The One Punch Man Autumn Festival Event ワンパン秋祭り was nothing short of amazing. I was able to attend both the Afternoon and Evening sessions, and here is a super super long and detailed report of what happened during the event! Enjoy~

I will divide the events into different sections as the event was also organized with beginning, middle, and ending parts, so hopefully this will make for easier reading!

INTRODUCTION

The stage for the event is decked out in a Matsuri (festival) setting, with lanterns and taiko drums as well as a festive elevated stage where performers usually stand. I thought this was a nice touch as it really set the mood for the event.

The One Punch Man Autumn Festival event starts with a small audio skit with Genos and Saitama. Genos tells Saitama that he needs to wake up because todya is an important day, but Saitama is napping. Genos asks the audience to be quiet and to not disturb his Sensei, as he knows Saitama will wake up soon. After some time passes, Genos realizes that Saitama is not waking up so he tries to shake and poke Saitama to wake up.

He finally does and goes, “OKAY I’M UP WHAT DO YOU WANT??” Genos then tells Saitama that, “Sensei, today is the important day! You must introduce all the heroes to us!” to which Saitama replies, “Nah, don’t want to.” Genos then says, “But Sensei you must! Everyone is here!” Saitama then says if the audience is having fun, that’s all that matters right?

He then tells Genos, “Okay fine, let’s hurry up and do it 早くやろうぜ,” which is hilarious because it also has a double meaning which means “all right let’s hurry and DO IT,” which caused a lot of people to laugh lol. Genos then says “YES OF COURSE! We must do a countdown!” Then Saitama tells the audience, “Okay will you guys do a countdown for us?” Genos then talks about how amazing countdowns are.

Saitama then says, “Man, what are you blabbering about? By the way, Genos, what day is it today?” Genos then says “Today is Sunday.” Saitama then freaks out and says, “WAIT! TODAY IS THE AUTUMN FESTIVAL! WE GOT TO GO NOW!” and Genos tries to rebut, saying “But wait, Sensei, yes today is the Autumn Festival but–” and is cut off by Saitama suddenly bolting out the door and saying, “No no, you’re going to make me late! I’ll be going ahead first! You better follow and not be late!” Genos then says, “OKAY! WAIT UP FOR ME SENSEIIIIIII!!!!!!”

The event then officially starts!

JAM PROJECT OPENING SONG

The event pretty much starts with the One Punch Man Opening Song, “The Hero.” JAM Project comes onto stage, and one of the members screams the iconic, “ONE PUNCHHHHHHH!!!!!!!” and they proceed to sing the whole song. After the song is done, they leave the stage and this segues into the character voice actors coming onto the stage.

CHARACTER VOICE ACTORS INTRODUCTION



After JAM Project leaves, each character’s voice actor has a little intro on stage. Each voice actor says a line that their characters say and then introduces themselves. The introduction starts with King’s voice actor first (Hiroki Yasumoto), then Puri Puri Prisoner (Masaya Onosaka), then the rest of the characters as follows:

Sonic (Yuki Kaji): “I AM THE SPEED OF SOUND NINJA SONIC!” and Puri Puri Prisoner says “SONIC YOU ARE SO HOT AHHHHH!” LOL

Tatsumaki (Aoi Yuki): “If I’m not here, all you guys will be screwed!”

Fubuki (Saori Hayami): “Guess the Fubuki Gang has to help out today too.”

Genos (Ishikawa Kaito): “Incinerate. I will eliminate you.” The Evening Session’s line was “Sensei, please make me your disciple!”

Saitama (Furukawa Makoto): “I’m a hero for a hobby!”

Throughout the entire event, King and Puri Puri Prisoner’s VAs were the MCs, so they had the most speaking lines and really got the crowd going. Puri Puri Prisoner’s VA (Masaya Onosaka) is a seiyuu veteran, so he really knew what to say to keep the event super energetic.

We then together start the festival officially by punching into the air on 1, 2, 3, and saying “ONE PUNCH AUTUMN FESTIVAL!”

FESTIVAL MEMORIES

The first segment of the live is a cast talk where they recall some of their memories of a festival. For example, Yuki Kaji (Sonic) remembers one distinct festival memory where he had to go to a ghost house, which he hates. Saori Hayami (Fubuki) also remembers when she went to a festival and heard someone with a really nice voice, and that was one of the reasons why she wanted to become a voice actress lol. I can’t remember what the other voice actors’ festival memories were, but they were all pretty interesting and funny.

DRAWING ON BALLOONS

After the cast finished the “Festival Memories” section, King’s VA mentions that in celebration of this event, they are going to have all the voice actors draw their characters’ faces on balloons. Yuki Kaji (Sonic’s VA) and Tatsumaki’s VA are AMAZING ARTISTS LOL. Their drawings were super awesome and looked exactly like their characters. It was pretty funny that Fubuki’s VA really sucked at drawing (her balloon is on the far left in the picture above), which is kind of hilarious since her character Fubuki has an inferiority complex with her sister, and Tatsumaki’s VA is clearly better at drawing lol.

At one point in the evening session, Tatsumaki’s VA was trying to get a pen and then she sort of fell off the bench she was sitting on with her legs kind of hanging off the edge of the bench, and Genos’ VA immediately goes in front of her does this hilarious pose to shield her yukata from being exposed (to be honest I could see her underwear from where I was sitting) LOL. It was pretty funny. Genos’ VA drew Genos on the balloon in the afternoon and then he drew the S-Class Pig God for the evening one. Saitama’s VA drew Saitama for the afternoon session and Saitama’s Oppai t-shirt for the evening session. Sonic’s VA drew Sonic being punched in the dick face for the afternoon session and then a creepy face Sonic for the evening sessions, to which he re-enacted and got the audience doubling over since he looked exactly like the creepy face Sonic lol.

EVENT GOODS ADVERTISEMENT SECTION

For the sake of convenience from here on out, I will be referring to each voice actor as their character, so Furukawa Makoto will be Saitama, Ishikawa Kaito will be Genos, and so on. Hope that’s all right~



After the balloon drawing event was done, for the afternoon session, Saitama, Genos, and Sonic went to put them in the lobby while Tatsumaki, Fubuki, King, and Puri Puri Prisoner stayed to do a short advertising segment where they showcased all the goods that were available for purchase at the event.

Shameless plug, but these limited edition One Punch Man Autumn Festival Event goods are still available for purchase on Aitai☆Kuji for those interested!

For the evening session, Sonic, King, and Puri Puri Prisoner go outside to put the balloons away while Saitama, Genos, Tatsumaki, and Fubuki stay behind to do the promotional goods section, which was just shameless advertising for people to go and buy the merchandise that was sold at the event.

There is one part where Saitama is explaining about the “tenugui” (printed cloth that Saitama is wearing in this art here), and that you could still buy it in the lobby if you want to wear it the same way Saitama is wearing it like so:

This was pretty funny because Genos is the one who was holding the cloth and then he goes, “SENSEI! Let me put it on for you!” Ishikawa was in character as Genos when he said this lol. Actually, there are TONS of moments when Ishikawa suddenly goes in character and talks in his Genos voice, saying “SENSEI–!” and then making hilarious comments. This was AMAZING because it literally was Genos talking lol. Anyway, Genos then takes the cloth and carefully places it over Saitama’s head, and fans were going crazy because he got all close to Saitama when he did this (mind you these are the VAs just doing some fan-servicey stuff lol). It looked like how this Twitter user drew it:

Looked really gay basically. Saitama’s VA then goes “Oh, thanks.” and Genos goes “Of course.” and pats the cloth down like the cyborg waifu he is LOL.

Tatsumaki and Fubuki also introduced some goods, and Tatsumaki’s VA was super excited to introduce Fubuki’s goods and Fubuki’s VA was also super excited to introduce her sister’s goods lol. After the goods section was done, King, Sonic, and Puri Puri Prisoner return and the next section’s stage set-up is revealed!

LIVE DRAMA SKIT PART 1

In this section of the event, the Afternoon and Evening sessions were different as it featured different drama skits. The Afternoon session was about Fubuki, Tatsumaki, and Fubuki starts the drama skit saying, “This is a story that happened before I met Saitama, some time ago…” The basic gist of the skit is that Fubuki was trying to save someone by fighting a monster (who was voiced by Puri Puri Prisoner’s VA I think) to save the person’s life (I think the civilian was voiced by King’s VA) and gets in trouble but is saved by Tatsumaki. This further drives her inferiority complex with her sister. Fubuki gets injured pretty badly and wakes up in a hospital with Tatsumaki by her side. Tatsumaki tells Fubuki that the person who she was trying to saved got obliterated by the monster and that the entire city was destroyed. Fubuki then wallows in guilt, thinking that once again she failed to help out civilians because she was too weak. Tatsumaki then says, “HAAAA JUST KIDDING! HAHAHAH I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU FELL FOR IT!” Fubuki then get furious and tells Tatsumaki, “JUST LEAVE ME! GET OUT!!!!!!” Tatsumaki then leaves Fubuki while laughing, and that’s the end of the drama skit lol.

The Evening session had a drama skit with Sonic, Puri Puri Prisoner, and a civilian (voiced by King’s VA). This also happens before Sonic gets captured after his brawl with Saitama. Apparently this gave some background into Puri Puri Prisoner’s past, when he was supposedly some boss of a gang. Sonic gets caught up in one of their shenanigans, and a member of Puri’s gang (voiced by King) tells him that he shouldn’t get the boss mad. Sonic asks, “Why? What’s wrong with getting him mad?” And King says, “Our boss is…a guy, and he also likes…guys…so he might you know, take advantage of you.” Sonic doesn’t get it at first but then goes, “OHHH…uhh….shit.” and then sometime later Puri Puri Prisoner tries to hit on Sonic. I think there’s a flashback to present day when Puri Puri Prisoner meets Sonic after they break out of jail, and he tries to hit on Sonic again lol. I don’t remember this part that much because I actually had to go to the bathroom in the middle of it LOL sorry!

After the drama skit was finished, staff bring some props up to the stage to begin the next section of the event!

FESTIVAL GAMES

The festival games section was HILARIOUS. Basically all the character VAs got to choose which festival game they wanted to play, either the Shooting Game (use a toy gun to shoot down an object), Super Ball Scoop (a ton of bouncy balls are floating in a tank, and you use a flimsy scoop to try to get one- harder than it looks because the balls are heavy and the scoops are made out of edible paper) , or Toss-a-Hoop. Each item they got during the game had a number in the back, and the number corresponded to either a dare or a question about One Punch Man that they had to answer.

Tatsumaki and Fubuki both played the shooting games in the Afternoon session and Evening session, respectively, and answered a question about One Punch Man. I don’t quite remember what their question was. In the Afternoon session, Sonic’s VA played the shooting game and hit Sea King and got the number 19, which was a dare. He had to drink the Azuki Jelly Cider that Saitama likes in the manga in one gulp. He made it look very easy lol.

Puri Puri Prisoner also ends up doing a dare, which is to drink a nasty sour soy milk drink “Mozuku Soy Milk” that Saitama is seen holding a carton of in this artwork here:

Puri Puri Prisoner says it’s one of the most vile things he’s ever drank LOL.

Also, during the afternoon session, Genos volunteered to play the Ball Scoop, but the dialogue that happened for this was HILARIOUS. It went as follows:

Genos (Ishikawa): *raises his hand* I want to scoop some balls (he uses the word 玉 tama, not ボール ball, which can also mean balls as in, testicles LOL).

King: You really love scooping those balls, don’t you?

Genos: *suggestively* Ohhhhh yeah, I really like scooping those balls. In fact, I’ll even try to scoop TWO balls.

King: Which ball are you eyeballing?

Genos: I’m going to try to scoop the yellow ball.

Audience: *dying*

Puri Puri Prisoner: HEY LET’S TRY TO KEEP THIS CLEAN […] HE WANTS THE YELLOW BALL!!!

Genos then tries to scoop the balls with a flimsy scoop but he fails miserably and throws all the scoops into the pool and goes like “SCREW THIS!” Because he failed to scoop the ball, he has to do a dare by drinking the vinegar soy milk.



He drinks it and gags and spits out some of the soy milk white liquid…stuff… (this imagery looked super wrong, uh…if you know what I mean LOL). The audience is laughing like crazy. King asks Genos, “So, what did you think of the soy milk drink?” and Genos goes, “IT WAS DISGUSTING.”

All the while, Furukawa (Saitama’s VA) is extremely quiet the entire time and has barely been talking. Genos then tells him, in character, “SENSEI WHY ARE YOU NOT TALKING? PLEASE TALK TO US!!!!!!”

King then asks Saitama what game he wants to play. Saitama says he’ll also try the ball scoop game. Saitama ends up successfully scooping a ball, but then HE EATS THE SCOOP AFTERWARDS. The scoop is technically made out of rice paper, so it is edible, BUT STILL LOL THAT IS NASTY. Genos then says, in character, “It is as expected of my Sensei! He NEVER wastes food!” LOLOLOL.

In the Evening session, King, Sonic and Genos AGAIN has to drink that nasty soy milk drink, and all of them comment that it literally is one of the worst things ever lol. Saitama then says, “Well, since everyone else drank it, guess I’ll have a go at it too,” and drinks it and thinks it actually tastes pretty good LOLOL. Oh Furukawa, what will we do with you.

The characters play a few more games and soon after, the Festival Game section is finished.

SAITAMA TEACHES US THE ONE PUNCH ANTHEM DANCE

Before the next drama skit, there is a video of the Saitama puppet teaching us how to do the One Punch Anthem Dance that is present in the ending for the One Punch Man OVAs. We learn the dance moves by some guy dressed up in a Saitama hero suit with a crudely photoshopped Saitama face over the guy’s real face LOL. We then copy his moves twice and the puppet Saitama returns and tells us we need to remember the moves, but even if we don’t, it’s okay as we have light sticks we can just wave around instead haha.

ONE PUNCH MAN AUTUMN FESTIVAL EVENT LIVE SKIT PART 2

After the Festival Games section is complete, the stage is cleared and Saitama and Genos step up to their mics to perform the second drama skit of the event. This Drama Skit is called the “One Punch Man Autumn Festival Hero Gathering,” and starts off with Saitama and Genos at another festival together, this time in yukata. Saitama was invited by Genos to go, and he wanted to tag along to make sure that Genos had fun. I wrote a long summary and included the audio clip for this drama skit here.

During the skit as well as several times during the event, the characters would make fun of Sonic and say “Speed of Sound Panic” or “Omiya Sonic City,” which was the name of the venue the event was held at, which I thought was really funny. There is a part in the skit where Saitama and Genos see Sonic run past them being chased by Puri Puri Prisoner, and Saitama goes, “Hey, isn’t that Omiya Sonic?” and Genos says “Why yes that seems to be Omiya Sonic, I mean, Speed of Sound Sonic.” I thought it was a nice funny touch.

At the end of the drama skit, Saitama and Genos go together to the Bon Odori, and this is the part where they ask the audience to dance the One Punch Anthem. All the characters since the One Punch Man Anthem while the audience dance alongs with them. There is one part in the evening session I believe when Genos looks at Puri Puri Prisoner (his voice actor actually donned a red fundoshi, which is literally a red man thong LOL). Genos sees Puri Puri Prisoner’s red man thong and says, really loudly, “SENSEI! I WANT TO WEAR A RED MAN THONG TOO!” The audience laughs.

After the drama skit is done, the actors leave the stage, and the next section is a live performance by Hiroko Moriguchi, the woman who sings the ending theme song, “Hoshi Yori Saki Ni Mitsukete Ageru” (I’ll find you before the stars do).

ONE PUNCH MAN ENDING THEME SONG PERFORMANCE

Hiroko Moriguchi comes to the stage and sings the ending theme song, which was beautiful live. The screen above her plays the ending sequence in its entirety. Afterwards, she has a small MC section where she tells us her inspiration to write the song, saying how she wanted to write a song that embodies the love and admiration that someone has for the person who is out fighting for them.

She then segues into the second song that is also featured in the last episode of Season 1, “Kanashimi Tachi Wo Dakishimete” (Embrace the Sadness). This live performance was so sad because during the song, the scenes that play on the screen above her are of Saitama alone, washing the dishes in his house alone, sitting in his house alone, going shopping alone, looking for monsters alone, wandering the city alone, going to the moon alone, running around alone, IT WAS SO SAD I CRIED LOL. They also included the scene where Saitama goes up to a cat, but the cat runs away from him.

However, at the end of this live performance, they show the scene from the ending song where the cat comes to Saitama’s apartment here:

I thought it was a nice touch, because it shows that Saitama is not alone, I guess, and perhaps Genos is in the apartment waiting for him? I DON’T KNOW IT WAS REALLY EMOTIONAL LOL.

After Hiroko Moriguchi is finished with her two performances, King and Puri Puri Prisoner’s VAs come to her and do a small interview section where they ask why she got into singing, what her motivation was, etc. She said she was very thankful to be able to sing for a song that premiered in a Gundam anime a long time ago, and it was after that that she wanted to pursue a career in music. Also, in the evening session, they asked her a question, “If you could date any of the guys in One Punch Man, who would you date?”

She then replies, “Well, Saitama would be cool since he would protect you from bad guys, but I think I would want to date Puri Puri Prisoner. Because he seems to be really in touch with his feminine side. It would be like having a best girlfriend to go around with!”

Then Puri Puri Prisoner’s VA goes, in character, “Um, yeah that would be great but, I like men, so…..” LOLOL.

Hiroko also notes that the song, “Hoshi Yori Saki Ni Mitsukete Ageru” got 15th on the iTunes ranking outside of Japan, which was a huge feat. She is very thankful for all fans, both in Japan and outside of Japan. Puri Puri Prisoner and King’s VAs were like, “WE ARE POPULAR ABROAD? HOW COME WE DID NOT KNOW THIS!???” which I thought was really funny because it just shows how isolated Japan is from the rest of the world lol.

JAM PROJECT “THE HERO” ENCORE PERFORMANCE



After their interview with Hiroko, she leaves the stage and JAM Project comes back on stage and does a short interview session with King and Puri Puri Prisoner as well. JAM Project also notes that the song “The Hero” had been viewed over 10,000,000 times on YouTube, and Puri Puri Prisoner goes, “WHAT THE??? YOU GUYS ARE YOUTUBE FAMOUS!!!” and King goes, “No, not YouTube famous. This is not a Vlog!” It was pretty funny that they brought this up because JAM Project also noted how interesting that foreigners LOVE One Punch Man.

Puri Puri Prisoner then notes that it’s probably because of the fact that One Punch Man focuses on heroes, and people abroad, Americans in particular, love heroes aka Marvel, DC Comics, etc. The appeal that One Punch Man has must be because of that, and JAM Project also agreed that that was probably one of the reasons why OPM is so popular abroad. However, everyone in the audience were super surprised that One Punch Man had that much popularity abroad, and I thought this was interesting because as someone who is in touch with both Japanese and international audiences, I find it interesting how in Japan, the majority of the fans are women while abroad is the exact opposite.

For example, during the event, the entire audience was comprised of probably 85% or more women and about 15% men. Among a sea of females in each row, you would see maybe 1 or 2 guys, which was pretty surprising for me as I expected there to be more guys who liked One Punch Man here in Japan, but judging from the event-goers, this was not the case.

JAM Project also noted how during Anime Expo in Los Angeles, the crowd probably didn’t know how to speak Japanese but they still sang along in Japanese to the song, so they were really thankful that One Punch Man has such dedicated fans all over the world.

After the talk, JAM Project goes and plays an encore performance of “THE HERO” once again!

KING DRAMA SKIT AND ONE PUNCH MAN SEASON 2 ANNOUNCEMENT

After JAM Project finishes their encore performance of “THE HERO,” the stage goes dark, and it lights up to show King standing in front of a mic. He then begins the last drama skit of the event. This drama skit is actually hilarious because Saitama, Genos, Sonic, Tatsumaki, Fubuki, and Puri Puri Prisoner’s VAs voice random characters, and Sonic has one line where he’s a girl who says, “OH MY GOSH KING YOU ARE SO AWESOME AND HOT!!!!!!” It was so funny because Yuki Kaji is hilarious lol.

Basically the synopsis of the drama skit is King is walking down the street and is confronted by a monster (voiced by Puri Puri Prisoner’s VA). The bystanders watch as King tries to “fight” the monster and they each make comments like, “OH MY GOD IT’S KING!” and “S-CLASS KING WE’RE SAVED!” and “KING YOU ARE MY HERO YOU ARE SO COOOOOL!” etc.

King’s Engine then starts roaring and the monster apologizes for causing trouble and goes away.

King then walks away and says, “Ugh…why me…”

The stage then goes black and the screen above the actors reads “ワンパンマン第２期制作決定 ONE PUNCH SEASON 2 CONFIRMED” and the entire audience goes WILD for both afternoon and evening sessions. The amount of fangirl (and some fanboy) screams were INSANE LOL. I couldn’t hear anything amidst the screaming even though the actors were talking during this lol.

After the audience quiets a bit, each actor says how thankful they are that there will be a Season 2 of One Punch Man.

ONE PUNCH MAN AUTUMN FESTIVAL ENDING AND THANK YOUS

In the Afternoon session, the character voice actors keep their thanks quite short, but in the Evening session, all the voice actors as well as JAM Project and Hiroko Moriguchi come on stage wearing the Saitama face t-shirt specifically designed for the event. Each person voices their thanks and how grateful they are that One Punch Man is still continuing into a Season 2. Genos’ VA (Ishikawa) says, “I am so glad to be able to be able to reprise my role as Genos again not immediately, but in the near future.” The last person to speak his thanks is Saitama’s VA (Furukawa), and Genos says, in character, “Sensei, please tell us your thoughts!” And Puri Puri Prisoner says, “Yeah try to make it long!”

Furukawa gets nervous and tries to sound emotional, but then people start laughing because he keeps going “Umm….uhh….err….” and then he says, in Saitama’s voice, “HEY I’M TRYING MY BEST TO BE SERIOUS HERE!”

Everyone in the audience then screams “GANBATTE!!!!!!”

Saitama’s VA goes, “Man, I tried to sound cool…” then everyone says “It’s okay you’re super cool!” and “DO YOUR BEST!” and then Genos’ VA, in character, yells “YOU’RE SUPER COOL!”

Saitama then says, “Really everyone…” *puts away his mic and yells on the top of his lungs* “THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR SUPPORT!!!!!!!” And the audience applauds.

Saitama then asks us to end the event by doing ONE PUNCH, where we ball our fist and on the count of three, yell on the top of our lungs, “ONE PUNCH!!!!!!” and air punch, which everyone did while holding their light sticks, which we all turned to the color red, and it was amazing because we all did it at the same time and the crowd was a sea of red, Saitama’s color. After we all did the ONE PUNCH, there were tons of streamers that shot out from the stage that had the ONE PUNCH MAN written all over it.

AND THAT WAS THE END OF THE EVENT!

ONE PUNCH MAN AUTUMN FESTIVAL FOOD

There were still a lot of things I did outside of the event, specifically trying a bunch of One Punch Man themed food. Here is some pictures of the One Punch Man food that they were selling outside:

I tried the “Saitama and Mumen Rider friendship Oden” with Saitama’s face imprinted on a boiled egg. I also had the Saitama Face Obanyaki (filled with red bean) as well as Saitama’s favorite “Azuki Jelly Drink,” which was basically just Sprite with red beans and red bean flavored jelly (it actually tasted really good). I also tried Genos’ Blue Hawaii, which was just sprite with blue Hawaii syrup. The food came with special One Punch Man Autumn Festival coasters, so that was pretty cool.

Also, in the lobby of the Omiya Sonic Hall, they had cut-outs of the characters as well as flowers for Furukawa Makoto (Saitama’s VA) since it was also his birthday that day!

The flower arrangements were all super cute and funny, especially with the Saitama balloon faces. Also, tons of fans had amazing merchandise collections on their itabags, and I met a girl who even made Saitama and Genos plushes!

All in all, the event was amazing, and the energy and hype for One Punch Man Season 2 is unreal. The actors all noted how they would love to do another event like this after the Second Season is over, and here’s to hoping that they’ll announce a Season 3 should another event like this happen!

Also, for those interested in the One Punch Man Autumn Festival event merchandise, Aitai☆Kuji is still carrying a ton of acrylic charms, limited edition t-shirts, and pamphlets of the event here!

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THANK YOU EVERYONE FOR READING THIS SUPER LONG EVENT REPORT! I HOPE YOU HAD AS MUCH FUN READING IT AS I HAD ATTENDING THE EVENT! I HOPE TO BRING YOU MORE EVENT REPORTS FROM HERE ON OUT, SO THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR SUPPORT~♥♥♥