REVIEW: ‘One Punch Man’ Season 3 Episode 10 — “Immortal Bloodbath”

One Punch Man Season 3 Episode 10 is another entertaining episode, but in a way different from most episodes. While the season yet again disappoints in its animation from J.C.Staff, seeing the many perspectives of several heroes, including their fights and powers, is immensely interesting and engaging.

The episode begins with Zombieman navigating the Monster Association’s base and killing several monsters he encounters. He is then approached by a pure-bred demon-level-threat vampire, whom the other monsters are not too fond of. An intense battle between the two commences, but their fight, like many others this season, is filled with low-effort stills and barely has any movement.

Additionally, for the first time this season, the character designs specifically during fights are incredibly bland and lacklustre. While the battle between the vampire and Zombieman has better choreography than the fights in the previous episode, the movements are slow and unimpressive.

Zombieman’s interesting fighting style nearly makes up for lackluster animation.

However, watching Zombieman’s interesting fighting style almost makes up for it. Unlike other S-Class heroes, Zombieman is noticeably not great at fighting; he’s just skilled and experienced enough to hold his ground in fights.

What truly sets him apart is his immortality and sheer willpower. This is excellently highlighted with his fight against the vampire, who is leagues ahead of him in strength. However, despite being killed and defeated over 200 times during the fight, Zombieman still wins simply because he can’t die, and the Law of Large Numbers is on his side.

Watching this is not only funny but also a cool concept for a superhero that goes against the anime’s nature and its ridiculously overpowered characters. Unfortunately, the long fight that led to his victory was all off-screen, which is disappointing.

What’s worse is that the anime notably changed the scene in the manga where Zombieman smokes a cigarette, with him instead licking a lollipop after his exhausting fight. Not only does this ruin the scene, but it also infantilizes the character and doesn’t even make sense for censorship, given how he just dismembered and decapitated a vampire in gory fashion and is covered in blood.

The rest of the episode sees other heroes, including Pig God, Atomic Samurai, and his students, and Amai Mask, get approached by more monsters, including Do-S. Atomic Samurai’s students begin fighting Do-S, but are stopped by Amai Mask, who takes over and easily defeats her and her hypnotized henchmen.

The fight ends incredibly quickly, with even more low-effort, badly drawn stills, and it’s never revealed how Amai Mask isn’t affected by her hypnotic effects, how he is able to defeat her so easily, or what his powers even are. Though it wouldn’t be a surprise if this is revealed in a future episode.

The Malong Hair fight is also held back by poor animation.

The next scene shows Pig God devouring the monster that approached him, no doubt after another off-screen fight, and Atomic Samurai’s students being approached by yet another high-level humanoid monster called Malong Hair. Like his name suggests, he fights using his superpowered, incredibly versatile hair, and he speaks in nonsensical one-liners.

Their fight serves as the second major fight in the episode and would’ve been an engaging battle to watch, as all the fighters are incredibly skilled, especially the students, who are great swordsmen that are quick on their feet.

It’s just a shame that animation-wise, the fight boils down to stills and gifs with barely any impressive movement from the fighters. At this point, it just seems like the animators are focusing more on the season’s major fights, which is disappointing because it prevents side characters from truly shining, despite being given their own episodes.

One Punch Man Season 3 Episode 10 over-emphasizes its main fights at the expense of everything else.

After his students barely win their fight, the scene switches to Atomic Samurai (Kenjiro Tsuda), who defeats all monsters who approach him with ease. He then meets G5, whom he also defeats with ease, employing pure skill to counter the machine’s calculations and seemingly superior anatomy.

The fight was short but flashy and the most animated part of the entire episode, showcasing excellent visual effects. This fight proves the point that the animators focus on some fights more than others. The episode ends with Atomic Samurai rescuing Tareo (Natsumi Fujiwara), who is being chased by a weird little monster.

Overall, One Punch Man season 3 Episode 10, while incredibly flawed production-wise, is still an entertaining watch thanks to its many characters and their interesting perspectives. It’s a shame the season remains inconsistent in its animation and execution.

One Punch Man Season 3 Episode 10 is streaming now on Crunchyroll. 

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