'One-Punch Man' Fans Track Down Its Most Important Encounter
When two creative forces join together to make something like One-Punch Man happen, fans are often [...]
When two creative forces join together to make something like One-Punch Man happen, fans are often left to wonder: just how did that collaboration come about? Thankfully, social media makes figuring that out a little easier.
Fans over on Reddit tracked down what appears to be the first interaction online between between One-Punch Man webcomic creator ONE and the remake illustrator Yusuke Murata. A January 2011 tweet from Yusuke Murata to ONE seems to indicate the former's excitement about the then-webcomic and their excitement at what the future had in store for the series' main character, Saitama.
You can check out the embedded tweet below:
@ONE_rakugaki はじめまして！フォローさせて頂きました。ワンパンマン面白いです。バトル漫画への愛情を感じますよ。サイタマのマイペースで最強な活躍を今後も楽しみにしてます！
— 村田雄介 (@NEBU_KURO) January 14, 2011
Even better? Reddit fans apparently didn't realize that the tweet was part of a chain which began with Yusuke Murata tweeting about the webcomic hours before that. You can check out that original tweet embedded below:
ワンパンマン再開してる
— 村田雄介 (@NEBU_KURO) January 14, 2011
ONE then responded, to which Yusuke Murata responded, to which ONE responded. Apparently, a working friendship formed from all this, because Yusuke Murata would go on to draw the remake of One-Punch Man in 2012.
For those unfamiliar with One-Punch Man, the series follows Saitama, a regular working stiff who one day puts a stop to a violent villain attack. After this fight, he is inspired to become a hero. Training his body hard every single day, he eventually gains extreme strength. Looking for a worthy opponent, Saitama joins the Hero Association in the hopes of fighting them. But every fight he gets into ends after a single punch! Forced to wander through life increasingly bored of his supreme power, Saitama has become hilariously disconnected with the world of action around him.
One-Punch Man started life as a webcomic by series creator ONE in 2009. After going viral, surpassing seven million hits in June 2012, illustrator Yusuke Murata approached ONE about redrawing the series for a release in Shuiesha's Weekly Young Jump spinoff webcomics. Several volumes have been released since, and there's even an anime adaptation based on the remake.
