Anime Review | My Hero Academia
After being recommend this anime for years I’ve finally gotten around to watching it. The concept of a world with 80% of its population having special abilities is exciting to me. These quirks as they’re called are every nerd’s dream. Admit it, we’ve all wanted to fly like Superman, run like Quicksilver, and smash stuff like the Hulk. This fantasy is at its core highly appealing, and if you doubt me then just look at the highest grossing movies to date. They’re almost all super powered blockbusters, the kind of stuff I love. So why has it taken so long for me to watch the series?
I’ve been busy, y’all know that -_-
With the why out of the way, let’s answer the how. How was it?
I choose to watch the anime with English dub due to my aforementioned explanation. In fact I watch most of my anime these days with English dub due to time constraints, and no matter how much the “hardcore” fans may disagree I think it’s really good. Back in the day anime dubs were usually either laughable bad or offensively terrible. This stemmed from what I assumed was a lack of interest by the voice actors or poor direction. Today, anime is bigger than ever before, and thus it’s taken a lot more seriously by not just the common public, but most of all by the people involved in their production.
While watching My Hero Academia I didn’t once have the urge to plug my ears or take it of due to awful voice work. Every voice actor sounded pretty good and matched their characters perfectly. Well at least to me, and that’s over all 3 current seasons. The sound design is also top notch. Sound effects, environment settings and most popular, that soundtrack.
As for the visuals, they were just as good, and strangely enough I actually started this series with the anime only to transition to the manga later. This meant that I didn’t get that instant waw factor from seeing my favorite characters in gorgeous anime motion for the first time. That being said, I did still appreciate the gorgeous visuals on display. Colors look great, and the attention to detail is just what you’d expect from a popular shonen series like this one. I especially love the visual effects used for Deku after his training with Grand Trorino. That first time he used it in the presence of his classmates was completely epic.
Oh wait a minute, we’re talking about the plot aren’t we? Might as well continue right? Yea let’s jump into this.
Our story is basically this:
In a world where people with superpowers known as “Quirks” are the norm, Izuku Midoriya has dreams of one day becoming a Hero despite being bullied by his classmates for not having a Quirk. After being the only one to try and save his childhood bully Katsuki Bakugo from a villain, the world’s greatest Hero, All Might, bestows upon him his own quirk “One For All”. The story follows Izuku’s entrance into U.A. High School, a school that cultivates the next generation of superheroes. Here he meets up with a lot of new faces, but also Bakugo as well. However at this school the tables seem to flip with Midoriya being the popular one while Bakugo, despite his overwhelming power turns out to be the bud of his classmates jokes.
When it comes time for Midoriya to choose a hero name he chooses to use the same name Bakugo used as an insult to him in the past, Deku. Announcing “Deku is the name of a hero” to the entire class, and let’s face it, sticking it to Bakugo in the process.
Other than Bakugo and Deku, we have a class filled with interesting characters, but similar to the likes of Naruto, not all of the characters share the limelight equally. The most predominant ones being Uraraka, Tsuyu, Todoroki, and Ida. Other characters in the class get their moments to shine, but I can already tell that by the time this series hits its climax a lot of them may fade out of relevance. It’s an unfortunate side effect of this type of anime that I’ve seen with many series in the past. The only series I’ve noticed to be able to manage a large cast throughout is One Piece, but I don’t find this to be similar to that. My Hero Academia reminds me of Naruto. Maybe it’s the school setting, but who knows what it’s future holds. This is just me speculating. What I do know is that the series is great right now, and it seems to be getting better with each new Arc.
With each season new villains are added, and with them more hurdles for the main characters to overcome. One of the things I’ve appreciated the most with the way it is currently handled is the focus on different characters per season. Each season we get a focus on different perspectives and new characters which helps keep the show fresh. My hope is that this will continue in the future.
Final Verdict
My Hero Academia is quite frankly the best new long running anime I’ve watched in recent years. It completely fills the void left by its predecessors easily, and I hope with time that it will transcend their achievements. Deku is a very likable character, and so are all of the support cast. The main villain took some time to grow on me, however in his current adaptation he’s quite fearsome, as a villain should be. With two high quality seasons under its belt and a third in progress, it’s easy to recommend this series. Season one has 12 episodes so knocking that out over a weekend is easy. As for season 2 it’s twice as long, but also manageable over a two weekend bing. Well that’s it really… I’m gonna get back to the manga till my dude Gentle makes his debut in the anime possibly at the end of the current season. Then I’ll apply some healthy binging to it again.
My Hero Academia is produced by Funimation and available via Crunchyroll as a simulcast in some regions.
