One Punch Man, a show that follows the heroics and hilarities of a man that can beat all of his opponents in one punch.
A lot of people like to describe the show as a parody. Well, I don't think that at all. The show is what it is, the best action anime of all time. "How is beating everything in one punch serious?" One might ask, and I would answer by telling them to actually pay attention to the show. It's a story of a man who had nothing, literally a guy who is a failure, and worked hard enough to the point where he broke his limiter and became the strongest being in the universe. This is literally about how hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard, just like them majority of other shounen. Now, the official show/manga/web serial is set after this point, but it is still apparent in the show by looking at every single hero character. They have something that Saitama never had, talent. They were born with their powers or had a freak accident happen to them, they didn't work for it. Even the disciple Genos was built in a lab by a mad scientist. And as a result, they take it for granted and think of themselves as superior to the average man, or everyone really. I'll touch further how it isn't a simple exaggeration of shounen, or parody, throughout the review.
Story
So, the story itself is pretty simple. It is more or less a monster of the week type of gig, but it also stresses heavily on certain themes of society.
The biggest one being the true facet of human nature. Most people, even though they may have everything to begin with, will step on others if it means furthering their own agenda.
Another good theme that is present is not to judge a book by it's cover. Yeah, Saitama is a guy with a generic cape and has a chrome dome, and is often discredited because of it, but in reality he is the equivalent of God. Whereas every single other character has over the top, extravagant character design and is only really average. There will be a scene that is coming up in the anime that will highlight this exact thing. You'll know it when you see it.
The last one is what it means to be a hero. Most of these characters do the hero thing to become strong enough to get revenge, to gain popularity or fame, or whatever else furthers their agenda. Whereas Saitama does it because he truly wants to help people, even if it means that the people he is saving will see him as a monster, or a cheat. It is truly inspiring. Going back to intro, all of these things don't sound like an exaggeration of shounen at all.
As you can see, despite beating everything in one punch, there still lies a lot of inner/between character conflict going on that keeps it interesting. I've never seen a PARODY that was able to do that in anything.
The only comedy is the gag that Saitama as a very "don't care" attitude. Especially in the face of these gargantuan and all-powerful monsters. This has verying amount of intended comic effect.
Art
For those not acquainted, the story designer under the pen name ONE wrote the story as a web serial. After gaining world wide recognition, Young Jump Studios went to him and said more or less "This is one of the best stories in the industry... But, your talent for art sucks ass. How about we make a deal where we pair you up with the best artist in the industry and get this out to a wider audience?" That's how the manga was created. The anime takes from the art work and linear story line of the manga, and not the web serial (Which is a good thing, trust me). So naturally, the art work is beautiful. There are some truly breath taking scenes that capture the bad assery of Saitama.
Sound
The background music go perfectly with each scene to help capture it's mood. The OP is one of the best OP's ever. That's really all I can say about it.
Character
I spoke a little of character design a little bit ago, so let me go into detail.
We have Saitama, which I described as a "Caped Baldy" which is really exactly what he looks like. Very misleadingly unspecial. This is constantly touched on. He first describes his heroing as just a hobby that soon starts to bore him because nothing is a challenge anymore. Later, he decides that helping people his all the matters, regardless of the circumstances. Despite his God tier abilities, he remains humble. Which is very unlike a lot of other characters. Now that I'm thinking about it, it is actually because he looks so generic that makes him so special.
Next, we have Genos. He is described as a "Demon Cyborg" and that is exactly his character design. He almost died and wants revenge on the person who destroyed his village. To do this, he wants to become ever more powerful. He starts out arrogant like the others, but becomes humbled as he is really one of the only people that witnesses Saitama's amazingness.
There are tons of other side characters, and they all have fantastic character design. But, have not been given too much detail in the anime, so I can't really talk about them. They are usually in heroing business for themselves and are arrogant and very ironically not hero like.
Enjoyment
I'm pretty sure I've said multiple times that I believe One Punch Man to be the best action anime of all time. This is without bias, considering that minutes 18-19 in the FIRST episode had more action than all of the Dragon Ball franchise combined. With bias, I believe it to be the best action anything that will ever exist. The never ending bad assery of Saitama is something that I will never get over, and I've followed the web serial since '09.
Overall
I think that you can guess how good the series is by now if you've read up to this point. So, I won't bother. I'll just say one thing in conclusion, and that is that despite the main character beating everything in one punch, that is really the only parody in the story. And that fact can easily be discredited by the fact that it is used to further the plot and is the focal point of all the conflict in the story.
So, I'll say it again. It is NOT a parody or anything to be taken lightly.
