The sophomore season of ONE’s One Punch Man anime adaptation has come to a close. This time around the second season is being produced & animated by J.C. Staff (A Certain Magical Index) instead of previous studio Mad House. While initial episodes had some animation hiccups the overall quality of season 2’s production starts to find it’s groove at the midway point of the twelve episode run.

One Punch Man is a 2016 shounen anime series, it is produced by Mad House & J. C. Staff, it is currently licensed by Viz Media. Season Two is currently streaming in full on Hulu & Crunchyroll.

It’s taken three years for One Punch Man’s anime continuation to grace our screens. While the initial news of studio changes broke some hearts , we were given animated introductions into some key characters from the One Punch Man source material. Admittedly, the aforementioned heart breaking was somewhat warranted as clear production issues for season two reared their ugly heads as the season got of the ground. However, by the midway point season two provided satisfaction both in production quality and it’s story upon it’s close. 

THE GOOD: One Punch Man is back for another as master & student heroes Saitama/Caped Baldy & Genos/Demon Cyborg continue to rise in the ranks of the Hero Association. Saitama is on a personal journey to find challenge and joy from being a hero, while Genos seeks to improve himself in combat hoping to become equals with his master. Meanwhile, a new group known as the Monster Association shows itself full of Dragon level threats, as well as the self-proclaimed Hero Hunter Garou lurking in the darkness taking out several powerful heroes in his path.

One Punch Man’s greatest strength was unsurprisingly the character development of its hefty amount of side characters outside of the usual duo of Saitama and Genos. From Fubuki & Metal Bat to Suiryu & Garou season two was never short of personal growth and evolution for these characters. We even get small does of development for certain monsters shown throughout the arc. While the season suffers from some animation hiccups, a majority of the action scenes still remain as some of the best the series has to offer, especially by episode 5 and onward.  

THE BAD: Some early and persistently bad animation is season two’s worst enemy above all else. There were times when animation would look absolutely incredible and absolutely horrible often all within the same episode. This is naturally due to studio changing taking awhile to get into full effect, which something that occurs within the industry from time to time. Despite this however, I can’t help but feel like the series would have benefited from a much longer delay to have better odds of matching the Mad House quality level from season one. Which says a lot considering J.C. Staff is by no means a bad animation studio quality wise. 

OVERALL THOUGHTS: Though season two of One Punch Man had some seriously rough hurdles to overcome, it mostly delivers thanks to the endgame portions of its final round of episodes and excellent writing. Otaku Dome gives One Punch Man Season 2 a 75 out of 100.