The end result is hardly a surprise but non the less this may be the strongest episode of One Punch Man yet. Despite Saitama being the real hero and taking down the Sea King, the show was stolen by Licenceless Rider. You have to respect the courage to fight a battle you know you will lose. Such courage that earned him the cheers and encouragement of the people in the shelter. Particularly like how the first person to start cheering him on was a child Licenceless Rider helped get his balloon back in one of the earlier episodes. It was a surprisingly beautiful moment and with the cheers of the populace guiding him, Licenceless Rider put all his strength into the fight and was…swiftly punched unconscious with a single strike. It was then I laughed and then immediately felt guilty about it. Still he has no hard feelings about it and even sent Saitama a thank you letter. That was a part of the anime that surprised me and gave the scene a lot more feeling than it had in the manga. It could just be me looking far too deeply into this but when Saitama found out that it was Licenceless Rider who gave him the letter, there was a lot of emotion behind the actors line and that ever so slight smile. Saitama surely doesn’t like being hated and this may be the very first time someone has honestly thanked him for doing what was essentially a thankless job for three years. Licenceless Rider, you may not have won the battle, but you won our hearts.
The fight animation was certainly impressive but I must say I wish the art was the same. I understand this is a necessary sacrifice to drop down art quality for movement but when the art drops in One Punch Man, it really sticks out. Sometimes it can be excused for comical effect as I think during jokes character designs tend to resemble the artwork of the original webcomic, an example of which in this episode when Geno’s was about to burn what he and Saitama thought was another hate letter. But during Genos battle with the Sea King the character designs got really rough. It’s an unreasonable demand but if they could fix the art up a little in the blu-rays then this could look so much better. Another company, though this is very minor, would be that Saitama’s Punch should have had a little more slow motion going on. The Manga really gave you the time to let it sink in and I wish they kept a single solitary panel where before falling down the Sea King just gapes downward at the hole in his chest with an expression of “What just happened?”. But other than that, Saitama punching away the rain was just sublime. Sadly thanks to the efforts of a person who was the personification of Reddit or any YouTube comments list, Saitama had to play the role of a cheater in order for the other heroes to not lose face. As a result he’s now B class but his reputation is even worse but at least the hero association has some idea of just what he’s capable of.
Some of the really rough line animations are deliberate, to show you just how the characters feel.
As for Hero Association’s quantification of Saitama… Saitama really cannot be quantified. Hell, they haven’t even try to shot him with anti-armor shell, not that it’ll do anything to him other than ruining his cheap custom.
You got Space Dandy animators, you get Space Dandy animation. Roll with it.
Personally I loved the stylistic changes. Heck, the thunderflash with Saitama is digitally animated if you look frame by frame.
Space Dandy is one of my all time favorite anime series.
Totally loved the lighthearted mood of all episodes, plus the ridiculous pompadour made him look amazing!
GameFaqs likes this series.