After the major disappointment caused by its lackluster Season 2, One-Punch Man fans can rest assured that the recently-announced Season 3 will blow them out of their seats. The new season of the anime, in fact, will focus on the most exciting part of the manga, the Monster Association Arc, showing some of the most anticipated battles in the series.
Season 1 of One-Punch Man is widely regarded as a masterpiece in animation. Madhouse studio took the work created by ONE as a webcomic and adapted by Yusuke Murata into a bestseller manga, and turned it into one of the most visually impressive anime ever. One-Punch Man's original story and unique characters were exalted by the dynamic camerawork and gorgeously fluid animations created by Madhouse. However, Season 2 was produced by J. C. Staff, which took a radically opposite approach and delivered cheap and stiff animation. The area where the transition was most evident was the fights, a key component of One-Punch Man's success, which are notoriously hard to animate. J. C. Staff traded Madhouse's dynamic and complex fight sequences with static shots, close-ups, and obscuring clouds of dust, much to the fans' chagrin, who hated the season for its animation.
After three long years of waiting, Season 3 of One-Punch Man was finally announced in August 2022. While the production studio has not been revealed yet, fans have plenty of reasons to believe that this season will look and feel much better than the previous one. Considering where the anime left off, Season 3 will adapt the incredible Monster Association Arc from the manga, or at least a good part of it. This section of the One-Punch Man story focuses on the heroes' assault on the Monster Association headquarters, while the "Hero Hunter" Garou goes through a process of "awakening" that will lead him to new heights of power, but at a great cost. Meanwhile, Saitama is as oblivious as ever to what's going on around him, but the monsters made a huge mistake: they built their headquarters under his home.
This part of the story has some of the best, most epic fights in the manga, including the S-Class heroes against the Monster Association Officers, and of course Saitama versus Monster King Orochi. Considering this, and the terrible reception of Season 2, it's absolutely unthinkable that the production values will continue to be subpar. Fights are the most difficult and expensive sequences to animate, but they are also a fundamental part of One-Punch Man, and their excellent rendition is one of the reasons why Season 1 was so well-received. With Season 3 almost completely focused on the life-or-death battles between the heroes and the monsters, fans can expect the animation to be as good as that provided by Madhouse for Season 1.
Season 3 of One-Punch Man will thrust its watchers into the most exciting part of Saitama's story. Considering that the first two seasons adapted volumes 1-16 of the manga, Season 3 will cover the following 8, ending very likely with the epic showdown between Saitama and Orochi. This battle was simply spectacular in the manga, with artist Yusuke Murata even re-drawing the relevant chapters for a second time, to make sure the quality was as high as possible. Fans of One-Punch Man can rest assured that the anime adaptation of this part of the story, coming in Season 3, will live up to their standards.