Why Is One Punch-Man’s Saitama So Strong? The “Limiter Break” Explained

The premise of One Punch-Man is that its protagonist Saitama is stronger than anything and anyone he might face. Because the manga started as a parody of the shonen genre, the reason why Saitama is so powerful has never been explained. However, one secondary character actually proposed an explanation that makes perfect sense in the context of the most recent developments in the manga.

At the beginning of One Punch-Man, Saitama was an unemployed young man with a nihilistic attitude. He did not have a purpose in life and believed he would never find one, nor fit into society. After a chance encounter with a monster (also called “mysterious beings” in the manga), he remembers his childhood dream of being a hero and starts training every day. His “training” is actually nothing spectacular, just 100 push-ups, 100 sit-ups, and 100 squats, along with a 10 km run, but he did it every single day. After three years, he is so powerful that he can defeat any monster with a single punch. He then starts his career as a pro hero, but due to his excessive strength, nothing is a challenge for him, meaning that he still struggles to find motivation or excitement.

There is no way that Saitama’s training explains his power: other pro heroes in the manga have trained in more gruesome ways and are nowhere close to his level. However, there is one theory that could explain it, proposed by Dr. Genus, a former evil scientist whose experiments were destroyed by Saitama. After witnessing the hero’s power, Genus theorizes that Saitama was able to remove something he calls “limiter”. After being defeated, Genus accepted Saitama’s teaching that humans’ true power is the ability to change and grow. However, Genus later adds that there is a limit to a being’s growth, human or monster, put there by God to ensure that one does not obtain unlimited power, thus losing all sense of purpose and sanity. Saitama was able to remove that “limiter”, but the true means remain unclear. It could be Saitama’s stubborn repetition of the same simple exercises every day for three years (which puts a huge strain on a human body), but when that training regimen was revealed in the manga it was meant as a comedy spot, so the reason remains unclear.

However, the “limiter” theory was exposed by Dr. Genus in chapter #89, a long time after his meeting with Saitama and the “training regime comedy bit” (in chapter #11), thus giving it a lot more credit. Also, the same theory was used by Psykos, the mastermind behind the Monster Association, who experimented to find ways to break the limit of growth. Her only success was the Monster King Orochi, who started as a normal human being and became the strongest monster through a repeated process of near-death experiences. This was mentioned in chapter #94, proving that the “limiter break” is actually an important and recurring concept in the manga. It also proves that there is a connection between the “limiter break” process and “monsterification”, a fact confirmed by the evolution of Garou, a martial artist who turned into an incredibly powerful monster through the same process of repeatedly cheating death.

It is still unclear how Saitama managed to break his limiter, and why did he not lose his mind in the process. Was that simple training regime enough to bring him close to death every day? It is also interesting that Genus mentions “lose all-purpose” as a risk in obtaining too much power: perhaps Saitama avoided losing his mind because he had very little purpose to begin with, besides becoming a hero (a concept explored in the extra flashback chapter “200 yen“). Finally, is Genus’ mention of “God” a reference to the mysterious all-powerful being that is starting to appear as the main villain in One Punch-Man? Only time will tell.

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