One Punch Man Episode 12: The Strongest Hero (Final Impression)

“A great man who is a hero for fun…and profit.”

One Punch Man is something special. It takes tropes that we know from shonen and…makes fun of it. This type of show is supposed to be ridiculous. It makes fun of itself but it’s also making fun of the horrible trope we see in shonen anime with its overpowered protagonist. One Punch Man takes that and makes its protagonist so overpowered that he has no fun whatsoever when fighting because he kills any monster with just one punch. And it sucks for him. Saitama longs to find an opponent that can match with his strength, and through all these 12 episodes…he didn’t. But close. Lord Boros was an extremely strong opponent that Saitama had a little fun with, but Saitama actually held back. He still has so much power he didn’t use. And, yes, he was kicked to the moon.

So how strong is Saitama? And how did he really achieve this great power? Who knows. We still don’t get anything in the manga so even if I wanted to tell you, I couldn’t.

But really that’s why I love this manga so much. We see the same thing over and over again, with anime protagonists gaining extreme amounts of power by barely doing anything. Or, they already have all this power from the beginning and they’re so OP that you never feel any tension during the fights because you know how it’s going to end. You could say the same thing with One Punch Man, but that’s the point. But what makes it so fun are the incredible actions scenes, and memorable characters. This series has such a uniqueness that I cannot say I’ve seen anything like it. So that scored major points for me.

From start to finish, Madhouse delivered. Apparently this was just standard budget, but the best animators were brought onto the team and you could tell they were passionate about this because it was pretty clean. I think my favorite fight is still the Saitama v. Genos one, but this one with Lord Boros is a close second. I literally got goosebumps when the OP song started playing as they fought. The colors the dynamics! It was all so good.

But I felt like the fight was better in the manga. Which is weird to say because animated fight scenes are usually superior. I don’t read much manga, I mostly watch anime, and I don’t really read action manga with fight scenes because it can be hard for me to figure out what the hell is happening in the panels. The panels don’t look as clean and I’m at a loss. But with OPM the art was so detailed that I had no problem with that. And it had a cleaner look.

As for actually adapting the manga, I thought it did very well. There were certain anime-only scenes that were inserted, such as that one with Sweet Mask. And you can see from this final episode that he’s not as hot as he looks from the outside. This guy is seriously not sweet, and I wanted Metal Bat to break his stupid face. #MetalBatFangirl There were also scenes where we got Tatsumaki and Fubuki early, but unfortunately we didn’t get anything with Fubuki. But that’s fine, as she was given a proper introduction in the manga pretty recently after a side chapter. Which is a little frustrating, as I really love her. With the cast of characters, you know some more than others. There are so many heroes, that you’ll only focus on some and not give much characterization for others. But this was always a problem with the manga. What’s up with Sweet Mask? Who exactly is so and so? Because really the characters we focused on the most were Saitama and Genos. Not even Sonic is as important, maybe just being Saitama’s “rival”. He’s still whatever to me. But he hot. But there are characters that stand out other than our main two, like the villains we had, Tatsumaki, and the angel hero Licenseless Rider. He and the others helped gather survivors, so even if he wasn’t in combat he helped in his own way. #LicenselessRiderFangirl

As with the story, again the adaptation was fine. I did want maybe some special chapters to be inserted because they introduced characters better, but with the anime only having 12 episodes there were things that couldn’t take up an episode or it would mess up everything, and it’s understandable. I do admit that the story in the beginning is pretty slow, and the good stuff isn’t until later. I thought the anime left at a pretty good spot but of course there’s more going on right now. There was a part where they revealed visuals of a certain character that it makes me wonder if that was a tease for a second season. With how popular OPM is I’d be surprised if there wasn’t another.

Music was fitting, animation was amazing, and I generally liked the voice cast. Though except that one moment where Saitama yelled at the mob insulting him, that moment was just not good voice-acting wise. I remember Makoto Furukawa’s performance as Banri in Golden Time, which I enjoyed. But at times I felt like he sounded awkward as Saitama in some moments other than the scene I already mentioned. Also I feel like some of the comedic moments weren’t as successful, maybe because of the voice acting.

There isn’t much else to say about OPM than I already have. It’s a unique work with fun characters with crazy fight scenes and funny moments. There were small hiccups but they weren’t so bad that they hurt the show. One Punch Man is a breath of fresh air because it’s so different. It’s just fun, and it’d be really cool if another season was made. Work on it, Madhouse! 9/10