One Punch Man Season 3

Episode 3

How is a shonen anime spending this much time waiting around in 2025? One Punch Man's first season rose to prominence largely because it figured out how to do away with a lot of the bloat that plagued its contemporaries, and delivered banger after banger fight with some hilarious genre subversion stringing everything together. The only plot progression we get in this episode is that Garou gets beaten up (again), and the bullied unibrow kid gets kidnapped and is now in the monster's home base.

Every other part of this episode feels like filler, and it probably doesn't bode well for the rest of the season if the team behind this project is already stalling for time. Did we really need a less-than-inspired fight sequence between the two monster ninjas where they hype themselves up? Similarly, couldn't the Dragon class monsters in the Monster Association have been introduced by doing something cool rather than by a jobber monster hyping them up to the captured kids? Never mind the fact that Saitama has already one-shotted a couple of Dragon-level threats, so all of them will only feel dangerous if they're put in positions where they can harm weaker characters that we care about.

I worry I'm starting to come off as pedantic in my criticisms of the pacing and story structure of this episode, but I can't help but be frustrated when One Punch Man used to be so much better at this stuff; especially considering this episode invites that comparison!

Zombieman visiting Dr. Genus and what's left of the House of Evolution was meant to hype up both sides of the upcoming Heroes vs Monsters battle by explaining the strengths and origins of both sides. While I do kind of love that the whole monster cells plotline in season two was so forgettable that it's not even mentioned as a way for humans to become monsters here, I couldn't help but think about how much more fun and entertaining the House of Evolution storyline was in the first season than anything going on now.

In the span of two episodes, Saitama gets jumped by members of a villainous organization, accidentally and hilariously defeats its members out of order, and then takes out the big bad who's established as such by killing a bunch of clones and having a sick as hell Evangelion Unit 01-inspired design. Season three of One Punch has so far done much less with more time and with a poorer execution.

It also feels as though Saitama has become somewhat flanderized in this season. While he was always budget-conscious, his near-total absence from the action thus far in the season means he's entirely characterized by being cheap and mopey. Though if the fights this season are going to keep looking like Demon Slayer bouts but with more looped animations and even less of a sense of space, maybe I don't want to see Saitama done dirty too.

Unless you're the world's biggest Garou fan, there's not a lot in this episode, and I'm praying to whatever God ranked monster that the plot finally kicks off next week.

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When he's not doing 100 push-ups, 100 sit-ups, 100 squats, and a 10k run every day, Lucas DeRuyter is penning some kind of media or social critique. You can get updates on his hero ranking by following his Bluesky account, and keep up with his heroic exploits by checking out his portfolio. When he isn't bargain hunting, you can find him contributing to ANN's This Week in Anime column.

One Punch Man Season 3 is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.