Like any Shōnen anime worth its salt, One-Punch Man’s greatest strength is its wide array of eccentric characters each with a signature approach to beating the brakes off of their opponents. The main character Saitama is anything but boring, but he also exists specifically to satirize other anime heroes.
As a deliberately somewhat dull personality and design, the anime’s vibrant supporting cast spices things up along the way. One-Punch Man delivers a stable of characters with compelling personalities and motives, heroes that anyone would want in their D&D campaign. Here are the One-Punch Man characters that best define each D&D alignment.
9 Lawful Good: Mumen Rider, The Cyclist Of Justice
Lawful Good: the easiest D&D alignment to match with a One Punch character. In a world where superheroes are commonplace – and fandoms coalesce around these personas the way a sports team or boy band might amass a following – most of these earthly demigods are less concerned with actually saving the day than they are with being popular.
Lawful Good is a standout choice here but not because One-Punch Man features so many examples of selfless arbiters of justice. Instead, the show is almost devoid of them.
Among these ego-maniacs, one paragon stands above the rest – Mumen Rider. The least super of all the recurring heroes, Mumen Rider never hesitates to throw himself in harm’s way armed only with a helmet and his six-speed steed. Even against Sea King or Garou, enemies who thrashed some of The Association’s mightiest, Mumen Rider never backs down if people are in jeopardy.
8 Neutral Good: Genos
Genos, Saitama’s unfaltering sidekick, is almost as purely motivated as Mumen Rider. As such, he teeters on the edge of Lawful Good territory. Unlike most heroes from The Association, Genos joins not out of a desire for fame, but to study and work with the best and boldest in hopes of surpassing them.
His role in the show is crucial as he holds off every impending threat to the public while the aloof Saitama meanders over to neutralize the enemy. But he also serves up most of the action before his sensei arrives to save the day with a single effortless punch.
What keeps Genos from being Lawful Good? His primary driving force: vengeance. While his intentions are just, the earliest D&D editions defined “chaotic” personalities as those with individualistic motivations. Since Genos’ entire raison d’etre stems from the need to exact revenge, he’s not quite as ideologically pure as Mumen Rider.
7 Chaotic Good: Saitama
Saitama, the titular hero, embodies the folly of searching for a purpose by dedicating your life with laser focus to the pursuit of a singular goal. He gives up his soulless office job (a reality faced by no shortage of young people in Japan’s workforce) to commit himself to strength training full-time. Saitama earns superpowers seemingly through sheer force of will to bring excitement into his life.
However, he discovers that becoming the strongest puncher in the world leads to a similarly dull existence. While Saitama certainly helps more than he harms, his heroic feats are merely means to an end. In his own words, he’s “a guy who’s a hero for fun.” In his endless search to find a worthy competitor, Saitama has brought about his fair share of collateral damage and never seems too regretful. For that reason, he’s decidedly Chaotic Good.
6 Lawful Neutral: Vaccine Man
Another consequence of Saitama’s approach to heroism is that he’s never concerned with the motivations of his opponents. That his challengers are “villains” at all is only necessary in order to allow Saitama to shirk any guilt he might feel from splattering the bad-guy-of-the-week on the pavement. Vaccine Man is a perfect example of one of Saitama’s victim’s who was actually…right.
Vaccine Man – a clear homage to Dragon Ball Z’s Piccolo – appears in the first episode for mere seconds before being dispatched by “the caped baldy”. During his brief cameo, it’s stated that Vaccine Man patrols the cosmos, eliminating life that harms the natural balance of its host planet. Humanity is a sickness that Earth can’t shake and Vaccine Man is the remedy. But Vaccine Man is ambivalent towards individual humans; extermination is simply a mission to be carried out for the greater good of every other life form on Earth. To Saitama, however, a fight’s a fight. Pow! It’s curtains for Vaccine Man.
5 True Neutral: Suiryu
The definition of “True Neutral” can vary depending on your Dungeon Master’s definition or that of your personal True Neutral party-mate. This alignment can either describe those who are entirely agnostic in any conflict between good and evil or those who alternate between either side on a whim. Suiryu falls into the former category. Hhis motivations are murky, but he’s certainly not evil even though he’s also not really good.
Suiryu exists to say the quiet part out loud, i.e, he unabashedly vocalizes the thoughts similarly held by most of the heroes at The Association. They, too, clearly have ulterior motives for donning their capes. For this “hero”, life is all about training, fighting, and fame. Suiryu does not love being a hero because that means saving people and saving people is a lot of work.
4 Chaotic Neutral: Speed-o-Sound Sonic
Take Suiryu and add even more ego and the result is Speed-o-Sound Sonic. If an anti-hero is someone who saves the day for all of the wrong reasons (not a comprehensive definition by any means) then Triple S is an anti-villain.
Sonic is so sure that he’s superior to every other hero that his endeavor to actually prove this to others is driving him mad. He isn’t a villain because he hasn’t any interest in villainy. Moreover, his motives (so far) haven’t aligned with any other of the series’ “Big-Bads”. In the absence of a real villain to confront to prove his worth, Sonic is happy to turn on other heroes for the sake of flexing.
3 Lawful Evil: Garou
Season two of One-Punch Man offered small vignettes into the life of its primary antagonist Garou. Silver Fang’s connection to the new villain was immediately made apparent by their similar designs. But their connection is deeper than a black shirt and white hair. Garou studied under Silver Fang and seeks revenge against his former master.
Garou feels that Silver Fang humiliated him by ejecting him from the dojo. Garou also wants to cripple The Association at large since he views heroes as a force oppressing all those who they oppose. That said, Garou is not without a moral compass. Throughout the season, we see his rage tempered in the presence of children. He even halts his battle to the death with Metal Bat when he realizes his opponent’s little sister is watching from the sidelines. For all that talk about becoming a monster, Garou seems too human to become truly evil.
2 Neutral Evil: Boros
Season one’s antagonist and natural foil to Saitama is the alien overlord Boros. Boros scours the universe in search of an opponent who can present a meaningful challenge and bring purpose to his life. This sounds familiar…He eventually finds his match in Saitama and it’s as if the two are brought together by fate.
Certainly unlawful, Boros draws out the planet’s defenders by attacking the vulnerable civilian population with his legion of grotesque alien henchman. Boros isn’t entirely chaotic, however, and desires a fair fight between him and Saitama first and foremost. No tricks or gimmicks; just a one on one with both fighters exuding maximum effort.
1 Chaotic Evil: Carnage Kabuto
One-Punch Man runs short on bad guys who are in it just for the sport or carry out heinous acts without motivation or provocation. The closest that the anime gets to featuring this kind of villain is Dr. Genus and his House of Evolution. Genus seeks to hasten the evolution of animals and humankind through intense combat. As such, all his creations understand is conflict, but they don’t understand why they cause it. This goes double for Genus’ flagship creation: Carnage Kabuto. Genus’ villain career is short-lived as Saitama dispatches each of his creations with ease.
Carnage Kabuto presents more of a challenge as he can smell Saitama’s power and somewhat sense his moves. At first, his motivation is finding a challenge. Then, it’s survival and switches once more to killing Saitama once Kabuto’s ego is fully bruised. He’s a primal, arrogant, and brutish beast who ultimately falls prey to his own hubris. At least, that would be true if Saitama couldn’t destroy anything with one punch including him.
As for Dr. Genus, he abandons his mission and retires to a quaint takoyaki stall where he happily sells octopus snacks.
