One Punch-Man
One-Punch Man

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Onepunchman, the story of the great hero Saitama, an unemployed guy who found his career in being a superhero, after training for three years he achieved great power, sadly for him, he manages to destroy any enemy in just one punch, rending him bored and empty.

Story: Simple and direct action manga, overpowered Hero fights enemies, but he's attitude while doing it compliments so much the comedy.

Art: Murata Yusuke, amazing artist who worked in a lot of big names before, he's clear trace makes every page enjoyable, great detail in the images and clarity for understanding what exactly is happening in each page.

Characters: Saitama, main character ... and protagonist of the story,not finding thrill in battles anymore has left him bored and simple, he lacks any reaction to any enemy/monster/destroyer of worlds, with a smile and a positive attitude he looks for a goal. Genos, sidekick, serious cyborg who thinks he found a teacher in Saitama now follows in the hope of becoming as powerful as him, the characters balance each other quite well (This's been written around chapter 18 surely others will appear later)

Enjoyment: Personally, I have had a great time reading this manga, I look up for each new character and I'm sure a lot of people do too. It's easily inexplicable how the story feels fresh again when the characters feel almost too powerfull (Think how goku would be if he had the level at the end of DB-GT during DB)

Overall :I will recommend this to any fan of superheroes, comedy or action.

Recommendations: read a good superhero comic. watch a good superhero cartoon. watch a good superhero movie, animated or live action.

This series started as a comedic/parody manga adaptation of a comedic/parody webcomic. As it goes on, the series has become much much longer than it ever needed to be. One Punch man is right now a full on battle shonen with all the cliche associated with it. It has an overpowered protagonist, lots of bullshit power ups, villain groups, tournaments, long dragged out fights and more.
It's comedy has completely run stale and telling the same joke over and over isn't funny.

It has led me to ... believe that the author has seen this and took the series in another direction.
It is still very much complete shlock and not in the best kind of way.

I appreaciate art, so I will say that the series still very much looks great and has highly detailed art. It's generic stuff, monsters tend to have lots of spikes and look like what you'd expect from a generic monster but done in stunning detail regardless.

At this point nothing separates it from the other run of the mill battle shonen except it has really pretty art. It doesn't have a story to tell, it isn't following a plot at all and has no interesting characters.

If there’s one thing to say for sure this manga certainly lives up to it’s title of “One Punch Man”, but not in a good way. One punch man is all hype, no substance. I’ll explain in more detail later on.

Plot (5/10):
The premise is about a hero named Saitama, who’s trained and become so strong, he defeats all his fights in one punch. As a result of this, he’s bored and longs for a decent challenge. The plot isn’t deep or complex. The story basically revolves around this one joke: Saitama wins every fight in one punch, everything else might as well be padding ... for it. Basing the premise around this repetitive joke made the manga become stale quickly once you’ve seen it the first few times.

That begs the question: how does a writer manage to write around a overpowered protagonist who one punches any enemy he comes into contact with no difficulty? Well the story revolves more around the other heroes. Saitama’s sidelined once the major arc starts, in fact he’s sidelined for most of the manga because having him around would make the story boring watching him one punch everyone. It’s not a bad direction storytelling wise, but it’s really telling when the best parts of OPM is when the main character isn’t present.

The fights are boring and predictable because they follow the same formula: a threat has shown up in (insert city), the heroes are getting their ass kicked to hype up the villain, but don’t worry because Saitama will conveniently show up last minute and guess what? One punch the enemy and win! Yay...
There’s no real stakes or tension because of the lingering effect knowing Saitama could always show up to save them.

The world building is weak. The hero ranking and monster threat system are decently explored, however the cities are just lazily labelled A- Z with nothing really distinguishing them.

Characters (5/10):
One of the weaker parts of One punch man would have to be the characters.

The majority of the heroes and monsters aren’t well developed or complex, they are one dimensional and could be defined by a few character traits. The only characters I remotely care about are Saitama’s group of friends who have a bit more depth than the others.

Saitama is portrayed as a overpowered hero who embodies qualities of traditional heroism, and is meant to prove raw power or heroic achievements doesn’t make someone a hero. You’re supposed to emphasise with his plight as a low ranked hero trying to become S rank. However, I can’t relate to Saitama. His abnormal strength caused by basic training makes no sense. Saitama acts like an incompetent moron who lets others take credit for his achievements and he let’s civilians think he’s not doing his job properly. It’s infuriating when the writer tries to victimise Saitama like this, because the reader knows what he's done. Had Saitama displayed his true power to the Hero association I’m sure he’d easily become S ranked, but due to his incompetence and lack of social skills, I can’t say he deserves it.

Genos is supposed to be the intelligent cyborg, yet he’s oblivious when it comes to Saitama and acts like every little thing is a wise lesson. It might be a gag, but it’s not funny. His motivation is forgettable because it gets constantly sidelined. Genos doesn’t really learn anything from Saitama unlike Mob & Reigen. Whenever Genos takes an L he just goes to see his plot device doctor who conveniently makes him 10x stronger because plot.

Art (10/10):
One of the saving graces of this manga is the art. I have to give credit where credit is due, Murata is an amazing artist. He took the webcomic which looks like a bunch of scribbles a 11 yr old kid drew and brought them to life in manga format. His art is absolutely breathtaking. The characters and backgrounds are well detailed. The fights are fluid and dynamic. However, what amazes me the most is Murata’s ability to pump out these high quality chapters consistently e.g. he would drop a 100+ pages worth for a chapter.

Enjoyment (4/10):
I don’t enjoy OPM as much as I used to, and that’s reflective in my rating.

Comedy is subjective, but i’d argue it’s not as funny as fans make it out to be. For example, “oh look Saitama missed another sale!” or “the enemy is scared of King’s engine” haha...

The tournament arc was the worst tournament I’ve ever read. Every fight up until the finals was a one shot. Gouketsu was hyped up only to guess what? Get oneshotted by Saitama. There’s no tension when he’s around.

As for the Monster invasion arc, there’s not much to say since it’s still ongoing. It’s focusing on the S ranked heroes raiding the Monsters hideout. Hopefully, the heroes get a lot more depth during this arc.

Garou carries this manga. Before he showed up it was just a simple monster of the week “parody” about heroes with the highlight being Boros who was a generic villain. That being said, while I like Garou his character is definitely overrated amongst OPM fans. I thought he might be more compelling, but his motivation of becoming a hero hunter is shallow and naive. He doesn’t realise the reasons _why_ monsters aren’t liked or as popular as heroes, and why heroes gang up on monsters. It’s not because it’s unfair, the monsters are attacking innocent lives. If a number of heroes are fighting against one monster, with everyone cheering/rooting for the heroes side it’s not because they’re cooler, but because the monsters are either too strong or dangerous and the heroes are risking their lives fighting. Furthermore, Garou has way too much plot armour that he might as well be a shounen protagonist, e.g. the guy can take on multiple heroes, demon lvl threats and heal faster than other S ranked heroes like Tank Top Master who were in the hospital for weeks.

Overall (4/10):
OPM is a fast read. You can breeze through many chapters because there’s no substance to it and the dialogue is kept to a minimum.

It annoys me when OPM fans overhype the series as if it’s got some deep, intricate story with amazing world building, complex characters and themes, when it’s really just a mediocre story about heroes with great art and decent action. It’s a fun read, nothing more.

I originally rated OPM higher, until it devolved into a typical shounen and started to drag with long, stretched out fights against monsters, which were entirely pointless to the overall story (you’ll know what I mean if you’ve read the webcomic).