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I checked the synopsis
[here](http://myanimelist.net/anime/30276/One_Punch_Man?q=one%20pun) and I was
wondering about the genre of parody.

[![One Punch Man on
myanimelist.net](https://i.stack.imgur.com/NiOM0.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/NiOM0.png)

I’ve completed the season of One Punch Man and there was no parody of anything
in the animé. The only parody animé I’ve experienced before is Gintama and the
parody is altogether at another level! Whereas, One Punch Man had relatively
none. Am I missing something or is it an error?


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one-punch-man
Why is One Punch Man considered a parody anime?


> **TL;DR:** One Punch Man is not a parody of a single manga, it is a parody
> of the whole shonen genre. It makes fun of its codes and therefore can be
> seen as a parody.

To help understand it, I will compare One Punch Man to Dragon Ball. I will use
the anime for comparison, but it is pretty much the same for the manga. This
can and should be applied to many shonen series and not only Dragon Ball. Its
use is only intended as an example.

**Fights**

In One Punch Man, the fights are over at the moment Saitama punches an enemy
(except the final fight). The moment where the fight is going on is very
brief. In Dragon Ball, the fights can last a lot of episodes. As an example,
the famous fight between Frieza and Goku took 10 episodes (see [How much
broadcast time did it take for planet Namek to blow
up](https://anime.stackexchange.com/questions/3701/how-much-broadcast-time-
did-it-take-for-planet-namek-to-blow-up))

**Reason to fight**

Saitama fights because he _just wants_ to be a Super Hero. Being a hero is
considered a hobby for him. On the other hand, Goku fights because he wants to
save his friends and the Earth, while Vegeta fights to become the strongest
fighter ever, Gohan wants to save the Earth so he can study peacefully, and so
on. One Punch Man is deconstructing the shonen hero goals: by reading/watching
it, you have the feeling that **anybody can be a hero, it's not that hard**.
This is going even deeper as C-Class heroes are quite casual people.

**Training**

As mentionned in [this
post](https://anime.stackexchange.com/questions/28346/what-is-the-source-of-
saitamas-enormous-power/28347#28347), compared to the power he acquired,
Saitama's training is just ridiculous, and it is even more so if you compare
it to the training in other anime.

**The hero itself**

Saitama is **not** badass. While this can be viewed as primarily opinion
based, there are some elements that can help us to understand that he was not
intended as a charismatic character. Even though every enemy and character are
well drawn, Saitama is drawn in a quite basic style and leads us to the
feeling that Saitama is _out of universe_. A good example is the
transformation of Boros, which is quite similar to Dragon Ball's evolutions
([this is not even my final form](http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/this-isnt-
even-my-final-form)). While the transformation itself is very well drawn,
Saitama's reaction is quite _out of universe_

**And so on...**

There are a lot other things that could be mentioned, such as the fact that we
see the hero doing casual things (groceries, eating in restaurant alone, ...).


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I would assume, that, the concept itself, of a character that would
immediately vanquish any foe, no matter how tall, strong, heavy, experienced,
etc, with just one punch, would obviously be intended as the ultimate parody,
in itself. My only real question would be: when the OPM video game is
released, does OPM simply throw the punch, or, is there a fourteen button
sequence that needs to be learned?


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As others said it pokes fun at the action/fighting style anime (and
potentially a few others). It even parodies some specific characters from
those kind of anime.

For example:

  * Lord Boros: Based off of Broly from Dragonball Z, a character whose fans think he is the epitome of power.

  * Garou: Could be several characters but I find him to actually be based off of Doomsday from Superman. I say Doomsday because Garou was initially a monster and could not be killed. He just kept coming back more upgraded, just like Doomsday.

  * Vaccine Man: Parody of Piccolo and Baikinman

  * Ancient King: Godzilla

  * Bang: Zeno Zoldyck from Hunter x Hunter

  * Carnage Kabuto Rage Form: Eva Unit 1 from Evangelion

  * Great Philosopher: Father from Full Metal Alchemist

  * Lightning Max: Mix of Straight Cougar from Scry-ed and some Hisoka from Hunter x Hunter 

  * Metal Bat: Potentially a combo of Yusuke Urameshi and Kazuma Kuwabara from Yu Yu Hakusho

And there are many more. Just re-watch the series and take note of each
character. It's amazing how many characters there are parodies of from their
personalities to their resemblance and everything in between.


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Another thing to consider would be when someone is talking about their
backstory or how powerful they are. In Shonen, characters seem to drone on
about themselves and OPM tends to get bored of it and interrupts them to get
to the point of their interaction. He has the attitude of "shut up and let's
get to it" because he'd rather just get it over with and go on with his day.


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