Just watched the first three episodes of the new anime adaptation of the popular web comic One Punch Man. I've got to say it's really... something. I have nothing to compare it with. It's just really typical hero cliche stuff mixed with a kind of crass, deadpan sense of humor. The whole time I'm thinking "this is completely stupid, but for some reason I'm enjoying it immensely and might even re-watch it a few dozen times." That's the point though. It is completely aware of how stupid it is, and uses that somehow. The intro song makes me immediately think of Jack Black and Tenacious D:
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The protagonist reminds me of this guy I play D&D with every Friday. Just some really regular guy who's a hero for the hell of it, but it's like he trained so hard to be said hero that he somehow broke reality into putting him a couple of WoW expansions ahead of the rest of the world, allowing him to one-punch kill anything. Conventional knowledge might suggest this kind of story is self-defeating and pointless. You know he's always going to win, and it's always going to be one punch. It's very good at setting up all these ridiculous over the top monsters like they're all his kid brothers half his height threatening to beat him up for making them mad. Like "oh get ready for this world shattering attack that melts mountains and ***I've been saving it as a last resort" kind of thing and Saitama will just stand there with a blank look on his face like "ok." In the second episode they add an android side kick that works in parallel to Saitama's overpoweredness who tends to fight tooth and nail while Saitama sits back and watches as if it's saying "this is what it'd be like if it were any other anime/hero story what with all the melodrama and close fights and such." It raises some interesting thoughts that I can't quite put into words. Something along the lines of why I hate using cheats or easy mode in games because it takes all the fun out of it-- that's Saitama's problem with life. He became too strong, too fast and now there is no challenge. It's like when you grind levels too much in an RPG and now all those really cool bosses literally die in one hit, but it's more than that... it's...