One Punch Man Season 3

Episode 5

It took five episodes to get there, but things are FINALLY HAPPENING in One Punch Man season 3! This mostly Garou-focused episode features the hero hunter fighting people within the Monster Association who actually matter and have been established as threats, rather than jobbers who clearly do not and will not matter to anything happening in the story. Make no mistake, though, this episode is still a far cry from the version of the show that made it so popular, but improvement deserves to be called out when it occurs.

It's clear once again in this episode that the folks at J.C.Staff working on this anime do not have the same ability and talent as the Madhouse team who worked on season one of One Punch Man, but now they're at least trying to compensate for that deficiency by making the episode more visually interesting. For every scene featuring stock explosions, CGI fire, or looping motion-blur punches, we get some more unique clips. The sequence of Garou and the unibrow kid running in silhouette through the unnatural green hallways of the Monster Association's underground hideout was an economical way to establish that they're deep in an oppressive, alien space. Switching to black and white for the reveal that Monster King Orochi is actually a seemingly limitless mass of writhing dragons stuffed into a vaguely human-shaped giant body was also a great way to showcase that the situation had fundamentally changed for Garou.

While not amazing, at least the show is getting creative in its visuals now and, as a result, feels like much less of a slog.

Of course, this doesn't negate some of the more disappointing choices to appear in this episode. The scene with Garou confronting an attack that he's certain will kill him deliberately evokes Genos having a similar experience while sparring with Saitama in season one, but this moment has much less weight to it compared to the prior one. I'm also a bit bummed that this localization went with the translation of “Overgrown Pochi” for the giant dog monster that Garou faces. I know “Overgrown Rover” stems from a fan translation of the webcomic, but that name rolls off the tongue so much better for an English language audience, and also makes it even more clear that the monster is just a big dog.

In a vacuum, this episode was fine, but in the context of the entire series, this episode is a high point for the season while still being worse than any episode from season one. Hopefully, this is an indication that season three of One Punch Man is improving, but I won't hold my breath.

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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 Hulu and Disney+ in the U.S., and Netflix and Crunchyroll in other regions.