’s an engaging story and still has good jokes, though some of these jokes fall flat because of the art. I’ve only read three manga, and One Punch Man isn’t one of them, but honestly if you were disappointed by this season like I was, just go read the manga.

I hate to say that you should read a manga because the anime adaptation was bad, but sometimes that’s just how it is in this case. Preferably I’d tell you to go read the manga because the anime was great. In fact, that’s what I did with Attack on Titan after Season 3 Part 2 (review coming soon™).

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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.