One Punch Man is arguably one of the biggest anime titles to have ever been consumed by the mainstream (westernized) audience. Apart from its quirky premise of a plain-looking bald dude being able to defeat his adversaries, which are usually gigantic monsters and superpowered individuals, in a single punch, what really made the anime standout was its exemplary animation or more commonly known in Japan as sakuga.
When the first season ended a couple of years ago, the only thing on the minds of fans was “When the hell is season 2 coming?!?! Aksjdlabfsab” to which the producers of the series were very ambiguous about. That’s why when a trailer of One Punch Man Season 2 was published recently, a lot of people were hella hyped about it… until we actually watched the trailer.
In comparison, here’s the trailer of season 1:
So what the hell happened?
Last September 2017, it was announced that there would be multiple changes to the team that handled the anime, which included J.C. Staff taking over the production of the series. This was previously done by the powerhouse studio that is Madhouse, which is responsible for stellar anime titles such as Paprika, Death Note, Perfect Blue, and Chobits (to name a few). Not to undermine the work of J.C. Staff, which includes shows like Toradora, Food Wars!: Shokugeki no Soma, and Honey and Clover but if we’re talking about purely visual aesthetics, Madhouse body of work is clearly more impressive.
That said, studios, while important in order to establish a good workplace environment and culture, only contribute to the end product so much. Artists and directors are what usually really make the difference, which was why the first season of One Punch Man looked as amazing as it did because it was in the hands of Shingo Natsume, a freelance director and animator, whose work in Space☆Dandy, Full Metal Alchemist, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, and Naruto Shippuden has made him into a seasoned veteran in the industry. Not to mention the insane group of animators he brought with him into the One Punch Man project.
The Canipa Effect highlights each member and their invaluable contributions
Natsume is going to be replaced by Chikara Sakurai, an erm, “less accomplished” director, having only Rurumo Maji Mojiruka as the only notch on his directorial belt. You may be asking, “WHYYYY HIM?” Well, there are a lot of speculations most of them involving money and scheduling troubles. Natsume is currently working on another anime with Madhouse called Boogie Pop Warawanai and is probably pretty busy with that. If we were going to publish One Punch Man Season 2 before late 2020 then it was nearly impossible for the producers of One Punch Man to wait on Natsume to finish with his other work.
Mother's Basement has strong points about the state of the anime industry
It’s sad to think about but regardless of a possible dip in quality of One Punch Man Season 2 when compared to the amazingly high standard set by Season 1, people are still going to watch it thanks to the second season being able to ride the popularity and hype of its predecessor. This happens quite a lot in the anime industry (we’re looking at you, Dragon Ball Super) and it’s probably not going to change anytime soon unless there’s a great change as to how people consume and support the work of the underappreciated artists and talents who work to make anime on the same caliber as One Punch Man Season 1 and Space☆Dandy.
But hey, we might just be overacting just based on a trailer. Maybe it's just a early April Fool's prank by J.C. Staff. We're still going to watch One Punch Man Season 1 and hope that our boy Saitama will still be able to pull off a win despite this probably being his greatest challenge to date.