Will J.C.Staff improve their track record with the franchise?
Summary:
- One Punch Man has released a new visual for Season 3.
- It’s drawn by a new character designer for the series.
- Fans hope it will look better than Season 2.
The news of One Punch Man Season 3 being produced by J.C.Staff left fans very unhappy. After all, the studio was responsible for the mess that was Season 2. Still, there are some hopes about the third season — and the discussions started again after a new visual was revealed.
This Probably Won’t Be a Season About Saitama
The official website for the series posted a key visual for King — one of the most beloved characters among manga readers. Said to be the “Strongest Man on Earth,” he’s a hero whose status is legendary even among fellow heroes.
While King is a character fans absolutely love, they can’t help but joke about Saitama getting less and less relevant with every new arc. It feels like the anime is less about One Punch Man himself now and more about the world and other heroes that surround him.
It Looks Different, but Still Decent
The revealed key visual was drawn by Ryousuke Shirakawa — who is responsible for adapting the character designs in Season 3. If you feel it looks somewhat different from the previous art styles, you’d be right — he wasn’t responsible for the character designs of S1 or S2.
Still, the key visual looks perfectly fine — yes, the background is simple, but the character design is on point. This gives fans hope that Season 3 will look better than Season 2, although others are not so optimistic.
What to Expect From Season 3?
Season 2 didn’t really have a problem with character designs — the issues were animation, fight choreography and sound design. With how amazing Season 1 looked, the sequel was going to be disappointing no matter what — but Season 2 was so much of a downgrade fans were absolutely outraged.
Still, some mention that you can’t just blame J.C.Staff for this — they were already overwhelmed with other projects and had to work to keep up with strict deadlines. The production committee seemingly couldn’t get Shingo Natsume (S1 director) or Studio Madhouse back on the project, so it was given to J.C.Staff.
This doesn’t seem to be the case here — there’s zero chance Natsume or Madhouse were returning for S3. As such, it will probably look better than S2 — though we don’t know by how much yet. The anime still spent some time in production hell, which makes fans worry about the animation.