‘One-Punch Man’ Season 2 Premiere Prompts One Major Complaint

After four years of waiting, One-Punch Man fans were finally rewarded for their patience when the first episode of the Season 2 sub was released on Tuesday. The episode had plenty of highlights, from Genos scoring a win over a massive robot to the comedic introduction of the hero King, but there was one problem numerous fans pointed out. Saitama, “The Hero For Fun” himself, threw just one punch during the episode but because of an animation decision fans didn’t get to see it.

For context, the episode reveals early on that Class S-ranked hero King is actually a fake, and that his reputation fore being the “Earth’s Strongest Hero” only came about because he kept getting attacked by monsters and other heroes kept running in and killing them before anyone else could see. After running away from his latest challenger, King returns home and tries to play a new video game only for Saitama to jump up to his apartment (on the 22nd floor). He asks King why he chose to run away, but before King gets the chance to answer a giant crow monster flies straight into the apartment window.

Saitama stops the bird from fully crashing into the room, turns around and kills it with a single punch. But instead of showing it, the animation simply cut to the moment after the monster dies with Saitama’s face covered in purple blood and feathers scattering around him. The shot then showed a still image of the dead beheaded bird on the ground below. So the first punch of the brand-new season never made it to air.

King then comes clean about being a fraud, and a flashback shows that it was Saitama (when he still had hair) who killed the first monster he was credited with defeating. Saitama doesn’t seem too upset over King taking credit for his accomplishments, and offers to come over and keep playing video games with him in the future.

The new season of One-Punch Man first premiered on April 2 in Japan and its English sub was released in the West on Tuesday via the streaming service Hulu. Chikara Sakurai (Naruto Shippuden) will serve as the season’s director for the J.C. Staff production studio.

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