Summary
One Punch Manis a series that completely won the hearts of fans when it hit our TV screens for the first time back in October 2015. With its fascinating world, wonderful characters, and hilarious moments,One Punch Manquickly went from a series with a fairly limited following to an absolute superstar hit that rose to the heights of anime popularity and got thousands of eyes fixed on the manga.
This Shonen seriesis one that is derived from a cult classic webcomic written by One that goes by the same name, which he originally started as a hobby. However, when the webcomic became extremely popular, it was eventually picked up by leading manga artist Yusuke Murata who, with the help and supervision of One, still continues to writeOne Punch Man. The show was massively successful, allowing it to garner a large fan base and a second season. This season expanded upon the lore of the world as well as fleshing out existing characters and, at the same time,introducing new heroes and villains.
A Quick Recap
The story ofOne Punch Manrevolves around Saitama, an aspiring hero who has trained himself and his body to the absolute peak of power, to the point that all his hair fell out. However, another unforeseen side effect of this training was that Saitama became so absurdly strong, he was able to defeat all of his opponents with just a single punch, which caused him to become completely bored with his life as he could never feel the thrill of the fight anymore and could never go all out as all his opponents were so much weaker than him.
The first season of the show has largely disconnected episodes with only a few interconnecting narrative threads between them such as therelationship between Saitama and Genos, the role of the Hero Association when it comes to dealing with monsters, the different heroes within the association, and Saitama’s journey up the ranks. It all culminated in Saitama’s fight against Boros at the end of the season where he fights someone who, like him, is far stronger than everyone else. However, Boros is still completely outclassed and reveals that in their fight, Saitama wasn’t really even trying.
The second season generally follows the same tropes, but there is a much larger focus on the overarching narrative this time around. The episodes themselves all tend to have a fairly self-contained story in the first part of the season but, they are all tied together and pushed forward bythe hero hunter Garoustory and how the world is dealing with the increasing rate of monster attacks. These story lines eventually converge in the last few episodes, where many powerful enemies show up and require the collective power of Saitama, Genos, and other top tier heroes to defeat. The ending of season 2 perfectly takes all the build-up from the previous seasons and sets up the Monster Association arc, which will be the focus forOne Punch Manseason 3.
Monster Association Arc
The Monster Association Arc takes place exactly where season 2 ended, with Saitama killing Elder Centipede and Garou being taken away to a mysterious location by Phoenix Man. The main driving force behind this arc is that titular Monster Association, a mysterious and evil organization that works as adirect opposite to the Hero Association, in that it wants monsters to be in charge of the world and the elimination of all the heroes that prevent this goal from being achieved. The organization is run by the terrifying Monster King Orochi, a gigantic and incredibly powerful creature that leads the organization, making it so they achieve their goals by feeding his monster cells to regular humans. What this does is that it starts something called the ‘monsterization’ process, in which the person who consumes the cells eventually turns into a much more powerful monster, as seen at the end of season 2 with some of the members of the fighting championship.
As Garou is taken by Phoenix Man to theheadquarters of the Monster Association, he eventually comes face to face with Orochi and is forced to eat his cells, transforming him into his monster form. The rest of the arc takes place from there, as the Hero Association gathers its resources and tries to formulate plan on what to do next, with monster attacks becoming more and more prevalent in the cities.
At the same time, we start to hear faint murmurs of something that the characters refer to as ‘God’. This leads to an overall much bigger narrative that expands theOne Punch Manmythos vastly and introduces a plethora of characters that have something or another to do with this enigmatic ‘God’. These include extremely powerful, dragon-level threats such as Homeless Emperor, a character who has gotten his power from ‘God’ and finally introduces a character that fans have been dying to see since he was teased for the very first time inOne Punch Man,season 1, episode 10, “Unparalleled Peril”, the hero ranked atnumber 1 in the S-CLass; Blast.
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The Spectacle
This arc of theOne Punch Manmanga contains some of the greatest fights and spectacles ever put to the page, something which will translate very well onto the screen. This is because the scale of these fights is absolutely enormous, with entire sections of the planet being sliced open and moons being completely obliterated. Another great thing about these battles is the fact that almost every single character introduced gets their moment to shine, especially those in the S-Class as many of them team up and work together to bring down monumental threats and calamities that threaten to destroy the planet.
These enemies are farmore powerful than most enemiesthat we have seen from the series before, but at the same time, they are more compelling as well. Their clashes with the heroes of the story are genuinely breathtaking, and allow for so many moments that will have each and every fan of the series sitting with their mouth agape at the edge of their seats.
The Best Villain
One of the themes that the Monster Association arc carries over from the previous 2 seasons is the topic of isolation and the loneliness that comes with being on a level of strength that is far above everyone else. Though this is the case for Saitama, his opposite can be seen with Garou, a character who works hard to achieve a level that he wants to and fights tougher and tougher opponents to get stronger. After most of the Monster Association is defeated we see that only Garou is left, and he has to face off against Saitama, which culminates in the mostjaw-dropping fight that the series has seenso far.
While Garou is a ruthless villain, we can see that he is not a one dimensional character. Unlike many villains that plague the shonen genre, Garou takes the entire responsibility of absolute strength upon himself so he can grow far above everyone else in order to create a world with no inequality. Though misguided, this makes Garoua very sympathetic characterthat wants to achieve his goals for what he deems to be a good cause, making him relatable to most viewers. The fight between him and Saitama is nothing short of beautiful to witness, and the animators have a real chance of showcasing how amazing it will be.
The Larger Story
As stated before, the Monster Association arc is one that showcases amazing new world building and story telling elements. With the introduction of Blast, we learn that for the past 20 years he has been searching for mysterious cubes that are scattered all across the universe that allow people to communicate with ‘God’ and in his quest, he has teamed up with other incredibly powerful characters to defeat it. ‘God’ is an extremely powerful and ancient being that has the ability to grant a fraction of its power to those it feels are worthy of it, something which is incredibly dangerousfor our heroesas even a little bit given to Garou was able to fight equally with Saitama for a time.
Since the Monster Association arc only sets up the groundwork for this story expansion, it will be fascinating to see where the story goes on from there. This introduction of Blast’s entire plan and mission for the last 20 years sets up the story to go to places that are essentially unforeseen territory, with the options being endless. This allows for the story to have a greater meta-narrative that is always being pushed in the background whilea similar arc structure(like the one the series has been following so far) continues the story.
This has all the makings to turn into a very successful and deeply intricate story with story and character moments that stand out. Keeping in mind the sheer awesomeness that the Monster Association arc holds, there is no doubt that season 3 ofOne Punch Manwill be an absolute game changer.
