Why do people think Saitama is a gag character?

Why do people believe this?

He doesn’t pull random stuff out of nowhere he has consistent powers sure those powers don’t have a defined limit but he doesn’t just do anything that makes things funny like pulling a machine gun out of his head.

An argument I regularly hear is that he’s funny and theirs a lot of jokes with him and how he’s drawn funny sometimes which makes me think that the people who make these arguments have never watched much anime. Almost every anime does this, almost every anime makes their character look funny once in a while.

Another argument is that he’s called one punch man and that his premise is off a man who defeats everything in one punch(even though that’s not a fact and that’s what you think the premise is and my premise is that the actual premise of the show and it has to do more with the fact that it’s funny because he’s so strong that no one can challenge him where he lives and that makes him bored).

First off just because he’s called that by the author either in the manga or not doesn’t mean you take it literally as Danny from game of thrones is called the Mother of Dragons even though technically she’s more of a trainer of dragons and didn’t give birth to them literally.

Secondly he doesn’t even follow his own premise of one punching everything and I know the argument is that he holds back but let me ask you

Why does that matter? Just because he holds back doesn’t invalidate the fact that he’s not following his own(your) premise of the show.

The last argument that I’ll make is that the story doesn’t really seem much like a gag story, the characters have character development and their own problems and the plot doesn’t just revolve around the main character, heck a lot of the attention goes to the hero association and what’s happening with them majority of the time. Whenever saitama appears he’s usually shown as strong or just doing ordinary things, it isn’t always a joke with him, heck whenever he’s around others they usually also become part of some joke about their character flaw and trying to resolve those flaws.

He was treated as such by his own creator

@zezima: In what way? One never said he was and Saitama’s funny moments isn’t anything special by anime standards.

@kidolio: the gag part is his overreaction, deadpans and non-sequiturs and in a setting like his world, those kind of reactions provide a different kind of gag relief. you seem to be focusing too much on the serious side of OPM.

He's bald.

@kyrees: A lot of anime do that but they’re not considered gag mangas, nor are they considered gag characters in their manga. There are funny characters but not many gag characters.

And if that’s what you would consider a gag character then Touma from To aru has that type of constant reaction to his misfortune but nobody says he’s a gag character.

OPM is a comedy manga though. without saitama's recurring jokes around him, OPM would just be another shonen manga. you can consider saitama a gag character given the recurring jokes around him.

is to aru marketed as a comedy manga though ?

Because he is

he's a parody character placed in a non parody world.

@seagod: You know you could actually leave constructive criticism. Are manners not your thing?

@kyrees: It isn’t but Gintama is and none of its characters are considered gag characters even though they make much more jokes then he does, they’re just considered funny.

@kidolio: nah don't do manners. Though technically I never tagged anybody in the meme so who knows who I was actually referring to. You know what they say about people that get offended over blanket statements

@seagod: Um you posted a meme without tagging anybody so the only thing you could be talking about is this topic as you posted it on this page.

@kidolio: not true but if you think the meme applies to you then you must feel it does then

@seagod: You could use context clues, you didn’t tag anyone, my post is above yours so if you weren’t trying to post to me that was kinda dumb, you posted like seven minutes after I posted so you would have enough time to realize that, you also didn’t immediately clarify who you were talking to in your next post, and when someone doesn’t tag anyone that means either they’re talking to the post above them or the OP, which are both me.

It isn’t hard to infer who your talking to.

gag characters have recurring jokes with them and while funny characters are just funny as a whole.

@kyrees: Have you not seen Ginatama? Don’t worry it’s not as popular as it should be. They have a lot of recurring jokes, like a lot.

@kidolio: or maybe I left the page open for a while before posting cause I had to grab a bottle of water then find the perfect meme. Also possible I'm not mentioning who the intended target was cause it's funny watching you get worked up

@seagod: Yeah I’m ragen like crazy over here you should see me man. So you left to get a bottle of water and find a very specific meme for about 10-20 minutes? If you really were replying to someone else the person above me had like 3 words, and the person above them had 2 sentences. If you truly thought those were rambling then, oh boy I would not have liked to be one of your English teachers.

recurring jokes within their own characters, not recurring jokes.

@kyrees: There’s both.

OPM fans are a different breed of weird

The point of Saitama is that he doesn't need to train to become more powerful like other Shonen heroes.

The other heroes are classical Shonen characters, Saitama isn't.

Saitama is the "final saiyan form", the "ultimate hidden technique", the "beyond level 999 RPG character"...

The joke is that he achieved all of this with a relatively normal training, not even a crazy training of an Olympic competitor...
When you see Goku going through training through Hell like making push-ups under 100 G and blocking his own Ki-blasts to come close to Frieza, you know that this trope is highly subverted.

I think that the character portrayal of Saitama is more important than is feats to understand the point made by One-Punch Man.

@kidolio: i've looked up gintama, it's also considered a gag anime for what it's worth

Because they have no idea what a gag character is

That or they just want him to be stronger, and since his on panel feats are pretty lame, the only way to make him stronger is to say he's a gag character.

Because literally every arc of the manga's story thus far has the main villain being built up as a dire threat, being worse than anything that has come before and without fail Saitama has dealt with them casually with that being the entire point of the series... I personally don't think the series will have Saitama struggling to overcome some similarly powerful being. I think it will have him finding meaning in his life again through his attempts to master things outside of being a hero or perhaps gaining satisfaction from the outcome of his actions as a hero rather than finding meaning through struggling to overcome a tough opponent.

@kidolio: your argument makes absolutely no sense.

you even acknowledged that the author calls him a gag character. “Just because he’s called that by the author”

once you typed that you should have stopped. You can’t argue with the guy who made it. It’s his creation.

Probably because they stopped watching the series after the first season.

@christianrapper: Not always. What if JK Rowling were to say Harry Potter is a girl and never had a scar on his forehead?

OPM fans are like walls when it comes to debating

Saitama isn't a gag character, he's bound by the laws of his universe, just because he appears in a comical scene here or there doesn't make him a gag character lol

OPM haters are stupid when it comes to analyzing Saitama

Saitama is a gag character, gag doesnt mean toonforce. Gag means Joke

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/gag

Saitama is a Invincible gag character,Its author intention. You cant debunk author itself

^ Lmao.

He is everyone else isn't.

@yassassin: "everyone else isn't"

I don't know why people keep saying this. That simply isn't true. The other characters and the stories that are told through them are centered around comedy.

This is sad.

He's right you know

He isn't a gag character

The people that treat him as one didn't get past the title of the series.

Which usually manifestes itself because Saitama is involved.Obviously they're still comedy every story has some comedic elmements and character, but with and without Saitama is the difference between Scream 1 and Scary Movie 1.

He isn't.

He just the most powerful person in Fiction & Non Fiction Combined

: )

Because, while limited to being a physical being, his physical characteristics are at whatever level is necessary to trivialize any challenge or comparison to him and that's the point.

That's a gag character in my book.

Gotta love people ignoring authorial intent

Saitama is a gag character. No doubt. Anyone who said he isnt didnt read the interviews and didnt realize that saitama has one recurring joke A.K.A Dumbasses.

He's more of a parody/mockery of the shonen MC than an actual gag character, tbh.

Hes both gag and a parody

@sup3rn0va: ok somarale can't breath in space, she's bound by the laws of gravity does that stop her from being a gag

Here's a video to all you dumb ppl that need to be educated that saitama's actually a gag character https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FiprzM7Z_Ao