I love One-Punch Man. It is a story that takes all the genre conventions one expects from a story in which superheroes fight supervillains and, rather than subverting them, magnifies them to an absurd degree.

From Wikipedia:

The world is full of strange monsters that mysteriously appear and cause disasters. Saitama, the protagonist, is an exceptionally powerful hero who easily defeats the monsters or other villains with a single punch. However, due to his overwhelming strength, Saitama has become bored with his powers and is constantly trying to find stronger opponents who can fight him.

There is a lot of speculation about how Saitama got so strong, and there’s a theory that reality in the One-Punch Man universe is shaped by the strength of the desires or beliefs of its inhabitants. It’s a fun idea, but I don’t find it satisfying.

And really, what possible explanation for Saitama’s absurd strength within the narrative of One- Punch Man could ever be satisfying? There isn’t. That’s because the explanation for Saitama’s strength lies outside narrative boundaries.

Saitama has become a Platonic Form—the abstract idea of “Superhero Protagonist”, existing independently of the narrative surrounding him.

I will attempt to provide evidence for this theory by examining two main Saitama’s two main traits: His appearance and his overwhelming strength.

1. The Bald Thing

   
   

   

   
   

   The image on the left is from before Saitama became a hero. The image on the right is after.

   
   

   In the manga, Saitama believes his baldness is a result of training very hard every day for three years, but this doesn’t explain the reoccuring simplification of his features. Could it be that a cartoony drawing of a bald head is funny when juxtaposed with Murata’s lushly-illustrated world? Yeah, probably, but I have a different idea.

   
   

   From Understanding Comics:

   
   

   

    

   There are many, many heroes in the world of One-Punch Man, all of whom have chiseled features and unique visual identifiers; Genos is a cyborg with black eyes, King has scars on his face, Bang has a big bushy mustache. Saitama, however, looks like the tail end of a spectrum of abstraction.

   
   

   I believe this is because he has become more abstract as a direct result of his transformation into the Platonic Hero.

   
   

   

   
   

2. The Strength

The other piece of evidence for this interpretation of One-Punch Man lies in the Monster Garou arc of the original manga. Garou is a human who wants to be a monster, and defeats heroes to achieve this title. Over time, he gains strength, and his appearance changes from human to that of a faceless horned demon. If Saitama is the superhero’s Platonic Form, then Garou comes close to being the supervillain’s.

Garou before and after

When asked to speculate about Garou and another monster’s strength, ONE said:

Garou vs Boros, who would win, you ask? Before (pre-monster Garou), it was quite obvious Boros was ways above him. But now that Garou has basically become the perfect monster, it is hard to tell who would win, it would've been one hell of a battle.

He describes Garou as a “perfect” monster, and he almost became the Platonic Form of The Supervillain. But comittment to the role was half-hearted and could therefore not break outside the sensible limits of the world the same way Saitama did. And even if he did, he could never overcome the rule of the genre:

The good guy beats the bad guy.

Shortly before Garou’s defeat, he sees Saitama for what he really is: a man who cannot play by the world’s established rules, a man who isn’t really a man, but an idea of something else—

A Superhero.

…Or maybe it’s a funny gag comic about a really strong guy.

-Brandon