My Thoughts on One Punch Man Season 1
One Punch Man is an interesting show. The first season came out a decade ago. It's been quite popular for a long time. As for me I've never been a huge fan of it. I enjoy it, but that's just it. I don't think it's amazing and never have. It has a kind of humorous premise, with the protagonist, Saitama, who defeats every enemy he faces in one punch. That is up until his final opponent. It frames itself as a parody of shonen battle anime and manga, and, in a broader sense, a series that subverts many Shonen tropes. Personally I don't think the series was nearly as subversive as many people have claimed over the years, and the joke of the anime, and I promise you there is one joke, is beaten into the ground by the end of season 1. And I still have two more seasons to go. I can't say it ever gets completely boring, but I didn't laugh out loud a single time, and there were only a few times when I chuckled or smirked at what was going on. One of those times are when Sonic gets punched int he nuts by Saitama, which, despite being a guy, that kind of always makes me giggle every time I see it. It's probably the close up cinematography and the slow motion animation that gets me there. And another is when Tatsumaki first enters the battle against that giant villain, I don't remember his name, and she's talking on the phone in front of him, and he's getting super angry, then when she's done she defeats him instantly. That was pretty humorous. There are other moments like that too, but those are just two of them that stand out to me the most after having finished the series.
Going back to the idea of One Punch Man being a parody and subversive though, I really want to dwell on that because I don't think it's that unique. And I'm excluding any that came after One Punch Man obviously. To make a claim that One Punch Man was immensely subversive to battle shonen anime and manga is to assume that ALL battle shonen anime and manga are exactly the same, because if they have differences then there's nothing to subvert, and that proclamation is bafflingly wrong. Pick any number of battle shonen from 20-30 years before One Punch Man Season 1 was released. Naruto, Bleach, One Piece, Yu Yu Hakusho, My Hero Academia, Toriko, Gintama. All of these shows are as different as they are similar. Gintama in particular is a funny one, because while I haven't seen it myself, Gintama is extremely famous for being an over the top parody of battle shonen, and anime in general, and yet everybody acted like One Punch Man was the first anime to do it. It feels like people just confuse compotent writing for being subversive, those are two completely different concepts. This paragraph might make it sound like I hate this series, but as the first pragraph highlighted I didn't. I just wanted to note my issues with one of the main reasons the series has been overly praised for a decade now, and that as far as pure entertainment value is concerned, even that is much lower than most other people, although it is still there for me.
But now a few other things I enjoyed. I love Tatsumaki. I don't think I'll get any push back on that one, and I need a statement like that after the previous paragraph. She's cute and funny and has a great personality. I also like Saitama's rather apathetic personality when it comes to being a hero. He says he's a "hero for fun" but he's always so nonchalant about it and that can be fun sometimes. And Genos compliments him very well. There are also some emotional moments too, such as when Mumen Rider was trying to fight villains, and it was good, although I think it could have hit even harder if it was the type of story that regularly attempted to deliver those types of emotional moments instead of 90 percent comedy. But I can't say it was entirely ineffective. One of the most notable things in the series is is the phenomenal animation. I would say it was quite possibly the best animated show of 2016 if Mob Psycho 100 didn't come out that same exact year. The most notable example of this is the final battle, which was simply stunning for the time, and even now mostly holds up as far as visual spectical is concerned.
Going back to the idea of One Punch Man being a parody and subversive though, I really want to dwell on that because I don't think it's that unique. And I'm excluding any that came after One Punch Man obviously. To make a claim that One Punch Man was immensely subversive to battle shonen anime and manga is to assume that ALL battle shonen anime and manga are exactly the same, because if they have differences then there's nothing to subvert, and that proclamation is bafflingly wrong. Pick any number of battle shonen from 20-30 years before One Punch Man Season 1 was released. Naruto, Bleach, One Piece, Yu Yu Hakusho, My Hero Academia, Toriko, Gintama. All of these shows are as different as they are similar. Gintama in particular is a funny one, because while I haven't seen it myself, Gintama is extremely famous for being an over the top parody of battle shonen, and anime in general, and yet everybody acted like One Punch Man was the first anime to do it. It feels like people just confuse compotent writing for being subversive, those are two completely different concepts. This paragraph might make it sound like I hate this series, but as the first pragraph highlighted I didn't. I just wanted to note my issues with one of the main reasons the series has been overly praised for a decade now, and that as far as pure entertainment value is concerned, even that is much lower than most other people, although it is still there for me.
But now a few other things I enjoyed. I love Tatsumaki. I don't think I'll get any push back on that one, and I need a statement like that after the previous paragraph. She's cute and funny and has a great personality. I also like Saitama's rather apathetic personality when it comes to being a hero. He says he's a "hero for fun" but he's always so nonchalant about it and that can be fun sometimes. And Genos compliments him very well. There are also some emotional moments too, such as when Mumen Rider was trying to fight villains, and it was good, although I think it could have hit even harder if it was the type of story that regularly attempted to deliver those types of emotional moments instead of 90 percent comedy. But I can't say it was entirely ineffective. One of the most notable things in the series is is the phenomenal animation. I would say it was quite possibly the best animated show of 2016 if Mob Psycho 100 didn't come out that same exact year. The most notable example of this is the final battle, which was simply stunning for the time, and even now mostly holds up as far as visual spectical is concerned.
Commentaires
The seasons that follow seemed less interesting to me even outside of the bad animation