The success of One Punch Man may be predictable from announcement of its anime adaption but I believe it does nothing to demote it’s merits as a series. I admit that my rating this time is of uncertain status for giving it a higher rating felt wrong but a lower rating felt unjust. In honesty it is mainly determined by just how much I enjoyed each episode week by week. For if I placed this show under a microscope I am sure I could pick out plenty of flaws but I feel this show belongs to the category of anime such of Gurren Lagann where judging it on merits of story and development is doing the show a disservice. When looking at a show like this, this review is meaningless as one’s personal judge of quality of this anime will likely be determined if you are wearing a smile by episode one’s end. I merely ask that you go into it while ignoring any hype regarding it as hype can turn a decent anime into a hateable one if the more ignorant side of the fanbase is obnoxiously loud enough.
Our anime Stars Saitama, a hero who has become so strong that he can defeat any enemy with one punch and with his power Saitama has discovered that he feels only boredom when he no longer has a worthy foe. The story details his encounters with other heroes and various one time villains which often result in comical situations. I must first say that if you come into One Punch Man expecting a deconstruction of shounen tropes then you will be sorely disappointed. One Punch Man shoots down some shounen conventions but its strikes are not deep enough to warrant the title of deconstruction. What One Punch Man excels at instead is excellent animation and witty slapstick comedy. The battles of One Punch Man are dramatically overblown and visually fantastic with the director bringing in talent from all aboard the anime industry. It features a fairly good soundtrack with two or three excellent songs and a opening with catchy lyrics displaying Saitama punching everything from starmen to gods out of existence.
The characters range from all levels of ridiculous with Saitama being the no nonsense dorky middle aged badass and Genos the stoic crash dummie cyborg. Rounded off with a supporting cast of overconfident villains and bizarre heroes from the loveable licenceless bicycle rider to a funny buff prisoner that fights naked. There are of course flaws such as a simplistic storyline which is mainly built from a single joke, that Saitama defeats everything with one punch. There are small moments of crude art in fight scenes and transitions between highly detailed art to overly simplistic which could throw others off. It is very much a love or hate kind of show and if you find it isn’t working for you in it’s first episodes, the remaining episodes with not change your mind. But even for merits of seeing the animation alone I believe One Punch Man will be a anime every anime fan will feel the need to check out. Certainly a highlight of the year and only one question remains. When is the second season coming Madhouse?
I still don’t understand why people rate this show so highly. I see a lot of words praising the show, yet failing to convey what really makes it so special. Saitama’s character? You mean the walking punchline who is defined by the almost formless blobs who rely on him? The animation? Does that even matter when I can’t remember any memorable scene, because I was as detached and unengaged as Saitama himself was? The humor? You mean the one or two jokes they repeated, and a few others that Teekyuu has been doing for years now? The complete package? Does that include the large amounts of screen time where barely anything happened, and the fact that no emotion was sustained by the show other than “hell yeah, another forgettable villain for Saitama to curb stomp?”
I honestly don’t see anything special about OPM. Its just dumb fun while you’re watching it, but not memorable at all. Which describes 90% of anime if you’re as willing to give them the same chance and mindless watch as people were for OPM, given it’s off-the-rails hype. What makes it a 90? Why are people rating it higher than any other anime, let alone stuff like Breaking Bad?
As I said in the review, its something that’s difficult to pin down. It’s a highly subjective anime, one which you just love or don’t. Sometimes passion and enjoyment can make up for other lacking aspects but the problem with that is that if it doesn’t appeal to you then you won’t get anything out of it.
Thing is, I enjoyed One Punch Man just fine. I just don’t understand the hype or the high praise. And if no one can really explain why it’s so good, then how can it really be so? It’s hard to believe that this is anything but another case where the popularity of a thing takes on a life of its own and soon over-shadows its actual qualities.
I don’t think it’s a case like Frozen which like you said, the popularity of the thing over-shadows it’s actual qualities. This may be me making too much of an assumption but I get the feeling this show wasn’t quite your thing. Namely because you state that it wasn’t memorable which I completely disagree with. The subterranean scene in the first episode, Saitama fighting off mosquitoes, Geno’s and Saitama sparring, Fighting the house of evolution, Licenceless rider fighting the Sea king…and how anyone could deem Saitama vs Boros unmemorable is truly beyond me.
I cannot really prove to you it’s qualities when it’s qualities are highly dependent on personal factors. It’s like asking why “Back to the future” is such a beloved classic? For it’s writing? Characters? Social commentary? Let me put it this way. You didn’t get into this show quite as much as others did, yet you still enjoyed it. There are things like Frozen and Sword Art Online which are immensely popular when the source materiel is horrendously lacking. Yet you still enjoyed something you where not quite into so doesn’t that speak on how much someone who is into it would enjoy it?
Bear in mind that I’m asking for proof, I’m just trying to see if there’s more to it than a case of OPM being in the right place at the right time to be the lucky show that became a mega-hit regardless of its qualities. That’s why I wasn’t really asking you per se; you’re nice and honest that you don’t really know, rather than trying to convince me of why you like it so much.
Ultimately though, the other cases you listed don’t quite compare for various reasons, because they only attained the success that OPM achieved over time, or had readily-obvious qualities that caused them to be megahits, or indeed never even achieved this level of success in the first place (though it can be to tell).
This is just a curious case to study, because it even beat the other big-ticket overhyped anime of the year, Unlimited Blade Works, but the success of that one readily makes sense (it was destined to be a megahit regardless of its actual merits due to ten years of fans waiting, and it already being a sequel to a relatively successful anime).
One Punch Man’s success simply makes no sense to me, and that’s why I ask what I do 🙂
I didn’t got as hyped. Though atm it may be because I kept thinking of Hellsing or Akumetsu. I think stories with invulnerable protagonists are a love or hate thing.
I think stories with invulnerable protagonists are fine, if they try to deconstruct the character. OPM promises that, only to do almost nothing with it. Once you’ve seen a story that does the Jesus allegory thing well (say, Trigun), or deconstructs it in a more amusing way (say, Sunred), or even just handles the “superheros as dollar signs” concept better (say, Tiger and Bunny), then OPM feels distinctly inferior except in terms of animated set-pieces (even if they have no real emotional weight).
The very rough and broad stroke animation that the show occasionally does is a conscientious decision by the director. He’s trying to convey the sense that this particular action is too fierce to be handle normally.
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After I watch One Punch Man, I always think about funny face of Saitama when see a bald man :v
Comment necromancy! I just finished watching this–mostly because you rated it so highly, Aidan, thank you–and thought I would comment here despite the age of the post because I’m hopeful that S2 is coming.
First of all, Saitama is not the prota-gon-ist of the story; well, he is, but not the main one. The main prota-gon-ist is Genos. Saitama is more like Doctor Manhattan in Watchmen: the story moves around him, but he’s mostly unaffected by it. Genos, on the other hand, is the Everyman character which the reader can relate to, like Winston in Ghostbusters. If OPM was a conventional shounen story Genos would be an acceptable main lead: he has a tragic backstory, is on a quest to find his enemy, and wants to become stronger.
Secondly, while Saitama shows no character development, in the last episode Genos reflects on how he has matured. Other characters that have changed are Licenceless Rider (courage reinforced), Hammerhead (gives up crime), and Sonic (starts to question himself)–small changes, but quite good for the introductory story arc. Character development is not necessarily important for a good story, anyway. Going back to Ghostbusters, Winston shows a little development in the first movie, but the other Ghostbusters don’t change at all. Venkman–the character many take to be the main prota-gon-ist–starts the movie a jerk and gets the girl at the end, but as far as we know he’s still a jerk. Lack of character development doesn’t hurt Ghostbusters in the least.
Thirdly, Saitama’s “One Punch” is not so much a gag as it is a dramatic device to get rid of the bad guy when he or she stops being useful to the story; when a bad guy shows up and Saitama eliminates him right away, it’s because they had nothing useful to say. But what the bad guy has to say is less important than what the heroes have to say while they are fighting him: unlike a standard shounen story, the main conflict is not between the heroes and the bad guys, but between the heroes themselves.
OPM does “deconstruct” (I’m not very fond of that word) the shounen action story, but it doesn’t do it by focusing on Saitama. Rather, it does it by contrasting the other heroes against Saitama. Other stories such as X-Men also do this, but OPM is far better written than X-Men.
Shallow story? Good heavens. Each episode corresponds to a volume of the manga, but all 12 episodes taken together really just constitute the introductory story arc. ONE is just getting started. This could easily be a 100 episode show.