How Strong is Saitama? (One Punch Man)

hello I'm Tyler this is the imaginary axis and you know one of the most common questions I get from you imaginary friends is who is the strongest superhero I haven't figured it out yet but that's only because the genre is so obsessed with strength that over the years we've developed some really overpowered characters and as they grow stronger their limits just become harder and harder to define take Goku for instance a character who over years of writing became so strong that Akira Toriyama had to introduce literal gods to the series just to give him a good fight or The Incredible Hulk who famously set the strength bar so high for Marvel that Stan Lee wrote in Thor and the Asgardian Pantheon as the only logical way of taking things up a notch when it comes to superheroes the introduction of overpowered characters is often a sign of literary maturity the protagonist has overcome so much that his or her feats now have to be titanic their enemies have to challenge the audience's imagination because we want the stories to continue but we don't want our heroes to be stagnant and it would be boring if they just beat every opponent in one punch right [Music] right and that's exactly what Saitama from the popular one punch man franchise sets out to prove if you're not familiar with this fairly new anime manga and webcomic I highly recommend it the series is a hilarious deconstruction of the action anime and superhero genre that aims to ask the viewer if a hero is so strong that he can beat anyone what's even the point of this story if Superman's message is that overwhelming power results in the loss of humanity inside Thomas message is that overwhelming power results in the loss of serious conflict which is kind of a big deal when it comes to storytelling one punch man is the tale of a brand new superhero who's trained his powers to the point that he can end practically any fight in a single half-hearted punch and his life is boring because of it seriously this guy has nothing to do and struggles to experience even the most basic of thrills most people would if they could survive anything so naturally the question on everybody's mind is how strong is Saitama it can t be beaten does he have limits and if so where is it well I'm not gonna lie the answers to these questions might be a little disappointing because upon doing the research they're a lot less number II than usual but that doesn't mean I don't have numbers at the time of this recording site Thomas strength is by and large undefined in every one of his appearances that doesn't mean he's killed literally every opponent in one punch but it's extremely unclear how much effort he's putting into his fights look here he is destroying the sea King in one punch a monster no other hero even managed to match then this guy's somehow survives one of his attacks year's Saitama using his special serious punch but what a serious even mean in this context is it synonymous with full power unlikely or is he just putting a little more effort into his punch than usual measuring saitama's strength is like getting a call from a friend who claims he's bought some soda and wants you to guess how much he has you asked him to give you a hint and he says it's more than four fluid ounces sure now you have some idea how much so that you bought but ultimately he could still have anything from 4.1 fluid ounces to the entire freakin soda company to answer this problem we'll start from a minimum the first character we ever see survive one of saitama's punches and keep going is this guy lord Boros he's an alien conqueror who likes Saitama couldn't find any worthy opponents in his own galaxy and traveled to earth in hopes of a thrilling fight he found one he definitely found one and upon realizing Saitama was keeping up with it fairly easily Boros launched this attack collapsing star roaring cannon so at Tama match to completely cancel out the attack with a serious punch so we can use it as a point of reference to determine how strong Saitama might be and I think it's fair to treat it as a planet busting attend primarily based on Boris's bragging the official one punch man data book and the fact Saitama didn't use his full strength to repel it anyway if one of Saitama serious punches can cancel out a planet busting beam of energy then it has to generate at least 2.2 4 times 10 to the 32nd joules that's the equivalent of 107 trillion of our most powerful nuclear weapons exploding in your face or more energy than the Sun gives off in a full hour that's a lot but it's not satisfying like I said before there's just no indication that this is Saitama speak we want to figure out how strong his strongest punches but this is the strongest one he's shown us now we've run into a problem how do you determine the full strength of something that hasn't shown its full strength well you have to go back and analyze its source of power so according to Saitama he unlocked his overwhelming strength by doing 100 pushups 100 sit-ups 100 squats and 10 kilometer run every day for three years he also didn't have air conditioning well all right what would happen if you did 100 pushups 100 sit-ups 100 squats and 10 kilometres of running every day for three years there's actually a very excellent video on that by Jax Blaine a personal fitness trainer here on YouTube who teaches his viewers about various fictional training regimens I highly recommend watching it if you get the chance but spoiler alert it doesn't make you strong enough to blow planets away there has to be something else going on here humans just aren't supposed to be on site Thomas Lovell no matter how much training they do and those are the exact same thoughts the brilliant doctor genus had upon meeting Saitama for the first time and learning about his method for achieving ultimate power the one punch man webcomic reveals to us that after that meeting the good doctor apparently devoted his time to determining what really made Saitama so strong this is what he came up with rather than a type of artificial evolution I witnessed a more amazing power my research had lost that is what I thought he had removed his limiter no matter how much effort they put into it every living being has a certain limitation to their growth and living being has a set growth limit grow too strong and the burden on the wielder couldn't make them lose control like a monster that has lost their mind that is why God has made each and every living being so that it cannot grow further than a certain degree for their own survival insanity this growth restriction is known as a limiter however he had pushed himself to surpass his limitations and succeeded in removing his limiter well that explains a lot what dr. genius is talking about is something called the plateau effect there are indeed limits to everythings growth and whether you realize it or not you have encountered them before you know how it takes effort to get stronger run faster develop new skills that metaphorical hill you have to climb to improve is the beginning of a force of nature known as the plateau effect and the higher you get on the hill the steeper it becomes workout routines that used to be effective give you less and less improvement over time even if you're lifting heavier weights or running longer distances you can switch up your diet sleeping schedule or entire training method to surpass certain levels of steepness but eventually everyone reaches a level that's so steep it might as well be a plateau there's no way to improve or in dr. Genesis terms a limiter but Saitama has apparently broken his limiter he no longer has to put any effort into becoming stronger he just is he's reached a point where he's already too strong for most opponents and if he were to release his full power there is no full power he doesn't have a limit okay okay this is going too far as I mentioned at the beginning of the video one punch man is a deconstruction Saitama is meant to satirize popular shown in protagonists and superheroes this limitless strength he possesses is most likely an in story representation of the up to 11th rope a recurring theme in the action anime and superhero genres that starts out with the character appearing to reach his or her limit but then suddenly gaining the power to push past that limit through determination the power of friendship love belief in the ability to win or any number of other things saitama's power set satirizes this by preemptively breaking his limiter so he always randomly has excess power and reserved no matter how strong his opponent is so does this mean Saitama has limitless strength probably I mean it's a satire guys he is a joke character look at this stuff he's making fun of the genre and the cliches that come with it and the most basic literal punchline saitama wins without trying because he's overpowered if you approach someone and say I have this totally serious fighting character who can definitely beat Saitama in a fight the jokes kind of going over your head the character actually reminds me of Popeye the sailorman to a certain degree well Saitama is a more direct commentary on Shonen protagonists and superheroes and Popeyes more about visual humor their basic purposes and main punchlines are actually nearly identical the entire story is meant to be a joke and the lead joke is a Saitama wins without trying and be Popeye win without trying after eating spinach that doesn't mean both stories can't have legitimately dramatic or heartfelt moments but at the narrative center it's just meant to be silly there's no real limit to their strength because the story isn't about their limits it's about using their lack of limits to make you laugh now could this change sometime in the future sure one punch man is still evolving and plenty of series have changed their genres and main purposes over time this also doesn't mean Saitama is completely undefeatable omnipotence by definition can beat him and so can pretty much anyone else if he gets wrapped up in a joke as the straight man takes Squirrel Girl for instance a Marvel joke character whose whole gag is defeating overpowered opponents off screen her entire joke is literally designed to make characters like Saitama play the straight man and lose the real point here is that currently Saitama is as physically strong as he needs to be to make the audience laugh that being said if you're still absolutely insistent upon holding him to regular laws there is still one more technique we can use to try to define his strength we have to call upon a logical fallacy known as proof by example also known as inappropriate generalization or a more informally than no-limits fallacy proof by example is when someone claims that one or more examples of something are proof of a more general statement take the Legend of Zelda for instance my hardcore Zelda fans out there know that when Gannon has the Triforce of power he can only be defeated by the master sword or the Silver Arrows it's been stated multiple times throughout the franchise and it's during the mechanics of the games themselves after all as we all know it is written only link can defeat justice so let's say someone poses the following question what if Ganon had the Triforce of power and was wreaking havoc in the Marvel 6-1-6 universe could anyone stop him the correct answer to this question is yes but someone using the proof by example fallacy might say Ganon can only be defeated by the master sword or the Silver Arrows since the Marvel Universe doesn't have any of those things no one could stop him but the Hulk has shown strength feats above anything Ganon has ever done he'd rip him to shreds not fatal he doesn't have the Master Sword Doctor Strange has magical powers beyond anything ever shown in the Legend of Zelda he could just drop a dimension on him or scatter his soul across universes wouldn't work he needs the Master Sword with the Infinity Gauntlet Thanos could literally rewrite reality to wipe Ganon out of existence not unless he can use the gauntlet to get his hands on the master sword first as you can see proof by example takes 1 general rule and extrapolates it out far beyond anything it's ever been successfully applied to it's a flawed argument and it eventually becomes absurd so if you're not going to acknowledge Saitama as a joke character who has no limits by the author's own intentions in order to poke fun at tropes in cliches then I suppose the next best thing you could do is extrapolate his power out slightly beyond what we've seen before considering how little effort Saitama puts into things I think double probably sounds good can we all agree to that number well ultimately it's up to your own perception but I guess what I'm trying to say is I get the impression Saitama was written to have no physical limits and he was written this way specifically to make you laugh and smile personally I can't think of a better reason to go along with it so smile sometime there are a lot of people working really hard to make sure you do hey everybody I just wanted to take another moment to sincerely thank you for watching this video I hope you enjoyed seeing it as much as I enjoyed making it that being said it did take me a long time to make it and I also thought I should probably apologize for that unless you're a new viewer I guess in which case you have no idea what I'm talking about and just found out I exist so for those for you hi welcome to my channel have a look around and enjoy the education the dry humor you can contact me on Facebook and Twitter beverages are not provided yet regardless I felt like it was only appropriate that I let you Imaginary Friends know I didn't intend to take so long with this video real life definitely got in the way on this one know I already have scripts written out for the next few episodes so I don't expect them to take near as long but just to make sure it might be a good idea to subscribe and after subscribing or if you're already subscribed consider clicking on the small Bell icon that appears immediately afterwards I don't have time to go into all the details right now but word on the street is that clicking that icon is the only way to be absolutely sure YouTube notifies you when a new video comes out and trust me you're not gonna want to miss the next video I mean ideally you don't want to miss any of them but next time we answer one of the oldest questions in comic book history until then Oh Popeye the sailorman by the same man

Channel: The Imaginary Axis

Views: 3,841,741

Rating: 4.6390276 out of 5

Keywords: Saitama, one punch man, how strong is saitama, how strong is one punch man, boros, genos, how powerful is saitama, how powerful is one punch man, anime, manga, cartoon, comic, parody, superhero, popeye, popeye the sailor man, satire, proof by example, no limits fallacy, inappropraite generalization, saitama vs superman, saitama vs goku, saitama vs the hulk, saitama vs boros

Id: OEAPEiuW97g

Length: 16min 17sec (977 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 19 2017