One-Punch Man Season 3 Episode 10: “Torture” – Censored Clashes, Disco Filters, and a Gut-Punch to Heroic Hype

Just when One-Punch Man Season 3 dared to peek out from its budget black hole with Episode 9’s gadget glow-up, Episode 10, “Torture,” swings back like a limp noodle of a haymaker. Airing yesterday on Crunchyroll, Hulu, and TV Tokyo at the ungodly hour of 1:25 AM JST, this 24-minute mess dives into the Monster Association’s meat grinder, adapting manga chapters 101-107 with the grace of a regenerating zombie on a sugar crash. Spoilers incoming—grab your capes and complaints, because this one’s less “heroic triumph” and more “what were they thinking?”

Carnage in the Caves: A Butchered Battlefield Breakdown

Picking up the scorched threads from Child Emperor’s fiery farewell, “Torture” scatters its focus across the underground inferno like confetti at a funeral. Zombieman, the S-Class immortal with a grudge against downtime, headlines in a gore-soaked grudge match against the vampiric Pureblood and his batty brood. What should’ve been a visceral showcase of regeneration—limbs torn, guts guzzled, and stitches sewn amid screams—gets neutered into a candy-coated kiddie romp, with our flesh-munching hero sucking on a lollipop like it’s Halloween in hell. Fans are howling over the swap, turning a brutal body horror ballet into a PG-13 punchline that robs the scene of its sadistic edge.

The chaos cascades: Amai Mask, the pretty-boy powerhouse with a monster-sized ego, unleashes on the siren-like Do-S in a flexible frenzy of head-smash horror. The anime opts for the redrawn manga’s mercy kill on some mercenaries, but fumbles the finale—Do-S gets offed outright instead of the wall-bouncing, eye-gouging cat-and-mouse that Murata’s pencils promised. Meanwhile, Pig God’s gluttonous gut-busting gets shoehorned into Atomic Samurai’s squad skirmish, with wrong-way chomps and misplaced maws that feel like a fever dream mash-up. Saitama? He strolls in for a surreal sidebar, bumping into resurrected rabble-rousers Hellfire Flame and Gale Wind—ninja has-beens turned zombie sidekicks—delivering a one-punch reminder that boredom is the real boss-level threat. Child Emperor’s distress signal beams out, teasing the surface-level siege to come, but the episode’s scattershot pacing leaves it all feeling like a rushed raid boss skip.

It’s a torture chamber of truncated tales: 132 panels axed, whole fight squads sidelined, and power suits swapped for sloppy seconds. The manga’s labyrinthine layer of hero horrors shrinks to a linear letdown, prioritizing plot checkboxes over punchy payoffs.

Animation: From Flicker to Full-On Filter Fiasco

If Episode 9 was a tentative torch in the dark, Episode 10 douses it in a vat of vaseline-smeared vaseline—wait, filters. J.C. Staff’s outsourced nightmare, courtesy of Triple A’s trembling hands, drowns the dank depths in neon disco vomit: every cavern crawl pulses with garish glows, turning shadowy slaughter into a seizure-inducing rave. Storyboard wiz Shinpei Nagai and directors Nana Fujihara and Masahito Otani map a solid skeleton, but chief animation director Shinya Hasegawa’s crew can’t flesh it out without the bones showing. Action AD Kenichiro Aoki’s sparks flicker in fits—Zombieman’s regen snaps with momentary menace—but ghosting glitches and PNG-stiff poses plague the proceedings, making Do-S’s dodges look like a drunk duck waddle.

Compared to Episode 8’s ninja nirvana or 9’s mecha magic, this is a demotion to the discount bin: censorship softens the sakuga, cuts cripple the choreography, and the color grading’s a crime scene. It’s not just “bad”—it’s a betrayal, with fans dubbing it “One Disco Man” for the filter frenzy that buries any budget bursts under a blanket of bad decisions. If Season 1’s Madhouse punches hit like Saitama’s serious strike, this feels like a pulled prank.

X-Files of Fury: Social Media’s Monster Mash Meltdown

The premiere’s postmortem on X (née Twitter) is a riot of rage, with #OnePunchMan trending alongside terms like “censored catastrophe” and “J.C. Staff quit.” @hotrod_521’s viral vent—”This is the worst episode… atrocious”—racked up 616 likes and a comment storm decrying the action-starved adaptation. Reactionaries like @p9cker_girl likened the Zombieman lobotomy to “4Kids vibes,” while @Shatterguardfae tallied the panel purge: “132 removed… bigger disaster.” @UnbrokenApple’s breakdown post, spotlighting the outsourced slump, garnered 78 likes and a thread of “well directed, badly animated” woes.

YouTube’s no sanctuary: @MK5jIaObsE0’s “HUGE DISASTER” vid clocks views with rants on Aoki’s wasted sakuga, and Reddit’s Ep10 megathread boils over with “they 4KIDS’d Zombieman” memes. Even the positives are pained—@_the_antor’s “masterpiece” poll ironically tanks at sub-3/10, with Do-S fanart floods mocking her mangled demise. MAL forums and Discord dives echo the echo chamber: a 5.8/10 audience score on early aggregators, buoyed by Saitama stans but battered by the butchery. One silver lining? The backlash might Bandai Namco into finale fixes, as @PLUTO_HADEATH quips: “Where is quality it ‘S3 EP8’ class?”

One Last Gasp: Can the Caped Baldy Save This Season?

“Torture” torments more than it thrills, exposing Season 3’s fractures like a Zombieman autopsy: adaptation ambition clashing with execution anemia. By coddling the carnage and choking the creativity, J.C. Staff risks turning ONE’s opus into a one-note dirge. Yet, in OPM’s satirical spirit, this flop flips the script—heroes falter, fans fight back, and Saitama sleeps through it all. With the Monster Association arc cresting, Episode 11 could be the comeback kid or the knockout blow. Will it punch up, or pull another punch? Stream at your own risk; the real monsters are in the mirrors now.

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jahnjohsnon96

Hello, I am a huge anime fan with a decent experience in writing articles regarding the anime industry.