Plot (5/10):
The premise is about a hero named Saitama, who’s trained and become so strong, he defeats all his fights in one punch. As a result of this, he’s bored and longs for a decent challenge. The plot isn’t deep or complex. The story basically revolves around this one joke: Saitama wins every fight in one punch, everything else might as well be padding for it. Basing the premise around this repetitive joke made the manga become stale quickly once you’ve seen it the first few times.
That begs the question: how does a writer manage to write around a overpowered protagonist who one punches any enemy he comes into contact with no difficulty? Well the story revolves more around the other heroes. Saitama’s sidelined once the major arc starts, in fact he’s sidelined for most of the manga because having him around would make the story boring watching him one punch everyone. It’s not a bad direction storytelling wise, but it’s really telling when the best parts of OPM is when the main character isn’t present.
The fights are boring and predictable because they follow the same formula: a threat has shown up in (insert city), the heroes are getting their ass kicked to hype up the villain, but don’t worry because Saitama will conveniently show up last minute and guess what? One punch the enemy and win! Yay...
There’s no real stakes or tension because of the lingering effect knowing Saitama could always show up to save them.
The world building is weak. The hero ranking and monster threat system are decently explored, however the cities are just lazily labelled A- Z with nothing really distinguishing them.
Characters (5/10):
One of the weaker parts of One punch man would have to be the characters.
The majority of the heroes and monsters aren’t well developed or complex, they are one dimensional and could be defined by a few character traits. The only characters I remotely care about are Saitama’s group of friends who have a bit more depth than the others.
Saitama is portrayed as a overpowered hero who embodies qualities of traditional heroism, and is meant to prove raw power or heroic achievements doesn’t make someone a hero. You’re supposed to emphasise with his plight as a low ranked hero trying to become S rank. However, I can’t relate to Saitama. His abnormal strength caused by basic training makes no sense. Saitama acts like an incompetent moron who lets others take credit for his achievements and he let’s civilians think he’s not doing his job properly. It’s infuriating when the writer tries to victimise Saitama like this, because the reader knows what he's done. Had Saitama displayed his true power to the Hero association I’m sure he’d easily become S ranked, but due to his incompetence and lack of social skills, I can’t say he deserves it.
Genos is supposed to be the intelligent cyborg, yet he’s oblivious when it comes to Saitama and acts like every little thing is a wise lesson. It might be a gag, but it’s not funny. His motivation is forgettable because it gets constantly sidelined. Genos doesn’t really learn anything from Saitama unlike Mob & Reigen. Whenever Genos takes an L he just goes to see his plot device doctor who conveniently makes him 10x stronger because plot.
Art (10/10):
One of the saving graces of this manga is the art. I have to give credit where credit is due, Murata is an amazing artist. He took the webcomic which looks like a bunch of scribbles a 11 yr old kid drew and brought them to life in manga format. His art is absolutely breathtaking. The characters and backgrounds are well detailed. The fights are fluid and dynamic. However, what amazes me the most is Murata’s ability to pump out these high quality chapters consistently e.g. he would drop a 100+ pages worth for a chapter.
Enjoyment (4/10):
I don’t enjoy OPM as much as I used to, and that’s reflective in my rating.
Comedy is subjective, but i’d argue it’s not as funny as fans make it out to be. For example, “oh look Saitama missed another sale!” or “the enemy is scared of King’s engine” haha...
The tournament arc was the worst tournament I’ve ever read. Every fight up until the finals was a one shot. Gouketsu was hyped up only to guess what? Get oneshotted by Saitama. There’s no tension when he’s around.
As for the Monster invasion arc, there’s not much to say since it’s still ongoing. It’s focusing on the S ranked heroes raiding the Monsters hideout. Hopefully, the heroes get a lot more depth during this arc.
Garou carries this manga. Before he showed up it was just a simple monster of the week “parody” about heroes with the highlight being Boros who was a generic villain. That being said, while I like Garou his character is definitely overrated amongst OPM fans. I thought he might be more compelling, but his motivation of becoming a hero hunter is shallow and naive. He doesn’t realise the reasons _why_ monsters aren’t liked or as popular as heroes, and why heroes gang up on monsters. It’s not because it’s unfair, the monsters are attacking innocent lives. If a number of heroes are fighting against one monster, with everyone cheering/rooting for the heroes side it’s not because they’re cooler, but because the monsters are either too strong or dangerous and the heroes are risking their lives fighting. Furthermore, Garou has way too much plot armour that he might as well be a shounen protagonist, e.g. the guy can take on multiple heroes, demon lvl threats and heal faster than other S ranked heroes like Tank Top Master who were in the hospital for weeks.
Overall (4/10):
OPM is a fast read. You can breeze through many chapters because there’s no substance to it and the dialogue is kept to a minimum.
It annoys me when OPM fans overhype the series as if it’s got some deep, intricate story with amazing world building, complex characters and themes, when it’s really just a mediocre story about heroes with great art and decent action. It’s a fun read, nothing more.
I originally rated OPM higher, until it devolved into a typical shounen and started to drag with long, stretched out fights against monsters, which were entirely pointless to the overall story (you’ll know what I mean if you’ve read the webcomic).
