Saitama is a hero who only became a hero for fun. After three years of “special training,” he’s become so strong that he’s practically invincible. In fact, he’s too strong—even his mightiest opponents are taken out with a single punch. Now, the great seer Madame Shibabawa’s prediction about the Earth being doomed seems to be coming true as the frequency of monster incidents escalates. Alongside Genos, his faithful disciple, Saitama begins his official hero duties as a member of the Hero Association, while Garou, a man utterly fascinated by monsters, makes his appearance.
*Mild Spoilers for One Punch Man Second Season* The second season of One Punch Man is a miserable fall from grace, with a quadruple whammy of circumstances contextualizing the gravity of the show’s failures. It’s a sequel to one of the most well-animated mainstream anime of all time, released over 3 years later. On top of that, this franchise’s counterpart, Mob Psycho 100, got adapted for a second season that practically pushed the boundaries of current TV anime 3 months before this season came out. Combined with the awful feel and presentation of this new season, that set of circumstances becomes the world’s nastiest measuring stick. Sadly, the inability to live up to any decent set of expectations isn’t unexpected when you look at all the writing on the wall. The stiff and barely animated trailers, the off artwork, and the fact that production switched over to J.C. Staff all should have told you this was doomed to fail. The worst part is I can’t even blame the people involved, as they simply didn’t have the time, physical capacity, or resources to pull together an acceptable product. It’s a cruel joke, and a herculean task for director Chikara Sakurai and team to be burdened with. This isn’t to say that that this season would have been great if Madhouse or the original team took over. Boogiepop 2019 was animated by the same team and studio as One Punch Man Season 1 and it didn’t look that good. It was plagued with terrible artwork and redesigns, and a sheer lack of the atmosphere that both its source material and the 2000 anime bathed in, thanks to the removal of the rustic color palette for a generic one. Madhouse also animated the Overlord anime trilogy, which is littered with repulsive CGI and artwork that I’m not a fan of. The two shows they produced this season are a powerpoint presentation baseball anime and a show no one likes that apparently also suffers from hideous CGI, so it’s safe to say there’s no way they’d fix this on a visual level. Maybe the color palette wouldn’t be so unpleasant but that’s about it. Hell, I’m not even sure that studio could fix how drab this season feels, since everything feels so floaty, awkward, and self-serious. The jokes, the excessive monologuing, the terrible attempts at emotional beats, and the mind-shattering attempts at retroactively downplaying the threat of the first season’s climax are all downright surreal. When it comes to the jokes, there’s none of the exaggeration or punchy energy to them that was present in season 1, and the lack of comedic facial expressions only adds to how limp and awkward the delivery is this season. The deadpan humor is also weakened by the stumbling, borderline lifeless presentation. I can honestly count on one hand the number of times I even chuckled in any given episode, barring maybe episode 3. On top of that, despite Saitama still one-punching overconfident bad guys in this season --i.e the main gimmick/punchline of the first season-- we don’t get to see him OHKO anyone on-screen even once until the finale. Perhaps they thought saving it up for a grand climax was a good idea, but all things considered, it’s just not worth it. Getting back to the other issues at hand, one of the strangest criticisms I’ve ever had to lay out is that moments that seem to have happened simultaneously like the encounter between Genos and Speed-o’-Sound Sonic and the encounter between Saitama and Fubuki in episode 2 turn out to not happen simultaneously. This isn’t the first time that time becomes a liability in the show but detailing the other instance in the second half would get into some head scratching spoilers. Another strange issue is how some episodes just end abruptly, as if they had no idea where and how to stop an episode. For a more traditional complaint, the pacing in this show is abysmal. Once the main arc of the season kicks in around episode 3, the pacing slows down to a crawl for several episodes before blitzing through everything in episode 7. The weirdest part about this is how apparently this adaptation has been burning through chapters like Sonic speeds through stages, making the sense of fatigue and whiplash all the more dizzying. No matter what, things just happen with no time to really establish anything or allow the audience to breathe and let things sink in. This, along with lifeless direction and lackluster character writing, makes it so there’s almost never any weight or impact to the big and intense moments that permeate the bulk of the season, adding to the vicious cycle of everything and nothing happening as events simply cycle through one another for no apparent reason. It’s issues like this that remind me why even in season 1, OPM was never good at being a serious narrative, let alone shuffling between parody and serious shounen. That said, the overarching narrative of this season isn’t necessarily bad on its own. In theory, showing how the hero organization is now yet another corporation that cares more about the safety of its executives than those who work for them, and how it, Suiryu, and Garou are all foils to the heroic traits Saitama values and finds fun in, are good ideas. On top of that, the narrative genuinely gets interesting towards the last leg of the show. It’s just that everything gets tremendously bogged down by terrible presentation, hollow characterization (which we’ll get to), and a sense that vital moments are actively missing from otherwise solid character arcs and plotlines. Even worse, this season’s bloated, badly paced, and watered-down arc is all setup for a third season, so all of that arc fatigue meant nothing. Speaking of nothing, there’s the gigantic cast of characters for this season. The characters all feel stale, including Saitama, the most entertaining character from the first season. He’s no longer this disgruntled guy who wants some respect for the hard work he put into his fun superhero craft, nor is he someone constantly wishing to fight someone strong because he hates how he can just one-shot everyone. The first scene of episode 1 tries to pretend that he still deals with the former issue, but make it past that and you’ll see that’s not the case. As for the latter problem, it’s no longer this drive that’s been eating away at him due to how disappointed he is all the time. Instead, he just casually wants stronger opponents, so he enters a tournament of martial artists, where he meets a foil of his now watered-down need to fight strong opponents. They don’t justify any of this either, so it creates this disconnect between season 1 Saitama and season 2 Saitama. They try diving back into the issue in episode 9, but they should have further demonstrated how empty he was feeling beforehand, as this episode cements that he’s not just bored, he’s practically lost and depressed. It feels like prior to tackling this issue, they wanted to give Saitama a flat arc, where people grow around him. They didn’t do a good job, for reasons mentioned prior. Another reason this doesn’t work is that the rest of the characters are incredibly one-note and eager to monologue about their baggage at the drop of a hat. Several of these monologues are intrusive and redundant as well, so the sheer abundance of them becomes grating, especially early on when they’re at their most prevalent. You know it’s bad when the one-off heroes and villains have more personality and presence to them than important side characters like King and Fubuki. Secondary and tertiary characters were never one of season 1’s strengths, but this is just lousy! We do at least have a somewhat entertaining villain, that being Garou. However, when everything around him is so dull and when the action and presentation is as bad as it is, his intimidation and fun factor are somewhat diminished. Additionally, despite him actively going out of his way to kill both heroes and villains in his first scene and siding with the monsters who kill heroes and everyone else alike, he doesn’t kill anyone in subsequent fights. They don’t even try to justify this inconsistency. He does have some decent scenes and he does work as a warped foil of everything Saitama stands for, so despite the glaring inconsistency mentioned earlier, he’s still the best character in this show full of lifeless side characters for whatever that’s worth. On top of that, his arc to become stronger is probably the only compelling piece of writing in the show. He’s not the only foil for Saitama, as Suiryu from the god-awful tournament arc is like a more selfish, less dangerous version of him. His main difference is that he wants an easy life with his strength, and we actually see a decent arc come from him halfway into the series. The show gets to a point where I sometimes almost root for him and Garou because almost everyone else in this show is so unlikable. Practically everyone in this show is either a blank sheet or a total prick, sometimes both! Apart from a few side characters in episode 11, the only notable exception is Metal Bat, and that’s literally because of one scene at a sushi bar with like two funny jokes. Yes, they wanna show that heroes aren’t all morally sound because Garou has to have a point, but that doesn’t mean we need Saitama’s foils to be the only ones with any layered writing behind them. One last issue regarding characters is that even the world around them has none of the vibrancy and personality than in season 1. None of the one-offs are as funny or vivid as the disgruntled alien crew from the end of season 1. What a shame. Another positive aspect of the first season was the music. The OP was a thrill ride and the admittedly overplayed OST was filled with incredibly memorable tracks that accentuated the hype and emotionally satisfying feel the show aimed for. None of these return for this second season (barring that one time they remixed one of the OG season’s tracks in episode 5), and in their place lies a bunch of boring background tracks (save for one or two of them) and a mediocre opening that doesn’t even remotely capture any of the excitement or aggressiveness it shoots for. The visuals are somehow even more lifeless in the OP than in the show too, which almost never happens. The ED is also grating to listen to thanks to the vocals, and it’s even worse than season 1’s lackluster ED. The part that stings the most is that the composer for this season was Makoto Miyazaki, the same guy who did the last season’s music. What happened? Above all else, this show’s most controversial aspect is its visuals. By the standards of season one, the standards of the manga, the standards of both seasons of the franchise’s counterpart Mob Psycho 100, the standards of an action anime, and even anime in general, the visuals of One Punch Man Season 2 are terrible. There’s about as little animation as your current non-action seasonal or a long-running slideshow like Yugioh Duel Monsters, and almost no visual flair to compensate, with loads of panning shots, and badly edited quick cuts which make some of the fight scenes simultaneously as unstimulating as the rest of the show, and more incomprehensible than the most badly edited fight scenes from SAO and Fate/Apocrypha. Episode 7’s fights are the worst by far, with constant character model mishaps, extreme usage of bad, looping ghosting afterimages to simulate characters attacking rapidly, frame rate-killing camera movements, and CGI objects that also kill the frame rate. Even the best fights are barely above your average Fairy Tail GIF-fests, and your average fight in this show is just that but undetailed and incomplete. There are occasional, freakish drawing mishaps even outside of the fight scenes, such as the sequence where Saitama’s head is shaped like a lightbulb during a camera rotation in episode 1, or the entirety of Saitama’s conversation with King in episode 9. That alone is inexcusable, especially when this anime is 90% panning shots filled with stock assets as is! It’s even worse here where the artwork tends to be incredibly rough and badly drawn, especially with the characters’ faces and the close-up shots with inconsistent outlining, especially in episode 1. Practically every episode has a unique, outstandingly awful visual blunder to notice, and the few well-animated cuts in the show, primarily towards the final third of the series, can’t make up for that. The strange charcoal coloring of Genos’s metal frame doesn’t even feel like it fits with the rest of the drawing of the character, and not only is it inconsistent with his season 1 frame, it constantly changes from scene to scene in the first two episodes with no rhyme or reason. As of episode 3, it seems like they’ve settled on what he should look like again before changing it one more time in another repair late into the second half, but that should have been done in the character design phase, not after production of certain episodes has ended. You can’t use the excuse of him getting all those repairs and new parts since he did the same in season 1 while looking consistent. The show doesn’t justify this itself, so neither should you. Back to the issue of charcoal-esque metal feeling out of place on the characters they’re attached to, as it applies to another returning character, Speed-o’-Sound Sonic, and other pieces of metal like Metal Bat’s...bat. This raises another issue with the show as a whole: the coloring in this season feels off. This season has a darker and more off-putting color palette than before, and along with some of the colors they used, it makes the show generally awkward and strangely bleak to look at. Even if the show somehow was animated beautifully, the color palette alone makes this show aesthetically displeasing to me. It’s a shame considering how good the returning character designs are, since now they just look off, regardless of if they’re on-model or not. Still, along with the interiors and entire buildings comprised of terrible CG assets, all of these issues make it so there can almost never be a scene that genuinely feels great to look at. Even the incredibly few moments of fluid animation suffer from most of these issues. This isn’t even a question of failing to live up to the stellar animation quality and overall visuals of the first season; this is a case of visuals that are just plain bad. It doesn’t take an animation snob to look at this and go “wow this looks wrong” or “this feels off”. No one should be grateful that a studio forced a bunch of overworked, under-scheduled staff members --including a director with almost no prior directorial experience-- to make this show. It’s not a gift, it’s a product, and a badly produced one at that. The production is so bad that the proofreader for this review had an absolute ball with the visuals, often pointing out several awful aspects and moments even I didn’t even notice. Sure, it’s no Berserk 2016/17 or Hand Shakers franchise, but that doesn’t mean we should bend over backwards just because this is a continuation of a show most of us like. As much as it hurts to say, I’m glad that this hate train started simply because it shows that even despite the pushback against this movement, we can still put our foot down on what is and isn’t an acceptable product. It shouldn’t take 3 episodes for us to see a fight with acceptable animation quality or a single cool shot, nor should it take until episode 9 for them to even attempt any interesting techniques. It also shouldn’t need up to 5 animation directors working on an episode like with episodes 2 (or 15 in the case of episode 8). That just proves this show was poorly managed, badly scheduled, and doomed to fail. This really is the anime equivalent to Anthem and Mass Effect: Andromeda, isn’t it? The second season of One Punch Man is the end product of mismanagement and production issues emblematic of the dismal state of the industry. This show was practically destined to fail when given to a studio that’s been spreading their teams thin through 2-5+ projects a season and having well-documented scheduling issues for the past 3 years. I can’t imagine what the team must have gone through, trying their damndest to live up to the show’s monumental expectations with such little time, staffing, or resources. It’s crushing to think that when OPM 1 came out 3 years ago, people jumped on the hype train, and now with season 2, people are jumping on the hate train. Hell, as someone who only kind of liked season 1, that’s the main reason I watched this season. While the first season functioned as the fun blockbuster anime it wanted to be, this second season was unable to truly be what it wanted to be. Honestly, it’s more depressing than hateful, and it didn’t have to be this way. That’s the anime industry for you, where blood, sweat, and tears are soaked up by cash that get put into the next season’s 5 isekai shows. One Punch Man 2 is a casualty of the industry we’re encouraged to support, and the worst part is people are ok with this. Written and edited by: CodeBlazeFate Proofread by: Peregrine
We’ve all heard this before since it’s a tale as old as time: A sequel of a popular property isn’t nearly as good as the original. This is a phenomenon known as sequelitis. Sure, there is the possibility that the sequel made just doesn’t quite live up to the original work, but is still an ok experience overall, like Incredibles 2. However, OPM2 not only fails to build upon the source material, but it’s also a complete disaster as a standalone product. Hideous visuals, an underutilized cast, and unfunny jokes make watching this season about as fun as diarrhea, although there were some decent scenes and fights here and there. This entire season is littered with still frames, gross background colors, inconsistencies, poor editing, lack of weight in any of its fights, and a weird metallic shine on a few of its characters. The phrase “Look at how they massacred my poor boy” doesn’t even begin to describe the kind of hell that Genos went through in this season. There was this scene in Saitama’s apartment where Genos’s arms look like they’ve rusted almost as bad as my sister’s bike. Whenever they have him in a fight, he looks like a cheap bootleg toy from China. They also gave him this metallic shine to really drive home that he’s this super cool fighting robot, but he just looks gross when he’s fighting. Back in the first season, whenever a fight happens, you can really feel the impact of the punches that are thrown. Characters are launched several feet away, and whenever Saitama throws a punch, it causes the monster’s body to be torn to shreds. In this season, whenever someone is getting hit, they turn the entire background into a single solitary color like red, orange, or purple. This might’ve been done to emphasize the hits, but it just looks ugly and distracting. It’s typically used over stills after the punch has been thrown, and it gives the characters this horrible looking outline after the hit. It doesn’t emphasize on the hits, but it instead just cuts after the fact, so the action can’t stick with the audience at all. Also, when a character like Bang or Garou hits an enemy several times, they have these impact effects, but they’re so stilted that they don’t feel like it's moving at all. There are several general inconsistencies, like Saitama’s head looking like it got swollen from a brain tumor in episode 1, and Metal Bat’s dried up looking blood covering his face in one scene but then having only a little bit of blood coming out of his forehead in the next. There’s a lot more than I could go over here, but I think you get the point. Aside from not living up to the standards that the first season set, it fails to live up to any basic standards in the industry. There’s an animator named Kenichiro Aoki, who is responsible for some of the shots, and the animation he’s done are the best parts of the show. You might as well call it One Animator Man since he’s the one responsible for all of the few decent parts of the anime, such as the cockroach fight in episode 6, but all of the other shots look so rushed and poorly put together. This is what happens when you rush animation and try to get something out ASAP, as a studio such as JC Staff doesn’t care about quality, but quantity. In an industry that shits out as many anime as possible, this season is just another example of horribly produced manure. The comedy in this season is also unfunny except for a few scenes. A lot of this is because of the animation and horrible direction, but most of what the show tries to pass off as “jokes” are just not funny. As a friend of mine, SunlitSonata pointed out to me that something the first season was good at was contrast. It would go back and forth between crisp art, to a drawing ripped out of a manga, like the OK face. There was also the fight with Saitama and Genos, where it made it look like Saitama was about to punch Genos, but he just runs up to him and taps his shoulder. OPM2 tries to go for the same thing, like when Garou attacks Saitama. Saitama goes for the manga expression and knocks out Garou, but the presentation is too bland for it to stand out. When King is revealed to be a total coward, they do make a joke with Saitama’s deadpan reaction to seeing King play a visual novel, but it goes by too quickly to be funny. Another example would be when Fubuki tries to recruit Saitama into her group. When one of her lackeys tell Saitama that she’s Class B Rank 1, Saitama doesn’t care, and we get the groups reactions. The problem is that when we see their reactions, we get the gross looking solitary colored background I mentioned before and ugly shadows. I only found two jokes funny from this season, such as when Metal Bat’s younger sister knocks him out since that’s so unexpected. The best joke is when Saitama knocks out the blonde guy from the martial arts tournament. To add insult to injury, the announcer ends up embarrassing the blonde guy by revealing that his girlfriend didn’t even show up for the tournament despite the fact he planned on proposing to her. It’s such an overly cruel joke that I couldn’t stop laughing for a little while. Though that joke was saved for the post-credits scene, so I ended up missing it the first time I watched the episode. Sadly, for the most part, the presentation ruins almost all of the jokes, so it’s hard for me to care a lot of the time. Saitama and Genos practically act the same, as Saitama is still the super strong dense hero, and Genos is the extremely serious straight man. There’s no problem with that, but they aren’t utilized very well here. They’re both are completely glossed over to the point of no return, aside from a few notable scenes. Saitama’s lack of satisfaction with fighting opponents because of how ridiculously strong he is gets completely shafted until we get an admittingly good scene with Saitama and King talking about it, but that’s all you get with him. The show revolves around a monster invasion, as the number of monsters and their intensity gradually increases throughout its run, and one human claim to be one of the monsters. That person is Garou, and he’s the best part of the show. We all have villains we find to be more entertaining than the heroes, and Garou is the embodiment of that sentiment. He’s on an ongoing quest to defeat all the heroes from the hero association to prove that monsters are superior to humans. He’s an extremely arrogant and strong material arts master. Every time he’s on screen, it’s fun to watch with his entertaining lines, and enjoyable personality. He’s not all bad, as he seems to have a soft spot for children since he was even willing to kill a monster to defend Metal Bat’s younger sister. The presentation does ruin his appearances in the show somewhat, as his muscles look like trash bags mashed together, and one of his facial expressions had a Grinch looking simile. He’s still enjoyable overall regardless, but he’s probably a lot more fun to follow in the manga. The opening is done by JAM Project, who was also responsible for the opening of the first season. The animation for the opening might be terrible, but the song itself is pretty good. It has this real banger heavy rock part at the beginning, and the rest of the song is just fun to listen to. The ED for this season that was sung by Saitama’s voice actor, Makoto Furukawa, is just ok. Like the first season, it goes for a more melancholic song for ED, with a piano and slow singing. However, the song itself isn’t anything noteworthy and it’s nothing you haven’t heard from before. As for the OST, it’s quite good, as Makoto Miyazaki returns, and it does help liven up the most boring show with some nice rock tunes like Garou’s theme. It goes for this sort of intensity that helps liven up the otherwise stilted action scenes. I’m sure some might be asking why I even bothered to finish a show I hated so much and write a review about it. I didn’t find OPM2 to be so bad it’s good, like Inuyashiki, and I found it boring at least 90% of the time, so what made me finish it? This review aside, the main reason would be because I was curious to see how far this titan would fall. I wanted to see how bad the animation could get as the show could progress. Most episodes were horrible looking, with episode 7 being the worst one, but there were a few decent episodes like episode 3. You’re probably better off just reading the manga.
One Punch Man was to many a surprise success. The type of anime that comes around every couple of years the breaks through into Western culture in a standalone way. It is the type of show you watch not knowing it is anime when the dub is played on Cartoon Network at night (AniList ranks it as the 4th most popular show of all time). Upon its completion, people were primed for a season two, and unlike a lot of popular shows, the second season was seemingly announced pretty quickly – albeit by a different studio – before being kicked down the road for four years. Let me cut to the chase, though: if you watched One Punch Man, you should watch its second season. There are just some expectations you need to manage on the way in. Many people decried the studio change (from MADHOUSE to JC Staff) when it was announced and are currently still frustrated at the end-product, but they acquitted themselves adequately enough. There are good moments and moments that look cheapened. If you’re expecting the same quality as the final episode of the first season, you’ll be disappointed, but the animation does not stand in the way of itself. The real frustration is systemic, however, and to get into, it we need to expand our lens. I know this is a detour, but if you want to get a handle on season two of One Punch Man, I think it is important to contextualize this. One Punch Man started as a webcomic by ONE (also of Mob Psycho 100 fame). Its art is… well rudimentary, I suppose. Mob Psycho 100 stayed fairly faithful to it, but One Punch Man had a foundationally different look except for when, for effect or for the fans, it would cut back to the ONE style. One Punch Man (the anime) doesn’t look like this though because, once One Punch Man got popular, it was redrawn(?), redone(?) into a manga by Yasuke Murata (of Eyeshield 21 fame). If you got to a Barnes and Noble and buy One Punch Man today, you are getting the Murata version, and frankly, that is a net positive. He is really good. Look up his live streams, truly amazing. The issues started when ONE slowed down his work on the web comic (taking two years off from the webcomic). He, as is common in the web to physical transition (similarly to WNs to LNs), was working with Murata to ensure the manga was a success and to make changes where he thought they were required and then working with Madhouse on the anime and finishing Mob Psycho 100 and then ostensibly working with JC Staff on season two. This (and this is a bit of speculation) had a ripple effect into the manga where the arc covered by the second season is still ongoing (it is completed in the webcomic), but I believe it is dragging on longer than it narratively made sense to – definitely longer than it did in the web comic. This is speculation, but it seems like everything is bottlenecked at the Monster Association Arc in part because the anime is taking its cues from the manga – not the webcomic. This takes us back to the anime. The season is split between two main plots: the Garo/Hero Hunter Plot and the Monster Association Plot with a C-Story that is largely peripheral. Without getting into spoilers, since the MA Plot is still unresolved in the manga, it seems like JC Staff decided to find a spot in the middle of it to end the season and space itself accordingly. As a result, nothing (except for the C-story, I guess) is really resolved. There is no climax like there was in season one (maybe because season one didn’t know there would be a season two while season two knows there will be a season three). As someone who is ahead of the show and the manga, it sucks because this season could have been an amazing two-cour because where it stops makes sense, but the wait doesn’t. It could have been another season one. However, for what looks like practical business reason, it is largely a set-up to be paid off later. That doesn’t make it not worth watching. It doesn’t make the series worth abandoning, but I do think that you may be better served waiting until season three comes out to have a complete narrative arc instead of this appetizer. It’s hard to decide how all this should affect one’s viewing of the second season. An easy solution would be for the anime to go off the webcomic to fill in the holes, but that would hurt the manga sales. Anime is never supposed to supersede the manga. An axiom serious enough that Piccolo went to driving school to ensure it. Is it Murata’s fault? No, he’s seemingly doing his best with the storyboards he gets from ONE. (It's hard to slack off when you literally livestream yourself doing work.) ONE’s? It’s not like he’s not working. He has a lot of plates in the air, so probably not. JC Staffs? Maybe. It has been four years since the first season. I feel like someone, somewhere was starting to sweat. Was One Punch Man losing its pop culture influence? Can we afford to wait for a season two for another six months? A lack of confidence led to this. At whose feet, I really can’t say. Ultimately, though, that takes us to the question: should my sister watch this anime? Yes, but maybe not now. I think One Punch Man Season 2 will be best watched when season 3 is out. I don’t believe there is a release date yet, but I’d recommend you give it the rest of the year for something. If there is an announcement, hold off. If not, watch it and supplement the manga to get some sort of pay off. 60/100
~~~img(https://imgur.com/9gauCgs.jpg)~~~ Often at the start of one of these reviews, I will wax philosophical about a series. Attempting to slowly draw you, the reader, in to whatever topic or anime I am discussing in that review. This time, none of that. This time, I have to come out and say from the beginning, that _One Punch Man Season 2_ is terrible. Though there are a few occasional gems throughout the series, thanks to one Kenichiro Aoki, most of the series is a mess. On every level. This review won't even be comparing _One Punch Man Season 2_ to the original, as that is just unfair. Even if you didn't like it, in terms of pure production, the first season was on the upper end. Sadly though, this 2nd Season can't even stand up to the average show in it's own season. So all that said, let's get right into it. __Quick Warning__: There are spoilers past this line. For a better formatted version, feel free to head to my blog [here](http://starcrossedanime.com/one-punch-man-season-2-anime-review-34-100/). Also __Disclaimer:__ I am working to make 50 the new “average”. 70 is not an average score people. 70 is above average. Carry on. ~~~img(https://i.imgur.com/WVjxtKz.png)~~~ # ~~~__Animation/Art__~~~ Let's start with the worst, as it can only get better from here. Animation wise, _One Punch Man Season 2_ is a series of decent highs and abyssmal lows. With almost every single high being done by the same man, Kenichiro Aoki. I don't know what was happening behind the scenes, or how he got stuck on this project. But this man single handedly kept my interest in the series with his cuts. However no matter how talented, a single individual cannot save a show. _One Punch Man_ was a mess all throughout. With fights lacking impact, and in general limping around like wet noodles. Even when it was acceptably animated however, the fights were often blurred by this terrible flash-fade like effect. Ruining what, underneath, actually appeared to be enjoyable stuff. None of this is even mentioning that the models/art being animated looked terrible in the first place. Oh goodness the actual art of this series was incredibly painful with how inconsistent it was. Everything from the models to the color palette was painful. This isn't to say everything has to stay on model the entire time. It's the nature of animation that the model is fluid, stretching and compressing to convey the motion. No, this is only in still shots, where everything _should_ be fine. None of this is even mentioning the atrocious filter/gradient JC Staff has placed over everything in lieu of actual lighting. Making Saitama's forehead stand out like a beacon. Or Genos's limbs and Darkshines body look like CGI objects in place of actual 2D characters. I can only assume this was their attempt to naturally emulate the detailed shading of Murata's work. But it failed miserably, leaving every scene painful to gaze upon. ~~~img(https://i.imgur.com/XZ0XySW.png)~~~ # ~~~__Sound Design__~~~ You would hope then that _One Punch Man_ would at least be acceptable to listen to. After all, it's just Shounen fight sounds and an OST that already exists. This should be a basic, easy win scenario for a series. Instead, _One Punch Man_ manages to give me flashbacks to the iron CLANG of _Berserk 2016/17_. Mismatching sounds to actions, flat dialogue delivery, and in some cases seemingly lifting the sounds of a machine gun from CS:GO for punches. Of course, that probably didn't happen, illegal and all that. However the sounds are so similar, and mismatched for the actions, that people being able to draw this comparison at all is concerning. I can understand why JC Staff made the decisions they made. They wanted to stand out from the first season, put their own mark on it with limited time. But it simply doesn't work. One need look no further than the OST for proof of that. Where a large number of the tracks are lifted straight from the first season. For the most part, this was a good idea. The first seasons OST is loved for a reason and some new tracks like Garou's fit in well. However, this season of _One Punch Man_ seemingly had no idea how to use it. Placing serious tracks in jokey moments, or the reverse. Using the same track repeatedly, for multiple scenes of differing tone, because it's the "sad" song. There was seemingly very little thought put into how these songs would actually affect the scene they were laid over. Considering an OST's job is to enhance the series, that _One Punch Man's_ actively detracts from it can be considered a cardinal sin. At least the music itself is alright. ~~~img(https://i.imgur.com/PYZwSC9.png)~~~ # ~~~__Direction__~~~ Next up, let's talk Direction. This is normally a rather nebulous section, what is "good direction"? It's one of those things that you know it when you see it, and requires a degree to explain well. Lucky for me though that _One Punch Man's_ is so blatantly terrible, even a layman like me can dig into it. From framing to pacing, the series is a mess. Often cutting off the top of people's bodies, or hiding heads/mouths to cut animation costs. Sometimes attempting to be ambitious, using shadows to convey body movement instead of the characters themselves. Whatever the reason, _One Punch Man_ often doesn't even look good in still dialogue scenes. Of course, saying there is nothing good would be false, it takes a true effort to make everything terrible. But the bad far outweighs the good. For instance, previously I mentioned pacing. From scenes, to fights, to dialogue _One Punch Man's_ pacing is all over the place. Sometime's feeling to fast, as the characters barely stop to breathe or pause while talking. Making everything feel flat and lifeless, as if they are talking into a microphone (Which they are). Other times _One Punch Man_ slows content to a crawl, to force the ending at a pre-set point. Part of this has to do with the nature of the arc being adapted, it being a setup for a much larger arc. And I will get into specifics on that later. Suffice to say though, for all the passion clearly put into it, JC Staff bit off a bit more than they could chew here. Whether it be forced on them by some Board or not, I don't know. But judging by the final product, it doesn't work. ~~~img(https://i.imgur.com/EdJMPcs.png)~~~ # ~~~__Story/World__~~~ Now we can finally get into the actual content of the series. Simply put, Garou was the best part of the series. I will get into his actual character later, but his story was far more interesting than anyone else's. Take for instance the Martial Arts tournament that centered around Saitama. As a character, Saitama isn't that interesting, he is a vehicle for gags. A wall on which other characters bash themselves, reacting and growing because of it. He wasn't the interesting part of the arc, yet he is the one focused on. With Seiryu, the actually interesting character, done dirty by this production. Garou meanwhile is actively pursuing a goal, coming into conflict with other characters, and expanding the world through his conflicts. Giving us a different look into the hero society. Sadly however, the arc _One Punch Man_ is adapting isn't really an arc. This entire season is but a prologue for a much larger, and much better, arc that we are shown the first hints of. Throughout the season we are introduced to various other S-Class heroes, all of whom are plays on traditional Shounen stereotypes. Yet none appear for more than a moment. This leads to an ending with a dozen unresolved plot threads, multiple characters left hanging and a promise for more mediocre production. Really, this was an arc that needed a 2nd cour. Yet it's understandable why they didn't give it one, as Murata is still drawing this arc right now. Sadly, I can only surmise that this was not the best time for a 2nd Season. That it was pushed out for profits, and not for love of the property. ~~~img(https://i.imgur.com/DyOX2gk.png)~~~ # ~~~__Conclusion__~~~ So, all in all, how was _One Punch Man Season 2_? A terrible, terrible disappointment. No one was expecting the same level of animation as the first season. Anyone that was is being both unreasonable and ridiculous. The first was a perfect storm of internal personal connections and Madhouse magic. However, I was expecting a baseline standard that at least matches your average moe-blob series. Mouths that are synced to the dialogue, animation that isn't faded into blobs of grey, some new songs. Nothing unreasonable I feel. Yet JC Staff couldn't even give me that. Instead relying on the talents of Kenichiro Aoki, and no doubt a few other unnamed animators, to carry the series. Because of this, I don't consider _One Punch Man_ a black mark on their records, they did their best with what they had. No, this lands squarely on JC Staff, near the bottom with Berserk.
The second season of One Punch Man has several problems. Most people have no trouble pointing the problems caused by the animation filled with cost-cutting techniques and the pacing that seems to be so compacted that it almost seems like the storyboarding and script for each episode was done by cramming as much content from the manga as possible as can be animated. But the biggest problem of all is that One Punch Man, adds nothing to ONE's work. ONE is the author of One Punch Man, and in order to get some context for what I'm about to criticize, I'm going to talk about him as well as the other works of his that have been adapted, and even the previous season. ONE is pretty unconventional, not only in regards to the content he creates, but also in regards to the circumstances through which he became successful. For those that are unaware, ONE aspired to become a manga artist but his circumstances didn’t allow him to follow on the goal he had intended, so he eventually has started drawing a webcomic of his own on his phone. Not only did ONE not have the proper tools for his trade, he also did not have the talent. You see, ONE, sucks at drawing. While it is true that he has gotten much better as an artist since he has started, and even that if he is given enough time he can pull off a decent drawing, ONE is just unable to draw at a consistent enough level to be even mediocre in the industry, especially at the pace which a magazine would require off of him. But despite this, ONE’s work was found entertaining just the way it was by his readers, and he managed to get a large enough following to be noticed. Eventually, he was forced into a hiatus by him getting a job that limited his schedule, and he no longer had enough free time to do what he has wanted, and not continuing One Punch Man was a possibility that he has warned his readers about. One of his readers was Yusuke Murata, enjoyed the webcomic so much that he has offered to partner up with ONE when he heard this news, with the intent of helping him continue what he enjoys doing and what he has always aspired to do, as well as improve on his work, by drawing better designs for his characters, as well as adding a lot more detail and dynamism to the story that was being presented. By doing just that, One Punch Man was launched as a manga, and has reached the attention of many. ONE's work was improved by the fact there was someone that saw potential in his work and they wanted to add more to it. Eventually, One Punch Man is picked up by MADHOUSE. As an adaptation, MADHOUSE has managed to knock One Punch Man off the park, using every action scene as an opportunity to choreograph each fight in a way for them to be able to demonstrate how much fluidity and detail their animation can bring themselves, but also to make each hit and attack despite their often underwhelming result, look impactful and distinguishable from anything else you have seen so far. While the enemies cannot achieve impressive feats due to the overwhelming odds they have to face, the animation manages to further accentuate their strength, as well as identity through how much impact their attacks have on the environment or the characters nearby that surrounding. ONE's work was once again improved by the fact there was someone that saw potential in his work and they wanted to add something to it themselves. Then, there is Mob Psycho 100, another work of ONE's that has been adapted. As an adaptation, their approach was slightly different. While not as condensed and bombastic as the animation of One Punch Man, Mob Psycho's approach to adapting ONE's work has a lot of its own merits, as they focused on bringing ONE's style to its highest potential, making sure they get rid of the rough edges in it. Then with what was left, rather than changing it to be more impressive looking, they opted to keep the designs as close to what ONE has drawn as possible, and instead they focused on making the show more impressive by focusing on how the animation looks during movement rather than focusing on the key frames. The animation seems like it is meant to be in perpetual motion and it is almost never sitting still. This gives Mob a very distinctive look and it is a sight to behold that is distinct from One Punch Man as far as style is concerned. Another studio that once again, improved ONE's work through adding something they themselves saw value in. Everyone that has adapted ONE's work so far has aspired to do something with it. To make it something more entertaining for the audience they were presenting it to. However, this does not seem to be the case here. What the case here seems to be, is that a studio got stuck with a major project that needed to be done as fast as possible because of its popularity and high probability for profit, but they had no way to uphold the expectations of the audience, so rather than having a project that had some ambition behind it and was aiming for success, the circumstances behind the second season seemed to concentrate on getting it on screen so that it can sell, because someone made a business decision and they were tasked to create it. The project clearly lacks passion. Every single adapter focused on making the intellectual property that they are using to in some way profit off of the fact that they are working on it. Instead, it seems like a clear business decision to just get it done, and just focus on the quantity so that it can sell, with little to no regards to the actual quality, which at this point is something common. What makes me believe this to be the case? Well, it is actually the very reasons the people watching the show complain. To go into detail that would be: • The animation. The studio animating it has used a bunch of cost cutting animation techniques such as: Removal of backgrounds during action scenes, or replacing the background with a single colored background with a bunch of lines that indicate movement, zooming on the same frame to indicate a character is talking rather than drawing a new one for when they are talking from that angle, chopping off as much detail as possible during the movement of the characters during action scenes, still frames with a few moving visual effects to simulate movement/impact and that’s only what I’ve noticed. These cost cutting techniques are consistently used every episode and almost every action scene abuses these techniques in order to make sure the episode can be done as fast as possible. There's nothing wrong with using cost cutting techniques, hell, I have noticed some moments in the first season where the monochromic background was used there too. But if your animation is strictly comprised of cost cutting techniques, with maybe a 5% of actual content, what quality do you expect of the product? • The pacing. As I have said in the very beginning, the episodes do not seem properly storyboarded and scripted and instead they seem as if they crammed as much material from the manga as possible, and then tried to speed through as much of the scenes until there was a monologue or an opportunity to use a still frame. At best, they have restructured it to cram in the content in a way it can be compacted further. This results in this very awkward pacing where a lot of events happen in an episode, but they finish just as soon as they start, and they seem to lose their significance. The show really doesn't seem focused on telling a story here, but rather, on the most cost efficient possible way to cram in the content from the manga. What is the bare minimum for this scene? We will do that. So for a vast majority of the show, each moment just presents you with information about what is happening, and then quickly finishes any action pieces by the presentation, and just keeps on moving forward. Surely, however, if ONE was able to hold the attention of his audience with choppily drawn drawings, there should be no room to complain in this situation either, right? I mean, these guys are just moving his content into a different format. If he has done a good job, regardless of how the show looks, it should continue to be enjoyable, and cramming in everything he has pushed into the series is just gonna showcase more of his genius. Am I and everyone else just being a hypocrite for criticizing this season? No. It is one thing to put in your best effort to create something entertaining and it is another thing to meet a standard so that you can present to an audience for a commercial need. One focuses on quality, while the other focuses on pushing out quantity. However, considering these two major causes that spiral into causing problems for every element of the end result, criticizing them is more than warranted, regardless of what is being adapted from. So how do these elements impact everything else? Let's begin with Garou. Now, Saitama doesn't do much in this season so the best goal you could set for yourself is focusing on presenting his foil and who he is, with that being Garou. Garou presents some very distinct opportunities, since, while Saitama is the strongest hero that has reached the peak of his strength, Garou is a villain who aspires to become the strongest monster in existence, who is still following his journey for power. Unlike Saitama, Garou is just as likely to win as he is to lose and he has limits. This means that while most fights in the series are filled to the brim with results that are highly expected, there are a lot more opportunities with Garou to present evenly matched fights, and to develop a choreography for the fights, so you don't just have to focus solely on animation and have options in your approach. Additionally, Garou presents a different perspective to the show, and provides some criticism to a very specific trope in media. The fact that the hero always wins, because they are popular. Despite the possible intent and depth of any of the characters presented, the popularity of the characters dictates that the audience is just gonna be delivered more of what they want. Garou is a not so subtle argument against that very notion, as is most of the show. He challenges that quite well and his confrontations center around this theme. While Garou was used for this purpose in the adaptation and his fights had some choreography and thought put into them, there are some moments where once the moments where there is a distinct action happening in the script ends, Garou just uses his blue wavy hands to hit an opponent until the action set piece ends, if he is not getting hit himself. There are some distinct opportunities that you can take a shot on to highlight exactly how the confrontation is evenly match and choreograph a fight that looks interesting and seems evenly matched. I think that this could've been used to take advantage of the fact that you cannot exploit the animation, by planning Garou's fights to be entertaining rather than just presenting exactly was what drawn in the manga. Additionally, given the fact that the show's pace is only matches by someone rolling down a mountain, I'm worried that the chaotic bouts of action are not gonna pay off for the viewers until the end of the season in regards to his characterization, and that is only if you value how he is a foil to Saitama. It has not been the case to me, but I was already familiar with the content already, so of course his characterization would have a different impact. Then, there's the overarching theme. Garou is not the only character that is dealing with the fact that popularity means everything in his universe. So is the world of One Punch Man. Martial artists frown upon heroes because they are only valued for their popularity rather than their skill. Other heroes also have a similar issue since they cannot get recognition because people simply do not value their contributions and they only focus on those that are better known. Everything is a popularity contest in the universe of One Punch Man. But due to the show's pace there is not a lot of time to contemplate this and the show just merely presents these ideas rather than hammering them home. True, these ideas have been presented before, but due to how fast every scene transitions this does not seem to show how this world impacts the characters living in it. There's often not a lot of time to understand who and why every character is before a scene is finally over because there is hardly any effort for the build up and pay off of each moment, and unless you are Garou or another significant character, you are thrown to the side and your perspective is not taken into consideration. Which is completely ironic, given the overarching theme that exists. In other words, the story's potential is butchered because there is not enough focus in both the build up and the pay off, as the show just focuses on moving through scenes as fast as it possibly can. Given the fact that the world's confrontations are rather quick paced as it is, blasting through them are just gonna make them mundane and them being mundane is gonna make everything each character say matter less and less. If you wanted to reexperience One Punch Man, I'm afraid this season is just gonna be wildly different from what you have experienced so far. If you want something more authentic to what you have seen so far, the manga is still a valid choice since it presents the well detailed style the anime might've gotten you to expect. If not, you could consider giving the webcomic itself a shot and see if the story is presented better despite the fact that ONE isn't particularly skilled at drawing. However, if you are still interested in this season of One Punch Man, be warned that it is a huge downgrade from what it used to be, so do temper your expectations for it accordingly.
___One Punch Man___ caused a huge storm in the industry when it released its first season back in 2015. Yes, 2015. Fans have had to patiently wait 4 years before they got massively disappointed by the comparatively horrible second season. Lucky for me I watched the first season last year so I wasn't as jaded as most anime fans but, nonetheless, shocked at the major difference in quality. Though I watched the trailer and felt, as much as anyone else, confused I still gave it the benefit of the doubt and started watched the first episode with hope. And from the beginning, the show made itself clear that it's not going to hold a candle next to the first season. Let's start off with one of the most enjoyable things of the first season: the __animation__. It's horrible this time around. The plenty close-up of characters' faces awkward and annoying, the background seems strangely dark when someone is in frame, the action scenes are put together amateurishly without the fluid movements that the characters had previously and again use put too many close-ups horrendously. The punches feel weightless and doesn't look like it has any impact on any of the characters when they hit. The shading in this show very glossy and gives off a cheap light novel adaptation vibe. Now, to be fair, if J.C Staff did season 1 too I would not be as disappointed as I am now but nevertheless it would have still have left me with a lot to feel harshly about. I've seen people saying how the studio didn't care about the anime and it didn't care enough to put effort into it. I disagree, I think they probably put a lot of hard work behind this as One Punch Man is highly renowned but they didn't have enough skill to even get close to the talent that Madhouse put behind the first season. Now, the __story__ has it's flaws but it's one of the better aspects of this season. I found the fact that they gave more attention to everyone except Saitama to be pretty interesting. I welcomed the introduction of Garo whom I enjoyed very much. His presented motives were understandable and easy to relate to for a lot of us people who were unjustly targeted by people trying to feed their ego and claim superiority. King was probably the funniest part of the show and him conquering his fear by the end of the show was handled decently, though not emotionally satisfying. But it's fine, I wasn't expecting much at that point. The interaction between some of the characters were funny in a lot of moments. The biggest complaint I have in this aspect, was how this show was wrapped up. It was very unintentionally anti-climactic and ended in the middle of a story line. Overall, I think this season is enjoyable and certainly entertaining but due to the enormous shadow Madhouse cast upon it, it ends up being an amalgamation of disappointments that leaves you wondering how beautiful and wonderful it could have been if it was handled by a more skilled studio. Hope J.C Staff makes some changes and learns from the backlash by either searching for more talented people to get behind this potential mine of a project or sells off the rights to a more capable studio.
It would be hyperbolic to say that One Punch Man Season 2 is a bad anime, but it is equally disingenuous to call it good. Though some of the animation is noticeably mediocre (especially when compared directly with it's prequel), the meat of the issues arise with the complete lack of substantial content. This may be the epitome of phoning in what should've been a slam dunk. Subjectively, something just _feels_ off from the very start. The once crisp, carefully-made, animations have an almost blurry quality to them that never lives up to the predecessor. There is no greater sin than a worse looking sequel. If something made enough money to earn a second go-'round, it should be invested in more, not less. This entire cour feels like an old fashioned filler arc from a mid-2000's shounen. There is no pay off at the end, not even a decent cliffhanger, episode 12 ends like any other. I have no idea if it's like this in the manga (I haven't read beyond where Season 1 ends), but even if it is, I'm sure the show exasperated the problem. Are we even going to get a third season? Will we have to wait another 4 years? What was the point of these episodes? Somehow, they've made a satirical super hero anime about a man who can one-hit kill every opponent dull; they even kill a major character off screen in less than three seconds. It's not funny or creative, there's barely even an antagonist, and the main character feels like a sideshow in his own story (which, ironically, is perhaps the most accidental Saitama-esque thing about the season). It's like they really wanted to be Boku No Hero Academia, but were saddled with Saitama's egghead instead. You can really feel the corporate doldrums throughout. They seem to have made a checklist of things to include in the season and gone about adding them like a record label pushing out some over-produced, trite, pop music. If you're desperate for Saitama, just rewatch Season 1, you'll feel better. Uninspired is not a word that I thought I would be associating with One Punch Man, but here we are. Looking back, the first season had a few little cracks in it that signaled what was to come, yet that makes it no less disappointing to witness. One Punch Man Season 1 was, and still is, a great entry point into anime, especially in the West. Unfortunately, it's for the best if the community as a whole pretends the second season doesn't exist.
# [~~~**This review will contain Spoilers for the show!**~~~]()
Whenever I read Manga I say to myself "wow I can't wait for this to get animated" but with Season 2 of
OPM I told myself "wow I can't wait to see this in the manga so I can actually enjoy it".
[**_(SPOILER AHEAD)_ STORY:**]()
This season of OPM focuses on our first major Villain, Garo, he is a hero hunter.
From a young age Garo rooted for the monsters because they fought their very best until the end, cool
stuff I suppose. But because of this he got mocked and bullied leading him to became his
self-proclaimed monster.
He then goes on a rampage hunting S-Class heroes.
Soon enough the monster association shows up and causes chaos in the world.
Sadly Saitama, the **MAIN** character of the series, doesn't get that much screen time. He is often
seen playing games with King (who is just a civilian) or in the stupid ass tournament.
Thats about it for the story, it really just boils down to these points. Yeah its great that ONE
(creator of OPM) is trying to get a story going but my dude, add more good stuff. The whole thing felt
a bit cliche even for a parody, in my opinion the parody aspect does not excuse poor story writing.
~~~img420(https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BNTQ4MDY3MzktNDg5My00NDU1LThkMjctYmJlMTY3ZjA1NDAyXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjc3OTE4Nzk@._V1_.jpg)~~~
[**CHARACTERS:**]()
We get a LOT of new characters, I forgot solid 80% of them.
I already talked about the main ones in my previous review, plus you should know the main ones already
if you watched S1.
**Garou** - He is the villain, as I said many times. He rarely gives up and doesn't want to join the
monster clan. He had a "tragic" backstory which led him to his current self. He is so determined on
winning that _no one_ can defeat him.
**King** - We already seen King in the previous season but we only get to know the **real** him now.
He is a normal person with no abilities. The "King Engine" is just his heart beating super fast, all
the monsters killed around him in the cases were actually Saitama. He loves Gaming, Anime, Manga, and
stuff like that.
Then the rest of the characters introduced were one off monsters or just some small fry heroes.
~~~img420(https://66.media.tumblr.com/61a3fa02ae794654debeebd219340bb2/tumblr_inline_prptz3i0rO1t8e3ci_1280.gif)~~~
[**ART/ANIMATION:**]()
Oh boy where do I even start with this one?
The animation was atrocious. Horrible.
99% of the fight scenes were just blurs of 2-3 frames repeating. On each punch the impact of it would
be cut and then we see the enemy fly away, no satisfaction from these scenes.
The CGI didn't help either, **everything** metal was CGI with the same texture. How fucking horrible
is that? It's like in the OPM universe only one type of metal exists. No matter if it was Steel, Iron,
platinum, or anything else, it had the same texture and polish.
There were alot of frames which also differed from the others, the most notable one was when Fubuki's
necklace kept chaning shape.
Oh and they also decided to add gradients to the faces of the characters which felt really odd.
The mask below is good example of how bad the CG was.
~~~img420(https://thumbs.gfycat.com/UnhealthySingleJumpingbean-max-1mb.gif)~~~
[**MUSIC:**]()
The OP is catchy, I have no issue with it. It fits the monsters very well.
The general OST in figts was also good, though was often overpowered by the generic bullet sounds
which played on every attack.
~~~img420(https://66.media.tumblr.com/db9251ad361e1362e97cb6f60f5e3cf1/tumblr_ppphxiBh8q1u7gyjmo3_500.gif)~~~
[**OVERALL OPINION:**]()
I read a bit ahead in the manga from Season 1 and was excited to see some of the scenes animated but
my goodness.
There are some parts (Like Saitama helping Suiryu) which will probably look better in the Manga.
I am so god damn disappointed in this.
One-Punch Man Season 2 is probably the most disappointing sequel I have ever seen. One of the first anime I have ever watched was One-Punch Man, and I am not going to lie and pretend that there is no bias and I wasn’t hyped for the second season. To this day, One-Punch Man (2015) is one of my favourite anime and this is why season 2 was this big of a disappointment. The first moments where I started to question my hype was when I saw that they switched studios from Madhouse to J.C. Staff. I had not seen anything produced by J.C. Staff before and I was unfamiliar with what they had done before but in the end, I was still pretty hopeful. Until one fateful day, the first trailer was released. I think the moment I finished the trailer, people around me could hear how the hype inside of me just shattered. Everything in that trailer looked and felt so incredibly flaccid and it was just some lines said by the voice actors meant to sound cool with parts of the anime in the background that were just randomly added to give the trailer some action, which it didn’t really do. Overall, it killed all my hopes for season 2. But I was still going to watch it and see if the final product really is that bad. So, was it as bad as I expected it to be? Yes, and no. I initially dropped it after the first 4 episodes. I was up to date with the manga at the time and I was hoping they wouldn’t destroy one of the coolest characters added to the Manga, the hero hunter Garo, and when I saw him fight in the anime and I saw how he was handled as a character, I decided that this is not worthwhile. But, about one and a half years later, still reading the latest chapters of the manga, I started wondering if I was just a bit harsh or if it was actually as terrible as I remember it to be. I picked the anime up where I left it and because I don’t like not finishing things, I persisted through it and watched the whole season. And in the end, I have to say it was still very unengaging. However, one thing changed: I realised that it’s not a bad anime per se, it just felt like it was bad because it was such a drop in the quality from the previous season. The anime isn’t bad, it’s just painfully average. There are some good aspects scattered throughout the entire season. The score is still pretty good and has some very powerful pieces in my opinion and some fights, despite not reaching the standard of the first season, are still well animated. But whenever I thought to myself: “Wow, now they’re really picking up the pace…”, they decided to not carry on that momentum and drop the quality again. The sound design in some scene is phenomenal, until they reuse the sound you liked so much so often, that you get tired of hearing it over and over and over again. I think the best way to describe it is that the animators overwhelmed and underwhelmed you at the same time. It’s like going on a roller coaster, and the carts are slowly moving you to a higher position and you get all nervous and giddy with excitement because you can just feel how much of a good time you’re going to have, just so that they can stop when you reach the peak and slowly reel you back down again to exit the roller coaster again. If you want, you can also check out my blog, where I'll be reviewing anime, but also other stuff that I come across (eraysedreviews.home.blog). If not, then still thanks for reading the whole review one here!
__The One Punch Man Season 2 Anime is Pretty Bad.__ First, I have not read the manga of One Punch Man. When the news first came that a second season was coming not developed by Madhouse, I was a bit concerned but after seeing the trailer and the first episode I had the initial thought of, "Yeah, I can work with this." I didn't really think it would disappoint me that much, I had pretty low expectations and expected atleast a decent production. ONE is an incredible writer, his stories are always fun to watch, as seen in his works like Mob Psycho 100. One Punch Man Season 2 was no different. It had a good story, compelling characters, charming development from the main cast, and leaves you wanting for more. Saitama finally makes more friends, hurray! __Which is why it was such a disappointment when you consider everything else in this anime adaptation.__ By god, the way this adaptation was handled is upsetting. The pacing did not fit the story AT ALL. Sometimes it was too fast, sometimes it was too slow. The direction was so bad, that there was even music that I didn't realize was a recreation because it didn't have as much of an impact when the old version of the track was used back in Season 1. ( Spoiler warning, This is what I'm talking about)~! Saitama's theme being used when he saves Suiryu. Seriously, didn't even realize that was a separate track from Season 1. It's such a waste).!~ Now obviously, there's complaints about the animation being bad. And while I do agree to a certain extent, there's still moments here and there that are surprisingly animated really well. But most of the time.. Nah. If you come into Season 2 expecting the same glamorous fights you get in Season 1, you'd be extremely disappointed. One Punch Man Season 2 offers you one frame attacks, while sometimes it offers okay to decent fight choreography. The only reason for you to keep watching is because of the story. But really, as an anime-watcher who hasn't read the One Punch Man manga by Yusuke Murata, I guarantee that the manga would be a much better experience if you're just in it for the story. Judging from the panels I've seen, it's a feat that Madhouse even made their adaptation work. One Punch Man Season 2 had to carry all of that. It had to give justice to Yusuke Murata's artworks, ONE's storytelling, it had to be the greater follow-up for its first season which had beautiful backgrounds, direction in multiple areas (art direction, fight direction, music direction, etc.), a stellar soundtrack... You know, that's a lot to ask for a studio. So I'm left wondering why J.C. Staff decided to carry the mantle and clumsily drop it. I don't blame them for dropping it, but it is questionable why they took on this challenge knowing the circumstances. What else can I say that hasn't been said already? If you see it as its own thing, you'd appreciate it a lot more. But as a follow up to One Punch Man? _It's disappointing._