One-Punch Man is back, but the resuts are mixed

Hero may not be drawn to scale

Show: One Punch Man, Season 2

Genre: Animation, action, comedy

Network: Hulu

Premiered: April 9th, 2019

So what do you get when you cross an awesome series, massive hype, and a premiere date that keeps getting pushed back to the far side of the universe every few months? Probably the explosive powder keg of edgy chatter that accompanied the release of anime phenom One-Punch Man's second season. Penned by the exemplary manga writer (and not-so-exemplary artist) ONE, this brilliantly-paced, satirical superhero yarn struck the 2015 anime world with the force of a meteorite, battering its adversaries with the overwhelming might of its strong story and fluid animation. For anime fans and casuals alike, this 12-episode buffet sated a TV hunger they never knew they had, and the withdrawal after it left the airwaves proved almost unbearable to the many viewers starving for more. But with no announcements and hardly a word from the creators, fans clung desperately to the hope of a future release like a life preserve until finally, an announcement two years back heralded the beloved series’s triumphant return. Or...it would have, until word got out that studio Madhouse, the artisans behind Season One’s dazzling spectacle, won't be returning to the drawing board. Instead, JC Staff - a group not exactly known to dazzle fans with the power of their presence - took the helm. This move was decried as the end of the world even before the season premiere, but is the switch to a different studio really that crucial to spoiling such a beloved, acclaimed show? Let's find out...

Synopsis

In a world filled to the brim with monsters, alien attacks, and other threats to the safety and welfare of mankind, Saitama looks like just your average hero for fun, sweeping in to rescue folks from the world’s myriad dangers in between bargain shopping and vegging out on his apartment floor. But Saitama isn’t just your run-of-the-mill, pajama wearing caped crusader; through a “rigorous” training method, he somehow accidentally became the strongest being in existence, capable of killing any villain he comes across with just one, lazy punch. Unfortunately, the wages for this phenomenal power are paid in baldness and boredom, and as the threats pile on and would-be disciples land on his doorstep seeking the secret to his power, our hero bumbles through his existential ennui with a dry wit and one desperate yearning: to find a foe strong enough to give him that one good fight.

The Good

I’m dodging the giant pink animation elephant in the room for now and just going to say that OPM Season 2 is still the same show at heart as before. The characters we all know and love are back, and bless 'em, they haven't changed a bit. Saitama is as lazily indestructible as ever, though he now thoughtlessly doles out common sense wisdom to everyone he meets, morphing him into some latter-day Bodhisattva and captivating some of the best of the best in the hero biz. This season finally gives a proper introduction to one of the series' more popular characters: the psychic diva Fubuki, or “Hellish Blizzard,” as per her hero name. The stunning, green-haired beauty has been a fan favorite since her debut in the webcomic, and her rendezvous with Saitama sheds a bit more light on the dodgy politics saturating the hero world. At the same time, it still adheres to the series's absurdist comedy, rooted in elaborate setups which lead to hilariously anticlimactic conclusions. Episode three showcases this brilliantly, with a serial escalation of fights and hype behind one particular character, only to see him get one-punched - or "one-chopped," in this case - like the Saitama afterthought he ultimately is. And speaking of scuffles, the battle between Genos, Saitama’s chief “disciple,” and the bald hero’s self-proclaimed ninja rival Speed-o'-Sound Sonic, possessed a fluidity and cinematography that exceeded my expectations, and the third episode's spotlight on Garou, the monster-obsessed antagonist this season, propels this kernel of competence into something approaching wonder.

The Bad

...Do I really need to state the obvious?  Fine, here goes: the animation quality, at least for some parts, gets stuck somewhere between “hot royal mess” and “something my sick dog fertilized the lawn with last night.” I'm leaving the fight scenes out for now, since that's an equine of an entirely different hue I discuss down below. Rather, it's what JC Staff does - or doesn't do - with its characters when they're not bleeding or in mid-punch that will leave you scratching your head. For one, it is very lazy; often, the characters are mere still shots with their mouths flapping, veering entire scenes to a level of uncanny artificiality that'd make the Stepford Smilers blush with envy. It doesn't help that for the first two episodes, the folks at JC Staff leave a lot to be desired with their fight scenes. Sure, Genos and Sonic’s epic showdown actually lives up to the overused adjective, but Saitama’s clash with Blizzard and her crew drew little more than a snooze out of me. One blatant gaffe I noticed during their fight made it look like Blizzard suddenly teleported to near Saitama’s head from over thirty feet away, ready to swing in with her box cutter, instead of the desperate charge it had been accurately depicted as in the manga. This was the only part of the fight that elicited more than a yawn from me, though I don’t think “snorting while trying not to laugh” is what JC Staff was shooting for. Beyond the laziness, and short of the best of the action scenes, the animation is passable, if not stellar. Still, fans can’t resist comparing it to the magisterial ease of the past season’s visual accomplishments, even with mundane matters like facial expressions. Madhouse managed to etch the personalities of each character into every tick and twitch of their faces, and every slump of their frames - even Saitama, who ain't exactly the most expressive guy around. But seeing these beloved characters rendered so dully gave a shock to the system of long-time fans, and I doubt the phenomenal first season would have sparked nearly as much acclaim had JC Staff been manning the ship from the get-go.

The Ugly

The animation.

All joking aside, the animation quality, particularly as it concerns the fight scenes, roams all over the map. Had this review gone up before the third episode, I would have judged it an unqualified bad; the hero clashes in the previous two episodes didn't inspire much beyond disappointment, Genos vs. Sonic aside. But then they drop episode three, and surprised everyone with a startling growth spurt from out of the dregs. Garou's curb-stomp across the faces of dozens of heroes reached a height of skillful depiction the naysayers would have thought impossible when the studio released its announcement trailer some time ago. It doesn't quite approach Madhouse's mastered fluidity and seamless execution, but JC Staff pulls off a valiant effort nonetheless, and has a knack for manipulating shadow and lighting to the service of high-octane movement that surpasses even their eulogized predecessor, and in my opinion, this style better fits the somewhat darker tone of this season. The reason I don't count this as a definite good is that we just don't know what to expect in the upcoming episodes: JC Staff may continue the upward march, shattering every negative expectation like the force from Saitama's apocalyptic fists; or they may slide back to the wonky mouth work and still images of before. It's anyone's guess at this point. Besides that, almost every scene so far has been lifted straight from the manga's pages. This is great, on the one hand, since ONE is, if nothing else, an outstanding storyteller, so you can’t go wrong with keeping faithful to the source. But too much faith can shutter the creative juices, and dogmatic adherence to the manga might prohibit JC Staff from making the acceptable breaks from the printed page necessary for every adaptation.

Tune In or Tune Out? 

Tune In. Never mind the seesawing animation quality, never mind the broken pedestal or ruined, mostly unreasonable, expectations; at the end of the day, this is still One-Punch Man, one of the best manga series to come out of Japan in the past decade. ONE's humorous tale of a superhero world beholden to image and devoid of meaning and the caped baldy who wanders that mire carries an evergreen resonance to modern life, no matter what package it comes wrapped in. JC Staff's style may, to old fans, feel like a bitter pill to swallow, but given some time and an open mind, it might still prove just what the doctor ordered.