My Two One Punch Men
Ahhhh the pleasure of being right.
Discussion over "One Punch Man" has now become social plutonium. The fanbase is divided and, worse, forever paranoid over the other side.
How did a once-beloved series about a bald goofball come to this?
Art style
To the surprise of some, there are two iterations of "One Punch Man": there is the original webcomic from 2009 and the ongoing manga-published redraw starting from 2012.
I'm a webcomic fan...
...already I feel accusing stares...
...but the manga is just okay. I don't hate it. I don't think I'm disappointed in it either. To be fair, I have accepted the webcomic's ~~death~~ deprecation for a while.
From the get-go the manga and the webcomic were different, which is precisely why people liked the split. Whereas, say, the Mob Psycho anime adaptation is faithful to the art design and more-or-less close to the sequence of events of the original webcomic, Murata opted for a different art design for his redraw.
To tell you the truth, if I were tasked to write a manga - after winning the lottery - I would seriously consider ONE as my artist, popularity and revenue be damned. ONE's art style matches perfectly with his writing style: his art is geared around his characters' thought processes. Readers say they are ugly because his characters are incomplete human beings. They shift shapes when they view themselves differently, especially when they are elated, prideful, or depressed. The only one who looks straight up dumb is Saitama, because he really is the happiest, most at-ease person in the world. The same thing is said for Mob of "Mob Psycho", whose name literally means he is a background character.
Murata made the characters look heroic. Garou, Atomic Samurai and Flashy Flash look cool. Heroes perform epic feats, have epic clashes with monsters, sometimes with other heroes, on the same scale as Musashi versus Kojiro. Look no further than Chapter 21 entirely devoted to the raw power of propulsion engine for Bofoi's drone. Or, instead, Saitama's fight with Boros.
I appreciate the difference, honestly I do. As happy as I am with adaptations of great material, I can't help but feel slightly cynical about a money-hungry industry only paying attention to starving artists when they have material that could be profitable. So for Murata and ONE to come up with something genuinely subversive is, perhaps, an act of bravery.
Lack of commitment
The issue is that ONE does not commit the series to being one thing.
"One Punch Man" is many things to many people, which is why it was so beloved, I assume, and why ONE is considered a pretty exceptional writer (well, not anymore). It was able to have its cake of well-constructed action scenes and eat it with its comedic angle.
It's not like ONE is some kind of genius and figured out secrets before anyone else could; to the surprise of those who don't study writing all too much, action and comedy work really well together. The push-and-pull of a tense scene, where our hero character is struggling to overcome the obstacles put before him, supports the heart-string pulling of action and the declarative confidence of comedy. The very concept of an underdog works this way. You see the dynamic employed very well in the best of the Marvel movies.
ONE found a recipe that added a fair bit of psychology into the mix. Characters could doubt; characters could fear; characters could, indeed, mope or feel existential dread. Heroes even quit being heroes. You can't have a movie where Tony Stark mopes around for half an hour, or audiences and critics alike would, justifiably, be bored.
Saitama is essentially the key to all of this. ONE can depict his characters entering the worst of their thoughts, and Saitama, being so implausibly invincible, could one-punch their insecurities. The only issue is that he's often focused on other (relatively minor) problems.
That's the set-up for the series-long joke: society is falling apart and the one man who could fix everything literally with the flick of his finger is more worried about groceries or his superhero name.
Within that set-up anything fits, from psychological/social analysis to heart-pounding action. The series was simply but subtly structured in this way: problem - involving action, societal breakdown - Saitama, problem, Saitama, problem. You would have chunks where ONE could do whatever world-building and character development he wanted, and then Saitama would come in and clarify the situation in an extreme way.
Unfortunately, ONE did not seem to understand this himself.
One Punch Man as epic storytelling
Epic storytelling includes: "Odyssey", "The Tale of the Heike", "The Divine Comedy", and "Paradise Lost". Heroes are heroes; villains are villains. Heroes are fundamentally good, villains fundamentally bad. There is complex psychology within this framework, but it usually relates to society as a whole: solitude, brotherhood, loyalty, destiny, civil service.
In particular, "One Punch Man" seems to be going for the genre of wuxia, which is a specific subgenre of the epic. Literally meaning "martial heroes", the characters are expected to uphold a code of honor, protecting the weak and defeating the oppressed.
It makes sense that ONE would veer to epic storytelling because he has Yusuke Murata working on the project, but Murata adds aesthetic alone. You need to dramatically change the story. Epics are fundamentally about people, not about existential threats like doomsday prophecies or Monster Associations. An epic is really about overcoming human nature: overcoming our selfishness and solitude and contributing to the greater good.
The only kind of epic I can think of that is existential is the life story of the Buddha wherein Siddhartha undergoes ego death and transcends suffering itself, which I highly doubt ONE wants to do - and if he does, he just doesn't understand the story.
"One Punch Man" is compared often to a series that I would say is successfully wuxia - "Dragonball"; more specifically, "Dragonball Super". Frieza, Cell, Majin Buu, the Tournament of Power are all existential threats, but they only act as cheap stakes; none of the characters are psychologically burdened by the end of the world, they are all confidently willing to punch their way through disaster. They may doubt themselves, but they don't fear.
We're meant to take Garou's threats seriously, but at the same time we are not supposed to believe he would go through with his menacing promises. I don't buy that. His internal monologues receive way too much screentime. (Compare to Frieza or Cell, whose thoughts we do not hear at all.)
If you really want to do wuxia, then Garou should be an anti-hero. He has a change of heart right before the climax of the story (a la Vegeta). Darkshine should be the good-but-naive sheriff, who is manipulated by the Hero Association to do bad things. The monsters are bandits; they are not organized, they are ruled by autocracy.
Oh, and Saitama needs to be noble and valiant when he commits to battle. He can be flawed in every other aspect of his life - for example, in wuxia some characters are womanizers, some drunks - but when he fights he embodies strength itself. He cannot sneeze and fart his way to victory.
One Punch Man as a gag comic
And so we come to the other compromise.
I've been reading a lot of comments saying the series is a gag comic and you shouldn't take it seriously. Here's my take:
A gag comic is supposed to be funny.
It's hard to define what comedy is, but most professionals will say it is some variation of set-up and pay-off. For example, rewatching Dave Chapelle's "Equanimity & The Bird Revelation", early on he has a joke where he tells the audience his pay-off, which makes the joke all the funnier when you see the convoluted ways he tries to set it up.
The set-up does not need to be explicitly made. Saitama's response of "Ok." to Boros' babbling about restraining his power is funny because we implicitly understand Boros really cares and Saitama just does not care. He is not impressed at all.
Garou being accidentally heroic, Saitama sneezing and farting, and Saitama defeating someone, debatably, with "zero punches", are not funny. I mean, they're probably funny to someone, but to most people they're not funny. What's the context? No one - not even the audience - bought the idea that Garou was actually a villain (in fact, this would have been funnier with Orochi). The sneeze and fart come out of nowhere (maybe it would have been funny if Garou set up his feelings of inadequacy next to Saitama). The whole "zero punch" thing is bizarre as Saitama never boasts about being able to defeat enemies with the fewest number of punches; this is just a wink-wink to the audience, as if we're in on ONE's inside joke. We are, but the audience laughing with the comedian is nervous laughter. There is no confidence in his presentation.
Meanwhile, he ruined the problem - Saitama - problem sequence by lodging Saitama within the problem. That is simply not understanding how his character works: the minute Saitama involves himself with something, it is fixed. The result is inevitable. Yes, Tatsumaki may scream and shout but she is never escaping from Saitama. That is the joke.
Ironically, Saitama's famous monologue rebuking Garou in the webcomic applies to ONE.
Really, ~~Garou~~ ONE. So you really did have an "image of an ideal ~~hero~~ writer" inside of you. I see now. I understand what you wanted to do. Even though you said you wanted to be a "~~monster of absolute evil~~ a webcomic artist"... What you really wanted to be was a ~~hero~~ writer of popular fiction. You compromised and decided to ~~be a monster~~ rely too much on your webcomic script. To bring about ~~world peace~~ a great story, you took the easy route, thinking ~~a monster's~~ adapting your original script was quicker and easier than ~~a hero's~~ writing a new story around established elements. ~~A monster's role~~ Reusing your script is simple after all, all you had to do was ~~defeat heroes~~ change minor details. It's perfect for someone with no confidence like you. But you can never defeat ~~me~~ writing precedent. ~~Peace made by ruling the world with fear~~ Good writing can't succeed as long as you can't defeat ~~me~~ logic. It will never work. It's absolutely impossible for you. Your compromised ~~monster~~ adaptation hobby! Vs my serious ~~hero~~ critical hobby! Even if that's all I had, I still wouldn't lose! It was a mistake to lower the hurdle right before the goal. A half-assed objective can't succeed. You can't do it with absolute ~~evil~~ editorial power. But what about "next time"? What will you do next?
Kill Yr Idols: ONE
And now, for the thing difficult to discuss.
ONE is my idol. The webcomic and the first season of "Mob Psycho 100" came during a dark period of my life; they taught me how to say No. He, among other writers, is peculiarly equipped for writing about our modern times with an interesting insight. As much as we make fun of the shonen genre, it is indeed intended to be as modern as possible, where most voices are curiously nostalgic.
Regardless of the amount of involvement ONE ultimately has in the manga, he is still accountable - he is accountable for what he writes and what he allows to be put in the final edition. As controversial as redraws are, what really matters is whether the updated material is better, in some sense - none were.
At this point I'm 80-20 on the belief that ONE just does not understand his own writing. The second season of "Mob Psycho 100" baffled me. Mob is perfect, with the perfect response in every situation. Mogami's emo moping is only allowed because he, for some reason, has abilities comparable to Mob's. The climax of the season includes people throwing buildings at each other, which ruins Reigen's assertion that, no, psychic powers do not make anyone special, though, yes, building-throwing is rather special indeed. Speaking of which, Reigen was not particularly funny, or slimy.
That "Mob Psycho 100" spin-off, "Reigen", is still so good, is equally as baffling. (While reading the "Reigen" spin-off, I got lost in a character's hair: I had never seen him draw with such detail and precision before.) I desperately want to believe a good artist gets even better. Hirohiko Araki and Yoshihiro Togashi only became better as writers as they grew older. "Reigen" is so perfectly written, with every detail being conserved and every character having an arc and, most importantly, Mob not being involved at all, that I just don't understand how we are at this nadir with the "One Punch Man" manga.
I hesitate to kill my idol, though I don't think I have a choice. No matter how you look at it, ONE still gets a name credit for the manga. Murata frequently attributes him to the manga's success. Even if ONE, in an extreme theory, is merely a producer of the manga, a la Akira Toriyama for "Dragon Ball Super", he should have been careful to disassociate his name from the ultimate product. And if, as Occam's Razor dictates, he is indeed writing the manga, then he should have stopped production if he felt the quality of the manga was jeopardized. And if he did not think the quality of the manga was jeopardized, then he is at fault for deluding himself. Much as a professional computer programmer is responsible for updating their technological vocabulary, an artist is responsible for where their art fits in the canon, even if they intend to subvert that canon. It cannot be otherwise. Archers are not given the privilege of deciding where the bull's eye is after the fact.
I have the lessons he has taught me, both in my artistic life and in my personal life. I'm not giving much away, and yet I'm giving a lot away. I'm giving up a hero. ONE is my Saitama in many ways. Rest assured, I'm still cheering for him to stand up and beat the bad guy at the end, but I doubt that he can. And, as immoral as it is to depend on others to save you, the world can use more heroes these days.