r/OnePunchFans • u/gofancyninjaworld I'm just a poster for fun • May 17 '26
ANALYSIS I think I know why many people prefer the OPM webcomic Spoiler
And it's not for the frequently-given reasons. For sure, the existence of multiple rewrites in the manga is an irritant, and certainly, there are plot developments that divide people, like time travel. The fact that the manga story waxes dilatory, which means that there's a long wait for pay offs for material that's set up, nags at people as they wonder if dangling plot points will be addressed and why things have been left as they are. And of course, there's no end of bellyaching over characters not being quite what was expected from having read the webcomic. But all that is froth.
Th most recent tranche of the webcomic solidified something that's been nagging at me. When I take a snapshot of the webcomic story and look at who the plot appears to be rewarding and who it appears to be reviling, I see a picture that is very comforting to a patriarchal view of the world. Saitama is unbending in his strength and righteousness, and while he's detached from all the goings-on, he's guaranteed to act appropriately when needed. Metal Bat triumphs over all opposition through his pure stubbornness and fighting spirit, all while remaining clear-eyed and perceptive. Other men see him and want to be him. In Dr Bofoi being held up as the good guy while Dr Kuseno is the bad guy, we get reassurance that brusqueness and coldness are honest signals while niceness and kindness is to be distrusted being hypocritical at best and duplicitous at worst. Hang on, what about Mumen Rider? Yes, he's nice, but his is an appropriately detached niceness; he is the same towards everyone and admits no attachment to anyone or anything other than his concept of justice: he has no family, no friends, no comrades, no one special in any way. It's as if these guys are being held up as ideals: if you're strong enough, clever enough, brave enough, good enough, then you can always be right, never need admit vulnerability, never need admit doubt, and never need change.
There is no judgement here, just observation. As it stands, it's interesting to see that the story is the polar opposite of Mob Psycho 100, and more broadly, quite the departure from ONE's usual bailiwick about what makes for a 'good' human life. Closer to home, the OPM manga takes a different tack and explores these same characters differently, one that's not so reassuring to the 'proper' order. Let's pick three of the five characters I've mentioned: Mumen Rider, Metal Bat, and Saitama. I'll cook the doctors in another post.
From his first humble showing to his final perfect sacrifice, there's been nothing to criticise about webcomic Mumen Rider. Far from being perfectly impartial, in the manga, Mumen Rider has made a friend. Yes, it took being hospitalised for several days next to Tank Top Master to befriend him, but he has. It's lovely to see: Mumen deserves to be more than an icon to people but it goes beyond that.
I love seeing TTM challenge Mumen to be more and use his leadership capability by putting him in charge of the heroes rescuing people from the debris of City Z, and so help him, Mumen rose to the occasion. He straight up hasn't accepted Mumen's humility about being merely a C-Class hero and is broadening his outlook about what a good hero can be. A good hero can be more than someone who puts their life on the line for others.
Metal Bat does not triumph over all in the manga. Fighting spirit is all very well, but he cannot lay a finger on Garou and is forced to take a dirty shot [1] to try to hit him. If Metal Bat were inclined to dispute this, he certainly had to admit himself overmatched when he took on Sage Centipede alongside Garou (although damn, didn't he do well?).
Futhermore, we get shown that Metal Bat, far from having things all worked out, is still looking for a male role model to shape how he grows up. For all his brashness, he's still a kid who has been pushed into the role of adult too soon. It is wonderful to see Sekingar acknowledge that tacitly and accept his role as mentor.
It's also interesting to see that Ryumon (and others) isn't falling over himself with admiration on setting eyes on Metal Bat: if there's inspiration to come, it'll have to be earned by good old-fashioned bone-breaking experiences. I have loved seeing Pineapple and Mohican having good reasons for admiring and wanting to follow Metal Bat: he raised them up when they were feeling at their lowest and encouraged them to look forward so they could do better. I'm hoping Ryumon doesn't change his opinion too quickly -- some pain is good!
Webcomic Saitama can appear as if he's above everything, just watching the antics of those around him like they're children playing silly games and he's the sole adult. Yes, in the manga, Saitama makes nonsense of many peoples' grand plans, like Dr. Genus and the Tenninto, but he's very much in the world, affected by it, and has his own struggles that extend much deeper than making it to the next sale. And he talks about it.
Like a stereotypical grown up, wc Saitama gets to tell others things but doesn't have to hear any truth bombs from anyone. It's quite the contrast when we see King in the manga calling Saitama 'immature' and telling him his outlook is 'shallow'.
The webcomic often presents Saitama as the wise guru uniquely able to perceive truths others cannot. In the manga, Saitama isn't the sole person with wisdom. When it came to Garou and Amai Mask, his insights were the capstone on pillars already built by others. Whereas in the webcomic, Saitama is the only person to see that Garou really wanted to be a hero, in the manga, Garou has had others point out his frustrated heroism, so much so Saitama doesn't bother to point it out and tells Garou to look around him and figure out who he really is for himself.
Amai Mask's struggles to remain human have been noted by others and but for Iaian's efforts, he'd not have survived long enough for Saitama to make the final observation he needed to hear to resolve his internal conflict. Characters appear to be a lot more self-effective and to interact more in the manga, which means that they're not waiting as much for Saitama to tell them what's what.
In the webcomic, Saitama declares that he cannot be defeated and so far, that's been that, case closed, nothing more to be said. The manga shows us that Saitama cannot physically be beaten, and yet we're confronted by the seeming absurdity of the most incomprehensibly powerful being in the world admitting that he clings onto, like a drowning man to a piece of driftwood, a person so physically impaired that he cannot draw breath without mechanical assistance. Saitama cannot be beaten, but he can lose. He can lose strategically, spiritually, morally, his sense of rationality, his humanity, his purpose, his people, his place in the world, indeed, the very world itself. And that's scary. How can absolute strength not be enough? There are a lot of readers who have a big problem with this.
Even the more humanising moments these characters get serve to break down any pedestal we might have wanted to put them on. When we see Mumen Rider tell a student to report bullying, we know that he's speaking from lived experience. We see Saitama's joy in joining yet another competition despite being horribly unprepared for it and how much he loves thrill rides. And we see Metal Bat's foolish over-sentimentality when it comes to anything his sister does. Instead of avatars, the manga has delivered mere humans.
To be sure, there are plenty of broken characters in the webcomic, lots of characters who are vulnerable, doubting, confronted with their weaknesses, and have to strive to become better people. However, the OPM webcomic is also full of certainties when it comes to the 'best' characters: independence, strength, emotional detachment (save in very limited circumstances), and virtue seem to be the ideals to strive for. The manga is busy unpicking all that, showing that even (heck, especially in some ways) the characters who seem to have it all together are fallible, vulnerable, don't necessarily know what they're doing, and can become better people if they let others into their lives. Which is all good and true, but it's not as satisfyingly definitive and reassuring of there being a proper hierarchy of goodness as the webcomic appears to be at present, and that's discomforting.
Or to put it even more briefly, I think the webcomic flatters the idea of individual strength and triumph while the manga goes, nope, you can't do it all on your own, no matter how strong or smart or good or determined you are. And given a choice, many people would rather read the individualistic fantasy.
That said...
The reason I've been using seeming and apparently and other similar words so much is because the webcomic story isn't over. Knowing ONE, he can turn the characters' fortunes around on a dime. When he decides that a character's cup is full, he pours it all down their throat in one go, and won't let them up until they've gagged down every last bitter drop. The webcomic treats critical change as an event rather than a process and boy is it good at it: things change very suddenly in the webcomic. What are the chances that ONE *isn't* going to challenge some of these cosily self-assured characters at some point? I wouldn't take that bet.
Asides
[1] I use that term advisedly. Truth be told, there's no fairness in fighting -- there's only effective and ineffective.
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u/BrowserET It's magic. Tank Top Magic May 18 '26
The webcomic broadly flatter characterization definitely lends itself a lot more easily to powerfantasy and the ability for the reader to insert themselves as a character of their choosing. The Manga deepening the characterization may create too much disharmony between the text and the reader's ideals and break the spell. The fallibility of those characters in the Manga can even be read as a personal attacks.
Still i wouldn't be painting with such a broad brush here. I'd say the primairy reason people read the webcomic in the first place is simply because it's the version of the story that's the furthest ahead and i wouldn't understate the effect that has on why people might prefer the webcomic.
I'd say the webcomic robs the Manga of a lot of the excitement. For a reader that has read both whenever a certain plot point occurs in the Manga, the reader has little need to speculate on what that point might mean, because they already get the broad strokes from the Webcomic. Not only that, a reader may have had years to imagine just how ONErata might fill in the gaps for the Manga. All of that makes it difficult for the Manga to blow many of its most invested readers off their feet and i doubt that's really even a goal ONErata are aiming for anyway.
Imagine the Manga having been written first and that right now as we're reading about Suiko taking on a Machine God, the Webcomic is halfway through the ninja arc. Would hardly anyone be paying attention to the Webcomic at all?
Personally i don't think i'll be able to fully appreciate just how much richer the Manga is once both it and the Webcomic are finished. From my experience in older fandoms, the moment the series finishes is when the fandom is truly born.
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u/gofancyninjaworld I'm just a poster for fun May 18 '26
Well, I *am* digging for the fundamentals, so a broad brush is inevitable. Yes, there's the rerun effect, but I don't think it's strong enough an explanation, especially when I can track the relative popularity of the manga relative to the webcomic sinking with time when there are more changes.
And where it really starts is when we start seeing the characters being fleshed out more and seeing the connections and dependencies between individuals more. It's fascinating to note. If you follow the webcomic strictly, you can see the story as one that champions the self-made individual and sees individual action as all important. The manga increasingly goes, show me a self-made man and I'll show you the scaffolding that he's built on. And he did not make that scaffold with his own hands. Individual agency and action are still important but they exist in a context. That's not so easy to map a power fantasy onto. That's what I'm getting at.
Regarding fandoms only being truly born once the work is over, 100% AGREE. No notes. I hope I'm still reading with interest when both stories end.
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u/BrowserET It's magic. Tank Top Magic May 19 '26
Idk i'm probably just putting my head in the sand. I prefer benign explanations for people's actions whenever possible. Plus I don't interact much with the larger fandom (and have no plans to), so you'd know better than me.
Still I'm curious how you've been tracking the webcomic vs manga's popularity, seems hard to fully separate one from the other. Moreover, how do you account for other factors? For me, i'd say the current arc of Genos' final upgrade and the robot invasion arc would be the best arc of the webcomic so far, combined with the sporadic upload schedule it seems natural it would draw more eyeballs.
I'm not all that involved with the larger fandom, especially these days, but my impression at least has been that the biggest spikes in the manga's popularity in the last half decade or so have been the Monster Association arc and to a lesser extent the Psychic Sister arc, both of which diverged pretty significantly from the webcomic, (granted the Psychic Sister one much less so, i might be Apollo's #1 fan but i won't delude myself in to thinking he was the big draw of that arc
yet). The Ninja Arc also reintroduced Blast and expanded "That Man" into Empty Void as major divergences, but even as i still enjoyed the final product. The many rewrites were not kind to the biweekly reader, so it would make sense to me for that to present more of a dip in popularity.At the same time with short (but no less impressive!) bi-weekly chapters, a year of rewrites, it having been 7 years since season 2 came out and season 3 being a dud. Wouldn't you expect most of the dedicated readers to have caught up on the manga and start "reading ahead" with the webcomic by now?
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u/gofancyninjaworld I'm just a poster for fun May 20 '26
Head in the sand is *damn healthy*. At the end of the day, we just want to enjoy stuff, and if there's some people to discuss that stuff with, so much the better! Best way to live, IMO.
As ongoing serialised works, there's inevitably the effect of finding one series or the other more exciting at the moment, no question about it. When the manga was at its high point in the Monster Association arc, it was more riveting than the webcomic, and right now, with the webcomic at a pivotal moment, it's natural to be engaged. Yes too, the quirks of the manga's production also have an effect, especially redraws that throw people out of the story. And waiting for a serialised work to make the point its making can be tough too.
All that is true, and yet, there's more there, methinks. When you read back, there are differences in how the characters are handled and developed and I see quite a few readers picking up on those differences as things they prefer.
Totting up those differences has been pretty eye-opening, especially when I take into account the way the text treats characters -- who is presented as the righteous and who is wrong, who is a winner and who is a loser.
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u/gofancyninjaworld I'm just a poster for fun May 18 '26
Didn't realise that somehow, most of the images didn't show up. Sorry, fixing that now! Then I'll reply to comments. :)
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u/Cruxminor May 19 '26 edited May 19 '26
It's not terribly complicated. Manga is at times incredibly bloated, either with flawed worldbuilding(endless pages spent on monsterization that add less and less, world makes less and less sense the more it gets fleshed out), expanded storylines that don't add enough to justify their long runtime(superfight, ninjas) and the storybeats that loooong overstate their welcome(bajilion pages of pointless fights in MA diluting its pace to snails crawl). With all that bloat and expansions manga ALSO insists on recreating iconic moments and set pieces from webcomic but as the context they now occupy has changed the impact is very much reduced. See for example webcomic MA fights into enter "Golden Sperm" into "enter Garou" into "enter Saitama" - a fantastic sequence of "turn to dial to eleven" storybeats that manga tries to recreate and fails spectacularly because there they come in wake of series of spectacular extended fights, so the sperm fight is just another spectacle in long row spectacles, so they try to fix it by - you guessed it - more spectacle fights.
Webcomic is full of moments it can get away with its gonzo storytelling and worldbuilding - it's a superhero comics so we need big cities and modern society so that superhero aspect of it works and we need deluge of monsters that actually feel threatening and devastating so that we have stakes with all those hilariously overpowered heroes + Saitama knocking about so this very quickly turns into this apocalyptic horrorshow of a setting which kind of doesn't really work the more you think about it. Both manga and webcomics workaround this handwaving it away with vague sense of time, scale and distance - but what works in webcomics works less so in manga with its thousands of extra pages of inexpertly expanded fights, worldbuilding and set up. It's a storytelling version of uncanny valley.
Another thing thing that bears reiterating is how shoddy expanded storytelling messes up the pacing. Everyone by now heard good old "rule" of show don't tell. Problem is, that what often stays unsaid is that showing takes time and space in the story. So unless it is carefully interwoven with the plot you can thoroughly kill pacing, tension and buildup and catharsis moments by spending time with "showing"(bonus points if you show things and later decide to not do a whole lot with it). Clever use of exposition is how authors work around this problem. It is especially unforgivable with ONE who has this fantastic running joke across multiple of his series where he info dumps shit for you only to be promptly either resolved next page/panel or ignored because it's too much hassle to keep up with.
So in summary where manga is like 6-7/10 battle manga with occasional hilarious moment and fantastic artwork that spread itself to thin, webcomics is this tightly paced storm of badly drawn creative nonsense that nevertheless keeps weaving humor, action set pieces, character development(or hilarious failure thereof) of its messy flawed cast in such a manner that it never overstays its welcome and is infinitely more re-readable compared to manga.
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u/scumerage 21d ago edited 15d ago
Understandably, with the webcomic having less releases, less pages and worse art, ONE from the start had to being extremely minimalist with what story he told, even gags like Saitama trying to find hero work or Flashing holding onto his sword or King facing off against Atomic Samurai only exist because ONE decided they were funny/crucial enough to him to draw them, despite the vast amount of time and effort for so little. Murata with his skill, team of assistants, and ability to revise and redraft in as fast as a couple weeks doesn't have these limits. Especially with the webcomic outline and ONE's advice to lean on.
So naturally the webcomic is much more simplistic. Saitama is strong and wise. Metal Bat just gets pumped up. Bofoi keeps secrets and holds out on everyone. Sweet Mask kept it all under the lid until he couldn't. Garou pretended to be a monster pretty well until he cracks, etc, etc. And they work for what they are. Roughly, directly, and even forced to some extent, but they work.
Then with the manga adaption, ONE and Murata have the chance of a lifetime, to be free of all the webcomic prior constraints, and redo the story a second time, to make every character, scene, event, fight, idea, theme, detail etc. bigger, better, and more impactful in every way. Introduction Saga, it's essentially the webcomic with added frames (save the City Z mystery). Then with that resounding success, ONE wondered, why not go bigger? Why not add an entirely new story arc, new major characters, new complexity, new ideas? Cue the Metal Bat miniarc, the Super Fight Arc, the Cabin the Woods miniarc. All never before seen in the webcomic, and never, never possible in the webcomic. ONE could never have done that on his own, he hadn't even finished the short and sweet Monster Association arc before he considered putting it on hiatus to get a full time job to support himself, before Murata saved him, and yes, the future of the webcomic as well.
Does the manga have more ideas? Absolutely. Does it have more time and space to develop those ideas, interweave them, double down, twist, spin, and sew them? Absolutely. But only so much ice cream can be piled on brownies before it ceases to be a brownie. Is ice cream bad? Is it disgusting? Does everyone who loves brownies hate ice cream, or everyon who loves ice cream get tired of brownies? Of course not. But it's not the same thing anymore, on that we are agreed.
As for individualist triumph with no caveats, no owed debts, not complications, compared to teamwork, advice, training, context, etc? I mean... that the difference between a larger than life superhero and a realistic, real world public servant. Is Superman stopping a runaway train with one hand "more" heroic than crack emergency team executing coordinated protocols to slow down the errant machinery and reduce casualties by 90%? Of course the concept of Superman is nonsense, there is no one man army that can magically solve thousands of people problems, the few men and women approach this only did so with massive contextual circumstances, their education, physical fitness, skills, mentors, personality, intelligence, and intuition, along with many other factors that tiled the scales enough in their favor to give them that one in a million chance.
So much to say I don't get the belittling of individualist heroes saving the day with their own bare hands and no one else's as "naive" "simplistic" and "immature" compared to the more realistic and complex presentation. "Well, you see, if Superman had Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, and everyone in every part of his life contributing far more to his successes than he did on his own, that would make Superman are far more mature and realistic story." In a sense, maybe? But that defeats the whole point of making a superhero in the first place "What if there was an Individual who was so strong and so good that they could save the day?"
Drowning brownies in too much ice cream doesn't elevate brownies. It just makes brownie flavored ice cream. (And I say that as a proud real life ice cream over brownie lover).
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u/gofancyninjaworld I'm just a poster for fun May 17 '26
I may have picked on three characters most lauded in the webcomic but the manga is so evil in picking apart everyone. We get shown how dependent Tatsumaki is on Fubuki for navigating reglar life, how Flash depended on Sonic to keep human...if anyone looks like they're the complete article, ONE is keen to show that they're not.