One Punch Man Season 3 has collapsed in flames. The series that once sparked debates and occupied anime fans' minds with its masterful animation now lies among the most reviled releases of Fall 2025. With a miserable score of 6.4/10 on IMDb for the premiere episode and a barely better 6.92/10 score on MyAnimeList, Saitama's highly anticipated return has become an instruction manual on how not to make a blockbuster anime adaptation.The roaring dumpster fire that is One Punch Man Season 3 comes down to corporate greed stifling creativity. The production committee prioritized speed and saving over quality. They even had J.C. Staff working under pressure to meet impossible deadlines and with insufficient resources. Episodes even included over a minute of animation without anything but still frames.The Numbers Tell a Devastating StoryThe hot-pot scene from the series (Image Source: J.C. Staff)One Punch Man Season 3 ratings show just how far the franchise has fallen. The first season came out in 2015, and at the time, it held a great rating of 8.6/10 on IMDb, with the first episode at 9.5/10. Then the second season fell to 8.0/10, but that looks good in comparison to the train wreck we are witnessing now. This indicates a franchise in trouble.What makes these numbers so damning is the fact that they come from the context of the Fall 2025 anime season. Seasonal anime typically falls anywhere between okay and great, but One Punch Man Season 3 consistently ranks at the bottom of viewer satisfaction.Animation Quality Hits Rock Bottom in One Punch Man Season 3The frame that showed past villains (Image Source: J.C. Staff)One Punch Man Season 3's biggest issue right now is its absurd animation quality. In Episode 3, there is 1:18 minutes of actual still frames of nothing but colored manga panels of past villains. That means for the 20-minute episode runtime, 6.1% of it contains real slideshow content.Much worse than this, though, are the lame action scenes. The episode's Garou fight is laughable. I looked at the fight and found the production team recycled footage from a preview of the trailer from over a year ago, and they originally made that recycled footage look way better than the broadcast.The technical deficiencies are not just limited to still frames. Choppy movements, in-between frames not capturing proper motion, and sound effects distortion happen in every action scene. Explosions and character interactions feel incomplete, as if production deadlines were missed and only about a quarter of the animation was finished.A Franchise in FreefallA fight sequence from Season 3 (Image Source: J.C. Staff)The comparison of the seasons reveals the truly spectacular decline of One Punch Man Season 3. Season 1 was a true visual showpiece and raised the bar for what a television anime could look like. While Season 2 disappointed a lot of fans (including myself), it still managed to hold together a coherent experience, while having a few high points. During Season 3, fans are ironically quipping, "the team from Season 2 deserves an apology," because what they are giving their audiences is making that season look brilliant by comparison.This is more than an issue of animation quality; the storytelling suffers when you treat the Monster Association arc (potentially the best story arc of the manga) with such due diligence. The anime is now a worse way of experiencing the story than simply reading the manga.The catastrophe of One Punch Man Season 3 didn't have to happen. With proper scheduling, enough budgets, and respect for the creative process, this season would have been a success that would have justified the six-year wait. Instead of becoming a success, we get a cautionary tale of how corporate interference can ruin artistic potential.One Punch Man Season 3 is now one of the lowest-ranked in the Fall 2025 anime season. Not because of a lack of source material quality or fan interest, but due to systematic production failures. The anime adaptation failed to make itself worthwhile.