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Warning: The following contains spoilers for the One Punch Man manga. One Punch Man is now streaming onCrunchyroll.
There aren’t many people inOne Punch Manwho can bring it out of him, but when the going gets tough, Saitama gets serious. The aptly named Killer Move: Serious Series is a series of moves that Saitama only uses againstthe toughest opponents.
Unlike the other special moves in theOne Punch Manuniverse, or just anime in general, Saitama’s Serious Series moves are incredibly simple. They often involve simple attacks or actions, with the only thing making them special being that they’re performed with immense strength, more so than usual, from Saitama. For example, the Serious Punch is just that, a punch that’s stronger than Saitama’s normal punches.
Serious Punch and All Its Variations
The “Regular” Serious Punch
The first time Saitama showed off his first Serious Punch was duringhis fight with Boros. The powerful alien overlord was the first to draw out Saitama’s potential by launching his final attack: Collapsing Star Roaring Cannon. In response, Saitama unleashed the first-ever Serious Series move in the show. Just as the name implies, it’s a punch, but really, really strong. It’s strong enough to bring Boros to a dying state while also parting the clouds in a straight line over Earth. And note that Boros noticed that Saitama was still holding back for that attack, meaning the Serious Punches he performs later on are likely stronger.
“In that case, I’ll use my own final move. Killer Move: Serious Series Serious Punch.” - Saitam to Boros
Other times he’sperformed the Serious Punchwere against Centichoro, Evil Natural Water, and Garou. Contrary to the series title, the Serious Punch doesn’t always immediately end the fight. Stronger enemies like Garou or those mostly immune to conventional attacks like Evil Natural Water have survived it.
Serious Punch²
To perform the Omnidirectional Serious Punch, Saitama used the Serious Punch²to clash against Garou’s Mode: Saitama Serious Punch and would have destroyed the Earth if Blast and a few others hadn’t redirected most of the resulting shockwave to deep space.
As it turns out, it wouldn’t have destroyed just the Earth, as the shockwave straight up erased multiplestarsfrom existence. The part of the shockwave that remained near Earth was strong enough to launch Saitama and Garou into one of Jupiter’s moons, Io. The Serious Punch² is not only the strongest variation of the Serious Punch, it’s alsothe strongest Serious Series moveso far.
Omnidirectional Serious Punch
Saitama moves around his opponent so fast that he’ll create afterimages of himself, making it look like dozens of Saitamas are simultaneously going to throw a punch at the opponent from every direction. The speed at which Saitama moves is so over-the-top that evenGarou in his Cosmic Fear Modecouldn’t keep track of him and only saw the afterimages. However, despite what it looks like, the Omnidirectional Serious Punch is technically just one punch, as all the other “punches” are just from Saitama’s afterimages.
Saitama’s Other Serious Series Moves
Serious Sideways Jumps
Using the same principle as the Omnidirectional Serious Punch, Saitama’s Serious Sideways Jumps are performed by jumping side to side at incomprehensible speeds. He will start to generate a wall of afterimages, and just like last time, they’re meantto confuse the enemy. The damage comes from the shockwave that the jumps cause and was strong enough to knock out Speed-o'-Sound Sonic.
Serious Water Gun
All of Saitama’s attacks seem silly because of how simple they are, but then some attacks take it to the next level of absurdity, like the Serious Water Gun. He performs this attack by squirting liquid from his hands like how you’d do it in a pool. Except, of course, the force from Saitama’s Serious Water Gun is enough to completely negate anattack that used the Earth’s coreas a power source. Sure, Saitama was using lava at the time, not just water, but it probably would’ve turned out the same either way.
Serious Table Flip
The Serious Table Flip is performed by Saitama digging his hand into the ground. Then, he’d perform the action of flipping a table, except what heflips is the entire crust of Io. This move sent most, if not all, of Io’s outer crust flying up to space, where it appeared to be stuck in orbit for the rest of the fight.
Serious Sneeze
The Serious Sneeze is the strongest non-punch Serious Series move. The force from Saitama’s sneeze was enough to wipe out halfof the planet Jupiter, and take note that the sneeze came all the way from Io. Lucky for Garou, the move just barely missed him; otherwise, the fight might’ve ended right then and there.
Serious Headbutt
The Serious Headbutt was used on Garou to counter a punch from him. It not only successfully blocked Garou’s punch, but it also destroyed his arm in the process. The Serious Headbutt is unique in that it never appeared in the manga. Saitama only performs this move in theOne Punch Manwebcomic,the original source materialof the franchise. Because it wasn’t shown in the manga, there’s also the chance that the Serious Headbutt might not make it to the anime. But who knows? Keep your serious fingers crossed, and maybe it’ll happen.
One Punch Man is now available to stream onCrunchyrollandNetflix. One Punch Man Season 3 will be released sometime in October 2025.
