10 Second Anime - One Punch Man S2 - Episode 12 [END]

Bang and Bomb attempt to subdue Garou, but the Monster Association interferes, leaving Saitama to end the fight with Elder Centipede. Season Finale.

Episode 12 - "Cleaning Up the Disciple's Mess"

Hmm.

I have just a couple of thoughts from this episode since we had 4 set pieces of action and a time wasting flashback to already covered ground. First is, does the title refer to Bang cleaning up after Garou, or to Saitama cleaning up after Genos?

The second one is the tantalizing image of Blast, the number one pro hero, and a monster that faced him and survived. Readers of the web comic will insist, without getting into spoilers, that Blast and Saitama are different people because of their respective timelines. Certainly, it's hard to reconcile the memories of those other people with how Saitama remembers his life, but honestly, Saitama has a bad memory and can't even remember the names and faces of people he met yesterday, let alone a couple of years ago. So, is Blast really not Saitama? Maybe the manga will make things clearer in a surprising way compared to the web comic. Another thing we know for sure is that the Saitama of today would never let a monster like Elder Centipede escape.

Meh.

Did we need another flashback to Garou getting pissed off about bullies who are fans of heroes and the rest of the school lets that bully beat up other people? This aside broke up the tension of the fight with Bang and was just another sign of how lazy the adaptation was from manga to anime. A panel to panel storyboard does not fill the half hour slot of an anime episode very well. Oh well. Hopefully some other group besides the J.C. STAFF texture team will handle the next season of One Punch Man. If there ever is one.

Feh.

You know, I've been pretty good with picking anime that doesn't get me angry anymore, but my building resentment at the piss-poor animation during the action sequences, when you need actual movement based style, just came to a head during Saitama's one punch.

This animation team was so lazy or inadequate, they just recycled those clips from the first season's opening credit sequence! What the hell? What is the production committee even paying you guys for? Making metal look prettier as the season wore on? Feh!

Heh.

Bang is totally destroying Garou. Mind you, Garou has been beat up twice by Saitama and once by Watchdog Man, has poison running through his blood, and plenty of cuts, wounds, and just general fatigue, but Bang isn't even going to let Garou try to fight smart.

Nice. Garou knows all the counters, but Bang does too and gets to Garou's face with his knee first. That's the difference in skill and experience.

Even the dirty trick of throwing dirt is no match for Bang's Flowing Fist. Garou just used that moment to get away moving like Watchdog Man. This doesn't bother Bang, he'll still beat him down.

Garou even tried using a prone hero against Bang, but Bomb won't let him. Garou is out of options and he's totally cornered.

Ah. That Phoenix Suit guy is still trying to find the right moment to get Garou.

Garou is taking a lot of punches.

You know, I hate this flashback, but I hope Garou finds that Tatsu loser who had the sympathy of even the teachers. It's a good enough reason for Garou to be mad at people who side with heroes. Irrational, but at least there's a motive.

And yoink! Phoenix Suit grabbed Garou! And now Elder Centipede makes his comeback.

Phoenix Suit thinks only 4 people can hurt Elder Centipede. He's wrong about King, but the guy he steals credit from is correct.

Up first - Bang and Bomb, powers combined!

Oh, so close! That's a molting development.

Genos is going to get himself destroyed again.

Cut in half! But he's okay, he's okay!

Bad indigestion. Burp!

Look at the smug all over Elder Centipede's face.

Oh, that interior attack was a good idea, but Elder Centipede's hard exoskeleton kept him together and he's got that stupid big monster regeneration too.

Bang thinks his ticket is being punched, but no! It's time for King with a bullhorn! Is he going to amplify his King Drive and scare away Elder Centipede?

Oh ho! He's baiting him with the grudge he has for Blast. Well, some kind of blast is waiting for him.

King needed his own courage to stand there waiting for Saitama's moment. I thought King himself was going to piss or shit his pants while yelling at that monster.

One Punch! From the first season opening credits One Punch!

Oh, Genos is here. Come on, Saitama. You left looking for him.

Saitama says Saitama things about lacking power. King doesn't want Genos to blow his power core!

Epilogue. Garou is being carried away to the Monster Association HQ.

Final Thoughts.

Well, I've bitched and moaned about the art direction enough for this show, leaving us with rich textures, over saturated color palette, and static frames using dissolve techniques to simulate in-between motion frames. But hey, didn't all that shiny metal look so good? The literal adaptation from manga to anime has seen enough complaints too. I will say that I was correct in predicting that the last punch of the season was going to be Saitama destroying Elder Centipede, so at least I know how to pace an overall story arc.

One major problem with this particular part of Saitama's story was that he was hardly in it. An interesting adaptation to fit a serial episode storytelling style could have made some fun and entertaining choices considering the big personalities we got to know this season. But no, we had to go the lazy route of using the manga as a storyboard. Did you know that the weekly manga's page count varies from week to week? Some weeks had only 8 pages, while other weeks had almost 200. How was literal storyboarding ever going to be a good idea? If ever a story arc needed some really creative adaptation, this was the one!

After all my complaints about the look and the story flow, at least there were some good points. The characters were the same, the actors the same, the dialog was the same, the comedy was the same, and the same means it was good fun. Seeing Saitama start to collect his group of friends after being alone for so long was one of the fun developments of his story. You can thank Genos' character for being so pushy.

There were good themes being explored too. The overarching theme of what it means to be a hero is still there, but then we got the second one - what it means to be a monster. This is good stuff because in Saitama's world, the mechanism for developing superpowers appears very similar between monsters and heroes. Garou's character presents a great fulcrum to balance these competing ideas and lay new ones on, like how society gets to decide who the monster is and how society is sometimes wrong.

So, what happens to Saitama's crew for anime after this? I say that video game they announced better make a lot of money, or we may not see another season until several years after the manga story is done. This season of anime left many fans with mixed feelings because of the animation studio's choices. I hope the production committee who handles the next installment schedules their time better so they can get the people who did ONE's other title, "Mob Psycho 100", instead of scheduling the show the season right after, making it impossible for them to do both. I have a bad feeling that it may be more than three years before we see Saitama one punch a monster again.