One-Punch Man

One-Punch Man
Cover of the first volume of the One-Punch Man manga adaptation by Yusuke Murata featuring the protagonist Saitama with a slain monster in the background.
ワンパンマン (Wanpanman)
Genre	Action,[1] Parody, Superhero[2]
Manga
Webcomic
Written by	One
Published by	Self-published
Original run	2009 – present
Manga
Remake
Written by	One
Illustrated by	Yusuke Murata
Published by	Shueisha
English publisher	NA Viz Media
Demographic	Seinen
Magazine	Young Jump Web Comics
English magazine	NA Weekly Shonen Jump
Original run	June 14, 2012 – present
Volumes	14
Anime television series
Directed by	Shingo Natsume
Produced by	Chinatsu Matsui Nobuyuki Hosoya Keita Kodama Ayuri Taguchi
Written by	Tomohiro Suzuki
Music by	Makoto Miyazaki
Studio	Madhouse
Licensed by	AUS Madman Entertainment NA Viz Media UK Kazé UK
Original network	TX, TVO, TVQ, KBS, BS Japan, AT-X
English network	SEA Animax Asia[3] US Adult Swim (Toonami)
Original run	October 5, 2015 – present
Episodes	12 + 6 OVA

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^[4] which began publication in early 2009.^[5] The series quickly went viral, surpassing 7.9 million hits in June 2012.^[6] The Japanese shortened name Wanpanman is a play on the long-running children's character Anpanman,^[7] wanpan being a contraction of wanpanchi ("one punch").^[8] 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.

A digital manga remake of the series, illustrated by Yusuke Murata, began publication on Shueisha's Young Jump Web Comics website in 2012.^[5] 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.^[9]

An anime television adaptation by Madhouse aired in Japan between October and December 2015.^[10][11][12] It was dubbed in English during the summer of 2016, and later that year a planned second season was announced.^[13]

Plot

On an unnamed Earth-like super-continent planet, strange monsters and supervillains have been mysteriously appearing and causing disasters. To combat them, the world's superheroes have risen to fight them. Saitama is one such superhero, hailing from the metropolis of Z-City and easily defeating monsters and villains with a single punch. However, he has become bored with his power and only gets truly excited when fighting strong opponents that can challenge him. Over the course of the series, Saitama encounters various superheroes, supervillains, and monsters. He gains a disciple in the form of the cyborg Genos and eventually joins the Hero Association in order to gain official recognition. He smashes an incoming meteor, defeats boss villains like the Deep Sea King. When the alien Dark Matter Thieves invade and destroy City A, Saitama defeats their leader Lord Boros using a serious punch.

Saitama gets to know other super heroes in the group, becoming friends with old martial artist Bang and a superhero named King who is actually a cowardly nonviolent otaku. When the Hero Association executive Sitch tries to recruit villains to become superheroes, a villain named Garou emerges and starts beating down many of the other heroes, prompting the association to make a small effort to stop him. In order to learn more about martial arts, Saitama enters a tournament. More ferocious monsters start showing up in the various cities, wearing down many of the heroes. A group of them kidnap an association executive's son. The Hero Association learns that that the monsters have organized into a Monster Association, and that they are also recruiting members by having heroes and others ingest monster cells that transform them into monsters.

Media

Manga

One began publishing One-Punch Man as a webcomic in 2009.^[5] As of July 2017, the webcomic has released 123 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.^[5][6][7] The first chapter was published on June 14, 2012.^[6] The chapters are periodically collected and printed into tankōbon volumes, with thirteen volumes released as of May 2, 2017. A drama CD was bundled with the ninth volume, which was released in August 2015.^[14]

The series began publication in Viz Media's Weekly Shonen Jump (Shonen Jump Alpha at the time) in North America on January 21, 2013.^[9] The first digital volume was released in February 2014.^[15] One-Punch Man was one of a number of series that Viz made available on ComiXology in June 2014.^[16] The manga was released in print in the United States starting in September 2015.^[17]

Anime

An anime adaptation was announced in the 15th issue of Weekly Young Jump on March 10, 2015.^[10] The series' first season was directed by Shingo Natsume at Madhouse and written by Tomohiro Suzuki.^[18] The series also features character designs by Chikashi Kubota, who also serves as chief animation director,^[19] 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.^[19] 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.^[19]

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,^[19][20] and ran for 12 episodes. The season streamed on Niconico and was simulcast on Hulu, Daisuki, and Viz Media's Neon Alley service.^[21] A preview screening was held in the Saitama City Cultural Center on September 6, 2015.^[21] The series is licensed by Viz Media in North America,^[22] and by Kaze UK in the United Kingdom.^[23] An original video animation was released with the tenth manga volume on December 4, 2015.^[24] Additional OVA episodes are included with Blu-ray Disc & DVD volumes of the season, the first of which was released on December 24, 2015.^[25][26][27] 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.^[28] A second season was later confirmed in September 2016 and is currently in production.^[13] Viz Media announced that they were working on an English-language dub of One-Punch Man at Anime Boston 2016.^[29] On July 1 of the same year, It was announced during Toonami's Anime Expo panel that the series would begin airing on July 16, 2016.

Reception

One-Punch Man had 2.2 million copies in print in November 2013,^[30] 3.2 million copies in April 2014,^[31] and 4.5 million copies in November 2014.^[32] By November 2016, this number had grown to 11.1 million copies in print.^[33] The series was one of ten nominated for the seventh annual Manga Taishō Awards in 2014.^[34] As of July 2017, the manga had 13 million copies in print.^[35]

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.^[36] Volume one dropped to second place for the third week, while volume two fell off the list altogether.^[36] Volume one was still on the list for a fourth week.^[36] The series was nominated for an Eisner Award in 2015.^[2][37]

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to One Punch-Man.

• Official website for original webcomic (in Japanese)
• Manga official website at Young Jump Web Comics (in Japanese)
• Manga official website at Viz Media's Weekly Shonen Jump website
• Anime official website (in Japanese)
• One-Punch Man profile at Adult Swim
• One-Punch Man (manga) at Anime News Network's encyclopedia