One Punch Man

So there's this big show that's new to Toonami but already has legions of fans saying its hero is better than Goku. I'm talking about One Punch Man. If you don't know it is a superhero parody about a superhero so powerful he's actually gotten bored because he can end every fight in one punch. The first episode kind of wrings out every last drop of that initial premise as he takes on three or four different foes and makes quick work of all of them. It's actually quite funny but doesn't leave a lot of potential, the viewer getting as bored as the hero Saitama. However, there are more tropes to mine starting with the sidekick, Genos, a cyborg who logically should be stronger than Saitama, but somehow isn't. The running gag which continues to be hilarious long after it should is that Saitama simply decided to become a superhero one day and trained by doing "one hundred push-ups, one hundred sit-ups, one hundred squats, and a ten kilometer run every day!"and within three years he has become the indestructable pinnacle of human fitness, even though he doesn't look it. It's funny because he doesn't look particularly muscular and yet he can overcome cyborgs and genetically engineered mutants like their inflatable punching bags. Each one comes at him as fierce as can be and Saitama doesn't care. Genos is the only one who gets it and has chosen to become his disciple. Most believe Genos is the superior, and it would appear that way except that in their first battle together against Mosquito Girl, Genos was bested while Saitama stepped in and took her out with one punch. Siatama can be a tool, but unlike everybody else, he's got the goods to back it up. In time Saitama finds a new challenge, public relations. He has saved the world on a daily basis but nobody knows who he is so he has to go on a journey to make a name for himself, because, well, he really has nothing better to do.

Now, out here in the real world, we have a problem because now fans keep asking who's stronger, Saitam or Goku. I say that depends, because clearly Saitama exists under a special set of circumstances which makes him superhuman. I remember once doing one hundred push-ups and one hundred sit-us every day, and unless it's te squats and the running that somehow magically completes the formula for superhuman, it's not enough to come close to Saitama. Now if we stay in his world and subscribe to the law that Saitama is unbeatable, then yes, he would beat Goku. However, based on what I've seen in every other anime, the second Saitama steps out of his universe and faces the laws of any other anime, Goku will totally kill him. Still, even though One Punch Man is preposterous, as the author of the similar parody Superfrenemies, I see it as a respectable rival for turning the superhero genre on its head and saying "WTF really?"