Saitama

Just an average guy who serves as an average hero.

Saitama (サイタマ, Saitama) is the main protagonist of One-Punch Man and the most powerful hero alive. Saitama faces a self-imposed existential crisis, as he is now too powerful to gain any thrill from his deeds.

He registered with the Hero Association as a C-Class and eventually made a big leap to become a B-Class hero and is tasked to defend Z-City against Mysterious Beings. Under the Hero Association, he is given the name Caped Baldy (ハゲマント, Hagemanto).

Appearance
Saitama is usually deliberately drawn in a simpler style than all the other characters, with an elliptical shaped head and only a simple mouth and eyes. When drawn in a more serious style with more detail, Saitama is revealed to have sharp features, dangerous looking eyes, and a chiseled musculature. Even his posture undergoes a metamorphosis, with a slack posture and sloping elbows when lax, while possessing a straightened posture and squared shoulders when serious. His costume is a plain yellow jumpsuit with a short zipper at the collar, along with a black belt with a golden buckle at the center. The costume is finished out by a red ensemble of boots, gloves, and a white.

Personality
For a hero, Saitama is thought to be quite indifferent. Even the mightiest foes pose no challenge to him, so he doesn't take his hero work very seriously and defeats monsters with no effort. Since his superhero work has begun to bore him, he is constantly searching for an opponent that can provide him with a challenge. The lack of any such opponents has led him to suffer from a self-imposed existential crisis, and he claims that his ability to feel any and all emotions has dulled considerably. He stated that he just became a hero because it was his dream and for self-satisfaction and that before becoming one, he used to suffer from anxiety issues. Despite his boredom, Saitama does not ignore crime.

If the Heroes run and hide, who will stay and fight?

The combination of his attitude, unstoppable strength, and distinctively simple and 'unimpressive' appearance often cause his battles to become anticlimactic. Saitama will usually allow his opponents to rant about their motives and power up into their strongest forms before obliterating them with a single punch. However, if they begin to ramble on too much then he will either interrupt them or just punch them.

A running gag about Saitama is his inability to remember people's faces and names, as seen when he forgot Sonic's name and could not remember who Tanktop Tiger was. Because of this, he always ends up pronouncing their names incorrectly.

As of some special chapter during his time participating a costume contest, appearances don't matter to him. The only thing that matters to him are his abilities and his desire to be the superhero he's been training for. That being said, he does care about his own cleanliness, as the only thing he ever really complains about is how he gets dirt on his clothes or blood on his gloves. Though he doesn't care about appearances, he has shown dislike towards his assigned hero name, Caped Baldy. Thus, even after receiving it, he always refers to himself as Saitama.

Saitama has been shown to be very humble, as he purposefully let the masses turn against him, for the sake of the defeated heroes to be given credit for their efforts, even claiming that they had weakened the Sea King before his arrival. He did the same for the police in the Special Chapter, dressing as one of them and killed a monster, despite potentially gaining much fame had he revealed who he actually was. He also didn't mind that King took credit for all of his achievements.

Another surprising thing about Saitama is that he is surprisingly tactful and insightful, being well able to discern situations and character traits from the people and environment around him fairly easily. Having picked up a number of hints to Sonic's own persona on their first meeting and when two tank top heroes jealously plotted to ruin him after the meteor event that there were irate and self-serving hero types like them, as well as discerning Fubuki's forced offer of submission or destruction just before his crackdown on how the hero world really works than how it is currently run.

Saitama has been shown to show remorse to his enemies before, particularly ones who can give him an actual fight and don't go down in one hit. One such example of this being Boros, for whom Saitama sympathized with him due to suffering from similar circumstances. Though in the end, Boros still couldn't draw out Saitama's full power.

Saitama does not actually care if people insult him and he usually ignores them and says that they need a hobby; the only insult that could at the very least get a what could be called reaction out of him is when anyone mentions his bald head. He also shows a measure of concern when it comes to bargains and deals, as seen when he fought Carnage Kabuto, when he was more shocked upon the realization that he was going to miss a bargain sale, rather than his opponent, who had undergone a transformation and was whacking him around. Despite his general indifference to most things, Saitama was genuinely shocked when he realized that no one actually knew of him, despite his achievements (although this could be attributed to the fact that he never stuck around after saving the day).

Saitama shows impressive restraint with his power, considering that he is easily capable of splitting the sky, or jumping from the moon to earth. He manages to beat nearly all of his opponents with a single punch, though occasionally causes more devastation than necessary. While he has no problem killing monsters, Saitama has yet to be seen killing another human, and only ever uses enough strength to knock them out.

Abilities and Powers
Saitama is the titular One-Punch Man and the strongest character in the series. So far no enemy has been able to injure him in any way and almost no enemy is even able to survive from a single earnest punch from him. A few enemies have survived punches from him, such as any human he has struck (which he was likely holding back against) and Lord Boros, whom Saitama empathized with and held back against so as to give himself and Boros a satisfying and stimulating fight. Saitama's only power is that his body is far beyond human limits, allowing him to achieve astounding physical feats. His strength is so great that it vastly eclipses even artificial beings designed or bred specifically for superhuman combat, such as mechanical beings or the mutated warriors from the House of Evolution. Since no enemies have posed any real challenge to Saitama yet, the upper bound of his strength is likely even higher than it appears. While his power is only limited to heightened human traits - Saitama cannot fly or fire energy blasts - his superhuman abilities more than makes up for the lack of variety in his powers.

The origin of Saitama's immense strength is mysterious and unclear. Although he tells everyone he got his incredible power through mere physical training, no one believes him at all. According to Saitama, after a year and half of 100 daily push-ups, sit-ups, and squats, plus 10 km daily running, he had achieved some level of superhuman strength. This training was apparently so intense for Saitama that he at times felt he might die, and claims that it is what caused all of his hair to suddenly and eventually fall out. He apparently continued his training for another year and a half before beginning his hero career. Genos believes that Saitama doesn't actually know or understand how he gained his power, and hopes to learn the secret by sparring with and observing him, while Dr. Genus believes that Saitama worked out with said training regimen so hard that he had removed all of his human limits. It should be noted, that Saitama would complete all parts of the training one after the other without breaks and was battling mysterious beings that appeared during that time, which would have made completing the training more intense than would normally be expected.

Physical Abilities


Immeasurable Strength: Saitama possesses seemingly limitless physical strength and is capable of effortlessly defeating powerful monsters and villains with a single, nonchalant punch (although this strength is not limited to punches). Saitama's punch is so powerful that many enemies simply explode when struck. He is also shown to be able to effortlessly destroy walls and buildings. An example of this casual, yet overwhelming offensive power occurs when Saitama launches himself from the top of a building, blasts right through a city-sized meteor, lands safely and just calmly decides to go home. Another instance is when Sonic tries to slice Saitama's head in half with a steel sword and Saitama bites it, effortlessly breaking it into many pieces. Also, in the intro, Saitama was seen jumping to and fro at high speeds in the vacuum of outer space with just sheer strength, despite the fact that one would require a solid object to move there at all. When launched from the earth to the moon by a strike from Lord Boros, he used his jumping power to return to the earth in mere moments, causing a huge shock wave and immense tremors on the surface of the moon as well as Boros' ship. A "normal" punch from him is shown to be very fatal to someone as durable as Boros. A single "serious" punch is able to somehow counter Boros's destructive energy beam attack, and split the sky in half along the whole planet effortlessly, and even then, Boros, who was the fatally injured victim of the said move, said that Saitama had plenty of strength to spare and that he did not even try to give it his best shot. Saitama has shown to be able to control the strength of his attacks, but only upto a certain point, as he still tends to go overboard, occasionally causing mass destruction in the aftermath.


 * Enhanced Leap: His inability to fly is somewhat compensated by his ability to use his immense strength to leap tremendous heights and distances. This can be seen when Saitama smashed his head through the ceiling of a gymnasium during the hero tryouts simply by jumping. He was also able to smash a building into its foundation just by leaping off from its roof. His greatest feat in this regard, however, was when he leapt from the surface of the moon and ended up back on Earth at a specified point, making a crater on the moon's face in the process.


 * Intangibility Negation: Saitama can harm intangible beings, such as Evil Natural Water.

Immeasurable Speed & Reflexes: Saitama was able to complete a 1500 meter dash in an instant during his hero tryouts. He has proven able to effortlessly keep up with Speed-o'-Sound Sonic, who is able to move at above hypersonic speeds. Even Genos' computerized targeting systems have difficulty tracking him. Saitama has also shown the ability to run down a building to save a piece of salmon he was having for lunch and leap back up said building without on-lookers noticing he had even done so. His speed is so impressive he can outpace the likes of Flashy Flash, easily dodging his sword swings. When knocked to the Moon by Boros' attack, Saitama returned in mere moments. Since the Moon is 1.25 light-seconds away, this implies that Saitama can even travel at sub-relativistic speeds, although as stated by a dying Boros that Saitama wasn't even trying to use his full potential, this implies that it is not Saitama's true speed. Ironically, despite his incredible reflexes and speed, he still has problems squashing a simple mosquito, due to the fact that he concentrates only on moving his hand towards the target, and forgetting to apply even pressure on the insect with his palm on the skin, and as a result, the mosquito gets out free from the gaps of his hands.


 * Afterimages: Saitama is so fast that he leaves afterimages when moving at high speeds, and is agile enough to dodge Beast King's rapid-fire Limb cutter attacks while moving in for the kill. After assaulting Saitama with a flurry of punches in his practice fight, Genos realized that he was fighting his afterimages.


 * Supernatural Dexterity: Saitama is capable of moving any of his limbs at extremely fast speeds without even flinching, not stopping until his target is completely obliterated. This is seen when Saitama flawlessly whacks all moles on a Whack-A-Mole machine and destroys it during the Hero Association trials.


 * Supernatural Agility: Saitama has been shown to be perfect at dodging all attacks without even realizing that he's being attacked. A sixth sense developed out of the training he went through, Saitama's reflexes render him flexible enough to move through the narrowest creeks and dodge attacks even at close range.

Immeasurable Stamina: Saitama has never been shown to tire out when fighting villains. Even when unleashing a punch more powerful than a planet-destroying attack, Saitama showed no signs of fatigue. The only time he was shown to be tired was in Episode 6, when after running frantically around the whole city looking for villains to defeat, Saitama was seen hunched over and breathing heavily. However, after deciding to give up and go home, he immediately showed no signs of fatigue or sweat at all and started to walk home normally like he usually does, so it is debatable as to whether he was actually tired.

Supernatural Senses: Saitama's senses are far beyond the human norm. He also seems to have developed a sixth sense; being able to dodge danger even though he hasn't seen it. Nevertheless, Saitama's senses do not have the same degree of 'resolution' as some of Genos' sensors, which can detect and distinguish foes at a greater distance. Even so, he does possess impressively sharp hearing, being able to pick up on various chatter from bystanders a good distance away even while fighting monsters and the like. He is also able to see in the dark as he was able to spot a kid a great distance away during the night. His tracking capability is also astonishing, as he can concentrate on a fast-moving object for a long time and still not lose sight of it, as seen when he was the only person to see Garou escaping.



Invulnerability: Saitama can withstand blows from extremely powerful beings such as Carnage Kabuto, without taking a scratch or feeling any pain. When Genos created a huge, spherical blast of flame to kill Mosquito Girl's mosquitoes, Saitama remains standing right next to him totally unharmed, unperturbed and very dirty, though his clothes suffered an expected fate. He also survived being kicked to the moon by Boros in his fully powered state, and going from the Earth to the moon and back with little to no damage from leaving and entering the Earth's atmosphere (only his clothes were burnt), and he even survived the sub-zero conditions of outer space unscathed on his brief time on the Moon. Saitama has also survived the effects of a black hole when he fought with Geryuganshoop, in fact, he did not even feel anything happening to him. Saitama also prefers to dodge or block attacks using edged weapons rather than take them head on, as he sometimes does with strikes from fists or blunt objects. It has been shown that, despite the dangers of holding ones breath in space, Saitama is able to do so with no negative effects on his body. However, it is worth noting that Saitama does not see mosquitoes as a potential weakness, preferring to hide from the mosquito swarm heading his way rather than confront it, although he did not know that a monster was responsible for the swarm in the first place. This also makes him immune to pressure-based attacks on energy points, as seen in his battle with Garou. Even though he is invulnerable, he has been shown to feel pain when a cat he saved from a tree for a little girl scratched him, although no evident scars or mark of injury have been seen to be received by Saitama.


 * Psychic Resistance: Fubuki noticed that Saitama is immune to certain psychic attacks and very resistant to others, due to his astonishing willpower. However, it is still noteworthy that his muscles even "twitched" when Tatsumaki used her powers on him and can't fully lift Saitama because he was "too heavy".


 * Enhanced Lung Capacity: Although Saitama cannot breathe in space, he has considerable control over his breath. Even in outer space, Saitama manages to hold his breath effortlessly, and he even made a jump back to the Earth to the Moon in 10 seconds without showing any signs of suffocation or symptoms of oxygen toxicity, carbon dioxide buildup and pressure on the stomach which would naturally force the air out. It also takes some time for Saitama to realize he is in a vacuum environment, although it seemed to have little to no effect on him.


 * Vacuum Adaptation: Saitama's body has been shown to survive the effects of a vacuum unscathed. Several factors like sub-zero temperatures and lack of atmosphere play here, although Saitama has been unable to be affected by any of them. His body did not start to develop any ice crystals at all despite the cold temperatures there.


 * Heat Immunity: Saitama is immune to all types of heat-based attacks, in fact, he is immune to heat energy overall. When Genos created a huge, spherical blast of flame to kill Mosquito Girl's mosquitoes, Saitama remains standing right next to him totally unharmed and unperturbed, though his clothes suffered an expected fate. Also, after Boros, in his fully-powered state, punched Saitama into the Moon, Saitama, unharmed in the process, jumped back to Earth in just 10 seconds, and upon atmospheric re-entry, his clothes started to burn, but he remained unscathed. Also, in the opening intro, Saitama is seen to be struck by a lightning bolt, which can reach upto nearly five times the temperature of the Sun's surface, but he keeps walking, unscathed.


 * Cold Immunity: Saitama is also immune to sub-zero temperatures. This is seen when Boros punches Saitama into the Moon, into outer space, where temperatures are extremely low. Nevertheless, Saitama did not show any signs of hypothermia or even shiver while on the Moon.


 * Pain Suppression: Before gaining his overwhelming power, Saitama was still able to suppress pain.


 * Electrical Immunity: Saitama is seemingly immune to electricity. In the intro, he was seen to be struck by a lightning bolt, which alone contains 100 million volts, yet Saitama walked like he did not feel anything.

Fighting Styles
Saitama's fighting styles usually consists of basic techniques in fighting, such as punching. However, the effectiveness of these basic techniques are increased infinitely in terms of strength and impact on the opponents because of Saitama's limitless physical strength. Garou noted that most of Saitama's moves are wasted and that he is actually a total amateur in terms of fighting and martial arts, commenting that he has no actual skill.

Normal Series: Saitama's Normal Series consists of techniques in which he puts little to no effort into attacking. Even though his attacks are loose in this style, most opponents tend to be finished off easily due to Saitama's extreme strength and speed.
 * Normalpunch.gifConsecutive Normal Punches (連続普通のパンチ, Renzoku Futsuu no Panchi): Saitama launches a volley of quick, single-handed punches from his right hand. These blows have been shown to be powerful enough to blow strong or large body types apart. Depending on the power of the attack, this technique can occur in an instant. It was first used against the Beast King.
 * Two Handed Consecutive Normal Punches (両手・連続普通のパンチ, Ryōte Renzoku Futsū no Panchi): Saitama launches a volley of quick punches from both hands. This attack is much like Consecutive Normal Punches, but the rate at which the punches are being thrown is essentially twice as fast. It was first used against the Garou.

Serious Series (必殺マジシリーズ, Hissatsu Majishirīzu): Saitama's Serious Series consists of techniques in which he puts effort into attacking. While he normally punches without putting in much effort, when Saitama gets serious in a fight, his techniques become tremendously powerful.


 * SeriousPunch.gifSerious Punch (マジ殴り, Maji Naguri): Saitama throws an extremely powerful punch. The full extent of this attack is unknown, as it never directly hit an opponent. It was so powerful that it completely negates Boros's Collapsing Star Roaring Cannon, a beam capable of wiping out an entire planet. The shockwave alone from the punch was powerful enough to part clouds on a global scale as well as deliver the final fatal blow to Boros. The dying Boros then also declared that Saitama's fatal attack on him was not even anywhere near Saitama's true power, and that Saitama wasn't even trying.


 * Serious Side Hops (マジ反復横とび, Maji Hanpukuyokotobi): Saitama hops from side to side rapidly. Doing so allows him to create a multitude of afterimages. He has been shown to be able to walk forward while doing so and the shock wave caused by it was enough to break Sonic's Ten Shadows Burial.
 * Serious Table Flip (マジちゃぶ台返し, Maji Chabudai-Gaeshi): Saitama digs his fingers into the ground and flips a large amount of landmass thousands of meters into the air. He first used this technique against Garou, to which the effect was so great that Garou's sense of gravity was severely warped.
 * Serious Headbutt (マジ頭突き, Maji Zudzuki): Saitama confronts an attack with his head and uses enough force to double the force returned.

Miscellaneous Abilities
Indomitable Will: Saitama has been shown to possess incredible willpower. It is most evident in the flashback to his hero training regime. Even if he was in great pain, or could barely move, or vomited blood, he continued his training. Through sheer willpower and effort, he removed his natural limiter. Saitama's willpower is also evident in his fight against Tatsumaki. Saitama's strength of will is directly connected to his psychic resistance. Tatsumaki was unable to bend Saitama or lift him into space, exclaiming for the latter that he was "heavy".

Hero Rating
Saitama's rating determined by the Hero Association. Saitama's rating determined by Genos.

Webcomic and Manga Differences
The aftereffect of Saitama's punch wasn't shown in the webcomic

Quotes

 * (To Marugori) "Having an overwhelming power is boring as hell."


 * (To Genos & Carnage Kabuto) "The true power of us human beings is that we can change ourselves on our own."


 * (To Glasses) "Do you honestly think you won't get any stronger for the rest of your life? Instead of sitting around frustrated, it's better to keep on moving forward. I'm going now. Today's a special day in case you didn't know. The market's selling veggies at 30% off."


 * (To an opposing crowd) "Let me make one thing clear! I'm not working as a hero because I want you morons to admire me! I do it 'cause I want to! "


 * (To Boros) "OK."


 * (To Boros) "You are still conscious? You really are strong."


 * (To King) "Is it true? All the rumors about your strength and fight history were a lie?" "Did you seriously piss yourself because of that bird?"


 * (To Fubuki after closing in on her) "You won't survive. You don't get what hero means. There's a lot of incredibly strong bad guys in the world. Those who oppose them are called heroes. Even if they are alone. You, who gathers weaker subordinates to feel strong, won't make it. At this rate, you are gonna cry sooner or later. When a monster stronger than you shows up, none of your subordinates will save you. Factions? Newbie crushing? Keeping your ranks? They have nothing to do with anything! Do not look down on heroes, you moron!"


 * (To Garou) "With that attack, I now know that you are sorta strong. I might even say very strong... but it's not clear."

Trivia

 * Saitama's hero profile number is 03402


 * Saitama is ranked 1st in the character popularity poll.
 * In the other hand, young Saitama is ranked 10th in the character popularity poll.


 * There have been many Mob Psycho 100 references in the One-Punch Man series (and vice versa):
 * Arataka Reigen of Mob Psycho 100 has Saitama as a background on his cellphone in chapter 9.5.
 * Shigeo Kageyama, better known as Mob, the protagonist of Mob Psycho 100, has a facial expression identical to that of Saitama himself.
 * Young Saitama is also seen wearing a Mob Psycho 1000000 shirt in 200 Yen.
 * Saitama has a Mob Psycho 100 manga on the floor near his futon in Paradise Group.
 * Saitama has a cameo appearance in a dream sequence in chapter 80.5 of Mob Psycho 100.


 * Near the beginning of the Manga the color of Saitama's cape was red (House of Evolution Arc) but later was changed to white (Meteor Arc).


 * Saitama is always late during the times that other (registered) heroes would be defeated, after which he easily defeats the enemy.


 * Despite being the strongest in the series, few know his true strength, such as Carnage Kabuto, Genus, Boros, Genos, Bang, Sonic, King, Mumen Rider and Fubuki. However, after the defeat Garou and the battle with Tatsumaki, this list is increased with Tatsumaki, Child Emperor, Flashy Flash, Forte, Metal Knight, Sweet Mask, Zombie Man and the entire Blizzard Group.
 * Only Zombie Man and Genus know the true source of Saitama's power.


 * According to Genos, Saitama's true potential does not lie within his appearance, but in the way he did his best on training himself to become a true superhero caused him to receive his own super strength after three years of training.


 * Due to his unimpressive appearance many enemies and allies tend to think that he is weak at first glance; only Boros and Carnage Kabuto could sense his immeasurable strength at first glance.


 * ONE came up with Saitama's rather simplistic design when thinking about how many "cool looking superheroes there were." As Onepunch-Man was a pun on Anpanman, Saitama's appearance could be said to be based off of Anpanman's. His hero costume is the same as Anpanman's costume with the colors reversed (Anpanman had a red jumpsuit with yellow gloves and boots).


 * Saitama's name is mostly likely derived after the city of Saitama, located in Japan, where ONE currently lives and first started drawing the series.


 * Saitama was working part time in a convenience store before he became a hero.