One Punch Man 2nd Season

I wish I could say the sequel for one of the most popular anime of this year to be good. I really wish I could. One Punch Man’s release back in 2015 made headlines with its high caliber animation quality and ultra comical character cast. The manga itself is also very popular. Ask anyone who’ve read the series will tell you that it’s more than just your usual battle shounen. Known for its top notch quality comedy and unorthodox storytelling, it’s a sensation. But this…second season is nothing short of a horror story. It’s the type of horror that scared me to realize how far ... this anime has fallen. What did the second season go wrong?

Well for starters, there’s the change in the staff. Director Shingo Natsume left this season and responsibilities were handed to Chikara Sakurai. One of their previous project was Majimoji Rurumo, a show that probably most people has forgotten by now. One Punch Man has already established itself beyond the anime medium and with a growing popularity, it tries to aim higher. However, fans coming into this season shouldn’t have any high expectations especially if we take a look at the promotional material. While the key visual doesn’t turn heads away, the preview will. With the J.C. Staff in charge of this sequel, this raised a lot of red flags. In respect, the animation quality severely suffers in quality. Rather than a sharp, crisp quality animation with stylish aesthetics, we get static-like power point slides. Maybe I’m exaggerating a bit but this second season’s quality is easy to point fingers to. Unfortunately, it seems J.C. Staff couldn’t handle the job of making this into a sensation again. They already have their hands full with a lot of projects this year after all.

Storytelling itself doesn’t improve much either if we talk about the main plot. Again, I really wish I could say the opposite but this sequel proves itself to be a tragedy. From the rushing of certain content to underwhelming delivery of some of the important fights, I felt no impact from this season at all. Zero. Early on the in season, we also meet Fubuki (Blizzard) who leads the B-Class hero group. At first, I was ecstatic to finally see her gain some relevance. However, the fight between her and Saitama passed like a flash. There’s almost no charisma besides Saitama’s heroic speech and attitude. Even on a comedy level, it didn't draw much popcorn entertainment. Similarly, many of the dialogues this season sounds very scripted. As a manga reader, I wanted to see much more than characters speaking their lines. What I got instead is just words and words coming out in a desaturated manner. Saitama is still the bald caped hero with unstoppable power. The first season captured the magic of his character while this sequel didn’t move the needle. What I mean is Saitama’s fight against adversaries this season isn’t even near the caliber as the previous season.

But it’s not always fair to compare the previous season with this continuation, right? Truth to be told, season 1 did set the bar high. Known for its visual dynamics and ONE’s creative writing, One Punch Man has always done all it could to be its own special series. Here, it’s lost the fire. People made memes out of One Punch Man because it was comically entertaining in a genuine way. Here, there’s worthy made besides weak impressions. Even the hero hunter Garou didn’t make much of an impact. As a foil character to Saitama, I expected his personality to be a bright flair. However, Garou ended up being someone that I forgot easily. Perhaps it’s because the overall directing of the show as several events takes place at once this season. There’s the fighting tournament involving various heroes, the invasion of the monsters, and Saitama living his day as usual as a hero. The joke of being one punched is far over after we’ve seen it so many times. The monsters themselves are hardly worth writing home about. To be honest, does any antagonist this season even contain an ounce of charisma compared to Boros? That fight from season 1 was legendary.

On the hero side, we do have some characters making reappearances. Names like Genos, Metal Bat, and Tatsumaki are a few I’m sure fans remember. Unfortunately, their roles this season has degenerated to little value. New faces like Suiryu brings in some excitement although he can hardly carry this season. In fact, the Super Fight Tournament arc felt like one big talent show of weirdos gathering together. I didn’t feel the stakes were impactful nor did the results feel satisfying. I mean, the show is One Punch Man. Who else is going to dominate this tournament?

Oh how the mighty of fallen is the easiest way to describe One Punch Man Season 2. The first season was a juggernaut that exceeded expectations. Fans still embrace what became a blockbuster. It’s 2019 now and we’ll have people talking again One Punch Man again. Unfortunately, people will quote more from the manga than recommending this sequel. Trust me, One Punch Man Second Season is a mistake. A grave mistake.

Tldr: it's bad, read the manga.

To start this off, I am a huge fan of the manga and webcomic , and as an anime only you might get at least some enjoyment out of it, but for someone like me it's just a terrible adaptation.
The animation is one of the obvious criticisms, but it's not only a downgrade compared to season 1, it's also pretty bad compared to your average action anime nowadays.
The use of still images is quite prevalent, and impossible to miss, and the few well animated bits are often lacking a real impact, which makes the punches feel hollow. ... Furthermore the awful effects, and confusing editing get in the way of what's left to enjoy. A great example for that would be the fight from episode 3, in which during the pivotal turning point, you can't even make out what's happening, due to shiny blue rays, covering everything.
The fights being so bad is quite the big problem, especially for the characters that have their introduction, and most of their development in their respective fights.
Another major issue is the awful artwork, it's inconsistent, ugly, and just looks amateurish a lot of the time. We all knew that they could never keep up with the manga, because Murata is a god, but as season 1 showcased, it's definetly possible to stay relativly close to the source material.The bad art is being worsened by the abysmal shading, which made all characters that have metal on them look ridiculous.
With them obviously not having enough time to finish this properly, it seems like they cut corners at every turn, a thing that makes this quite evident, is the abundance of close ups, in order to reduce the amount they need to draw. This is simply annoying, and it also ruins some of the great panels from the manga, which they should have simply copied, considering that they were still images. What is even more infuriating, and absolutely inexcusable is the lack of lip flaps during some conversations, most notably in episode 2.
There are many more things I could mention, like for example that Saitamas voice actor sounds like he is just phoning it in, or that the bad opening even spoils a major plot point, but I think you get my point. Overall this is just a bad adaption, and I wish it didn't exsist, because then there would at least be the possibility of a decent season 2, and the franchise I love wouldn't have such an awful anime representing it. The few good moments are all due to the source material being so good, the adaptation ads nothing to it, and actively hamstrings it most of the time. That's why can't enjoy anything about it, and it makes me actively mad, thus, I can't give it anything but a 1/10.

*Mild Spoilers for One Punch Man Second Season*

The second season of One Punch Man is a miserable fall from grace, with a quadruple whammy of circumstances contextualizing the gravity of the show’s failures. It’s a sequel to one of the most well-animated mainstream anime of all time, released over 3 years later. On top of that, this franchise’s counterpart, Mob Psycho 100, got adapted for a second season that practically pushed the boundaries of current TV anime 3 months before this season came out. Combined with the awful feel and presentation of this new season, that set of circumstances becomes the world’s nastiest measuring stick. ... Sadly, the inability to live up to any decent set of expectations isn’t unexpected when you look at all the writing on the wall. The stiff and barely animated trailers, the off artwork, and the fact that production switched over to J.C. Staff all should have told you this was doomed to fail. The worst part is I can’t even blame the people involved, as they simply didn’t have the time, physical capacity, or resources to pull together an acceptable product. It’s a cruel joke, and a herculean task for director Chikara Sakurai and team to be burdened with.

This isn’t to say that that this season would have been great if Madhouse or the original team took over. Boogiepop 2019 was animated by the same team and studio as One Punch Man Season 1 and it didn’t look that good. It was plagued with terrible artwork and redesigns, and a sheer lack of the atmosphere that both its source material and the 2000 anime bathed in, thanks to the removal of the rustic color palette for a generic one. Madhouse also animated the Overlord anime trilogy, which is littered with repulsive CGI and artwork that I’m not a fan of. The two shows they produced this season are a powerpoint presentation baseball anime and a show no one likes that apparently also suffers from hideous CGI, so it’s safe to say there’s no way they’d fix this on a visual level. Maybe the color palette wouldn’t be so unpleasant but that’s about it. Hell, I’m not even sure that studio could fix how drab this season feels, since everything feels so floaty, awkward, and self-serious. The jokes, the excessive monologuing, the terrible attempts at emotional beats, and the mind-shattering attempts at retroactively downplaying the threat of the first season’s climax are all downright surreal.

When it comes to the jokes, there’s none of the exaggeration or punchy energy to them that was present in season 1, and the lack of comedic facial expressions only adds to how limp and awkward the delivery is this season. The deadpan humor is also weakened by the stumbling, borderline lifeless presentation. I can honestly count on one hand the number of times I even chuckled in any given episode, barring maybe episode 3. On top of that, despite Saitama still one-punching overconfident bad guys in this season --i.e the main gimmick/punchline of the first season-- we don’t get to see him OHKO anyone on-screen even once until the finale. Perhaps they thought saving it up for a grand climax was a good idea, but all things considered, it’s just not worth it.

Getting back to the other issues at hand, one of the strangest criticisms I’ve ever had to lay out is that moments that seem to have happened simultaneously like the encounter between Genos and Speed-o’-Sound Sonic and the encounter between Saitama and Fubuki in episode 2 turn out to not happen simultaneously. This isn’t the first time that time becomes a liability in the show but detailing the other instance in the second half would get into some head-scratching spoilers. Another strange issue is how some episodes just end abruptly, as if they had no idea where and how to stop an episode. For a more traditional complaint, the pacing in this show is abysmal. Once the main arc of the season kicks in around episode 3, the pacing slows down to a crawl for several episodes before blitzing through everything in episode 7. The weirdest part about this is how apparently this adaptation has been burning through chapters like Sonic speeds through stages, making the sense of fatigue and whiplash all the more dizzying. No matter what, things just happen with no time to really establish anything or allow the audience to breathe and let things sink in. This, along with lifeless direction and lackluster character writing, makes it so there’s almost never any weight or impact to the big and intense moments that permeate the bulk of the season, adding to the vicious cycle of everything and nothing happening as events simply cycle through one another for no apparent reason. It’s issues like this that remind me why even in season 1, OPM was never good at being a serious narrative, let alone shuffling between parody and serious shounen.

That said, the overarching narrative of this season isn’t necessarily bad on its own. In theory, showing how the hero organization is now yet another corporation that cares more about the safety of its executives than those who work for them, and how it, Suiryu, and Garou are all foils to the heroic traits Saitama values and finds fun in, are good ideas. On top of that, the narrative genuinely gets interesting towards the last leg of the show. It’s just that everything gets tremendously bogged down by terrible presentation, hollow characterization (which we’ll get to), and a sense that vital moments are actively missing from otherwise solid character arcs and plotlines. Even worse, this season’s bloated, badly paced, and watered-down arc is all setup for a third season, so all of that arc fatigue meant nothing.

Speaking of nothing, there’s the gigantic cast of characters for this season. The characters all feel stale, including Saitama, the most entertaining character from the first season. He’s no longer this disgruntled guy who wants some respect for the hard work he put into his fun superhero craft, nor is he someone constantly wishing to fight someone strong because he hates how he can just one-shot everyone. The first scene of episode 1 tries to pretend that he still deals with the former issue, but make it past that and you’ll see that’s not the case. As for the latter problem, it’s no longer this drive that’s been eating away at him due to how disappointed he is all the time. Instead, he just casually wants stronger opponents, so he enters a tournament of martial artists, where he meets a foil of his now watered-down need to fight strong opponents. They don’t justify any of this either, so it creates this disconnect between season 1 Saitama and season 2 Saitama. They try diving back into the issue in episode 9, but they should have further demonstrated how empty he was feeling beforehand, as this episode cements that he’s not just bored, he’s practically lost and depressed. It feels like prior to tackling this issue, they wanted to give Saitama a flat arc, where people grow around him. They didn’t do a good job, for reasons mentioned prior. Another reason this doesn’t work is that the rest of the characters are incredibly one-note and eager to monologue about their baggage at the drop of a hat. Several of these monologues are intrusive and redundant as well, so the sheer abundance of them becomes grating, especially early on when they’re at their most prevalent. You know it’s bad when the one-off heroes and villains have more personality and presence to them than important side characters like King and Fubuki. Secondary and tertiary characters were never one of season 1’s strengths, but this is just lousy!

We do at least have a somewhat entertaining villain, that being Garou. However, when everything around him is so dull and when the action and presentation is as bad as it is, his intimidation and fun factor are somewhat diminished. Additionally, despite him actively going out of his way to kill both heroes and villains in his first scene and siding with the monsters who kill heroes and everyone else alike, he doesn’t kill anyone in subsequent fights. They don’t even try to justify this inconsistency. He does have some decent scenes and he does work as a warped foil of everything Saitama stands for, so despite the glaring inconsistency mentioned earlier, he’s still the best character in this show full of lifeless side characters for whatever that’s worth. On top of that, his arc to become stronger is probably the only compelling piece of writing in the show. He’s not the only foil for Saitama, as Suiryu from the god-awful tournament arc is like a more selfish, less dangerous version of him. His main difference is that he wants an easy life with his strength, and we actually see a decent arc come from him halfway into the series. The show gets to a point where I sometimes almost root for him and Garou because almost everyone else in this show is so unlikable. Practically everyone in this show is either a blank sheet or a total prick, sometimes both! Apart from a few side characters in episode 11, the only notable exception is Metal Bat, and that’s literally because of one scene at a sushi bar with like two funny jokes. Yes, they wanna show that heroes aren’t all morally sound because Garou has to have a point, but that doesn’t mean we need Saitama’s foils to be the only ones with any layered writing behind them. One last issue regarding characters is that even the world around them has none of the vibrancy and personality than in season 1. None of the one-offs are as funny or vivid as the disgruntled alien crew from the end of season 1. What a shame.

Another positive aspect of the first season was the music. The OP was a thrill ride and the admittedly overplayed OST was filled with incredibly memorable tracks that accentuated the hype and emotionally satisfying feel the show aimed for. None of these return for this second season (barring that one time they remixed one of the OG season’s tracks in episode 5), and in their place lies a bunch of boring background tracks (save for one or two of them) and a mediocre opening that doesn’t even remotely capture any of the excitement or aggressiveness it shoots for. The visuals are somehow even more lifeless in the OP than in the show too, which almost never happens. The ED is also grating to listen to thanks to the vocals, and it’s even worse than season 1’s lackluster ED. The part that stings the most is that the composer for this season was Makoto Miyazaki, the same guy who did the last season’s music. What happened?

Above all else, this show’s most controversial aspect is its visuals. By the standards of season one, the standards of the manga, the standards of both seasons of the franchise’s counterpart Mob Psycho 100, the standards of an action anime, and even anime in general, the visuals of One Punch Man Season 2 are terrible. There’s about as little animation as your current non-action seasonal or a long-running slideshow like Yugioh Duel Monsters, and almost no visual flair to compensate, with loads of panning shots, and badly edited quick cuts which make some of the fight scenes simultaneously as unstimulating as the rest of the show, and more incomprehensible than the most badly edited fight scenes from SAO and Fate/Apocrypha. Episode 7’s fights are the worst by far, with constant character model mishaps, extreme usage of bad, looping ghosting afterimages to simulate characters attacking rapidly, frame rate-killing camera movements, and CGI objects that also kill the frame rate. Even the best fights are barely above your average Fairy Tail GIF-fests, and your average fight in this show is just that but undetailed and incomplete. There are occasional, freakish drawing mishaps even outside of the fight scenes, such as the sequence where Saitama’s head is shaped like a lightbulb during a camera rotation in episode 1, or the entirety of Saitama’s conversation with King in episode 9. That alone is inexcusable, especially when this anime is 90% panning shots filled with stock assets as is! It’s even worse here where the artwork tends to be incredibly rough and badly drawn, especially with the characters’ faces and the close-up shots with inconsistent outlining, especially in episode 1. Practically every episode has a unique, outstandingly awful visual blunder to notice, and the few well-animated cuts in the show, primarily towards the final third of the series, can’t make up for that.

The strange charcoal coloring of Genos’s metal frame doesn’t even feel like it fits with the rest of the drawing of the character, and not only is it inconsistent with his season 1 frame, it constantly changes from scene to scene in the first two episodes with no rhyme or reason. As of episode 3, it seems like they’ve settled on what he should look like again before changing it one more time in another repair late into the second half, but that should have been done in the character design phase, not after production of certain episodes has ended. You can’t use the excuse of him getting all those repairs and new parts since he did the same in season 1 while looking consistent. The show doesn’t justify this itself, so neither should you. Back to the issue of charcoal-esque metal feeling out of place on the characters they’re attached to, as it applies to another returning character, Speed-o’-Sound Sonic, and other pieces of metal like Metal Bat’s...bat. This raises another issue with the show as a whole: the coloring in this season feels off. This season has a darker and more off-putting color palette than before, and along with some of the colors they used, it makes the show generally awkward and strangely bleak to look at. Even if the show somehow was animated beautifully, the color palette alone makes this show aesthetically displeasing to me. It’s a shame considering how good the returning character designs are, since now they just look off, regardless of if they’re on-model or not. Still, along with the interiors and entire buildings comprised of terrible CG assets, all of these issues make it so there can almost never be a scene that genuinely feels great to look at. Even the incredibly few moments of fluid animation suffer from most of these issues. The Blu-rays may mitigate some of these issues to an extent, but the problems are too deep-rooted for blu-ray touch-ups to truly fix.

This isn’t even a question of failing to live up to the stellar animation quality and overall visuals of the first season; this is a case of visuals that are just plain bad. It doesn’t take an animation snob to look at this and go “wow this looks wrong” or “this feels off”. No one should be grateful that a studio forced a bunch of overworked, under-scheduled staff members --including a director with almost no prior directorial experience-- to make this show. It’s not a gift, it’s a product, and a badly produced one at that. The production is so bad that the proofreader for this review had an absolute ball with the visuals, often pointing out several awful aspects and moments even I didn’t even notice. Sure, it’s no Berserk 2016/17 or Hand Shakers franchise, but that doesn’t mean we should bend over backwards just because this is a continuation of a show most of us like. As much as it hurts to say, I’m glad that this hate train started simply because it shows that even despite the pushback against this movement, we can still put our foot down on what is and isn’t an acceptable product. It shouldn’t take 3 episodes for us to see a fight with acceptable animation quality or a single cool shot, nor should it take until episode 9 for them to even attempt any interesting techniques. It also shouldn’t need up to 5 animation directors working on an episode like with episodes 2 (or 15 in the case of episode 8). That just proves this show was poorly managed, badly scheduled, and doomed to fail.

This really is the anime equivalent to Anthem and Mass Effect: Andromeda, isn’t it?

The second season of One Punch Man is the end product of mismanagement and production issues emblematic of the dismal state of the industry. This show was practically destined to fail when given to a studio that’s been spreading their teams thin through 2-5+ projects a season and having well-documented scheduling issues for the past 3 years. I can’t imagine what the team must have gone through, trying their damndest to live up to the show’s monumental expectations with such little time, staffing, or resources. It’s crushing to think that when OPM 1 came out 3 years ago, people jumped on the hype train, and now with season 2, people are jumping on the hate train. Hell, as someone who only kind of liked season 1, that’s the main reason I watched this season. While the first season functioned as the fun blockbuster anime it wanted to be, this second season was unable to truly be what it wanted to be. Honestly, it’s more depressing than hateful, and it didn’t have to be this way. That’s the anime industry for you, where blood, sweat, and tears are soaked up by cash that get put into the next season’s 5 isekai shows. One Punch Man 2 is a casualty of the industry we’re encouraged to support, and the worst part is people are ok with this.

Written and edited by: CodeBlazeFate
Proofread by: Peregrine

It's not a very hard task to tolerate with low production values, but when the heart and soul of a beloved franchise gets destroyed by directing that completely misses the point of the series, it becomes near impossible to overlook the massive amount of problems we have at hand. Welcome to the 2nd season of One Punch Man, sequel which inferiority is beyond comparison, show which is not only terrible but an absolute disgrace towards its fans. This is simply not acceptable.

This review will cover 3 main points explaining why I personally found this series to be complete bollocks. These are 1) Comedy 2) ... Directing, and 3) Art.

1) The comedy doesn't deliver due to poor comedic timing. It's a hollow, near dead version of what it used to be. Scenes end before they reach their climax. Nothing shines or stands above the rest. The content is never pushed to its limit or even tried to. There is no pinnacle to be found as the show is flat like the chest of those countless loli tsunderes J.C. Staff is most famous for. It's like the entire thing has been made without any vision, possibly by someone who never thought there was anything fun about this series to begin with.

Season 1 played around with its comedy, waited for the right moment and even pushed the overall comedic resolution to its utmost limit. It was the type of content that constantly showed respect to its audience, and this was done to an extent that made it very easy to respect it back. After all, making a series about a dude who -- most of the time -- wins everything with a one punch is a risky move which could only ever work if there's a perfect harmony and the strongest merits are polished. And that was done and achieved. With this 2nd season, the presentation is bad, the execution is worse, and its overall form is, at best, like a parody of its predecessor; The punch is still there, but it doesn't have any impact.

2) Immersion is the key, and it's best achieved by atmosphere because with atmosphere comes awe, and awe is something that limits disbelief and gives us the basis that is needed to forgive all sort of flaws, problems and questionable choices any series contains and does. Experiencing the gar-like awe this series is famous for and getting into the show at all has been hard, if not impossible. Action comedy series (and visual comedy alike) tend to be on par with blockbuster action by default. They in generally are build around empty and soulless ideas that don't have much good things going on. This weakness needs to be countered to create this so called "genuine entertainment" that has minimum amount of annoying problems that ruin the fun. This is typically done with written details (such as oneliners or unique characteristics), audio directing, and visual execution that solely exist to make the series seem better than it would otherwise be. I.e. value is placed on details to carry the otherwise lacking content. This job is what the director is supposed to do. But OPM S2 did nothing to fight against its own flaws, rather, it only created more of them, poisoning its own core.

Audio choices, audio directing and directing itself are some of the most important things when it comes to turning mediocrities into something outstanding. But it isn't there. Rather than playing around with the mood and teasing the audience by making us wait -- or alternatively doing the opposite by throwing in some ridiculously energetic beats -- the series is more like "let's get this over with" and then they do. End of story. It promises to reward the viewer but never does. No real value is given to any scene or moment with the comedy (like mentioned earlier) and the same thing applies with the story board, the action scenes, the visuals, and music choices and seiyuu work. To get completely serious here, nearly every scene could be used as a material for Every Frame a Painting videos as an example of the unpreferred way to do shit.

Perhaps the best example of all of this are the first 8,5 minutes of episode 09 which are so poorly made I doubt anyone who gets into film school, but hasn't even taken any lectures yet could manage to do worse job even if they tried to. Heck, I doubt there are even many graduates who could purposely achieve this level of awful. Pay attention to the lackluster sound mixing, monotonous voice acting, the near complete absence of SFX and note the music choice that would be tagged as (mellow piano) in hearing impaired subs. Perfect mood for a scene where some incredibly socially awkward dude tries to kiss his crush with whom he has never spoken with, right? Guess again! It's the most badass fight scene in the first half of this arc! And this is only the audio we're speaking of. What the actual krukk? Talk about failed delivery. Life of an art house visionary, I tell you. This can hardly be called "directing", rather, it seems like a serial production process for products that should've been buried deep under ground and sealed away in cement. Tho a better example of how awful the SFX is is a fight scene from episode 11 where the sounds of landing punches were most likely created by someone repeatedly hitting church organs with a wet sock.

3) Art. When we asked for "loyal adaptation", no one meant "keep the webcomic art as it is", but that's all we've got. MadHouse's art and animation cannot be overhyped. One Punch Man is the single best animated action anime that has yet been made, one may disagree but not change my mind. I saw it 4 times, own it on blu-ray and it looks glorious, visually one of the best things that are called anime, especially when looking into modern productions. Season 2 is a generic J.C. Staff production where still artwork flows around the screen, cheap effects and camera tricks are trying to create the illusion of animation and movement; Even the most basic scenes are done with voice-over narration to ensure there is no need to even animate mouth movements; If there is a way to save money and time, it's chosen every single time; Character models are only few steps away from sanic-tier, purposely terribly drawn memes; The color pallet is not only bland, but inconsistent to a point that the episodes could have as well been made by completely different teams who never shared any data between each other. Just compare the colors of episodes 3 and 4. Let me repeat what was said in the opening paragraph: low production can be forgiven, but One Punch Man 2nd Season's production is a heartless piece of industrial waste, anime that has not known love or passion.

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What J.C. Staff is doing here is despicable as it's making their creation seem like an attempt to use this entire medium as an investment platform. Minimum effort and risk to ensure profit. The ultimate safety route. "We missed out Bitcoin so let's see if this can cash us some." I guess that's why they couldn't even color metals properly since those aren't gold or silver. This is the furthest from a work of passion, driven by creed alone. Saitama is not "ok" anymore like in the meme, rather, it's a full turn around with a K.O. (sorry, I just had to put this here somewhere)

When series comes with such obvious and serious issues, I don't think there is any real reason to go in depth with the story and characters because OPM S02 is fundamentally so broken that no amount of pros falling under these categories could fix it. I will only talk about them briefly. Keep in mind that the technical aspects of the show lessen the entertainment value of its story and characters -- and ultimately they are just an inferior version of the re-drawn manga, which I personally recommend reading instead of watching this anime -- but since they are a part of this anime and not an entity that can be completely taken out of context, and considering this review is not aimed for the manga, you will face criticism that is only relevant to the anime. + This anime is not 100% loyal to canon anyway.

The story type changes during this season. The monster of the week formula is put in the background when new type of elements and side-plots are expanding the verse and moving the main focus from Saitama to other characters. At first, the series seems to be quite lost when the storyboard is all over the place, introducing characters at episodic speed and following wide range of different pov's in each, offering fights that don't seem to have real substantial value and showing monsters that are partially making the entire idea for the series seem old and outdated. It takes over half of the entire run time before the story finally tightens up, the supposed build-up phase concludes and the filler-ish feel of the past events start seem significant. Most of this run time is used to make the viewer understand the characters better and see what type of people they are, the actual means used to achieve all of this being secondary. Despite everything there is to criticize, the characters are not a missed shot. Fubuki is strengthening her role as the best girl for anime only watchers, King especially is portrayed to be an actual real human, and Garou "The Hero Hunter" is shown to be an actually very well-thought out villain. With mild issues in the storyboard (and major in their execution, of course), the story knows where it is headed and majorly improves towards the end. From these departments, the series seems bearable even under its massive problems listed above. There definitely was room for improvement from these departments, too, but even so, at least they managed to make watching this series more tolerable.

PLEASE READ THE WHOLE THING (I KNOW IT'S LONG BUT HOPEFULLY WORTH IT)

Let me get this out of the way before I say anything: I never thought the original One Punch Man was this phenomenal anime that it was portrayed as being; I acknowledge that it was a decent/good show but nothing more. With that being said, this new season is a downgrade from the original in about every aspect so you can more or less see where I'm going with this review.

Great, now that I've induced the hatred of rabid OPM fans and essentially destroyed my chances of receiving any positive feedback or "helpful" ... votes, I'm going to be diving into why I decided to give this anime a 6/10... I know, it's shocking.

Actually, why not start with some positives first before I rip this show apart? For one, the cast of OPM is great, with the perfect balance of comedic moments, seriousness and badassery (yes, that's now a word) spread evenly between the characters! Saitama remains as one of the best and most likeable main characters in recent memory with a fantastic supporting cast beside him. One thing that I can't fault is the fantastic chemistry that is still prevalent between the cast; whether it be witty banter or heroic speeches, each interaction is a joy to watch; especially with the amazing voice work! However, don't expect to be blown away by the development each character receives or how original their personas are because quite frankly, they do all roughly fall into stereotypes although that actually favours the anime surprisingly! Another minor nit pick for now in the first couple of episode is that Garou so far is a lifeless edgelord who honestly holds nothing interesting to his name other than "Hey, I'm OP... that makes me a good character right?" Yet, I can't criticise him too much due to the fact that there is still plenty of time for him to grow on me so I will just avoid this factor for now. Now onto how the anime is mediocre at best:

Let's address the elephant in the room, JC Staff took over from Madhouse's previous season which worried the fans of the anime immensely and rightly so. JC Staff certainly isn't the first name an otaku thinks of when it comes to amazing action packed animation and so far... the animation has been ok. That's honestly the only way to describe it; it is by no means robust and clunky but lacks the finesse and passion that could be seen in the first season. Action sequences lack the emotion behind each blow that could previously be felt with animation short cuts being made in almost every altercation so far in the anime. Punches feel weightless as they don't show the impact of the blow as a means to save money which in turn makes me heavily disappointed considering the great action present in the original. These little things show that very little care and concern was put into the production and don't even get me started on the drawing quality! Genos looks like a bloody tin can walking about! Like seriously, metallic shading is not JC Staff's strong suit! But, in general, the animation is alright, it's acceptable and definitely gets bonus points for some fine jiggle physics so I guess that makes JC Staff worth something.

Another shortcoming has been the music; that opening song although not particularly bad, is trying to hard to renovate the original. It lacks the hype of the first opening and seems to ride the first song's wave rather than attempting to surpass it. Dare I say it, the opening almost sounds identical to the first! Only if the first one lacked any sort of feeling and was downgraded to about a 5/10. I guess endings are also a thing so I might as well talk a little about it... it's ok. I've been using this word a lot so far because it's the majority of this anime! Hell, even the soundtrack is sort of just fine and nothing special which is crazy since I actually quite liked all the music in the first season- I'm not saying it's anywhere near bad but I expected more in the second season.

My final point is about the plot. It's laughable. One of my biggest problems with the first and second season is how basic the story telling is. I get it, it's not the main focus of the show; the plot is used as a gimmick in OPM to show off action and comedy, however, no matter what form of entertainment it is, the story is essential especially when thinking critically and that's the one department where OPM falls terribly short and is probably the main reason why Mob Psycho is an a league of its own in comparison. I said I wasn't going to talk about it but I'm going to anyway; Garou's story so far is extremely predictable and basic! The hype for his character and story led me to believe that he was going to be special but is it just me or does everything related to him just seem like lazy character building and story telling so far? Again, it may be too early to judge but I cannot let it go! To be honest, in what is essentially the first third of the second season, no progress has been made in terms of the plot and no! Fubuki's tits won't help me forget how poor the story has been so far!

Let's end the review here; as you can probably tell by now, my enjoyment has been severely limited due to the negatives completely overshadowing this anime's positive aspects. It may still be too early to give it a complete verdict but I feel as though I need to share my opinion with the fan base. I'm not a hater at all; I honestly want what everyone wants: GOOD ANIME and this is not it. So, can we please stop fanboying and start criticising as to send a message that we won't stand for mediocrity? If we do this, I can guarantee that it will only benefit the industry and our enjoyment of anime in the future. Thank you for reading, I know it was long so I apologise, here's the verdict:

Story: 5
Art: 6
Sound: 6
Character: 8
Enjoyment: 6

(5+6+6+8+6)/5= 6.2

MAL Rating: 6/10

One Punch Man 2 is just tiresomely stupid and ugly.

Four years ago, Madhouse animated One Punch Man aka OPM and blew the charts with an outstanding production. The fans waited four years for a sequel, and in exchange, they got a piece of trash that is in pair with productions just as "Mommy, please save my eyes," "Honey, I destroyed OPM." I do not know if "Boku no Pico" is better than this junk, but it is clear that J.C. Staff failed severely. In one sentence: OPM2 is the kind of sequel you may end up wishing you’d never seen. If you are an OPM ... follower, be advised, proceed with caution, and be ready for a long agony.

After watching the first episodes, I was feeling miserable (the feeling never changed). I was not expecting to see something poorly drawn by a group of professionals that cannot understand how an action animated sequence is made. The characters need a vibrant movement. However, in this production, the action is weird because they overused "still" sequences; they do not have the right direction (sound, art, etc.). Furthermore, the design is awful and disgusting.

All went wrong with OPM2. The animation is ugly, the colors are horrendous, the jokes are unbearable, the story... did this thing has an acceptable plot, maybe? Lastly, the fights are grotesque, uninspired. The story tries very hard to catch our attention with the comedy and the villains' performance. However, you cannot transform the wood in gold, and you cannot turn OPM2 in OPM because the jokes are bad. I do not know if it is the timing, the writing, the art, the sound, or maybe I became immune to OPM's charm, but the second season feels empty. The biggest mistake is asking more for a studio that isn't specialized in this kind of genres. They did what they could. Sadly, this sequel feels more like a cheap imitation than a sequel.

Worse yet, the story does not deliver a climax. This kind of animated series needs to have a precise harmony between action sequences, sound, art, and writing. OPM2 fails in most of them so, in the end, the fights, the comedy, are unconcluded. Call it a wrong direction, bad production, I call it lack of studio's experience. The result is an empty carcass titled OPM2.

Lastly, I can continue pointing the bad points of this mediocre show, such as the sound that for me is one of the most awful of the season because it does not help the fights and does not raise the action. However, there is some positive aspect, such as the introduction of some villains (Garou, his background) that are there to boost Saitama's performance. The direction improved in the last episodes where we can enjoy some outstanding action sequences. For example, when Garou fight against Genos. However, the poor management predominated during all the season killing the entire show. While OPM2 just implodes and burns, J.C. Staff missed a golden opportunity to display the otaku community that they can be a great studio again.

Ok, let me just preface this by saying this:

What's with all the salty manga readers giving terrible reviews and still getting to the top of the review charts? OBVIOUSLY it's hard to match the amazingly dynamic and fluid fight scenes of the first season, but that's no reason to just go "uGh, iT's sO gArBaGe", like come on get over your elitism. It wasn't even close to "viciously murdered by J.C. Staff".

Now that I've scared away all of the readers, here is my review of this season:

(Very mild spoiler warning)

Story: 9

The arc that this is adapting from the webcomic/manga marks a tonal shift from everything ... prior, as it shifts into a more regular hero show dynamic. Garou, a major antagonist, gets introduced in this season and is developed throughout the episodes; there is a Monster Association which serves as the major antagonistic group and the antithesis of the Hero Association, and the One Punch Man himself is put on the backburner for the most part as the story focuses on some interesting side characters and plots. There is a nice alternation between the comedy of Saitama and King (who I'll get into later) and the action of Genos, Bang and others fighting the Monster Association and Garou, all while an overarching Monster Association scheme unfolds. It is a nice change of pace, and both the anime and the manga adapt this arc quite well.

Art: 5

This is really the main failure of this season to most people, and while it's obvious the art isn't as amazing as the original, and might not even be amazing on its own right, it isn't as atrocious as people make it out to be. Sure, some characters don't seem to be as well drawn and animated for their part as the first season, but the animation is acceptable, with a few shinign scenes of great animation. Aside from the lackluster adaptation the art is faithful to the original, and for that I can't fault it too much.

Sound: 8

The music is just as good as the original series, with Makoto Miyazaki and JAM Project back for the OST and the opening, respectively. I don't have much to say about the OST other that while the music isn't absolutely mind-blowing, it is really fitting for the show and is as hype as ever. And, although the opening is not as hype and catchy as the original, that would have been hard to match with any band doing the music anyways.

Characters: 10

This is the other part of the show that shines, besides the story. The introduction of 2 major things makes the character dynamic as good as, if not better than, the original: Garou and his dynamic with the Monster Association, and King and his dynamic with Saitama.

*mild spoilers about Garou*
Garou is a new character which matches some of the archetypes of a monster antagonist while also being fresh and unique. He is a monster who seeks to take down the hero hierarchy and pridefulness, which is similar to other monsters in other shows. However, what makes him different is that he distinctly rejects monsterdom as well. He chooses to take the moral ideals of what a hero is supposed to be, and tries to incite true heroes to rise, but he uses the methodology of monsters by taking down heroes, thus being unique and introducing a moral dilemma into the show. Due to his rejection of the pure evil of monsterdom, he runs into conflict with the Monster Association, who wants to recruit him despite him not wanting to join.
*end of Garou spoilers*

*mild King spoilers*
King, on the other hand, represents an antithesis to Saitama. Whereas Saitama is an insanely strong hero with strong ideals of justice but isn't recognized for his heroism, King is acclaimed for heroism despite not having the ideals of a hero nor the strength. What this does is creates a unique relationship between King and Saitama, as they become friends despite this. Comedy arises due to King's insane video game skill (which is what King and Saitama do in their free time), and King gets to avoid even more conflict by having Saitama around him. King is developed as a character as well, as he isn't completely defenseless due to his intelligence and intimidating look (and fame).
*end of King spoilers*

Lastly is Saitama. Saitama isn't the focus of this season at all, instead being a catalyst for change in many side and main characters. He, through his various past heroic acts, incited many people to gain bravery and seek to be a hero, and these characters who have changed due to Saitama get introduced here in this season. Although it is a big shift from the first season, this character composition is arguably much more interesting.

Enjoyment: 8

This show is known for its enjoyment due to the first season. Its comedy in the first season makes the show very interesting and endearing. Although this season marks a downgrade in the art, and the story type and idea shift, I would say that this season is arguably as enjoyable as the original. A lot of characters get introduction and development, interesting fights are played out, and the comedy is still there, albeit in less quantity.

Overall: 8

I bashed on the haters of this season earlier, but I understand where they are coming from. I personally don't agree, but I do completely understand that this show was a disappointment compared to the earlier hype. I think that this season was just crushed by the hype of its predecessor, but even then this show still holds up as a solid entry and a fairly good and enjoyable adaptation of a very new and interesting arc in the One Punch Man series.

I am glad Madhouse or Bones' animators aren't involved with One Punch Man anymore, while the first season animation was so remarkable it just doesn't fit the show.

This is not an issue that stems from the anime but from the manga, Murata crippled One Punch Man. As you might know, One Punch Man's manga is not its original source but the webcomic is and that has such "bad" or "amateurish" drawings that combined withe the parodical and comical nature of One Punch Man made the webcomic hilarious.

Murata saw the webcomics potential and corrupted it. Perhaps instead of Murata himself it was actually magazine ... editor but it doesn't mater, One Punch Man became what it was parodying. While Murata's manga is still a good manga it's not as great as One's webcomic. The detailed and almost hyperrealistic style combined with new framing and story tweaks moved the focus from the derpy comedy to a more serious action, and to me that was a huge mistake.

Murata's versions and season 1 of One Punch Man try to give the show more credibility, more action and make us take the show seriously even though the show is just a parody. It simply doesn't work and it kills the joke of the webcomic. So many people act like they are fans of One Punch Man and ask for recommendations of anime with overpowered main characters like Saitama or discuss who is strongest between Goku and Saitama, sadly to those people I'd say that they didn't get the show.

One Punch Man season 1 sure had amazing action but it lacked the narrative weight behind it, it was pointless. That's because no one can rival Saitama, and that's he joke. However, Murata and season 1 still try to sell it as an action or superhero show when it's not. Therefore I am glad that One Punch Man doesn't have that amazing animation anymore, now the focus of the show can again be the parody and comedy.

Inferno Cop is what One Punch Man should have been.

One's work was always about the character development and comedy/ satire, but all I hear complaining in this season how lack luster the animation is, which is to some extent is true but that is entirely the case here.

Animation is lacking in this season but even this animation is ten times better than anything we usually get, but people complain how fight scenes are not well directed and camera view is weird, to them my answer is did you not watched the episode 3, which was close to the first season in my opinion. Also king and and fubuki are great addition to the ... caste and add to much to the story and comedy. How can I not talk about the garou the real star of the season, if he is bad guy or a hero that is not established concretely yet, we have to wait and see.

All I have to say is that studio j.c staff gave their best but their best is not match for madhouse. But still this is a fun season and I will recommend to everyone.

I'm just going to start off by saying I really can't figure out why so many people are complaining about the story and the comedy isn't as good as the first season and keep placing all the blame on the studio. Honestly speaking as long as you’re a manga reader you will know that they follow the script almost to the T with only a bit rearrangement and cut off here and there. All the comedy and story came from the same script that the first came from.

I already understand that humans find it hard to accept change especially when it started off on ... a good note with madhouse, but I really can't accept how they allow it to affect their judgment so much that they keep nip picking and trying to find every fault they can on a really good second season which will cause other people to have second thoughts if it's worth even watching from how horrible they make the anime seem.

Okay, let's get on with the review.

The story is really well done it follows closely to the pacing in the manga but with some chapters being rearranged and I mean the pages, not the entire chapter for example. say if you have Genous fight X monster on chapter 60 but in chapter 61,62 and 63 there are no more scenes of that fight until chapter 64 has a few more pages to wrap it up, what they basically do is take those pages and mash it together instead of splitting it up all the time like the manga. I can't find anything to complain about the story it's basically just like the manga, one of the things I always did like about madhouse is that with any anime production they do they always try their best to stick close to the source material instead of mixing their own ideas and ruing the story J.C.Staff is also one of those that try to stick with the source material not just story wise but also art style.

The art was great, but I won't lie there were a few scenes where people face look awkward (Genous weird face at a few scenes) J.C.Staff also suffer from a habit in this anime of doing narrow face for basically everyone, King was affected greatly cause of this it made him look like terminator on drugs. The biggest but hardly notice difference from S1 and 2 you will only notice if you actually do research and look back and forth between the two season images. Madhouse version of One has more substance in its art the character is drawn in a 3D style feel in every angle and looks shiny in a way. while J.C own has a more 2D style with a mixture of 3D and more lines. but other than all that it was basically a perfect score.

The sound was great I enjoy Garou theme music and they also incorporated some soundtrack from the original. When I first hear the sound effects for the first battle in the anime, I was wheel right in but after around episode 7, I notice that they seem to be using a limit track not just for fight scenes but even OST there isn't much variety. I really wish they either had added more of the first OST or made more new ones (I'm a big fan for anime music) and it would have been nice to add a bit more variety sound effect than running a cycle through the same old.

There's not much to say about characters if you follow the manga or watch the first anime then you know what to expect, Awesome characters as always.

For enjoyment that's obvious how can you not enjoy such a masterpiece
Overall one punch man season 2 was a success in my book yes there were a few things I felt they could of change or improve on but when I look back at many other adaptions to books, I read and the number of times I pray that they don't screw it up but these prays never get an answer. looking at the almost negligible issues I have with season 2 is cute and laughable. but I really feel sorry for J.C and season 2 OP because everyone seems to be full of madhouse on the brain it makes it really hard for most people to acknowledge this as a success but instead keep comparing it to the first season to the point that they even blame the studio for the content it presented when it all came from the source. I just hope that it's not like that overseas because if even they act like that no matter how popular the manga will be if sales for the Blu-ray etc sucks we can forget about season 3.

Story - 10

Art - 7.5

Sound - 7.5

Character - 10

Enjoyment - 10

Overall 9.5

One Punch Man, a series loved by many for bombastic animation and hilarious physical comedy has been viciously murdered by J.C. Staff.

Unless you have been living under a rock for the last year, it’s known throughout the anime community that Madhouse handed the second season of OPM to J.C. Staff—a studio known for cutting corners in their animation. Our expectations were low, but JESUS CHRIST THIS IS GARBAGE.

The art is awful. It’s flat, the color pallete is dull, and the shading is messy dog shit. Character designs were changed from their clean cool style to jagged and hideous imitations of their former selves. Metal textures ... look especially awful; it doesn’t have a shiny effect anymore, it just looks pudgy and gray.

All of the animation is practically a stop motion slide show. When there is motion it is just excessive speed lines and other cheap light effects making it hard to tell what’s even happening. Action scenes are edited poorly, shots jump from one still image to the next rather than animating the character’s movement.

This season has a slower pace with more focus on one major villain rather than a monster-of-the-week story; it’s easy to see this as an improvement, but everything is executed much worse than the original. Extensive dialogue with very little animation is used to fill screen time in place of the abundance of action scenes in season one.

Even though the characters look bad, they’re still very likable. Garou is a great villian, and there are entertaining heroes like King and of course Saitama. However, the comedic timing is poor. Jokes don’t land with any impact. Unfunny humor is entirely due to the lame visuals, mediocre sound effects, and awkward directing.

Sequels rarely live up to their predecessors, but this is a hollow, mangled corpse of the original. J.C. Staff has been overworked and understaffed for years, and they should not have been given the responsibility of a show as big as One Punch Man.
Don’t watch this. Go read the manga instead.

We must not disrespect someone who are trying their best to impress us. Yeah I am talking about J.C staff! They have given a good hard work on this show adaptation till episode 4. I know episode 1 and 2 was decent but after these two the series finally got the grip and started the hype train. I know it is a bad thing about studios to change place but the fault is of the director which started to work on other anime Boogie pop and the others and left One Punch Man to dust and then J.C helped the show to get its sequel, ... so to haters please shut the hell up and let us enjoy the show also don't bark again and again for reading manga please just shut up. Guys ignore these kind of shits and I know the manga has some good artwork and great designs, we should also read it but you know J.C staff are trying to show their own styles and remember there are major differences between manga and anime, so let us enjoy both and well.


Story= 10/10

Art=8/10

Sound=7/10

Character=10/10

Enjoyment=9/10

Overall=10/10

Ths season is best. If MADHOUSE has showed his best animations then its time for J.C Staff to show its own. Try hard and make us happy with your best of all.

This is my first review on this site, but I really felt like saying my bit. So far I've been really enjoying season 2 of one punch man, of course season 1 was simply incredible and following up to an anime of that quality and popularity is very hard to do and there will almost certainly always be complaints. The animation, although not as 'good' (subjective) as season 1 is still pretty good and still very much feels like one punch man. The story (at least so far) is quite entertaining and has been adapted from the manga fairly well, considering that adapting any manga ... is a task in itself. The pacing for this season has also been really good, with some anime I find that they cover a lot of ground very quickly and sometimes the story suffers for it (Tokyo Ghoul Re for example), but for one punch man season 2 this is certainly not the case. Also, just for a final point the humour shown to us in season 1 has definitely been carried over to season 2 so, if you're on the bench about watching, give it ago! To summarise, It's got an interesting story (so far), with engaging, new characters (Garo) and it combines humour with action very well!

Lets all just be honest with ourselves! This anime which was gloriously adapted by madhouse has been officially murdered by J.C. Staff. OPM's first season was an awesome and absolutely great anime with epic fights now vice versa and we have OPM season 2 animated by J.C. Staff. This anime has been horrible and I don't think it has a chance of surviving and coming close to what madhouse's opm was! Sadly OPM died when they abandoned Madhouse and picked J.C.Staff and the story and everything else is pretty much lame and boring. It is a fine anime at best and is super far from ... being worth watching in my opinion. I really wish Madhouse worked on this so we would get to see some really badass fights and action sequences. Still, you are free to enjoy it.

This went the direction I hoped the series would after the first season. ONE wasn't clever enough to keep the manga going as a gag manga, and quickly wrote Saitama out of a bunch of scenes to just play it as a straight shonen. Yeah, it's over-the-top and the powers can be kooky, but neither of those traits are anything close to uncommon in shonen. There's been self-aware shonen since JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, but I digress.

Saitama continues to be used as a sort of tension-relief, with the pattern being that powerful opponents are set up outside of his reach, and satisfaction is continuously derived by ... characters who think they're hot shit inevitably running into Saitama and getting knocked down a few pegs. It's simple and nothing outside of what Dragon Ball Z did constantly, but it's amusing nonetheless. Saitama's invincibility is essentially a fact at this point, and always knowing that a comeuppance is around the corner leads to the anime's funnest moments.

This has the unfortunate side effect of making any scene without Saitama usually fail at any attempted drama. The results of every fight are known not to matter, as if the villain is to succeed and progress in fighting heroes he'll inevitably be destroyed by Saitama, and if anything of permanence happens, either a villain will die simply before Saitama makes it happen, or a hero will die. Problem there is, OPM puts so much work solely into its character design that none of those heroes have any backstory that makes victory or failure have any meaning beyond its impact on the plot.

The bright side is that season 2 admitting it's just another shonen series means that it has to fall back on more conventional storytelling to make the characters who aren't Saitama compelling, as they necessarily need to pick up most of the slack as he's usually never around. Both characters introduced in season 1 and new characters alike get more defined personalities, motivations, and weaknesses. This transition isn't as effective as characters who have these things from the start, though (i.e. most shonen works), as ONE is forced to play catch-up with defining a huge cast he set up almost at the start of the series. The consequence is that a lot of these moving parts of the story still haven't gotten additional characterization - there was simply too much to get to in this amount of time. So there's still a bunch of people running around who are literally nothing more than their character design, which I find as dull as I did in season 1.

The new villain Garo is the star of the show here, a powerful man who fights nearly anyone he comes in contact with, overcoming them with sheer tenacity and brute force. His love for combat, his desperation to overcome his inadequacies, abrasive personality, and feeling like he's fighting for underdogs makes him a stark contrast for Saitama. Though the two don't end up establishing a relationship in this batch of episodes, the switching between of their opposite perspectives keeps the season's pacing and tone, dynamic and gripping. Garo is a ton of fun to watch, but I find the emotional core of his story to be mostly ineffective. Garo fancies himself on the side of the monsters, emphasizing as a child the fact that they're unpopular underdogs always destined to lose. It's an interesting concept, but OPM's world completely fails to ever make the monsters sympathetic.

One of Garo's flashbacks has him claiming that an aquatic monster is just "trying to protect the ocean," and he reacts with horror at the fact the heroes mercilessly destroyed the monster's eggs. It certainly sounds awful if true, making the heroes out to be more bloodthirsty than the monsters, but this is never supported by literally anything else in the series. OPM had an opportunity to be morally ambiguous here depending on how it portrayed its monsters, but trapped itself by always wanting to characterize them as stock evil as possible in order to properly parody its genre's melodrama. This season goes even further in committing to that one-sided portrayal of monsters with another subplot that very clearly demonstrates that becoming a monster turns you into a bloodthirsty psychopath with no instinct control. It needed to show the audience just a single time that monsters were capable of more complexity, but it completely neglects to do so. This results in Garo's passion and motivation making him look like an idiot if examined with any scrutiny. When looking at his claims fairly, all we have are his perspective (demonstrated to be formed by bad logic) and a single anecdote from when he was a child that, if true, is so astronomically in the minority of monsters that it's virtually irrelevant. Garo wants to be on the side of the underdogs who always lose, but fails to acknowledge that 99.9% of the time monsters are being slain because they mercilessly kill and devour powerless humans, who are objectively speaking the biggest underdogs in this entire equation, meaning by Garo's own logic the heroes are more morally just than he is. It's an incredibly simple conclusion to come to that goes completely unaddressed and it has the effect of making Garo look like a huge idiot, burning away goodwill towards the character that's the primary focus of the entire season.

I'm sure there are people that argue this nonsensical backstory is another intentional gag, but I see zero reason to believe that. It seems to me that this is played straight in attempting to make Garo look like a sympathetic anti-hero, as there are additional scenes that go out of their way to establish Garo does believe in a moral code (his caring of kids) that would back up the belief that he takes his mission seriously. Not to mention that the basic idea of making the emotional core of your main character an intentional joke goes against all basic common sense ideas of writing. The tension of virtually any scene involving Garo relies on believing that both Garo and the heroes he fights are both victims who believe in justice, and you're supposed to sympathize with both sides of the battle despite the idea that only one is supposed to come out victorious. Unless you're willing to admit that these scenes are designed to be inconsequential, devoid of thrills, and pointless, you need to acknowledge that you're meant to take Garo's beliefs seriously in order for all of these scenes to have any meaning. And I find it impossible to believe that ONE didn't want these scenes to be exciting, unpredictable, and having you root for both sides. If they weren't, no one could possibly have any investment as to what happens in this series, as it would all amount to having the depth of just watching a laser light show. It's one of the classic fatal flaws of trying to argue One Punch Man as above its genre, and yet if you humble it down to conventional storytelling you're forced to admit how bafflingly underwritten certain aspects of it are. I had to take quite a skip and a hop to argue why Garo's backstory is ineffective and stupid despite it being incredibly obvious, but I just know some sections of the fanbase will still attempt to argue in favor of it, so I felt like I had to. This is why I tend to dislike discussing OPM in any critical way, because I usually end up having to run a marathon of justifications for a mostly really basic show that's just dumb fun.

But it IS fun, I've never not admitted that, even if I don't think it's genius-level fun. Garo may not be used to his full effectiveness, but he's still a joy to watch. The jokes may often be obvious and repetitive, but they still evoke smiles. The fights are emotionally and strategically nothing special, but fast-paced and exciting in their scale. All of this amounted to a series I burned through in almost a day once I got into it, and I was disappointed there wasn't more (especially since it ends on a horrifically unsatisfying cliffhanger in a way the first season didn't). To OPM's credit, I thought the character King was maybe the best joke the series has come up with thus far. The idea of a character who's incredibly weak just coasting by off intimidation via a fake reputation is nothing short of brilliant. Shonen works absolutely love establishing a future character's power by having those in-the-know immediately respond to them with immense fear, and the result is often not getting to see this character's power until far into the series' future, building hype that can carry a serialized work for a long time. It's a typical trick, but OPM's parody of it is a million times more clever than acknowledging that the main character always wins. Alas, I still have some issues with execution. I think OPM brings this joke to a conclusion far too quickly, when it could've had much more use. King is immediately established as being a phony both to the audience and Saitama. It could've been hysterically funny if Saitama was desperate to see a display of King's power, but King always denies him by posturing and saying something like fighting is always a waste of time for someone as powerful as him. It would've given Saitama a character relationship he didn't have, and the dramatic irony between the audience knowing King is weak yet the invincible Saitama taking him seriously would've probably worked well. It also could've been a lot of fun to have King fully take advantage of his reputation. King doesn't deny his false victories, but he doesn't deliberately make use of it either. King always wants to avoid fights because he's actually a coward, which is funny, but you could still have that be his internal character while also having him be vain and greedy enough to attempt to scare off people far stronger than him just by posturing. A new villain shows up that's completely unstoppable, King makes a rare appearance and stares him down with his intimidating face, the villain is aware of King's reputation for being one of the most powerful heroes and believes it when seeing his demeanor in person, the villain runs away or surrenders without even a fight and King's fearful reputation grows even further. I think that would've been an amazing character, but as he is now King is one joke that's resolved in no time. He's a coward that only is famous by accident, and he'd rather just be left alone and play video games. King's an immensely likable character nonetheless, but it bothers me that such a genius concept goes underutilized. Again, I'm forced to conclude that ONE is just limited as a writer.

Season 2 also introduces Fubuki, who is given a decent enough backstory to start with, but then basically never does anything again for the rest of the season. Boy, she sure is hot, though, right?

I'd be remiss to end this review without talking about the series' change of studio. The first season was well-regarded for its high quality animation relative to other contemporary anime, and in that regard I'd say the critical consensus was right on the money. For reasons that I'm sure aren't good ones, the second season shifted creative hands. Many people were worried that one of the first season's best traits would be lost by this transition. And they were right! Season 2 doesn't look anywhere near as good as the first. In-betweens are absent all over the place in action scenes and characters outside of center frame are often hideously off-model, for starters. The sad thing is, season 2 probably still looks better than most anime these days, but unlike season 1 that's more indicative of how dire the quality of animation is in modern anime rather than any sense of accomplishment. If season 1 looked like this it probably would've gotten away with it, but now that season 2 invites direct comparison the whole attempt just comes across as kind of pathetic. Something season 2 revels in that I fucking hate (and don't remember happening in 1) is the recently popular technique of applying a dimming effect to the entire frame to make action scenes look more dramatic. It essentially looks like someone turned the brightness down on their screen for a few frames. It looks like fucking dogshit and I cannot believe anyone in the industry or fandom thinks this looks better than no additional editing at all. It's an utter joke any professional can think this is effective. Lighting is supposed to enunciate certain parts of the frame, and that requires that other parts of the frame are lit differently in order to create contrast. You wouldn't think the purpose of contrast would go unknown by professional artists, but here we are. It's at least obvious why studios want to use this technique: it's way easier to turn a slider down in a video editor than it is to color individual frames in a way that simulates natural lighting. But not being capable of putting in the second of thought to realize highlighting only works when not everything is highlighted is nothing short of amazing to me. It's like someone hands you a long document and for the sake of organization they used a yellow highlighting marker to show someone the most important parts at a glance. In this case, you'd be getting that document with every line of text drawn over with bright yellow. It would be useless in its intent to focus you on certain parts, and it would look like shit. And thus is the same result of this animation "technique." Lastly, the audio mixing in some action scenes can be downright trashy. For some reason there are a lot of impact sound effects that seem as though they're mixed super low in comparison to the music. This muffled sound takes away all the power of punches, etc., and I have no idea why it was done seemingly at random. There are multiple fight scenes where the screen dims, a powerful character throws multiple punches with the force of cannonballs, and yet each hit sounds like the person on the defensive is being hit with wet sponges. Exhilarating!

It's bizarre to finish a One Punch Man season enjoying its story more than its animation, which was the exact opposite reaction I had from season 1, yet here we are. It's a shame, because this season could've had both and have been an easy improvement over the first, but the staff just weren't ready to go that extra mile. We can only hope a possible season 3 will turn things around, but I know I at least will be paying attention should it happen. At this point I'm always ready for some more dumb fun. Because that's what One Punch Man is. And more power to it now, I say.

MINOR SPOILERS

Not as bad as made out, but definitely nowhere near what was and what should have been.


This show honestly received way too much flak and hate when the first trailer released. Four episodes in, it's safe to say that S2 of One Punch Man is still worth the watch — even if it really cannot stand anywhere near Madhouse's excellent S1 from a technical standpoint. As (mostly) an anime only for OPM, I can say that most of my opinions from here on aren't jaundiced as everything I know about the story so far is from the anime.

The story continues where we left off, ... charting Saitama's misadventures as he forges his own hero legend. We now have a new villain known as Garou, who solidifies his status as a threat by massacring a room full of villains and taking out three A-rank heroes in the process. Garou's savagery and brutality in his quest for power pits him against various other heroes while Saitama continues with his daily routine: eliminating evildoers with nothing more than one punch, and failing to get any recognition most of the time. Garou's and Saitama's paths also coincide with a notorious prophecy warning of massive impending doom, which threatens to end the very world as our heroes know it.

There's nothing too complex about this story, which is a good thing — linear plots are the ones with the least plot holes, so the whole ride is a pretty safe albeit predictable one. The only moments you truly go "oh shit!" usually involve you laughing as Saitama dismantles a worthless pretender. Overall Garou seems interesting enough and his self absorbed quest and beliefs seem like a fun enough foil to Saitama's lackadaisical journey.


As far as characters go, there hasn't been any monumental shift in motivation so far. The defining character moments have all still been from the first season, and it's pretty much just continuation at this point. Saitama's comedic misfortune and couldn't care less attitude often downplay his heroism — the hero for fun is very likely the one of the only heroes who cares about doing the right thing more than the glitz and glamour of his industry (aside from Mumen Rider). Genos is still Saitama's yandere fanboy, though...at least he's honest about it. Some honestly wonderful voice acting keeps these characters relatable and fun to watch, subtle changes in tone and believable emotion add to the experience.

EDIT

The standout character here Garou, by a large mile. His journey and beliefs were especially poignant towards the end, as he waged everything on his ideals - and the results are incredible.

So well, sure the colours are nice enough (not as vibrant as S1, but good enough), HOWEVER the character design is honestly BAD. It's not one of those things that you notice after nitpicking or pausing. It literally stands out, like Superman's CGI lips in Justice League, uncanny valley stuff. Genos looked like a cyborg playboy in the first season but he looks like some elongated chimpanzee face from Sausage Party right now. Really, what the hell. I can say this about most of the characters. Thinner and longer faces.

They look like someone yanked them by the chin to give them those bizarre facial proportions. Except Fubuki.

Fubuki looks good AF.

The animation erghhh...could be worse, so as you can see, not really good. Less overall movement and flow compared to its predecessor, significantly more "frozen" screens. Still screens kinda ruin the immersion when you're in an epic fight, they just suck you out and make you groan. Especially because these stills are a hallmark of LESSER shows. Yeah. OPM S2 has a little too much of those for my liking, so I'm not exactly going to be too generous in this category.

What makes this sadder is that there are some genuinely great parts in the fights that would be absolutely awesome if a stupid still didn't interrupt the flow. Ugh.

EDIT: Some epic action scenes in 11 and 12 simply come far too late. One gem still cannot atone for shoddy presentation early on.

This show boasts some solid voice acting though, as in - absolutely solid. Comedy types of anime really tend to depend on good voice actors to carry their punchlines, this one excels. Great work especially from Saitama's, Sonic's and Genos' VAs: left me chuckling too many times with the exaggerated and expected moments. The rest of the cast do a badass job as well, so there's really nothing for me to nitpick here.

...but the music can feel oddly placed at times. I can't put quite the finger on it, but certain motifs feel like they could have been used in other scenes, to better effect. Also the music in general hasn't been too great as of this episode, so I genuinely hope it gets better...so that I can bump the damn rating up. Sadly, I can't say I'm a massive fan of the OP either, but I do think the ED is a good tune. GAROU HAS A BRILLIANT THEME, ALL SAID!

Final Thoughts:

Overall, there are some moments that I can truly say I enjoyed, but I can't say the same about every part so far. One Punch Man S2 has some good moments, but there's lots of rotten parts too, making this an...interesting concoction. But there's many more episodes to go, so I hope that I can actually revisit this with more positivity to add.

EDIT: Nothing substantial came about to change my rating. Still underwhelming, but you decide if it's worth your time.

Modern superhero movies suffer from regurgitated stories, negligible character developments, and unmemorable villains. Yet Hollywood inundates the public with action-packed spectacles (advertisements) for the mere purpose of generating boat-loads of cash and previewing the eventual sequel. Which, in turn, previews the subsequent film — creating an endless cycle of bombasity. Frankly, it’s nauseating.

Given the pitfalls of the superhero genre, I expected the first season of One Punch Man to be a parallel Japanese equivalent of the cookie-cutter, American model. What I received, however, was a self-deprecating, meta anime that humorously broke the formulaic ‘rules’ of a soulless industry. Instead ... of dragging out battles to fill airtime, they simply had Saitama defeat the villain with one punch. Rather than give Saitama a set of morals to live by, he fights for ‘fun.’ And in place of an emblematic suit, he wears a dorky getup that has no sense of style. But, despite this, it was hilarious!

Besides breaking all the norms, One Punch Man excelled in creating fluid combat sequences with more impact than your run-of-the-mill Shounen. With action and comedy hitting on all cylinders, One Punch Man was a raging success that spurred numerous anime and non-anime fans alike to tune into the next episode. But with season 2 under the stewardship of a new studio (J.C. Staff), hopes of receiving the same quality product began to sour. Especially with the inferior animation that featured dreadful pacing, weird character aesthetics, and a lack of fluidity. There was a joke in episode two where Saitama performed his “serious sideways jumps,” but due to rushed pacing, the joke never materialized as such.

Episode seven — Suiryu and Saitama’s championship fight — encapsulated all of the worst aspects season 2 had to offer and then some. Their various kicks and punches had no impact. Due to choppy fight sequences, it became difficult to interpret how someone was or was not getting hurt. When you find yourself rewinding to understand how something happened (the butt scene), rather than reveling in its artistic beauty — then you know the animators f—ked up!

Furthermore, the plot suffered from overloading the viewer’s senses. Far too many events (the Monster Association attacking the city, the martial arts tournament, Garou ambushing heroes, the formation of hero factions) were occurring at the same time without adequate build up. Inevitably, the whole proceeding became a mishmash of random fighting, other random fighting, and even more random fighting. Much of which felt inconsequential, particularly the ending of the martial arts tournament.

In terms of the characters, they were still entertaining enough to keep “One Punch Man Season 2” afloat. Saitama’s unassuming gags — like the bananas in the hospital — were quite humorous. Despite the alterations in animation, his character felt very much the same (which is a good thing). Although, his frequent video game outings with King became mundane after awhile. The new evil ‘monster,’ Garou, exhibited a level of depth that was refreshing to see in an antagonist. His plight to upend the established paradigm of the perpetual winning hero was a realistic motivation. Having watched WCW in my younger years, nothing was as exhilarating as watching Hulk Hogan join the N.W.O.

Why, you may ask?…Because! It was unpredictable.

Garou’s ambition to become a monster — despite being human — is unexpected given the narrative framework of season one. Furthermore, the various flashbacks and conversations with the boy in the park teased out his thoughts on the hero/villain dynamic. Giving the viewer an opportunity to empathize with his character, and understand his motivations. Does Garou’s extreme antics become tropey at times? Sure. But given the overabundance of all-powerful, omniscient beings who control matters behind the scenes, it’s nice to see a villain play it by ear and actively challenge heroes on the fly. That being said, Garou’s character felt like untapped potential. There’s only so much a 30-60 second clip can reveal about a characters rationale for wanting to become a villain. If more time was dedicated toward Garou’s specific reasons for hating heroes and preferring villains, it would have been time well spent.

Normally, decently-written characters would trounce cosmetic blemishes and a hurried plot. But given “One Punch Man’s” reliance on smooth, detailed animation to execute well-timed jokes and exhilarate the viewer. It comes as no surprise that the animation deteriorated the product as a whole. Also, besides Garou, none of the new characters resonated. King, in particular, was a major disappointment, as his interactions with Saitama were anemic attempts at comedy. How many times do we need to see him kick Saitama’s ass in video games, honestly?

In the end, it was a passionless attempt to rekindle the love fans had for season one and had all the markings of a quick cash-grab. Not unlike the superhero films it mocked in season one.

Looking for a sequel to One Punch Man? You're in the wrong place.
To call this the second season of the near worldwide phenomenon that is One Punch Man is an absolute insult. To call it an adaptation of either the webcomic or the redrawn manga is an absolute insult. Had I scored this disaster of a sequel comparatively to its predecessor, I'd have scored it even worse. As it stands, I'll treat this as its own property and move from there.

The story is solid - as one might expect of something written by ONE. The story is one of only two redeemable traits about this ... show. If you're at all interested in this story, please go read the manga.

The art is garbage. The animation is garbage. The most you'll get out of any given episode is badly drawn still frames being flashed onto the screen or panned across, sometimes with the addition of speed lines or other effects to give the illusion of movement. The character redesigns are awful. Every single flesh-toned character looks like they've been colored using those children's blow pens, or like they applied self-tanner really badly. They're constantly off-model. Anything more complicated than Saitama's simple comic design looks like it was drawn by a fifteen-year-old on deviant art - and even Saitama's design is butchered on occasion. The metal textures look absolutely disgusting - they're dull and muddy looking, and the excessive lighting effects don't even help most of the time. It's almost offensive to look at.

The directing is some of the worst I've ever seen. Every joke falls flat, every 'tense' moment falls flat, the music is used at awkward times, every opportunity is wasted and it really appears like the only purpose this director serves is to attempt to make the awful art look less horrible. He fails at that as well. The whole show is short cut after short cut. I could ignore bad art if the jokes were funny, or if the action scenes held any weight, or if the constant 'movement' weren't so distracting, but absolutely none of that is true. Some episodes really and genuinely feel like they go on for hours because every second is painful to watch. It's like I'm watching this director and studio choke One Punch Man to death with their bare hands.

The characters are the second redeeming trait of the show, but that has everything to do with how good the source material is. It's a miracle that the characters and story managed to survive this massacre at the hands of sheer incompetence. Go read the manga if you care about the characters.

I really wanted to like this. I don't know a lot about JC Staff, or the industry in general, so I didn't go into this expecting the worst. I'd heard the rumors and concerns, but I wasn't bothered by them until I saw the PV. The show is so much worse than anything I could have imagined and even worse than most peoples' worst fears after they heard about the staff change. There's little to no enjoyment to be had here if you enjoyed the first season or source material, and it's forgettable at best as a stand-alone work.

Overall, I'm giving this a three. My score has lowered steadily every episode, but episode seven took the cake for me. Don't watch this if you love the original or value your own time at all. Don't force yourself to experience the type of disappointment that led me to leave my second review ever out of pure anger. Don't do yourself dirty like that.

Read the manga.

We’ve all heard this before since it’s a tale as old as time: A sequel of a popular property isn’t nearly as good as the original. This is a phenomenon known as sequelitis. Sure, there is the possibility that the sequel made just doesn’t quite live up to the original work, but is still an ok experience overall, like Incredibles 2. However, OPM2 not only fails to build upon the source material, but it’s also a complete disaster as a standalone product. Hideous visuals, an underutilized cast, and unfunny jokes make watching this season about as fun as diarrhea, although there were some decent scenes ... and fights here and there.

This entire season is littered with still frames, gross background colors, inconsistencies, poor editing, lack of weight in any of its fights, and a weird metallic shine on a few of its characters. The phrase “Look at how they massacred my poor boy” doesn’t even begin to describe the kind of hell that Genos went through in this season. There was this scene in Saitama’s apartment where Genos’s arms look like they’ve rusted almost as bad as my sister’s bike. Whenever they have him in a fight, he looks like a cheap bootleg toy from China. They also gave him this metallic shine to really drive home that he’s this super cool fighting robot, but he just looks gross when he’s fighting. Back in the first season, whenever a fight happens, you can really feel the impact of the punches that are thrown. Characters are launched several feet away, and whenever Saitama throws a punch, it causes the monster’s body to be torn to shreds. In this season, whenever someone is getting hit, they turn the entire background into a single solitary color like red, orange, or purple. This might’ve been done to emphasize the hits, but it just looks ugly and distracting. It’s typically used over stills after the punch has been thrown, and it gives the characters this horrible looking outline after the hit. It doesn’t emphasize on the hits, but it instead just cuts after the fact, so the action can’t stick with the audience at all. Also, when a character like Bang or Garou hits an enemy several times, they have these impact effects, but they’re so stilted that they don’t feel like it's moving at all. There are several general inconsistencies, like Saitama’s head looking like it got swollen from a brain tumor in episode 1, and Metal Bat’s dried up looking blood covering his face in one scene but then having only a little bit of blood coming out of his forehead in the next. There’s a lot more than I could go over here, but I think you get the point. Aside from not living up to the standards that the first season set, it fails to live up to any basic standards in the industry. There’s an animator named Kenichiro Aoki, who is responsible for some of the shots, and the animation he’s done are the best parts of the show. You might as well call it One Animator Man since he’s the one responsible for all of the few decent parts of the anime, such as the cockroach fight in episode 6, but all of the other shots look so rushed and poorly put together. This is what happens when you rush animation and try to get something out ASAP, as a studio such as JC Staff doesn’t care about quality, but quantity. In an industry that shits out as many anime as possible, this season is just another example of horribly produced manure.

The comedy in this season is also unfunny except for a few scenes. A lot of this is because of the animation and horrible direction, but most of what the show tries to pass off as “jokes” are just not funny. As a friend of mine, SunlitSonata pointed out to me that something the first season was good at was contrast. It would go back and forth between crisp art, to a drawing ripped out of a manga, like the OK face. There was also the fight with Saitama and Genos, where it made it look like Saitama was about to punch Genos, but he just runs up to him and taps his shoulder. OPM2 tries to go for the same thing, like when Garou attacks Saitama. Saitama goes for the manga expression and knocks out Garou, but the presentation is too bland for it to stand out. When King is revealed to be a total coward, they do make a joke with Saitama’s deadpan reaction to seeing King play a visual novel, but it goes by too quickly to be funny. Another example would be when Fubuki tries to recruit Saitama into her group. When one of her lackeys tell Saitama that she’s Class B Rank 1, Saitama doesn’t care, and we get the groups reactions. The problem is that when we see their reactions, we get the gross looking solitary colored background I mentioned before and ugly shadows. I only found two jokes funny from this season, such as when Metal Bat’s younger sister knocks him out since that’s so unexpected. The best joke is when Saitama knocks out the blonde guy from the martial arts tournament. To add insult to injury, the announcer ends up embarrassing the blonde guy by revealing that his girlfriend didn’t even show up for the tournament despite the fact he planned on proposing to her. It’s such an overly cruel joke that I couldn’t stop laughing for a little while. Though that joke was saved for the post-credits scene, so I ended up missing it the first time I watched the episode. Sadly, for the most part, the presentation ruins almost all of the jokes, so it’s hard for me to care a lot of the time.

Saitama and Genos practically act the same, as Saitama is still the super strong dense hero, and Genos is the extremely serious straight man. There’s no problem with that, but they aren’t utilized very well here. They’re both are completely glossed over to the point of no return, aside from a few notable scenes. Saitama’s lack of satisfaction with fighting opponents because of how ridiculously strong he is gets completely shafted until we get an admittingly good scene with Saitama and King talking about it, but that’s all you get with him. The show revolves around a monster invasion, as the number of monsters and their intensity gradually increases throughout its run, and one human claim to be one of the monsters. That person is Garou, and he’s the best part of the show. We all have villains we find to be more entertaining than the heroes, and Garou is the embodiment of that sentiment. He’s on an ongoing quest to defeat all the heroes from the hero association to prove that monsters are superior to humans. He’s an extremely arrogant and strong material arts master. Every time he’s on screen, it’s fun to watch with his entertaining lines, and enjoyable personality. He’s not all bad, as he seems to have a soft spot for children since he was even willing to kill a monster to defend Metal Bat’s younger sister. The presentation does ruin his appearances in the show somewhat, as his muscles look like trash bags mashed together, and one of his facial expressions had a Grinch looking simile. He’s still enjoyable overall regardless, but he’s probably a lot more fun to follow in the manga.

The opening is done by JAM Project, who was also responsible for the opening of the first season. The animation for the opening might be terrible, but the song itself is pretty good. It has this real banger heavy rock part at the beginning, and the rest of the song is just fun to listen to. The ED for this season that was sung by Saitama’s voice actor, Makoto Furukawa, is just ok. Like the first season, it goes for a more melancholic song for ED, with a piano and slow singing. However, the song itself isn’t anything noteworthy and it’s nothing you haven’t heard from before. As for the OST, it’s quite good, as Makoto Miyazaki returns, and it does help liven up the most boring show with some nice rock tunes like Garou’s theme. It goes for this sort of intensity that helps liven up the otherwise stilted action scenes.

I’m sure some might be asking why I even bothered to finish a show I hated so much and write a review about it. I didn’t find OPM2 to be so bad it’s good, like Inuyashiki, and I found it boring at least 90% of the time, so what made me finish it? This review aside, the main reason would be because I was curious to see how far this titan would fall. I wanted to see how bad the animation could get as the show could progress. Most episodes were horrible looking, with episode 7 being the worst one, but there were a few decent episodes like episode 3. You’re probably better off just reading the manga.

In my opinion, this tournament is a Filler. Original web comic didn't have this arc, which kinda explain the poor comedy in it.

I think and hear me out, I think this whole arc and so much more is extra crap added by the artiest who adopt the web series. I never found his comedy to be good and it shows in this season compare to the previous where he didn't add anything to the story. His influence in the story is so much clear in Season2 and more in the upcoming material from the manga. Or it could be because of the serialization. Either-way, ... it isn't that good and expect the Comedy quality to be dropped in the future for "Kool Action" when this started as a Gag manga about a Overpowered character.

Example of extra characters that wasn't in the original series until they serialized it: Glasses and the Martial Art boy.