Current Events > One Punch Man level theorists know they're barking up the wrong tree, right?

(+) Yeah! (+)

E.g. talking about the Limiter concept, going into depths about the extend of Saitama's power, how it manifested and how it compares quantifiably to other entities etc.

It's a gag manga. The main character is a joke. The story is a joke. This is the quintessential example of that stan lee rant where he says that the only explanation for why one character can beat another is because the writer says so.

I assume they're just having fun with it but the theories get pretty elaborate and wild

I would've said this years ago but now it really is trying to be an average tryhard shonen series itself ever since the severe MA arc changes from the webcomic. Have you been caught up with the manga?

pinky0926 posted...

It's a gag manga. The main character is a joke. The story is a joke.

No it isn't. You're trying to find meaning in stuff that isn't there. Saitama is a regular shonen protagonist who has his end-of-series power at the beginning.

GiftedACIII posted...

I would've said this years ago but now it really is trying to be an average tryhard shonen series itself ever since the severe MA arc changes from the webcomic. Have you been caught up with the manga?

I did wonder if it was gonna become a victim of its own success. Seems kind of ironic that it seemed to set out to be a satire of this stuff and then just...become that stuff.

Tyranthraxus posted...

No it isn't. You're trying to find meaning in stuff that isn't there. Saitama is a regular shonen protagonist who has his end-of-series power at the beginning.

i'm saying the exact opposite. Fans are looking for meaning where there is none, that was my argument.

pinky0926 posted...

i'm saying the exact opposite. Fans are looking for meaning where there is none, that was my argument.

You're trying to attribute comedy where there is none. We have it straight from the creator what Saitama's deal is and it's not "a joke" and the series is not a joke either. There's no need to make up things about the series when we are told explicitly what it is.

Tyranthraxus posted...

You're trying to attribute comedy where there is none. We have it straight from the creator what Saitama's deal is and it's not "a joke" and the series is not a joke either. There's no need to make up things about the series when we are told explicitly what it is.

Where are you getting that? Because
https://www.reddit.com/r/OnePunchMan/comments/8eba5a/proof_saitama_is_a_gag_character_author/
(Question) What led you to begin drawing a web comic?
(Answer) How long have you wanted to be a manga artist? ONE: I had decided I wanted to be a gag manga artist from the time I was in grade school. I was a fan of Crayon Shin-chan, and at the time I wanted to draw that sort of manga. For me it wasnt a case of simply trying to be a manga artist and testing the waters to see if it was worth a shot. Rather, my thought process was to decide right off the bat that I was going to be one, so the rest was just a matter of effort. I guess thats how I decided my whole future while still just a kid.

Maybe he's shifted his stance in recent years, I haven't been keeping up

People are arguing One Punch Man isn't a joke now?

Jesus...

pinky0926 posted...

I did wonder if it was gonna become a victim of its own success. Seems kind of ironic that it seemed to set out to be a satire of this stuff and then just...become that stuff.

i'm saying the exact opposite. Fans are looking for meaning where there is none, that was my argument.

Unfortunately so. For the record, the author himself was actually the one that said what Tyranthraxus posted in a recent interview.
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/1/1/5/AAb_eGAADZEb.jpg

Murata directly compares Saitama to Goku (the quintessential average shonen protag)
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/1/1/6/AAb_eGAADZEc.jpg

Guns_of_Verdun posted...

People are arguing One Punch Man isn't a joke now?

Jesus...

I would've thought something with that title about a character who can one shot anything would obviously be a fucking parody. But apparently people's IQs halve when talking crossovers and death battles.

Dark_Arbron posted...

I would've thought something with that title about a character who can one shot anything would obviously be a fucking parody. But apparently people's IQs halve when talking crossovers and death battles.

Again, this would've been true before 2022. But he literally FAILS to one shot a character in a particular major recent arc despite explicitly going all out. In fact he fails to defeat them after dozens of shots.

GiftedACIII posted...

Again, this would've been true before 2022. But he literally FAILS to one shot a character in a particular major recent arc despite explicitly going all out. In fact he fails to defeat them after dozens of shots.

Yeah, when stories go on too long they inevitably forget their premise. Naruto did that too.
But I'll bet people forget all about that character you just mentioned when pitting Saitama against Goku. They always default to "he one shots everyone by definition, Goku loses."

The number one factor is, as Stan Lee said, the writer (and a lack of proper oversight). The number two factor though, when talking death battles, is whose universe's rules we use.

Dark_Arbron posted...

Yeah, when stories go on too long they inevitably forget their premise. Naruto did that too.

Sigh, unfortunately. The thing is, I can see them doing it in the final battle of the series but they put these final battle stakes into the middle of the series and completely changing an unanimously praised webcomic fight to do so. JJBA at least still keeps its premise very strong lol. At this point Jojo is more of a parody than OPM tbh too.

GiftedACIII posted...

I would've said this years ago but now it really is trying to be an average tryhard shonen series itself ever since the severe MA arc changes from the webcomic.

The only real difference is that the webcomic is drawn like shit and the manga isn't. OPM has basically been typical Shonen trash from the start, at least since the Genos's debut. The introduction of the Hero Association further compounded this and the villain Garo is the exact kind of cliched nonsense you'd expect from Shonen.

While the story begins to take itself more seriously later on, it still has a lot of gag influence. That doesn't stop it from being typical Shonen-esque trash, though.

The manga actually quantified him pretty well, which was kind of dumb. His webcomic version is still unknown.

Incredible posted...

The only real difference is that the webcomic is drawn like shit and the manga isn't. OPM has basically been typical Shonen trash from the start, at least since the Genos's debut. The introduction of the Hero Association further compounded this and the villain Garo is the exact kind of cliched nonsense you'd expect from Shonen.

While the story begins to take itself more seriously later on, it still has a lot of gag influence. That doesn't stop it from being typical Shonen-esque trash, though.

No, while it was more serious than usual, the fight was still very much non-serious with Saitama treating Garou like a toddler and with his "Serious" moves there clearly just being playful unlike the enraged Saitama in the manga in grief that his best friend got killed and them ACTUALLY dying to the point that they had to asspull time travel to reverse all the ridiculously high grimdark stakes from happening. Saitama actually laments that he's a terrible hero since apparently being a hero for hobby just doesn't cut it anymore while WC Saitama is still secure in the fact that he's a hero for hobby (that he still put his heart in which is why he was about to defeat Garou who didn't put his heart in)
The manga also literally had a power scaler that explained how Saitama's power worked and how he was exponentially growing and how Saitama was only able to beat Cosmic Garou "from the power he gained on Jupiter."
But Scotty going to Scotty.

I think that inevitably happens when comedy series go on for too long. Either they start taking their premise somewhat more seriously, go increasingly denser to the point of being redundant parodies of themselves or sort of shamble along as a zombie series.

Slightly more on topic, weird nerds have an odd obsession with trying to apply real world logic to stories, even though, by definition, such things abide by narrative logic.

If Saitama has finally found something that can't be killed in one punch, it's not because of some quirk of fantasy physics (though the author may elect to invent a justification after the fact), its because its been deemed dramatically satisfying for anyone still following the show for there to finally be an obstacle worth a damn

GiftedACIII posted...

No, while it was more serious than usual, the fight was still very much non-serious

You don't need to type a whole nerdy ass paragraph about the final fight with Garo when that's not what I was talking about. He's just an edgy insert for bullied kids and he even gets off scot-free for all his crimes in typical dumb Shonen fashion .

It's typical Shonen trash. Being a "gag series" doesn't stop it from being that when there are plenty of gag Shonen.

Incredible posted...

You don't need to type a whole nerdy ass paragraph about the final fight with Garo when that's not what I was talking about. He's just an edgy insert for bullied kids and he even gets off scot-free for all his crimes in typical dumb Shonen fashion .

It's typical Shonen trash. Being a "gag series" doesn't stop it from being that when there are plenty of gag Shonen.

Oh I see your problem. You think the other characters would also be gags. No, the whole point of the WC is that the side characters are treated seriously while anytime Saitama appears it's a gag, which stayed true in the WC up to the robot invasion. Now in the manga, Saitama is also regularly genuinely serious.

Its looks like the anime will be following the manga vs the webcomic likely.

The power scaling in the manga by the MA arc gets utterly ridiculous for no reason to the point of being almost self aware I think.

I agree that Saitama is a gag character. However if you remove him and arguably King&WDM from the series, you'll find that other characters are unsurprisingly shonen-esque. Genos wants to become stronger, Sonic wants to become stronger, PuriPuri undergoes power evolution, etc.

Imho OPM's biggest mistake in this regard was introducing the graph comparing Saitama and Garou. That alone provides justification to quantify Saitama. Just like that power measuring mask from CE (heh), it should've gone like this with the graph:
"Graph depicted Garou's progress only. Saitama was nowhere to be found because he's off the chart."

thisworld posted...

I agree that Saitama is a gag character. However if you remove him and arguably King&WDM from the series, you'll find that other characters are unsurprisingly shonen-esque. Genos wants to become stronger, Sonic wants to become stronger, PuriPuri undergoes power evolution, etc.

Imho OPM's biggest mistake in this regard was introducing the graph comparing Saitama and Garou. That alone provides justification to quantify Saitama. Just like that power measuring mask from CE (heh), it should've gone like this with the graph:
"Graph depicted Garou's progress only. Saitama was nowhere to be found because he's off the chart."

Pretty much everything to do with Garou actually managing to kill everyone there (including King) and Saitama's best friend and causing Saitama to become enraged with grief and explicitly "go all out" was OPM's biggest mistake. They put final battle stakes in the middle of the series. They should've just followed the webcomic.

GiftedACIII posted...

They put final battle stakes in the middle of the series.

KEK, they already did that with Boros.

One-Punch Man should have just ended with Season 1

GiftedACIII posted...

I would've said this years ago but now it really is trying to be an average tryhard shonen series itself ever since the severe MA arc changes from the webcomic. Have you been caught up with the manga?

u are never not based

web comic 4 lyfe. i was here before the manga and i am a h4ter

Incredible posted...

KEK, they already did that with Boros.

One-Punch Man should have just ended with Season 1

Boros did not threaten any important character directly, let alone kill. Saitama did not take Boros seriously at all and just treated him like a toddler too albeit a bit more somberly. Boros did not cause such high stakes they needed to asspull fucking time travel to reverse what happened. Although yes, when it comes to the anime that's currently following the manga I do think it would've been best if it had stopped at Season 1 too at this point.
Dungeater posted...

u are never not based

web comic 4 lyfe. i was here before the manga and i am a h4ter

It was taking so long for the manga to finish the Monster Association arc that there needed to be something major to keep people interested. Adapting the webcomic straight-up wouldn't have been exciting enough. They already introduced a whole ass multiverse, so there are plenty of directions for the story to take.

Not that any of them will be interesting, though. OPM is a novelty series that should have ended early on. It doesn't work as a long-running series because a deliberately OP protagonist is only interesting for so long.

Incredible posted...

It was taking so long for the manga to finish the Monster Association arc that there needed to be something major to keep people interested. Adapting the webcomic straight-up wouldn't have been exciting enough. They already introduced a whole ass multiverse, so there are plenty of directions for the story to take.

Not that any of them will be interesting, though. OPM is a novelty series that should have ended early on. It doesn't work as a long-running series because a deliberately OP protagonist is only interesting for so long.

He'll get less OP the more time goes on. Everyone else is getting stronger except Saitama.

GiftedACIII posted...

Boros did not threaten any important character directly, let alone kill. Saitama did not take Boros seriously at all and just treated him like a toddler too albeit a bit more somberly.

Series is called One-Punch Man and up to this point, Saitama has taken down everyone in one punch.

Saitama uses more than one punch against Boros.

May as well end the series there, because he's no longer One-Punch Man.

Tyranthraxus posted...

He'll get less OP the more time goes on. Everyone else is getting stronger except Saitama.

He literally fused with himself to become stronger.

Saitama will always be OP. And making him not OP wouldn't make anything better because then the series would just be taking itself more seriously

Incredible posted...

It was taking so long for the manga to finish the Monster Association arc that there needed to be something major to keep people interested. Adapting the webcomic straight-up wouldn't have been exciting enough. They already introduced a whole ass multiverse, so there are plenty of directions for the story to take.

Not that any of them will be interesting, though. OPM is a novelty series that should have ended early on. It doesn't work as a long-running series because a deliberately OP protagonist is only interesting for so long.

It was taking so long for the MA arc to finish BECAUSE of Murata dragging all the one page gag fights into hundreds of pages of serious shonen battling and then adding several dozen more chapters of serious yet unimportant shonen battle filler. And even then, the webcomic surface fight was more than hype enough if they simply followed it to the letter. Instead they actually made the surface battle more boring and awkward (seriously, nobody with sound mind prefers Sage Centipede or whatever over the S rank vs Garou fight) before the fanfiction tier Garou fight.

I can see you're just trying to be contrarian in your own post though.

Incredible posted...

Series is called One-Punch Man and up to this point, Saitama has taken down everyone in one punch.

Saitama uses more than one punch against Boros.

May as well end the series there, because he's no longer One-Punch Man.

Saitama needing a slightly less bored punch to take down Boros is much easier to swallow than him going avatar mode furious and still being perfectly matched by the villain who takes dozens of these all out punches.

The manga really jumped the shark at the Phoenix Man fight. Up until that point, it was more of an expanded web comic, but they went off the rails with padding and revisions. I have no idea if it was mostly Murata's idea or if ONE was the force behind it, but it really got pretty meh from there on. It seems they want to focus on the aspect of having the main villain in the manga because the webcomic will never have time to get to it, but I don't know why they needed to go so over the top so soon.

Nemu posted...

The manga really jumped the shark at the Phoenix Man fight. Up until that point, it was more of an expanded web comic, but they went off the rails with padding and revisions. I have no idea if it was mostly Murata's idea or if ONE was the force behind it, but it really got pretty meh from there on. It seems they want to focus on the aspect of having the main villain in the manga because the webcomic will never have time to get to it, but I don't know why they needed to go so over the top so soon.

Yeah on retrospect I would say the Phoenix Man fight is when it jumped the shark. I personally was actually tolerating it up to even the beginning of the surface fight but Golden Sperm emerging prematurely (pun unintended) was what made me really go "this is really awkward" and then it just went spiraling downwards from there.

Anyway officially it's ONE behind everything but the thing that really makes me consider Murata's contribution is the fact that Amai Mask was completely humiliated during the whole arc and didn't accomplish anything on the surface (which he was fairly prominent in the WC) to the point that he actually had to retcon Amai Mask being too cartoonishly evil (since the WC had him being a good guy).

Turns out Murata has gone on record saying Amai Mask is his least favorite character.

i just caught up on the webcomic

wow

i know hes supposed to be a gag character thats like the strongest of all but how does he beat reality warpers or time travelers?

is the webcomic still ongoing anyway

they got too hype from the season 3 trailer

https://youtu.be/1jbgUWsl1z4?si=lJmlXM6OrdjHbV8C

weeb98 posted...

i know hes supposed to be a gag character thats like the strongest of all but how does he beat reality warpers or time travelers?

If we're going by how the manga handles him, his base level strength is like low-planet buster-ish and he'll exponentially increase in strength if an opponent challenges him on an even-ish level. So anyone who's a planet buster and above can just one-shot him otherwise. He has used time travel through dumb martial arts but doesn't remember it, so him being eventually becoming strong enough to no-sell reality warping bullshit probably isn't out of the question.

SquantoZ posted...

they got too hype from the season 3 trailer

https://youtu.be/1jbgUWsl1z4?si=lJmlXM6OrdjHbV8C

Boy I sure do hope it's better than season 2 was

Oh fuck the webcomic is being updated again!?

weeb98 posted...

i know hes supposed to be a gag character thats like the strongest of all but how does he beat reality warpers or time travelers?

He's not even presented as the strongest character in the manga right now. God is definitely presented as stronger than him. Only a bit of his power is what allows Cosmic Garou to hold his ground against Saitama for that long and God insta-kills Cosmic Garou like nothing, something Saitama couldn't do. And God himself isn't omnipotent since he's somehow being sealed by Bang and his Avenger posse. Saitama will likely eventually get strong enough to defeat God but narrative wise he's actually weaker right now. With how the manga is going I wouldn't even be surprised if it's some kind of "power of friendship" that powers him up in the end.

People still think that Saitama is a gag character even after he was stated to not be one?

ViewtifulGrave posted...

People still think that Saitama is a gag character even after he was stated to not be one?

People seem to confuse the series being full of gags for him being a gag character. Given the comic was definitely full gag for like the first third of it, it's not an unreasonable idea to have had, but the series is now so mainstream that it's kind of silly.

GiftedACIII posted...

It was taking so long for the MA arc to finish BECAUSE of Murata dragging all the one page gag fights into hundreds of pages of serious shonen battling and then adding several dozen more chapters of serious yet unimportant shonen battle filler.

The manga has been adding filler that wasn't in the webcomic from day one LOL. Remember that entire martial arts tournament?

If you want something free of fluff, then you're reading the wrong manga.

The original One Punch Man is gag manga

Whay Murata adapted is a battle shonen.

Incredible posted...

The manga has been adding filler that wasn't in the webcomic from day one LOL. Remember that entire martial arts tournament?

If you want something free of fluff, then you're reading the wrong manga.

That's not day one. That's after the entirety of season 1 like chapter 50 or something. And the martial arts tournament did still have Saitama being a gag the whole time through while showing up regularly with a great punchline. It was fine as a one-off but not something that happens every other chapter like the MA arc.
But yeah, with how Season 2 anime adapted it, I honestly wouldn't care if it hadn't ever happened either.

ViewtifulGrave posted...

People still think that Saitama is a gag character even after he was stated to not be one?

Do we give people a pass when they make something, everyone laughs at it, and they claim uh, y-yeah, it was meant to be a parody all along? Writers lose sight of their vision all the time. Sometimes they admit it, other times they double down.

Contrary to popular (fanboy) belief, a creator can forget things and misunderstand their own work. Dragonball Super has been one extended example of this.

Damn you nerds hate fun.

GiftedACIII posted...

And the martial arts tournament did still have Saitama being a gag the whole time through while showing up regularly with a great punchline.

The martial arts tournament was trash that added to absolutely nothing LOL

Can't hate one mountain of pointless filler yet praise another. By the Monster Association arc, it should be expected.

Incredible posted...

The martial arts tournament was trash that added to absolutely nothing LOL

Can't hate one mountain of pointless filler yet praise another. By the Monster Association arc, it should be expected.

One filler arc that was done ok and lasted a few months vs dozens of filler arcs done poorly that bloated everything and lasted several years. You don't need to be a contrarian who doesn't understand nuance, Scotty.

Next yall will say Mumen Rider was low tier

GiftedACIII posted...

One filler arc that was done ok

It SUCKED lmao

and lasted a few months vs dozens of filler arcs done poorly that bloated everything and lasted several years.

different release schedules