Boku no Hero Academia

Boku no Hero Academia is an anime that lives and dies by the conventional. While that could be seen as a negative feature in most scenarios, for a superhero shounen that understands its limitations, it's actually quite refreshing.

Being satisfied with maintaining a status quo in a medium that constantly pushes the envelope may seem like the wrong direction to take until you come to realize the confines the show is working with. While some shows of this nature tend to sabotage themselves with poor narrative decisions, most are usually knocked off, not by their content, but by their desire for more, despite not having ... the material needed to back it up.

Shounen stories by design are meant to facilitate the fundamental building blocks of easily digestible themes. It's for that reason that the main demographic targeted is first and foremost young boys to teens before concerning themselves with any other group. While some titles have successfully escaped this genre's trappings to garner appraisal from a more demanding audience (Fullmetal Alchemist, Hunter X Hunter, etc.), most of it tends to fall apart when they attempt to push beyond the capabilities of its written material (Owari no Seraph, Blue Exorcist, etc.). This isn't to say that a creator shouldn't attempt to do more if they think they're capable of pulling it off, just that knowing what material you have to work with is also key to creating a successful work. You can't exactly create thematically rich content from something that didn't contain it in the first place, but what you can do is make the best product possible with the hand you're dealt.

And this is where Boku No Hero Academia (My Hero Academia) comes in. It's a shounen story that isn't ashamed about its humble offerings, nor does it display delusions of grandeur for accolades out of its reach. While other content creators are busy navel-gazing, Academia uses that time to create something that's full of whimsy. It's an anime that lives comfortably in its realm of customary standards. And really, isn't that enough? Academia doesn't work because it offers more than other atypical shounen titles, it works because it decides to be the best it can be in its current position that it's given. And what better way to show strength within one's limitations than by having the story revolve around characters that put forth their best effort in the face of adversity.

Academia tells a story that I'm sure most anime viewers are familiar with. The classic underdog story; the naive boy growing into his own, the bonds he forms with like-minded individuals, and the life lessons he learns along the way. It's a simple tale, one of perseverance, childish ideals, and believing in oneself. Izuku "Deku" Midoriya is that naive boy, and the object of his admiration is that of All Might: the idealized embodiment of peace and justice. The story chronicles his attempts to become an admirable hero like the one he looks up to, as well as seeing him overcome the obstacles he's bound to face in the uphill battle that he's undertaken to get there.

Set in a universe where superpowers manifest itself in 80% of the world's population, becoming a professional hero has become commonplace. These innate abilities that people find themselves with are referred to as "Quirks." Naturally, the 20% that's born without a Quirk is at an inherent disadvantage to the rest of the population. And as you would guess, our protagonist Midoriya is one of these unfortunate people that life handed lemons to. Despite his situation, our protagonist still desperately seeks out the chance to become a hero. But it isn't until a fateful encounter that his dream could become a reality. Fast forward a few months later, and Midoriya finds himself at the gates of one of the most respected schools for heroes in training. And so begins our tale.

The first thing you'll probably notice about Academia is just how expressive its art and animation looks. The show looks like colored panels jumping right off the pages of its manga counterpart. This is further illustrated by the dynamic movement of the characters, instantaneously eye-catching character designs, and an ultra-vibrant color scheme. Studio Bones rolled their sleeves up with this one, delivering a visual spectacle that they're known to be capable of. A firework display of showboating talent that the studio has earned across the many years in the industry. And since they're adapting the material verbatim, none of their infamous plotting issues makes its way into the narrative, making Academia into a cohesive body of work, the likes of which wasn't pulled off by Bones since their adaptation of Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood. It's the studio at its best, which not only spotlight its talents to others but also helps Academia to shine its brightest.

To further heighten the visual treat, we're also given a soundtrack composed by Yuuki Hayashi, which was, for the lack of a better term, hype-inducing. Lending his talents to Kiznaiver, Death Parade, and other projects, Hayashi is quickly making a name for himself within the industry and is a talent worth keeping on your radar for future works to come. With veteran Sound Director Masafumi Mima lending his talents to the project, together these two men help shape the auditory section of Academia into what it is. It's a commendable effort that's deserving of the praise received.

And just like the presentation of the show, the characters are just as lively, with a broad range of personalities and superpowers to boot, as to be expected from a show dealing with superheroes. While they're all fairly stereotypical, what they lack in layered character detail, they more than compensated with spunk and attitude. Their eccentricities added to the show's tone and lighthearted nature. They're in no way innovative or new to the genre they're a part of, but they still serve their purpose for the content at hand.

This extends to our protagonist Midoriya as well. He is your archetypal lead in every way possible. Replacing him with almost any other shounen protagonist would yield very little change. What is interesting about him, however, is the handicap that he's strong-armed into working with. Because of the inherent nature of his power, he is forced to make compromises to avoid extensive injury to himself. Since he spent his entire life taking notes of the anatomy and capabilities of other heroes, he's more astute than his peers. This allows him the ability to plan accordingly, especially under stressful conditions that force him to be quick on his feet. As the show goes on, this analytical prowess of his doesn't go to waste. He brings this talent to each physical encounter he's placed in, making combat situations a balancing act between outsmarting his opponent, as well as mitigating potential risk to himself.

Speaking of physical encounters, since our protagonist makes an effort to think tactically in the midst of battle, the skirmishes he gets into are far more entertaining than what you'd typically expect from superhero brawls. Of course, he's still a kid, so these tactics may not be the most riveting things to see play out, but it still beats seeing senseless bishounen cock-fights that resort to shouting and punching wildly to achieve results. This was also prevalent in other physical altercations throughout the show. Again, while not the most imaginative fights, they were still a cut above the usual standards of the battle-shounen formula. This doesn't mean that hotheaded characters grew a few brain cells all of a sudden, they still acted in a brash manner befitting their personality; but for those that have powers or limitations that needed adjustment, they found ways to innovate whenever it was necessary.

With the trend of superhero stories becoming ever-present across all storytelling media in the last few years, the marketplace has gotten to a point where it's on the verge of stagnation. For the general populace, that point may not be that prevalent yet, but for those vigilant viewers that recognize the pattern, it's a backlash shit storm just waiting to happen. Boku no Hero Academia is just another drop in the bucket. Inconsequential. A blip on the radar. But that's also the beauty of it. It's not an anime that hurts the medium, nor is it unwarranted to most that sit down to watch it. It's just an honest-to-god shounen. No gimmicks, no underhanded attempts into duping its viewership to take it more seriously than they need to. It's just a sincere piece of media made for the sole purpose of entertaining its audience, and perhaps even more than that for those wide-eyed youths that sit down to view this type of story for the 1st time.

That sort of honesty in a time when desensitized audiences have grown jaded to what's offered to them might just be the remedy needed. I always want to see the medium push forward, but when a break is necessary, I more than welcome the likes of shows like Academia. It's fuel in the fire to keep going. Easygoing entertainment that I could trust at face value won't give me the runaround.

Academia is a rare case where it's good because it's average, and I know that may leave many of you questioning how something could possibly be both, but really, that's the only way to explain this show's predicament. We could commend a show for trying and succeeding at doing more, as one should when a title pushes beyond what's standard fare. But at the same time, there's nothing wrong with appreciating a title that chooses to be good in a way that's not necessarily innovative in the market it's a part of. This will be an instance where the score of "5" isn't used to insinuate inferior goods, but rather one of accurate assessment of the product at hand. It's a good show for its target demographic, just an average one given its placement in the broader landscape of shounen material. Its modesty is endearing. And in a time when titles either conflate their worth or uninspiringly follow a checklist for a quick profit, Academia proves that just being yourself is never a bad thing.

In a world, where all of a sudden humanity has gained superpowers called Quirks…
A world, in which almost all humans look like alien mutants and the crime rate has significantly increased…
Where being a hero is considered a profession and Saitama definitely doesn’t exist… There exists a boy who belongs to the minority that doesn’t have a superpower...
The boy, called Izuku Midoriya, has a dream… He wants to be the mightiest hero of all, he wants to become the second ALL MIGHT!

The very young protagonist, despite having no Quirk, tries his very best to become one. But is that possible at all, ... when the profession “hero” is all about being strong? And how could one possibly beat superhuman powers if you don’t have a special ability?


Boku no Hero Academia is set in a modern world where every single person wants to become a hero to save the useless people that don’t know what to do with their Quirks from the bad people who use their abilities to wreak havoc and be evil. Being a hero and become the focus of attention is way better than doing mundane things such as becoming a random office worker, right?
This is where the first problem arises. How can society work if the 80% that have superpowers want to become a hero? And if, on top of that, not having a Quirk is being looked down upon; and doing everything that needs to be done to make everyday life function correctly is disregarded, why would these normal (or maybe abnormal) people even bother? You, the reader, must realize that there is no way the farmers will be able to produce enough food if their population decreases by 80%. Society can simply NOT function in the way this world is presented to us. But hey, since there is a superpower for anything, this might just be miraculously solved!

With that out of the way, I’ll start talking about the main plot. The main character Midorima, in his eagerness to become a hero, takes notes on every hero he sees and looks how they fight against villains. But since he himself has no Quirk, it is very hard for him to become a hero. This is also why many other kids in his class look down on him, making his life more miserable. On top of that, his “childhood friend”, who is constantly bullying him, makes him realize all the more that it would be an impossible task for a quirkless person.
It seems like his quest for becoming a hero will certainly fail, when he has a fateful encounter with an emaciated geezer that always coughs up blood. This encounter proves to change his life radically, because Deus ex Machina is overwhelmingly overpowered and seems to be able to solve any problem without much effort. Well, maybe not exactly without much effort, but certainly it is a half-assed way to solve things. This is when he sees a light at the end of the endless darkness. HOPE! He can maybe become a hero!


The next section I will discuss is characters. Although the cast of character is certainly not huge, being most of them sidekick heroes or unimportant hero students, there are four important characters in this show.

The protagonist, Izuki Midoriya, is a young boy that at the beginning of the show hasn’t entered high school yet. During his whole life he aimed to be a hero, but it seemed as though his Quirk never wanted to appear. Despite that, he continually worked hard to become one through studying alone. He obviously will succeed, as he is the protagonist. That aside, this character seems to evolve slightly, going from a total coward to someone that dares to speak up (a bit). Although he isn’t a total retard, his personality is still the same as most shounen protagonists.

The second main character, Bakugou, is supposed to be Izuki’s childhood friend, which completely baffled me, as this character is constantly bullying the protagonist bcuz eevil is gud and is objectively superior since he has a nice “bang”. It’s also rather annoying that he underwent a sudden character change; all of a sudden he is a “good” guy, and the reason to it is rather stupid.

Another character introduced to us is the emaciated geezer, who is something like a mentor to Midoriya. He is the responsible for making it possible for the protagonist to become a hero and has an interesting story which I won’t tell because spoilers. Nevertheless, I really doubt his choice-making ability, as Midoriya doesn’t seem that special to me.

The only female lead is a girl called Ochako, whom Izuki met in the hero entrance exam and seems to be nice to Izuki, without any reason. She is a dimensionless character who doesn’t really add anything to the show.


Thus concludes the characters section and starts another one; sound and animation.
As for the sound, the music played throughout the different scenes was satisfying; there was no mismatch between music and type of scene. The used soundtracks were well used and could be considered good. Furthermore, the voice actors played their role well and managed to match the personalities of the characters with their voices. The opening and ending themes were shit as with nearly all shows, and nothing anyone says can change this particular opinion of mine. Overall nothing special in this regard, only what is required to not make it disturbing.
The animation used in this show was good enough; background was well done (though it had no movement) and the moving parts were drawn well. Battle animations were fluid and special effects also transmitted all the information that was needed easily observe what is happening.


Finally, I’ll discuss enjoyment and make a small summary of the show.
Surprisingly, this show managed to be enjoyable for me, for about 3 episodes. This is where the whole idea started to become too stereotypical and predictable, making me start to dislike it. As the show progressed, everything became more and more predictable; and thus more boring. All the Deus ex Machina didn’t really help my enjoyment of the show either, contributing to the low score I gave to this section.

In essence, heroes are gud and villains are bad; small children must go into a hero academia to beat eevil. Even though there are some terrible people amongst these heroes.
Do I recommend Boku no Hero Academia? No, I don’t think watching this is worth the time for people who actually think about what is happening in an anime while watching, because the amount of plot holes and inconsistencies is too big. For those who prefer to just enjoy a show and not think about it (or those that are new to anime), I do believe that it is worth watching, though.

If you read through all of this, I applaud you. Furthermore I would like to add that feedback is appreciated.

For the spring 2016 Anime lineup, Boku no Hero Academia was considered as the main shounen title of the season, and for good reason. It had everything going for it that you’d need in a good shounen and was something that could easily be picked up by anyone at any time. But the real thing to consider here is, even though it managed to stand as a good show to watch overall, was it truly able to Go Beyond (Plus Ultra!!) any of what the genre has set as its standard?


Story:

For the most part, the story doesn’t really have much to talk about. Well, at ... least not yet. The show, like most others in the shounen genre seems to be of a rather extensive nature and considering the length of Academia, it’s pretty understandable that they could only give us a small part of the story with just 13 episodes, thus leaving us with a plot that does leave behind a few hints of a deeper subject and some greater events to come but unfortunately also leaves the show in a rather incomplete and unsatisfying note. So we’re not really getting any closure until maybe another season.

But let’s talk about the actual contents. First off, while the concept is nothing new and has been done several times before, the show still manages to present it in a very ‘fun’ way. It maintains a very nice atmosphere and is able to carry out events in a manner that is very easy to digest and do not require much thinking to enjoy. While the story doesn’t offer anything all that amazing and is rather linear, it is still enjoyable. One other thing that I particularly liked about the show is that it is very honest with itself. It knows exactly what it is and doesn’t try too hard to be something that it’s not. This way, everything always feels in place and none of the scenarios feel overdone or unfitting.

Sadly, even with all that, the show still did feel as if it was constantly missing something, like it just didn’t have enough. Though I did say that I appreciated the fact that it doesn’t try to be something it’s not, it also doesn’t try to ever improve or explore upon the aspects that do relate to it. It feels confined to a certain space which doesn’t leave much room for diversity, thus lacking anything for the viewer to truly look forward to. Simply put, it’s a very simple show with a simple setup.


Art and Animation:

Academia offers a simple and comic-like style of art. It might not have all that much detail, but it does hold a certain charm to it and is pleasing to look at. The character designs are also done nicely, again not much detail and are kept simple but that’s what allows it to fit with the theme to a good extent. The animation did feel a bit clunky at times but was fairly smooth when it needed to be, such as during the action sequences which were always animated well enough.


Sound:

The soundtrack is one of the better aspects of Academia. I always found the OST to be catchy and it always set the atmosphere for the show really well. Coupled with its style of presentation, it managed to set the mood for certain situations and even got me excited during some of it. The voice acting’s also done well, but still not something I would praise.
The opening sequence was well presented and did prove to be a good way to start the show, but eventually starts to lose its charm after a few episodes. After about 4 to 5 episodes, I found myself skipping through it at the start of each one..


Characters:

While the characters do have some very interesting designs and fun personalities, there’s hardly anything redeemable about any of them. Most characters within the show are very flat, they’re exactly what’s given to you at face value. There’s no depth to them and most of them are very stereotypical. The main character himself follows a very generic underdog personality and development which can pretty much be seen anywhere within the shounen genre. There isn’t anything wrong with sticking to the norm, but to not add your own uniqueness to it kind of is. Because of which, most of the cast just ends up feeling like a copy-paste of other shounen stereotypes. While the characters do have their own quirky personalities and are fun in their own way, they don’t have anything to offer much beyond that, and eventually end up feeling rather plain and forgettable.


Presentation:

This is the aspect which pretty much saves Academia from falling to a bad grade. Despite all the shortcomings, it still manages to be an entertaining show. It just offers a very lively feel and really puts you in the mood. Getting to experience all the different abilities and quirks that the many characters had, proved to be a rather enjoyable experience for me and the way these quirks are used during the battle sequences was also very nice. It gave off a sense of creativity. The way the show carries out its development and how it’s all presented allowed me to enjoy the show for what it offered without paying too much mind to the many problems that it already had. Thus allowing me to even forget about those problems sometimes.


Conclusion and Verdict:

While Academia might not have been able to offer anything above the usual, it still fulfilled its job as a fun shounen. If you’re looking for a nice little show to watch that doesn’t take too much thinking or just want to enjoy something that’s quick while giving out enough enjoyment to make you want to watch more, then Academia could tend to your needs quite well. But for those who’ve already seen enough of the genre and are looking for something new to be had, then your time is better spent elsewhere.

Seeing the hype of My Hero Academia, I have the general impression that people watch it with the mindset as just another enjoyable fighting shounen with a unique-looking superhero premise. The production values are decent, the atmosphere is fitting for the superhero premise, and the story of a Quirkless individual really gives off that empowerment vibes. However, I like to try to dig beneath the surface. This review is mainly focused on the premise of the show and how it’s possibly flawed upon closer inspection.

First, we get a setting where having superpowers is a normality. How come heroism still thrives in this kind of ... setting? Factors such as the existence of Quirkless people, powers being inferior to others, and the inevitable division between bad and evil are all reasons why. Yet, these reasons could have been used more properly to have a better story in terms of conflict and exploration. The existence of Quirkless people serves as a way for discrimination to thrive into the story, without having any pre-existing remedies to compensate for their absence of Quirks. Inferior powers are also a way for discrimination to be present in the story, but powers could be used in other aspects of life apart from fighting like industry and transportation. The division between bad and good hasn’t been properly explained by the story so far but the impression I get is that it’s biased on one side (Justice always wins). I’m hoping the second season will try to expand on this aspect.

Second, the story takes place in an academy for aspiring heroes. Does it really need to be necessary to enroll in an academy to be qualified a hero? Apart from the main cast being kids which means there must be a sort of school, there is no real reason. There is an organization of heroes in general but having an academy that is modelled after an ordinary school with stuff like English class feel pointless. Powers varies by person and you can’t simply measure their capability through a set of tests following a common guideline. Sure, you can polish things like preparedness, mentality, and utilization of powers but they mostly lie on the theoretical side. How will they train their powers if there is no such thing as an academy? Things such as self-training or discipleship work. Based from what I observed, the main drive for the cast is to have their powers recognized by the crowd and not the noble idea of helping others unconditionally like All Might does. The original meaning of heroism gets twisted. It can make an interesting deconstruction but it doesn’t look that way based on what we are shown thus far.

The story is fairly average as a shounen title but with the attention-grabbing superhero premise. The main cast are not really that interesting and lack the charm to be an interesting hero. They could use better characterization to look less generic and more character background to reinforce their standing and future development as a character in the story. Overall, it has an interesting premise but it’s not being fully utilized by the story. It has a strong start, but it starts to lose steam as it side-tracks into the less interesting parts of the story. The enjoyment is there, with a couple of frustrations along the way, but it could have used its episodes better. But hey, we still have another season and just maybe it might resolve some of the problems I have in the show. For now, it’s just fine as a mindless yet enjoyable and engaging superhero story but not really as amazing as I expected it to be.

My Hero Academia was easily the most hyped show this season for me, and for good reason. Once I heard that it was going to be produced by Bones, my anticipation went through the roof because of the obligatory Full Metal Alchemist comparisons. What I got was not FMA, nor should it have been. My Hero Academia is an endearing and uplifting tale of a young boy trying to get accepted into an academy full of individuals with superpowers (which he ironically has none of). It's almost like an anime based on Xmen. It ends up suffering a tad from groundhogs day disease and plot ... conveniences, and the overall premise wasn't exactly what I originally foresaw. However, a great potential and the last three episodes certainly made the series for me, giving me something to look forward to in the newly announced season two.

There's that popular saying in life that everything is good in moderation, and I found that that's one of the areas that Academia struggles. The first episode was rather enjoyable and I really felt moved and gripped by Midoriya's motivating personality. The way he admired the other heroes and envied their ability to save those in need struck some heart chords with me that I really can't explain. A lot of shows start off with this underwhelmingly weak protagonist but something about Midoriya seemed more relatable. In a way he kind of reminded me of myself because of his brains over brawn mentality, even if it is was technically forced upon him due to natural selection. Unfortunately, the "I can do it!" theme from the first episode repeated a multitude of times afterwards. It almost felt as though I was watching the same episode over and over again with a different background. This was the point in the show when I realized how lofty my expectations may have initially been.

I chuckled at the convenient nature in which Midoriya receives his perk. I guess in his case persistence really does pay off. All Might almost appeared to be swatting away a fly when he was initially dismissive of Midoriya. Convenience aside, I was relieved to see that the power given to him was not magically mastered in a minute. Perseverance and willpower were the keys to making this perk work. Using this new power Midoriya grows tremendously as a character. Through this growth he even inadvertently manages to spark a sense of jealousy in his rival Kacchan's eyes. toll that the All Might ability had on his body was proof of its potency. The manner in which Midoriya's fellow students revered him after saving Uraraka was a prime example of the naivety of youth. The other adults teaching the classes knew something was up, but his peers change their minds rather quickly when they saw the impact of his perk. I'm just glad an anime writer finally illustrated how gullible kids can be vice making them into a reincarnated Sherlock Holmes in the form of a 14-year-old. I appreciated the sense of realism written into the characters which was shown quite well in the evacuation scene, where mass chaos ensued when the threat of a security breach within the school loomed.

Another aspect of Academia I enjoyed was the comedy. Sometimes anime can entirely derail due to poorly written comedy. Unintentionally deadpan humor that falls on deaf ears can be cringe worthy. There were even shows this season guilty of such atrocities in dialogue. Academia's jokes were well written, subtle and well-placed within its 13 jampacked episodes. I even found myself laughing out loud during a couple of instances. Something about Midoriya's character is so pathetic you can't help but laugh at him from time to time. At the same token, the story can have very uplifting moments, and the tides can turn quite quickly into serious, cerebral battles. Pacing can be a slight issue due to the development of the characters, environment and plot. With the potential to be a repeating series, at times Academia struggled to keep me focused due to the sheer amount of things it was trying to get done in such a short amount of episodes. Despite this and the aforementioned groundhog effect, Academia kept me entertained and intrigued enough to look forward to its second installment in order to expand the story. I was also elated to see how the show ended, another aspect that made me look forward to future seasons. The series took a dark turn in the concluding episodes, showing the heroes in a vulnerable state, something not shown in many anime/television shows. You can really feel the panic in Midoriya and his friend's voices, realizing that being a hero isn't all about glory and morality... There can be quite a grim side as well.

Obviously the character development in Academia primarily revolves around our main protagonist Midoriya. I can be slightly empathetic to his childhood as I also got made fun of and ridiculed for my shortcomings when I was younger. I do like the approach the writers gave to Midoriya's backstory, making it seem like a tale of redemption more than a sob story. Although meek and timid l, Midoriya shows promise as a MC from his determination and intellect. Although his goals are lofty, he is still just a boy who is shy and nervous around girls, and gets worked up over relatively trivial matters. His interactions with Kacchan are very believable in the sense that he sees himself at level ground once his perk is obtained. His rival, someone that he's looked up to and envied for his entire life has now been knocked down a peg and has become vulnerable. The Herculean growth he goes through in the series is awe-inspiring. Kacchan doesn't necessarily receive the same amount of growth or character development, but he isn't entirely ignored. His past is slightly explored through character flashbacks and some inner monolguing, but it didn't quite cut the mustard for me. I wanted to know more about what made his mind works the way it did and why he was always so pissed off at Midoriya. I felt like there was a lot more emotion possibly smokescreened beneath it all.

Besides Kacchan and Midoriya, the only other character worthy of any development was All Might. His facade he showcased in hero form was taking a massive toll on his body. Passing the torch was inevitable, but he struggled internally with doing so. I think he may have been my favorite character in the whole series. There was just a brute sense of realism in his actions. I know that this character development problem stems from the fact that the series is only 13 episodes but that doesn't make it not a problem. I know that risk and budgeting issues limit most anime seasons from being longer than about a dozen episodes, but it doesn't give me a real chance to become connected to a cast the size of a show like Academia. I couldn't even remember half of their names when the show is over. I know this isn't a problem directly linked to Academia, but it's frustrating nonetheless. The villain who appeared at the end showed some promise so, I guess I'll have to wait till next season to see his character more developed.

There is no denying that the music and art in Academia are top notch and I would expect nothing less from bones. The opening is one of my favorites this season, with its quick beat and intense animation. I actually found it on a 10 hour loop within a couple days of its premiere on YouTube. There are no miss use of sound effects or bad voice acting. Both Midoriya and All Might's voice actors put on tremendous shows of versatility in their roles. The ED's a cute little childish bow on each episode as if to remind you that you're watching a cartoon, in case you forgot. Nothing really special here. I really like the art style in academia, everything looked fluid and seamless... and its budget was on display here. Beautiful fight scenes galore, it was certainly visually stimulating. I thought it was interesting how both shows produced by Bones this season (Academia and Bunguo Stray Dogs) each had such vivid and discernible art styles.

My Hero Academia was no FMAB reincarnation, but was easily entertaining in its own right. Through its use of eye-catching visuals and inspirational story, there is something for everyone in this series. I am anxiously awaiting the second season to discover what happens to Midoriya and his friends at the Hero Academy. I guess only time will tell how great of a franchise this becomes, but I would recommend it to anyone. If you're looking for some quality action and entertainment without too much strain on the intellectual side, this is an anime for you. As always, thanks for reading an be sure to check out the rest of my Spring 2016 reviews!

I've come across a few anime of this genre, and I can't rack my brains around how they so consistently amass a large following. Whether the premise is confined to a school; the world; a personal journey; a collective journey; comedy; harem or on a more serious tone. Maybe the recently sensationalised marvel universe has enchanted the masses into submission.

Boku no Hero Academia seems to touch on a few of the above mentioned bases without the core themes being disjointed on paper. The problem however, is that the ultimate relay is a lukewarm exploration into topics it clearly took a more juvenile approach to ... and ultimately finds its themes disjointed. Which is why I'd say this is for the younger audience, as I can't imagine this being taken seriously by an older demographic.

Boku no Hero Academia is about a world where 80% of the population is born with quirks, or in other words, some 'super power'. One of the problems I had right away is with the properties of these powers - they were mostly just painfully juvenile and often times lacked any practicality in more or less any scenario. This problem is inevitable if you are going to build a premise of a barrage of characters having said powers. This would have been OKAY if not for the fact that EVERYONE WANTS TO BE A HERO. What's worse, more or less, THEY ARE. To enjoy anime is to often times suspend disbelief, but when you are presented with characters that have lame heroes with powers like climbing walls or shooting balls of goo, it is hard to take seriously. More or less, the majority of other characters also have abilities that any pistol would outdo from a militaristic standpoint. This would have been OKAY if the anime was mostly confined to a comedy genre, but it ISN'T - it tries to take a serious tone with melodramatic and black and white depictions of good and evil.

Which brings me to the other problem; characters. Alot of characters, but few backgrounds explored. And the ones explored are as what you'd expect if you notice the rest of the show - childish. The MC is a pansy kiss ass without any resolve beyond the shows projected fight for its black and white justice.He always wanted to be a hero despite not being born with a quirk and now conveniently has one, thus fulfilling his dream. That's the sum of his character. The blonde haired secondary (forget his name), has probably the worst background to date in anime - he hates the MC despite being friends in the past because the MC asked if he was okay after an accident that had nothing to do with the MC, and now this terrible secondary vows vengeance against him throughout the series. One of the worst narratives I've come across. The rest of the characters are also the lame righteous knights without faults for the most part, and as mentioned, don't have much backgrounds explored, and their overall personalities are just a lot of ''I want to be a hero'', to be well, a hero. No backgrounds beyond that for the most part.

The villains were as you would also expect, the other polar end of the good and evil spectrum. The main antagonist pushes to upset the balance of peace for the sake of destruction and fame. Full stop. Moving on. The only one villain in the show that has any character is 'Hero Killer Stain', whom has an agreeable philosophy to mine - ''there are too many heroes''. The rest of the antagonists seem to just be an extension to the main antagonist with their viewpoints aligned. No individuality to comment on. This union is structurally symmetrical to the hero's society. Bleh.

Story :

The story is just a function of the above mentioned character design. Light vs Dark. Good vs Evil. Beyond the plot, the combat is mildly enjoyable if you can move past the question of practicality,as it is actually rather well choreographed. Beyond this, the actual concepts of their abilities were a bit too juvenile for my taste. They tried to incorporate a strategic front to the combat, but it was often times a little too simplistic or unreasonable even within their own framework. The absence of death or gore to boot only made the show lack suspense. Again, no problem with that, but I find it more for a younger audience.


The art is one thing I can't criticise at all.

Ultimately, I did manage to get through the show without too much struggle, but it's more of a show to simply pass the time rather than take something with you. Put it on the bucket list if a fun combat oriented anime is for you, but probably place it on the lower end.

First thing I just feel the need to say, everyone who is saying this is like One Punch Man... sorry but THAT IS ABSOLUTE BS. Beyond the fact that they're both series with heroes and superpowers and that the character designs are are a little funky/quirky (haha pun intended), there is NOTHING SIMILAR. That's like saying Death Note and Bleach are similar series since they happen to both focus on shinigami as a supernatural element in a previously seemingly normal world and both MC are high schoolers. Bleh. No. Just no. Just needed to get that off my chest, since I feel like people ... might watch this with the expectation that it's like One Punch Man, or might not watch it because they think it will be like it. It's not.

Since I'm late to the party in watching this, rather than give yet another description of the plot like all the other reviews before mine, I'm just gonna say it straight:

This show suffers from a SERIOUS pacing issue. Every single episode, from the first to the last, feels like a forth to a half is filler. The story is dragged out beyond being dragged out. It doesn't work because for this first arc of the story, the plot is very simple and predictable and follows a typical shounen genre type plot with magical schools/superpowers we've seen dozens and dozens of times beforehand.

You can literally fast forward through a lot of it, and the characters will be doing the exact same exercise/dialogue topic/training, whatever, as minutes prior. And it's not complicated stuff, there's no amazing fight scenes or complex plot points to warrant such drawn out scenarios. Basically, it actually gets boring.

I'm being repetitive, but it's just truthful, you can't drag out a show with such a simple story line. I feel like what happened in 13 episodes could have happened easily in half the time, and it still might have felt a little dragged out.

I actually ended up reading the manga after, because I really like the whole superpower/magical school genre, (and it's rare to find one without the females being stupidly cliche weak/annoying idiots or overly sexualized characters only being placed for fan service. Kudos to the author for that.) The manga is bounds and leaps better than the anime, and after reading it I can see WHY people rate this show so highly. If you're a fan of the manga, seeing the characters you like come to life, and knowing the cool storyline that unfolds afterwards, is really awesome and exciting. But as an anime on it's own, if you're not already a fan, it's just alright.

The show gives off that same feel that Naruto filler episodes do: the creators are trying to milk it for everything it's worth to make as much money as possible. I don't blame them, since it's a business, but it could've been an amazing show. As it is, it's just sort of good. I wouldn't be disappointed if it's discontinued, but I would still be sort of interested to see if it gets better in the next season, giving how well I like the manga. That sort of feel.

To sum it up, to just rate this show based on its merits as a stand alone anime, it barely receives a passing grade.

Boku no overrated is a more accurate title considering that children and adults everywhere gush over this dumpster fire despite it not being any better than Naruto or bleach.

The story is pretty much the story of Naruto. You follow this friendless wimpy little brat that can't fight but wants to become the most powerful fighter in their place of residence. And they don't really make any meaningful jump in power until they meet an overpowered old man (Hokaga = super hero. Toad sage= allmight) But that's where the similarities end. Unlike midoriya, Naruto worked for the shit he got and when he failed he tried ... again that made him endearing...

Midoriya just cried for an episode or two until someone handed him powers.

what I'm trying to say is midoriya is one of the many things that ruined this anime for me. He's an entitled brat that any sensible person would want to smack in the face immediately after getting to know them.

Another problem with the anime is the quirk system...It's close to the devil fruit abilities in one piece but it's shit. Every character has a unique ability in Hero Academia but none of them are fixable. While devil fruit had a high level of adaptability quirks do not. The second you know someones power they'll never gonna have any other tricks up their sleeves. Because of this Most fights are well animated but boring.


The characters are all one dimensional and forgettable. Aside from 1 or 3 of them.

I hated this anime but I can see the appeal of it.
If you have a kid and you want to try and get them into anime you should put this on. It's simple, stupid, escapist fun.

[Spoilers from episode 1]

I don't find the Boku no Hero series good nor bad, simply mediocre. Mediocre and generic are the most fitting words I can find to describe this show. It's like the author took all the basics of an average shonen manga and put them together hoping it would work, and it seems like it worked. Boku no Hero is one of the most overrated animes out there.

We can begin with the story. I have to say the plot didn't have much potential from the very start. The concept was poor (good heroes fighting bad villains) so you can't expect much of the ... execution. However, when I found out in ep. 1 that the main protagonist was heavily disadvantaged (being part of the 20% of the population that does not have super-powers) I started increasing my hopes. I though this particular shonen protagonist actually wouldn't follow the clichés and find a way to become even stronger than people with powers without possessing one, some sort of humanism like in Fullmetal Alchemist about humans' true nature, infinite potential, and ability to never cease to hope, but nope: the world's strongest hero hands him down his OP power that he is throughout the plot going to gradually control (another clichè). That "oh, he risked his own life to save someone he didn't even know so he deserves that power" seemed to me just a cheap pretest to return to the clichè trail. I still find the story decent but seriously not more than that. Story rating: 4/10.

The animation is great. Studio Bones really did a good job making the animation fluid and impactful in relatable way (that's what you call great choreography). I didn't really like the art style though, but I guess that's just based on my subjective perspective of beautiful art. Rating: 9/10

Now, I didn't really find anything special with the soundtracks, it's simply fine. Fitting, but still mediocre. I tried the original soundtrack album and I genuinely liked a few tracks. The openings and endings are ok. Sound: 6/10

We finally come to characters. I personally find that the characters are the worst part of the series. The only round characters in the whole S1 and S2 are All Might and Todoroki (oh, and that purple -haired guy that control minds). I have serious difficulties in appreciating Deku's character. His "genericness" is simply annoying: the naive and bighearted but strong hero that fights against evil and to achieve his dream of becoming the strongest hero. I was so uninterested I didn't even want him to win when he was fighting, and that is, for a main character, not a good thing. The other characters are just as clichè: the big, good, naive nerd, the friendly (naive as well) girl, the cold-blooded badass, the Kakashi-ish fan service character, the impulsive, warm-blooded rude guy that is intrinsically nice and finally the protagonist's mentor, the one Deku desires to become. I have seen every single one of these character types in other animes of movies. The characters could hardly get more uninteresting, poor and unoriginal. Characters: 3/10

As for enjoyment, it was enough good to make me complete S1 and half of S2, but rarely enough good to excite me and actually make me even speculate about what is going to happen next. Enjoyment/entertainment: 4/10.

As sad before, I find Boku no Hero simply average, not fine but not bad. The animation's greatness cannot be denied, but I feel like this manga didn't deserve such a great adaptation (I'm still talking about the animation). I really can't understand how it could get so popular. Overall rating: 5/10.

A good anime for doing homework or while at work or doing literally anything productive because I don't know how anyone can sit around and watch this while not multitasking.

You really only need to pay attention to 1/16th of the show to know what's going on. the rest is fluff.

I guess this is my spoiler line but who on this god forsaken earth hasn't watched this show by now I'm so sick of seeing it so that's why I even bothered. Usually not the case but everyone says it gets better. does it? does it really?

no.

Story: Typical. Done before. Pathetic useless ... kid saves the world. not this season, but it's going to happen it's so predictable.

Art: I'm okay with the art I guess, I really hate their eyes. I mean I can't draw worth shit so what do I know? But someone popped some cue balls in their eye sockets and drew pupils on them.

Sound: I'm giving it a high rating because the dub isn't terrible. Re: multitask so my spine doesn't slide out of my body from boredom. Re: I don't speak Japanese. I can't stand most dubs, so props for finding voice actors that aren't 100% unbearable.

Character: dear god. deku is the most annoying piece of garbage. I'm whiny and awful and bully people who don't want to be around me in the name of being disgustingly nice! I hope he dies. IcyHot fills in for 'bad boy v.2' because you need that tortured soul tragic backstory bad boy. Kacchan is really the only worthwhile character and even he is pretty awful. He's mean and isn't trying to be something he isn't. he's 100% his original self.

Enjoyment: I longed for my dentist's chair. I would rather be getting told how I need to floss more while they make me bleed than watch this anime again.

Overall: It's childish and unoriginal. I would have loved to see the impact of everyone having these crazy powers, like the world being thrown into chaos even for a little bit? Like that had to happen. The change didn't even happen THAT long ago but everyone accepts it as normal. WHY did everyone even get these powers. I guess if you are a child you might like it. Good for some good background noise while doing finances.

Boku no Hero Academia is one of the worst shows Marvel has ever produced. When I found out that Jon Favreau had given the rights to this series to a Japanese studio, I was surprised but not necessarily worried. I figured that Marvel wouldn’t bestow the responsibility to uphold the very esteemed MCU to just anyone. I guess I was wrong to trust the anime industry to produce anything without the highest saturation of tropes possible. Boku no Hero Academia has reaffirmed my disdain for generic shounens. It basically jumps through every hoop required for your typical “ordinary kid inherits amazing power and tries to ... fit in with the rest of the Avengers and saves the day” show. I felt like I was watching the conglomeration of everything I hate about anime for the teenage demographic. It was written so safe and close to the chest that there’s no way it wouldn’t be a success. I wish I was the executive who is getting paid for this commercially huge series so that I could continue to make cynical and colorful garbage which everyone would eat up like a god damn McDonald’s taro pie. The only reason I finished this whole first season instead of stopping halfway is because I wanted to see if I was being too judgmental. Maybe it got crazy near the end and it would be ultimately worth it. I’ve been proven wrong before, so I might as well be optimistic about one of the most popular anime ever. But I was fully disappointed this time, and the only thing I got out of watching it was this review. Thanks for nothing, Stan Lee.

3/10 for sucking giant Hulk balls, but overall 6/10 because the doujins are pretty good.

My hero academia is very overrated and generic.

I got into anime from One Punch Man. I binge-watched it and i really enjoyed it. When I asked my friend to reccomend me more stuff like OPM he told me to watch MHA. I watched 3 episodes from it and I unfriended him.

STORY: 2
If you made a program that generates shounen anime and left everything on default settings, you'd get MHA's plot.

ART: 9
Art is easily the best thing about the show. The animation is great and smooth. Sadly, because of the dull battles, the animation doesn't live up to it's potential.

... SOUND: 6
The opening is cool, i guess. The OST isn't half-bad either.

CHARACTERS: 1
I despise the characters in the show. I can count the only enjoyable characters on my fingers; They are: All-Might, Class Rep, Pervert, Teacher, Principal and Grandma.

Deku is a crying cunt. His main trait is being very emotional and sensitive, because of his (kinda hyperbolic) backstory. And that is alright, but please, Deku cries in every fucking battle he is in. It gets really annoying very quickly and I hate him.

Uraraka is 15 stop jacking off to her, you sickos.

All-Might is the best main character in the show. Hands down.

The villian(hand guy) is just there beacuse the show needs an antagonistic force(the villians call themselves the League of Villians, cringe).

ENJOYMENT: 4
The battles are unnecesserily long and boring. The part where Deku punches the big robot is cool. The animation there is great.
The part where Deku rushes in to save Bakugo is also nice, but he cries again.

OVERALL: 5
Overrated crap with nice art and like 4 good charactes.

*Spoilers ahead *

This show seemed to get quite a lot of hype and attention on the internet and anime forums, so i though - "Why not check it out?". And so i did. And oh boy, was i disappointed. Now as with every show, i go in with reasonable low expectations, hoping to be pleasantly surprised later. In this case i sure wasn't.

First, and most important problem - complete lack of originality. Most people gain super powers at some point (boy, have never seen this one!). The protagonist isn't only in the minority who don't have powers, but is also physically weak (underdog? yep, for ... the millionth time). School setting? DOUBLE FUCKING CHECK (honestly at this point you'd think the Japanese have no other meaningful events in their life except school?). Need more? Ok, how about a sudden plot device to give him some kind of op power? You got it! But he can't control his power and needs to train? You bet!

Now, as bad as this is, all of those wouldn't be enough to bring down a show if it was still any kind of good. But its not nearly the end of the problem! First of all - the progression is awful (something that is seen in the shounen genre quite often, especially those that have a lot of characters due to attention division). Second of all - most of this season was spent on introduction dialogues and common stuff, so obviously it will be quite a boring watch, with the only exception probably being the past couple of episodes, and in a show with a measly 12 episodes (at least this season)..? Yeah, no good. The art and sound are decent, but the story is extremely mediocre (and again, completely unoriginal - underdog trains to become the strongest, random group of villains attack here and there for no reason other than being bad (at least give them a financial intensive from time to time or something? jeez!)), and most the characters are flat and boring. Add in the lack of action and flashiness and you get a very unimpressive combo.


Final verdict - would probably not suggest this title to anyone except kids, big shounen fans and people new to the medium.

Boku no Hero Academia, a series I often poke fun of due to it sounding like Boku No Pico. Yes, how original....

Finally, after getting a ton of recommendation from my friends, I now then embark on the story of which is Boku no Hero Academia. Straight off the bat, I was super skeptical before going into this series, because from the look of it it seems as if this was just a plain shounen type kind of show and the only reason people adore it so much is due to the cute characters or funny scenes the show has to offer. And after watching this, ... my predictions were right, the characters are somewhat cute and childish but I was more interested in the whole story. To start, I love how the show just throws the viewer into the world with short and understandable explanation of the world. It was a great start because it would definitely be a bore to go through how the world happen to be it. However, an issue quickly arose with the character Bakugou, from the first scene of him I was just instantly disappointed. Yes the show want present him as the rival to our main dude but the way the present his doings and all is absolutely horrible. This issue of characters can be seen throughout the show and is something the show really fails at. Majority of the characters are shallow and just mediocre, plus our main character is annoyingly emotional. Like seriously, does his eye duct have an issue of holding tears. I know the show explained how badly he was treated by society due to not having powers but I honestly find it terrible, like the show keeps trying to make it emotional and I feel this effected my whole experience. I hate hate hate it so much how hard the show tries to be emotional, pisses me off. This is something One Punch Man does right, balancing all the types of mood together. Another thing I absolutely hate was the villains, plain, boring and unoriginal. They remind me of the Micheal Jackson song 'Bad', 'I'm bad, I'm bad you know it'. While I accept and understands the villains intention the way the presented them is so poorly done. Like they talk bad, do bad, and overall just be bad for all the matters. There is no depth to them for me a viewer to like them or find them interesting, they are so two dimensional. I really am a sucker for a good villain but what Boku no Hero Academia showed was disappointing, plus the plot armor for the heroes are way too strong. It's like I do not even need to expect what is going to happen cause I already know the heroes will win. Honestly, the show wasn't that bad except for the part mentioned, it is a simple and plain story and if the studio executed it right I feel that this can be more enjoyable than it is now. Lastly and most importantly of all, the show lacks realism and what I mean by that is that there is not sense of reality in a world that is somewhat realistic. I hope you get where I am coming from cause this is a big issue, the whole show itself seems too scripted and fake. The characters act unrealistically in real life and thus it make them shallow to me. All I can hope for is the next few seasons to be better.

-SCORES-

Character- 6/10: All seem very fake and unrealistic, all except Mr Shouta Aizawa, that dude has that dead-life that is somewhat relatable. Villains suck which plays a super big Oof in the show all together.

Art- 8/10: I can definitely see the studio try to shorten the amount of screen time in each episode, examples of this is the being re-cap and all the reuse scenes of a flashback. But honestly, they can do as they please cause the fight scenes are swell and well. At least Bones knows where to put their priorities.

Writing- 5/10: Super straight forward and plain, not a lot of interest points to grab onto but I'm hopeful that it will get better in the next few seasons.

Sound- 7/10: Other than all the annoying emotional music, I say the OST is fine and fits the theme of the show.

Overall, I say there is potential. Definitely not as good as what my friends say but there is potential for this show to be great. This is just a personal wish but I hope there will be a third party that will enter between the good and the bad guys, I swear if that happens this would make the series way more interesting.

Decent to Strong 6

My Hero Academia is the latest in terms of ultra-popular shonen, ranking #25 in MAL's most watched at the time of writing this review. With a variety of friends who have watched the series or read the manga plus the fact that unlike some other shonen it is of actually reasonably watchable length. And so I picked it up recently.

The plot of My Hero Academia is pretty simple and straightforward, with main character Midoriya (or as some others refer to him as a nickname, Deku) being a person without superpowers ("Quirkless", with powers being known as Quirks) in a world full of them. Nonetheless he ... aspires to be a superhero and idolizes the top hero of the world, the all american All Might (seriously, his attacks are named after random states/cities in America, and it is hilariously great)! Midoriya is about to give up hopes on the possibility when a chance encounter with All Might leads to a series of events that leads to All Might deciding to pass on his Quirk to Midoriya as his successor, for his is a nearly unique quirk that can be passed on to others...and All Might's time as a hero is nearing its end.

All in all, the setup ends up rather standard, but the standout character of All Might helps push it along: All Might's pondering on how a career he built so much is coming to an end, passing it off to someone who he finds worthy for their morals over their power and struggling with how he has such a large instinct to help people when he no longer can as easily do and his thoughts on having an icon of justice are pretty much all the most interesting parts of the first season. Both of his designs are quite good, although I am surprisingly partial to his normal form, with his All Might costume and design looking like it jumped right out of an American comic book which also helps really establish the tone.

Midoriya getting into the hero academy of the title leads to a host of side and semi-main characters with their own wacky powers and so on, although the first season primarily focuses on setting up for later seasons by introducing its quirky cast and what will obviously be recurring villains: About 3 of them are semi-mains who get focus as Midoriya's friend group, while the rest are relegated to more one note side characters for the moment. Some of them are really obviously going to be important in the future, Todoroki being the most obvious, while some are clearly just gag characters, like Yuuga or the awfil Mineta. In general, I would say a weakness of these characters is that the introduction of so many makes them quite one note at the start, even for the more prominent Ochako and Iida.

Bakugo, Midoriya's..."friend" from childhood and school who also got into the academy is the rival character of this show and a character I am iffy on. Quite frankly with how Bakugo interacts with Midoriya I have no idea how we are supposed to buy into the idea Bakugo and Midoriya are actually friends, with Bakugo telling Midoriya to kill himself, repeatedly threatening to kill him and blowing up his stuff. Yeah, sure, they were friends as kids, they repeatedly flash back to Midoriya and Bakugo at four years old with Midoriya getting messed up by him. And he still was friends with him for over a decade? Nobody's parents intervened or anything? It isn't like Bakugo is subtle. Yes, Midoriya does at times talk about Bakugo's flaws but those are for the most part glossed over. I simply can't buy into the idea of them as friends and the rivalry stemming from it seems odd. Bakugo is also pretty one note in the first season with the vast majority of his scenes either being "superiority complex" or "explosions".

I am also going to take a moment of my time to say that Mineta, one of the minor heroes, is a truly terrible character in his limited screentime and should be kicked to the curb posthaste. He has two roles in this series: To be the one who makes pervy "jokes" + pervs on the girls and to be an overly loud, whiny "hero" who panics and is useless. These two traits combine to make a character who does nothing of value except unfunny jokes that often hurt the scenes he is in: His "cowardly" characterization in parts of the end of the season with Midoriya and Tsuyu stood out to me especially for hurting the atmosphere of the scene and lowering their quality notably. He also looks more like a child and his superhero outfit has what I would best describe as a diaper look to the pants, so you can tell this is just a parade of awfulness. Replacing Mineta's unfunny comedy antics in the finale's parts with an actual character to give us insight into them would have been a significantly better use of time than this waste of a character.

The plot is fine for what it is, since most of it is setup and we do get some good All Might stuff. While the pace is solid, I feel it would have been perhaps better served paring down the cast a little and giving a touch more focus to the ones they did have. The appearance of the villains in this season are kind of out of nowhere, but it works well enough and sets them up for the future seasons (can I just make a minor complain it annoyed me that the one team predominantly headed up by the women students was the only one that didn't definitively beat their villains?).

One thing I have to talk about and it does make the pace feel off is that this show has waaaaaaaaaaaaay too many flashbacks. The Midoriya/Bakugo fight in particular has a multitude of flashbacks that beat the same point in, sometimes being flashbacks to the same thing earlieri nt he episode (I assume to bring to speed people who didn't see it due to tuning in mid-episode/after commercials?), that really end up taking you out of the scene and feeling rather jarring. Cutting down on these flashbacks and using them better, for example giving more to Ochako and Iida instead of all the Midoriya flashbacks, would improve the plot.

Graphically, the show looks quite good: The characters are extremely expressive, All Might's unique shading really helps give pop to his character and make him look like a larger than life hero, the use of a lot of powers is well animated, I'm no expert in this kind of thing but I thought it overall looked pretty good. Sometimes though the faces really went too far, which either made them unpleasant or difficult to take seriously or otherwise kind of warped...I'm not sure how to put it, but sometimes it was too dramatic, other times it just looked funny. The VAing and sound is mostly solid: I may be the only person on the planet who doesn't especially care for MHA Season 1 or 2' OPs, but the background music is good but not something that jumped out to me. The voice acting is a bigger point in its favor, like Tsuyu, All Might and Bakugo's. Mineta's VAing was so good at playing the character's annoying traits to their appropriate annoyance that it only makes it easier to hate him.

My Hero Academia is not a shonen you watch because it is especially innovative, but it IS rather fun with enough to it to keep it from feeling vapid. Reviewing only the first season is awkward, and it is best to know going into this show that the first season is mostly there as a big introductory fest with the exception of All Might. I would generally recommend it to people who are predisposed to this kind of show given the strong visuals, enjoyment of fights and unique designs and the fact it has high potential to build on what it has made in the first season...but I also wouldn't say it super impressed me or that it is a show I would be especially trying to get people who aren't especially into this genre to watch for its quality. The primary thing it has is being enjoyable: The show is rarely dull and thus keeps the viewer invested.

Overall, the show's plot is very plain and boring. Although there was action, the characters didn't really have any personality and it was very predictable. Things that happened later on in the series were expected by most of the fans due to the nature of the writing.

The art was colorful and popped, however, the character designs were a bit plain. I did think that the art was cute though.

Music and sound-wise, I was pretty pleased. Aside from some annoying voices of the characters, the cast and soundtrack were actually really good. The opening and ending were both fitting for the type of show.

It is exactly ... what you should expect for a vanilla shounen series if you are into that type of show. I didn't mind the show, but there are much better series that I've watched in the genre.

My Hero Academia is clearly intended to be enjoyed by a younger audience, but those willing to open up there sense of childlike wonder may be pleasantly surprised.

The show gets inspiration from western comic books, and takes no hesitation in hitting you over the head with spoofing and satire. I would liken the experience much to that of a masochist, yes, you are getting slammed in the coconut multiple times, but it is an enjoyable slamming.

This is in part to the world building, which is the shows strongest aspect. If one was to go into the show with there audio off, they would still have ... a vague understanding of the plot through visual communication. They use the large budget wisely, and tend to go a "show, don't tell route.". The setting screams comic book, from the towering sky scrapers to the dark back alleys, and the gorgeously crafted world is speckled with some of the most wonderfully designed characters from recent years.

The characters are so over the top and unique that they all stay in your mind long after viewing. From there costumes to the powers, they all feel like wonderfully different characters. The main downfall with these characters is shared with the show in general, the one dimensionality of the characters and plot.

Decisions made by characters are predictable, and do very little to grow and develop characters. The Midoriya from the last episode, seems to be the very same Midoriya from first episode, except with a shiny new suit. This summarizes my problem with the show.

It's all FLASH and no SUBSTANCE.

Battles are drawn out, and beautifully brought to life, but the underlying implications of the fights are always lacking. The fights suffer due to a lack of realistic choices made by the characters. From episode one, we learn that Kacchan is a jerk, and Midoriya is a saint. The once friends turned rivals is a tired cliche, and one that these shonens all seem to rely on. Their repeated fights all stem from this premise, but have done little to change or influence the characters minds or directions. They fight because it looks cool and it sells. If you can come to terms with this and accept it, you will enjoy the show that much more.

Themes and motifs of the show revolve that of hope. The show comes down to two basic ideas.

1. Hardwork beats natural talent.
2. Anyone can become a hero

While many other ideas influence the show, these are the points that drives the plot and premise. These points can come off as overstated and pretentious at times, but serves as a decent foundation for the characters to romp around.

It is no doubt, a heartfelt story, but one that is often to rich for it's own good. It's like that piece of cake that is only good sparingly.

So despite this, why did I love the show?
Because it's a fun ride. I love rooting for Midorya, I love getting to explore the lovingly crafted world, and I most of all loved seeing all the characters, powers, and costume. It tickles your imagination, and reminds you of days in the back yard as a kid, swinging sticks around as if they were swords.

This is not the Shakespeare of anime, this is a love letter to the beauty of imagination. Yes the show has issues, but they are issues I am willing to overlook based on the nostalgic feelings the show invokes. It may not be a head scratcher, but accepting the show for what it is leads to a freeing bliss episode to episode.

Personal Score- 9 (Great)
Critical Score- 6 (Fine)

Boku No Hero Academia


Where to even start…

Well I’d like to debut by saying that this review will be covering both seasons of the show. Although it has been confirmed that the series is to continue for yet another instalment, I seriously doubt it’ll change much of what will be said within this opinion piece. In a nutshell: Boku No Hero Academia just doesn’t cut it, for me at least, and I would like to explain my reasoning, so here goes: The reason why this series falls short is because it’s a shounen.

-*Wait Vishi! Is that the only reason why you don’t like the show?!?*-
Ok, ... ok…let me rephrase that…It’s a shounen eh!?!?
-*FacePalm*-

I say this because the shounen genre, in general, has this tendency to create an ever-expanding world setting that, in all honesty, requires a god-awful amount of time to anchor itself into place. Hero Academia, falls right into that molding but, regrettably lacks the time to flourish into something marvelous. Quite frankly, I don’t believe this show will garner the support needed to elongate its existence within the realm of anime. Put differently, I’m betting this show’ll sink after S3: and this will effectively prevent it from gaining momentum in its story telling.

Furthermore, the content being shown throughout is underwhelming, worsening its “raison d’être” and adding to my initial presentiments. Exceptions can be made, however, for the show’s first few episodes. More exactly, I’m talking (err typing) here about episodes one through four: they’re amazing! Basically, I fell in love with the start, grew tired of the rest. From the beginning, the series exposes us to an MC, hereby named Young Midoriya, who has this unrivaled admiration for all heroes: yup! The show’s about a boy living in a society that has professionalized the hero trade. Citizens, those whom have been chosen, are granted, from birth or during infancy, super-natural powers or “Quirks”; and most eventually find interest in using those abilities for heroic deeds by educating themselves into becoming “certified heroes”. Our MC is one such hopeful except, he lacks any sort of Quirk.

From this premise alone, we get to appreciate the unsurmountable challenges that Young Midoriya has had to face. It’s David versus 50 goliaths’ as our protagonist fights with two opposing forces within his very own being: The realist in him constantly urges the boy to give up on these foolish dreams of becoming a hero, while the dreamer inside simply can’t settle for anything else. This conflicting nature is addictive! I saw myself in him, I could relate: So, I was pulled in! Above all heroes he so vehemently fawned over, young Midoriya was most enamored with All Might: The number one hero in the world! So, although constantly reminded by what he lacked, our wannabe hero found solace in everything His idol embodied: serving as a symbol he could rally behind. At this point I’m just crying, because I saw this boy’s drive to become a better person, and lauded his eagerness to find his own definition of “what being a hero” truly meant.

Sounds good, right? Well it ends there. Seriously everything else is all just a big blur. Though I don’t have it in me to demean the continuance of the show post-Episode 4. I also don’t have anything to say about it that might encourage someone to start on this, if not for the beginning. The humor is monotonous. The atmosphere is always so quirky. Most villains (the antagonists if you will) are lame, both in character and quirk (although the last episode introduced some nice additions to the “bad guy(s)” category; alas they remain a mystery as the show didn't bother fleshing them out). The plot made us question so much, as curiosity requires, but does very little in answering anything as it progresses. I don’t know, I started losing faith mid-way through. The most annoying thing was when I started realizing that the MC was getting upstaged by a supporting character: Todoroki I’m looking at you honey - if you’re gonna try and steal little Mido’s shine you can just leave and make your own anime series. What a prick that guy. Okay… Take a breather Vishi, inhale and ex…hell maybe I did have it in me to demean Boku No. I’m sorry. Had to let it out.

Lastly, I didn’t appreciate how Hero Academia tried emulating Naruto’s chunin exam, and Dragon Ball’s martial arts tourney. The appropriation of ideas from other series is fine, but this was sloppy: the outcome being totally different from what those series tried depicting in their respective arcs, you got the feeling that the writers were trying to be clever with it, but failed miserably. I highlighted two examples, but sloppiness is a recurring theme here, taking away from my enjoyment of the overall work that is Boku No Hero Academia.

INTRODUCTION
Yes I am doing a MHA season 1 review in 2019/2020. The reason for this is that i want to just vent everything out i have in my head about MHA onto a website and know that i am free from the endless thought processes for MHA. So season 1, this establishes the main character in the anime and also as seen in most shounen anime it also establishes the main characters rival. the main character has a very cliche or generic goal to be the greatest hero and the rest of the show is as basic as that that characters end goal aim is.

THE ... MAIN CHARACTER
The reality is that there is nothing wrong with have a generic/cliche plot such as "i want to be the greatest", the problem comes when nothing new is added onto that to make it seem different to what most people have already seen and
that's where my biggest problem comes in for MHA is that it introduces nothing new. lets look at the main character first, he wants to be the best which is fine but outside of him being a little clumsy in battle he doesn't have any personality flaws, he has nothing for the audience to relate to as a character that is not perfect. The start of the anime showed Deku being an outcast because he didn't have a quirk so you'd think that going into a high school environment for him would be slightly socially challenging, nope! he immediately enters UA communicating and chatting with everyone and everyone pretty much is his friend straight off the rip. The problem is the realism of that people don't just go straight into a new school environment and start communicating effectively straight away unless they know the people already. So all the scenes they showed of Deku being bullied in school by Bakugo and how he was laughed at for not having a quirk gets thrown out the window. we then move into the other problem with Deku, started off with no quirk but then was given the most OP quirk in the entire show because of how gutsy he was and how much he reminded all might of what a true hero is. That's all well and good but why didn't the writers play with the fact that he has no powers, i mean seriously a person who could be really good at martial arts or swordsmanship would dominate this world, where there are powers such as cement man, the guy who can decay things, the guy who can speak to animals, Froppy (i couldn't be arsed to google the names of these characters). Are u telling me a martial artist or even someone who is effective at free running wouldn't be effective in this world where some powers are just stupid. so what I'm saying is that they could of at least tried to play with that narrative. They did limit it for Deku by making it so that he cant control his powers yet but even then hes still in the top 2 strongest in the class. Overall for Deku i just think hes poorly written and as a character doesn't bring anything new to the table and i think the writers missed an opportunity. MOVING ON!!!

BAKUGO THE TERRIBLE
Bakugo in this anime is supposed to be the Deku's rival like Sasuke, Vegeta, Kuwabara, Killua and many others so its fair to say its a common thing in shounen which again is not a problem... Unless the new rival doesn't bring anything new to the table. I hate Bakugo with a passion and there is one main reason for this, in the entire first season he doesn't show a different side to himself and due to that all i see him as is an angry boy who hates on Deku because he got powers. Dont get me wrong i understand Bakugo's anger do i agree with his anger no but i do understand it. Lets look at other rivals in other shounen as an example, Vegeta is always looking to beat Goku in everything and for the most part feels like hes constantly behind him (does that remind you of anyone), however Vegeta constantly shows us a different side to his character for example, he marries Bulma and he cares for her even if he doesn't show it. Sasuke constantly looks down on Naruto apart from when he feels like Naruto is stronger than him but u still get to see a different side of his character when he jumped in front of those needles to save an incapacitated Naruto at the time. There are many other examples that i cant be arsed to mention for a rival showing the audience a different side to him. what i would of liked to see from Bakugo is a softer side even if i just saw it once in the entire first season, because
then i wouldn't be thinking "this dude is just always angry". Bakugo wouldn't even have to show a softer side he could just show he cares when it comes to his training, for every training scene hes in he is fixated on Deku and not focused on doing well in the training. I just see Bakugo as a ball of hatred and not just towards Deku hes responds angry to everyone because he constantly feels like hes being undermined. Overall i just think hes poorly written for a main character rival... MOVING ON!!!!

THE PLOTS
I'm not going to get into detail about every single training thing that the class does because thats really long and not necessary for what I'm about to talk about. for the most part the other characters in the anime aren't bad and do a
good enough job as support characters. I thought the training moments were done well for the most part although i do think they lacked some strategy. for the most part the training is a bit boring apart from the animation but it does what it needs to which is setup what the characters quirks are and what there limitations are for the quirks. The main plot is that the league of villains stole all might's teaching schedule and plan to attack All Might. the biggest problem i have with this arc is the fact that before all might arrived the villains weren't really doing anything to any of the students or the teachers. The teachers and students were doing just fine now that's a problem. Eraser head took out what seemed to be 50+ villains by himself but yet he said hes not that good at fighting large numbers of people by himself because that's his limitation. the other thing is that this is supposed to be the audiences first look at what the world of villains is like and what the real world is like, in reality the students are supposed to be totally outclassed by experience and feel totally overwhelmed and under-prepared but they don't. they fight the villains with not much problem now I'm not saying they could of beaten Nomu but the other villains they were dealing with just fine. The problem with that is the growth separation between the villains and the students, again as i said before the villains are supposed to be stronger mentally and more experianced than the students so if the audience sees that the students are being overpowered then us as the audience can realise that they need to do a lot of growing before they become pro heroes. Instead they do just fine and so you're immediately left feeling as if they are already prepared for the real world and that there's no growth for them to have. the Nomu and all might fight was OK, it just came down to all might punching him a bunch of times with no real strategy. It looked cool though as the animation was really good. Overall the story in the first season is a little bit boring and underwhelming but it doesn't do anything
really badly. lastly this is the same thing i brought up before with Deku, if you have a really simple story or character the anime has to bring something new to the table. For this segment ill leave you with a question... was anything
new brought to the table for the plots that you haven't seen in other anime?


THE WORLD
In the world of MHA you constantly hear the term "number one hero" thrown about but i felt like throughout the first season this was not really explained. Is All Might the number one hero because of his strength, popularity or is it
because of the amount of work he does around the community. That is never really explained and so i personally never felt apart of the world because it wasn't explained enough, its just a subtle thing but its something i feel that requires an answer either through showing it or telling it for example, in Naruto you are told about the neighbouring villages and the ranks a ninja has. Even though it was told in Naruto at that moment and not shown its things like that that make you feel apart of the world. around 80% of people in this world are born with quirks/powers that do shit... again this is the other question i asked i pondered while watching this about Deku, Bakugo and the story, is this world bringing anything new to the table. the reality is that we've seen people have super powers before so in terms of world building what else does MHA have to offer and the answer is nothing. It has villains in this world that cause havoc for the citizens and heroes to fight them off, it has children who want to be those heroes and some even aspire to be "number one", some quirks are more effective in certain situations. That is all the world has to offer and nothing about it is new and even when you dig deeper and look at each student who wants to be a hero and you look at each villain its still remains to do nothing new. and lets be honest the world of MHA is basic, there's nothing complex about it. The world of MHA has a basic world with cliche characters, typical plots and typical goals but yet in every way it still doesn't bring anything new. So for that reason i cant give MY HERO ACADEMIA ANYTHING HIGHER THAN A 5/10!!!

Let's start with the world-building. Most of the world's population has received quirks, since the story is a set in a world similar to our own, how the hell hasn't society completely collapsed???? I know this is fiction but if you're going to make everything in the real world and the MHA world the same except with superheroes, you gotta be somewhat realistic on how society functions when 80% of the world now has superpowers.

Now let's get to One for All. The thing with Deku's power is that it feels too convenient. Of course Deku gets the super ... ultra amazing special ability that no one else has when he just so happens to really want to be a superhero. I know some people wanted Deku to fight villains without any powers which would be cool since it would be more meaningful to the story, but wouldn't work due to the power scaling of the show. I think it would have been nicer if Deku received a normal power that maybe wasn't super powerful, not some super secret awesome ability like no other power. It would honestly fit better with the themes and would cure the show from "super special main character" syndrome. Honestly, Deku having a normal power would make the show seem more inspiring and less of a power fantasy.

(Also whats with everyone acting like All Might's powers are a big secret, it obviously has something to do with enhanced human ability, he has super strength or something lmao)

The characters are bad. They're all stale one note pieces of cardboard. Deku is your classic shounen protagonist with the the classic goal of "I wanna be the best [insert] ever", at least he's hot-headed. The show acts like Deku is an amazing selfless brave hero when he does the bare minimum. All Might spends ages trying to find a successor for "one for all" and the person he finally finds and who he believes is worthy is some kid with a death wish and no powers who tried to save someone from a villain. The standards are really high on this one. Bakugo is the original childhood friend turned bully. Uraraka is the female protagonist only existing for the purposes of a romantic subplot. All Might is dying superman, Everyone else doesn't matter. Maybe the show will figure out what to do with the characters later on.

The show doesn't know how to handle a lot of characters. Sure you can have a lot of characters without making every single one of them deep and meaningful, Hunter x Hunter did that. But the difference between hunter x hunter and MHA is that the show puts focus away from the main characters in order the let the abundance of side character to shine. MHA wants to put focus on the main 4 constantly (Deku, Bakugo, Uraraka, All Might) while also wanting a load of side characters. MHA needs to learn how to balance.

*Spoilers ahead*

Every episode is just class 1A dilly dallying consisting of test, Deku's monologues and Bakugo drama. All of this leads up to the final fight. Oh what a mess this was. Because this is a shounen, of course it leads to a final big fight. Due to the show not knowing what it's doing, without any build up it just places a fight out of nowhere at the end of the season because shounen. A couple of villains break in to UA because of course they do and go to a training dome thing because that's where the main characters are. There's a lot of convenient situations that just happen so it would be easier for the mangaka to write. The villains are trash, their motivations are surface level, they are non threatening, shown by being defeated easily by a couple of teenagers in training.

What I will praise the show for is it's unique and amazing character designs and the fun art style. The animation isn't inventive but it's classic good shounen animation, nothing wrong with that.

Story: 3
Art: 8
Sound: 8
Characters: 2
Enjoyment: 4

Overall: 5

My Hero Academia is fine I guess.