‘One-Punch Man’ Fan Art Imagines a Saitama “Mirror Match”

One-Punch Man is gearing up for the release of its second season in just a few days, and fans can’t wait to see what kind of major fights Saitama will find himself involved in as the series continues. But one artist has already gone the extra mile with this an imagined one of Saitama’s toughest fights yet as he takes on his influential namesake, Anpanman.

Though this particular illustration has been floating around the Internet for the last few years, it has resurfaced due to all of the hype building for the series’ eventual second season premiere.

For those unfamiliar, One-Punch Man is enunciated as “Wan Pan Man” in its original Japanese. This name is a play on the famous Anpanman, a famous children’s book superhero created by Takashi Yanase in 1973. The titular hero gets his name from the anpan (a jam filled pastry) for his head, and follows his battles to protect the world from the villainous germ Baikinman. The books ran until the author’s passing in 2013, and have spawned an anime series with over 1,300 episodes as of this writing.

Artist @anterdel (which you can find here, but be wary of some NSFW content) imagined these two big heroes crossing worlds and you can see the similarities go beyond the name. Anpanman’s hero look influences Saitama’s hero colors and baldness, and fans have often wondered what a fight between them would look like. Now it’s just a matter of figuring out who’d win.

Officially scheduled for a premiere April 2 in Japan with a premiere on Hulu April 9 in the West, One-Punch Man Season 2 will be directed by Chikara Sakurai (Naruto Shippuden episode director), for new production studio J.C. Staff. Yoshikazu Iwanami will serve as sound director, and Chikashi Kubota will contribute new character designs. Viz Media has licensed the season for an English release, and they describe One-Punch Man Season 2 as such:

“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.”

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