If you want to read Japanese comics and don’t know where to start, the titles that start with One are a good bet. One Piece, a superhuman pirate comic, might be the best action-adventure story ever told. We’re going to hear a lot more about One Piece when it comes to Netflix in a few years.
The other Japanese comic that starts with One you should be looking into is One Punch Man, a beautifully-illustrated parody of western superheroes and Japanese hero tropes that Sony is hoping will translate to the big screen. The adaptation is being written by Scott Rosenberg and Jeff Pinkner and produced by former Marvel Studios CEO Avi Arad.
So what is One Punch Man? Set in a world where superheroes are government employees who fight monsters, Saitama is the strongest hero in the world. No one actually realizes this except a few people who are closest to him, though, and he struggles to pay his rent and is constantly missing big superhero actions to buy groceries on sale.
As the title implies, he can defeat any enemy with a single punch, but his massive power has come at the expense of his hair. He even has an embarrassing superhero name, The Caped Baldy.
A lot of the humor in One Punch Man comes from Saitama’s boredom with being an unbeatable superhero. Much the way that some comic book fans complain Superman is too powerful, Saitama himself gripes about his own power and his inability to have a challenging fight. If this movie is going to be a success, it’s going to have to capture that subtle comedy and not try to make a sincere superhero movie. I’m not sure I have faith in a Hollywood production to do that, but I guess we’ll eventually find out.