By a fan who waited six years… only to be disappointed.
One Punch Man’s third season was something fans — myself included — had been eagerly waiting for. Six whole years had passed since the last season, and during that time, many talented animators created their own fan animations, bringing manga panels to life. Some of these works were absolute masterpieces.
Even though One Punch Man is, at its core, a parody series, the manga has always been a visual feast. Naturally, the anime adaptation was expected to meet that standard. But deep down, every fan had the same fear: What if they ruin it? What if the studio just isn’t good enough this time?
On October 12th, the first episode finally dropped, and it was a disaster. There’s no softer way to put it. It was an absolute mess.
Bandai Namco: The Responsible for Failure
Creating an anime is a long and grueling process. It involves countless people working together to bring a vision to life. Usually, when an anime turns out badly, the director or the studio gets most of the blame. And sure, some studios are miles ahead of others in terms of quality and consistency.
Season 3 of One Punch Man was handled by J.C. Staff, the same studio that worked on the second season. And just like before, the result fell short. Compared to the first season, the animation looked lifeless, and the sound effects were laughable — it felt like we were listening to machine guns instead of punches.
Still, despite all that, I managed to enjoy Season 2. It wasn’t perfect, but the story itself carried the show. It was still watchable.
Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for Season 3. From the very first episode, something felt off. Was it just me, or was the animation completely broken? Atomic Samurai’s movements looked weird, the dialogue felt unnatural, and the transitions between panels were anything but smooth.
When I checked the One Punch Man subreddit, I realized that many fans were even harsher than I was. Calling the animation “bad” didn’t quite capture how awful it was. We might as well invent a new word for it. Some people argued that we shouldn’t jump to conclusions. They reminded others that Season 2 faced the same level of criticism and that judging the entire season by its first episode wasn’t fair. Maybe they had a point… but after watching that episode and reading the comments, I just couldn’t bring myself to keep watching.
After all, there’s already a magnificent manga that tells this story far better. However, some fans took things way too far. They began insulting the director directly. The situation escalated so much that he ended up deleting his Twitter account after posting a long tweet explaining himself.
So, who’s really to blame here, the director and the studio? Not entirely innocent, sure. But the real culprit behind this disaster was none other than the avaricious Bandai Namco.
The Many Mistakes of One Punch Man Season 3
Every anime has its flaws; perfection doesn’t exist. But One Punch Man Season 3? It’s riddled with mistakes. Even the trailers gave off a bad vibe; there were barely any fight scenes shown, which was alarming since this arc in the manga is full of intense battles.
Once the first episode aired, the problem became crystal clear. The animation wasn’t just rough; it was barely animation at all. It looked like a series of still images pretending to move. Some fans jokingly called it a PowerPoint slideshow, and honestly, they weren’t wrong.
Instead of the usual 24 frames per second, it felt like we were watching four. Characters barely moved. We kept hoping it would get better in later episodes, but it never did. Then came the infamous moment, the one that broke the Internet. Garou didn’t run down the hill—he slid. Literally.
The scene looked like a single panel stretched across the screen, turning one of the most intense manga moments into an unintentional meme.
Of course, the problems didn’t end there. At this point, it felt like every frame had something wrong with it. But what really blew my mind was a mistake I’ve never seen before in any anime; they somehow changed a male character into a female one. Yes, you read that right. The character Royal Ripper, who is clearly a man in the manga, appeared in one scene as a woman. I couldn’t believe my eyes. The guy literally had breasts.
Another glaring issue was the bizarre use of colors. What was even the point of those neon-saturated scenes? I genuinely couldn’t understand the color choices. It felt like I was watching a nightclub light show, not One Punch Man.
Unfortunately, the mistakes don’t end there. They even drew the character with six fingers, and at some point, the bandage on the character’s hand simply disappears. What makes this worse is that the character in question is Captain Mizuki, a fan-favorite with countless existing fan artworks to reference.
At the time I wrote this piece, the sixth episode hadn’t been released yet. We were asking ourselves, how much worse could it possibly get? Unfortunately, we were terribly mistaken. As the saying goes, “don’t bite off more than you can chew,” a lesson proven all too true here.
Because the sixth episode was such a disaster, it went viral across the internet. As a result, I had no choice but to update this article. If the season continues in this direction, I’ll likely have to keep adding to and revising it. After the failure of the first five episodes, fans placed enormous expectations on episode six,and then responded by dragging its rating all the way down to 1.4.
Source:IMDb
And then there’s the censorship. For reasons beyond comprehension, they removed Zombieman’s cigarette. Why? Was that really necessary?
Even worse, in the manga, Garou eats a monster, a chilling moment that perfectly captures his descent into madness. In Episode 5, that scene is just… gone. Completely erased.
And it’s not just censorship. Some scenes were outright cut. Sure, I get that no anime can perfectly adapt its manga counterpart — some trimming is inevitable. But why on earth would you cut half of a fight scene? There’s no battle, yet somehow the wall still ends up cracked. Make it make sense.
To make matters even stranger, the director behind this season is apparently known for working in the hentai industry. Yes, you read that right. A hentai director handling One Punch Man. Some people defend him, saying he did his best — but honestly, was he ever the right fit for this job? No, absolutely not.
One Punch Man is not something you rush.
And yet, after six long years, here’s what we got:
- Clunky and repetitive animation
- Ridiculous censorship
- Awful sound design
- Anatomically broken character models
- Weak and uninspired writing
As Turkish critic Muharrem Şahin also pointed out, it’s obvious that this wasn’t a six-year production. The anime was officially announced three years ago, but it’s painfully clear it was slapped together in less than a year. The studio wasn’t given enough time or funding. The animators weren’t fit for the project. And the director… well, let’s just say the whole thing was doomed from the start.
After yesterday’s episode, even the last bit of hope vanished. The episode was mediocre at best, and some parts fell below even that. Season 3 of One Punch Man has now officially earned its title as a failure.
Continuing the Support
In times like this, the right course of action is clear: boycott Bandai Namco.
We, as fans, have to show these greedy corporations that sometimes the power lies in our hands.
One Punch Man is a masterpiece — both in story and art. For giving us such incredible work, we owe our gratitude to ONE and Yusuke Murata. Just last month, ONE celebrated his 40th birthday and gifted us with an amazing new webcomic chapter. Meanwhile, Murata continues to juggle multiple projects while still blessing us with jaw-dropping artwork. No matter how disappointing this adaptation turned out to be, we should keep supporting the creators — not the corporations that exploit their work.
Some fans even started a petition to cancel the anime entirely, but honestly, that’s just nonsense.
The animators are simply doing their jobs — they’re not the ones to blame. This production is already underway, and no online petition is going to stop it.
What can be done, however, is to keep voicing our criticism and to boycott Bandai Namco. Don’t give them a single cent.
They’ve turned art into a factory line, and it’s time fans reminded them that passion matters more than profit.
As for Murata and ONE, they truly deserve our support. Without them, we wouldn’t have been blessed with such an extraordinary series in the first place.
Author’s Note
When I first published this article, I never imagined that an even worse episode was yet to come. One Punch Man Season 3, Episode 6, may very well go down as one of the worst episodes in anime history. The episode that followed—Episode 7—was met with the same backlash.
In hindsight, I should have updated the article as soon as those episodes aired. However, it was only after the disaster that was Episode 10 that I finally decided to revise it. I may update the piece once again after the season comes to an end.