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, as of now, is potentially the most powerful being to exist in the series. Saitama faces a self-imposed existential crisis, as he is now too powerful to gain any thrill from his deeds and actions.

Initially just a hero for fun, he later registers himself into the Hero Association as a professional hero, currently B-Class Rank 7, and defends his home in Z-City from Mysterious Beings, Villains, and other threats. Under the Hero Association, he is assigned the hero name Caped Baldy (ハゲマント, Hagemanto; Viz: Bald Cape).

Appearance
Saitama is usually deliberately drawn in a simpler style than all the other characters, with an elliptical-shaped head and only a basic mouth and eyes. When drawn in a more serious style with more detail, Saitama is revealed to have sharp features, fearsome 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 one piece jumpsuit with a short zipper at the collar, along with a black belt with a round golden buckle at the center. He wears red gloves that go 3/4 up his forearm, as well as red boots that go up 3/4 of his shins. His costume is finished off by a white cape, which is secured to his shoulders with black circular fasteners.

Personality
If the heroes run and hide, who will stay and fight? Saitama is an indifferent person. Even the mightiest foes pose no challenge to him, so he does not take his hero work seriously, goes through everything with little to no effort, and yearns 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. The combination of his attitude, unstoppable strength, and "unimpressive" appearance often causes 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.

Saitama has limited patience for long explanations, however, and will often interrupt the speaker. His ideal word count is 20 or less.

A running gag about Saitama is his inability to remember people's faces and names, as seen when he forgot Speed-o'-Sound Sonic's name, or when he could not remember who Tanktop Tiger is. Because of this, he sometimes ends up pronouncing people's names incorrectly, much to their chagrin.

Saitama has been shown to be very humble, as he purposefully let the masses turn against him in order for the defeated heroes to be given credit for their efforts, even claiming that they had weakened the Deep Sea King before his arrival. He did the same for the police station, killing a monster while disguised as a police officer, despite potentially gaining much fame had he revealed who he actually was. He also did not mind that King took credit for all of his achievements. Despite his humility and modesty, he still retains some sense of pride, since he wants to beat up Garou after realizing that the latter didn't want to hunt him during his hero hunt, just because he is a low-ranking hero who is not worthy to be hunted. However, Saitama's desire to pummel Garou mostly comes from his desire for an exciting and challenging fight, not for his pride as a powerful hero.

Another surprising thing about Saitama is that he is very tactful and insightful, being well able to discern situations and character traits from the people and environment around him fairly easily. He was able to pick up a number of hints to Sonic's own persona upon their first meeting. When two tank top heroes jealously plotted to ruin him after the meteor event, he remarked that there were irate and self-serving hero types like them. He was even able to discern 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 stimulating fight and don't just go down in one hit. One such example of this is Boros, with whom Saitama sympathized, due to suffering from similar circumstances. Though in the end, even 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 get a reaction out of him is anything pertaining to his baldness. He has expressed distaste towards his officially assigned hero name, Caped Baldy. Thus, even after receiving it, he always refers to himself as Saitama. He also shows a measure of concern when it comes to bargains and deals, as seen when he fought Carnage Kabuto, where 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 beating 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, curious as to why he doesn't have any fans. This reaction demonstrates that while he isn't necessarily into hero work for the fame, he certainly doesn't object to it. Another running joke is Saitama's jealousy of higher rankings, such as when he grew irritated when Genos listed off all of the comments made by fans about how amazing Genos is in their eyes.

Saitama demonstrates 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.

Becoming a hero has always been a dream of Saitama's. Before becoming one, he used to be frustrated about society like Hammerhead.

Powers and Abilities
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 has been able to survive a single earnest punch from him. A few enemies have survived punches from him, such as any human he has struck (which he restrains himself against) and 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 currently appears. While his power is only limited to heightened human traits - Saitama cannot fly, fire energy blasts, or perform any supernatural feats - his superhuman abilities more than make 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 a 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 himself 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 his limiter. It should be noted that Saitama would complete all parts of the training one after the other without breaks, and was battling monsters that appeared during that time, which would have made completing the training more intense than would normally be expected. Despite his unbelievable physical prowess, Saitama can be outperformed by people with skills in areas outside fighting, like when he was bested by Bang in a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors. Furthermore, he also seems to possess a normal human appetite, as he lost to Genos in a spicy noodle eating contest.

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 with a punch, 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 stops the sword by catching it with his teeth, effortlessly shattering the blade with the power of his jaw. 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 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 upon departure, as well as on Boros' ship upon landing. A "normal" punch from him is shown to be very fatal to someone as durable as Boros. A single "serious" punch from him is able to somehow counter Boros' 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 up to a certain point, as he still tends to go overboard, occasionally causing mass destruction in the aftermath. Saitama is capable of destroying the Earth if he wanted to.


 * Enhanced Leap: Saitama's inability to fly is somewhat compensated by his immense leg strength, allowing him to leap tremendous heights and distances at high speeds. 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, leaving a crater on the moon's surface in the process.

Immeasurable Speed and 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 hyper-sonic 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 bystanders noticing he had even done so. His speed is so impressive that he can even outpace the likes of Flashy Flash, easily dodging his sword swings, and later dodging Awakened Garou's attacks with wasted movements. When kicked to the Moon by Boros' attack, Saitama returned to Earth in mere moments, which implies that Saitama can even travel at sub-relativistic speeds. Ironically, despite his incredible reflexes and speed, he still has problems squashing a simple mosquito.


 * Afterimages: Saitama is so fast that he leaves afterimages when moving at high speeds. He is agile enough to dodge Beast King's Lion Slash: Meteor Shower while moving in for the kill. After assaulting Saitama with a flurry of punches in his practice fight, Genos realized that he was only fighting his afterimages.


 * Immeasurable 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 exam.


 * Immeasurable Agility: Saitama has been shown to be perfect at dodging and able to perform highly acrobatic maneuvers. Saitama's reflexes render him flexible enough to move through the narrowest creeks and dodge attacks at the closest proximity.

Immense Stamina: Saitama has never been shown to tire out when fighting enemies. Even when unleashing a punch more powerful than a planet-destroying attack, Saitama showed no signs of fatigue. The only time in which Saitama was shown to be panting and out of breath, he recovered just seconds later.



Immense Senses: Saitama's senses are far beyond the human norm. 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.

'''The following section contains Webcomic spoilers. You have been warned manga-only readers.'''

Saitama 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 completely unharmed, unperturbed and very dirty (though his clothes were burnt). 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). He even survived the harsh conditions of outer space unscathed during his brief time on the Moon.

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 one's breath in space, Saitama is able to do so with no negative effects to his body. However, it is worth noting that Saitama sees 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.

Even though he is invulnerable, he has been shown to feel pain when a cat he saved for a little girl scratched him, although no evident scars or mark of injury have been seen to be received by Saitama.
 * Psychic Immunity: Fubuki noted that Saitama is immune to certain psychic attacks and very resistant to others due to his astonishing willpower.

'''The following section contains Webcomic spoilers. You have been warned manga-only readers.''' It is noteworthy to know that his muscles merely "twitched" when Tatsumaki used her psychic powers on him, and that she wasn't able to keep Saitama up in the air for more than a few seconds 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 seconds without showing any signs of suffocation or symptoms. 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 a lack of atmosphere are at play here, although Saitama has been unable to be affected by any of them.


 * Heat Immunity: Saitama is immune to all types of heat-based attacks. In fact, he is immune to heat energy in general. 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 were destroyed). Also, after Boros, in his fully-powered state, punched Saitama to the Moon, Saitama, unharmed in the process, jumped back to Earth in mere seconds, and upon atmospheric re-entry, his clothes started to burn, but he remained unscathed.


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

Fighting Style
Master Hand-to-Hand Combatant: Despite having no formal training, Saitama is a very proficient and experienced hand-to-hand combatant, thanks to his experience after so many fights during his training. Due to his immeasurable power, he doesn't usually care about technique and makes use of flawed or basic level attacks; however, once serious, Saitama becomes a very skilled and powerful fighter. Saitama has no defined style, as he mostly uses improvised fighting techniques to take down his enemies, his combat skills allowed him to defeat many criminals and monsters even before gaining his immeasurable power. His combat moves are quite simple, but solid and backed with his immeasurable power, extremely efficient. He is able to skillfully combine his superhuman abilities in order to overwhelm his opponents or even use the environment to his advantage.

Saitama is also very proficient with improvised weapons, such as when he killed his first monster by deftly using his tie to grab the monster's eye and tear out his intestines.

Normal Series: Saitama's Normal Series consists of techniques in which he puts very little 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.


 * Consecutive 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 into pieces. Depending on the power of the attack, this technique can occur in an instant.
 * 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 instead of one.
 * Normal Punch: Saitama simply punches his opponent. Even though Saitama puts very little to no effort in his punch, it is still strong enough to kill almost every opponent of Saitama, including Dragon-Level threats, blowing apart their bodies, crushing their skulls and bones or even beheading them. When facing humans however, Saitama holds back greatly, only using enough strength to knock them out.

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 has never directly hit an opponent. It was so powerful that it completely negated Boros' 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 was still holding back.


 * Serious Side Hops: (マジ反復横とび, Maji Hanpukuyokotobi) Saitama hops from side-to-side rapidly. Doing so creates a multitude of afterimages in the form of a wall. He has been shown to be able to walk forward while doing so, and the shockwaves caused by it was enough to easily rip through Sonic's Ten Shadows Burial.
 * Death Punch: Saitama throws a very fast and very powerful punch at his opponent, that is filled with the intention to kill. While performing the attack, for a moment, Saitama and his fist appear to have become gigantic, his aura becomes visible and Saitama's opponent is forced to experience impending death while watching the punch hurling towards them and being unable to do anything. The full extent of this punch has yet to be seen since Saitama has always stopped his attack before it could connect, but the shock wave caused by the punch was strong enough to blow a gigantic hole into several mountains and clouds. It was first used in Saitama's first practice fight against Genos.

'''The following section contains Webcomic spoilers. You have been warned manga-only readers.'''
 * 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 and balance was severely warped.
 * Serious Headbutt: (マジ頭突き, Maji Zudzuki) Saitama headbutts his target. He uses this to counter a punch from Garou, destroying the latter's arm.

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.

'''The following section contains Webcomic spoilers. You have been warned manga-only readers.''' Saitama's willpower is also evident in his fight against Tatsumaki. Saitama's strength of will is directly connected to his psychic resistance. Tatsumaki, arguably the strongest esper on the planet, was unable to bend Saitama or lift him into space, exclaiming for the latter that he was "too heavy", although this was while she was injured.

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

Quotes

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


 * (To Genos, Dr. Genus and Carnage Kabuto) "The true power of us human beings is that we can change ourselves on our own."
 * (While jumping towards the meteor) "You're not... gonna fall... on my town!"
 * (To the Subterranean People) "I'm just a guy who's a hero for fun. I do not lose. And the surface... is guarded by me!"


 * (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 because 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!"

'''The following section contains Webcomic spoilers. You have been warned manga-only readers.'''
 * (To Garou) "With that attack, I now know that you are sorta strong. I might even say very strong... but it's not clear."

(To Garou)  "Really, Garou. So you did have an "image of an ideal hero" inside of you. I see now. I now understand what you wanted to do. Even though you said you wanted to be a "monster of absolute evil"... What you really wanted to be was a hero. You compromised and decided to be a monster. To bring about world peace, you took the easy route, thinking a monster's job was quicker and easier than a heroes'. A monster role is simpler, after all, all you had to do was defeat heroes. It's perfect for someone with no confidence like you. BUT YOU CAN NEVER DEFEAT ME. Peace made by ruling the world with fear can't succeed as long as you can't defeat me. It will never work. It's absolutely impossible for you. Your compromised monster hobby! VS my serious hero hobby! Even if that's all I had, I still wouldn't lose! It was a mistake to lower the hurdle right before the goal. A half-assed objective can't succeed. But what about "next time?" What will you do next?"

Trivia

 * Saitama's hero profile number is 03402.


 * Saitama is ranked 1st in the character popularity poll.
 * On 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.
 * He has a cameo appearance in a dream sequence in chapter 80.5 of Mob Psycho 100.
 * The C-class hero Strange Binding Shell has the same facial expression and hairstyle as Shigeo Kageyama, although this could be a coincidence.


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


 * His favorite food is hot pot.


 * According to Genos, Saitama's true potential does not lie within his appearance, but the way he did his best on training himself to become a true hero 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 heroes there were."


 * Saitama's name is most likely derived from the Saitama Prefecture 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.


 * As shown in some occasions, Saitama is quite stingy with money, in which he often tries to obtain foods in unconventional means, like hunting in the forest or even scavenging some parts of a Mysterious Beings as food.


 * Saitama never stopped his training.


 * Murata states that if Saitama didn't hit the moon, Saitama would have simply blew in the opposite direction. But this is just his guess, for the specific answer you have to ask ONE.


 * Saitama still grows hair everywhere else on his body besides his head.


 * Saitama has a strange fear of boogers, as shown from his nightmare, in which Saitama vehemently protests playing Rock Paper Scissors with someone who had a booger on their finger.


 * Saitama has a Cameo Appearance as a Senior Explorer (Alchemist) in Alchemia Story, a mobile game by Asobimo. He guides the player on how to create Synthesis Items later on while he brags about his feats. He even has a similar physical appearance in the game but with a huge difference on his eyes and clothes.


 * According to the databook:
 * What he likes is seaweed, Chinese cabbage, and new products of dubious value.


 * The hidden meaning behind Saitama's cactus is it remains unchanged no matter how it is taken care of.


 * Saitama's known class promotions: C-Class Rank 388 (Start) → C-Class Rank 342 (After solving the Sonic event) → C-Class Rank 5 (After solving the meteorite event) → C-Class Rank 2 (Before the Seafolk invasion event) → C-Class Rank 1 (after the Deep Sea King incident then promoted)→ B-Class Rank 101 → B-Class Rank 63 (At s-class meeting)→ B-Class Rank 33 place (Between King and Garou introduction and after solving Dark Matter Thieves invasion)→ B-Class Rank 7 place (Before meeting Fubuki)→ And finally after Monster Association Arc:

'''The following section contains Webcomic spoilers. You have been warned, manga-only readers.''' A-Class Rank 39 (after Monster Association Arc).

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