Originally Posted by
tyckspoon
Yeah, the 'these characters are willing to actively try to kill each other' never seems to extend to the degree of just murdering the other combatant with an overwhelming strike right out of the gate, everybody fights just fair enough to let the other guy go through all of their powerup phases.. that said it's quite in character for Saitama to not open with full force. Even non-spinached Popeye is still a cartoon character and almost certainly has shown feats of durability that are enough to say that he'd survive Saitama giving him the sort of testing strike that is used for Saitama to figure out if he needs to get any more serious. Which would take it into the 'huh he's strong, better spinach up' and 'Ok, let's break out the Serious Series' phases of the fight.