One-Punch Man Season 3’s Bad Animation Is Better Than The Beginning After The End’s Slideshow Animation

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The third season premiered on October 12, 2025, but it quickly received a lot of negative feedback, with many calling it a failure. After six years, expectations were incredibly high for J.C. Staff to deliver a season as good as the first, and fans were disappointed. Social media was filled with complaints about awkward animation and a perceived loss of the show’s original charm.

What looks good really depends on how you look at it in the world of 2025 anime. While people are criticizing the flaws in One-Punch Man, The Beginning After The End is actually the real animation disaster of the year. Compared to TBATE‘s incredibly slow and choppy animation, One-Punch Man Season 3 looks like a fantastic example of how to tell an action story with animation.

One-Punch Man Season 3’s Ratings Don’t Show The Full Picture

The MyAnimeList ratings for these two shows are a bit misleading. While The Beginning After The End has a score of around 6.18, higher than One-Punch Man Season 3’s 4.44, this difference is probably because of how fans view the source material. Fans of the original webcomic for The Beginning After The End might be rating the anime based on how much they love the story itself, rather than the anime’s animation quality.

Unlike other shows, One-Punch Man Season 3 has received a lot of negative reviews very quickly. Episode 6, “Motley Heroes,” got an extremely low score, making it one of the worst-rated anime episodes ever. While the episode wasn’t perfect, a less well-known anime with similar flaws likely wouldn’t have been criticized as harshly. The low ratings stem from fans comparing the new season to the exceptionally high quality of the anime’s first season in 2015, and they were disappointed by the difference.

It’s important to remember that Yusuke Murata’s artwork in One-Punch Man is incredibly detailed, making it nearly impossible to perfectly translate to animation. No animation studio, especially with a limited budget, can recreate that level of detail frame by frame without some loss of quality. While some fans see this as a flaw in the new season, it’s simply the challenge of adapting such visually stunning source material. In fact, when compared to truly problematic animation like that of The Beginning After The End, One-Punch Man Season 3 is a well-made production that’s unfairly receiving criticism from disappointed fans.

The Beginning After The End Falls Below One-Punch Man’s Low Bar

Although some have criticized the lack of character movement during conversations in One-Punch Man Season 3, it still shows more subtle facial expressions – like slight eyebrow movements or widening eyes – than the completely static faces used in TBATE. Compared to the original webtoon, the anime seems to be missing important visual storytelling details, as characters appear almost identical in every scene, with only their mouths moving when they speak.

Despite maintaining impactful and well-choreographed action sequences like One-Punch Man Season 3, TBATE has received criticism for its animation. Viewers have jokingly called it “The PowerPoint After The End” because Studio A-Cat appears to be using mostly static images with minimal movement to depict action.

The action scenes often feel weak and lack compelling choreography. Sometimes characters don’t seem to connect with their surroundings, almost floating instead of fighting. While One-Punch Man Season 3 had similar issues – like Garou sliding down a hill without affecting the grass – the problem seems to stem from One-Punch Man reserving its budget for major battles. In contrast, TBATE doesn’t have any visually impressive moments at all.

The difference in quality stems from the animation studios involved. J.C. Staff is a well-established studio, but they were incredibly busy in 2025. While Season 3 of One-Punch Man did have funding, it was limited, and a strict deadline meant they had to make compromises during production to release it in October.

Studio A-Cat usually works on projects with smaller budgets and has trouble with complicated action sequences. They didn’t have the means to properly bring a large-scale fantasy story like The Beginning After The End to life, and looking back, choosing them to adapt it was a mistake.

One-Punch Man’s Animation Is Still Leagues Above 2025’s Worst Anime

Season 3, Episode 8 of One-Punch Man, which aired on November 30, 2025, strongly challenged the idea that the show had declined in quality. The episode featured an intense battle between Flashy Flash and monstrous ninjas, and it showed a significant improvement in animation, making movements look incredibly smooth and dynamic. The fight’s choreography and the way the environment was destroyed were particularly impressive, reminding fans what they loved about the series in the first place.

The battle between Flashy Flash, Gale Wind, and Hellfire Flame, when they transformed into monsters, was animated using a mix of 2D and 3D styles. The result was so seamless that even long-time fans had trouble distinguishing the techniques. This was especially impressive in One-Punch Man Season 3, Episode 8, where the fight animation was truly well-done and impactful.

CBR Report

CBR Report

Flashy Flash’s special attack, Flashy Slash, looked particularly good. While a few fans didn’t like the added teleportation effect, it arguably enhanced the sense of speed and shouldn’t be seen as a flaw. The episode used intricate camera work and motion blur, which some called lazy, but these techniques effectively conveyed quick movements without making the action look awkward. This was a smart solution, especially given the constraints of the budget and schedule.

Unlike this example, the anime The Beginning After The End never reaches this level of technical quality. When the show first introduced the dragon Sylvia using CGI, viewers criticized it for looking blurry and having an oddly shaped head – more like a moose or alpaca than a majestic dragon. To make matters worse, the villain Cadell’s dragon form in the same episode was simply a darkened copy of Sylvia’s model, with no unique features to set them apart despite being powerful creatures.

The criticism surrounding One-Punch Man Season 3, often labeled a “disaster,” stems more from incredibly high fan expectations than from actual technical problems. While the animation studio, J.C. Staff, didn’t quite capture the original artwork perfectly, The Beginning After The End suffered from truly poor animation quality, relying on limited movement and reused computer graphics. Comparing the two shows that even with its flaws, One-Punch Man‘s return is still a solid action series – and looks fantastic in comparison.

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2025-12-22 22:10