@ Maybe it was me who became more aware of the genre it is satirizing, so I was able to take it as a pop culture thing instead of something to be immersed in. The satire might not be consciously sought after by their creators, however.
47)
One Punch Man (2015)
It has been almost a year since I was this entertained by any animation. Last time I had such a good time was with the old classic, Gunbuster, which I was re-watching. One Punch Man, however, is the best animation I first watched in the past 12 months.
While I think I have watched almost all great animation that has been produced a few titles like this proves that from time to time a new masterpiece gets made: One Punch Man aired in october, november and decenber 2015, being super fresh. While it may be a bit early to say it's a masterpiece, it certainly hit the spot: all the characters are very memorable, all the action is amazing and the animation is also among the best ever for a TV show and superior to many film, specially in it's aggressive use of animation to portray extremely fast/aggressive shoots that are impossible to portray in any other way.
One Punch Man is also now my favorite animated comedy. While I have watched plenty of animation I don't think I ever watched a comedy that I found to be on the same league as the more serious dramas I watched. Indeed, if asked before a few weeks ago I would think that my favorite animated comedy would be Futurama, which is very good but not on the league of Serial Experiments Lain or Haibane Renmei.
While One Punch Man is not exactly "artistic" it is still a very memorable experience. I usually don't care much about superheroes, although I find their superhuman habilities entertaining but I never found anything (movies, comics or series) so good as One Punch Man.
The idea of the show is that of a character who is essentially invincible, infinitely more powerful than anything else on the universe. And how boring is to be such a character: anything he faces, he deals with without any significant effort. For him, to kill Godzilla is like for me to go to the kitchen and pick up a glass of water. Although the show introduces a cast of "normal" superheroes and even weak superheroes so that we can also feel some tension (mainly involved in the "normal" superheroes holding the monster without casualties long enough for One Punch Man to arrive and kill it, instantly).
In a way I feel like I am watching DBZ again, since the fights are similarly over the top but it's self aware and sarcastic: in a way it makes fun of our own child selfs and our former obssessions but also essentially allowing us to celebrate our love for that sort of entertainment, since many fights are also played straight.
This is essential and indeed the best animation of 2015.
My list of top animated series of recent years:
2010 - K-On!!
2011 - PMMM
2012 - From the New World
2013 - Yamato 2199
2014 - Ping Pong
2015 - One Punch Man
Of all of these K-On!! and One Punch Man are the least artistically sophisticated, however.