Written by One Original run 2009 – present | Written by One | |
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Books One-Punch Man, Volume 1, One-Punch Man, Volume 2 Similar Mob Psycho 100, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Hetalia: Axis Powers, Maid Sama!, Vampire Knight | ||
One-Punch Man (Japanese: ワンパンマン, Hepburn: Wanpanman) is an ongoing Japanese superhero parody webcomic created by an author using the pseudonym One which began publication in early 2009. The series quickly went viral, surpassing 7.9 million hits in June 2012. The Japanese shortened name Wanpanman is a play on the long-running children's character Anpanman, wanpan being a contraction of wanpanchi ("one punch"). One-Punch Man tells the story of Saitama, an extremely overpowered superhero, who has grown bored by the absence of challenge in his fight against evil and seeks to find a worthy opponent.
Contents
A digital manga remake of the series, illustrated by Yusuke Murata, began publication on Shueisha's Young Jump Web Comics website in 2012. The chapters are periodically collected and printed into tankōbon volumes, with twelve released as of December 2, 2016. Viz Media has licensed the remake for English serialization in its Weekly Shonen Jump digital magazine.
A television anime adaptation by Madhouse aired in Japan between October and December 2015.It was dubbed in English during the summer of 2016. A second season is currently in the works.
Plot
On an Earth-like super-continent planet, strange monsters have been mysteriously appearing and causing disasters resulting in the world's superheroes rising to combat them alongside the local supervillains. Saitama, the protagonist of the series, is the strongest hero alive in the entire franchise, hailing from the metropolis of City Z who easily defeats the monsters or other villains with a single punch to the point where monsters just explode when struck. However, due to his limitless strength, Saitama has become bored with his power and is constantly trying to find stronger opponents who can present a challenge to him.
As Saitama is active as a hero, he meets various other heroes and villains. He gets a disciple in the form of the cyborg Genos and consequently joins the Hero Association in order to gain official recognition. Despite defeating many strong monsters that even the Heroes Association’s top members are unable to defeat, Saitama struggles to gain respect. Also, he never takes the credit for defeating a monster, which instead falls on King, who was promoted to an S-class hero. Most people look down on him due to his plain physical appearance and some accuse him of being a counterfeit hero. Only a small number of individuals in the series recognize his talent and humility towards others, although this later changes when the whole of the Hero Association witness Saitama's true strength.
Manga
One began publishing One-Punch Man as a webcomic in 2009. As of February 2017, the webcomic has released 114 chapters. When the series became popular, receiving 7.9 million hits by June 2012, Yusuke Murata contacted One with a proposal to redraw the comic for digital publication in Weekly Young Jump's spin-off manga website Young Jump Web Comics (となりのヤングジャンプ, Tonari no Yangu Janpu), published by Shueisha. The first chapter was published on June 14, 2012. The chapters are periodically collected and printed into tankōbon volumes, with twelve released as of December 2, 2016. A drama CD was bundled with the ninth volume, which was released in August 2015.
The series began publication in Viz Media's Weekly Shonen Jump (Shonen Jump Alpha at the time) in North America on January 21, 2013. The first digital volume was released in February 2014. One-Punch Man was one of a number of series that Viz made available on ComiXology in June 2014. The manga was released in print in the United States starting in September 2015.
Anime
An anime adaptation was announced in the 15th issue of Weekly Young Jump on March 10, 2015. The series' first season was directed by Shingo Natsume at Madhouse and written by Tomohiro Suzuki. The series also features character designs by Chikashi Kubota, who also serves as chief animation director, music by Makoto Miyazaki and art design by Shigemi Ikeda and Yukiko Maruyama. Ken Hashimoto serves as the series color key artist, Akane Fushihara is the director of photography and Kashiko Kimura serves as the series editor, and Shoji Hata does sound design. The opening theme song is "The Hero!! ~Ikareru Ken ni Honō o Tsukero~" (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 closing theme is "Hoshi Yori Saki ni Mitsukete Ageru" (星より先に見つけてあげる, "I'll Find It Before the Stars for You") by Hiroko Moriguchi.
One-Punch Man's first season aired in Japan between October 5, 2015 and December 21, 2015 on TV Tokyo, airing at later dates on TVO, TVQ, KBS, BS Japan, and AT-X, and ran for 12 episodes. The season streamed on Niconico and was simulcast on Hulu, Daisuki, and Viz Media's Neon Alley service. A preview screening was held in the Saitama City Cultural Center on September 6, 2015. The series is licensed by Viz Media in North America, and by Kaze UK in the United Kingdom. An original video animation was released with the tenth manga volume on December 4, 2015. Additional OVA episodes are included with Blu-ray Disc & DVD volumes of the season, the first of which was released on December 24, 2015. A second season has been announced. Murata announced in the last weeks of the first season's airing schedule that he was working on making a second season a reality, but had not confirmed it was in development as of December 2015. It has been confirmed since then to be released in 2017, but the exact date is unknown. It's been speculated to be somewhere around the middle of 2017. Viz Media announced that they were working on an English-language dub of One-Punch Man at Anime Boston 2016. On July 1, It was announced during Toonami's Anime Expo panel that the series began airing on July 16, 2016.
Reception
One-Punch Man had 2.2 million copies in print in November 2013, 3.2 million copies in April 2014, and 4.5 million copies in November 2014. By November 2016, this numbered had grown to 11.1 million copies in print. The series was one of ten nominated for the seventh annual Manga Taishō Awards in 2014.
Once released in the United States, both the first and second volumes debuted on the New York Times Manga Best Sellers list, at first and second place, respectively, and stayed there for two weeks. Volume one dropped to second place for the third week, while volume two fell off the list altogether. Volume one was still on the list for a fourth week. The series was nominated for an Eisner Award in 2015.