One Punch Man 3 backlash explained: 'Stop harassing staff,' pleads animator

One Punch Man Season 3 has finally landed—but fans aren’t holding back their side-eye over the animation quality. So much so that an actual One Piece animator had to swoop in and defend the series.

For the uninitiated, One Punch Man’s debut season in 2015 was a knockout, scoring 100% and 95% on Rotten Tomatoes for honoring One’s story and Yusuke Murata’s jaw-dropping artwork. Season 2, however, hit turbulence when J.C. Staff took over after Madhouse’s schedule got packed, leaving fans grumbling about the dip in quality. Naturally, expectations for Season 3 were… complicated.

Enter Vincent Chansard, the legendary animator behind One Piece, Jujutsu Kaisen, and Castlevania. On the KOL: Requiem YouTube channel, he said, “I think a lot of people blame J.C. Staff, but it’s a bit more complex. Sometimes, it’s not about the animation studio – sometimes it’s about the production committees that are on top of everything.”

Chansard added context after the host remarked on Season 1’s grand animation, noting that, “The Japanese industry is very difficult. J.C. Staff is just a studio with artists who are trying to survive… Right now, it’s very difficult for them.”

He didn’t stop there, highlighting the “pressure” from “people on social media harassing the staff.” “I don’t want to call to be mean about some of my colleagues’ work, I think everyone has work conditions that push them to make choices. And, again, everyone is just trying to survive in this industry,” Chansard explained.

His defense echoes One Punch Man Season 3 director Shinpei Nagai, who begged fans to “stop with the harassment and the persistent questions that I can’t answer due to NDAs.”