Yep! One of the most highly anticipated animes this season! And it's about our Hero Saitama and his journey to become the strongest!
..... Wait what? It isn't? He's already the strongest? Alright.....
This show is a deep and emotionally sophisticated show about the world's strongest hero Saitama who is suffering from an identity Crisis!
....... Wait, no? So it's not like a superman sorta deal? Not even a Goku deal where he was sent there to destroy earth? No? He's human?
"Well then Shit! What is this show about?" you may be thinking, or you may be thinking "Man this asshole is terrible at writing reviews!"
Well both of those thoughts are with good reason! One Punch Man is a show about the world's strongest Hero Saitama, he went through 3 years of intense training, so much so that all his hair fell out! And now he's so strong, that no matter who he fights, it always ends in one punch! Now where's the story in such a show? Well it's simple, this show is pretty much taking the piss out of your every day shounen shows, a large sum of the humour in this show comes from the ignorance of other characters, many of which either look down on or underestimate Saitama's power. Now hop on! Welcome to the One Punch Man Hype Train! My name is Cocomapopsified and I'll be your guide! Because you think this is some parody anime? Ohhh it's sooooo much more!
STORY LINE MEADOWS
If you all look out the left side of the train you will see the Story Line Meadows! The vast plains! They're..... kinda boring, but look at those flowers and those animals! They're.... cute but not doing much......
Yep, this is probably the major flaw in this anime, the storyline is kinda predictable. This occurs due to the logical consistency that is the main character. Other animes, you never know if a character stronger than the main character will suddenly show up, but in this, he's already the most powerful, so no matter who he fights, it feels like it's only a matter of time. Saitama's punch for the most part of the show acts as a kind of "Climax", like the punchline of a joke (heheh get it? "Punch"line?). When he throws a punch, it's basically the end, though not to spoil anything, but that's not always the case.
Saitama fights many strange mysterious beings, creatures from underground, a sexually attractive mosquito, I want to avoid spoilers, but man he fights a lot. These fights by the way, are something beautiful which we will discuss once we pass these meadows!
ART RIVER
Now if you'll look out the windows again you'll find Art River! The beautifully flowing water and it's bright blue colour makes it delightful to step in, or just to watch it flow! One Punch Man's art/animation is exactly that, sometimes they'll deliberately make the art look cheap and blocky as the Young Jump webcomic does, this refers to the original webcomic written and drawn by the famous ONE, if you read ONE's version, it's strangely engaging, mainly because he writes it so well, sure the art style leaves a lot to be desired, but you can just picture the scenes! It's really a good webcomic, but in regards to ART, the young jump webcomic drawn by the famous Yusuke Murata, whose art is absolutely beautiful, and MadHouse has done everything they can to recreate the compelling story of the original webcomic while maintaining the character designs of Murata's adaptation. The fight scenes, ohhhhhh the fight scenes, you can just feel the money they threw around to animate those scenes, most notably the scenes starring Genos the Cyborg. This isn't bad either because, genos actually exists in this series as the polar opposite of Saitama, a highly dramatic, highly emotional and energetic fighter with an ambition which drives him forward, literally the opposite of Saitama, who has now reached his goal and is rarely excited and is quite often disappointment. I can't even call talking about the fight scenes spoilers because you'll find that every fight in one punch man has been editted and uploaded to youtube about a million times for each fight. You'll see, and as you'd hope, they've saved the best for last. Now everybody pay close attention! We're about to enter Sound Forest!!
SOUND FOREST!!
Now everyone, as we pass through these forests, listen carefully, you'll hear the beautiful sound of the now endangered "Actually awesome OST" bird, the songs sung by these birds are said to resonate very well with the forests in which they live! And in these forests, hard rock is very welcome! It's not annoying, as it's not around all the time, only when the awesomeness PEAKS! When making this series I think they were well aware of what makes this series so appealing, and hence they decided to make the music quite fitting, something which is designed to maximise the carnage and intensity throughout the arcs right up to Saitama's PUNCH line..... heheh
The opening, THE HERO!! by the JAM project, whose members all have experience making very nice anime openings, the full list being
Hironobu Kageyama - Dragon Ball Z “CHA-LA HEAD-CHA-LA”
Masaaki Endoh - Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D’s “BELIEVE IN NEXUS”
Hiroshi Kitadani - ONE PIECE “We Are!”
Masami Okui - Revolutionary Girl Utena “Rondo-revolution”
Yoshiki Fukuyama - MACROSS 7 “SEVENTH MOON”
When you have these people performing, you know it's bound to be a roller coaster of a song! This opening is easily the most memorable part of the music, in fact I'm listening to it as I write this review! I don't know how many times I've tried to keep up with the song's intensity when singing then I shut up because I feel like I'm ruining the song for myself. The song, with its over the top bridges and insane chorus, really gets you rearing and excited for the episode, but the opening is so intense and awesome, that you almost forget this is supposed to be a show which makes fun of shounen manga tropes, it in fact, kind of makes those tropes kinda cool again, which is fascinatingly ironic. The ending? Ohhh well, it's nice! Yeah, it's nice, nice and uhh, soothing, kinda relaxing after the intensity of the show, but well, nothing that exceptional. Ohh we've passed through the forest! What's that I see? That's the Character Village!
CHARACTER VILLAGE
Now the locals around here are an interesting bunch, SPOILERS!! We have PLENTY of mysterious beings! Big ones, small ones, small ones which get bigger! Ones from outer space, ones which die in less than a minute, some which look like a studio Trigger reject, all sorts! The "Heros", we have some which are piss weak, some which are pretty strong but nothing compared to the main characters, but the really strong heroes don't really make an impression until the last few episodes when you get to meet most of the S class heroes, who are the ones which can get anything done, because everyone else is kinda just fodder, but thanks to distinctive yet not annoying appearances (lookin' at you One Piece!) it's incredibly easy to remember the characters, so you'll have no worries there. A lot of the characters have been inspired by characters in other animes, which makes sense since this whole series is designed to parody the shounen tropes, except for Saitama, who is a parody of "Anpanman" a super hero in a child's anime of the same name in Japan who head is a red bean filled bread (Called"An-pan" in japanese) often takes his villains out with a single "An-Punch" Hence why in japanese One Punch Man is "Wan-Pan-Man". But because of how well they pull it off, it kinda makes the tropes awesome again, ironically. But apart from Saitama, don't really expect anything substantial in terms of character development or in depth character design, they're all just there as stereotypes after all, they're not really there to pull our heartstrings, and while for other series that may be a draw back, for this series that's quite a plus in my opinion, forced tragedy in these series is just a waste, especially since the entire makers and ONE himself doesn't take it seriously, I kid you not he only made the first chapter to test a new software, he didn't think it'd become this popular!
DID YOU ENJOY YOUR TRIP?!
Because I sure as fuck did! If you're looking for something that will move you to tears, then DON'T WATCH IT! Only watch this if you're up for some absolute balls to the walls fun, this series is not a series designed to pull our heartstrings, and it's not designed to be different and intelligent, though some of the philosophies presented throughout the series are rather interesting, so it's not unintelligent, it's just not the central focus of the series. Now, when I rate a series, I like to rate a series based on the intention behind the series and how well they've achieved it, I like a series which knows what it is, and doesn't pretend to be what it's not. Because of this, I'd like to give this show
10 consecutive normal punches out of 10
Because it's not the perfect anime, but it's the most entertaining anime I've seen in years!
