What Could Possibly Be Animated in One Punch Man Season 3

Roughly a year ago, in August 2022, the official Twitter account of One Punch Man announced the third season of the anime. And then it went silent. No news about the studio that would be adapting the work, no release date — nothing. So we're here to speculate.

The first season of One Punch Man is still considered one of the best to show to someone who's not interested in anime or in the shounen series — it's that good. It was released in 2015 by Madhouse, and this is also one of the reasons the series is considered a masterpiece: Madhouse, which also outsourced some work to the studio Bones, did a phenomenal job of adapting the quirky style of the manga and the epic fight scenes.

The adaptation of season two, released in 2019, however, is not as universally loved as the first season. Made by JC Staff, it was a bit simpler in the animation department, so a lot of fans are now speculating which studio will actually adapt the third season. Some believe that the project will go back to JC Staff, while others wish for Madhouse to take it and nurture it to life. There's another group who hopes that studio Bones, who wonderfully adapted another work of mangaka One, Mob Psycho 100, and who helped with the animation of the first season of One Punch Man, will deal with the continuation of this story. But for now, no official information regarding the studio has been released.

However, we can

surely say what kind of events the anime would cover. The first and second seasons adapted 85 chapters and bulldozed into one of the largest arcs of the series — the Monster Association arc. So it's safe to assume that the third season would pick it up where the previous ones left off, starting with chapter 86 and diving deeper into the intricacies of the monster world. With that, we can expect the return of Garou, the power-hungry ex-disciple of Bang, whom Saitama fought at the end of the second season. Also, the series will include a huge invasion of the Hero Association and a consecutive epic fight.

This is a long arc, one that was started in 2017 and ended in 2021 in the manga, showcasing not just grand battles but some internal conflicts of the Hero Association and its imperfections, adding a bit of complexity to what seems to be a fun battle shounen.

We can expect some news at Jump Festa!, which will take place on December 16th and 17th. For now, we should just wait and try to catch up with the manga.