Why we can relate to Saitama

Superman is awesome. He never stops being awesome. Even when he sleeps he's bulletproof, the dude has no layups, no cheat days, and the few times he's "just Clark Kent" he's still stealing hearts of lady friends and charming everyone off their feet.

And it's not just about superpowers that make these superheroes what they are. Even Batman is deep dark and mysterious twenty four seven three sixty five, whether in regalia or business suit, whether in batmobile or private jet.

How long have you ever been awesome, and stayed awesome? School/college sports stars, valedictorians, or on-the-job outperformers have had the longest stints at awesomeness, lasting anywhere from months to years. But how many of us mortals have reached and sustained such peak performances? 1%?

The remaining 99% of us are One Punch Men. We have our moments of brilliance, maybe an hour (or maybe just a Warholian 15 minutes) in a year when we feel like the gods dwell in our fists.

Rest of the time we chill with a movie or game, chase grocery sales coupons in hand, pick our noses and squat mosquitoes. Just hang out with buds and beer, or read/watch cartoons.

Just because we can be heroic doesn't mean we're heroes day in and out. We slouch, slack, sleep most of the time. Our teachers wrote, "has great potential, needs to work harder" on our report cards, our girlfriends complained "he was great when we meet, but turned out to be like the rest once I got to know him", our parents summed both up but love, as only a parent can, blinded them.

No, this is not an ode to mediocrity, I'm not addressing uninspired insipid unstriving humans who never trained so hard that their hair fell off, who neither throw punches nor know how to slide when monster god called life throws its best punches at them.

No, this is for those who try, train, and face threats, whether level wolf or god.

We can relate, we are One Punch Men.