One Punch Man Season 3

Episode 4

We're now a third of the way through the third season of One Punch Man and most of its runtime so far has been spent wasting my time. Once again, most of the events in this episode do not meaningfully push the plot forward. By the time the episode wraps, the only meaningful changes to occur are Garou's power-up and his attempted rescue of the unibrow kid, as well as the hot pot party at Saitama's apartment wrapping up. The rest of the episode is a bureaucratic, barely animated slog.

So much of this episode of One Punch Man goes towards establishing that the Hero Association is getting several teams together to attack the Monster Association, and I do not need this much logistical and political discussion from a show that features a character that can win any fight with one punch. One of One Punch Man's greatest strengths is that its characters have extremely legible designs and are well written enough that the viewer can figure out what their deal is and why they should like them super quickly, making this kind of build-up feel extremely unnecessary. The existence of a support team of C to A rank heroes could be explained with a line of dialogue in their introduction; this much exposition and retreading of character dynamics is unnecessary.

If I had to give this episode any compliments, it's that it is starting to look better…kind of. The team at J.C. Staff is starting to figure out where and how to allocate their resources to make the bigger beats of this episode have a greater impact. Garou's revival, while heavily reusing footage from the previous episode, does make an impression when his reinvigorated muscles swell, and the audience is treated to the hero hunter's determined and highly detailed expression. As we learned with Berserk (2016), though, a couple of cool illustrations used to space out some middling animation cannot save a show and, unless One Punch Man is saving its best for the fights to come, what we've seen so far still doesn't inspire confidence.

Also, as so little happens in this episode, I want to take a moment to focus on the opening for this season of One Punch Man. To be curt, it is a hollow echo of the first season's iconic opening. It's promised action that the show hasn't been anywhere close to delivering, focuses on characters that have — except for Garou — largely played a passive role this season, and has the gall to suggest that Saitama is somehow a rallying figure within the Hero Association. I didn't think it was possible, but this butt rock heavy opening doesn't fill me with an ounce of excitement to watch this anime.

Despite branded or larger anime-centric social media accounts desperately trying to claim otherwise, One Punch Man season three has no hype, and I don't see that changing anytime soon.

Rating:

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When he's not doing 100 push-ups, 100 sit-ups, 100 squats, and a 10k run every day, Lucas DeRuyter is penning some kind of media or social critique. You can get updates on his hero ranking by following his Bluesky account, and keep up with his heroic exploits by checking out his portfolio. When he isn't bargain hunting, you can find him contributing to ANN's This Week in Anime column.

One Punch Man Season 3 is currently streaming on Hulu and Disney+ in the U.S., and Netflix and Crunchyroll in other regions.