One-Punch Man Is Finally Ending Its Most Controversial Arc Ahead of Season 3

Warning: Contains spoilers for One-Punch Man chapter #201.One-Punch Man has always been big, and 2025 will see it be bigger than ever for both its anime and its manga. For the anime, after years of silence, season 3 is finally set to premiere this upcoming fall, and while promotional material hasn’t left the best impression on fans, seeing the anime come back after so long is nonetheless exciting.

For the manga, One-Punch Man is exciting because of new developments with the manga’s take on the Ninja arc. Between various hiatuses and manga author Yusuke Murata putting the series through multiple redraws, the Ninja arc has been running for almost two years now, and that, among other reasons, has made it highly contentious among even the manga’s most diehard fans. Fortunately, One-Punch Man is finally ending its controversial Ninja arc in the lead-up to One-Punch Man season 3’s premiere, and the way it handled it was nothing but perfect.

Why One-Punch Man’s Ninja Arc Is So Controversial With Fans

One-Punch Man’s Ninja Arc Controversy Explained

The first issue that needs to be addressed is why, exactly, One-Punch Man’s Ninja arc is so controversial. The Ninja arc has been running for almost two years thanks to hiatuses and redraws, and while hiatuses have always been an issue, the redraws are often disliked for making people have to read through the same story multiple times with few notable differences. Overall, One-Punch Man’s Ninja arc is controversial because of how long it’s been taking thanks to hiatuses and redraws, and with how little the redraws have changed about the story, it’s even worse than usual.

The execution of the Ninja arc has also been a major part of its controversy. While the Ninja arc in the webcomic was a short arc focused on Sonic and Flash’s character development, the manga’s take made it into something far bigger that turned Empty Void from a joke villain into a major threat connected to God, all while giving him a new backstory connected to Blast and filling every chapter with massive fight scenes. One-Punch Man’s Ninja arc became controversial for making the story far bigger than it needed to be, and that only got worse with every redraw.

Going off of that, the biggest sticking point to many was God being at the center of the plot. As much as the manga has benefited from expanding on God’s presence, it’s also made the story too large in scale at times to the point of becoming repetitive, and the Ninja arc was a major offender because everything done with Empty Void felt largely derivative of Garou. The biggest issue with One-Punch Man’s Ninja arc was that the new focus on God made the story boring, and not even the gorgeous fight scenes in every chapter could change that.

How One-Punch Man Ended And Fixed Its Most Controversial Arc

The Final Ending To The Ninja Arc Explained

The One-Punch Man manga’s take on the Ninja arc has been controversial for numerous reasons, and its ending found the perfect solution to it all. 2025 saw the manga go through another series of redraws that reset the Ninja arc, and it mostly played out the same as before, albeit with more content directly lifted from the webcomic. All of that changed with the recent release of the revised version of chapter #201, however, as One-Punch Man’s most recent redraw had Saitama defeat Empty Void with one punch offscreen, as opposed to making him a major threat like before.

Not only does Empty Void being reduced to a joke villain serve as an apology for how much time was wasted on him and his story, but his defeat is directly lifted from the webcomic, where the punchline was always that he was built up to be a major threat, only for Saitama to treat him like he was nothing. The ultimate conclusion to One-Punch Man’s Ninja arc works both for how much it trivialized Empty Void and for being more like the webcomic, and after spending almost two years on the arc, it was more than warranted.

One-Punch Man’s Manga Vs. Webcomic Debate Has Never Been Bigger

Which Version Of One-Punch Man Is Superior?

Ever since the manga’s take on the Monster Association arc, fans have constantly debated over which version of the story is best; while the manga has objectively better art and has gained a lot from the increased focus on God and Blast, many people defend the webcomic for having better pacing and all-around tighter writing, with the conclusion to the fight with Garou being a major sticking point. That debate is stronger than ever now, as One-Punch Man’s manga reworking the Ninja arc to be more like the webcomic once again calls into question which version is better.

As for which version of One-Punch Man is actually better, that’s still hard to say. While the webcomic is good for having a more straightforward story and much better pacing, the manga still has plenty of merit thanks to its gorgeous artwork and for how much it fleshes out the story and adds original content, even if not everything lands. Preferring one version of One-Punch Man doesn’t mean the other version isn’t worth reading, as they each offer a unique take on the same story, but it’s hard to argue with why the debate is as big as it is.

One-Punch Man’s Latest Arc Proves That It Has A Major Problem

The Biggest Problem With The One-Punch Man Manga Explained

Even if one version of One-Punch Man isn’t necessarily inferior to the other, it’s nonetheless clear that the manga has a problem it has to overcome. ONE and Yusuke Murata probably could have found a way to force the Ninja arc to work, but it was completely abandoned, and Empty Void was brought back to being a worthless joke villain. As such, One-Punch Man’s manga defaulting back to the webcomic’s take on the Ninja arc can be seen as an admission that the constant escalation and focus on God doesn’t always work, something fans have been complaining about for years.

The manga likely won’t go back to being a 1:1 adaptation of the webcomic, especially with how much the story has already diverged, but if the most recent redraw acknowledges that the manga’s current style isn’t working, then future arcs of the One-Punch Man manga will likely continue to tone things down to avoid the writing issues that plagued the Ninja arc. How that will ultimately play out is still up in the air, but if the Ninja arc is anything to go on, then the One-Punch Man manga should be the strongest it’s been in years.

One-Punch Man

Created by

ONE, Yusuke Murata

First Film

One-Punch Man: Road to Hero

Cast

Makoto Furukawa, Kaito Ishikawa, Max Mittelman, Zach Aguilar, Robbie Daymond, Hikaru Midorikawa, Marieve Herington, Laura Post, Rich Brown

Video Game(s)

One Punch Man: A Hero Nobody Knows, One-Punch Man: Road to Hero