Here's an idea. "One Punch Man" encourages
us to confront what it is we really want from our heroes.
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"One Punch Man," which is shortened OPM,
is an unusual superhero tale that started as a webcomic
by writer/illustrator One.
It became powerfully popular online
and was released as an ongoing manga and anime series.
In this episode, we're mostly going
to talk about the anime and the manga, and about how OPM raises
some questions about the difference between what
we think superheroes should be and what,
at least as far as appearances seem to indicate,
they actually are.
But first, some training.
"One Punch Man" follows Saitama, a.k.a.
Caped Baldy, but who mostly just goes by Saitama.
He's not your normal run-of-the-mill hero.
First, as indicated by the series' very literal title,
he can defeat most opponents in just one punch.
He is incredibly powerful and also incredibly bored.
Not like bored in economics class bored.
Anyone?
He's got plenty to do, but deeply and existentially bored.
We're talking like, ennui here.
OPM is an almost perfect counterpoint
to the nonstop power level escalation which
is the basis of "Dragon Ball Z" and so much
other popular anime.
Saitama starts out the best and remains the best
without any significant challenge, much to his dismay.
[MUSIC - "YOU'RE THE BEST"]
And in addition to being bored, Saitama
is also a little boring.
Don't get me wrong.
It's cool that he's so powerful, and he seems like a nice guy,
but his world is full of heroes with costumes, special moves,
catchphrases, and crazy gear.
Meanwhile, he looks like a thumb wearing a construction uniform.
His special moves are things like Consecutive Normal Punches
and Serious Consecutive Side Hops.
Unless you count ear wiggles as a special move.
He's plain spoken, and by his own frequent admission,
he is a hero "just for fun."
OPM is a parody of the shonen genre of manga-- stories aimed
at boys and focused on combat.
They have large casts of melodramatic characters
battling it out with a full complement
of pizazz and gimmickry.
We've already mentioned "Dragon Ball," but there's also
"One Piece," "Attack on Titan," "Fullmetal Alchemist," "Death
Note," and so on and so forth.
OPM's melodramatic cast fits perfectly
alongside other shonen stories with one exception-- Saitama,
who is crazy powerful, but crazily not crazy.
Sometimes, he's even drawn purposefully featureless,
like an egg with eyes.
Chueymon on Twitter pointed out that his outfit
is a parody of a famous Japanese children's hero.
And even his back story is boring.
He always dreamed of being a hero,
so he quit his job as a salaryman, did sit ups,
and ran every day, to become the most powerful hero in the world
in just three years.
You did it, Saitama.
Really, this is a joke about the training regimens
of many other shonen characters.
The ever present politics of often
biologically determined power levels and how
that leads to hierarchies.
Saitama upsets the whole superhero hegemony.
He became the best simply by getting better.
In a way, this makes him the neoliberal ideal
of a superhero.
He's a hard-working individual who made it to the top.
Well, sort of.
Because at first, he's not really
a hero, not a significant one anyway, for a few reasons.
First, like in "The Venture Brothers,"
hero is a profession.
Heroism is regulated and ranked in OPM by the official Hero
Association.
And Saitama, a hero for fun, doesn't even
know about the association until his sidekick and disciple
Genos fills him in.
They go.
They take the tests.
Genos gets ranked high in Class S, which is very good.
And Saitama, who nails the physical portion
but bombs the written portion, gets
ranked 300 something in Class C, which is very not good.
And though Saitama is, practically speaking,
the most effective hero-- he can defeat every enemy with ease,
albeit no panache-- the public is skeptical of or downright
hostile towards him.
Other heroes spread rumors about him, question his presence,
and don't give him a fair shake because of his ranking,
personality, or both.
Digibro has described this effect
as an overdog being, quote, "unrecognized
within the broken standards of a system."
All this then poses the question,
what makes someone a good hero?
If, in OPM's world, the job of a hero is to defeat monsters,
then Saitama is the best.
But if heroism means performing heroness
according to expectation, as much of the public, powers that
be, and many of Saitama's peers seem to believe it does,
then Saitama is the worst.
Or if not the worst, than something equally bad--
the boringest.
Which brings us to one of the most interesting heroes--
Saitama's foil, Mumen Rider.
Where Saitama is aloof, not very dedicated, largely disliked,
and supremely powerful, Mumen Rider
is focused, dedicated, beloved, and totally powerless.
Mumen Rider is "One Punch Man's" ultimate symbol of pathos.
He involves himself in situations
he has no earthly right to because he owes it
to the public, being a hero is his duty.
By OPM's judgment and by the audience's, real and fictional,
Mumen Rider is a capital H Hero.
It is nearly impossible to not like and respect him.
Is that because he struggles?
Because his will exceeds his ability?
Because he rushes into situations knowing hope
is slim, but his sense of duty compels him?
Maybe.
But even so, ultimately, we see Mumen Rider
accomplish almost nothing.
He is, by a practical measure-- and I
feel terrible saying this-- a bad hero.
But by the crown of the Sea King if he is not interesting.
Even his gimmick-- that he doesn't have a driver's license
and so he has to bike everywhere--
is absurd, hilarious, and endearing.
He is rightfully so one of the very few heroes
that even Saitama respects.
Maybe because like him, Mumen Rider
understands the value of hard work.
He just hasn't really benefited ability-wise from any of his.
"One Punch Man" implies that in the eyes of the public,
a great hero is not a normal somebody for whom heroism
is easy and comes naturally.
A great hero struggles and is a showman,
is recognized by law, consensus, or both.
Heroism is a tautology.
How do you know that someone is a hero?
They look and act heroic.
Mumen Rider does this, but Saitama does not.
So but wait-- why must heroes be showmen?
Well, one interpretation of heroism,
and one that I think is encouraged by OPM,
is that the central pursuit of heroes
is not to save civilization, or the world,
or even specific people.
Those acts are the means by which
they reach a different end-- saving humanity in general
from boredom.
The claim here may be that heroes must struggle,
be interesting, because their stories
and not their actions are what make them.
Clear rankings within the social stratum
let us know how they relate to one another and to us.
How close are we to becoming heroes?
In the case of Saitama, he doesn't struggle,
and I could never dream of having his power.
In his book, "The Philosophy of Boredom,"
Lars Svendsen theorizes that in the wake of romanticism,
where it became common to think that each person has
an individual self that they must realize
through their own accomplishments,
we've increasingly foregone active self-realization
and instead consume it through celebrity or commodity.
Tesla Motors, iPhones, the Kardashian, sports teams,
scientific discovery, and Tom Hanks
work as surrogates for our own self-actualisation.
And while these things may give us plenty to do,
they cure our day-to-day bored in economics
class-style boredom, Svendsen says
that they can leave us deeply, existentially bored.
Then there's existential boredom
where the world is empty.
So like Saitama, we, as the heroes of late capitalism,
are always confronting a procession of things
we are convinced will make us.
Is that bad?
Well, it certainly has bad parts.
Surely, we sacrifice something in defining ourselves
by external means.
May we also argue that there are some positive aspects
to a boredom that is born of accomplishment or excellence?
We could.
OPM may inspire us to ask if, as consumers
of commodities and celebrity, we are too powerful and thus
woeful.
Or maybe Saitama shows us how being the best in any way
is a lonely victory.
That greatness, however it's measured,
doesn't save one from drudgery.
No matter how it's done, when we seek external validation,
we do so in futility.
On the other hand though, OPM may
encourage us to confront that boredom and search for a way
to put our power to good use, as Saitama does.
In possession of seemingly limitless resources,
do we not have the power to upset the highly regimented
status quo and bring previously separated ranks together?
Certainly stands to reason.
We may also see ourselves in Saitama's public.
The things which are most effective at solving
our real problems-- a deep existential boredom/constant
monster invasion-- are not interesting.
And so we focus on that which is less effective
but has more pizazz, conflating heroism and celebrity.
At times, OPM shows that the best heroes
are better celebrities than they are capable heroes.
Sweet Mask's whole thing is even about hero public image,
the relationship between strength and attractiveness,
etc., etc.
We have shades of this in our world.
Our worst celebrities are often still average
or above average heroes simply by effect of the fact
that they made it.
We'll call firefighters, philanthropists, scientists,
and public intellectuals heroes, but often only
in response to their sometimes fleeting celebrity.
Saitama, Caped Baldy himself, I think,
is an encouragement to look beyond celebrity
for the nature of a true hero, who may love grocery store deal
day as much as saving the day, which he does just for fun.
What do you guys think?
What makes a true hero?
And what do we appear to want from our heroes?
And do those things line up?
Let us know in the comments.
And I will respond to some of them
in next week's Comment Response Video.
In this week's Comment Response Video,
we talk about your thoughts regarding mourning celebrity
death online.
If you want to watch that one, you can click right here
or find a link in the doobly doo.
This week in podcasting news, I was on Matt Storm's "Crash
Chords Podcast" talking about "Idea Channel,"
and working in New York City, and my podcast, "Reasonably
Sound," which is going to come back very soon.
If you want to listen to that, we'll
put a link in the description.
And I was also on a recent episode
of the Mental Floss "List Show" talking about podcasts.
So we'll put a link to that in the description as well.
Also, if you happen to be in New York City,
I'm going to be on a panel this Friday
as part of the Teachers College of Columbia's "Why Talk
About Gender?" symposium.
I'm going to be talking with some friends about what
it means to facilitate conversations about gender
with audiences in all shapes and sizes.
So we'll put a link to that in the description too.
We have a Facebook, and IRC, and a subreddit.
Links to those in the doobly doo.
And the Tweet of the Week comes from bxfrommx
who, in a conversation with a friend of theirs,
talks about how "real people fan theories may equal
revisionist history," which is something
that I have been thinking about since I saw this tweet.
And hey, in case you were wondering,
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You may have noticed over the last couple episodes
that we are teasing the fact that we now have a new set
with all kinds of things.
And something happened today that I'm just
really super excited about that I just wanted to point out,
and that's our record player arrived.
And eventually, it will be a fully functioning record player
so that I can listen to records, hopefully, not instead
of making videos.
And last but certainly not least,
this week's episode would not have been possible or good
without the hard work of these true heroes.