What the Punch?

Forget Infinity Wars, This Guy Is the Real Deal.

While away, I was introduced to a 12-episode series we watched when hiding from the blazing sun of Hoi An.

The premise of the story is about a pretty ordinary man who through pretty ordinary means acquires uber-super powers.

Thinking about the ever epic stack of comic book heroes the Marvel franchise have managed in Infinity Wars, who can claim to take out enemies in one single punch?

The Japanese comic artist ONE brings you One Punch Man.

With a character that leaves little to the imagination — he was named after its author’s city — and a face that looks like this:

…the brilliance that ensues is a Japanese brand of intense comic build ups, deadpan reactions, and existential internal dialogue.

The hero makes Mario-game progress without the suspense of failure. The takedown is a matter of time after inane dialogue, threats, other fights by other heroes. It’s strangely addictive to follow the story of an ultimate hero, and with him discover the grading system of heroes, and classes of threats. Along the way, he acquires a cyborg disciple, and no enemies (their storylines end in one punch).

On the other side of parody, he’s bald, hates fingers with boogers, loves supermarket deals, and gets bored with people’s backstories. He is melancholic. He slouches. He’s “just a guy who’s a hero for fun”. So good.

All this to say, it’s on Netflix. If, like me, you avoid Netflix like the plague of time-eating locusts it is, you’ll find episodes by a quick Google search: One Punch Man. A good twelve 20-minute episodes of entertainment.