One Punch Man Season 3 Episode 1 is Finally here…

Aritcle at a glance:

• I went into One Punch Man Season 3 expecting chaos and memes, and episode 1 delivered exactly that.
• The animation’s so stiff it makes Season 2 look like peak sakuga, and that’s saying something.
• It hurts seeing ONE’s masterpiece get done this dirty, but at this point, all we can do is laugh through the pain.

Let me memes just flood in, man. The only reason I had been looking forward to One Punch Man Season 3 was because I knew it’d make good content, and yeah, episode 1 did not disappoint in that regard. It is sad to see ONE’s manga get dragged through the dirt like this. It does hurt, but some of the stuff here is quite funny too. I think all of us gave up the moment we heard that they were bringing in a hentai director to direct OPM Season 3. And yeah, even though episode 1 had no action, it looked bad.

So welcome back to another first impressions article. And today, we are talking about One Punch Man Season 3. So let’s get started.

How Was One Punch Man Season 3 Episode 1?

Well, as many expected, the first episode was just a narrative setup. Nothing much of note happened in this episode; we didn’t have any action. So why do I say that the animations still look bad? Well, because I am not blind. Throughout the episode, we get such weird close-up shots of characters talking. They almost never draw backgrounds, often opting for plain black or solid color backgrounds when a character is talking. I could’ve excused it as a stylistic choice if it happened only in some scenes, but it basically happens in every close-up shot.

And the talking looks SO stiff. In some scenes, the mouth is the only thing moving when someone is talking. Anime is a visual medium, man, if things are not moving, it just looks odd. Don’t get me wrong, some shots do look decent, but the animations are so stiff that you might as well be asking your grandma to do stretches. Tatsumaki doesn’t even get a single scene where she looks cool, lol, I feel bad for her. She looks so damn good in the manga. OH YEAH, the scene of Garou leaving the cell looks so bad that it is hard to believe that it’s the final cut of that scene.

Now, of course, this isn’t a guarantee that future episodes will suck as well, but where there’s smoke, there’s fire. And if you can’t handle an episode where there was no action at all, how could I trust you to do the action part well? Man, One Punch Man Season 3 looks so stiff it could qualify as a slideshow with voice acting. At this point, it is a strong contender for Frame Lock’s title of the biggest letdown ever in terms of animation.

That is all for now

It sucks to see a manga I love getting destroyed, penetrated, and fisted like this in front of my eyes, but here we are. And I can find nothing but a sick sense of humor in it all. Let me know what you guys think in the comments. I will take my leave here. I need some sleep. See ya!

Also, check out my thoughts on the isekai/fantasy issue we’ve been going through in recent years here.