One Punch Man Season 3

Episodes 1-2

It was in the fall of 2013, during warm-ups for cross country practice, that I told my friend and a new member of the team, Ethan Anderson, that he should check out the One Punch Man manga. He had been talking about how he was getting into comics, and I said OPM was one of the funniest and coolest looking comics running right now. Twelve years, a few hundred manga chapters, and two seasons of anime later, I still think that eighteen-year-old me was correct in his evaluation of the early parts of the franchise, but One Punch Man has dramatically fallen off since then.

Manga creator One's One Punch Man webcomic rose to fame because it was a deeply informed parody of shonen action and tokusatsu media. Illustrator Yūsuke Murata then turned that webcomic into one of the coolest-looking and most lavishly produced manga ever crafted, elevating the joke at the core of this series to greater heights. The One Punch Man manga was clearly still a lampoon of familiar story beats and character archetypes, but now it looked better than most of the works that inspired it. Madhouse's first season of the One Punch Man anime then felt like the logical endpoint of this arc. Its over-the-top energy, non-stop sakuga, and perfectly timed humor made it feel like a winking celebration of all of the nerd culture that went into it.

That first season of One Punch Man knew it was ridiculous, even as every aspect of its production was deeply impressive. Season three of One Punch Man feels sad and like it's chasing its glory days.

While the animation is better so far than in season 2, the folks at J.C. Staff don't have the sauce like the team at Madhouse did. Non-action scenes feel stiff, and there's an awkwardness to the animation in the more action-packed scenes. Demon Slayer has become one of the biggest anime in the world in the time between One Punch Man season 2's release in 2019 and the release of season 3, and it feels like OPM is trying to copy that anime's penchant for adding layers of after effects to make things look cooler. I don't like Demon Slayer's animation, and those effects look especially tacked on in OPM season 3, making what should be a seminal work look like a weak imitation of the new hotness.

The story being set up in these early episodes of One Punch Man season 3 is also such a far cry from what made the original work appealing. We've gone from Saitama actively telling people to shut up when they spend too much time espousing about their backstory and motivations, to a mountain conflict between opposing Hero and Monster Associations, with both sides dealing with members set to undermine them internally. It's not that this kind of political intrigue can't work in an action focused story — works like Hunter X Hunter and One Piece prove that they can — but this kind of writing isn't One Punch Man's strong suit and feels discordious with the tone it previously established.

I also just don't buy Garou as the foil to Saitama that the show seems to be setting up. I get that his character arc is meant to call into question the morality of this society and how heroes are functionally cops meant to enforce a status quo that creates in-groups and out-groups, but I don't think this anime has the writing chops to thoroughly explore these themes. Right now, season 3 of One Punch Man feels like it only exists because the first season was too successful not to make more, and I desperately hope some of the enthusiasm and expertise that made the first season so beloved surfaces in this one soon.

Rating:

One Punch Man is currently streaming on Hulu.

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.