ONE

There have been a lot of action figures made for a lot of superheroes over the years, but I don't think there's ever been a figure made of a hero less suited for "action" than ThreeZero's brand-new 1/6 scale figure of Saitama from One Punch Man. I mean, at least the Man-Eating Cow from The Tick --- who actually did get an action figure --- ate a man once or twice.

If you haven’t read the manga or seen the anime based on it, you’re really missing out, because One-Punch Man is absolutely amazing! The premise is pretty easy to explain: a young man named Saitama decides to become a hero, for fun, and after an intensely rigorous training regimen (100 push-ups, 100 sit-ups, 100 squats, and 10km running. Every. Single. Day.), he becomes so powerful no enemy can withstand more than one of his punches. He’s then confronted with the only foes he can’t beat with his fists: the unshakeable ennui of being completely unbeatable, the boredom of being unchallenged, and the malaise of everyday life in Z-City. If you still don’t want to believe me, just take a look at all of this incredible fan art One-Punch Man has inspired, check out the artists’ sites, and have your mind changed, because not enjoying Saitama’s adventures is only hurting yourself worse than consecutive normal punches.

Pretty much ever since the original webcomic by ONE premiered in 2009, fans of the superhero spoof One-Punch Man have been aching for an anime adaptation. Last fall, Madhouse --- the geniuses behind Summer Wars and Death Note, among other things --- granted their wish with a 12-episode anime based on the manga by ONE & Yuusuke Murata, which the record will show we at ComicsAlliance are big fans of. Now, thanks to Viz Media and Adult Swim's Toonami block, an English dub of that anime is finally available Stateside. So how is it? Pretty damn good.

Yusuke Murata and ONE's One Punch Man is arguably the best thing going on in superhero comics right now. It's got it all --- hilarious comedy, genuinely thrilling action, a complex and engaging setting that gets a whole lot bigger than you think it's going to be, and some truly amazing character designs. The only thing it didn't have was a line of high-end action figures, but now, the good people over at Figma have finally corrected that oversight. In January, Figma and the Good Smile Company will be releasing an action figure for Saitama, the hero who can defeat any opponent with a single punch --- which means that someone will finally be able to stand on my desk and tell Destro and Batman how to really get things done.

At this point, the odds are pretty good that you're already familiar with ONE. One-Punch Man, his co-creation with Yusuke Murata, has been one of the best superhero comics on the stands ever since it made its debut back in 2014. It's got a simple premise that somehow never gets boring, taking every single superhero fight to its logical conclusion by focusing on a hero who can end any fight with a single hit, and both the original manga and the anime based on it have become breakout hits over the past year. Now, however, we're getting to go a little deeper into ONE's library, with an anime based on his other comic, Mob Psycho 100. And the premise this time is that there's a psychic teenager, and if he ever gets too emotional, he's literally going to explode. Check out a trailer for it --- handily subtitled in English --- below!

If there's one thing you've probably gotten tired of reading about at ComicsAlliance, aside from endless essays that could best be summed up as "Batman is pretty cool," it's probably about how Yusuke Murata and ONE's One Punch Man might just be the single best superhero comic coming out right now. We've given it our prestigious awards, we've reviewed it extensively, and every chance I get, I talk about how its unique combination of hard-hitting action and hilarious comedy that manages to tweak a single joke over and over without ever getting old makes it a must read. And now, if you still haven't picked it up, there aren't a whole lot excuses left. Right now, Viz is offering up a digital bundle of the first five volumes --- over a thousand pages of one of the best comics on the stands --- for a thin twenty bucks.

This week, Viz and Comixology launched what is probably the most overwhelming digital comic sales since... well, since last month, I guess, when someone decided that it was a good idea to put literally every Dark Horse comic on sale for half off. This time, its's a sale on action manga from Shonen Jump, featuring almost a thousand volumes, including popular series like Akira Toriyama's Dragon Ball, Masashi Kishimoto's Naruto and Eichiro Oda's One Piece, but it's going fast. The sale ends tomorrow.

One of my resolutions this year was to widen my comics reading horizons and try to get a little more into manga, and one of the titles that came most highly recommended, particularly from former ComicsAlliance writer David Brothers, was One-Punch Man. It sounded good, but I'll admit that I was a little reluctant to dive in with a title like that. I mean, I like comic books about punching a lot, so

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