I watched One-Punch Man. So there's that.

Since I’m so done with shounen action, I pretty much ignored all the buzz around One-Punch Man when it came out, but recently I finally deigned to watch it after talking with a big fan, and enjoyed it a lot.

I’d previously read the first volume of the manga, but the things that make One-Punch Man fun don’t come across well in black and white still images. It’s a wild, over the top parody of both typical shounen action and superheroes, but also manages to be a pretty competent shounen action / superhero series in its own right. The only similar show I’ve seen is Bobobo-bo-Bobobo, but One-Punch Man is funnier, easier to watch, and has better characters and action.

If you’re reading this (you’re not, I know), you probably know what One-Punch Man is about: an egghead baldy named Saitama who is so insanely powerful that he can take out any threat with one punch. Saitama is a refreshing take on the rock-headed, youthful heroes with a dream we see in a lot of shounen series: he’s got the same kind of airheaded nonchalance as Goku, but he’s already 25, didn’t start training until he was 22, pretty much fell into the whole hero business, and he has no idea why he’s so powerful and no particular end goal in his life. He does have a sort of moral code—in one scene, he sacrifices his own reputation so a group of people will honor the other, weaker heroes who died or took serious injury protecting them before he arrived. But his moral code isn’t what drives him. When the series starts, he’s a dilettante who saves the city from giant monsters and then rushes off to catch the sales at the grocery stores because he’s poor and doesn’t have a real job. His attitude and lifestyle remind me of someone living a hard-scrabble, rock-bottom life on purpose while trying to make it as an artist or a musician, except his art is punching the guts out of giant monsters.

A bunch of other heroes also make brief appearances: there’s Saitama’s sidekick Genos, a cyborg who is searching for the evil cyborg that murdered his parents. There’s a ton of others who work for the Hero Association, which ranks heroes and pays them with donations made by the people. Most of them are absurd. The most absurd, but also the one with the most oddly touching arc, is Mumen Rider, whose power is riding a bicycle. A lot of the other heroes are cowards and opportunists who duck out of taking on the tough challenges, but Mumen Rider is courageous to the point of idiocy, and the show achieves one of those classic manly tears moments that are the holy grail of all shounen fighting series when he throws himself at a monster that’s already taken out tons of far more powerful heroes just to buy some people a little more time to escape. Nearly as absurd is Puri-Puri Prisoner, a comedic gay stereotype who would no doubt be the subject of numerous outrage-pieces about how homophobic Japan is if anyone in the outrage media watched One-Punch Man. (Outrage media journalists: I charge a 10% finder’s fee on stuff to get outraged about. Call me if you’re interested in getting outraged about Puri-Puri Prisoner!) On the actually cool side, there’s Tornado, a green-haired loli with a bad attitude and telekinesis. The first time we see her in action, a Godzilla-like monster brags that it would take a meteor impact to kill him, so she grabs a meteor from space with her telekinesis and slams it into him.

One-Punch Man is actually surprisingly brutal. When Saitama punches something, it explodes in a giant fountain of guts and bones. The higher level heroes always fight to kill. The villains usually warrant it; more than one intends genocide against the human race, and the Sea King runs around the city killing indiscriminately and eating the victims. Combined with how the fluid animation creates a sense of speed and intensity, the fights recall the savage, beautifully animated battles that used to be common in 80’s anime.

Saitama’s overwhelming power and his impatience for lengthy villain backstories means that the story arcs are usually very short. Where Naruto or One Piece could easily blow through 12 episodes on a single fight between a minor villain and one of the B-team members, One-Punch Man makes it through five major villains and several minor ones in the same number. There’s a lot of action and enough dialogue to keep things fun, but not enough to get wearing. The snappy pace helps prevent the fatigue that can set in after watching two side characters alternately trade backstories and fight inconclusively for 17 hours.

I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed One-Punch Man, especially after being unimpressed with the manga. It’s just not a series whose virtues come across well in static black and white panels. The medium of manga is suited to extremely long form stories, preferably ones with lots of expository dialogue (anything too clever or flashy benefits a lot from being spoken by an actor) and not a lot of action. The main strengths of One-Punch Man are action, which benefits a lot from the anime’s incredible fight animation, and funny dialogue that’s best delivered by a good actor. I’m glad I gave the anime a chance; it was funny, cool, and even had some feels, like Mumen Rider’s stand against the Sea King.