So One Punch Man Season 3 Has Been Getting A Lot of Hate.
How in the world did it come to this?
Back when the first season of One Punch Man came out, the series pretty much blew up, with many fans loving the characters and action scenes, among other scenes. It was so beloved that, at one point, it got a MyAnimeList rating that went over 9, which is not an easy feat to achieve. (Personally, I liked it, but not that much.) Then, season 2 came out, and fans were not as keen on it, mainly because of a decrease in animation quality that came from its studio change from Madhouse to J.C.Staff; still, it didn't turn out to be the worst thing ever.
Then, season 3 started airing, and....well....
Yeah, people really hate this season.
The main culprit for this icy reception, as far as I've been seeing, is that the animation quality is lower than even the second season, and as someone who has been watching the third season....yeah, I do kind of get where they're coming from. I can understand why the whole "Garou sliding down" bit became a meme; it does look bad. However, with the exception of smaller details like that, I think the animation - including the animation for the action scenes - is fine. Nothing mindblowing, but come on, guys. This isn't The Way of the Househusband, which is more like a motion manga that got advertised as an anime. It's not Blue Lock season 2, where there was no animation at all in most episodes (from what I hear, anyway; I haven't watched Blue Lock yet). At the very least, it's not....
Well, this.
I know that it sounds like I'm saying that no one should criticize the animation, but if a reviewer saw a problem with the animation and wanted to bring it up in a review of OPM season 3 once it ends, I'm not going to stop them from doing so; giving constructive criticism is what reviews can do, right? I guess I'm just tired of seeing people complain about the same thing about it over and over when it's not even as bad as it could be. Given that the director, Shinpei Nagai, and the rest of the team working on this season is doing the best they can, I want to give them the benefit of the doubt, yet all of the people complaining makes me feel like I'm not justified in doing so.
The problem I have with One Punch Man season 3, personally, is probably a problem the anime shares with the manga (can't say for sure, since I haven't read that far into the manga yet); it's pretty much forgotten what it was originally about. Originally, One Punch Man was a parody, with the joke of Saitama being able to kill all of his enemies with one punch and being bored as a result. He was just a "hero for fun", in his words. Now, the anime plays all of the hero stuff completely straight, and Saitama has pretty much been relegated to being a side character in his own anime. I get that the whole "defeating enemies with only one punch" joke can get old fast, and there are some pretty interesting characters that were introduced as a result of the Hero Association's existence; Garou, in particular, is a pretty fun villain who I really wish had more interactions with Saitama. For all I know, the take I just had is an awful one. I just miss when Saitama was the main character of his own show, you know?
Still, it's not really something that will make me hate this season. I just don't know why its score on MAL is so low- Wait, what?
Okay, while I was still typing this post up, I caught wind of a Bandai Namco boycott that popped up because of how OPM season 3 turns out, and if the Reddit post that I found out about it from is any indication, one of the ways the boycotters are going about things is rating the season low on aggregator websites, with MyAnimeList assumedly being an example.
Okay, that checks out.
Let me just say something to those people, though: YOU'RE WASTING YOUR TIME AND ENERGY. The whole thing with Sonic's design being changed for the first live-action Sonic the Hedgehog movie due to backlash is the exception, not the rule; that kind of bullying doesn't normally work. Japan isn't going to care what we foreigners have to say about the matter, anyway. Personally, I do think that production should switch from J.C.Staff back to Madhouse for a hypothetical season 4; Madhouse did a great job animating season 1. Unless there is a large portion of the Japanese audience also boycotting Bandai Namco, though, I seriously doubt they're going to pay attention to the boycott. With that said, despite me displaying an image related to the boycott, I won't actually be participating; I'd rather be honest about how I rate the anime I watch, and I don't think it deserves quite as low of a score as it's been getting. (6.00, at the absolute lowest, is what I think it deserves.)
In any case, I hope eventually, people will calm down and focus their vitriol on something that actually deserves it. The staff is doing the best they can with the time and budget they were given, and I just feel bad for them at this point. Plus, maybe they'll fix the bad animation that there is for the Blu-ray release, since they'll have time to do so; I kind of hope they delay the Blu-ray release, whenever that is, so that they'll have even more time ot fix it. We'll just have to wait and see!
Comments
Post a Comment