Trivia / One-Punch Man

• Acting for Two: Daisuke Namikawa voiced Dr. Genus and Pig God.
• All-Star Cast: The voice acting credits are basically a roll call of anime's top Japanese voice actors - even one-episode characters are voiced by heavy hitters such as Miyuki Sawashiro (Mosquito Girl) and Unshō Ishizuka (Asura Rhino).
  • This also applies to the production of the anime, with big names in the industry working alongside Madhouse's in-house staff for most of the episodes.
  • The English cast is no slouch, either, bringing together voice actors from not only Bang Zoom's stable, but also Texas, including Funimation's Christopher Sabat and Mike McFarland.
• Casting Gag:
  • Vaccineman in the Japanese version is voiced by Ryūsei Nakao, who voices Baikinman from Anpanman, the character who Vaccineman took his inspiration for his name from. The dub just cuts straight to the chase and cast Piccolo himself.
  • In the dub, the Beast King is voiced by Paul St. Peter (who voiced Leomon).
  • This isn't the first time either Bryce Papenbrook (English) or Miguel Angel Leal (Latin American Spanish) can change into a titan.
  • This isn't the first time Jamieson Price has been an intelligent robot warrior, though he's upgraded from a cyborg to a robot drone controlled by a scientist.
  • So Wataru Hatano plays a Japanese Delinquent with a Pompadour. Where has this been heard before?
  • Saitama is voiced by Makoto Furukawa, who later got the role as one of the most famous mythological Invincible Hero Achilles
    • From the same series, Saori Hayami plays Atalanta, who has similar shades of green hair as Fubuki and also has similar dynamics to Furukawa's character. The main difference being that Achilles has a crush on Atalanta and later develops to a Like Brother and Sister relationship (though as of Grand Order, they do seem to have feelings towards each other), while Fubuki develops her respect to Saitama and goes to become Vitriolic Best Buds (time will tell over what ONE decides to do with their relationship).
  • The English dub cast Edward Elric as Melzargard... you know, the nigh-unstoppable Humanoid Abomination that regenerates from little red stones.
  • The last time Atomic Samurai showed up with a Japanese Sword, he was leading a bunch of misfits wearing a Badass Cape and a pair of orange Triangle Shades.
  • In the Latin American Spanish dub, it's not the first time Jhonny Torres (Genos) has voiced a metal-clad hero.
  • In the Filipino Dub, Louie Paraboles (Saitama's Voice Actor), who previously voiced Piccolo in Dragon Ball Z Kai, punches his own Expy Vaccineman.
• Celebrity Voice Actor:
  • The French dub casts rapper Orelsan as the voice of Saitama. Outside of acting, his music portfolio is known for carrying some pop-culture referenced songs, making his role fitting for the character.
  • In the Latin American Spanish dub, Sonic is voiced by Mexican rock singer Rick Loera.
  • The Brazilian Portuguese dub of the second season surprised for casting stand-up comedian Murilo Couto as the announcer of the Superfight tournament.
• Creator's Favorite: Yusuke Murata's favorite characters are Boros and the Deep Sea King because of how much of an impact they've had on the world. ONE's favorite characters are Saitama, King, and the Deep Sea King.
• Creator's Pest: Murata has stated he dislikes Sweet Mask. Because of this, he tries to draw him as handsome as possible to get over his feelings.
• Dawson Casting:
  • The Esper sisters Tatsumaki and Fubuki are both 28 years old and 23 years old respectfully, but their Japanese voice actors are not. Aoi Yūki, Tatsumaki's voice actress, is a year younger than Saori Hayami, Fubuki's voice actress.
    • In the English dub, Marieve Herington (Tatsumaki in Season 1) is actually five years younger than Laura Post (Fubuki).
  • This is even more notable in the Latin American Spanish dub, as Tatsumaki's voice actress, Azul Valadez, was 21 years old when she voiced her.
• Dueling Shows: With My Hero Academia. Ironically, both shows and their English dubs are also distributed in the U.S. by rival companies, with One-Punch Man distributed by Viz Media and dubbed by Bang Zoom! Entertainment, while My Hero Academia is dubbed in-house and distributed by Funimation.
• God Never Said That: There's a rumor floating around that ONE said Saitama's Serious Punch is half the strength of the Big Bang, and that he could easily destroy the entire universe with only his punches. No records of ONE saying this exists.
• The Other Darrin: Marieve Herington was unable to reprise her role as Tatsumaki in the second season's dub as she was busy with other projects, resulting in the voice going to Corina Boettger.
• Promoted Fanboy:
  • Yusuke Murata himself. He loved ONE's work on One-Punch Man before talks even began for the manga adaptation; after a near-death experience due to a respiratory issue, Murata decided that he wanted to collaborate with ONE at least once before the end of his life. Fortunately, he recovered and the two are now an impressive team.
  • Zach Aguilar, a self-professed fan of the webcomic, joins the English dub cast.
  • Kenichiro Aoki, an animator for season two, is a big fan of One-Punch Man and it shows.
  • Kazuo Nomura drew the maze on Boros's ship.
• Star-Making Role: Makoto Furukawa got his big break in voicing Saitama.
• Studio Hop: The first season was animated by MadHouse, the second and third seasons were done by J.C. Staff.
• Technology Marches On: An internal version occurs between adaptations. In the webcomic and manga, Saitama and Genos' mail is air-dropped because of how dangerous City Z is; in the anime, it's delivered via drone instead.
• Troubled Production: While season two of the anime wasn't an outright failure, many fans were disappointed by its animation, sound direction, and pacing compared to the godlike season one. A lot of this was due to the studio change forcing JC Staff to suddenly stuff One-Punch Man in between several other shows that were also in the works, leading to priorities shifting and production being rushed. To put it into perspective, the studio had 6 months to make all 12 episodes — that's only half a month per episode, which is insane when you know most studios dedicate 2-3 months per episode for such a popular show. If one looks at JC Staff's other works at the time such as A Certain Scientific Railgun T, the production is much cleaner and the animation much prettier.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Originally, Suiryu used Drunken Fist in combat and was Lin-Lin's brother. The Drunken Fist was changed to the fictional Void Fist (a homonym in Japanese) since the style was deemed too comical for intense scenes such as the Gouketsu fight. However, the idea of Suiryu having a sister was later repurposed into a new character called Suiko.
  • Chapter 71 included a panel showing Gouketsu's original design, which was much more ogre-like. Murata believed Gouketsu would be scarier if he looked more intelligent and less brutish, so he redrew it.
  • Murata has redrawn entire chapters on multiple occasions. Usually, the online chapter release and the physical volume release differ in this way - here's a great◊ example. The volumes are considered canon in the end, and they are what the anime adaptation is based on. This is normally to Retcon old story ideas to pave way for the future, or just because Murata is dissatisfied with how his art turned out. Some notable redraws include:
    • Originally Boros had a much different design, appearing less like an alien and more like a generic one-eyed Bishōnen in demonic black armor. Later, during his fight with Saitama, Boros broke off one of the ship's fins and threw it at Saitama, nearly bisecting the entire spacecraft in the process. This was all redrawn, making him look more alien and swapping out the fin-toss for the moon-kick. There was also a plan for a flipbook animation of Bang hurtling through rubble after being hit by Melzargard, though it never got past the draft phase.
    • The series' most infamous redraws have definitely been those done during the Monster Association raid, from Chapters 99 and on. Some notable ones include: retconning Sweet Mask's murder of the Narinki Squad, adding a fight between Zombieman and some Metal Knight-based monster drones, introducing Manako, and redrawing the entire Phoenix Man fight twice. Many fans chose to reread the entire arc again once it was over.
    • Possibly the most dramatic divergence occurs in chapter 164 of the manga, which was heavily redrawn just two weeks after its release. In the original version, at the climax of his fight with Saitama, Garou realises how hopelessly outclassed he is and gives up on trying to win, becoming suicidal and launching one last futile attack in the hopes that Saitama will kill him. Saitama effortlessly catches his punch, and realising that Garou seems to have some deep-seated issues surrounding heroes, invites him to sit down and talk things over, culminating in an amusing scene of the two of them kneeling at a table, Saitama focusing intently while Garou - still in his hulking monster form - looks a little shy and embarrassed. In the redrawn version, which the rest of the manga continues from, instead of becoming suicidal, Garou's resolve endures, and he proclaims that he won't lose to the likes of Saitama...right before he gets punched so hard he flies right out of his monster form. In this moment, God sees an opportunity to use Garou as his avatar, and offers him a power-up. This results in Garou finally achieving his Awakened form, which imbues him with new Person of Mass Destruction abilities and lets him (very briefly) match Saitama's strength. While most readers seem to greatly prefer the redrawn version, there still remains a contingent of fans who are curious as to how the original would have played out.
• Word of God:
  • According to Murata, the energy balls used by Vaccine Man, Homeless Emperor, and Choze are all made of the same kind of energy.
  • Murata revealed what ethnicities certain characters would be in the real world: Genos would be German, Tatsumaki and Fubuki would be French, King would be American, Sweet Mask would be Korean, Suiryu would be Italian, and Choze would be Russian.
  • If Metal Bat were at the Monster Association raid, things would've gone very differently.
  • ONE and Murata have both been asked about character matchups a lot:
    • Murata said he doesn't know who'd win between Saitama and Goku.
    • Sonic would've been able to kill the Deep Sea King if he still had his weapons and if it didn't start raining. Also, Sonic and Genos are evenly matched and a fight would be inconclusive.
    • When asked about Boros' disaster level, ONE said that he was above other Dragon threats, but still not quite a God-level one. He also stated that a fight between Boros and Awakened Garou would be "one hell of a battle", implying the two to be roughly equal in power.
    • Murata said that Orochi is above Dragon-level but not God-level, similar to Boros. He also stated that Groribas, Melzargard, and Geryuganshoop wouldn't even come close to defeating him, even if they made plans beforehand and worked together.
    • ONE said Tatsumaki would've been able to defeat Golden Sperm if she hadn't been recently weakened. She would probably be able to defeat Mob from Mob Psycho 100 as well, but if Mob got serious ONE wouldn't be so sure.
    • ONE stated Golden Sperm is as powerful as Ossan from Makai no Ossan. Murata said that he's not sure who would win between him and Orochi, since Golden Sperm is much faster but Orochi is more skilled in martial arts.