Anime's status in America has been difficult to pin down lately. For a few years in the late '90s and early '00s, it seemed like Japanese animation was everywhere---with shows like Cowboy Bebop and Sailor Moon capturing attention---but its footprint in the larger cultural landscape has faded quite a bit, replaced by the resurgent comic-book universes of Marvel and DC. At this point, it's less likely that the form will see a widespread resurgence than to see single series bubble into the zeitgeist, the way Death Note or Samurai Champloo did. But while those shows benefited from airing on Adult Swim, the next series primed to explode in popularity doesn't even have an English dub or appear on any American networks, unless you count Hulu. Meet One Punch Man.
OPM is a relatively scant---just 12 episodes---show about Saitama, a man so strong he can defeat nearly any enemy with a single blow. At first glance, Saitama is a remarkably unappealing protagonist. (As a bald man in a yellow jumpsuit, he looks a little like a used condom.) Both visually and metaphorically, he's an overgrown childL the only reason he became a hero is that he wanted to be one as a kid, and then just kinda didn't do anything else. His decisions feel like Rube Goldberg logic contraptions; in one episode, he saves a child not because the value of human life, but because of declining birth rates. He doesn't even take any of his fights seriously---a good chunk of his dialogue is being bored with monsters, though not even in that wry, Deadpool way. And for all his strength, he is often deeply ineffectual.
So why is *One Punch Man *so popular? (Perhaps more importantly, why should you watch it?) To start, it's an easy sell: The short season is closer to what American cable shows have made us accustomed to—it's a bit shorter than, say, the first season of Master of None. It has great animation, particularly in fight scenes that blur into something resembling rougher, penciled lines.Even without English dialogue, the comic pacing is excellent.
More importantly, though, it has no stakes. Most anime that finds a toehold in the U.S. is impossibly fraught: our heroes are trying to save the world, and if they fail everything will be plunged into darkness. This is obviously true of the last series to enjoy a similar groundswell of popularity without an English dub—Attack on Titan, which draws most of its power from a sustained meditation on hopelessness in the face of world-ending disaster. Other popular-in-the-West shows like Naruto or *Bleach *start out as highly personal, then invariably escalate until every single battle spells potential doom for humanity. Notably, this mirrors most popular action movies, in particular those of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which present a never-ending climax.
But while we know deep down that the hero of any anime will emerge victorious, the very premise of One Punch Man ensures that Saitama cannot lose, no matter what he does. There's simply no tension. He doesn't need to grow, or develop powers, or go on a vision quest—he just hits monsters and they explode. You're not really supposed to do be able to do that. (Even Goku from Dragonball Z, the most insanely overpowered character ever, dies once or twice.)
Instead, the show spends most of its run mocking the elaborate backstories, convoluted motives, and world-shattering premises of not only most anime, but most action fare. Beyond Saitama's own existence, the show finds ways to sneak in bizarre little jokes, like hyper-masculine guitar interstitials that are at once awesome (in a very '90s wailing-rain-of-death way) and deeply, profoundly silly.
And while Saitama can beat enemies with ease, the heart of the series is his struggle with the Hero Association, a byzantine organization that utilizes a series of arbitrary ranking systems to classify monster threats and heroes. These function more as a popularity contest than an actual assessment of heroic ability—the higher-ranked heroes are often genuinely stronger, but they're also less likely to deign to actually help anyone. In this respect, the precise blend of humor, critique of institutionalized masculinity, willingness to plunge down referential rabbit holes, and crushing depression evokes nothing more than The Venture Bros, the cult show that recently returned for a much-needed sixth season.
Where *Venture Bros *spiraled outward its origin as a lampoon of Jonny Quest, *One Punch Man *consistently bases its parody on one of the most popular anime of all time, and certainly one of the most popular in America: Dragonball Z. The opening sequence of the series finds Saitama fighting the seemingly-threatening Vaccine Man, who looks like nothing so much as Dragonball Z's Piccolo. And in the final episode, Saitama takes on the ultimate enemy: Boros, a bored intergalactic warlord with several variously powered forms. It's a long, drawn-out battle (though nowhere near the DBZ fights that, when condensed, are *still *several hours long), and it inevitably ends with the hero's victory. It's fun to watch, but as Boros himself notes, the outcome was never in question. (Spoiling this show almost feels besides the point; of course Saitama is going to win.)
Just because Saitama is relatively static, however, doesn't mean he isn't a fascinating character: his dweeby exterior might be facade (at the beginning of the series, he flashes a knowing grin before turning and presenting himself as goofball), but his social anxiety is real, and he's genuinely nervous about dealing with many of the heroes. His concerns are human—he gets angrier about coupons than he does about giant monsters, and begrudgingly develops connections with others. On top of that, he experiences depression and boredom because of the strength of his power. He is an anime fan who became an anime protagonist.
These are all reasons the more cerebral, winking fan might catch *One Punch Man *fever: the show already knows everything you might think about its genre, and allows its unconventional protagonist to absorb your concerns. But that doesn't mean it's not fun, or accessible. Like the best parodies, *One Punch Man *works perfectly well in its own right as a more-than-serviceable action series. The biggest, most elaborate fight in the show contains all of these elements—70% of the population on the Earth appears to have died, but the point is the cool fight, and Saitama's excitement at facing a worthy opponent. Sometimes, it turns out, you can have your cake and smash it too.
