One Punch Man Season 2 is produced by J.C. Staff, not Madhouse Studios, as a result of scheduling conflicts, and the twelve episode season started airing in the spring season of 2019. The new director in charge of the show is Sakurai Chikara (episode director Shokugeki no Souma Season 2, Little Busters) with Miyazaki Makoto (One Punch Man, Triage X) returning to do the music. The narrative continues to follow the one that has been laid out by One, who is the author behind the original web manga. Both Furukawa Makoto (Orange, Golden Time), and Ishikawa Kaito (Battery The Animation, Golden Time) return to voice their characters Saitama and Genos respectively.
Summary
The events of this season take place after the events of season one, and still only a select few know just how powerful of a man Saitama really is. In fact, of the characters that we know of right now, the only other person that could possibly defeat Saitama in combat might be Tatsumaki. I say in combat because in this season we see that even though Saitama is ludicrously strong, he is not without weakness, he has been bested by a few of his friends in other areas of life, whether it be in speed or in gaming. The various cities come under attack by both the monster guild, and Garou. This is while Saitama is in a martial arts tournament to see if martial arts are truly as great as people make them out to be. A majority of this season is one big battle taking place in various locations and various other heroes.
Narrative
The real strength of One Punch Man this season is in a large part, the narrative that was already established by One. Unlike the first season where the arcs of the narrative got progressively longer and longer, this season feels like the end of the first act in terms of the overall arc that the narrative is currently in. Much of the season was setting up the world and the players within that are going to be taking part in the coming battle, and as such Saitama himself was, for a majority of the season, in the background. We are introduced to a slew of new characters and whole new factions with their own agendas, however thanks to some masterful writing on the part of One, none of these become overpowered by the other, in fact they are all give equal weight.
Characters
As is characteristic of One, the characters are fantastically written. The central characters of the show get a lot of work put into them when it comes to character development, however the supporting characters grow in number, while some of them are completely forgotten about outright. Ultimately this does not hurt the show in the long run, however it does give the sense that there are characters being introduced for the sake of being introduced, with many of them having little to no weight in the narrative save for a quick gag. A piece of praise that I must give One Punch Man is the fact that they developed Garou in a way that made him my favourite villain in the past twelve months, and his storyline at points were more emotional than I expected them to be.
Visuals/ Music
Visually this season is a massive step down, and while there are spikes in the quality of the animation, the 3D animation in particular, the frames are quite static for a lot of the time. In addition a lot of the character designs take some getting used to when comparing them to that of season one, at times you cannot help but think that they once looked better. The worst case of this was Genos where I was unable to get used to his aesthetic. The action set pieces are far less kinetic, and impactful, many of them lacking the weight behind every movement as was the case in season one. What really makes the action set pieces interesting to watch is the fantastic writing by One. As far as the opening goes it was perfectly okay to watch and listen to once the glow of One Punch Man returning has subsided. The highlight for me is Garou, the battles he takes part in are great, and the music used as his theme is the best villain music I have heard since Blumenkranz from Kill La Kill.
In Closing
In short, while there are a lot of positives to the show, knowing that there is a superior incarnation of the show that is already in existence places a great amount of pressure on season two. I believe that had we started out with the standard of season two we would be far more positive towards the show. That being said, I would be lying if I said that I did not enjoy the show, and so I would say to at least give it a chance if you are already a fan of season one.
About the Creator
BoblobV2
Writing about anime, and anything else I find interesting.
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