A surprising thing happened with Wanpan Man
also known as One-Punch Man abroad.
Five or six years ago, when I was a
student, I read a manga on a personal website. The manga was obviously written
by an amateur. The drawings and typography were as terrible as a rough draft, but it has irresistible
attraction. The name of the hero was Saitama, which was named after a city in
Japan, or a Japanese internet meme at that time. It clearly seemed that the
author had decided the name within 5 seconds. Not only Saitama, but most of
other characters' names sounded extremely off-the-cuff. How adorable. The manga
was based off of various existing mangas but the author reinterpreted them and
extracted exciting things from them. I also like that the plot proceeds
quickly, as you know, the hero is the man who can beat anyone by one-punch.
I liked the amateur manga so I was really
surprised to hear that Yusuke Murata, a comic artist, who is well known for
Eyeshield, proposed a collaboration with the author. Basically, talented
artists can't help adding their own touches and it sometimes lead to lose the
original, then an argument between author and comic artist will happen.
However, these worries that fans of the
original series had were needless. Murata completely understood what the manga was,
and what the attraction of the manga was as he depicted the fight between Mumen
Rider and Shinkai Ou. He took advantage of even the roughness of the original.
(But I still prefer original one. Especially Tatsumaki and Saitama)
Three years
later, the manga became an animation. The animation has gained international
popularity. I didn't watch it, though. Sometimes I see Saitama on foreign
websites that are not related to Japanese animation. Is that the same Saitama I
read on the individual website five years ago? It seems he is.
A surprising
things for me.
Thank you Caramellarie!
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