Highlights
- Unique abilities, like Blast’s gravity manipulation, give characters their immense strength in One Punch Man.
- Psychic powers, possessed by Espers like Tatsumaki, allow for battles using sheer mind power.
- Superhuman strength and speed, exhibited by characters like Monster Garou and Saitama, enable them to overpower opponents effortlessly.
Ever since its debut in 2015, One Punch Man has taken the anime and manga worlds by storm with its incredible art style, hilarious characters, and captivating story. One of the biggest reasons why people loved this series so much is the over-the-top and self-aware power-scaling that shows why many characters, especially the main character Saitama, are so overpowered.
One Punch Man is no stranger to strong characters. Most of the characters belonging to the higher tiers of strength in the verse have gotten their powers through a variety of means, whether it is telekinesis or just raw, physical strength. In this article, let’s go over the various ways that heroes and villains in the setting of One Punch Man have achieved their ranks.
Unique Abilities Are Some of the Strongest
One of the ways that a character in One Punch Man can achieve power is tied around a specific ability that they have that gives them their strength. While this is usually the most ubiquitous form of strength in a shonen series, One Punch Man uses it sparingly, as fewer than average characters outright have supernatural powers that they can use. A great example of a character with this path to power is Blast. Blast has the power to manipulate gravity and space itself, allowing him to open portals and travel to different dimensions in an instant. Other examples of characters made strong by a specific ability are Pig God, Amai Mask, and Zombieman.
Esper/Psychic Powers Have the Advantage Over Most
While this could also go with the previous point, Psychic Abilities are more widespread. While all Espers in the series essentially have the same power, they are differentiated by how adept they are with it as well as their mastery over the Psychic Arts. This power essentially makes it so that those who have it can battle using their minds, with stronger users like Tatsumaki being powerful enough to even move mountains without sweating. Other Espers include Fubuki, Psykos and the Tsukuyomi Group.
Superhuman Strength Always Comes in Handy
Superhuman strength is one of the most common and effective ways for users to reach the upper tiers of strength. As seen in the case of the S-Class, many heroes in this category are there due to their physical power. This ability is essentially just immense levels of physical strength that are far beyond the capabilities of what regular humans can achieve, giving the heroes far more battle utility and allowing them to fight on par with much stronger opponents Some examples of amazing physical strength in the series are Tanktop Master, Superalloy Darkshine, and Puri Puri Prisoner.
Superhuman Speed Balances Things Out
Along with far above-average levels of physical strength, superhuman speed is something that many characters consider to be their claim to fame. Since the power scaling in One Punch Man is insane, most of the fastest characters in the series travel and fight far above the speed of light, dishing out incredible amounts of damage at blitzing speeds before their opponents even know what’s going on, the most impressive feat of which was the constellations made by the 3 speedsters in the Monster Association fighting at the speed of light. The fastest characters in the series include Monster Garou, Platinum Sperm, and Saitama.
Robots/Cyborgs Are in a League of Their Own
An aspect of some of the strongest characters in the series is their robotic or cyborg enhancements. Many characters owe their powers to these enhancements to reach their level of strength, which allows them to gain tons of firepower, speed, and versatility in battle. The best example of this is Genos, who continually gets more enhancements after every loss he faces to become far stronger than he was before. Genos went from being a fairly weak S-Class hero to one who underwent a lot of training and cybernetic enhancements to be strong enough to help Tatsumaki in her fight against Psykorochi. Some characters that use Robots or cybernetic enhancements to gain power are Metal Knight, Drive Knight, and Child Emperor.
Monsterization Can Be Tough to Deal With
Through the process called Monsterization, a person consumes Monster Cells from the being called Monster King Orochi. This then transforms them into a monster and when they transform, their evil and unhinged thoughts are let loose and they become much more violent and bloodthirsty. Their bodies become stronger and much more monster-like and greatly increase their strength and speed, something which was done by various members of the Super Fight Tournament. However, in doing so, these characters’ strength and potential is capped and they can no longer grow stronger than their current state.
Special Weapons Can Help Close The Gap
A character that relies on a special item or weapon for their fighting style or means of power isn’t very common in the upper echelons of One Punch Man. However, there are almost innumerable characters in the A-Class and below that owe their strength to their weapons of choice. The easiest, and strongest, character to think of that does this is the S-Class hero, Metal Bat whose frenzied or enraged state is enough to contend with early Garou. Other characters that do the same are Death Gattling, Spring Mustachio and Darkness Blade.
Martial Artists Are Some of the Most Versatile Fighters
To be a master at Martial Arts is a surefire way to reach the pinnacles of power in the One Punch Man universe, though this path is one that usually takes very long to master. Mastering different styles and Martial Arts can make one an extremely formidable opponent and, in Garou’s case, can even propel them to the very top of power in the entire universe. Martial Artists have perfected their respective skills in battle to the ultimate degree. The true versatility of this path was seen in the Ultimate Calamity God Slayer Fist developed by Garou, which was an amalgamation of all the Martial Arts he had copied.
How Do You Compete With God?
Powers given to certain characters by God work very similarly to monsterization. After a simple and oftentimes brief interaction with the mysterious God of One Punch Man, characters are blessed with powers that are so great that they can catapult the character from being super weak to one of the most powerful characters in the entire setting. This also doesn’t seem to have the same effect as monsterization as the appearance of the character does not change too much and they can still keep growing in battle, as was shown in Cosmic Garou’s fight against Saitama.
God appears to multiple characters as a vision in the story, taking the form of someone they know and offering them his help in turn for their servitude in helping him achieve his ultimate goal, which is still unknown to this day. Even after an extremely brief interaction of Garou slapping God’s hand away, he was still gifted with powers that put him above even Blast and allowed him to fight Saitama equally for a while, or when a random and weak homeless man was propelled to a Dragon Level Threat.
Despite these clear and defined ways of characters gaining their powers and getting stronger, there exist very few anomalies in the story that exist within multiple paths to power at once. The easiest example of this is Saitama himself. The Caped Baldy trained so hard that he broke his limiter, giving him physical strength capable of sneezing away a planet and speed that put him way faster than light itself.
One Punch Man can be streamed on Amazon Prime and Netflix.
Leave a Reply