One-Punch Man Season 2 is probably the most disappointing sequel I have ever seen. One of the first anime I have ever watched was One-Punch Man, and I am not going to lie and pretend that there is no bias and I wasn’t hyped for the second season. To this day, One-Punch Man (2015) is one of my favourite anime and this is why season 2 was this big of a disappointment.

The first moments where I started to question my hype was when I saw that they switched studios from Madhouse to J.C. Staff. I had not seen anything produced by J.C. Staff before and I was unfamiliar with what they had done before but in the end, I was still pretty hopeful. Until one fateful day, the first trailer was released. I think the moment I finished the trailer, people around me could hear how the hype inside of me just shattered. Everything in that trailer looked and felt so incredibly flaccid and it was just some lines said by the voice actors meant to sound cool with parts of the anime in the background that were just randomly added to give the trailer some action, which it didn’t really do. Overall, it killed all my hopes for season 2. But I was still going to watch it and see if the final product really is that bad.

So, was it as bad as I expected it to be? Yes, and no. I initially dropped it after the first 4 episodes. I was up to date with the manga at the time and I was hoping they wouldn’t destroy one of the coolest characters added to the Manga, the hero hunter Garo, and when I saw him fight in the anime and I saw how he was handled as a character, I decided that this is not worthwhile.

But, about one and a half years later, still reading the latest chapters of the manga, I started wondering if I was just a bit harsh or if it was actually as terrible as I remember it to be. I picked the anime up where I left it and because I don’t like not finishing things, I persisted through it and watched the whole season. And in the end, I have to say it was still very unengaging. However, one thing changed: I realised that it’s not a bad anime per se, it just felt like it was bad because it was such a drop in the quality from the previous season. The anime isn’t bad, it’s just painfully average. There are some good aspects scattered throughout the entire season. The score is still pretty good and has some very powerful pieces in my opinion and some fights, despite not reaching the standard of the first season, are still well animated. But whenever I thought to myself: “Wow, now they’re really picking up the pace…”, they decided to not carry on that momentum and drop the quality again. The sound design in some scene is phenomenal, until they reuse the sound you liked so much so often, that you get tired of hearing it over and over and over again. I think the best way to describe it is that the animators overwhelmed and underwhelmed you at the same time. It’s like going on a roller coaster, and the carts are slowly moving you to a higher position and you get all nervous and giddy with excitement because you can just feel how much of a good time you’re going to have, just so that they can stop when you reach the peak and slowly reel you back down again to exit the roller coaster again.

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