Superhero Media: One Punch Man - Season 2

I don't spend too much time browsing fan videos online, but I have seen enough titles and thumbnails to understand that many find the second season of One Punch Man to be lackluster, if not outright terrible. Personally, I enjoyed the series and felt that it did some good world-building and introduced some interesting characters. Remember that many Anime, including One Punch Man, are adapted from weekly manga, which are highly episodic and don't necessarily fit well with a television schedule. That's why the second season ends on such an odd note, with Garou being not really defeated and the monster society still poised to wipe out humanity, because it's the better breaking-point from the manga, rather than being an ideal season close. It's annoying, but that's the way Anime works sometimes, just look at where the season breaks in Dragon Ball Z are, they make even less sense half the time. The story picks up after the cities have been repaired in the aftermath of the alien attack, Saitama and Genos are keeping busy fighting monsters, when Saitama happens across one of the strongest heroes on the planet, King. 

King it turns out, has no powers, but has been at the sites of several of Saitama's victories and, through a misunderstanding, has received credit for them. King and Saitama strike up a friendship, mostly around playing video games, because they're the one thing that Saitama actually loses at. Meanwhile, a renegade martial artist known as Garou is hunting down heroes whilst claiming that he is a monster and wanting to take on any Class S hero he can get his hands on. The "Hero Hunter" is worrying the Hero Association, having defeated several prominent heroes, but they're more focused on the massive wave of monsters that are suddenly attacking the city. Also, Saitama participates in a Martial Arts tournament to learn about fighting. If there is a complaint I have about the narrative of this season, it would be that a lot of things are happening simultaneously, with focus jumping around a lot. As I was watching the programme episodically, rather than binging it out quickly, I found I lost track sometime, only realising later that I had forgotten about a plot thread here and there. 

As he spends most of the series involved in a tournament, Saitama does a lot less killing monsters in a single punch than the first season. I can understand that some fans felt let down about this, but I appreciate that the story changes in this regard, because it stops the "One Punch" from becoming a tedious "Team Rocket is blasting off again" moment every episode. The Hero Association gets some more screen time, and a bit more exposition, for example, it is revealed that many of the executives are dynastic and so heavily paid that they are utterly disconnected from day-to-day living; I'm hoping there's a pay-off for that at some point. The little of the Monster Society that is seen promises an interesting antagonist, but the threat is quickly undercut with Saitama killing swathes of monsters off-screen. This season of One Punch Man has a "bridging" quality to it, like many a part-two film, which I am more willing to forgive than most, but I understand that it is frustrating to many. Still, I put off My Hero Academia to watch this, so I know which I'd rather spend my time on.