Television series
One-Punch Man
Saitama trained so hard he became unbeatable, and now every fight ends in a single punch before he can even work up any excitement. One-Punch Man takes gorgeous, kinetic shonen animation and uses it to undercut the genre's whole premise — the joke isn't whether the hero wins, it's how bored he is doing it. Funny, oddly melancholy, and a genuine visual treat.
If you liked this
My Hero Academia2016
The genre One-Punch Man is quietly mocking, played completely straight — earnest teen heroes, escalating powers, a sprawling colourful cast. Watching it clarifies exactly which shonen conventions OPM is sending up.
But Its sincerity and slower shonen pacing can feel plain after OPM's brisk, self-aware jokes.
Mob Psycho 1002016
From the same creator, ONE, with even more inventive animation. Another overpowered lead who avoids fighting, but the tone turns strange and unexpectedly tender in ways OPM never quite risks.
But Less punching, more feelings — if you came for spectacle, the emotional core might catch you off guard.
Kill la Kill2013
Studio Trigger's maximalist, screaming, gloriously stupid action anime — the same appetite for pushing fights past absurdity, cranked up further with fashion-based superpowers and constant one-upmanship.
But Its manic energy and fanservice are a lot, and the plot logic barely tries to hold together.
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Watchmen2019
OPM turns an emptied-out superhero fantasy into comedy; Watchmen treats the exact same premise — power with no real opposition — as tragedy, tracing what unbeatable strength does to a soul over decades.
It takes the same premise — beings whose power erases all real stakes — and follows it to its darkest, most morally serious conclusion, asking what godlike ability actually does to a person.
But Dense, slow-building prestige TV with real trauma and violence; nobody here is laughing.
More like this (8)
Dragon Ball Z1989no page yet
The power-scaling granddaddy that One-Punch Man is directly parodying — training arcs, scouters, endlessly inflating strength levels. Essential context for half the jokes you just watched.
But It's a genuine slog by modern pacing standards, decades old and filler-heavy throughout.
Saiki Kusuo no Ψ Nan2016no page yet
Another comedy about overwhelming power making life unbearably easy and thus deeply boring, delivered with rapid-fire gags and a similarly deadpan, weary lead.
But Psychic powers instead of punches means a lot less action and a very different comic rhythm.
Tiger & Bunny2011no page yet
Superheroes as sponsored, camera-ready celebrities — a sharper, more pointed satire of hero culture than OPM attempts, anchored by a genuinely moving central partnership.
But More earnest drama, less outright silliness; the corporate satire is smart but slower-burning.
Gintama2006no page yet
Proof a show can be gag-a-minute idiotic and then, without warning, devastatingly sincere — the same tonal whiplash OPM flirts with, sustained over hundreds of episodes.
But It's enormous, meandering, and leans heavily on Japanese pop-culture references that reward patience.
Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku wo!2016
A different flavour of overpowered-protagonist comedy — the joke here is bad luck and incompetence rather than invincibility, but the genre-mocking spirit and quick pacing feel like close cousins.
But Its humour leans hard on isekai in-jokes and can feel juvenile if that genre isn't your thing.
Baki2018no page yet
Pure, unfiltered martial-arts machismo with zero interest in subtlety — a good chaser if you want more absurd fight choreography minus any of OPM's self-awareness.
But It plays its excess completely straight, with none of the winking commentary that makes OPM smart.
Columbo1968
OPM gets its comedy by removing the shonen genre's core suspense — you know Saitama wins before he swings. Columbo does the same to detective fiction: you see the killer up front, so the fun is entirely in the how, not the who.
A masterclass in stripping suspense out of a genre and discovering the pleasure was somewhere else entirely — Peter Falk's rumpled detective always seems one step behind and never is.
But Slow, talky 1970s television with no fights, no spectacle, just patient, circling conversation.
The Tick2016no page yet
Long before OPM, The Tick was already sending up an unstoppable, oblivious superhero who never doubts himself for a second — the Western cartoon cousin OPM never knew it had, from an earlier era and an entirely different animation tradition.
Gleefully dumb, deeply silly, and decades ahead of its time mocking spandex heroics — a big blue, nearly indestructible idiot punches problems, sincerely, forever.
But Cheap-looking 90s Saturday-morning animation and a goofier, far less polished sense of humour than OPM's.
People
Cast
Recommended by
Mob Psycho 100, My Hero Academia, Kaiju No. 8, Solo Leveling, The Eminence in Shadow, Hataraku Maou-sama!