The Anime With A Perfect Rotten Tomatoes Score That Everyone Should Watch
The modern anime fan faces something of a paradise: on the one hand, there is more anime to choose from than ever before…on the other hand, much of it is so bad that it’s barely worth streaming a single episode. Fortunately, there are still a few anime titles out there that critics agree are downright perfect. One of those is One Punch Man, a title with a 100 percent critical rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Saitama, AKA One Punch Man
What is One Punch Man about, exactly? This is one of those anime series where the title is quite literal: our hero, Saitama, once trained so hard that he became seemingly the strongest fighter on the entire planet.
Whenever he wants to, he can knock out any opponent with only a single punch.
You might think a would-be hero like Saitama would enjoy his strength, but that leads to another kind of paradox: like Goku and other major anime protagonists, Saitama likes nothing more than a good fight.
However, now that he has become such a strong fighter, he can’t even participate in a fair fight, much less a good one. Saitama is basically a boxer who dreams of nothing more than going a few rounds with a worthy opponent, but he’s cursed to consistently knock everyone out as soon as he swings his fist.
Saitama’s Hilarious Struggles
With that preface out of the way, let’s cut to the chase: why does One Punch Man have a perfect critical score on Rotten Tomatoes, and why should you binge-watch the first two seasons before season 3 drops?
As a longtime anime fan, one of the reasons I love this show is that it serves as a lighthearted parody of Dragon Ball Z and other animes in which the lead protagonist just keeps getting stronger.
In DBZ, Goku is blessed (sort of) to keep encountering more powerful foes from around the universe and even from different dimensions. In many ways, One Punch Man portrays what Goku would have been like if the events of Dragon Ball Z never happened.
Saitama is proof that being the strongest fighter on Earth can actually be very boring, and it’s darkly hilarious to see his existential whining–this is one anime Alexander that ran out of new worlds and worthy foes to conquer long, long ago.
You Get The Action And The Parody
Fortunately, the audience of One Punch Man gets to have it both ways: even as we laugh at Saitama’s struggles to find a worthy foe, we get to thrill to his larger-than-life battles.
Sure, we pretty much know how they will end (more on this in a moment), but it’s cool to see our hero fighting kaiju-level threats seemingly every other episode. Seeing our unassuming protagonist take on guys in Godzilla’s weight class never gets old, and it’s great to have an anime that so effortlessly balances humor and action.
The Hero Association
One final reason that I love One Punch Man so much is that it serves as a dark reflection of the Western focus on superhero cinema. Saitama’s world has The Hero Association, but instead of being a noble group like the Justice League, this is a group of loveable misfits often weighed down by paperwork and bureaucracy.
It’s basically the answer to “what if the JLA were real,” which serves as the perfect narrative complement to the show’s overarching question of “what if shows like DBZ were more realistic?”
Stream it Now
GFR SCORE
Previews for season 3 have hinted that we might learn more about Saitama’s powers and potential weaknesses. If the show could ensure that our titular hero doesn’t automatically win every fight, this could easily become a perfect modern anime, so be sure to stream the first two seasons of One Punch Man before season 3 drops later this year.
