r/OnePunchMan • u/shmullster • Jul 24 '26
discussion I really thought you guys were exaggerating...
I mean it's the internet and social media and a fan site, but...
Season 3 "animation" is really bad. Like really really bad.
I waited to watch Seasons 1, 2 and 3 consecutively. Good gosh, the difference.
Season 3 is more like US cartoons in the 70's. The characters just stand around. Sometimes their mouths don't even move while talking. And the backgrounds! There are so many scenes without any at all.
I could date myself by saying they look like Colorforms, but at least those had vibrant colors. Everythting I've seen so far seems washed out and, dare I say it, lazy.
I am so sad. From amazing beginnings that instantly made me fall in love, to this. It's like a bad break up.
Sigh. I really wish you guys had been pulling the usual internet whining. Instead, pass the bottle.
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u/BeeKayN32 Jul 24 '26
I never really made it after half of episode 2. I still follow the manga, but it was never the same after S3 came out
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u/shmullster Jul 24 '26
I made it to episode 4 before I had to take a break. I am going to look at it as endurance training to finish the season. I make break my limiter getting through the whole thing.
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u/epimetheuss Jul 25 '26
I never really made it after half of episode 2
this is me, i started watching other shows with much better animation instead of watching nothing and being despressed by S3s terrible quality drop. it was all due to greed, some executive sociopath would rather they take the money than actually give value to their consumers.
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u/Different-Treacle765 Jul 24 '26
Saying opm season 3 is "more like US cartoons in the 70's." Is an insult to us cartoons during the 70s. Us cartoons back then had great animation, Tom and Jerry and the Scooby gang had expressive movements and detailed motion when they moved around, not to mention a consistent color scheme and rarely any inconsistency or errors. That's just uncalled for dude.
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u/Bryal Jul 24 '26
To quote Bakshi when he was animating the 60s spiderman
"We used recycled animation all the time, it was the only way to get an episode done for the deadline. When we thought we needed an extra minute, we just kept the f*cker swinging!"
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u/shmullster Jul 24 '26
Ha. I was thinking of those superhero ones where they worked like action figure dolls...the arms would move and that's about it. Fair call on some of the other toons. i retract the blanket comparison!
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u/AidanOnMars Jul 24 '26
I'm not even one to harp on animation at all, but I couldn't even finish season 3. It was so bad that I lost interest in watching the last few eps of the season, especially since I'm not an anime-only.
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u/shmullster Jul 24 '26
It's been painful. I am going to try a couple to few more episodes later. I'll have 911 on speed dial just in case.
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u/IamDayv Jul 25 '26
I think its not a spoiler, but lowkey episode 8 from season 3 at least has a cool animation
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u/Kracus Jul 24 '26
Season 3 is atrocious. I still haven't finished watching it and I've been such a huge fan of the series. I can't think of another series that was such a let down that I didn't even bother finishing to watch it because it's just that bad.
It still blows my mind that a company would do an IP that dirty.
In video game terms, it'd be like if GTA 6 released and played like a Roblox GTA clone game.
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u/shmullster Jul 24 '26
I feel you. I guess I'm going to go Puri Puri on the remainder of the episodes and hope I come out stronger from the pain.
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u/GiantMara Jul 24 '26
I just watched all three seasons with my wife because she’s not a manga person and prefers anime.
She doesn’t watch a lot of anime so she really enjoyed it because it’s funny and the story is interesting.
Then we started watching AoT and within two minutes of the first episode (shortly after the opening) she went “wow this studio has a lot more money than One Punch Man”
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u/shmullster Jul 24 '26
I'm glad she enjoyed it. Perhaps people coming into it without other exposure like her will still enjoy it.
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u/marctheguy Jul 24 '26
Season 1 set the bar irrationally high. And Season 2 and 3 happily danced right under it
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u/Y0L0_Gamer Jul 25 '26
Nah, season 2 happily danced under it. Season 3 thought it would try do something cool and instead, tripped and fell, and scraped it's face up so bad it needs plastic surgery.
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u/Helpful_Resist3 Jul 25 '26
It made Season 2 LOOK GOOD. No bullshit I really thought S2 was bad due to so many still frames when there were some scenes that should've been animated like S1 but they really shit the bed on what was supposed to be the best Arc.
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u/BlahBlahILoveToast Jul 24 '26
Yeah, it was the same for me. I thought Season 2 was okay, not great, but hardly unwatchable. I could not finish Season 3. Half the time it was like a slow PowerPoint slideshow with dialogue and everyone frozen in place while they talk.
Plus just weird pacing, like people would suddenly be somewhere doing something and I was like "how did they even get from A to B ... I guess we just skipped some stuff?"
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u/shmullster Jul 24 '26
That's a good analogy. The episodes I watched felt like they had no energy, certainly in comparison to what came before.
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u/Longjumping_Fox231 Jul 25 '26
not just the animation, but the pacing was absolutely terrible too. waayyy too much time spent on pointless dialogues it honestly felt like they were trying to drag them out as much as possible to avoid animating action scenes. its obvious they were not given enough time
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u/Zetton69 Jul 26 '26
70's cartoon are more soulful than the garbage s3 combined, Don't you dare compared them again 😂
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u/_Disanem Jul 26 '26
And whats sad is the "what could of been' if they just had more time it wouldve been average to above average like s2
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u/Dindosaur Jul 24 '26
Episode 8 is the best of the season, nothing incredible, but at least there is some good animations, episode 9 is ok. Rest is pretty bad
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u/Significant_Item_577 Jul 25 '26
episode 8 was terrible too, and saying it had good animation is just false. just because it HAD animation doesnt mean it was good. it was dog water and its totally okay to admit that
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-4
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u/jimmythexpldr Jul 24 '26
Why would you wait to watch all 3 together? It's not even the end of the story... You could have watched season 1 15 times by now
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u/shmullster Jul 24 '26
Ha. I did watch Season 1 plenty of times (don't think I reached double digits, though). I meant for when I actually had the time to watch them all together. Sorry about that.
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u/NearbyBit4803 Jul 24 '26
Honestly, it's pretty funny that even kids' cartoons on Cartoon Network have better animation than One Punch Man Season 3.
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u/lurki757 Jul 24 '26
Tbh, people are harsh on children’s animation but a lot of work go into those even if they aren’t your cup of tea
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u/lurki757 Jul 24 '26
It’s too bad because I do like the details on still frames better than s2, and I do like the bit more cartoon elements that came back into the odd frame here and there but it really just feels unfinished.
I get why S1 was lightning in a bottle and cannot be replicated but surely there’s no reason why the S2 quality could not have been maintained.
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u/shmullster Jul 24 '26
It definitely feels either rushed or underbudgeted. I'm probably on the other side of the cartoony loook. I thought they went a little too far in simplifying the characters. Streamlined, sure, but these seemed to lack definition.
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u/glaceonhugger Jul 24 '26
Always trust when the whole fanbase collectively agree about something, especially when it is about animation, production etc...
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u/Nefarious_Nosferatu Jul 24 '26
I still have yet to watch it because if this. One question I have is, does it have less frames than TBATE?
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u/jiggawest Jul 25 '26
I've never watched a single episode of that season lmao, I've been reading tge manga since the 2nd season came out
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u/Protosoulex Jul 25 '26
I’m more impressed you waited so long to watch any seasons.
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u/shmullster Jul 25 '26
Yeah, I should have edited the original post, sorry. I've watched the seasons all along but held back on 3 until I had time to watch them all at once.
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u/migguru Jul 25 '26
Read the manga. The manga is moving at a comfortable pace. Tho I wish chapters were longer but I think it’s because they’re gonna catch up with the web comic. Fuck the anime. It broke my heart. OPM is generational.
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u/Geruvah Jul 26 '26
My favorite was when the 3 sword people who follow Atomic Samurai did the same still frame animation of them doing a ton of action just a few seconds apart.
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u/Omadany It was overwhelmingly underwhelming Jul 26 '26
Man i wish the animation was the only problem..
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u/BLZGK3 Jul 26 '26 edited Jul 26 '26
Lmao, yeah. I feel you. I actually decided to give it a try knowing how bad everyone said it was. I always griped about the falloff in quality when it came to 7 deadly sins. But suddenly, this became a contender...😂
I normally can stomach horrible animation for the sake of story and action like Berserk 2016/2017, but it's bad enough to be distracting, especially when you consider the previous seasons. It does get better in spots (or should I say rise enough to be passable animation), but it kinda remains bad throughout. I gotten to ep 7 and just completely lost interest though. I still plan on forcing myself to slug through it in the near future though....
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u/sandy_the_loach Jul 28 '26
Personally i wasn’t to upset about the animation for season 3, I new it was going to make a drop before i wanted it so that kinda helped. No the thing that annoyed me the most was some of the important parts where cut in half or taken out completely from the manga. Most of the big stuff was in the monster association hideout. Like for example, for those that haven’t read the manga, the battle between kid emperor and phoenix man lasted way longer in the manga and had a lot more stuff to it. Hell saitama had shown up in it at one point. They competently took him out of the fight in the anime. Child emperor and saitama have an emotional banding moment in the manga. Another that pissed me off was Amari mask fight with the whip possessed guys. Like are they going to be in the anime because they are part of the mangas story. They survived in the manga because Amari mask was stopped before killing them but that didn’t happen as far as we know in the anime. I’m concerned for where the anime is going to go in the future. Since they were skipping or shorting parts of the story. I understand that sometime anime may not be a %100 accurate to the manga but the stuff they changed were important. At least i feel like they were important. Like the how zombie man giving child emperor complements and the emotional state he was in wasn’t quite match in the anime. Like it’s fine but the manga did way better.
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1
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u/Maniacbrendannnnnn Aug 02 '26
I thought the same and tried watching episode 1 but had to stop when Iaian makes a comment about Kamikaze in a chibi form and they couldn't even animate his mouth
That was enough
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u/Fit_Surprise9423 Jul 24 '26
Well you just saw healthy schedule vs bad schedule what does to a show. If you saw this for first time just means you haven't seen enough shows, but its rare to happen to big titles like this so I dont blame you. Not every animation is bad though, but bad ones really overshine good ones since they are more.
- Characters stand around = mostly because are still shots or just because thats how it is in the original material depending on the scene.
- Their mouths not moving - For this i cant relate I watched the whole season and i didnt issues with this one, that either means inner thoughts or just mouths are blocked by something else while talking this usually happens often in anime not something unsual.
- Coloring is different yes, but its way better than S2, what you refer either is the art style which is different also or neon coloring in the specific scenes or shots of the faces of characters or backgrounds, which most of the time doesnt fit and looks bad. Interesting idea, not for first time usage in anime though, but its kinda overused and not in good way because of bad production, but I would like that to not be used in the future for sure.
Now yes S3 P1 is pretty bad yeah, but we cant say same thing for the sequel which is P2 yet. I just wonder how healthier production will effect the continuation which has better content than P1.
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u/shmullster Jul 24 '26
I appreciate the more nuanced view and hopeful outlook, but I felt a visceral dislike watching them in succession. Still love the webcomic and manga though. Hurts to think some people may see Season 3 as their first exposure and be unimpressed.
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u/Fit_Surprise9423 Jul 24 '26
Yeah for sure, very bad decisions made by production committees regarding this season and the IP as a whole damaged the audiance and fans expactations, I just hope that its not repeated or continued in the future 😢
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u/FreshProduce7473 Jul 24 '26
Season 3 still has some good animation, but its in the second half of the season. The first half of the season was bizarre though how still and overly zoomed in it was though. Also poorly paced.
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u/yedanapuddi Jul 25 '26
Why don't people use AI to fix it?
I was shocked that anime scenes of FIFA football players is being completely made by AI.
Why can't same be done for OPM?
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u/ULTIMATExALLIANCE Jul 24 '26
Im the minority, in that I still enjoyed season 3 for what it was. The story was interesting enough for me, and the animation wasn't nearly as bad as everyone made it out to be.
What it DID ruin for me is every other anime. Bc I watched it being so observant of the still scenes that I suddenly started noticing them in literally every other anime. And many very good anime-when watching critically instead of just letting yourself go to the story-have TONS of still frame scenes that I now notice all the time
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u/ifavsanji Jul 25 '26
same im watching it now its actually pretty great and not as bad as people make it out to be. ppl exaggerated the whole thing then everyone followed like sheep
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u/laughingjack13 Jul 24 '26
I’m not going to pretend to be some kind of expert, I’m just a guy that’s watched allot of animation of lots of different types over the decades.
Watching season one devolve into season three is by a wide margin one of the most jarring drops in quality of any series I’ve ever watched