One Punch-Man
One-Punch Man

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One Punch Man is one of those stories I find myself coming back to when I see it on my list of ongoing stories. It is a manga that I know will reliably be entertaining without challenging me as an individual. Everything about it is easy to consume. Although this may seem like a detriment, it is in my opinion the main benefit of the story. The art is a great example of this idea. It is technically excellent and extremely easy to follow. I feel that no one can deny the beauty of each panel. Yet, it is not heavily stylized like other manga ... out there. It is not worried about pushing boundaries and it is not in any way controversial. This I feel, is exactly what the story attempts to do. The characters are like-able and interesting, but not something that may stick with you/ create a sense of awe. ONE’s ability to write characters that feel real is excellently shown in Saitama. Similarly, the entire story serves as an answer to the problems a figure like Saitama or Gojo can cause in a story. Ultimately this manga is great at the things it does, it just doesn’t try to do a lot. I can’t say this is a bad thing but it does move the story down my ranking. As far as what it tries to be I believe One Punch Man is nearly perfect. Yet for its affect on me as an individual, I cannot give it a higher score than other manga which I still think about daily.

One-Punch Man – Spoiler Free – Mixed Feelings – 28 Volumes Read

TLDR
Story – 4/10 – 4 x 0.275 = 1,1
Art – 9/10 – 9 x 0.2 = 1,8
Characters – 5/10 – 5 x 0.225 = 1,125
Enjoyment – 6,5/10 – 6,5 x 0.3 = 1,95
Total: 5,975 -> 6

Story – 4/10
It is painful to write about One Punch-Man's story. It started as an excellent critique of the shounen genre and superheroes in general, with impeccable humour and a funny story, to just become a regular shounen. Personally, it pains me that it has become so. One Punch-Man had such potential, but aside from the first 7 to ... 8 volumes, the jokes are completely repetitive, and the elements of parody lose their touch, for they are used to exhaustion. It simply becomes a dull shounen full of fillers, so much so that there are entire arcs that are solely composed of fillers, especially before the Monster Association Arc (volume 15 onwards). For all these reasons, the story is frequently at a standstill, for they fill the manga with battles before the story resumes once again.
It is easy to start reading One Punch-Man and be delighted with everything, just to be outright disappointed after some volumes. In the beginning, One Punch-Man is probably an 8 in the story, but it becomes a 4, or even a three, as we progress. Also, some things make no sense, such as why Saitama, clearly the strongest hero alive, only has the rating that he has; why does King, the weakest hero alive, and basically the result of a publicity stunt, is still called upon when it is known that he is weak, although he still treated as one of the strongest Class-S heroes.
These are only some of the issues with the manga. The beginning is incredible, but from the middle volumes onwards, it just becomes boring, filled with fillers, and uninteresting. The biggest criticism that one can give to the story of One Punch-Man is that it started as a parody, but that it ultimately became the monster it wanted to defeat.

Art – 9/10
The art style is technically superb, being thoroughly detailed and really polished. The character design is beautiful and full of personality, which is saying a lot, since there are dozens of characters in One Punch-Man. The scenarios are incredible. The panels' cadence and fluency are impeccable and surmount to a delight to see, being very easy to follow the story along. The action scenes are so well done that one doesn’t even remember that it is probably a filler.

Characters – 5/10
There are literally dozens of characters in One Punch-Man, which only fills the role of the critique of the superhero genre: the plethora of spineless heroes and villains to match what we find in Marvel, DC, or, in some cases, the average shonen. For this reason, they have no personality other than being flashy – which is alright, since it is a parody. However, One Punch-Man does have some interesting characters that, for some reason, don't receive half the attention they deserve, such as Saitama, Genos or Garo. Most of the manga is spent in senseless fights that just fill our eyes with something other than substance. And the interesting characters – supposedly the main characters and its main antagonist – almost become secondary after being drowned in so many other characters. Truly a shame.

Enjoyment – 6,5/10
The enjoyment in One Punch-Man is divided into two different sections: 1) until volumes 7/8; 2) onwards. The enjoyment in this first section is very high, probably an 8 and, in some instances, even a 9, but it is all too real the downgrade that the story takes: it is filled with fillers and senseless combat, it's not funny anymore, and the characters don't receive the attention that they ought to such as Saitama, Genos or Garo. For these reasons, one must painstakingly give One Punch-Man a Mixed Feelings. Again, if you're only talking about the story's first half, I highly recommend it, but once you reach a certain point, you are better off if you drop it.

One punch man was an anime I got into in my high school days - my partner suggested we watch it because he had thought it’d be right up my alley. He was right, OPM had been an amazing motivator to keep watching anime despite the lull in good shows, and I fell back in love with the medium, the show really capturing my eye with its witty comedy, well timed jokes and good art direction. OPM season 2 sadly didn’t hit the same marks, but it certainly tried its best - but it definetly left a disinterested taste in my heart.

Throughout my time of ... partaking in general anime community, one sentiment was shared a lot. “Try the manga”. This was a phrase I heard perhaps too much, especially when I didn’t like a series. Didn’t like One Piece? Try the manga. Didn’t like Fruits Basket? Try the manga. It was something that made me put off reading any manga out of frustration and annoyance at those that just couldn't seem to grasp that I didn’t want to or that reading the source material would change my mind. I didn’t try any manga until 2022, when I had had enough of anime and found there were a lot more niche stories that japan really didn’t want to air on national TV. In 2024, I decided to pick up the OPM manga.

I had some nostalgia reading the first few season worth of story --- genuinely I had so much fun reliving the jokes that I thought were hilarious and the art powerful and well drawn, a testament to the skill of Murata and anything he crafts artistically. It was nice, getting to read back through everything. However, my nostalgia gave way to complaints.

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OPM suffers from several glaring writing issues when translating from a silly webcomic to a manga;

- The manga often yoyo’s between a serious plot and a joking one, and unlike many who see no issue, I found it really jarring. In the first few volumes, it was nice, very good jokes, non-reused jokes and when they swapped tones it was well thought out and never really took you out of the action. Even if a joke was said during the fights it never really ruined the scene, and if the action was too important it'd wait till the fight was over. After awhile though? The jokes become stale, the bipolar plot becomes a detriment and I think the manga would benefit from deciding if it wants to be a bit more serious or be a bit more lighter in general tone instead of trying to be both at the same time.
- To add to this complaint, I feel that the best fight in the manga ((the sea king fight)) is used too much as a general plot idea. It feels like after a while every fight is just everyone else struggles, stakes get really bad and then Saitama comes in and solves it within a chapter at most. It's stale, it's overdone and it's made the stakes pointless now. Like why should I get invested, why should I care, nothing can beat Saitama at this point.


- Another issue of mine is just the sheer amount of characters in the manga's cast. For how little time we actually spend with a lot of the characters, the manga spoon feeds us bits and pieces and then expects us to care for people we met maybe a few chapters ago. After awhile it's just too much? In later chapters there's supposed to be a team dynamic but the only team dynamic I'm seeing is a lack there of - so little interactions between characters beyond they're replayed joke that defines their archetypes, which in and of itself IS frustrating because those that are given proper development have REALLY good characters and to see it get wasted because there's too many characters to juggle sucks! Oh it's f-ckin painful!!


- A lot of the jokes, aside the mentioned story gags, are heavily reused. Not much else I can say bar it got a bit annoying after a while and it really made some characters loathsome rather than endearing. ((looking at you King - I won't spoil but you have one of the worst overused jokes to date.))


- My biggest turn off? The final straw that broke the camels back? The ladies. The female designs of OPM are hot garbage - sexualised and appealing to the male gaze bar one character. No, it is not Tornado, thats a loli. Loli's appeal to men.
- The designs are slightly better than one piece, but even the women in one piece at least had some sort of variance in their designs --- OPM women are all big boobs, tiny waste, "thick thighs" and costumes that would make Momo from MHA look decently dressed. Even the ones that look like they're well dressed? Skin tight clothes, or secret more revealing outfits underneath.


All this to say, I think I ruined the anime by reading the manga. It's filled to the brim with a lot of mistakes that litter season two and I genuinely believe if you stick to JUST season 1 of the anime and the manga you'll love the series.