This review is spoiler-free.

Well, this is kinda awkward.

Back in June, while writing my The Beginning after the End review, I confidently stated the following: "Unless the universe conspires to conceive an even more offensively incompetent, cynically produced, artistically hollow abomination in the near future, this will remain, without question, the worst anime I've ever had the misfortune of watching," and while it was only meant to be an exaggerated, tongue-in-cheek hyperbole, it turns out the forces beyond took that statement as a personal challenge of sorts and tried their darndest to conceive a show that'd have a fighting chance against TBATE’s awfulness, and, well, they've effectively succeeded at that. The third season of One Punch Man is a thoroughly monumental, catastrophic, and embarrassing piece of shit that's basically doomed the entire series beyond repair or hope of recovery on the adaptation front. Truthfully, it's such a ghoulish joke that I wouldn't be surprised if any future continuation of this mess were either rushed out in the same broken and battered state or silently shelved and buried before ever seeing the light of day. Whatever the future may hold, One Punch Man has essentially cemented itself as a watch-the-first-season-and-then-run-away-asap type of series, and there's nothing we can really do about this disheartening fact.

That said, I'm honestly tired of having to repeat the same thing every time a dogshit product like this makes headlines, but not even an ounce of anger, dissatisfaction, or disdain should be directed at the animators themselves. I get it; seeing a beloved, iconic IP be turned into something indefensibly awful hurts like a motherfucker, especially when you know how god-damn cool it once was. Still, this doesn't grant anyone the right and privilege to harass, belittle, or scapegoat the animators, the director, or any other person involved in the production, because finger-pointing won't magically improve the finished product or make the situation any better. Don't blame the animators for the piss-poor visuals; aim your criticism at the industry built on brutal scheduling, miserable funding, inhumane deadlines, chronically overworking employees, and caring more about profit rather than passion or viewer satisfaction. Dunk on the series itself, not the overworked staff who were clearly doing the best they could within the time frame they were handed on a rusty, mould-covered platter.

With all of that mumbo-jumbo out of the way, there's really no defending this show in any meaningful way, and I can't believe my fingers are somehow writing these words, but the visuals here are so aggressively putrid, fury-inducing, and downright depressing that they make the god-awful season two look like a misunderstood, underrated Renaissance masterpiece in comparison. Yes, that very season where J.C.STAFF got their slimy, sticky, and sausage-fingered hands on the franchise and completely fumbled it on all fronts still comes across as far more competent and concrete than whatever the hell this waste is supposed to be. While I'd love to provide you with all the hilarious gifs, screencaps, and montages of horrid scenes pulled from these twelve god-forsaken episodes, I'd rather not stuff the review with these, so just like I did in my Uzumaki and TBATE rants, I'll let your imagination run wild, do the heavy lifting, or gently remind you of the travesty you've recently experienced until you can firmly grasp and visualise the kind of zombified, lifeless mess we're dealing with.

For starters, let's address the most obvious, most criticised, and most indefensible aspect of the visuals: the animation... or rather the total absence of it. While I don't subscribe to the extremely simple-minded notion that the animation is the sole reason why this season blows, since the foul rot runs far deeper than just that, it's also pretty much impossible to ignore or downplay how bereft of quality it is. Any sort of movement, whether it be during dialogue-heavy moments or supposedly high-octane, explosive action scenes, is straight-up non-existent, with characters traversing their landscapes with about as much grace as a bent nail scraping a blackboard. There's no weight, intent, or physical logic anywhere to be found. There's barely any clear cohesion between their actions and no believable, organic interactions with the space and entities around them; it's almost as if these individuals exist in a separate plane of existence, which renders both self-contained scenes and multi-part sequences stiff, detached from reality, and fundamentally disorienting. Naturally, the most infamous example of this is the memed-to-hell Garou slide, as it neatly condenses everything that's wrong with the production values into a single, skit-like event; it's essentially a Garou-shaped PNG gliding across the screen without disturbing so much as a blade of grass underneath his feet, which, funnily enough, makes the corresponding manga panels feel more animated and alive than the adaptation's rendition of that moment. However, despite the notoriety of this sorry excuse of a clip, it's not an exception but the norm.

Most action and non-action segments alike are just as, if not even more, fucking atrocious. Their quality ranges from laughably inconsistent and wishy-washy at best (think episode 8 and 9 that may have managed to receive warmer reactions, but are still fundamentally asinine), to outright bottom-tier, borderline unwatchable garbage at worst (90 or so per cent of what you'll see on the screen). For heaven's sake, there's even a scene where a male monster inexplicably gains a pair of breasts in between shots; that's the level of polish, quality control, and attention to detail on display here. Instead of kinetic motion, dynamic choreography, and bombastic physicality of the characters, we're constantly supplied with blurry speedlines, endless panning shots, limbs morphing into alien forms to simulate momentum, faces melting to fake expressiveness, you name it; as a result, every punch, kick, special move, or deadly staredown is about as impactful and powerful as a wet paper towel.

But, as I've already said, this hack job can't be purely pinned on the animation; every single element of the production merely sucks balls, and the art style, in particular, is genuinely off-putting. While the second season already deprived the series of its style, personality, and crispiness by obliterating the background art, colour palette, linework, and lighting, here that already rotten, maggot-filled carcass is maniacally and crudely stitched together in a pitiful, desperate attempt to look cool and intense, only to shit the bed at every conceivable turn. Regardless of what's happening on the screen or who's supposed to be hitting whom, the characters constantly go off-model (unless they happen to be one of the blatant gooner bait babes wearing skin-tight, skimpy outfits, wink wink), as their proportions stretch, shrink, and twist in various manners. Well, it's not like anything of value was lost, since the character designs themselves are either weirdly altered for no apparent reason or reduced to shameful shadows of their former selves. In fact, Genos gets done so dirty that he spends most of the anime's runtime looking less like a sleek cyborg and more like a walking-talking metal tumour. If it weren't bad enough already, the environments they inhabit manage to look even worse, with slabs of concrete, patches of grass, stone walls, and what-have-you resembling amateurish, low-poly assets taken straight out of some obscure PS1 "hidden gem game" that nobody has enjoyed playing.

Slap gnarly, vomit-like colours on top of all of that, and you've got yourself a visual mix so vile it could knock out a herd of elephants and still be kicking. Everything is either undersaturated and drenched in dull tones that make every scene bear a resemblance to a mud-filled puddle, or filled with overly saturated lighting so harsh and blinding you might end up with burned-out retinas. Shading and layering also appear to be utterly foreign concepts here, as there's virtually no depth in any of the shots, and the foreground and background never feel like they belong together or blend in a tangible way. You've also got poorly cropped out models, revolting camera movements and blocking, props changing shape mid-scene, small details like band-aids and other tiny ornaments vanishing between cuts, entire scenes being skipped for shit and giggles, and manga's content getting sellotaped so haphazardly that the adaptation might as well be non-canon at this point. I could go on and on, but this apostle of greed, profit-chasing, and employee-overwork doesn't deserve any more energy or attention. This should've never been released in such a pathetic state. The staff deserves better. The fans deserve better. The source material deserves better. ONE and Murata deserve better.

And let's not pretend that visuals are something you can simply "ignore" when it comes to OPM, for the entire IP is practically built on loud and flashy fight scenes, awesome sequences, punchy tunes, and entertaining though simplistic humour. When the very foundation of a product is an unforgivable, baffling, repugnant, F-tier mush, how can I or anyone else find any enjoyment in what's happening within the story? I'm not the biggest fan of One Punch Man, I'll admit, but even a grumpy, crusty, and joyless geezer like me can appreciate the joy of watching a monster get its teeth knocked out by a pyjama-wearing, bald-headed guy. Sadly, what we get here is an abominable soundtrack, atrocious visuals, piss-poor directing, and non-existent characterisation. Tell me, what's there to enjoy? Sure, it's nice and all to laugh at an awful still, wonky-looking model, or a silly in-between from time to time; we've all done that. However, 12 episodes of frantic fuck-ups and hilarious hiccups grow stale very, very quickly, and that's just how it is.

I could, in theory, sit here and do a much more in-depth breakdown of everything that's wrong with One Punch Man Season 3; in practice, I genuinely can't find a single reason to spend another second of my already limited, precious free time bashing a show that's so fucking asinine that it briefly cured my anime burnout out of nowhere. I sincerely love writing, and I absolutely adore anime as a medium, yet this is the second time I've stumbled across a series so traumatically tragic that it drains all of my desire to pour my love for languages into composing a proper, polished write-up. In a weirdly roundabout sense, I'm merely mirroring the level of passion and commitment this piece of shit oozes with; doing the bare minimum and waiting for my opportunity to mentally check out and fuck off to do something else. And with that, I'm pretty much done. One Punch Man's anime adaptation journey has officially headbutted a brick wall with full force, and no amount of sequels, reboots, patches, prayers, or corporate apologies will ever repair the insurmountable damage done to this once-monumental franchise. If you love and care about Saitama and the rest of the cast, and if the first season still holds a special place in your heart, then, by all means, do yourself a favour and stick to/start the manga; Murata's stellar drawings, at the very least, won't betray, disappoint, and spit on you with 12 episodes of underanimated, unwatchable, soulless hogwash.

There's no OPM S3 in Ba Sing Se.