Boku no Hero Academia 3rd Season

My Hero Academia is no longer the 2nd coming of Hunter x Hunter. Rather, it is starting to look like the 2nd coming of Fairy Tail.

Story:

We don't really have any plot or driving motion in the series anymore. The lack of build-up in former seasons is backfiring hard, and the pacing which is all over the place is not helping. The content itself is practically pure heroism for the sake of it, and heroes winning because they are the main characters. Really starting to look like it's made by Marvel.

The new arc is really bad. First part of the "training" ending in 5 ... minutes without there being any content whatsoever. At least series like Yu Yu Hakusho --which did the same thing-- had different routes which people could choose within the forest. HxH did the same thing and it lasted 11 episodes and it was fantastic. Naruto did the same thing and introduced key plot elements and characters. In Hero Academia's case, there is no content behind it. All characters just use their trademark moves once. Literally nothing happens outside it. After a hard day of doing the said nothing, we get some manservice/fanservice, women and men bathing because apparently that's the point of this series now.

I am afraid the word "terrible" is not even enough to describe the current writing. Fanservice fillers, romantic feelings used as a running gag. The main content is comedy. C o m e d y. Jokes that aren't funny at all. The pinnacle of the humor was a scene where dude ate cake while lifting weights. Thus far, the series has focused most on eating food. What type of a person writes FTS like this? This isn't shokugeki no souma... The series doesn't even look like it's based to a written story, more like seems to be some premade story macro which the author forgot to fill with content.

Characters:

While the characters are the reason why I am watching this show, they are being handled really poorly. Much like with the story, there is no development with the characters either. Unless we consider asspulled power control "development". The filler where they act out of character and look like clowns is really not serving any of them. Does Bones not know what Source Fillmaker is? We literally don't need soft-core fanservice, thank you very much.

Kacchan has been super annoying since the very beginning and looks like he is suffering the Sasuke-effect forever and always, much like that Bullet for my valentine song. It's so frustrating and unnecessary. Could they please develop him into a decent character already instead of making him look like the combination of Hulk and the main dude from Black Clover. So many of the rest of our heroes-in-training only radiate comedy, not characteristics. I don't like that very much.

The villains are the best and the worst part. Really simple-minded characters who have basically no reason to do anything they are doing. Giggling evily because they so evil and whenever they do anything it's practically keikaku doori tier meme. At least they bring some interesting factors to the series and look cool, some even badass. They are supposed to be the half of this show, after all what are heroes without villains... Yet at the same time they seem to only exists for the heroes. Like in episodes 3-4 "yo, we came here now because lol iunno we wanna scare you." This is not how you write villains. No matter how you look at it, the boss villain had no reason to send anyone there. Keikaku doori once again I guess.

The only character who gets thru any development is an angry kid who is mad at heroes.. hmmm. doesn't this sound familiar? Anyone remember the part where Sasuke and Naruto learned to control chakra with anti-gravity trees? Didn't we have this exact kid right there. In here, he is just so random it's almost as if the author thought he was cool in Naruto and wanted to put his own here. He even says the same line "like person like that exists". Believing all ninjas, oh sorry, I mean heroes are selfish. smh

Art and sound:

Bones has been putting effort into it and never stopped. It's the same as before and that's exactly how it should be. Of course, the series could use approximately 20 times less of those comedic relief scenes. Some nice songs are present, but there really should be more. Many of them don't really shine,. Especially the battle OST is there in the shadows behind prioritized voice acting. The OP song is really acquired taste tho. I like how it seems better every time I hear it. Voice acting is obviously identical.. outside the out of character filler where they acted like bunch of clowns, of course.

Enjoyment::

I like this show. I have always liked this show, but damn if I don't wish it was better. There is practically nothing new (currently) for a person such as myself who has seen all BTS series already. I can safely say that Hero Academia is currently being as bad as shonen series ever are. This isn't what the characters deserve at all.

(SPOILER WARNING FOR HUNTER X HUNTER, FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST, AND NARUTO + SHIPPUDEN)

Season 3 is bad. It's the point where you finally realize that all the potential the earlier seasons flashed was no more than just that: unrealized potential. And all the problems with the writing weren’t blips, they become a constant problem that deflates the tension and drama in every arc.

Every time Deku we’re told Deku is risking his body only for him to be fine after a day in the hospital, every time a villain is hyped up only for them to lose while barely accomplishing anything, every time stakes are established and then ... retreated from immediately. It all starts to add up.

Decline of Visuals 1

Now, one thing that’s important to note is that the decline of the MHA anime is not entirely due to Horikoshi’s writing. A fair amount of blame should be attributed to Studio Bones, as well. I complimented the show based on how there was a lot more effort than I remember in season 1, and the reason I was surprised by that is because of how low the quality of visuals is in seasons 3 and 4.

MHA’s visuals in general have never been that sharp (especially in terms of backgrounds), but season 1 did a good job of covering for that by being loose and creative with the visuals. That is no longer the case. The visuals are flat and the tone is overly stiff. Which uh, is a lot less fun to watch. And if you’re not enjoying what you’re watching, you tend to be less engaged. And when you’re not engaged by what’s in the foreground, you start to zone out and look at the backgrounds out of boredom.

At which point, you start to notice how cheap-looking and shoddily thrown together the backgrounds in this show look. You’ll notice the same tree copy and pasted over and over again, stale coloring, buildings with no style or personality put into how they’re drawn, and sometimes you can’t even tell what you’re looking at. (I’d put a screenshot of a scene from episode 53 like I did on AL, but MAL’s decrepit review interface doesn’t allow for that. So instead, you get homework. Go to episode 53 at 9:00 and look at the wide shot of the city.)

This is supposed to be an establishing shot of the city. What the hell is this? Looks like a bunch of digital garbage.

(Now go to S3E53 at 4:00. AL has image embedding in their reviews btw. And video embedding! And proper formatting! Go read my review over there! @Bubblesssssss)

What the hell are those things in the background even supposed to be?

Forest Training Camp Arc

The first two arcs of season 3 are the forest training camp arc and class raid arcs, and they are both very bad. So bad that season 3 (and really, the whole series) never recovers from it. What you realize while watching these arcs is that all the bad aspects of Horikoshi’s writing thus far aren’t going to go away: the problem has actually gotten much worse and is deflating any potential drama and tension for new arcs.

The Forest Training Camp arc isn’t as bad as the Class Raid arc, but…its still bad and starts season 3 off on a very bad note. Most of why I dislike this arc is the emergence of Horikoshi’s writing becoming…lazy. The problems that pop up in the Class Raid arc are recurring issues that have spun out of control, but The Forest Training Camp arc started to make me question if he even had a plan for where the story is going.

Here’s a brief summary:

Students go on a class trip to train. Deku meets Kota, a kid who lost his parents and hates heroes as a result. Villains attack, Pixie Bob is injured, Deku fights this muscle guy and beats him, Bakugo gets kidnapped, arc end.
There’s a lot of dumb shit all over the place here, but let’s start with the villain’s reason for the raid:

“To make them see that their peace is resting in our hands” S3E41 13:10

What the fuck does that mean? Something I’ve noticed while re-watching is with the villains, you kind of have to ignore what they say at times to make the writing coherent. Like with Stain when he says that money and fame worshippers are ruining hero society, despite there being sort of 1 example of each that fit that description even existing. What he does in the alley though, points to a more coherent ideology. Iida ignored an injured hero because he was too busy trying to get revenge on Stain for his brother. That selfishness and inability to control his emotions is bad and holds Iida back. You gave me an example of something Stain opposes directly and showed me rather than told me, excellent.

And then you have this shit. I don’t know what the fuck “make them see that their peace is resting in our hands" means. That’s confusing, vague nonsense. Later on, they explain that they want to kidnap Bakugo and try to show him that there are options other than being a hero. So why not just say that to begin with? You want to kidnap students to convert them to your cause. It conveys your motivations better than whatever the hell “make them see that their peace is resting in our hands” is.

Anyways. Most of the villain attack is standard MHA stuff. Villains attack, have mixed results, students counterattack. Blah blah blah.

The real garbage starts in the scene where Pixie Bob gets hurt. Here, Chatora starts talking about how the villains are bad because they hurt Pixie Bob because she’s apparently thinking about getting married, something that was never brought up until now.

This is lazy, last minute garbage. Last-minute characterization is something I really don’t care much for, and MHA had done well to avoid this sort of lazy writing. This is literally just Horikoshi saying “Hey I know you barely got to know this character, but you should feel something because I’m abruptly telling you she’s getting married”. There’s no emotional anything here. I don’t know how important marriage is to her, I don’t know who she’s getting married to, I don’t know anything about this woman! If this plot line had been developed ahead of time (aka Horikoshi had scenes where we saw her doting over her fiancé, or just scenes of the 2 together in general), then there would be grounds to put this line here. Because then, the show would have actually earned it. But you can’t do it like this. This is lazy. We’ll get back to this problem in part 4, as it (like the other parts of Horikoshi’s writing) snowballs out of control.

And then we get to the big fight from this arc, Deku vs muscle guy. I don’t care what his name is. His design is bad, he’s badly written, his only notable feature is how muscley he is. He’s muscley guy.

Before getting to the fight, we need to talk about Kota. His parents are heroes that were killed in the line of duty, and he now he hates heroes. Which is whatever. Generic backstory, depends on what you do with it. It's fine by itself. But what I dislike about this is Deku’s reasons for wanting to help him. The show treats Kota as though his opinion about heroes is…wrong. Something that needs to be corrected. This is an annoying part of the way MHA is written, and is yet another problem that spirals out of control in seasons 3 and 4. On its own it isn’t a big deal. But when you take into consideration the fact that Horikoshi very clearly wants to write villains who represent problems with society, but at the same time is unwilling to write flawed superheroes or hold accountable UA or his society’s heroes, and also seems to treat all criticism of the heroes as wrong…like which is it? You can’t have both, they clash with each other.

So obviously, this muscley guy is not a very good villain. Kota’s backstory with his parents was already pretty token, but did you really have to make muscley guy the same guy that killed his parents? That’s like the lamest twist ever. It was the first thing I thought of when I was guessing plot twists they might do in this arc. Never mind how infinitesimally small the odds of that same guy coming to attack this particular training camp, and just so happening to show up right in front of Kota and Deku are. It’s a lame thing to try to make a twist to begin with. It’s too obvious.

Then you have the fight itself. Which is…whatever. There’s some neat animation here I guess, but overall I don’t care much. The villain is bad, the drama is bad, and there aren’t really any stakes with Deku injuring his body because I know after the arc is over, he’ll sit in a hospital bed for a bit and then be fine. Speaking of...

Before we get to the episodes after the forest training camp arc, I'd like to highlight one thing Deku says during this fight:

From E42 15:40: "a hero's job is to turn the lip service into reality"

Remember this quote. I'll refer back to it a lot going forward.

Fake Stakes 1

The episodes between the end of the Forest training camp arc and the class raid are important, in that they highlight the one problem with MHA that it has proven unable to escape from:

Horikoshi is deathly afraid of taking risks. His writing is among the stalest and safest in a popular shounen I’ve ever seen. He’s overly attached to his characters, he never provides long-lasting consequences for the actions of his characters, and he seems terrified of moving a single piece out of place.
There are 2 categories of this I’d like to highlight here:

UA

The first problem area when it comes to fakes stakes is this ongoing storyline with the media's criticism of UA and their failures to protect their students. Or rather, it’s just Horikoshi pretending there will be consequences for the students getting into trouble for both UA and the students, but then immediately retreating from it because actual consequences would be hard to write. Anyways, we're gonna establish the details of this subplot that are important, and I'll explain why this part of the story is a problem in a bit.
In season 1, the media manages to sneak onto school grounds after Shigaraki blows up the wall. This one isn't as notable as the others, but I just wanted to point it out because in this instance, UA couldn't even keep reporters off their school grounds. Maybe a wall and sensor isn't a great security system in a world where nearly everyone has superpowers, yeah? You think maybe someone might try to just jump over the wall or blow it up?

Anyways, then you have the villains that attack students at the end of season 1. Also does not reflect well on the school, and they receive criticism for it. This looks even worse when you consider the people that got in were proven to be morons. That's basically the subplot. The media goes after UA for letting the students fall into danger, and that's uh. That's it. As for the students:

In episode 31, the police guy tells Deku and friends that they and the other heroes are going to receive strict punishment...and then they don't do that at all.

Not a huge deal they don't follow through here. But next time they get into trouble, there needs to be actual punishment for the students or UA. This could just be to establish stakes for the future. All you gotta do is follow through next time.

There you go, that's how all that...stuff is setup. The important part of this plotline is that somewhere along the line, the show has to be able to establish real consequences for UA for not protecting its students, and for the students of class A for getting into trouble. And...we'll get to that in a minute.

Deku Destroying His Body

Another recurring problem is Deku's body.

The threat of Deku damaging his body so badly he can't be a hero anymore is established pretty early. It’s a good way of keeping One for All from feeling overpowered, and a constant source of drama during Deku's fights. At least, it would be. If Horikoshi was willing to actually commit to it. Knowing that Deku could permanently damage his body so badly he could never walk again is an interesting subplot, but it can't be if every time he risks his body, he stays in the hospital for a day and then he's fine again. This is, again, something that isn't a struggle for other popular battle shounens:

We're back to Naruto and Hunter x Hunter again.

In Naruto, when Rock Lee uses his Hidden Lotus ability, it has very similar risks to Deku's ability, with Lee's being a bit more extreme the further he goes with it.

Anyways, when we see Deku and Rock Lee overuse their ability to try to win, we do see them exhausted, crippled, etc. But it’s what the writers do after the fight ends that separate the two.

Rock Lee's body is torn up really badly after his fight with Gaara, and they tell Guy that it's likely he'll never fight again. But then, they follow through on that. He is absent from combat for the next 76 episodes, but it is a source of ongoing drama as we see his recovery process and struggle to come to terms with the possibly giving up his entire way of life. And then, several arcs later when he pops out to fight Kimimaro, you get a huge adrenaline rush. This happens for 3 reasons: one, Rock Lee was gone for so long. Two, the last time we saw him he was in the most entertaining fight of the show thus far. And most importantly three, we saw his recovery process and knew how hard it was for him. So when he jumps out here, we know that his recovery is complete, he's back as a ninja, and we finally get to see him fight again. Great moment, and a great example of establishing stakes for a fight and actually sticking with them.

In Hunter x Hunter, Gon loses control of his emotions after he finds out Kite is dead. His anger leads him to use "everything" to kill Pitou. But since Gon is nowhere near strong enough to even fight Pitou, he has to sacrifice...well, everything. Based on what we know about nen and the way it works, seeing him suddenly obtain this much power means the amount he sacrificed is so great he will probably die.

Okay, so our main character has taken on a colossal risk and the stakes are his sacrifice took a massive toll on his body, and he could die. How do we follow up on this?

(This is where I would post the screenshot of Gon’s fucked up hand. But since MAL doesn't allow image embeds like AL does, go to the scene in episode 145 of Hunter x Hunter where Gon gets healed and look at his hand when its getting unwrapped by Killua.)

This is what it looks like to create stakes and stick with them. Gon nearly dies, and Killua has to go through tons of hoops to save him. And while yes, Gon does recover. He is completely absent from the manga for the following arcs. No, really. The protagonist is out of the story for several major story arcs. He can't use nen because of what he did to beat Pitou. Kurapika is the main character during the prince succession arc, which is the current arc. Togashi was willing to take that risk to make it clear that when he declares stakes, no matter how great, he will follow through. As a result, when they say something like "we could die”, I believe it regardless of who its referring to.

And yet with Deku, we are told time and time again that he is risking his body by being reckless, and every single time he goes to the hospital, the nurse heals him, and he's fine again. There are no stakes here. Deku has the strongest plot armor on I've ever seen.

This isn't even that hard to fix either. Here's how you do it:

Have the nurse heal him a couple times, then have the villains kill her; cutting Deku off from having an insta-heal every time he's reckless with his body. He will then be forced to actually deal with the damage he's doing to his body, and for the first time in the series actually following through with the stakes it established. It would also ground Deku, preventing him from just doing whatever he wants with no consequences.

But killing the nurse lady would be a risky choice to make, and we can't have that!

Or alternatively, stop reminding us of this plot point if you refuse to do anything with it. If you're gonna keep saying he's risking his body, then show the stakes! Have him damage his body so badly that he's absent for an arc. Naruto did it with Rock Lee. And Hunter x Hunter is doing it with Gon right now. The other guys don't seem to have a problem with it, and if MHA is as great as people say it is, Horikoshi shouldn't either.

Class Raid Arc

Now. The reason I brought up all of that now is because the episodes between the Forest Training Camp arc and the Class Raid arc are so fucking stupid, and it's because of the issues with the writing I just talked about. Deku suffers colossal damage to his body. He is up and walking immediately after. The heroes say that they're going to keep a closer eye on the students, and LITERALLY THE FUCKING NIGHT AFTER THEY SAY THIS, THEY LET THE STUDENTS SNEAK OUT. You even have the stupid fucking press conference the teachers put on, acknowledging all the criticism UA has rightfully gotten for putting its students in danger.

AND AS THEY ARE SAYING THIS, NO ONE IS WATCHING THE INJURED STUDENTS AT ALL, SO THEY ALL SNEAK OUT.

Do you remember this line I mentioned earlier?
E42 15:40 "a hero's job is to turn the lip service into reality"

This is My Hero Academy summarized in a single fucking line. Say you're gonna do one thing, and never follow through. It constantly contradicts the message of its own main theme because of its incompetent and lazy writing.
"Yes, we're taking the criticism seriously and are making changes" as they are letting the students sneak out because no one bothered to keep an eye on them. Deku is threatened with losing his arms, and yet THE LITERAL DAY AFTER THE ATTACK, he sneaks out with the other students to go get Bakugo back! Ridiculous.

And Iida understandably objects to this stupid ass plan, but since Horikoshi refuses to take a risk like slowing down for a bit to enforce the stakes he just established, Iida backs down and goes with them.

This was the point where I could no longer deny the truth: My Hero Academy is a big piece of shit. Horikoshi is unable to establish any drama or stakes or tension due to his overly safe and lazy writing, and Studio Bones' effort in its production has gone down significantly.

It had another chance, though. It had one last chance to fix its villain problem. This could have done a lot to ease my growing irritation with the series. But again, it blew it.

All for One, and Why the Villains Need to Kill

So, a growing issue I have had with MHA is the villains. Like yes, they're bad. If we're keeping track of only the ones we've seen so far, Shigaraki is an idiot (allegedly on purpose) and Stain doesn't accomplish much on-screen. That's in terms of writing though. Another big problem I have is that they never kill anyone.

You see, when you have a problem with weak villains like MHA does, a great way to establish a new villain as a threat would be to show them killing a hero we know on screen. Not in the past, not telling us they kill people; actually showing them kill someone. This ties into my problem of Horikoshi being overly attached to his characters and not wanting to make sacrifices or take risks with them. Because there are tons of expendable ones.

Anyways, the reason I bring this up now is because the class raid arc is where we are introduced to All for One, the Ying to All Might's Yang and supposedly the strongest villain there is. He has dozens of quirks stored away. He can use multiple quirks at once. This guy is a FORCE. So naturally, I'm expecting him to have a big impact in his first appearance. After all, All for One is THE GUY. Finally, a competent villain! This is gonna be great!

...Oh. Oh. (I would show screenshots of All for One getting punched and arrested here like I did on AL but MAL review interface lmao)

All for One is disappointing for a number of reasons, but really All for One being disappointing is a backbreaker itself. He NEEDED to succeed, and needed to make an impression on the audience.

The villains up to this point have been a joke. They also kinda just…always lose. Not every villain can just inflict "psychological" damage to the heroes or whatever. Its the battle shounen equivalent of a moral victory. That's what Shiggy did in season 1. His raid was a laughable failure that got him ridiculed by the students and All Might. Stain loses without killing anyone in season 2. Dude's name is literally "Stain the Hero Killer" yet we see him kill no one and then he gets arrested. Eventually, a villain needs to actually win. Succeed at their goal, outsmart the heroes, kill someone. Just something, so I can believe for once that there’s some competency to these dumbass villains.

The most dangerous villain in the show has to establish themselves as a threat somehow when they show up. They can't just not kill anyone and get owned. Why? Because it makes them look incompetent, and that has a trickle-down effect on the other villains. You REALLY aren't going to take the other villains seriously. After all, if the biggest, baddest villain isn't allowed to win; if the heroes all have plot armor that can't be penetrated even now, ...what threat are the lesser villains? I see them as a joke now as a result of All for One's first appearance. His goal here is to kill All Might here. He does make All Might retire, but whatever. He still loses and gets captured. This is another moral victory.

The best way to shock your audience and establish this guy would be to have him cut down a hero. It would be great! Hasn't happened before, so it would shock everyone. Horikoshi even has 3 excellent opportunities to do it.
Obviously the preferred choice would be All Might. Him dying in a fight with All for One is a better way of inflicting fear admist uncertainty among the citizens for future arcs than him just retiring. And it would display vividly the ultimate act of what All Might says is the most important qualification for a hero:

The spirit of self-sacrifice.

It doesn't have to be him, though. Best Jeanist is incredibly expendable. He just took a massive shot to the gut. Why aren’t you killing him? Gran Torino is old and senile. They're so expendable and yet Horikoshi just...can't...let go of them.

You kill Best Jeanist here, and the following fight with All Might suddenly becomes incredible tense. Why? Because when you kill a hero like that, it firmly establishes the stakes as life and death. Something, that was kinda not established during the season 1 raid, Stain arc from season 2, and the forest training camp arc. And, it would completely shock the audience, thus raising their investment. And that shit is important for a series like MHA.
An important principle of being a hero in this series (and for…most battle shounens) is that they are fighting for their lives. As such, its important to establish that the stakes of fights are well, life and death. This is something I think My Hero Academy is trying to do.

But without examples of heroes we know LOSING their lives fighting or just generally, its hard to really say the stakes are that high. We’re told that people could die, but we’re never shown it. Because all the heroes have plot armor. They aren't allowed to die because they're heroes. Why? Horikoshi is unwilling to take risks. And no, heroes that died before the show starts don't count. Heroes we know and that have been established, that we've seen in the series, dying. That's what it is needed.

This is, again, something writers of other popular battle shounens understand. Let’s knock these down quick, I don’t need a paragraph to explain each:

Hunter x Hunter:

Everyone Hisoka kills during the Hunter exams: establishes Hisoka as a serious threat and that the Hunter exam is very much life or death, which is very much true.

Ponzu and Pokkle: displays how ruthless and cruel the chimera ants can be.

Kite: Juxtaposed with how Kite wiped out an entire squadron with one swing earlier, establishes how unbelievably strong the Royal Guard are.

Those 2 dudes at the beginning of the Zoldyck arc that get killed by Mike: establishes up front how dangerous the Zoldyck manor is.

Fullmetal Alchemist:

Hughes: this is a message from the Homonculi to the audience and the Elric brothers: if you keep snooping around, we'll kill you.

Basque Grand: makes it clear that Scar can kill any state alchemist if he gets the opportunity and Edward and Alphonse are not safe.

Naruto:

Jiraiya: establishes Pain as a huge threat. He just killed one of the legendary sanin for fuck’s sake.

Gaara mercilessly slaughtering those rain ninja in the forest of death and killing Dosu: establishes deadly stakes for the fight vs Rock Lee and vs Sasuke, respectively.

Orochimaru kills Hirouzen: makes it clear how dangerous he is, and more importantly makes the audience worry about what's going to happen when Sasuke decides to chase after him. "Oh, shit. that guy killed the hokage. And Sasuke's going to go with him?"

Stuff like this sends a message, and its usually pretty good at scaring the audience if they’re invested. When a villain kills someone, it says “this could happen to one of the protagonists if they aren’t careful”.

Killing a character is an amazing way to establish danger, something that MHA sorely lacks at this point due to how shit the villains are and how safe the writing is. This is especially true here, because it ruins what could be a genuinely great fight. On paper, the way it's set up works. But to once again have no one die and the villain lose despite setting the stakes higher than ever? That just can't happen here.

In Between Arcs 1/Fake Stakes 2

Now hold on just a minute. Because everything I complained about in the Fake Stakes sections immediately comes back again after the All for One vs All Might fight.

During the first half of episode 50, All Might yells at Deku for destroying his body and sneaking out even though All Might and the other dumbass teachers weren't watching the students, and thus let it happen. Also, Deku is fine after all that. Walks away with some bandages.

In the second half of episode 50, Deku's mom takes a stand against All Might and UA for continuously allowing them to endanger her son, and threatens to pull Deku out of UA. This, of course, does not happen. All Might begs and she gives up. The show declares stakes in the form of consequences for a student and UA, and this is again retreated from in the same scene.

E42 15:40 "a hero's job is to turn the lip service into reality"

Despite episode 50 focusing on the fallout from the class raid for UA and the students, including showing several parents of class A students angry with the school...not one of those parents pulls their kid out. So, no consequences of any kind for anyone. The most we get is that UA has a dorm system now. Ugh.

Later in this same episode, Eraser says that he would've expelled almost all of them if not for All Might's retirement. The fuck does All Might's retirement have to do with anything? Just expel them. All Might's retirement is just a lazy excuse to not follow through with stakes you yourself established. Stop being lazy and taking shortcuts with the writing. You keep saying you're going to do one thing, and then you don't because you're scared of the risk. As I recall, that seems to contradict what you said earlier:

E42 15:40 "a hero's job is to turn the lip service into reality"

Provisional Hero License Exam

And finally, we have the last arc from season 3. Like usual, we start with the stakes:

S3E53 "the Provisional License Exam has a 50% fail rate"

That’s actually pretty intense! Sure hope they don’t immediately retreat from that after the exam like they always do.

Overall, this arc is…bleh. I think its main problem is that it feels like it goes on forever, and due to the repetitive plot structure this just feels like the 10,000,000th exam stage. I don't believe you about the stakes. Deku will be fine no matter what they do. None of this matters. I’m not invested anymore.

I think the training camp and Bakugo retrieval arcs were just so bad that the show can't recover now. I am actively irritated with the show. Also, the tone is incredibly tiresome and stiff now. I miss the loose feel of season 1, where All Might swore in front of Deku and it didn't take itself as seriously as a heart attack.

Seeing the number one hero in the world, the symbol of peace, swear in front of a young kid is hilarious. Made you feel like at least part of his hero persona was a front that he put on. As such, he felt a bit more human. I liked that side of him. I don't really like him at all now. He's boring. This exam stage in particular is really fucking boring. They're doing a little with making the people they're supposed to be rescuing assholes, but it isn't enough.

Fake Stakes

Oh, and guess what? Just like I said, they waved off the stakes. Those who failed can take a 3 month course to get their provisional licenses anyways.
Since this is now a problem I can't ignore, I'll address it here. One of the biggest offenders of fake stakes in this series is the exam stages. Horikoshi has a crippling habit of creating stakes for the students during exams, only to backtrack as quickly as possible once the arc is over.

For example:

In episode 5, Aizawa threatened to expel the student that scored the lowest on an entrance exam. This is quickly retreated from the next episode. Not a big deal that they backed away from it here. Just make sure you follow through next time, that way I can believe there's actual stakes to these exams.

In episode 38, the students are threatened with having to go to summer school if they fail.

This is again, retreated from after the arc ends. Now it’s a problem. Because twice now, you have declared there to be stakes via consequences for failing or performing poorly in an exam, and both times you failed to follow through. There will be more examples later. So, why is this bad?

Because 1, I don't believe the show when it tells me there will be consequences when someone fails. Because there never are. Be it the students getting into trouble, UA failing to protect its students, or something as simple as student failing an exam. You always retreat from it afterwards. And because of that, I'm less engaged during exams. After all, there are no stakes because Horikoshi insists on giving plot armor to everyone in class A.
And 2, because its supposed to be difficult to get through UA, right? After all, they tell us that as early as episode 4.

Like a lot of things the show does, this is telling without showing. The show will tell us it is difficult to get through UA, but it really isn't at all. The school bends over backwards constantly to keep students from failing. This is not really something that should be a struggle for a battle shounen at all, at least if you're a writer that's willing to take risks. Want some examples?

Let’s look at the Hunter exam from Hunter x Hunter and the chuunin exams from Naruto. These are basically the same thing as the exams the characters go through in UA. To become a pro hunter/ninja, you have to pass these exams. Naruto and Hunter x Hunter want you to know that these tests are difficult and making it through is a significant is a huge feat. So how do Kishimoto and Togashi support it?

Uh, by having people fail. A LOT of entrants fail in both the chuunin exams and Hunter exams. And not scrubs, either. One of the main characters fails the first time in Hunter x Hunter, and most of the entrants that you end up spending most of the show with end up failing in Naruto.

As for as numbers go:

Most of the characters lose before the finals, including main characters (Sakura, Ino, Rock Lee, Kiba, Hinata, Choji, Tenten). Killua fails in Hunter x Hunter. if you look at insignificant characters, all but 7 failed the hunter exam. 400+ examinees failed. In the chuunin exams, hundreds failed as well. There were only 5 genin remaining when the Konoha Crush interrupts the exams. (Failing is a bit different in Naruto. You can lose in the finals and still become a chuunin). Why does this matter?

Because part of the point of having these exams in the first place is to make it clear how difficult it is to become a shinobi/hunter. People need to fail out so 1, the threat of characters failing is established. 2, to establish stakes. and 3, establish the extreme level of difficulty to accomplish the goal, for the purposes of making the task seem daunting (which will be a constant source of drama), and to make those that have accomplished it (in this case the pro heroes) worthy of respect for having reached it.

Hunter x Hunter and Naruto wanted their exam stages to seem difficult and intense, so they supported it by being willing to have characters fail. It’s really that simple. Kishimoto and Togashi as writers are willing to take those risks to make their manga better. Horikoshi is not.

Class B

Another example of fake exam stakes that annoys me is how they keep telling us that if class A trips up, students from class B could replace them. This is another good source of drama, and adds even more stakes for the class A students. But like all the other stakes, the show never follows through with it.

I really wish they would too, because there are some weak characters in class A I really wish would get cut out. Like the animal guy, and the tail guy, and especially the tape guy. He's boring and his power is boring. Get rid of him. I would love for Horikoshi to take a risk and move one of these boring dorks out for someone like Shinso, but Horikoshi is again too afraid to move even a single character out of place for some reason.

So once again, you say this one thing will happen, and then retreat from it afterwards. You never follow through with what you say you’re gonna do, which, again, contradicts this:

***E42 15:40 "a hero's job is to turn the lip service into reality"

Deku vs Bakugo

Capping off season 3, we have Deku vs Bakugo. And look. I know people think this fight is amazing. And…I mean it could be. If it was organic to the narrative, had stakes, and wasn’t forced into a place in the story it doesn’t belong. The problem I have with this fight is it doesn't represent a moment where past and/or current differences and philosophies collide naturally due to the narrative. The show is pausing its story to have this fight.

Deku vs Bakugo is MHA's version of Naruto vs Sasuke. But with Naruto vs Sasuke, it was very much the right time for that fight, and there were real stakes. Sasuke wants to go off and join Orochimaru to gain power, but Naruto knows and we as an audience know that Orochimaru only wants to use Sasuke as a vessel to switch bodies. And while you might think Sasuke can handle himself, …we watched Orochimaru kill a hokage earlier. (One of the benefits of killing off characters btw). So we know he is a serious threat to kill Sasuke. That's the kind of stakes and emotional drama you need for a fight between main characters. Which is what I think this fight lacks.

Granted, there isn't really a rule to how you write a fight like this. And I'm not really advocating for it to just do what Naruto did. It isn't a bad fight. I just think you need a little more here. Something to be lost for Deku when he's defeated. And have it be written more organically into the story, rather than shoving it awkwardly between arcs.

In Between Arcs 2/End of Season 3

We end season 3 with episode 62. The first half of it is looking into the idea of how All Might’s retirement is affecting normal citizens. This is, of course, a very good idea. As the show hasn’t really put any effort into humanizing the citizens so we gave a shit when villains attack and put their lives in danger. It also is the start of the idea that Endeavor doesn’t really work as an All Might replacement. He lacks the charisma and people just don’t react to him the same way. It’s…interesting. And they follow up on it later. Uh, good stuff.

The second half is more fake stakes for Deku’s body and consequences after his fight with Bakugo. Deku is fine, again. Deku and Bakugo broke curfew, destroyed a bunch of shit, fought, and their only punishment is they have to clean more. Really? After sneaking out during the class raid? Have the teachers at UA learned absolutely nothing this entire time?

Big three arrives, season over.

Hero Academia's poor character development has ruined an otherwise engaging story.

If you enjoyed the first 2 seasons in spite of a few absurd story arcs and silly character development, and you're willing to overlook poorly thought out character motivations for the sake of grand themes of heroism then you might be able to enjoy and even fully embrace season 3. I disliked the nonsensical villain motivations in Season 2 and I feel that their motivations seem to make even less sense in Season 3.

Since Season 2, we have seen that most of Hero Academia's villains want to kill All Might because he happens to ... be the so called "symbol of peace". Why would any villain want to kill the "symbol of peace"? According to Hero Academia, villains want to kill the symbol of peace because they want to deprive Japanese citizens of the hope that any hero can save them from any kind of danger at any moment in time. By the way, we don't really know if any country other than Japan actually exists in this fictional superhero and that just makes suspending one's disbelieve a little harder needs to be.

How exactly does a villain materially or emotionally benefit from depriving people of the hope that All Might or any other hero can save them at any point in time? How does killing All Might or any of the students of UA high satisfy a villain's emotional or physical needs? None of these important thematic questions are ever answered. The sad fact is that almost all of the villains have motives that conveniently push the plot forward and create some much needed suspense and tension. But in their attempt to kill All Might and UA students, the villains have sacrificed their physical well-being and their emotional needs. It makes no sense for villains to have motivations that don't personally benefit them in any imaginable way.

In real life or in stories that have realistic characters, villains have one of the following motivations; greed, curiosity, a lust for power, a desire for revenge, spiteful envy or a desire for dangerous fun. Is it possible to write villains who want to kill All Might or the students of UA High for realistic reasons? Of course it is, but it's generally easier to write villains who exist for the sole purpose of perpetuating a poorly conceived storyline. Made in Abyss and Kokkoku both have villains with interesting and unique motivations that actually make sense. You can check out my reviews for those two anime.

I recommend watching the first seasons of both of those anime rather than watching the 3rd season of Hero Academia, unless you like Hero Academia's world building and you want to find out how the story's going to end. You can watch this shipwreck to the very end, but I'm jumping ship with what's left of my sanity.

Now back to my review. The only one or two villains in Hero Academia have a somewhat realistic motivations and they're just minor characters who get as little screen time as possible. The villain I liked, fights for fun and his goals occasionally conflict with the goals of the Villain Vanguard. He's like a less interesting version of Bleach's Kenpachi. This is actually the least disappointing aspect of Season 3's storyline.

To get to the heart of the problem of villain motivations, we need to examine Hero Academia's most important villain: Stain. In Season 2, we were introduced to a villain called Stain. The extent to which you like Stain's character development will determine the extent to which you will enjoy watching Season 3. If you love Stain then you will love Season 3. If you hated Stain then you will hate Season 3. If you felt ambivalent about Stain's character then you will feel ambivalent about Season 3's storyline.

Villain motivations is just one of the fundamental problems that plague Hero Academia's storyline, but I think the single biggest problem: is Stain's character development. First of all, Stain has no backstory in the anime nor does he have a backstory in the manga. Why exactly Stain set out to kill licensed heroes he thought were fake heroes with ill motives remains a mystery. Season 3 expects us to believe that lots of villains were inspired by Stain's actions, which makes no sense because that implies that lots of villains actually care about the heroic qualities of Japan's heroes. By definition, the word "villain" implies that one has a selfish and self-centered worldview. To truly be worthy of the title of "villain" one's priority should be one's personal well-being not someone else' heroic qualities. You cannot be a "villain" if you selflessly want to better society by purging it of incompetent and ill intentioned heroes. If you had Stain's motivation, then you would feel deeply insulted by the idea of being called a "villain" and you would never associate yourself with someone called a villain. Anyone who claims to be motivated by Stain's ideology would never to call themselves a villain or even allow themselves to be within spitting distance of anyone who happens to have villainous intentions. Horikoshi, Hero Academia's creator, has never described Stain as a misunderstood vigilante and that makes the fact that he inspires individuals who openly describe themselves as villains even more confusing.

Horikoshi also does a piss poor job of convincing us, the viewers, that any so called villain who believes in Stain's incoherent ideology has an emotional makeup that makes even a lick of sense. Humans can have irrational motivations, but even irrational motives make some kind of sense to those who hold such motives. Terrorists and suicidal cult members, however bizarre their motivations may seem to the average person; can easily articulate or demonstrate the motives behind their actions. The same cannot be said for anyone of the villains in Hero Academia.

The other problems that plague Hero Academia's storyline and character development include; Deku's and other important heroes' increasingly powerful plot armor, the nonsensical rules that hero students are forced to abide by for the sake of maintaining some semblance of tension or drama in the story's overall plot, and the subtle but pernicious sexism that undermines some of the series best story arcs.

Since Deku mastered the One for All quirk in Season 2, he has not encountered a villain or obstacle he could not physically or emotionally overcome. Not only does this plot point suck away all the drama and tension we enjoyed at the beginning of series, it also makes the overall plot a bit too easy to follow.

And any hope we had for some dramatic tension later on in the story was crushed by the fact that Hero Academia's plot armor not only protects Deku from being killed, but also prevents him from experiencing any kind of emotional suffering. Since he mastered his quirk, he has not lost a single fight to a villain. If he lost a few fights to some villains once in a while, the story would be a lot more interesting and exciting. Deku's ever growing plot armor makes the story monotonous and predictable.

Now it's time to get into what might be the most controversial part of my review: Hero Academia's pervasive and pointless sexism. There are 3 main problems with the way women are portrayed in Hero Academia. The first of which is the fact that no matter how hard superheroines work, they never achieve as much as their male counterparts even when they have superior quirks. Momo is a great example of this. Her quirk is incredibly powerful and she should be the number 1 student at UA high based on her grades and her masterful control her of work. But Horikoshi never let's her unleash her true potential. There are so many so many things she do with her powers that series never even hints at. She could spawn grenades, heat seeking missiles, ultrasonic guns, tear gas and any number of incredibly useful tools from her flesh. But Horikoshi paints her as a surprisingly unremarkable superheroine with the emotional weaknesses of a stereotypical Japanese girl.

Since Season 2, Momo has not come any closer to being UA's best student despite her amazing potential. Like a lot of female characters in Hero Academia, she lacks self-confidence and believes that she cannot make important life decisions without the emotional support of a man. In Season 3, Momo is relegated to the role of a mildly interesting side character and it's up to the toughest male characters to almost singlehandedly save the day.

Secondly, women are consistently portrayed as being less motivated and less hard working than men for no other reason than the fact they are women. Even if we suppose that women in real-life Japan don't work as hard as men even when they are exceptionally talented, this series forces all it's female characters to never even attempt to push beyond the artificial physical and emotional limits they place upon themselves. It's fine if one female characters fits a certain gender stereotype, but a story in which all female characters suffer from the same female problems is not only less realistic, but also less fun to watch. The 1st episode of Season 3 portrays all the female characters as lazy fun lovers, but portrays men as hardworking and dedicated to their training as heroes. Someone will argue that female social pressure makes the ladies less motivated and a little more relaxed, but that makes no sense in the context of a dangerous and life-threatening school environment where students are attacked by powerful villains on a regular basis. The terrifying prospect of being killed by a villain should be enough motivation to keep any student on their toes regardless of their gender.

And lastly, too many female characters seem to lack self-confidence simply because their women. There are no men in Hero Academia who lack self-confidence and that's really suspicious. Even Mineta, one of the weakest quirk holders and arguably the least motivated male character, never experiences a crisis of confidence or a moment of doubt. He never even considers quitting UA High. In this series women are less self-confident, regardless of how powerful their quirk is, simply because they're women. There is a difference between revealing gender stereotypes and reinforcing them. Hero Academia wholeheartedly indulges in gender stereotypes that weaken the impact of the story. If any of the male heroes questioned their abilities as heroes or decision makers, the story would be more interesting and engaging. What if Deku experienced a crisis in self-confidence? Wouldn't that be fun to watch? Or are all men immune to the emotional suffering that plagues female characters? The fact that men never hesitate or falter in this series, makes Hero Academia feel like a silly power fantasy written by a man for men.

Whether or not you're convinced that Hero Academia's veneer of thematic depth makes it the greatest shonen anime ever written, at some point in Season 3 you're going to feel the crushing weight of all the story problems I've just described.

This season was just more of the same of the previous two except longer. We first get another training arc, where the students are training to improve their quirks. The training portion amounted to “the more you use it, the stronger it gets.”, how exciting. The author must have realized how dull it was as it only lasted about half the episode and was never to be seen again for the rest of the season.

Next was another attack by the Shigaraki and goons, their goal this time is to kidnap Bakugo. We’re also introduced to a new one dimensional villain called Muscular, who ... debuts and is defeated by a 1000000% smash asspull from Deku the same episode. I also can’t get over how stupid it is that the students need permission from their teacher to use their quirks despite being in a life or death situation (Even made more annoying is the fact that such a rule wasn’t present in the first season when Shigaraki and friends first attacked). Anyway, the League of Villains succeed for once and kidnap Bakugou. Why? Because they want to recruit him. That’s right, someone who chooses to enroll in one of the top hero school totally has his eyes set on becoming a villain apparently. Stupid shit like this is why the villains in this show can’t be taken seriously (And it doesn’t help that we still know next to nothing about them). We’re again introduced to another new, bland villain named All for One, who is the villain counterpart to All Might. The two eventually engage in their last battle and All Might wins.

With the exception of the first fight between Deku vs Bakugo, the battles in this series are generally lackluster, and All Might vs All for One is no exception; there was no build-up, the fight itself was mostly talking about All Might’s mentor (Who we still don’t know enough to care about) and at most there were about 4 exchanges overall with explosions everywhere, how exciting.

The final arc of this season is again, an examination. This time they’re going to take an exam in order to get their “Provisional Hero Licenses”, which allows them to use their quirks to save people and put down villains. The first portion of the exam consists of playing dodgeball, I shit you not, this is how they pick heroes who can be entrusted with saving lives and taking down villains. One Punch Man had a better examination and that was a freaking parody. Second part of the exam wasn’t so bad until Todoroki gets into an utterly stupid quarrel with a newly introduced character named Inasa, and holy shit, this guy takes pettiness to a whole other level; Inasa apparently was suppose to enroll into U.A but instead chose to literally go school in the other side of the country just because he didn’t like Todoroki, and it’s not like Todoroki did anything to him, he just didn’t like the vibe Todoroki gave of. Due to Inasa’s actions both him and Todoroki fail the exam, but wait, there’s actually another test that those who failed can take in three months to earn their licenses, consequences be damned.

So again, we get more training, more Shigaraki "doing stuff" and more exams. Most shonen have repetitive formulas but they are at least heading towards something, MHA’s just going in circles from the looks of things, I mean, this season is almost over and we’re getting yet again, another fight between Deku & Bakugo (Though if it’s anything like the first one then it’s might be worth looking forward to). The show doesn’t even have anything to make up for it’s lack of story; the world building is practically non-existent, the fights consist of either talking or spamming the same technique for majority of the battle, and most characters are incredibly shallow (Seriously, a lot of people claim the characters in the show are well developed and fleshed out but that couldn’t be further from the truth, only Deku, Bakugo & Todoroki get anything worth noting).

Long story short, the show gets worse each passing season with it's only redeeming quality being its animation at this point.

3rd season of Boku no Hero Academia review v4:
(My English is not that good but atleast I tried)

-story , main idea:
The story and its meaning did'nt had much thought in it. characters are training to be heroes and to defend the world from evils. evils are trying to block the 'heroes' actions to take the control from them to achieve their goals.. It's all ... same in 3 seasons!
The story improvement system always goes on : 'training , war with villans and regroup and the fall of the symbol of peace'.main idea: study hard and fight till you win by improving yourself. Still does'nt change at 3 seasons....The anime was all clear like child shows. Theese are why Bnha is repetitive and bold. And tournament arcs are really unfair because characters' who has more supportive ability of course lose to a damage dealing charcter. How can you viewers get hyped to this?!?
Succeeding the main idea is not important. It's important to improve viewers view on a topic or an idea. If the show keeps going on a monotone path , the main idea and story will be less unique and effective. That won't be an improving anime , it just would be waste of producers effort and viewers time.. And this is a total waste.

-Art and animation:
There was nothing that I can call beautiful because there were no detailed drawings and ambiance.
Color use in this show makes it more lively because every character had different type of hair and overly colorful costumes.
Animation is fine , there were no gaps or misuses. Only the abrupt movements of characters make the action more powerful but exaggerated. (bad)

-Characters:
Every character has 1 point of view since the 1st season and the anime shows only one characteristics of the characters. (not Todoroki and lida) Characters are still all narrow viewed for 3 seasons. Deku wants to get stronger and save people... Purple guy wants tits... Bakugo always wants to be in the top(hero) with a true match... every character has only 1 feature and It does'nt even change in 3 seasons.0 character improvement. After the boss villan attack they tried to add 'depth' to characters by showing their rooms that they designed. (adding more meaningless variety of colors do the trick , right?) ffs-.-* And they wasted more than 3 episodes for 'character showcase' scenes. And why tf their quirks keep appear on the top every time we see the characters like the viewers are morons? And quirk explanation for every character takes more than a minute.
They created variety of TeEN ChaRaCteRs which at least one of them relates to viewers by making the viewers feel closer to the character and the anime. It made this series more popular a lot easier and made this series overrated with this use.
Talking during fights and analyzing the fights lasts for too long mostly. It's scene time waste. They could use the screen time to improve characters.
Fan service has always been a dissapointment in anime by lowering the characters view , characters action width and communitys' quality.

-Sound and ambiance:
Music makes act of characters and action scenes a lot more exaggerated. I really dislike that most of the animes have a moving music in a slow part/scene. Music should give a background effect and help creating the ambiance like Made in Abyss. Music should'nt be the main effect.Music should be like dust in the wind.
There are 4-5 tracks are used too much that the music makes the anime repellent. There was nearly no ambience effects to make the scenes attractive and they did'nt add meaning to aesthetics. They always use the same music and effects when they show a new training place and when they fight. This makes the occurances 'cliche' and less effective.(every monotone uses makes anything more cliche and overdone)
SFX were coherent. They don't stand out much because of loud music mostly.

-'comedy':
Sorry, there was comedy in this series?
Ah yes because the series is a total joke.

Lastly:
''The main idea may be superficial but It gets to its point with less flaws''(no).
If the fiction does'nt have depth , it won't have flaws much. That makes it
run of the mill. they shouldn't just train or fight the villains, there must be a psychological change, change on the hero system or world balance at least (not the fall of symbol of peace). An effective show must have improving story system and idea to create depth.
This anime is'nt much different than American supernatural films. It feels like they got effected by Hollywood.

I had the same view from the 1st season. I guess this won't change till the end.

This is actually my very first review so I'll try to be proper in terms of critique.

(Very Light Spoilers!!)

Boku No Hero Academia is one of those animes that I actually consider as mediocre regarding on how generic it is but at the same time I hate it because of how it leaves out many things in terms of characters, plot etc. and that will be explained in this review

⋆Story- 4⋆

The Plot of this season was based on the Licenses that they were supposed to be receiving through training in the woods and actually applying for the exam. Compared to Season 2, it wasn't done ... extremely well considering that the beginning arc was rushed and went straight to the actual fight within 5 episodes or so, Compared to the U.A sports carnival Arc where they took the time in order to finish it and its end was enjoyable to experience. The Forest Training Arc was somewhat rushed and was not being able to completely finish due to the events that occurred but was later finished by the training they did prior to the exam so that's a plus. The (someone) retrieval mission, to be honest, was really unnecessary considering the character was formidable enough to defend himself (This was due to the fast pacing in the beginning). Besides that everything about the season was ok but didn't really reach up to standard.

⋆Art- 8⋆

This part doesn't really need to be explained considering the modernised art style of the season was good but not the best of course so it gets a solid 8.

⋆Sound- 7⋆

Boku no Hero Academia doesn't disappoint in its osts including the Op and Ed which were good but the repetitive tracks that are being used are why it gets a 7. It would've been best if it's sound was diversified.

⋆Characters- 3⋆

I know you guys would be screaming at me for saying this was probably the best part, but for me, this was the worst. An anime basing off 2-3 characters and saying that the rest of the characters are practically meme material is not what I'd consider the best characters. Bakogou's development was the main focus of this season and honestly considering the character he is from the 1st and 2nd season, I was surprised that this occurred and I feel like it'll get better later on. The main issue to BNHA is the characters mostly due to the lack of development. Midoriya is practically the most annoying MC I've ever seen because of how he's more of a crybaby towards things and that's what disappoints me a lot but the worst part is leaving out the majority of Class 1A, heck it's been 3 seasons and I don't know anything about the characters and they don't shine a lot and I got bored when they focused more on the MC's then the supports which makes this the worst anime for me in terms of its characters. It's generic, typical and boring at most points because of lack of screen time for the whole class (1B is seen a lot more and they get more attention TBH and I feel like they skipped they whole entire class for no reason.) I could go rant the whole time but I actually want to get to the end but you get the idea. Focusing on 2-3 characters doesn't justify why the whole part of character development is done well. You forgot the other characters and that's something most people tend to ignore.

⋆Enjoyment- 4⋆

Would I recommend watching Boku No Hero Academia, well yes and no depending on how you like your Shounen animes but this was indeed the worst Shounen I've ever seen and I don't understand the amount of love it has besides the memes. I don't really have high hopes for the 4th Season because I feel like it'll do the same mistake and I'll still have the same perception of it but considering how the next arc is one of the bests (from most sources) it's a show to take into consideration of if you're starting to watch anime but if you're a full pledged weeb then this isn't the anime for you, it'll just bore you to death.

⋆Overall- 3⋆ (Plot-wise, it's bad. The other factors doesn't contribute to the overall score)

While the show has some some potentially good things, these are not part of the story. The show is generic to the bones, the actual plot is a straight copy of any superhero/superpower show, but for some reason, for people this show is the pioneer of that subject. Almost every quirk is boring, and the actual interesting characters have them. The show started great on season 1, with good guide and direction. The soundtrack was amazing, and the animation was ok. But everything went down from that point, season 2 and season 3 came out and the good animation went somewhere else, they had a ... lot of mistakes during scenes and apparently giving hype to a static scene is a good thing (It is to be honest, but in this case, it is a bit too much). Apparently starting with heavy fanservice was a good move. At least they kept the good sound engineering. The whole plot keeps being all over the place, with the introduction of characters that probably won't ever appear.

For some reason, in this show, prioritizing bad fights with the main characters is a good thing, because the most interesting fights and characters barely get any screen time (And they are few)
The character development is confusing aswell. Everyone seems to be progressing a lot with their quirks and personalities, but Midoriya doesn't seem to be doing so well, while he has a strong will and all that kind of stuff, he barely gets any development and his actual story is nowhere. They focuse too much on Bakugo/Todoroki, leaving behind a potentially excelent main character.

The art is good for the most part, but like i said, the animation is really dull. The direction is going, it's just like any other shounen out there. The character design feels empty, with only a few characters being interesting enough to talk about.

The opening/ending combo has always been my favorite part, season 2 to be honest my favorites (Both arcs), this season though, the music just feels... there? It's like its just there but it doesn't stand out from the other 3 openings/eds. The background music is also a strong point, building hype for each scene. Same could be said about voice acting, and sound engineering in general, its all in the right place, with fantastical voice acting.

I can't say i enjoyed this, hence why i dropped it. Season 2 was horrible and this started with the left foot. Not my thing, please refrain from calling me a troll, if you are gonna report me, do it for something valid and not your "you didn't like it, therefore i don't like you".

It's not often that I find an anime so mind numbing and poorly written that I literally can't bring myself to finish it. But it happens sometimes, and this is one of those times.

My Hero Academia. It's the biggest anime around at the moment, taking Naruto's throne. Superheroes are massive right now, so it's no surprise the biggest anime of the current times is a superhero anime. With all the rage there was about this series, I started watching it a few months back with season 1. I enjoyed it! Season 1 wasn't particularly anything that I hadn't seen before, but it was exciting and ... the vibrant art style and characters were very appealing. It wasn't amazing, but I liked it. The action was good and engaging, and I rooted for Deku to succeed the whole season. It left me with a taste for more of this series. I liked the idea of a new superhero series with fresh new heroes that weren't DC or Marvel, as I'd definitely grown tired of seeing Batman and Iron Man for the millionth time. I thought I really understood why this series was popular now. Oh, but per usual, I was wrong. Very wrong.

Season 2. I started season 2 a little while after I'd finished the first season, quite excited to see the continuation of Deku's story.

And then there was a sports festival. Oh, dear God.

I knew it was going to be bad the moment they started talking about a sports festival. I knew from that point, season 2 was in trouble. But I kept watching anyway. For over half the season, 12 episodes if I recall correctly, they were doing that stupid sports festival. It was so god damn boring. It didn't even make sense for superheroes to be competing in a sports festival. Aren't they meant to learn to work together, not to compete? Yet somehow, I managed to sit through that god awful crap. The sports festival amounted to nothing at all, really. All it gave us was minor character development for Todoroki. Other than that, it was mostly all filler and I still to this day don't know how I sat through it. Eventually it got back on track with the main story involving the villains, and I hesitantly finished season 2. At this point, my hopes were destroyed. Basically the entirety of season 2 was filler and meaningless crap that didn't interest me or engage me at all. But despite all that, I still thought, "Now that the sports festival crap is over maybe season 3 will be good!"

HA HA, nope. Season 3 somehow finds a way to be even worse and even more boring, to the point where I couldn't even bring myself to finish it. And I don't want to ever finish it, because this show sucks and I don't give a flying rat's ass about it anymore.

Season 3 starts with all the main cast going on a field trip somewhere. I don't remember why or for what purpose, but they go on a field trip and camp for a while and do some activities. Then the league of villains attack, and lots of violence and fighting ensue. All the action at this point felt forced and like it didn't really have any reason to happen, so I didn't think much of all the fighting. But at least it was more interesting than a sports festival I guess?

The show goes on, and more battles with the villains happen. Then later on All Might has an enormous battle with the main villain or something like that. At this point my brain just doesn't care and it's barely comprehending anything that's happening. There's a lot going on, a lot of action, but my interest is at an all time low. The action is entertaining enough that I keep forcing myself to get through this slog of a show, until the show reaches a point where now All Might is worn down and can no longer retain his power, and now Deku has to find a way to take his place despite the fact he's still struggling with his own powers. Deku hasn't made any progress since season 1 at this point, and it's become very grating. After some more nonsense, Deku figures out how to use his powers more efficiently by focusing on using a kicking combat style with his legs instead of punching like All Might does, as he was copying All Might all this time, and he now has some support things that will stop his legs and arms from being harmed during combat, which was a major hurdle he had to get over throughout the series. This happens over half way into the season, and it felt very insulting that it took this long for Deku to do anything. 3 seasons and about 50+ episodes into this crap, and only now Deku is starting to figure out how to use his powers properly. The entire second season may as well not have existed with how little it did for the story. This probably sounds like a bit of a lazy recap, but people who've seen this stupid season will know what I'm talking about.

It started to get a little bit interesting again, as finally SOMETHING was happening. Deku was figuring out that he has to use his own style and can't just copy All Might for everything, and it felt like some kind of progress in the plot was actually happening, for the first time in like 50 episodes of this series overall. Oh, but then guess what?

BACK TO THE COMPETITIVE TOURNAMENTS! OHH YES!

The show goes straight back into a competition with all the characters where now they have to throw balls at glowing points on each other's body, and they can only be hit 3 times before they're out. I let out a gigantic sigh as this began to happen, as I realized now it was time for more filler to stretch out this very simple story to stupid lengths once again. I tried. I really did. A few more episodes and it just kept feeling like a blur because I really did not care at all. I tried to finish this slog. I thought: "There's only a few more episodes, just finish it." But I reached episode 18, and still nothing was happening, and I simply just couldn't take it anymore, and shut the stupid thing off. It's not often I'm driven to this point where I physically and mentally can't take a show anymore because it's so grating and boring, but somehow this show broke me. I seriously couldn't take it. I stopped there, deleted it off my hard drive, and never looked back on this steaming pile.

3 seasons and over 50 - 60 episodes and absolutely nothing happened. Basically no character development, no story progression except ONE thing, that ONE thing being Deku finally figuring out his own fighting style. No world building whatsoever, all we know is there's places in the city named after Star Wars planets and nothing else. Absolutely nothing. I have no idea how you even create a show this long and have absolutely nothing happen in it. All this show has going for it is some nice visuals and fancy action scenes, but they DO NOT make up for a horribly written story. I have no reason to care about any of the massive fights or action when there seems to be no real reason for any of it happening. I also have no reason to care about pretty visuals when the show has no depth and basically no freaking plot. It's empty garbage, all of it.

Think about it. 50 - 60 episodes is about how long it took for a massive epic story like Fullmetal Alchemist to begin and end. That's roughly how long it took for Avatar The Last Airbender to begin and end. And yet, in that amount of time in My Hero Academia, NOTHING happened. NOTHING AT ALL. It's pathetic.

Overall, this is more of a review of the entire show up to this point, more than it is a review of season 3 specifically, but I wanted to get this stuff off my chest. I hate this show with a passion simply because of how much of my time it wasted. I wish I had just given it up after season 2, but my stubborn wishful thinking always drives me back until I reach this point where I can't take it anymore.

God help you people who decide to watch season 4 when it comes out. I have no idea how you guys even sat through all of this so far. God freaking help you.

(Edit) The season went exactly like I've expected, so I don't even have to change anything.
This review might be edited or even changed completely depending on how the rest of the season plays out.
I usually dislike preliminary reviews, yet here I am, writing one myself. Why? I will explain that in a moment. But first, let's talk about what makes a superhero story good, and by extention, what makes a shounen good. If you said "story", you're wrong. Main characters? Wrong again. All these parts can be secondary, but one thing just must be good. And it's the villains. The protaganists are boring by nature: ... they're either good and want to play by the rules, good, but don't want to play by the rules, or, if the show's wrinting is a bit better than average, some of them are morally gray. And that's it. If a character is described as being a hero, he must follow these 3 categories. Villians, however, come in different forms and shapes. While the counterparts of the 2 hero archetypes are certenaly popular, there are much much more variations to them. But all that talk about villians is not even the main point. They can be interesting, or they can be shallow, but one thing they can never be.
WEAK. And that is what MHA villians are. Frankly, they're pathetic. Never once a threat to begin with, and now they're even weaker, to the point where the show itself refrains from even showing them in favor of the main cast just, you know, living their lives. The villians don't even look that bad design-wise, and from what we've seen they could've been interesting characters, or not. But I doubt they'll ever be scary. As of now, any single one of them can get their ass whooped by a high-schooler, essentially making them a laughing stock. The only ones who could pose any sort of threat (and not even big threat mind you) are currently out of comission. It feels at times as if the mangaka has written himself to a corner, where the main cast is already overpowered at the start of the story. The media always teaches us to root for the underdog, so I'm rooting for the bad guys.
And that's already the bad outlook for the show. Sure, the Batman villians have more fans than the hero himself, but for a diffirent reason: charisma. Here, I'm rooting for the villians because they're weak and because the protagonists are arrogant. This brings us to the next section

STORY AND CHARACTERS

I've combined these two into one, because there's not much to talk about in terms of the story, and I don't mind. This being a shounen and all, my expectations were low and they're pretty much met. So the world is now a superhero society with 80% of the populus having some sort of a superpower, or as they call it a "Quirk". The MC didn't have one, but now he has it and with that newfound power he aims to be the best hero ever. And to reach that goal he... just enrolled in a hero academy. That's all there is to this story and as I said before, I didn't expect anything more. The characters are much more important.
The characters might all be just repackaged archetypes from the previous shounen series for all I care, as long as they've been done properly. And like many things in MHA, this here is a hit or miss.
Deku -- the MC of the story and as it often is its most boring character. He wanted to be a hero really bad, but in this kind of society it's kind of no big deal. So even his most prominent motivation feels unimportant. His biggest character trait is his constant fanboyism over the greatest hero, All-Might. And everyone loves that one, so once again, even in the setting presented, Deku doesn't stand out. He's also said to be smart, but that's thrown out of the window as soon as the writer desires. But maybe other characters are better?
Bakugo -- he's my least favorite character here, or anywhere, probably. He's always angry, always an asshole to anyone and always shouting for no reason. It feels like they've cut him from AoT and pasted right here for no reason. And no, before you ask, his personality is NOT a foil or a facade, becuase we've seen his entire backstory in flashbacks. He was always a douchebag with no redeeming qualities. Why is this a problem, you ask? Well even if his story arc is him becoming a better person (which at that point it better be), he can only become an average character. Not good, not even decent. His very ceiling as a character is average.
Oh, and he embodies another problem I see with the show, questionable messages. Bakugo is an asshole bully, who everyone calls a Deku's friend, even though AT NO POINT in the story, the two acted like anyone but enemies. No teacher thought to himself "hey, this guy bullies one of the students, maybe we shouldn't put them in the same class at least?". No, they all laugh it off. And honestly, can you see anyone like him making any friends? I could, even the writers would show it to me. But nope, we're just told that him and the other character are now "friends". And that's not even the end of it. Instead of stopping trying to reason with this obviously abusive guy, Deku makes extra sure to try again and again, while also hurting Bakugo's fragile self esteem. Deku knows the consiquences, yet he does it anyway. It's stupid, no sane person would do that, and honestly, it smells of Stockholm Syndrome to me. So what's the message here? Having this syndrome is a good thing? But I digress, since there's a lot of characters to cover. Too many, in fact.
All Might -- the strongest, most overpowered hero, also known as a symbol of peace. That's the only section including SPOILERS FOR THE 3RD SEASON UP TO EP 15 so you've been warned. I always thought he was gonna get killed off for dramatic effect and to rise the stakes, and to affect Deku's character growth. It was an obvious, but effective choice. Exept, they never do that. Even with everyone learning about his true form, he still beat the big bad, and he's still alive to babysit the MC. And with that the only possible dramatic tension is now gone.
END OF SPOILERS
Todoroki -- the best character. Even the MC said it himself, he should've been the protagonist. Even if he's still kinda generic, he's got a decent backstory, and also character flaws. The latter is a rare sight in this show, so he can't help but stand out. That's all fine and good, but he embodies yet another questionable message of the show. Well, not he himself, but his father instead. It's revealed in the season 2, that his father is a domestic abuser, yet the show never calls it out. Todoroki hates him, of course, but the rest of the show never does anything with it, Endeavor is the same "hero" as everyone else. I can't tell if it's intentional or not yet, so I won't comment on it any further.
Iida -- an upstanding class rep of the class 1-a. He's got a decent enough motivation in season 2, but I won't spend my time talking about him, since he just isn't interesting enough to me. The same can be said to the rest of the cast, so here's a quickfire review of some of them:
Uroraka -- a generic love interest with a usless quirk. Had something going for her at the start of the season one, but now does absolutely nothing.
Tokoyami -- even though he has a problem controlling his power, no actual flaws in his character can be found
Asui -- the frog girl. Once again, flawless as a character.
Mineta -- being a total degenerate and a creep is okay, as long as you're on a winning side. My second least favorite character.
Yaoyorozu -- has confidence problems that are never given much attention. Still a decent character.
Shigaraki Tomura -- does nothing
Kurogiri -- also uselss with a weakness obvious even to school kids.
Dobi -- looks the coolest out of the entire cast, but does nothing.
Everyone else -- I don't even remember them.

PRODUCTION

I don't really care about the animation, but in case you're wondering, it's Bones, you know the drill. The fights are flashy, the colors -- vibrant. Class room scenes look like shit though.
Music -- produced by Porno Grafitti, the openings are really good. I don't remember any other tracks from the show.

CONCLUSION
So why am I writing a preliminary review? I truly don't think anything about MHA will change. People seem to be enjoying it, so the writers never feel compelled to lift the status-quo. And they don't need to.
Overall, this is sadly turning out to be just another shounen, if not worse than the rest of the competition. MHA really needs to make its villians more of a threat, or at least make some new ones, if it can't even manage that much. So far the stakes are non-existent and the anime feels more like a superhero-themed Slice Of Life than anything else.

I'm not going to be writing a review for each season of BNHA, as my thoughts stay the same throughout. This show is the true definition of a generic shounen, right down to its bones

"Story? What's that?" is probably what the mangaka was thinking when he wrote this. Now, I won't lie, the first arc (before Izuku goes to U.A.) is easily the best in the anime, and is actually a good arc generally speaking, yet the rest just falls flat on its face. There's no tension to any of these fights, there's basically no character development in the entire anime

For example, the MC goes ... through the EXACT SAME dilemma about ten times throughout the first two seasons, and boy did it get tiring the second time thourhg already

Because the cast is so big, nobody gets any sort of character development except getting locked into very unlikeable archetypes. The anime knows its characters are so uninteresting that it has to remind you every episode what everyone's name and quirk is. It clearly shows the creators have no faith in their own characters when they have to reintroduce even the MC every single episode

The only good thing about this show is the animation, but honestly, animation is the thing that matters the least in anime imo, so this doesn't help my opinion of it at all

I'll never get why people like this generic shounen. I'm just glad I'll never be watching it again

In my opinion this is the weakest season of MHA so far.

Boku no Hero Academia 3rd Season

And here we come to the point where MHA, unfortunately, announces its downfall. Here the viewer again becomes terribly aware of how generic this series actually is and how little value is placed on variety and creativity.
-Don't get me wrong, I'm still a big fan of the series and love every single episode, but you can't ignore something like this.

This season begins with a training trip into the wilderness, so that the students of classes A and B, find out their own strengths and try to compensate for ... their weaknesses. But the villains know about this excursion and ambush them, resulting in a (not) epic battle. Perhaps it was better in the manga, but in the anime, its pacing was very slow and lacked momentum. The attack of the villains was not convincing at all.


What surprised me more, though, was their goal and what that resulted in. Although you might think that Bakugo is actually more like a "villain" than a "hero", here again, his will was demonstrated why he wants to be a hero after all. And that this fight resulted in the clash between All Might and All For One, no one could have seen this coming. Who builds in a fight against the final antagonist in the third season? This was indeed surprising, even if the course of the fight had been a bit stretched and lacked dynamics. Not to mention the final blow of All Might, cliché but convincing.


So far it wasn't actually that bad, it was "Average". But what awaited me after the fight was torture. By far the most boring and monotonous School Arc in the series. Not only was it uninteresting, but the pacing was also slow and there were almost no entertaining moments, even for me. If I could, I would have almost skipped this arc.


[Characters 4]

There were no notable additions on the part of the main characters this season. Instead, you got a decent presentation of the villains and slight hints of their "special" relationship. Later on, there are far better developments on the part of the antagonists, which impresses me a lot about the series.


[Conclusion 4]

A continuing decently entertaining season with a heavy aftertaste. Both animations have slackened here, as well as the pacing has become very slow. For a shounen fan, however, this is more than enough to get by. However, if someone is here for the story and plot, this season becomes a very heavy project.

Season 1 was good because Deku's power had a huge balancing price for its use, and so made his victories hype because it made our main hero less of a power fantasy. In season 2 this continued, and his consistent progress in coming to control his power by learning to limit it was great. This started to really stop being interesting, however, once Deku's power no longer had not only its crippling recoil, but worse, his limited power put him at the forefront of power among his classmates. I'm not a fan of cape-shit, aka American costumed superheroes, but I could look past that when ... Deku's story was so unqiue. By this season, however, I just wasn't interested in the story anymore, and the cape-shit just kept getting more ridiculous with the inclusion of typical joke character tropes.

This show had potential, but like anything that blows up and is designed to run indefinitely until readers stop reading, it has turned to shit.

I liked boku no hero season 1 and 2 and looked forward to season 3 with great enthusiasm, but to my surprise when I go through chapter 6 or so the fight between deku and muscle I notice something strange that this is not so exciting and epic as I thought it would be, I continue to see, useless, foolish villains, then the strongest of all appears but is easily defeated, the story is super repetitive, then started school matters super boring, unfortunate, the fight of deku vs bakugo me I like it not so much for the reason of it but for the choreography, ... in general very disappointed, this is a roller coaster, the story seems to go nowhere.

the animation is fine and the music too,

conclusion : I expected more from this series, but it is what it is, a school series disguised as superheores.

sorry for the mistakes is not my native language

'My Hero Academia' is a popular, long-running action show about teenage superheroes punching each other. I watched three seasons, and in the end, I got nothing out of it.

The characters seem exceptionally determined, but they lack any recognizable motivation, so it doesn't matter how often or how loudly they fly around shouting catchphrases about saving the world or protecting their friends' smiles: when the novelty wears off, none of it is relatable. There are also far too many of them. Essentially, they all compete to see whose superpower makes them punch the hardest so they can pass their exams and get a civil service job, ... which is not very heroic. Every arc is a tournament arc, but the tournaments don't really matter. Who cares about your high score? You're punching your classmates.

I wanted to enjoy the show, I followed the story closely, and although I noticed early on the slow pace of the plot, I stuck with it until season three — I think it was the fifth or sixth tournament arc. At that point, I realized that the show isn't going anywhere. Of course, punches will continue to be thrown, buildings will continue to collapse, plot-related events will continue to trickle past, etc., but the show simply does not have anything to say and will never reward my invested time. At least let the main character date a girl!

The fight scenes were well animated, but I don't really care about the technical details. The voice acting is pretty good, the music is fine, and the English subtitles are acceptable.

Truthfully, I can't explain the popularity of a largely pointless action-style entertainment product. If you want to see teenagers fight with magic powers, and you also want a show with a heart and a brain, you might enjoy 'Chivalry of a Failed Knight' or 'The Misfit of Demon King Academy', and maybe someday one of them will get a second season.

With the first two seasons of Boku no Hero being as captivating and high quality as they were, I went into season three expecting another twenty-five episodes with the same upkeep of sentimental value. Yet, what started with excitement soon turned into frustration and boredom.

Yes, there were some arcs that were somewhat decent, that being the exam where the students gain their provisional licenses for "heroing". The first half of season three was dragged out beyond belief, with Bakugou being kidnapped (the usual path for his type of character) at their summer training camp, about a quarter way through this arc, there was a ... high chance of me dropping it, but I held out - at this moment in time, I do hope that the future seasons are improved.

As usual, the battle sequences and soundtracks were great, ran smoothly, fitted the scenes and the idealistic atmosphere for characters. I like to see the best out of things, so, the whole ordeal with All Might facing "All For One" in finale showdown style; as well as All Might and Midoriya revealing to Bakugou their secret of where his quirk originated from. Finally, the battle of strength between both Bakugou and Midoriya was entertaining and captivated my interest - it truly showed how much Midoriya has developed with "One For All".

Other than that, the series lacked in the opposing factors, other than the points I have mentioned, those are the reasonings on why I have scored it so low. Other than Midoriya, the characters have little to no development and are typically there as Midoriya`s lackey, their whole purpose is to develop the main protagonist.

This is not a knock on the Boku no Hero Academia series, as I`m aware of how beloved it is, and as I mentioned previously I truly enjoyed the first two seasons, but the third was a let down in itself, but, I`m remaining hopeful for the future works.

Boku no Hero Academia 3rd Season

And here we come to the point where MHA, unfortunately, announces its downfall. Here the viewer again becomes terribly aware of how generic this series actually is and how little value is placed on variety and creativity.
-Don't get me wrong, I'm still a big fan of the series and love every single episode, but you can't ignore something like this.

This season begins with a training trip into the wilderness, so that the students of classes A and B, find out their own strengths and try to compensate for their weaknesses. But the villains know about this excursion and ambush ... them, resulting in a (not) epic battle. Perhaps it was better in the manga, but in the anime, its pacing was very slow and lacked momentum. The attack of the villains was not convincing at all.


What surprised me more, though, was their goal and what that resulted in. Although you might think that Bakugo is actually more like a "villain" than a "hero", here again, his will was demonstrated why he wants to be a hero after all. And that this fight resulted in the clash between All Might and All For One, no one could have seen this coming. Who builds in a fight against the final antagonist in the third season? This was indeed surprising, even if the course of the fight had been a bit stretched and lacked dynamics. Not to mention the final blow of All Might, cliché but convincing.


So far it wasn't actually that bad, it was "Average". But what awaited me after the fight was torture. By far the most boring and monotonous School Arc in the series. Not only was it uninteresting, but the pacing was also slow and there were almost no entertaining moments, even for me. If I could, I would have almost skipped this arc.


[Characters 4]

There were no notable additions on the part of the main characters this season. Instead, you got a decent presentation of the villains and slight hints of their "special" relationship. Later on, there are far better developments on the part of the antagonists, which impresses me a lot about the series.


[Conclusion 4]

A continuing decently entertaining season with a heavy aftertaste. Both animations have slackened here, as well as the pacing has become very slow. For a shounen fan, however, this is more than enough to get by. However, if someone is here for the story and plot, this season becomes a very heavy project.

[Enjoyment 6]