One-Punch Man First Impressions

Yeah I'm kinda late to the party on this one. I've been watching One-Punch Man lately on Toonami. I'm actually rather enjoying it so far. Its fun and hasn't managed to disappoint me action-wise. This one is gonna be shorter than my usual posts like this.

I'm not going to give a basic overview of the setup like I usually do since I think a lot of superhero/toku fans have likely seen this show by now. Essentially monsters and supervillains have started showing up so heroes have arisen to combat them. The strongest of them by far is a man named Saitama.

I like the idea of the Hero Association. As much as I love Tiger and Bunny, the Hero Association in One-Punch Man is more what something like that would realistically be like. Anyone can be a hero provided they pass the written and physical tests. The heroes are also ranked and scored based on their activity and ability. A nice detail I like is that the C-class heroes get kicked from the Association if they're inactive for a week. The show also manages to make each of the heroes and villains memorable in one way or another. If I were to pick my character favorite so far, its probably either Genos or Speed of Sound Sonic (yes thats actually his name). Genos is basically a cyborg who admires Saitama's strength and wants to become stronger so he becomes Saitama's student. He keeps trying to figure out how he got that strong and doesn't believe Saitama did it through regular training. He is a lot more serious-minded about being a hero than Saitama. Sonic is a ninja that just wants to fight Saitama as Saitama was the first person to ever beat him so he wants to prove that he is stronger.

This show is so close to One Piece levels of weird for me. Its sort of so odd feeling that I can't put it into words. I can definitely say this much about it though: Its fun. It also doesn't take itself too seriously. I particularly like how no one believes that Saitama got this strong just by doing strength training. You've got all these special beings just assuming that Saitama has superpowers just because he is strong enough to blow pretty much anything away with one punch. The show is pretty fun in terms of its action. I was actually rather invested while watching a simple training fight between Saitama and Genos.

I was sort of hesitant to watch this because of all the hype. I was worried it would end up like Attack On Titan and that I'd run into particularly militant fans if I didn't like it. Unlike Attack On Titan, I totally see how this got popular. It honestly deserves ever bit of praise I've seen it get. I'm definitely enjoying myself with this show. I particularly like how Saitama doesn't make a big deal about his strength while everyone else is going nuts trying to figure out how he got that strong. Thats really all I've got to say about this show so far. On the off-chance you haven't seen it yet, check it out, you'll probably enjoy it.