Saitama - One Punch Man

Saitama (サイタマ, Saitama) is the main protagonist of the series and the titular One-Punch Man. He is the most powerful being to exist in the series. Saitama faces a self-imposed existential crisis, as he is now too powerful to gain any thrill from battle.

Initially just a hero for fun, Saitama later registers to be a professional hero for the Hero Association upon realizing that nobody recognizes him as a hero, and defends his home in Z-City from monsters, villains, and other threats. Under the Hero Association, he is assigned the hero name Caped Baldy (ハゲマント, Hagemanto; Viz: Bald Cape) and is currently B-Class Rank 7. 

Appearance

Saitama is an ordinary-looking bald man with a thin but well-built physique and is of average height and weight. He used to have a full head of short black hair but lost it due to the intensity of his hero training regimen.

Saitama is usually deliberately drawn in a more simplistic style than the other characters, similar to the style of the original webcomic, with an elliptical head and simple facial features. When drawn in a more serious style, Saitama is revealed to have sharp facial features, fearsome eyes, and chiseled musculature. His posture changes as well, with a slack posture and sloping shoulders when lax, and a straightened posture and squared shoulders when serious.

Personality

Saitama's character on the surface can be best summed up as "average". On first glance, nothing about him strikes anyone he meets or causes them to note anything remarkable about him. Before becoming a hero he was an average salary man and didn't seem interested in anything initially though becoming a hero has actually always been a dream of Saitama's. Before becoming one, he used to be frustrated about society, just like Hammerhead and even commenting that he could have become just like him depending on the path he took.

Due to his great power and being virtually indestructible, Saitama is an indifferent person. Even the mightiest foes pose no challenge to him, so he does not take his hero work seriously, goes through everything with little to no effort, and yearns for an opponent that can provide him with a challenge. The lack of worthy opponents has led him to suffer from a self-imposed existential crisis, and he claims that his ability to feel any and all emotions has dulled considerably. The combination of his attitude, unstoppable power, and "unimpressive" appearance often causes his battles to become anticlimactic. Saitama will usually allow his opponents to rant about their motives and power up into their strongest forms, before obliterating them with a single punch. 

Saitama's indifference doesn't rest solely on his hero work either. In daily life he is often seen lounging around playing video games, reading manga, or going out for strolls. His tastes in food is rather plain and he often frequents food stalls rather than go to restaurants or cook at home. As his primary interest, hero work, has become unfulfilling, he pays little attention to anything else. A running gag about Saitama is his inability to remember people's faces and names, as seen when he forgot Speed-o'-Sound Sonic's name, or when he could not remember who Tanktop Tiger was. Because of this, he sometimes ends up pronouncing people's names incorrectly, much to their chagrin. Saitama does not care if people insult him, and he usually ignores them and says that they need a hobby; the only insult that could get a reaction out of him is anything pertaining to his baldness. He has expressed distaste towards his officially assigned hero name, Caped Baldy. Thus, even after receiving it, he always refers to himself as Saitama.

Regardless of his indifference, Saitama can find things that interest him and does actively look for activities to relieve his boredom. These things tend to be mundane activities such as watching TV, going shopping, or playing games. He shows a measure of concern when it comes to bargains and deals, as seen when he fought Carnage Kabuto, where he was more shocked upon the realization that he was going to miss a bargain sale, rather than his opponent who had undergone a transformation and was beating him around.

He can also express irritation and even outright anger depending on the situation. Saitama has limited patience for long explanations, however, and will often interrupt the speaker. His ideal word count is 20 or less. He can get angry when he loses to someone like King when they play games. He will become enraged if anyone messes with his food or damages his house as he immediately killed a mantis monster for crashing through his roof and told Genos to move his fight with Sonic somewhere away from his apartment.

Aside from being quite a cheapskate due to his financial status, he has a greedy side seen when tried to steal bags of gold from the underground mine inside the Monster Association Headquarters and was visibly upset after accidentally dropping them down to the bottom of an underground ravine.

Despite his general indifference to most things, Saitama was genuinely shocked when he realized that no one actually knew of him despite his achievements, curious as to why he doesn't have any fans. This reaction demonstrates that while he isn't necessarily into hero work for fame, he certainly doesn't object to it. Another running joke is Saitama's jealousy of higher rankings, such as when he grew irritated when Genos listed off all of the comments made by fans about how amazing Genos is in their eyes.

Beneath the surface, Saitama is much more complex than his appearance and attitude would suggest. While he scored low on the written portion of the hero exam, he is by no means, unintelligent. Saitama is very observant, insightful, and has high tactical awareness. This is seen in how he was able to discern situations and character traits from the people and environment around him fairly easily. He was able to pick up a number of hints to Sonic's persona upon their first meeting. When two tank top heroes jealously plotted to ruin him after the meteor event, he remarked that there were irate and self-serving hero types like them. He was even able to discern Fubuki's forced offer of submission or destruction just before his crackdown on how the hero world really works than how it is currently run. Saitama has been seen to show remorse to his enemies before, particularly ones who can give him a stimulating fight and don't just go down in one hit. One such example of this is Boros, the self-claimed "Dominator of the Universe", with whom Saitama sympathized, due to suffering from similar circumstances though in the end, even Boros still couldn't draw out Saitama's full power.

The most surprising thing about Saitama is that he is actually one of the most morally upstanding heroes in the story. Saitama is very humble, as he purposefully let the masses turn against him in order for the defeated heroes to be given credit for their efforts against the Deep Sea King, even claiming that they had weakened the monster before his arrival wanting to give credit to the heroes that were actually risking their lives to protect innocent people He did the same for the police station, killing a monster while disguised as a police officer, despite potentially gaining much fame had he revealed who he actually was as he heard the Hero Association executive try to force the police to beg for assistance exclaiming that, "Police and heroes don't help people because someone had to beg". This is also his outlook on being a hero as he told Genos, "If heroes run and hide, who will stand and fight". He also did not mind that King took credit for all of his achievements. The most subtle indication of Saitama's strong morality is the fact that, in spite of having world shaking power and there being no one who could stop him from doing anything he wants, he only ever uses his strength to be a hero.

Saitama demonstrates impressive restraint with his power, considering that he is easily capable of splitting the sky or jumping from the Moon to Earth in seconds. He manages to beat nearly all of his opponents with a single punch, though occasionally causes more destruction than necessary.  While he has no problem killing monsters, Saitama has yet to be seen killing another human and only ever uses enough strength to knock them out. His restraint is so ingrained, that no matter the strength of the opponent and regardless of how much Saitama knows about them, he only kills when he intends to kill even if he hits someone unexpectedly such as the number of times he's knocked out Garou.

Saitama has proven to be a good figure to other people, both heroes and villains alike. His influence made Genos quiet his revenge wishes and start focusing on training to become a good and strong hero. He has also made insecure people like Fubuki and Glasses stand up to their challenges and become better heroes. Saitama also advises King to train and become strong for real, rather than being upset the latter stole credit from his battles.

As Genos notes, he "attracts the strong", as many powerful heroes and villains have taken a liking to him, and few even look up to him as a role model to follow.

Abilities and Powers

Saitama is the titular One-Punch Man and the strongest, fastest and most durable character in the series. So far, no enemy has been able to injure him in any way, and almost no enemy has been able to survive a single earnest punch from him. A few enemies have survived punches from him, such as any human he has struck (whom he restrains himself against) and Boros, whom Saitama empathized with and held back against so as to give himself and Boros a satisfying and stimulating fight. Saitama's only power is that his body is far beyond human limits, allowing him to achieve astounding physical feats. His strength is so great that it vastly eclipses even artificial beings designed or bred specifically for superhuman combat, such as mechanical beings or the mutated warriors from the House of Evolution. Since no enemies have posed any real challenge to Saitama yet, the upper bound of his strength is likely even higher than it currently appears. While his power is only limited to heightened human traits (he cannot fly or fire energy blasts), his superhuman abilities more than compensate for the lack of variety in his powers.

Physical Abilities

Unparalleled Strength: Saitama possesses seemingly limitless physical strength and is capable of effortlessly defeating powerful monsters and villains with a single, nonchalant punch (although this strength is not limited to punches). His punches are so powerful that many monsters simply explode when struck. 

Enhanced Leap: Saitama's inability to fly is somewhat compensated by his immense leg strength, allowing him to leap tremendous heights/distances at high speeds. This can be seen when Saitama smashed his head through the ceiling of a tall gymnasium during the hero tryouts simply by jumping. He was also able to smash a building into its foundation just by leaping off from its roof.

Shockwave Generation: As shown in his practice bout with Genos, Saitama can control and direct his power in the form of a massive shock wave that comes from his punches. He uses this to show Genos a glimpse of his true power, but stops it before actually punching Genos, with the shockwave from the attack completely annihilating an entire cliffside behind him.

Unparalleled Speed and Reflexes: Saitama possesses unparalleled speed and reflexes. No other character has been shown to be faster than him thus far. He was able to complete a 1500 meter dash in an instant during his hero tryouts. He has proven able to effortlessly keep up with Speed-o'-Sound Sonic, who can move at above hypersonic speeds.

Afterimage Creation: Saitama's speed allows him to create afterimages of himself. He first used this during his training bout with Genos. He was also able to create countless afterimages via his Serious Side Hops during his fight with Speed-o'-Sound Sonic.

Supernatural Dexterity: Saitama is capable of moving any of his limbs at extremely fast speeds without flinching, not stopping until his target is completely obliterated. This is seen when Saitama flawlessly whacks all moles on a Whack-A-Mole machine during the Hero Association exam.

Supernatural Agility: Saitama has been shown to be perfect at dodging and able to perform highly acrobatic maneuvers. Saitama's reflexes render him flexible enough to move through the narrowest creeks and dodge attacks at the closest proximity. Saitama is also able to perform parkour, which he can couple with fighting movements, as shown in his flashbacks.

Water Running: Saitama is capable of running across ocean high-speed without going into the the surface of water.

Superhuman Stamina: Saitama has never been shown to tire out when fighting enemies. Even when unleashing a punch more powerful than a planet-destroying attack, Saitama showed no signs of fatigue. The only time in which Saitama was shown to be panting and out of breath from continuous running, he recovered just seconds later.

Supernatural Senses: Saitama's senses are far beyond the human norm. He possesses impressively sharp hearing, being able to pick up on various chatter from bystanders a good distance away even while fighting monsters and the like. He can even hear phone transmissions with well enough accuracy to gauge conversation and the contents of its dialogue.

Invulnerability: Saitama possesses unparalleled toughness and durability. He can withstand blows from extremely powerful beings such as Carnage Kabuto and even Boros without suffering any injury or feeling any pain. In fact, no character has actually been able to damage, or even physically harm Saitama in any way.

Temperature Resistance: Saitama is extremely resistant to all types of temperature-based attacks. When Genos created a huge, spherical blast of flame to incinerate Mosquito Girl's mosquitoes, Saitama remained standing next to the cyborg unperturbed and completely unharmed (although his clothes were burnt to a crisp).

Radiation Resistance: Saitama has shown to be unaffected by any type of radiation. When he was kicked to the moon by Boros, Saitama was not affected by the increased level of radiation in space. When fighting Cosmic Fear Mode Garou, he was unfazed by his Nuclear Fission Fist, which was capable of creating nuclear explosions. Alongside Blast, Saitama was the only other one who could be in the vicinity of Garou unaffected, while everyone else was knocked out by the cosmic radiation the Hero Hunter was emitting.

Pain Suppression: Before gaining his overwhelming power, Saitama was still able to suppress pain. This has been shown on numerous occasions dating all the way back to his days as a middle school student, taking a beating from two upperclassmen and, later, a Wolf-Level monster Piggy Bancon. He then got back up when the bullies could not and chased after the monster for his money. Other similar feats include taking strikes from Crablante and Personification Of A Light Pull Cord during his training as an adult among others.