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Plot Summary: One-Punch Man is a super hero who has trained so hard that his hair has fallen out, and who can overcome any enemy with one punch. However, because he is so strong, he has become bored and frustrated with winning all his battles so easily.

Director: Shingo Natsume

Runtime: 29 mins / 12 episodes + 7 OVAs

Genre: action, comedy

Studio: Madhouse

Internet Streaming: Daisuki, Neon alley

Licensed by: Viz Media

Main Cast:

• Kaito Ishikawa as Genos
• Makoto Furukawa as Saitama
• Aoi Yūki as Senritsu no Tatsumaki (Tornado of Terror)
• Kazuhiro Yamaji as Silver Fang
• Kenjiro Tsuda as Atomic Samurai
• Kouki Uchiyama as Melzargard
• Mamoru Miyano as Amai Mask (Sweet Mask)
• Masaya Onosaka as Pri-Pri-Prisoner
• Minami Takayama as Dōtei (Child Emperor)
• Rikiya Koyama as Sea King
• Satoshi Hino as Chōgōkin Kurobikari (Superalloy Darkshine)
• Tesshô Genda as Metal Knight
• Toshiyuki Morikawa as Lord Boros
• Wataru Hatano as Kinzoku Bat (Metal Bat)
• Yūichi Nakamura as License-less Rider
• Yuuki Kaji as Onsoku no Sonic (Speed of Sound Sonic)

Review: by Kendrick

One-Punch Man follows Saitama, a disillusioned former salaryman who decides to become a hero for a hobby after he saves a ball chinned young boy from a humanoid crab monster. After three years of doing a rigorous daily exercise routine of 100 push-ups, 100 sit-ups, 100 squats, and running 10km, he lost his hair and becomes strength incarnate. Because of this, he winds up defeating all of his foes with just one punch, leading him to become just as bored with his hobby as he was with his job.

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What I Liked:

The world rules:

One-Punch Man takes us to a world where the rules of reality are crazy and skewed. The first monster we are introduced to is a guy that ate so much crabmeat that he turned into a crabman. Even later in the episode we see that a man loved cars so much, he became a carman. You can probably see where I am going with this. Saitama did strength training to become a hero and became strength incarnate. Saitama isn’t so strong because he worked hard and got that way, the laws of reality in this world are just warped.

The Animation

This is one of the best animated shows I have ever seen. I mean from city landscapes to fight choreography. I could write all day about the animation during fight scenes. Even the layman could see that something special went into animating action scenes. One might think that because the main character can defeat anything in one punch that fights would be over instantly, but that thought is turned on its head by introducing and having lots of low tier heroes fight.

The Hero Hierarchy

Another of my favorite parts of One-Punch Man was the hero association. The father of the kid Saitama saves turns heroism into one big business. It’s incredibly flawed and we get to see that over and over again throughout the series. Celebrity counts for more than heroism, and the heroes in the bottom tier snipe at each other in an attempt to claw their way to higher tiers. Even though the man character defeats bad guy after bad guy, he is treated horribly. Even worse, because he is ranked incorrectly, his accomplishments are given to higher ranking heroes on the scene. You then see it only gets worse at the top. Most of the top heroes are selfish and lazy.

What I Didn’t Like:

There aren’t enough episodes. I wish this first season was longer, 12 episodes went by really fast.

Also Fubuki from the Hero Association seems to be a main character I was really interested in, but she did not get a lot of screen time.  I hope that’s remedied in the second season.

Images Courtesy of Random Curosity