As soon as the press conference on set came to an end, the crew began preparing for the official start of filming.
Owen and Will, two young actors from the newer generation, stood together in a corner while the technicians adjusted the lighting, the cameras, and the marks taped across the floor. Will swallowed hard. The excitement that had carried him through the past few days seemed to have evaporated all at once, replaced by a tension so obvious that even his voice came out slightly shaky.
"Owen… man… I'm kind of nervous."
And he had every reason to be.
The role Will was playing was Genos, the second male lead of the project. In terms of screen time and importance, his part was second only to Saitama's. When he first learned that Alex had chosen him, Will had been so thrilled he barely slept for an entire week, caught between disbelief, excitement, and fear.
Then, when he read the character description in the script, he became even more excited. Genos was handsome, serious, and sharp-tongued when dealing with outsiders, yet he carried an almost devotional admiration for Saitama, his teacher. There was an intense loyalty in him, a quiet kind of devotion that somehow gave the character an unexpectedly amusing domestic quality.
Yes.
He had read that correctly.
The second male lead even had a faint "devoted wife" trait.
At least Will thought the character profile suited his taste perfectly. The only problem was Genos's combat record, which seemed a little… embarrassing.
The script Alex had handed out only covered the story up to Boros's attack on Earth. And throughout that entire stretch, Genos apparently did not win a single real fight. That was awkward.
Still, what made Will most nervous was not the fact that the character lost a lot. It was the exact opposite: the richer, fuller, and more memorable a character was, the harder it became to perform him convincingly.
It was like comparing two roles.
Who was easier to play, Ichigo Kurosaki or Sosuke Aizen?
Any actor with even a little experience would answer without hesitation: Ichigo.
Ichigo carried clear, direct traits, almost archetypal ones. Passion, righteousness, kindness, that classic heroic mold of a battle-shounen protagonist.
Sosuke Aizen, on the other hand, was an entirely different matter.
To play him, it was not enough to simply radiate villainous pressure. You had to convey cruelty, invincibility, and absolute dominance, but also a rare elegance, an unshakable calm, and a refined sense of superiority that separated him from those generic, disposable final bosses. Aizen was not merely powerful. He had to feel untouchable before he even moved.
Will truly was not sure whether he could do justice to Genos.
Worse still, he had not officially signed the final contract yet.
Alex had used this method before with the actor who played L in Death Note. It was a precaution. If, during the early days on set, an actor could not deliver the result Alex wanted, he could be replaced immediately.
The more Will thought about it, the more the ground seemed to disappear beneath his feet. After all, he had heard plenty of stories about Alex's nickname behind the scenes.
The tyrant of the set.
When Owen heard Will's nervous confession, he laughed wickedly in his heart.
The truth was, he had also auditioned for Genos. Unfortunately, after comparing their physical features, Alex had decided that Will was better suited to the character's sharp, aggressive face. Owen had been forced to take a step back and settle for another role, the S-Class hero known as Metal Bat.
At least, in the first season, his character barely appeared.
Great.
That meant he probably would not get yelled at too much.
His agent, however, thought that was great my ass. With that little screen time, it was basically an upgraded extra role.
The first important scene began shortly afterward.
"Scene twenty-five, take one. Action!"
Saitama, completely naked, raised one hand with an expression of pure irritation and, with a casual slap, smashed Mosquito Girl, who had just torn Genos apart and reduced him to nothing but a torso and a head.
Her body burst like an overinflated balloon.
Blood sprayed out in an instant, painting the side of a building beside the street in a brutal red.
"Mosquitoes… so annoying."
Saitama's eyes were full of disgust, but there was also a faint trace of relief at the corner of his mouth.
That damn mosquito was finally dead.
On the ground, reduced to half a body and a head, Genos lay motionless, his eyes stretched wide as he stared at Saitama, who remained naked as though it did not matter in the slightest.
"Cut!"
The silence that followed felt heavier than the scene itself.
Will stood beside Alex, who was reviewing the footage on the monitor, looking like a student waiting for the teacher to announce his grade.
"Di-director… was… was that okay?"
Alex did not raise his voice. He only answered calmly.
"Again."
Behind them, Owen, who had been waiting to watch the chaos unfold, was secretly shocked.
Damn.
Alex had not cursed at anyone.
Had his temper improved after spending some time in the United States?
"When you see Saitama kill an enemy you were completely unable to defeat with a single slap, your expression needs to be far more shocked. Don't forget, this is the battle that makes Genos start admiring Saitama. Understand?"
"Yes, yes, I understand!"
Will nodded several times, too quickly, as though even a moment of hesitation might be interpreted as disobedience.
Owen rubbed his chin, already reaching a conclusion in his heart. If Will failed to pass the next take, Alex would definitely explode.
Ten minutes later, that prediction came true.
"What the hell are you doing? I explained it to you so many times and you still don't get it?!"
There it was.
The tyrant of the set had returned.
Will, who was barely older than the generation after him, was so frightened he hardly dared to breathe. To him, his performance had not been bad. If he were on any other set, that take might even have been considered above average. Maybe even a small personal breakthrough.
The problem was, this was not any other set.
"You think what you just did was pretty good, don't you?"
Perhaps because he saw in Will a younger version of himself, from back when Alex used to tear him apart so thoroughly that not even his pride survived, Owen - who had previously treated Will as a rival and found him rather annoying - walked over and started talking to him.
Will touched his slightly reddened eyes and nodded.
Owen did not soften the blow.
"That's because you used to act in bad productions. In bad productions, the director's standards are low."
He glanced at the monitor, then at Alex, before continuing in a lower voice.
"Alex's shows are different. Every actor, every scene, every shot has to come as close to perfection as possible. Otherwise, why do you think every project he makes becomes a hit?"
Owen patted Will on the back.
"Hang in there. Otherwise, you really will be replaced."
It was not that Owen was especially kind. The reason was simple: even if Will got fired, the role of Genos would almost certainly not fall into his hands. During the audition, Alex had already said that Owen's face looked a little too simple, or maybe a little too dog-like, and that it did not suit Genos.
If not for that, Owen would not have bothered playing the good guy. The fact that he was not secretly tripping Will up was already generous enough.
Alex directly told Will to step aside, calm down, and find the right state for the character. Then he called in veteran actor Arthur Hale, who would be playing Bang, the Silver Fang.
The old man was practically a specialist in martial arts dramas. His name might not have been explosively famous among the general public, but the moment his face appeared on screen, anyone who had grown up in the eighties or nineties would recognize him at once.
He had played legendary masters, venerable martial artists, serene figures whose eyes seemed to carry decades of discipline. Bang was exactly the sort of role that felt tailor-made for him.
So when the cameras started rolling, everything flowed with impressive ease. In just a few takes, the scene was approved.
During the break, the veteran could not resist discussing the script with Alex.
"This action film of yours is very interesting. I've never seen a protagonist like this before."
Arthur looked genuinely intrigued as he spoke.
"Is this what young people nowadays call… what was it again? Pretending to be weak so you can crush the arrogant?"
Alex was left a little speechless.
The old man was surprisingly up to date. He even knew that kind of trope.
At first glance, One-Punch Man really could seem like that sort of story. An ordinary-looking guy with no apparent brilliance suddenly revealing overwhelming strength in front of powerful enemies. But after looking at it carefully, Alex knew the essence of the work was completely different.
The logic behind those stories usually depended on a long sequence of humiliation, repression, and accumulated contempt. Once the tension reached its limit, the protagonist exploded in a cathartic moment, crushing everyone who had underestimated him. It was a formula built on instant gratification, one abused to death by countless mediocre writers.
Alex honestly thought that kind of thing was a little sick.
If you were a tiger, then be a tiger.
Why pretend to be a pig?
That was not strategy. That was neurosis.
Saitama was not pretending at all.
He simply did not care.
Fame, status, recognition, prestige… none of those things stirred any real anxiety in him. As he said at the very beginning of the story:
He was just a hero for fun.
That sentence was the core of the entire work.
That was precisely why, when Saitama defeated the Deep Sea King or destroyed the meteor and then faced the crowd's moral blackmail, he could talk back without the slightest psychological burden. There was no guilt, no need to please anyone, no hunger for approval.
And that was exactly what would resonate with the audience.
Alex liked Saitama because of that.
The classic protagonists of battle manga generally carried a very similar logic: the greater the power, the greater the responsibility; fight for family, for friends, for the people, for the world. They were noble, bright, correct, almost always shaped by the same heroic framework.
Even the popular works from the previous era, with curses, demon hunters, and teenage tragedies, had rarely managed to truly escape that model.
So when a hero appeared who was motivated purely by a hobby - something so absurd, and so clean in its lack of pretension - he crushed the conventions of the genre as though he had come from another dimension entirely.
The only pity was that the first season seemed to have burned through all the money.
As for the second season…
Well, the less said about that, the better.
While Alex and his crew filmed intensely on set, the outside world was far from quiet.
Especially after photos of Alex's smooth, shining scalp began circulating online. His gleaming bald head practically blinded half the internet.
"Lord Aizen, what happened to you? Where did your perfect gelled hair go?"
"I'm dying. I never imagined Alex's head would shine this much after he shaved it."
"The new project after Bleach isn't going to be a comedy, is it?"
"Alex really doesn't care about that handsome face, huh? If you don't want that beauty, give it to me."
"Now I'm worried. What if he decides never to grow his hair back? That would be such a waste."
"One-Punch Man? That title… I don't know. It feels kind of awkward. A little too plain."
"Is Alex playing a good guy or a villain this time? Come to think of it, ever since he started writing and directing his own projects, he barely ever plays good people. Sosuke Aizen, Dio, Light Yagami… each one worse than the last."
"Jotaro: You damn bastard, didn't you forget someone?"
For professional actors, sacrificing their appearance for a role was nothing new. They were not those delicate idols who needed to release an official statement because they scratched the tip of a finger.
Even so, Alex's new look caused an earthquake-level discussion.
After all, the transformation was far too drastic.
At the same time, Luke Han, the lead actor of Fortress of the Metropolis, which was scheduled to premiere the following month, began feeling enormous pressure.
He glanced at the trailer for his own movie and stared at the thick bangs hanging over his forehead, bangs so heavy they seemed sturdier than a military helmet. In that moment, he had a clear feeling that once his movie finally came out, the internet would tear him apart.
Alex had shaved his entire head for a role.
And you, playing a soldier, showed up with hair longer and more carefully styled than many women's.
What was that supposed to mean?
Were you more important than Alex?
Luke struggled with it for a long time, but in the end, he decided to play dead and pretend nothing was happening.
After all, the film was about to be released. It was not as though he could call the director now and ask for reshoots. If he did that, the man would probably kill him.
Besides, the only commercial value left in his entire body was that face, that idol appeal capable of drawing in fans.
So what if people said he looked feminine?
The fangirls liked it. They were willing to pay. That was enough.
If even his face collapsed, then he would have no commercial value left at all.
Good.
At least he still had a tiny bit of self-awareness.
Which was already more than could be said for some of his groupmates.
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