Legendary One Piece Animator Defends One-Punch Man Season 3, Calls It A Quality-First Effort
Takashi Hashimoto breaks silence on One-Punch Man criticism, confronting the backlash head-on.
One-Punch Man season 3 is taking punches from all sides for its rough-looking animation and limp action. Now a veteran animator has stepped in to defend the people making it — and he does not mince words about who he thinks is fueling the pile-on.
Who spoke up (and why it matters)
Takashi Hashimoto — a highly respected animator whose credits run through One Piece, Ghost in the Shell, Dragon Ball, and Neon Genesis Evangelion — weighed in on Bluesky about the backlash. His post, surfaced via machine translation (hat tip to CBR), basically says the crew behind One-Punch Man is getting hammered for tiny flaws while trying to do a tough job under tough circumstances.
The part that might raise eyebrows: Hashimoto specifically calls out viewers overseas who are watching the show illegally as a major source of the criticism. He argues that this kind of dogpiling wears down teams who are very much not volunteering their time and, in the long run, pushes people out of the industry.
"The more you bully them, the more staff will disappear."
That sentiment tracks with the broader mood from animators lately — a very industry-side perspective you don’t often see spelled out in public.
Meanwhile, the scores keep sinking
Season 3 is still rolling out weekly, and the reaction has been brutal on IMDb. The most recent episode sits at a 2.7, which is actually an uptick from the previous week’s 1.4 — a number low enough to flirt with the bottom of the all-time anime episode rankings. That is... not great.
Not just one voice defending the show
Hashimoto is not alone. A staffer from One Piece also spoke up in recent weeks to back J.C. Staff, the studio handling One-Punch Man season 3. The sense you get is that people inside the business are closing ranks a bit as the Internet dunks pile up.
Why tempers are high
Fans waited six years for this season, so expectations were sky-high. With that kind of buildup, anything less than a home run was going to sting. Still, Hashimoto’s plea is pretty clear: criticism is fair game, but relentless nitpicking and harassment have consequences for the people actually making the thing.