The first episode of One Punch Man’s (OPM) third season was released on Oct. 12. The wildly popular anime series and recent winner of the 2023 Global Anime Award has returned to streaming after a six year wait from their previous season. 

Created by Japanese manga artist and animator ONE and Yusuke Marta, OPM follows the story of Saitama, a superhero tired of being able to defeat his enemies with one punch, on a quest to find a worthy opponent to fight. In the first episode of the new season, the Hero Association—a institution that recruits heroes to shield humanity from villains and monsters—holds a conclave to discuss the rising threat of the Monster Association. The story continues with the Hero Association getting pressured to save the child of an important sponsor, and so the S-Class heroes get together to create a plan to save the child. 

There was no character development for Saitama as he is only depicted lounging in his room watching television for the entire first episode. Fans were disheartened by this because they were promised major character development in this season. Since it’s only the first episode, OPM still has the chance to progress Saitama’s characterization and its plot, but they are already wasting precious time on this front 

Compared to previous seasons, the release of the first episode of the new season has visibile improvements regarding the art and animation. In the introduction of the first season, the colors of the eyes of the characters were black, but in season three there is much improvement in the eyes of the characters with their being more color and definition in the drawings.  In season three vibrant colors like purple, orange, yellow are more commonly used, making the anime more visually appealing compared to the muted colors of season one. Additionally, the lines of animation appear neater and cleaner making it more visually appealing for the viewer since it creates more visual interest. 

While the art of the animation is widely developed, fans have expressed mixed feedback. Sometimes in the show there were scenes when side characters were heavily outlined in bold colors. While it does make the character look more visually appealing, the coloring confuses many viewers because some characters don’t really say anything significant but are dynamic in color, leaving many wondering why they should be so boldly colored.

Action-wise, however, the newest episode is lacking. Fans were excited to see the spectacular fighting between Saitama and Garou in this new arc. Instead, the first episode of season three was mostly dialogue between the characters with little hint toward future conflict

While the art of the animation has widely developed, fans have expressed mixed feedback. Sometimes in the show there were scenes when side characters were heavily outlined in bold colors. While it does make the character look more visually appealing, it seems as if the animators are trying too hard to appeal to the viewers animation wise rather than plot wise.  

Overall, the first episode of season three was visually appealing but lacked intense action. Although, this was a bit expected since this episode was meant to be the set up of the season. Fans are expecting to see more intense battles in the following episodes  and are hoping Saitama receives more character development. 

With the release of the next few episodes hopefully there will be more action and character development.