Out of every major anime of the past decade, few have been more contentious with fans and critics than One-Punch Man. While season 1 was nothing short of a masterpiece, the visual downgrade of season 2, combined with its lengthy hiatuses, turned the anime into little more than a joke, and it’s been stuck with that label ever since.
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One-Punch Man season 2 utterly destroyed the anime’s reputation, yet surprisingly, people were still excited for season 3, if only because they thought there was no way it could be worse than season 2. Unfortunately, One-Punch Man season 3 has arguably been even worse than season 2, and after its latest episode, there’s probably no hope left for the anime.
Why One-Punch Man Season 3 Has Been So Disappointing
One-Punch Man season 3 appeared to be a mess even before the series properly premiered; it took three years for any information to come out after season 3 was greenlit in 2022, and in addition to its lazy key visuals, the trailers showed stiff animation with zero action, leaving very little for even the most diehard fans to defend.
Even worse was the situation with the director; the director wasn’t announced until about a month before the premiere, and it was revealed to be Shinpei Nagai, a director with little experience with action anime who had only been in charge of a few fanservice anime with three-minute episodes, none of which was a good sign for the anime.
Those factors and other set One-Punch Man season 3 up to be a trainwreck, and the finished product proved those fears to be right; every episode has been filled with bad animation and lazy direction to the point of being made the subject of memes, and at this point, it’s a miracle when a scene can look passable at best.
Why One-Punch Man Season 3’s New Episode Is The Last Straw For Fans
One-Punch Man season 3 has been controversial from day one, but there was one last bit of hope for it. Episode #5 received a lot of hype due to having many talented animators working on it, including Vann Oba, who created a countdown for it on social media, so fans were hopeful that episode #5 would finally turn things around.
To its credit, One-Punch Man episode #5 was an improvement over previous episodes. Action scenes like Garou’s fights with Overgrown Pochi and Orochi did have some notably good animation, and Vann Oba’s cut in the fight with Orochi was inarguably one of the best animation cuts since J.C. Staff took over the series.
Unfortunately, the good parts of episode #5 were incredibly sparse and completely outweighed by the bad ones, as despite a few noteworthy shots, episode #5 had all the same issues with stiff visuals, lazy transitions, and all-around terrible action that have plagued season 3 from the very start, much of which was arguably worse than any episode before it.
Garou’s fight with Orochi was the biggest offender, as other than Vann Oba’s cut, the entire fight was filled with bad artwork and animation that was rarely even passable and overall impossible to defend. Despite all the hype for One-Punch Man episode #5, it was arguably the worst episode to date, and for many people, that was the last straw.
Is The One-Punch Man Anime Truly Beyond Saving?
At this point, there’s little in One-Punch Man season 3 that’s worthy of praise. Season 3 has the occasional good animation cut, but in terms of direction and overall animation, it’s an undeniably bad season of anime, and it’s even worse than season 2 which, while not as good as season 1, was at least average, more often than not.
Much of this, of course, can be attributed to the change in staff, but the issue is less that One-Punch Man changed studios from Madhouse to J.C. Staff and more that there was a team of talented freelancers working on season 1, and since none of them returned for seasons 2 and 3, the anime has suffered ever since.
That being said, the blame can’t be completely laid at the staff of J.C. Staff; Bandai Namco Filmworks, which owns J.C. Staff and other anime studios, is infamous for not giving studios proper time and resources for their anime, so even if One-Punch Man season 3 had a phenomenal staff, Bandai’s mismanagement still would have ruined it.
The only way for One-Punch Man to be redeemable is if Bandai gives J.C. Staff more time to work and gets them better people to work on the series, and that’s certainly not outside the realm of possibility. Unfortunately, as it stands, that’s unlikely to ever happen, and with how amazingly One-Punch Man started, that couldn’t be more disappointing.
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image courtesy of 20th Century Studios
