10 Second Anime - One-Punch Man - OVA [DVD]

Saitama tells Genos the story of how he got his hero suit.

OVA - "Road to Hero"

Heh.

The disk included with latest manga chapter for One-Punch Man shows Saitama telling Genos how he got his hero suit, but along the way, it actually explained much more about how Ghost Town became the way it was and perhaps how Saitama got his powers. No, it did not involve his "regular training."

For some unexplained reason, people feeling strongly about something slowly turned them into a monster until it built to a crescendo and they transformed. Saitama had been fighting a bunch of these transformed villains, but one in particular was responsible for the emptiness of Saitama's neighborhood.

The local loan shark had been accumulating properties to feed his greedy feeling and became a goldfish man in front of Saitama. The number of villains and the emptiness of the town got their explanations from this one story of a criminal gang.

Goldfish Man (or Fish of Darkness) explained that people transformed if they took evil to a whole new level. I think that was just a bit off. I don't think evil had anything to do with it, rather it was obsession. The evilness doesn't explain the goldfish motif and leather harness outfit, other than the guy's apartment was filled with those kinds of images.

I think Saitama became one of these Ghost Town monsters because of his obsession with being a hero for fun, but that glow in his eyes came when he felt strongly about an aspect of being a hero. We saw that glow in his eyes in the first episode when he decided to become a hero for fun when he wanted to save that child from the Crab Man. In the OVA, we saw his eyes glow when he heard there was a big reward for arresting the loan shark.

Did Saitama become a monster hero because he felt those flashes of the motivations for being a hero, all the different reasons from altruism, to reward, to a challenging foe, to recognition, until he finally transformed into Hero Man? That doesn't answer why Ghost Town was so special, but it explains what happened to Saitama.

But why did he turn bald when he transformed into Hero Monster?

It was the tailor's fault! That suit he wore every day reminded him of the kind tailor who repaired his tracksuit for free, so when the final jolt came, he turned into a bald hero!

It was fun to discover that Saitama had the suit before he became One-Punch Man and that he probably stopped being so self-conscious about its appearance after he transformed.

With those strange dreams Saitama always has, he also probably got his final jolt while he was asleep and he woke up bald, which is why he doesn't have an explanation for his baldness other than his harsh "regular training."

I really liked how consistent the art direction and musical score were with the rest of the series too. It was just a really good addition to the mythos of One-Punch Man.