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Hey guys, kanna here! Well, my exams are done, I aced my classes, I'm now 21 years old (happy birthday to me~), and life is good! Here's the first Anime Monday of 2016!
So, this was originally going to be a review of Ghost in the Shell. And while I have reviewed anime that were primarily geared towards guys in the past, this was one that...well, for lack of better phrasing, did not have a large feminine audience (there was one, it was just...well, not that big).
Not only that, but it originally started out as a manga...for mature audiences. And I don't know about you guys, but unless I get a request to review an anime based off of a manga for mature audiences, I'm not reviewing it. I couldn't even post a picture of the POSTER without photoshopping a freaking censor on there.
Aside from that, I felt that the majority of that review just would have been me ranting about Hollywood's constant whitewashing in that they cast Scarlett Johansson to play the Japanese lead, as well as ranting about the rest of the whitewashing that was more than likely to occur. I'm just thankful that M. Night Shyamalan isn't directing this, although all this whitewashing is really making me think of his movie, The Last Airbender, where there was whitewashing galore. *shudders*
So then I thought to myself, "Kanna, what can you review that won't piss off your readers and isn't meant for mature audiences?"
Note: While I do have a super rough idea of the age range of who reads my blog, and am aware that an anime meant for mature audiences would probably be okay, I also want my blog to be safe for younger readers. If I ever venture into the MA (mature audience) realm of anime, I'll make sure to put MA before the title of the post so that people who want to avoid it know that they can.
So I put up a post on my Facebook and asked for suggestions, and sure enough, who else but Whalley suggested...One-Punch Man!
So, let's get started with development, as this wasn't...shall we say, traditional for most anime adaptations, and certainly something I haven't heard of with regards to an anime.
One-Punch Man started out as a webcomic created by a mangaka named ONE (yes, it's a pseudonym and no, I don't know his real name). This is interesting in that most manga get serialized in different magazines like Shonen Jump or published into tankobon volumes right away. I hadn't heard of a webmanga before. Anyway, the webmanga was published online in 2009 and received 7.9 million hits by November 2012.
Due to the INSANE popularity this webmanga was getting, a mangaka named Yusuke Murata contacted ONE with a proposal to redraw the comic for digital publication on Weekly Young Jump's spin-off manga website, Young Jump Web Comics. The first chapter of the manga was published June 14, 2012, and has 104 chapters as of November 2015. Note that I have NOT been reading the manga, so I don't know how many chapters it has as of the time I'm writing this.
With the manga having such an insane popularity, you can bet that an anime adaptation was in the works. And sure enough, it was. With animation from animation studio Madhouse (you might recognize them from anime like Cardcaptor Sakura, Claymore, Chobits, and Parasyte, among many others), direction from Shingo Natsume, and writing from Tomohiro Suzuki, the series premiered in Japan on October 5, 2015.
So, going into this, I wasn't sure about the animation. I mean, Madhouse is great, and they've done the animation for a lot of anime that I really like. But, as much as I hate to say this, I feel that some of the shows that they did animation for were hit or miss, like Claymore. Now, with regards to Cardcaptor Sakura, you could argue that it was the late '90s and animation wasn't what it is today. And that is a valid argument.
But when you have series like Claymore and Parasyte that came out a few years later--Parasyte in particular--that argument is no longer valid. Animation has evolved, and the fight scenes just grew increasingly hard to follow. And because of that, you can clearly spot the weakness that Madhouse has. And that is animating fight scenes so that people can follow them. So, with an action anime like One-Punch Man, I was a little nervous going into it, because I thought the fight scenes would be hard to follow. But we'll get to that later.
The series is set in Japan, in a fictional city known as City Z (don't ask; I didn't write it). In this world, there are strange monsters that mysteriously appear and cause disasters. However, they are taken down by our hero, Saitama, a hero who can defeat the monsters with a single punch (hence the title). But Saitama gets bored of his powers because of his overwhelming strength. So he goes out to find opponents who are much stronger than he is.
On Saitama's adventures, he meets friends, enemies, and even gains a disciple. He even joins an organization to gain fame for fighting evil, known as the Heroes Association. However, Saitama struggles to gain respect due to his plain appearance and is even accused of being a counterfeit hero. So the series basically shows how he grows in personality.
So, now that that's done, let's talk characters!
Saitama: The hero of the story. He kind of reminds me of one of those heroes from Greek mythology in how he's strong, but gets bored of his super strength. I figured that would be a plus, but it wasn't. He's humanized, which is great. He experiences human thoughts and feelings, and while he's built up as this tough guy who is bored of his super strength, he still experiences a lot of the emotions that humans go through. And you could argue that he is human...to an extent. It kind of depends on what this series' definition of a human being is, and that's a little unclear. So...is he a mutant? No idea. But I like that they humanized him.
Because the story mainly revolves around Saitama and there are too many other characters to talk about, I'll just get to the rating part of it.
Rating: 9.5/10
Why: Look, this really is a great series, and as nervous about it as I was going into it, I was surprised that I actually enjoyed it and am hopeful for a second season, which it will hopefully get, assuming Madhouse makes enough money off of it. Madhouse has had a few bombs over the years, but I'm hopeful for this series. I really am.
The voice acting was pretty good, and I was surprised to see that Kousuke Toriumi, Mamoru Miyano, and Yuki Kaji were among the cast. Of course, they were the only three I'd heard of and recognized before I looked up the voice cast for this anime. But, as per usual, they did not disappoint.
The interesting thing is, the title is actually a play on words. In Japan, there is a children's character known as Anpanman, and the title is actually a play on words of that character's name. The word for punch in Japanese is literally translated to panchi and is sometimes shortened to pan. Pretty clever, and good for marketing. Anpanman is a long-running children's character in Japan, so I'm sure that it definitely brought the nostalgia factor in for adults who caught on to the wordplay. Talk about good marketing! The word "one" when transliterated becomes "wan," so the title in Japanese is literally Wanpanman.
The music is pretty great, too. The opening for the series is THE HERO！！〜怒れる拳に火をつけろ〜 ("THE HERO!!~Set Fire to the Furious Fist~") by JAM Project, and the ending is 星より先に見つけてあげる ("I'll Find It Before the Stars for You") by Hiroko Moriguchi. While I'm not so sure if you've heard of JAM Project (they did a lot of music for anime, but none that I've seen), You may have heard of Hiroko Moriguchi if you saw the movie, Mobile Suit Gundam F91, as she performed both the opening and ending songs for it.
There were a few elements of the anime I wasn't a particular fan of, however, like the story itself. The story reminded me a little too much of Greek mythology, and I was really hoping for something with a little more originality. While it's okay if you want to base something off of something else, you also want to have some creativity in there. And I feel like that was slightly lacking. Then again, this was meant to be a parody of the shonen genre, so it's possible I'm overthinking this.
Well, although it was short, that was One-Punch Man! Next time on Anime Mondays (which, now that I have better lighting, will hopefully be a video): either Attack on Titan Part II: End of the World or Akatsuki no Yona!
Til next time! ~k
Fun fact: This manga got nominated for an EISNER AWARD for the category BEST US EDITION OF INTERNATIONAL MATERIAL -- ASIA. That is huge for a manga. While it might not have won, it definitely made the manga HUGE in the USA.
Great review! And agree with you rating on the anime, and can I add that the animation is just.... gorgeous! (Sorry, it's been a long time since I've seen a very good anime that I'm kind of over hyped about it!) xD Keep up the good work and looking forward to reading more!
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