One-Punch Man

One-Punch Man is overblown action in the best possible way. The series is about Saitama, the eponymous “One-Punch Man”, a superhero that is so powerful that he kills all of his enemies in one punch. Because of this lack of a challenge, Saitama has developed a blasé look on life as he searches for someone stronger than him. The fact that this extremely overpowered person looks like this is the perfect unassuming icing on the cake.

It’s encouraging to see how well One-Punch Man nails the action and humor that it goes for, and it’s funny that in a year that has seen people clamoring for (and receiving) more Dragon Ball, this is the series that seems to be satisfying most of these people’s desires for overblown, God-level battles (the work done in the first season finale is truly a sight to behold in both animation and fighting).

On the other extreme of this, the series is also very interested in the hierarchy of these superheroes, designating them classes, rules and restrictions, and through this we get a number of delightful ancillary low-level heroes that kind of out-Venture Bros the Venture Bros. Here you’re getting such absurd fighters like Tank Top Vegetarian, Superalloy Darkshine, Handsomely Masked Sweet Mask, Metal Bat, Pri-Pri-Prisoner, Spring Mustache, and License-less Rider, who is simply a cyclist who uses his bike as a weapon. I dare you to watch that theme song and not want to give this adrenaline shot a peak.

Death Parade

Death Parade is a perfect mix of the playful and the macabre, resulting in a surprisingly profound series. The anime is set at a way station of sorts, and when two people die at the exact same time, they’re sent to this location to play a game against each other. Scrubbed of their memories, these two people must compete in some sort of parlor game in order to determine their future—which of them gets to have an afterlife, and which is just gone, essentially.

There’s something intrinsically compelling about watching people play a game of air hockey, billiards, or even Twister, for the highest stakes imaginable. Each game also has twisted tricks incorporated into them, such as the balls in billiards each corresponding to a different body part that will experience pain upon being sunk.The competition at work in each episode already makes this a suspenseful show, but it gains even more poignancy with what each episode is trying to say about life and death while these games are going on. Every installment is more or less a fresh story, and yet a great deal of pathos is created each time for these new people you encounter. Endlessly compelling and always having something to say, Death Parade is a great subversion of the afterlife.

My Hero Academia