After a second season of One-Punch Man that did not quite live up to the first one, will we be receiving a third season?
The third season of One-Punch Man has been confirmed to be in the works. However, no date has been announced yet. This third season does not come as a surprise seeing as ratings for the second season did OK, even if not quite as well as during the first season.
Why a Third Season of One-Punch Man Was Always Likely
The second season of the One-Punch Man anime met with quite some criticism. The ratings, while not as exceptional as season 1, are still pretty good. The lowest rated episode at IMDb is 7.4. Nine out of twelve episodes have a score of 8+, while 3 episodes have a score of 9+.
Criticism mostly seems to come from the most hardcore fans, familiar with the source material from the manga. They may not be as ecstatic as with season one, but the general public seems to like the second season.
One-Punch Man is also still in the top 10 of most sold Mangas. Not only that, but author ONE has even resumed work on the webcomic. All those things pointed towards the fact that a third season was very likely. Our suspicions have now been confirmed, although no official date has been announced yet.
Available Source Material for Season 3
There is already quite some source material available that has not been adapted in the anime yet. At the time of writing, there are 124 manga chapters available. 85 of these have already been covered in the Anime.
When We Should Expect the Third Season of One-Punch Man
Seeing where the story is right now and how long it will take to reach the climax of the current arc, 135-140 chapters seems more likely though. The manga is currently being updated every two to three weeks. That means reaching that amount of chapters would take a little less than a year.
Of course, since One-Punch Man does not follow a set release schedule, we can’t know for sure. Yusuke Murata, who draws the manga, may get another big project. Maybe another issue will come up. Actually making the anime based on the source material obviously also takes its time. Compiling the information available to us, however, makes it quite realistic that the third season will come out in 2021.