One Punch Man Just Made Saitama a Time Traveler: Goku Doesn't Stand a Chance

Anime’s fiercest showdown just tilted. Dragon Ball’s Goku may shatter planets, but One Punch Man’s Saitama now bends time—turning his single punch into an unbeatable checkmate.

Anime fans love a good hypothetical fight, and nothing stirs the pot like Goku vs Saitama. One levels planets. The other ends battles with a single punch. For years it was a fun stalemate. Then the One Punch Man manga quietly added a downright wild card: Saitama learned how to bend time.

The new wrinkle: Saitama can time travel

In One Punch Man chapter 173, Saitama figures out how to copy a technique he first sees from Garou and uses it to jump back in time. The result? He prevents a bad outcome and, basically, saves his world. That is not on Goku's resume.

"Ultra Instinct is cool. Rewinding the timeline is checkmate."

Even if he has only pulled it off once, the ability to redo reality is the kind of advantage that tilts this matchup hard.

Power check, for context

Both of these guys are absurdly strong and perennial contenders for the strongest-in-anime crown. Goku keeps growing with every fight and can push a God of Destruction like Beerus. Saitama, at his most ridiculous, sneezed hard enough to shred the surface of Jupiter. Picking a winner used to be a shrug. Time travel changes the conversation.

How the manga gets him there

Here is the quick, spoiler-friendly breakdown of what actually happens in the Monster Association arc:

• Garou hits a terrifying zenith called Cosmic Fear Mode, a state where he messes with the particles in his body and forces them to act like anti-particles.
• That power lets him pull an imperfect time-travel trick. He cannot truly master it, but Saitama picks up the method.
• Saitama cracks the trick, jumps back, and prevents the catastrophic future by punching Garou down before he can even show up in front of the heroes in Z-City.
• The timeline avoids the fallout. The catch: Saitama loses the memory of that ominous future and even how he pulled off the jump.

So... who actually wins now?

If we are playing fair with what is on the page, Saitama having a practical time-travel feat is a bigger swing than any new hair color or Ultra Instinct glow-up. You cannot out-punch a redo button.

Will the anime go there soon?

One Punch Man is currently in season 3, and it is adapting the Monster Association arc where Garou's power creep goes off the charts. This is the same stretch that leads to Cosmic Fear Mode and Saitama's timeline hop. Season 3 may not reach that material, but season 4 is a solid bet to tackle it when the story gets there. When it does, expect it to look absolutely bonkers on screen.

Where to watch

In the US, One Punch Man and Dragon Ball (Super and Z Kai) are streaming on Hulu.

Alright, your turn: does the time-travel twist finally put Saitama over Goku, or are you still Team Kakarot?