Forum - View topicOne Punch Man (TV) (w/ index).
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Stark700
 Posts: 11762 Location: Earth |
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A reminder the second season is airing today.
Recap aired last week. |
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Stark700
Posts: 11762 Location: Earth |
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It's finally back although I have to say, the animation quality is definitely a downgrade compared to season 1. I'll try to overlook this or get used to it for reminder of the season.
Genos is back with the others so that's a plus. Seems the humor and action is back too as how I remembered from the first season. I heard the second season is going to be 1-cour again. |
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Harleyquin
Posts: 2885 |
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S2 #1
Apparently there was a recap episode to get anime-only viewers back into the groove. For those who missed it, this episode gets straight into the story and viewers are expected to know who the recurring characters are, what they're capable of and the motives behind their actions. One question from way back in Season 1 was why Saitama had no name recognition despite clearly destroying countless demons during his training days and "unofficial hero" activity period. Turns out if he had registered and claimed credit officially he'd be S rank 7, however King ended up claiming the credit (not through malicious intent but through blind chance) and Saitama's still at B rank 33 as of this episode. Saitama doesn't realise this until this week, but credit to him for not holding King to task over this. To be fair though, Saitama has never been caught up with the power politics behind the hero scene and continues doing his job, no matter who or what gets in his way. King may be a fraud, but if there's one thing he can claim to be better than Saitama at it's playing video games. At least the world's fair enough to give him something for a competitive advantage, no matter how impractical it is for earning a living. Saitama's troubles aren't over yet though. That B-rank hero and flunkies has business with him while Sonic hasn't given up trying to beat him. If that animation at the end serves as any hint of what's to come, that last one with the wild hairstyle is also spoiling for a fight. Regardless, the series has always been hallmarked by its outrageous action scenes, so as long as it keeps them coming I'll stay entertained. |
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pip25
Posts: 158 |
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I have a bad feeling about this after seeing episode 1. Animation downgrade is one thing, but the episode's plot being all over the place is not especially encouraging - definitely not the way you'd want to start the sequel for One Punch Man. Well, we'll see how it goes, I really want to be proven wrong here.
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Waller80
Posts: 5 |
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The entire idea of a child choosing to draw areolas on a crab man who can't clear it off on the grounds that his hands a plier, made me giggle.
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Harleyquin
Posts: 2885 |
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S2 #2
One of the underlying themes in this series is how Saitama isn't given the recognition he deserves despite all of his achievements. This episode expands a little more on why. Just like any other organisation that has grown too big to govern itself properly, the Hero Association has all of the flaws inherent with overly large conglomerates. Self-servicing interest groups, cronyism and factional politics appear to be rife. Even the strongest "S-class" heroes aren't even made up of the strongest registered individuals, if that top-ranked A-class hero formally introduced this week is any indication. If Saitama is used as a benchmark, then Garo's current ability should mark him as above Fubuki but underneath Genos in the pecking order. It would be interesting to see a hypothetical match-up between Sonic and Garo. If the latter gets one hit in it's probably his win, but if he can't then Sonic wins a battle of attrition. Either way, neither of them can beat Saitama as they are at present. Garo is looking to emulate monsters by going around beating up the Hero Association lackeys. He's doing fine with generic A-class heroes, but this episode has already shown official rankings count for nothing in this franchise for actual combat ability. Saitama may be laissez-faire with the whole societal concept of how Heroes should work, but he's got one thing right when he says it's always the job of the Heroes to stand up to whatever threat comes their way and politicking counts for nothing when faced with overwhelming strength. |
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Harleyquin
Posts: 2885 |
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S2 #3
The episode takes its time building up Garo to be a real threat to the Hero Association because of his abilities, but it's only at the end that long-time viewers are reminded of the central premise behind this series: Saitama is never taken seriously because of his appearance and his strength is unsurpassed. Bang wanted him as a disciple because he knew how much stronger Saitama was and how he'd lose if it came to blows, so no surprise the student Garo gets knocked out with the titular move of the series. Garo has a really strange motivation keeping him going. No idea why he's so fixated in transforming into a monster, but he's certainly trained hard enough to acquire the skills he needs to defeat the Heroes. Saitama as always is looking for someone strong to relieve him of his ennui, so if he can get some experience or thrills from fighting proper Martial Arts Masters he'll happily enter the tournament. Even spend 3000 yen of his pocket money on wigs to hide his identity. The outcome (like everything else Saitama faces in this series) should be a foregone conclusion if the blow to Garo is any indication. Next week's episode title is one of the S-rank Heroes, so wonder what that's about. I highly doubt Garo is permanently incapacitated since Saitama didn't go all out. |
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DuskyPredator
 Posts: 15505 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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Garo was kind of just unceremoniously put in his place, and yet it was Saitama not being nearly serious or trying to put him out of commission.
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Harleyquin
Posts: 2885 |
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S2 #4
So Garo's motivation is the inverse of the dreams kids have about being their favourite superheroes. He just wants to be the world's greatest supervillain to even things out. He's certainly acquired enough strength to be taken seriously as a threat by the Hero Association though. Too bad he's never going to achieve his dream if he ever meets Saitama again and gets another bout of concussion-induced amnesia. Saitama is officially supposed to do Hero-related activities as per his membership, but his little sojourn into the martial arts world couldn't have come at a worse possible time. If he wanted a challenge, the city-crushing centipede Metal Bat is having so much trouble with might have given him a brief thrill before his usual punches reduce everything to powder. If next week's episode is all about the tournament (conveniently done in one day), then Saitama might still see some action after he wins and goes back to his day job (let's face it. He WILL win since there's nothing in the series to date that's actually managed to leave a mark on him). As bored as he is with punching out everything in one blow, the side effect of his overwhelming superiority is a much safer society as a whole. |
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Harleyquin
Posts: 2885 |
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S2 #5
For an episode entitled "Martial Arts Tournament", there's not a lot of action to be seen on the front. Instead, the focus is on the Monster Invasion which has taken the Hero Association completely by surprise. There's an attribute in JRPGs that Metal Bat certainly has, the one where physical attributes of a character increase the closer to death the character is. It doesn't work on Garo, but it does illustrate why someone who's only good at swinging a metal baseball bat around could work up to S-class. Garo's reaction to actual monsters is a strange one. If he's so desperate to be the world's greatest monster by beating up every Hero in existence, why does he not take up an invitation from ACTUAL monsters to join their ranks? Is he that confident he can smash the Association on his own using his skills?! 18 contestants in the tournament and it's arranged in such a way some contestants are meant to be knocked out early to maximise audience entertainment. It's a running joke Saitama never gets any recognition of his abilities from the general public, so no surprise he's taken lightly. However, the ex-champion Suiryuu thinks otherwise, so maybe he might prove to be more than empty talk. For Saitama's part, he's definitely holding back. His punches usually leave holes in monsters so opposing contestants are lucky he's just messing around. |
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DuskyPredator
Posts: 15505 Location: Brisbane, Australia |
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Some of these are conflicts not involving Saitama, that they are practically like a normal fighting show.
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Harleyquin
Posts: 2885 |
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S2 #6
The tournament continues as the world outside martial arts buckles under the monster onslaught. Turns out the monsters aren't just reliant on sheer numbers, they've also got individuals who are capable of taking down S-class heroes on their own. Genos isn't weak by the standards of society, but whatever took him down (weakened as he was) isn't to be taken lightly. The Hero Association on the other hand has issues of its own now that one of its main sponsors has lost kin (Narikin = 成金 = Nouveau Riche. Wagaman = From 我儘 = Selfish. Ha ha for the choice of names). Unfortunately their massed ranks aren't as capable as those of the Monster Association. The saving grace is that the high-level S-ranked heroes really do the business, it's been a while since Tatsumaki got some action but she makes everything look easy because of her psychic powers. No wonder her younger sister Fubuki has such a complex. Again contestants underestimate Saitama based on his appearance. Bakuzan simply touched him when he was explaining his full course, and in doing so he'd committed the cardinal sin of leaving himself wide open. If Saitama does make the final as Suiryuu thinks he will, at least the latter won't make the same mistake. Speaking of Suiryuu, his soliloquy about the survival of the strong no matter what happens has an element of truth of it. However, unless it's people like Saitama we're talking about strength is a relative concept. Suiryuu is talented (albeit really lazy based on his own confession) but it doesn't appear he's met someone stronger than him in his lifetime. When/if he's utterly outmatched, his arrogance against Snek is going to bite him. As for Saitama, just the one punch this week to take out one of the tournament seeds. He's bored to tears of course, so this tournament needs to finish quickly otherwise he's going to miss out on his day job. |
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Harleyquin
Posts: 2885 |
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S2 #8
Well Suiryu, how do you like them apples? Strength is a relative term, which only really powerful beings like Saitama and Tatsumaki can truly claim to transcend. As talented as you were, the lack of effort and hard work into truly maximising your potential has led you to realise why human society still requires the work of heroes despite how dismissive you were about their abilities. As expected from the episode title, Suiryu puts up a decent fight even against combatants turned into monsters. Unfortunately, he's come up against something even he can't overcome. Last week Saitama fought him with a handicap so he wasn't seriously injured, but this time there was no holding back and Suiryu has ended up in the same state as the inferior fighters he was sending off to hospital. Gouketsu looked like he picked a fight against King Orochi, but he chose the path of survival even if it meant losing his humanity. I wonder what would have happened had Suiryu taken up Gouketsu's offer; after all the only reason why he didn't was vanity and ego even though the raison d'etre of being a monster fit in perfectly with Suiryu's fondness of the easy life. So the Monster Association has huge stocks of monster cells to offer potential candidates. If it's a long war of attrition, the Hero Association can't win because they won't replenish their ranks as quickly. If it comes down to a showdown, it'll be a faceoff between the S-rank Heroes and whatever the Monster Association fields in a one-off contest for supremacy for the fight to be even. No prize money for Saitama, but he's back to his day job at least. It'll be a one-hit job as usual, but if he succeeds it'll mean the Monsters don't get any reinforcements from martial artists, which will help the overall strategic situation. Next week's episode features Sonic and a hastily translated episode title (最強の悩み can be interpreted as the "Ultimate Dilemma", but the particle has another use which would equate to "Dilemma of the Strongest ones".) The episode should bear out which title is more befitting. |
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Harleyquin
Posts: 2885 |
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S2 #9
After a one-week break, the conclusion to the tournament arc and its aftermath. The outcome is never in doubt, but it's still humorous all the same. Bakuzan in monster form does exactly the same thing he did during the second round, but this time Saitama doesn't hold back. Suiryu like everyone else falls into the same trap of assessing Saitama as really strong without every considering how ludicrously invincible he really is. He may have changed his goal to becoming a hero, but getting beat up so badly means it'll be years before he can even think about switching jobs. The conversation between King and Saitama midway through the episode confirms what I initially suspected: the episode title is wrongly translated into English. If it was entitled "Worries of the Strongest", it would not go amiss. The slight ambiguity in Japanese is usually not a problem since the more common interpretation works 99% of the time, but not in this case. Unfortunately for whoever works on this, 最強 is used as a noun rather than an adjective. The gorilla from the House of Evolution back in season 1 makes a cameo appearance. Taking his fellow gorilla monster by surprise is one thing, but knocking him out so easily when other A-class Heroes were getting felled left, right and centre seems a bit of an anti-climax. The S-rank Hero introduced this week seems interested enough to not finish off his original target and trail the hoodie instead. Sonic has also fallen for the temptation of becoming monstrously strong, but his mishap with the meal does show viewers that the cells only work when they're raw. For the second time, Garo is taken by surprise again. Turns out he's not the invincible Hero Hunter he's made out to be, S-rank Heroes with strange fighting styles are a bad matchup for him. Even injured and with his attention fully on King, getting smashed into the wall like that simply proves he's really not at Saitama's level. He got concussion and memory loss the last time he took on Saitama, so it wouldn't surprise me if he's like that again when he next shows up. Can't remember if this adaptation is going for one quarter or two, but if it's the former there's not much screen time left and little sign of some kind of suitable end-point to pick up again with a future adaptation. |
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Harleyquin
Posts: 2885 |
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S2 #10
Official declaration of war from the Monster Association. They've got the numbers to back up their threat, but is it enough to take on the elite of the Hero Association? Orochi certainly lords it over the lesser minions, but Gyoro-Gyoro appears to be running the show as his counsellor. They've discovered Gouketsu's corpse AND the call for reinforcements has fallen short because of the one Hero the Monsters have not learned about and have clearly underestimated. Saitama typically doesn't know anything and is holed up playing games at King's place, so as usual it looks like he's going to be late to the party again. Focus shifts back to the very injured Garou who is now cornered by a strike team of A-class Heroes intending to take him down. Despite his condition, his saving grace is the little brat who owns the Hero Guide. With the information inside it, he might still pull off another great escape despite the encirclement, injuries and poison. That'll have to be for next week though. |
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