Saitama (One-Punch Man)
Saitama is a male anime and manga character who features in One-Punch Man.
Contents |
Biography
Saitama (Japanese: サイタマ, Hepburn: Saitama) was a Japanese male who lived in his apartment in the Z-City Ghost Town by himself. As a child, Saitama often watched superhero shows and dreamt of being a hero.
On the second school day of middle school, Saitama reads a health and physical education manual. He does not hear the talk about the two third-year bullies who beat up a freshman who called himself the Bicycle Commuter the day before. After school on a rainy day, Saitama watches the news about an ongoing monster incident in Z-City and the increasing outbreak of monsters in the last decade. Saitama drifts off to sleep and forgets to do his homework. The next day, his homeroom teacher calls him to the teacher's room to rebuke him. On the way to the teacher's room, he is confronted by the third-year bullies who had bullied the Bicycle Commuter. They demand his wallet, but Saitama tells them he does not have one and prepares to fight them instead. However, Saitama is too weak to defend himself and the bullies steal his 200 yen. Suddenly, Piggy Bancon rams one of the bullies and demands money from them. Saitama hears that one of the bully's reason for threatening the freshmen to steal their money was to pay for his little brother's lunches. Saitama chases after the monster to get the money back but the monster knocks him into a wall. After the police and special unit forces defeat the monster, Saitama returns to school to see his homeroom teacher. The teacher scolded Saitama for his behavior. On his way home, Saitama thought about how unfit he was for society. Three years later, Saitama was an unemployed man on a job hunt. Before becoming unemployed, Saitama was working part-time at a convenience store. On one occasion, a robber was entering the convenience store. Despite the man pointing a knife at Saitama, all Saitama did was wonder where the barcode was, believing that the knife was one of the merchandise. One day, after yet another failed interview, a dejected Saitama encountered Crablante on the street. Crablante noticed Saitama's lifeless eyes and spared his life. He told Saitama that the prey he was after was a child with a cleft chin. As he walks on, Saitama spots the child Crablante mentioned. However, his nihilistic attitude takes over and he decides to not intervene in the matter. Suddenly, Crablante appears behind the child and attacks him, but Saitama impulsively saves the kid, which surprises himself. He urges the child to run away and demands to know why Crablante wants the boy dead. While Crablante explains the prank the boy pulled on him, Saitama chuckles and notes aloud how the monster resembles a creature from a children's cartoon he watched as a kid. This enrages Crablante, who pummels Saitama even after the latter resolves to live out his childhood dream of being a superhero by fighting back. Saitama then lassos one of Crablante's eyestalks with the loop of his tie and tears it out.
Unbeknownst to him, the child tells his grandfather about the incident and the grandfather decides to create the Hero Association to prevent similar incidents from happening. Resolving after this encounter to become a mighty superhero, Saitama started a daily training schedule which consisted of 100 push-ups, 100 sit-ups and 100 squats along with running 10 km every single day. He ate three meals a day, but only a banana as breakfast and also didn't use the air conditioner to strengthen his mental resistance. These daily activities were extremely tough and caused his body excruciating pain, muscle aches, and vomiting blood. However, Saitama did not give up and continued his training day after day.
Overview
Personality and attributes
In appearance, Saitama was an ordinary-looking bald man with a thin but well-built physique and was of average height and weight. Saitama's hero costume consists of a yellow one-piece jumpsuit with a short zipper at the collar and a black belt with a round golden buckle at its center. He wears red gloves that go 3/4 up his forearms and red boots that nearly reach his knees. His costume is finished with a white cape, fastened to his shoulders with big, round buttons. Under the Hero Association, he was assigned the hero name Caped Baldy (ハゲマント, Hagemanto; Viz: Bald Cape).
Saitama's character on the upper surface can be best summed up as 'average'. At first glance, nothing about him strikes anyone he meets or causes them to note anything remarkable about him. Before becoming a hero, he was an average salaryman and did not seem interested in anything initially, though becoming a hero has always been a dream of Saitama's.
Even powerful foes posed no challenge to him which meant that he did not take his hero work seriously. Ultimately, he yearned for an opponent that could provide him with a challenge.
However, the lack of worthy opponents led him to suffer from a self-imposed existential crisis. He claimed that his ability to feel any and all emotions had been dulled considerably as a result.
Powers and abilities
Originally, Saitama was shown to be an ordinary human being with no inherent powers or abilities.
According to Saitama himself, he had trained for a year and a half with this consisting of 100 daily push-ups, sit-ups, and squats, plus 10 km daily running. This led to him achieving some level of superhuman strength with this this training being apparently so intense that he at times felt he might die and claimed that it caused all of his hair to suddenly and eventually fall out.
As a hero, he wore a costume that consisted of a yellow one-piece jumpsuit with a short zipper at the collar and a black belt with a round golden buckle at its center.
He came to be registered as a professional hero in the Hero Association (ヒーロー協会, Hīrō Kyōkai) and was ranked as a B-Class Rank 7.
Notes
- Saitama was created by ONE where he featured in the setting of the One-Punch Man universe.
- In an interview, ONE commented, ""Punching is oftentimes pretty useless against life's problems. But inside One-Punch Man's universe, I made Saitama a sort of guy who was capable of adapting his life to the world that surrounded him, only armed with his immense power. The only obstacles he faces are mundane things, like running short of money."
In other media
Television
Video games
Appearances
- One-Punch Man:
External Links
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