"One-Punch Man Vol. 4," by ONE

One-Punch Man, Vol. 4, written by ONE and illustrated by Yusuke Murata, stars Saitama, the titular, "One-Punch Man."  After years of training, Saitama has become so powerful he can defeat virtually every enemy with a single strike.  There's just one problem: according to Saitama himself, "overwhelming strength ... is boring."

This volume focuses on a meteor that threatens to level an entire city, the introduction of the Clan of Seafolk (who want to rise from the sea and destroy humanity, obviously), and the introduction of "Puri-Puri Prisoner," a character I will discuss in more detail below.

Pros:

• Surprising no one, Saitama continues to be a stand-out character.  His response to the fallout of the meteor incident is great. 
• The draftsmanship continues to be top-notch, even if one of the characters is getting serious side-eye from me (see below).
• Even if the manga does not have the same level of kinetic energy as an animated show, I love all of the bonus content you get with this format.  This includes everything from little interactions to whole chapters that never made it into the anime.  One such example in this volume is S-Class hero Bang's skepticism towards the hero association (e.g. that they are more interested in maintaining their position of financial stability and societal importance than they are in making any single rescue).

Cons:

• Puri-Puri Prisoner (henceforth referred to as P3).  Ugh.  For context, P3 is an S-Class ranked hero who, in his own words, is, "doing 10,000 years for getting grabby with men."  He also threatened to  "deep kiss," all the other inmates at the maximum security prison he is being held at, "as punishment."  The grossness of this is only magnified by the fact that all of the other inmates live in fear of him and his advances.  If this was meant to be played for laughs, it falls on its face.  Even if P3's actions are recognized as wrong in the universe of the manga, the lack of other LGBT characters in the series means that P3 comes off mostly as a gross stereotype.  Maybe his character will be developed as the story continues, but I'm not optimistic.
• The women featured in the last volume have disappeared.  This is a shame, especially considering ONE's ability to craft interesting, off-the-wall characters.
• (nit-pick) The mismatch between sound effects and reading direction continues in this volume, though it seemed slightly less prevalent than it was in volume 2.  To be clear, I am listing this as a nit-pick because I don't know that there is a reasonable solution that could address this issue.  As I stated in reviews of previous volumes, details being lost in the book's binding is also still an issue.

Conclusion:
My excitement to continue reading this series is tempered somewhat by the introduction of Puri-Puri Prisoner.  With that being said, I think the serious has more than enough good things to outweigh the bad, and my hope is that P3 will have an ever decreasing role as the manga progresses.

Final Score:
8/10