When monsters, super villains and other forces of
destruction threaten the city, the people need a hero. And that hero is…Saitama. Except he’s not a hero in the traditional
sense. He’s not out to be a symbol of
hope or be a boy scout…he’s just doing this because it’s a hobby and he’s
bored. Oh and he’s got the unfortunate
curse of being able to end fights with literally just one punch. When you’re the strongest hero on the block
and no one can take you on...what do you do with that kind of drive? He may be lazy, laid back and way to comfy
with his life situation, but Saitama is the only chance the people of the city
have. Get ready for a new breed of hero.
One Punch Man was one of the most talked about Anime
titles of 2015. It was getting the kind
of attention Attack on Titan got a couple of years prior and was making waves
all across the internet. With the much
anticipated arrival of the English Dub on Toonami, I finally decided to see
what was up and if it could live up to the immense hype.
Oh hell yes it does.
Actually no, it doesn’t live up to the hype, it surpasses it more than I
ever imagined. Saitama is a great
character who, in all honesty, I could see a bit of myself in, you know minus
the whole amazing powers bit. He’s just
a guy who thought saving the world would be fun and eventually just becomes
bored. Very little agitates him and he
kind of shrugs off a lot of things with a devil may care kind of attitude. This does lead to some of the shows best
moments where is lack of being afraid pisses off opponents enough to attack
him…before getting thoroughly obliterated by his one punch might. I get that, being surrounded by so much
frustration that one punch usually does the trick to end annoyances. Except I wouldn’t be bored with it like
Saitama is, but I would just shrug it off and move on too.
Saitama’s world is pretty much Zack Snyder’s ultimate
playground of collateral damage.
Buildings, sections of the vast cities and hundreds if not thousands of
human lives are destroyed regularly by chaos…and no one seems to care. Seriously, you know the whole Picard Meme,
“WHY THE F*** DO PEOPLE STILL LIVE IN GOTHAM?!”
Well why do people still live in this city that has everything from
giants, to underground monsters, to killer mosquitos trying to destroy
everything? I do like that each villain
has a quick but elaborate backstory that they attempt to spill out before their
untimely, Saitama related ends. This
show is very much a parody of all the American superhero genre tropes and it is
freaking hilarious.
What really put One Punch Man on the map for me, the
moment that really grabbed me…was Saitama being unable to kill one little
Mosquito, even with his punches. As a
new cyborg character faces doom from a (strangely attractive) female Mosquito
monster, Saitama comes barreling down the street with a can of bug spray demanding
the bug he’s been trying to kill for an hour die already. You don’t get better entrances than that from
any character.
I hear this series is short and that’s both a shame and a
blessing. Much like FLCL, such goodness
shouldn’t overstay it’s welcome to the point where it doesn’t finish as strong
as it began (biting nails over the announcement of FLCL 2 and FLCL 3). It’s a shame because this is some of the
strongest and funniest works of Anime I have seen in a really long time. And the dub isn’t bad either, I actually like
Saitama’s voice quite a bit and you can tell he and the rest of the cast are
having a blast dubbing this one.
I should end on the note that the only reason I chose to
finally check this out is because of the new Jason Bourne flick and seeing Matt
Damon take a guy out in a fight in one punch…I said, “THIS ISNT JASON
BOURNE…IT’S ONE PUNCH MAN!!!” Ok im
done. Good to be back doing the FiF’s.
No comments:
Post a Comment