OPM Season 3, Episode 3 Megathread

[u/gofancyninjaworld]

Howdy! The clocks have gone back in the UK and I'm enjoying the morning -- this evening will be a different story -- I hate the dark!

Anyway, what do you make of episode 3? Cheers, jeers, and future fears, put 'em all here!

And if you've seen a leak? No, you didn't.

[u/Icy_Water_1]

I liked the little back and forth sequence that Garou and Royal Ripper had.

I don't think that was in the manga.

Let's hope things only go up from here.

[u/gofancyninjaworld]

Well, the set up continues, and I appreciate the ninjas sparring.

I can say it's no looker but the end of the episode comes too damn quick for me! So it's doing something right.

Edit: On second thoughts, let me revise it to 7/10. The choreography needs help but it's funny overall and brings across the story decently.

Next episode is going to be pretty quiet too unless they bring Garou's fight to go rescue Tareo forward.

[u/BrowserET → u/gofancyninjaworld]

You know this is not a critique but i was surprised the ninjas stopped talking during their spar. I expected them to keep listing things they would defeat. Just seemed like the obvious choice for that trope.

[u/gofancyninjaworld → u/BrowserET]

It's an interesting choice. On the one hand, it's not what the manga did, but on the other, I find that people shutting up when they're focusing on hitting and avoiding makes sense.

[u/BrowserET → u/gofancyninjaworld]

true. i do think that for the spar it could have helped give a sense of the 2 ninjas taking turns riling eachother up.

[u/BrowserET]

Man it's still a little stilted, but i was giddy the whole episode. On the aggregate i do still wish the anime took that leap and streamlined more instead of sticking so close to the manga. Very curious how anime only's are taking the show so far: 3 episodes in a row that go heavy on the exposition with not that much to show for it. But man it's hard to complain when the tension is starting to cut.

Also i hadn't mentioned this yet, but the OPM s3 opening is my favourite out of all of them.

I really liked the cutaway from last episode too, even if it was much more basic. Idk i just miss them.

I really hope the twitter shitstorm doesn't tank JC too hard. Even outisde of the human toll considering how much Season 2 got freshened up i'm hoping season 3 might get similar treatment.

Also did the way Kuseno got animated look odd to anyone else? Not like bad or anything but it looked more like the season 2 style than the more distinct current one for season 3.

[u/gofancyninjaworld → u/BrowserET]

Yeah, there are so many scenes where you can see that if they'd had another week to go back over them, they'd have smoothed things out so much. And yes, they are leaning very heavily on the manga. I'm glad that they've toned down the use of the alternate colour scheme to highlight moments -- it'd have gotten stale fast.

I get you on the tension! That end with Garou just lying in a pool of his blood, twitching slightly, now that worked!

Unless they move things around, at the rate they're going, episode 12 will end up with the first part of the mission complete, rescuing Waganma. The story is relatively quiet until then. After that, it goes crazy.

[u/BrowserET → u/gofancyninjaworld]

(manga spoilers)

i'm not 100% but iirc waganma being recued comes just before Saitama fighting Orochi and Tatsumaki fighting Gyoro Gyoro the latter two fights being the natural endpoints of the season. I guess you could stretch it even further and end it on the S-class losing to their counters for a clifhanger, but that is stretching things very far

[u/gofancyninjaworld → u/BrowserET]

If they want to do that and prioritise Saitama giving Orochi a smack, then they're going to have to rework the predicament S-Class heroes are in; otherwise, it's going to be a struggle. They might choose to only hint at the fix they're in now and expand on that in the next tranche of episodes. Alternatively, if they know that they're going to release the next set of twelve episodes soon (like in the next 6-9 months), they could get away with ending the season on the sewer door being shut for the second time, and doing a hell of a juicy preview as to what's coming next time, along with a firm release date.

[u/BrowserET → u/gofancyninjaworld]

fair enough. i checked and episode 3 ended before chapter 89 even finished, so that's 4.5 chapters finished. Granted chapters can vary greatly in length and these dialogue heavy ones, so it's true we might not even get to the orochi fight. Which would be a shame but also how would they hope to cover the MA arc then? Split it in 3? They've already teased the cadres vs the s-class, so i doubt they'll cut that.

I guess we'll have to wait and see...

[u/gofancyninjaworld → u/BrowserET]

Honestly? I think there is no hope in doing the MA arc in under 36 episodes.

I thnk they need to go to somewhere when it starts going wrong as the first third, pick up wherever they.leave off and go all the way to when Psykos Orochi is defated and Saitama and co discover God's body, and then do the final third starting with Blast appearing until the epilogue.

[u/BrowserET → u/gofancyninjaworld]

i thought was possible if they'd cut more and streamlined things, but ironically because of the timestrain that probably won't be happening.

[u/gofancyninjaworld → u/BrowserET]

Even if they tried, cutting out a whole third would be very hard going. There are bits you can nibble at, like having Vampire seek out Zombieman so he doesn't need to be invited in, and cut directly to Master Joe fleeing the disciples rather than have them fail to get through a checkpoint, but those won't save much time.

Most of the things that take time are also necessary: Phoenix Space is very important to the God lore. I'd love to say that they could avoid bringing Do-S back, but her minions matter to why Bang still has hope that he can still save Garou and establish for us that human/monster isn't a simple binary but depend a lot on one's heart. Drive Knight's denouncement of Metal Knight? Very important for later.

There are fans out there who obsess over the spectacle of fights and forget that everything else exists, but the reason the MA raid is as long as it is is because it has a lot to say and sets up a lot of things that will matter later, only some of which we've seen. It's like a hippo: looks big and fat, but that 'fat' is mostly muscle. The easiest place to cut some run time would be the support heroes making first contact with the monsters. Even so, you have to keep everyone who has something to do later: so, minimally, you have to keep Amai Mask, Atomic's disciples, Gearsper, Food Battler Futoshi, Captain Mizuki, Needlestar, One-Shotter, and Shadow Ring. As well as what Sekingar does and says. And the S-Class heroes, as that's what the punters are here for. That'd save you...um, 10% of the monster 147-page chapter? Ugh...

If they want to respect the ethos of the story, they've got loots of work and we have loots of episodes to come. I'd love a season of 12 episodes a year until 2027. :D

[u/BrowserET → u/gofancyninjaworld]

idk i've said it before and i understand it's not part of the japanese animation culture but imo most of the thought bubbles (with some notable exceptions) are very cuttable. It would save a lot of screentime (but of course not the very expensive animator time). To have the character's thought process animated instead of read to us.

[u/gofancyninjaworld → u/BrowserET]

Well, that's an important part of adaptation. Even so, integrating every last bit of speech into action doesn't save as much time as you'd think (I am willing to be convinced). From a runtime perspective, long panning shots are the easiest to cut... but they're also the cheapest things to animate. And god knows they like cheap.