Impressions: OnePunch-Man

I’m a few years late to the party, but I’ve just finished OnePunch-Man and really liked it. I genuinely didn't know what to expect when I started watching, and now I sort of want to talk about it. 

The show starts have a strongly resonating impact when the physical strength of the characters is taken as a stand-in for something a little more abstract: Power. It’s no secret that the theme of power emanates throughout the show; a lot of the story revolves around characters wanting to be stronger, or characters comparing their strength. 

Physical strength is an analogue for power in the world of OnePunch-Man, because of the existence of “heroes.” The hero institution, formalised in the Hero Association, legitimises the standards of power. That heroes are further stratified into ranks and classes solidifies the idea that anything can be commercialised, packaged, and sold to the public. Rather than take on a militaristic image, as most superhero organisations tend to in media, heroes are treated as celebrities, with PR-management and the nightly news reporting on the latest hero gossip. 

That’s one of the first indications that the story isn’t necessarily about getting stronger for the sake of it. In fact, a running point that the story makes, is asking why we want power, and what to do when power does come knocking at the door. 

There are so many thing about the show that I want to dissect: the concept of justice, what role violence plays, what it means to be a hero, and just a lot about the characters. But I’ll start with this one because it was more subtle.

Source: OnePunch-Man Wiki

It was a brilliant decision that Saitama started off as a Class C hero, because it allowed us to see interactions with other characters who are in the thick of the rat race. The heroes in Class C are, to put it plainly, above-average human beings, and the politics involved in trying to climb up the ranks are intense. A good question would be why it was so important to so many like the Tanktop Tiger to be recognised, and to have a higher ranking. Understanding this makes it easier to understand why they were so eager to tear down anyone who started to climb above them, and why they resented Saitama so much. Because there are actual gains to being a registered and “recognised” hero, monetary gains are one of them, acceptance and support are others. 

Class C heroes are pretty much people who are kind of faster and kind of stronger than most. They’re in the position Saitama was in, prior to the events of the anime. So when Tanktop Tiger responds to his first “defeat” by Saitama, it’s interesting that it was to tell his brother and then gang up on him. 

By and large, the monsters and heroes we see in the show are organic, with muscles that can be strengthened and minds that can be sharpened. Aside from Saitama, Sonic, and Bang, though, the only other character to discuss training in the show, is Genos.

And that’s rather ironic because he’s a cyborg. In The Ultimate Master, Saitama tells Genos that his specifications should be enough to satisfy the test requirements for hero certification. Later on, the former again concedes that there’s really no way to train Genos, because his computational power is as fast as his parts and programming allow, and his physical strength is limited by his materials and energy source. 

Yet, comparing the numerous other heroes we see, Genos insists on training to get better. By the end of the anime, he comes out better for it, enough to look at Amai and notice how far he’s come in comparison.

In a world in which the most powerful man has professed multiple times that the worked hard and trained to get where he was, it’s striking that so many who “outrank” him don’t say the same.

This appears even in the very first episode. It’s a running gag that Saitama doesn’t really have an origin story. Every other hero, scientist, or even monster talks about how they ate too much crab and became a super strong crab monster, or was born naturally gifted and just ran with that, or they wanted power and modified their bodies. 

While we do see that Saitama started out with fast reflexes and above-average strength, he wouldn’t settle for where he was. Rather than just snap at the ankles of everyone above him, though, he worked hard on himself and became much stronger. His baldness is a constant glaring sign of how hard he worked.

In the face of his power, the people around him have one of two reactions. Either they perpetuate the rat race, and try to tear him down, or they tell themselves they too need to work harder and be better. The scientist Genus spent decades of his very long life trying to make everyone else reach his level, only to realise that maybe, he should have been the one "evolving” instead. 

I suppose it’s the absence of desire for personal growth (and a personal obliviousness) that’s striking, and because of it, many of the characters feel tragic, but flat at the same time. It seems very much like something done on purpose, that even characters who have a lot of mystery behind them and their motivations can feel less compelling than Mumen Rider.

It starts with self-knowledge of one’s strengths and limitations, and snowballs from there. It could be said that the show is only a smattering of gratuitous violence and visual puns, but at the core of the ridiculousness is a story that I feel can be appreciated in depth. 

Honestly, I want to talk about OnePunch-Man some more, with more structure and in real depth. I have no idea if it’ll be a thing on this blog yet, but so much of the story resonates with me. Let me know if it’s something you’d like to hear about. And as always, send/ask me anything!