One Punch Man: Season 1 (2015) Cre: Yasuke Murata
- Ridley Coote
- May 21
- 2 min read
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For some time, I've been meaning to return to this tremendous superhero anime, based on the vastly popular manga, created by Yasuke Murata, which in turn was based on an online manga by the enigmatic manga artist 'One'. I watched this first season a couple of years ago, but I wanted to rewatch it, at least to serve as a refresher, before moving onto the second season.
The metal soundtrack was corking, and made for both a very cool opening titles sequence and some truly epic backing music for the fight scenes. This was combined with some really enjoyable and vivid animation, which combined creativity with classic anime styling. A lot of the characters, including the many very minor ones, feel unique in their own way, which I really appreciated.
The narrative, and the comedy within it, was very funny, and undeniably silly, but still managed to convey a very compelling story surrounding its two main protagonists. I loved how self-aware and unserious the show was. It was never shy of mocking itself or its characters, as well as anime tropes, which made it all the more amusing to me. It was such an easy season of anime to watch, and I kind of wish there was more of it, although, it allowed me to be very excited to watch the second season afterwards, in fairness.
I chose to watch this series with the English voice dubbing, which is fairly unusual for me, as far as anime goes. That said, I don't regret that choice. The English cast were great value for money, especially for the two main characters, voiced by Max Mittelman and Zach Aguilar. Both men had hilarious comedic intonations, which really helped some of the humour land well. I'll also quickly mention Keith Silverstein and Robbie Daymond, who were, despite having pretty minor roles, very enjoyable and extremely memorable.
Overall, this is one of the most entertaining seasons of an anime I've had the pleasure of watching, and made me laugh consistently across each episode. It was extremely easy to binge, indeed, I did it all in one day, and has reignited my anticipation for the second season, which I will no doubt have devoured by the time this review is posted.
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