Season 3

Name(s): Boku no Hero Academia 3rd Season / 僕のヒーローアカデミア / My Hero Academia 3. Staffel / My Hero Academia Temporada 3 / My Hero Academia Saison 3
Format: TV series (25 23-minute episodes)
Studio(s): Bones

The highest highs and the lowest lows. I cried during the climactic fight mid-season, no joke. The provisional hero exam was mostly very dull, a low-stakes competition with indirect fighting that you would expect to be in the first season. All of the strategies are very simple and lack the first season’s charm of Midoriya being handicapped by his own power. This whole arc goes on for way too long and is below the par the series has established at this point.

Not coincidentally this third season also goes way overboard with a flaw the series has always had, which is lengthy recaps and restating old information. Yes, the obvious purpose is to stretch episode count to get more production time and money, but if you’re willing to sacrifice your show’s quality for that then you have to realize the audience won’t care for it. We also have an increasing amount of filler episodes, which says concerning things going forward. Just cut the episode count, guys. You already did by two episodes compared to the previous season. Finish earlier and you get an earlier hiatus to recover from the production stress too. Or so I would figure.

Anyway aside from that one arc, MHA continues to do well with what makes it a noteworthy work in its genre. The animation quality has unfortunately stagnated, but it’s more than acceptable when compared to its contemporaries. The soundtrack doesn’t really stick out this time, either.

Season 4 (2019-2020)

AKA: Boku no Hero Academia 4th Season / 僕のヒーローアカデミア
Published: June 27, 2021

You know what the scariest thing about MHA is? Not that it seems to joining the endless ranks of shonen that fail to recognize their potential, but that it doesn’t even have the decency to dip to the levels of the most infamous entries in the genre. Meaning the traces of quality and potential of satisfying resolutions means I’m gonna be trapped following this series for the next several decades it’s running. Fuck me, and above all else, fuck shonen.

So, like, this wasn’t a great season for MHA for several reasons. One, the animation quality fucking nosedived despite the series only gaining revenue. I guess there’s no need to try anymore once you’ve got people reeled in? Whatever the reason, it’s baffling and disappointing. Animation quality in a genre literally about movement (action, if you’re slow) is kind of a big deal. And while nothing new, this season continues doing that entire screen dimming effect for dramatic moments because someone on the staff understands lighting less than someone who took an art elective in high school. Hint: when you cover an entire scene in what you’re using to enunciate a visual, nothing is enunciated.

There’s a difference between dramatic lighting and turning your brightness down on your monitor. One takes consideration, subjectivity, and artistry. The other is an identical process applied regardless of context. I hate to keep hammering on about this, but this trend in anime is one of the most fucking baffling I have ever seen. I know it’s probably motivated by having effects as cheap as possible, but the effect they gain by it just drowns out the impact of the illustrated frames. I’ve never seen any use of this “technique” that I didn’t think wouldn’t be improved by having no effect at all. It’s muting the action, not highlighting it. They somehow made technically more work for themselves and do shit worse in the process.

And the Overhaul arc was mostly lame. It had its moments, but was dragged down by an awful villain devoid of any nuance in his personality. It would be one thing if Overhaul acknowledged he was disobeying his adoptive father believing he knew better than him, but he explicitly states his goal is to fulfill his father’s direct wishes, which he constantly contradicts by disobeying his orders on how to manage the yakuza.

This conflict is never something the character ruminates on. Overhaul never sees the gaping hole in his own logic, never confronts it, never grows, and is never interesting. The fact they even give lipservice to backstory that ultimately means nothing more to him than it does for any villain that’s evil just for the literal sake of it means any of these scenes are a waste of time.

Speaking of a waste of time, who gave a fuck about Kirishima? Were people writing letters to the author requesting he got more scenes? Bakugo showed promises of major character change in the previous season, and instead of taking time to capitalize on that, we instead get a backstory on how the guy who turns into rock wants to be a true hero? What’s the implication for the rest of the series? Are we going to be getting arcs developing the Sugar Rush guy while Bakugo or whoever else is still learning to say “please” and “thank you”? Like, fuck.

I’ve complained before about shonen series introducing too many characters rather than developing the ones they have, but this series somehow manages to do the former while selecting poorly for the latter at the same time. It’s the worst of both worlds.

Edit: Okay, apparently Kirishima actually has consistently punched above his weight in the popularity polls even before getting his own major scenes. Consider me baffled, but at least the author was acknowledging fans at this point, even if I think the fans made a lame choice. Wish it applied to other high-ranking characters, though.

Oh, hey. Nejire. She’s cute, right? Really hyperactive and naïve, not a stunningly written character by any means, but a unique niche in the cast of female fighters here. And she’s got a Quirk that has general usage and versatility, allowing her to combat any kind of opponent. Sounds like someone who could be a promising focus of the series, and she’s a popular character to boot. But no, fuck “wimmenz.” Only Mirio and Amajiki get character development or fight scenes.

I know this is going to sound trite, but when I consider the fact that A. she’s a member of a group teased to be a focus of this season, B. is a character people want to see more of, empirically validated by polling, C. has a Quirk and story role that makes her easy to write into any situation, and D. she just happens to be the only woman in said earlier group, I’m inclined to call it outright sexism.

MHA has never been good at giving female characters any major plot-relevant moments, but prior a reasonable response could be the only female characters were implied to be minor roles to begin with. Therefore, the follow-up complaint that there aren’t enough important female characters could be plausibly coincidental. However, once a female character is inserted into a role that is projected as important and validated by other people in that role having high relevance, the only conclusion I can draw is creator bias. But hey, at least you get to see her big honkers in a filler arc, right? Christ.

And don’t give me any of that “it’s a manga aimed at boys” crap as an excuse. It’s 2021, not even kids give a fuck about that shit anymore. Whether they just want to see a cute girl or another cool character who happens to be a girl, they’re not going to be alienated because they feel “weird” about reading something with substantial female characters. Female characters rank consistently high relative to their amount of focus when compared to males. Consider the massive bias characters get just by being the constant focus of the plot (i.e. just males so far), and those placements become even more telling.

We’re all aware that popularity rankings tend to be dominated by the MC. Is the likelier explanation that 90% of MCs are simply considered the best character in their work, or are they favored to get votes because every single reader is always being reminded of their presence? Consider that bias trickling down the hierarchy of relevant characters, and then consider how much of a fandom there must be for a character when they rank above someone who objectively has far more presence in the story. There’s no formula to equate these two archetypes in order to determine “true” popularity, but the phenomenon is extremely easy to observe and is at the very least some kind of influence.

So, even if the counter to this point was that female characters actually don’t rank high enough in popularity polls to deserve greater roles, then it would fall flat when considering characters that do rank high do so after already getting significant plot focus. It’s a self-fulfilling feedback loop. Hell, this theory is even kind of proven in just these charts. Deku tends to take spot #2 or #3, often behind Bakugo despite Bakugo going long gaps without any focus or growth. An example of a minor character outstripping a more important one while also only to a degree that could still argue a strong favor towards the MC.

Enough about popularity. Back to the dudes. How has Deku changed since season 3 (if not longer) other than which powers he’s gained? Deku’s rapid growth has quickly turned him from an endearing underdog to a privileged, sanctimonious do-gooder incapable of making mistakes. He doesn’t have to cleverly consider how to use One for All anymore, he can just punch and kick shit really strongly like any generic shonen protagonist. He constantly disobeys the adults who supervise him, but apologizes and never gets seriously punished or faces repercussion for his actions.

Every single time this happens, Deku or one of his superiors hints at possible complexity that could result from his actions that never actually occurs. The narrative always posthumously justifies anything Deku does. He’s just always destined to be correct in what he does, no matter what anyone says. This character is in enormous need of some moral complexity or something, but the possibility of that keeps getting smaller and smaller as he grows to become even more righteous and vindicated. Also, I think it was a huge, self-indulgent mistake to have Deku reach 100% power this early in the series. It was meant to be a promised treat at the end of his character growth. Now we’ve already seen it. One less thing to look forward to with his future. Leaving us at… zero?

Fuck, I got interrupted by my cat freaking out. Now I just want to be done with this.

Gentle was a really enjoyable character that they (seemingly) once again made a bad call with. Instead of becoming a recurring anti-hero, something that would actually be interesting as no third faction exists in this universe yet and Gentle’s power is incredibly flexible in how it can be used, he’s locked up and irrelevant for the foreseeable future. They hyped him up to be a crazy badass and he’s dispatched by Deku in just one episode.

The school festival stuff was kinda cringe. I’m not against these non-action low-key storylines, but they should still be advancing the characters in some way. Jiro gets some attention, which is actually pretty cool, but her backstory and motivations are the most obvious, conflict-less explanations she could possibly have. Maybe we all like her more after this, but none of us should actually see her any differently than we were before. She likes music. She wants to be a hero. She’s shy. We just had all that confirmed again.

I think this was filler, so it was probably destined to be irrelevant, but the decision to include filler is reprimandable in the first place. And any time anime-original songs have entirely English vocals it’s really hard to listen to because of how trite the lyrics are, and this is no different. The animation quality is also so poor that the climactic song and dance routine lacks the spectacle it should. Great.

The Endeavor stuff is actually engaging, which is probably why it’s the smallest part of the season. Endeavor always had some of the most potential to be explored out of any of the cast, as he was the only hero to show an immoral side of the business (despite this being many villains’ motivations). He also has the obvious character arc of his relationship with his family, and seeing him desperately try to measure up to All Might makes him one of the more fascinating and empathetic characters during these moments.

Feelings of wanting to escape inferiority at any cost and having your motivations be misunderstood or result in the destruction of others is a relatable character experience and one with a relatively difficult outcome to predict. Hey, remember when Deku was kind of all of these things? Weird how this Endeavor shit was the peak of the weakest season yet, eh?

I have mixed feelings about the projected resolution of his character arc though. It seems like he will eventually make amends to his family and/or reveal he always had good intentions such as being so strict with their powers so they weren’t at risk of dying from the heat like he is. It wouldn’t necessarily be bad if they went in this direction, as it’s still an arc and a believable progression, but I would’ve liked to see him remain a morally ambiguous and conflicted character for a long time, as he represents a completely unique facet of the professional hero world.

It’s still possible that will come to pass, but given how hard the last episodes tried to push the idea that Endeavor wasn’t just an asshole, I have serious doubts that we’re going to see him debate a conflict within him rather than moving towards only one conclusion.

Well… see you next season…