This season of One Punch Man has been a little disjointed, for lack of a better word.  There’s just not a consistent narrative thread running through it – events feeling somewhat disconnected from each other, to the point where one could almost imagine things are happening out of sequence at times.  But at the same time I’m starting to be intrigued by where ONE is headed with all this.  Is this a straight up nihilist exercise we’re watching play out, especially at the martial arts tournament?  That doesn’t seem consistent with the worldview seemingly on display in Mob Psycho 100, and to a lesser extent the first season of OPM, but if there’s another point he’s making it’s hard to see it yet.

One thing is clear, and that’s that strength is unforgiving.  When you’re more powerful the rules don’t apply to you, and one certainly can’t exclude Saitama from that statement.  Sneck embodies this to an extent – we already saw his deal in the first season, and he’s something with an interesting and complicated outlook on the world (and one  of history’s greatest seiyuu in Miki Shinichirou).  But for all his overthinking, someone like Suiryu can toss him aside like a pebble.  He has no interest in being a hero – he just seems to like beating people up.

Saitama vs. Bakuzan is another fine example of this. Saitama is, frankly, being shockingly disrespectful of the martial arts in the way he’s approached this tournament – not that most of the participants are so gallant themselves (ironically Sourface comes off looking pretty good).  Bakuzan is a two-time defending champion of Super Fight, a beast who likes to send his opponents to the hospital (or worse).  But again, that’s nothing to Saitama – Bakuzan is a flea to him.  All that buildup, all that preening, all that training – what does it mean in the presence of greater strength?  In the words of Matt Foley, jack squat.

Meanwhile Genos decides to take out the 5 monsters who’ve descended on City C himself, so as to avoid disrupting the tournament and hopefully get back to the tournament in time for Saitama’s “match”.  The first four are routine enough, but the fifth (a superfast cockroach) gives him some trouble – forcing Genos is unleash a new weapon which was seemingly designed to face Sonic.  Things seem to end badly for Genos here, though it’s not the cockroach that’s the cause of that.  We’re also treated to Blizzard’s match with the mind-controlling Do-S.  And I see I wasn’t the only one who assumed Tornado was the younger sister (which I still say would have been the better story).

Again I ask – where’s all this headed?  We have the monster association, under Orochi, whose goals seem fairly straightforward monster-ish.  But what about the martial artists, whose skill Saitama is rendering wholly irrelevant?  Or the martial artists who routinely defeat A-Class (and even S-Class) heroes?  Suiryu’s question about whether heroes are necessary at all seems to cut right to the heart of where One Punch Man is headed this season, and I’ll be interested to see how ONE plans to answer it.