I loled

I just didn't know if I would like this or not, not being exposed to much Manga - only graphic novels, but One Punch Man was great. It was light and funny, but still had action. I can't wait to recommend this to more students at my school! Especially those that like manga.

Volume 1 - classic

volume 2 - Genos is pretty fab

volume 3 - tbh a little repetitive but Sonic is hella

volume 4 - not sure how I feel about the prisoner dude?

overall, entertaining so far

This series amuses me.
Good ol' Saitama and his basic face, his basic training regime, his ridiculous strength and his need for a good fight.

Saitama is a superhero dealing with the troubling problem of his own absurd power. He has no difficulty defeating his enemies, which you'd think would make a dull, predictable book, but the reader invariably goes through the story thinking "is this the one?" It never is, but there's a general pattern of confrontation in which Saitama appears concerned in the face of an enemy's increasing bluster or dramatic monologue, before realizing Saitama is wondering inwardly if this new opponent might pose a challenge or isn't paying attention at all, only to end it all in a single, anticlimactic and effortless blow of such preposterous power that the heretofore mighty opponent is reduced to a shower of innards.



Equally absurd is how staggeringly undervalued Saitama is as a superhero. Perhaps the one thing that could make his ridiculous skill more hilarious is that no one recognizes it--with exception to his apprentice, Genos, who consistently ranks far above him in the Hero Rankings (in future books).

Saitama is utterly innocuous and uninteresting. Apart from his feats, he's not distinct. His thoughts and observations are hilariously domestic, even his anger and alarm are misdirections and don't concern the battle in which he's engaged (later in the series an enemy mistakenly believes it has the upper hand only to realize Saitama's worries are connected not to the fight but a supermarket sale that he missed). He treats being a superhero as a routine no more engaging than office work. He listens patiently and unruffled to screaming manifestos and ultimatums, wears his costume to the supermarket, completely unrecognized and oblivious to stares, and thinks about the pointlessness of training to become so powerful (which we later learn is a completely normal exercise routine that inexplicably grants him incredible strength) if it removes any sense of challenge or difficulty.

Saitama is bored because he doesn't find anything challenging. Had Saitama been around 200 years earlier, Dostoevsky would have made him a central character in Notes from the Underground.


Motivation: (ironically) fun.
Appearance: slim; bald.
Back story: uneventful.

Amazingly, the story never loses its impetus or freshness. Opponents need to steadily increase in power to maintain the possibility that Saitama will find a worthy enemy, but his malaise continues unabated and unchallenged (with exception to a hilariously anticlimactic dream about mole people).

Incredibly, I discovered this series at the middle of its success. It began as a web comic, was redone as a manga, and then released as an anime, where I stumbled across it on Netflix and now he lives on my bookshelf.

A man who practices Kung-Fu said this manga was the hero he aspired to be. I now get it, haha.

This was a simple, pleasant narrative.

A man comes out of a job interview and is confronted by a weird crab monster. After the monster says he is going to beat him up, the man points out that the interview went poorly and he doesn't care about anything anymore anyway. The monster pities him and decides to not beat him up. As the monster is walking away the man has a strange interaction with a child that has a large cleft chin and realizes he never wanted to be a "salary-man" anyway because his dream as a child was to be a hero. The man then decides to fight the crab monster, screaming, 'Bring it on!" From then on, he decides he will never get a real job and will spend his life pursuing his dream of being a hero.

Meet onepunch-man, the hero you didn't know you needed.

I laughed a lot, enjoyed almost every character, and didn't even care how campy it was. Highly recommend.