Boku no Hero Academia 4th Season

*Spoiler Warning*

My Hero Academia is slowly but surely becoming Fairy Tail 2.0.

Every time I hear something good about "My Hero Academia", it has mainly to do with its writing and how beautiful it is. There are also so many great developments from many characters, so they say, but I don't see any of this. I really don't. I'm probably being a bit too nitpicky with the show but I really wouldn't mind at all if only people would stop calling this show's writing a magnum opus when you all know that's not true. I, personally would call "My Hero Academia" a cringe show and not in a good way, either. It's a show that gets on my nerves, can't stand, and yet, I've seen all 4 seasons of this damned franchise and I will finish everything with a little hope that its writing will be a little better, but I don't think it will ever happen since you know, I'm reading the fucking manga and it's looking real bad there as well.

The third season starts with a filler and despite my hatred for fillers in general, the first episode was genuinely a good episode (as far as fillers go) but it was still a recap of the story and honestly I would have gladly done without. Then it starts with the arc of "Saving the girl from the bad guy, because we're heroes even though there are so many other people out there that need our help and we should dedicate our time to them as well but who cares about them as long some one random kid is saved and let's cliche the fuck out of it". Oh yeah, it's just happen that the girl has the power of rewind time (VERY convenient for what's going to happen later). Fortunately for everyone, she has not control over it, so our boi, Deku - was able to save her and in the meantime Mirio lost his quirk powers, a random dude dies, some chicks do nothing, random stuff happens at random, 3-5 episode fillers, a not-so-good animation is not-so-good and predominantly we get to see many bad dudes. They show up now, but not before, because why exactly? I see, because the plot didn't want them before. Oh Yeah, It's All Coming Together.

Basically the whole premise of this season is basically to save her (and give her the happy life everyone needs, lol), a kid nobody cared before, and I can't believe it took that many episodes to save her who to tell you the truth, can't give a damn about. Like, no. She's that one girl everyone wants to protect but why though? Because she's cute? Because, you know, she's a kid? Dude, if I were a hero, i'd go from town to town to look for people who need my help. I'm not gonna take days staying around her as Midoriya and others do because... reasons? In fact, I don't think I exactly know why it was so necessary to save her... no, I actually know the reason of such thing, it's because we have to make our main character somewhat revelant. Whatever happens, Deku will take care of the main villain of the arc.

What bothers me is the coincidence that both Midoriya and Mirio stumbled upon her just after Midoriya somehow got Nighteye's approval on becoming his student and before somehow after Nighteye himself apparently had a plan to bring down Chisaki and his gang that just happens, the little girl both our heroes stumbled upon, I think a day before, is in that group, too. In my entire life i've never seen a more convenient thing than this part here. Think about it. If Deku never went to Nighteye, all this would probably never happened, and thus, the girl would have suffered even more before someone really was able to save her (if not never saved), but because Midoriya is the main character, he'll save her anyway (which he did), even going up against a probably much stronger enemy but because she has the power of rewind throughout the fight she was able to repair Deku's body, so he wouldn't explode and all this make the entire fight, a complete ex machina + asspull and bullshit, too. Look, the problem here is Deku and nobody else. He's writen in such a nuance that is so repetitive, nausating and predicable.

I can predict what he'll do because he has the same personality he had at the beginning. He has been doing stuff over and over again with the same outcome that wouldn't put him in any danger. He ain't in danger and probably never will. Did you see how he beat Gentle? Did you? It was a total bullshit of a fight. Deku was down. He was annihilated by gentle and yet, he won? How that happened? He doesn't surrender. He's persistent. Yes, this is what the author has made of him. Persistent. You'd think that does mean shit, amirite? Yes, but who the fuck cares anyway, he's the protagonist, logic means shit here anyway. Both Gentle and La Brava would have won since the beginning but because he's the main character and because of his own victories he'd became a much mature person, according to the author.

Has he become one?

No and probably never will. Being a cringy kid and shooting clichés every two seconds doesn't make you one. Being over obsessed with "justice" doesn't make you one. Being the overprotective person doesn't make one.

My Hero Academia is badly written. The series has way too many characters that does not flesh out a single one. They are all here because they're told to be and when they fight, they do win but they win in "Deku style". You know, the villain has the upper hand but because of a flashback or that set character endurance they force their body to its limit and win, by one blow. Have you noticed this patern? You never see a flashy fight but rather a dull one when some people hit each other non-stop for a few seconds multiplie times and the winner is the most obvious you can think of. I tell you, on this season there should have been at least 5 deaths. Some characters have a plot armor beyond belief. They won't die no matter what. Anyways, as I said, the writing is bad, so I chosed a random scene just to prove it to you:

- Uraraka gets knocked out by a big dude.
- Asui too gets knocked out by the same big dude.
- The big dude is about to deal up to the 9th strongest hero.
- It is not so clear whether one of the strongest heroes would win against him or not.
- Uraraka sees Deku (Toga in disguise).
- Uraraka, real shit, despite I can't move and despite being almost unconscious by the enemy's power, I have to force myself moving because (this is repeated later in the episode, but this time she sees the real deku) we are taught by seniors not to give up and somehow move the villain to where Deku (Toga in disguise) had said, with Asui, in case you didn't figure that out. Asui came outta nowhere to help Uraraka and split some clichés alongside Uraraka. Did she also saw Deku? I do assume she stopped "being unconscious", by seeing him, right? Above all, how they both were able to escape from that big dude's power? Whatever that fucking thing was, it was something that made both girls lose senses. You'd think even if the bad dude were to be defeated, it'd take a minute or so for them get conscious, but nope, it only took less than 5 seconds for them completely be fine and be able to use their powers at full. Man, some of these scenes are incomprensibile.

It all goes like that. Instead of using strategies to defeating the bad dudes, they get overpowered by them, rarely goes vice versa and by the end of the fight, heroes win. Now, how come the heroes win when they're clearly not strong enough to have the better? The answer is pretty simple, they SHOULDN'T. What they should, though, is to have a proper training such as fighting with professionals, until the proper gets unconscious more and more times until the victory goes the vice versa. It's gonna take a while but because it's writing is really bad they'll face off a villain anyway and eventually win, presumably without too many consequences if not any. They obviously do it but it is very rare. Students should be pressured many times to learn the dangerous that is the outside.

Also, let's talk about Uraraka a bit since now we're here. Is there anything useful she can do without yelling "Deku" every two seconds? We all know she loves him, and i'm happy for her but she only needs to hear his name or see him fighting to make herself do something is something i'm not happy of. She should have some character development, at the very least, by the end of the story. At least I hope because as for now, she's quite literally useless. Most of the girls are, in fact. At no point any of them got their shining moment. What a shame.

Least but not last, allow me to spare two words about something that I, for the love of god don't understand. I am obviously referring to the "characters power and their name" via text that appears on everyone's appearance. And not only that, do you guys remember Hizashi? He's that one character no screen time was given, instead the author has found a clever way to making him talk as much as one can by repeating the same stuff over and over again. If it's a new power and Hizashi explains it, i'll be completely fine with that but because we're given explanation to powers we have the knowledge of already, it's making me to believe it's just added there to pad some time. Considering this is the 4th season of the franchise, I doubt it's gonna stop anytime soon but it really should. It's annoying and distracting.

My Hero Academia is highly praised and I have nothing against that but people need to know that its writing it's not pioneer and overall it'll never be. Whatever the reason you are watching this anime, I say, hats off to you on appreciating these characters and their story. I really couldn't. I tried, but I just couldn't since most of the characters are both uninteresting and annoying.

Helpful

read more

Due to the nature of the second season, the third season was bound to have a weaker start. Even so, with 2-cour duration it had all the time it ever needed to pick up the pace and improve, or at the very least build a solid foundation for this fourth season.... But it didn't do any of that and now we're more or less back to square one.

The classic shonen series have never exactly been the most flawless type in the arsenal, but few of them have struggled with their arc and tone shifts to the same extent with Boku no Hero Academia. While it's not uncommon that old story arcs become history and the new current arc gets the unconditional focus, it's rare to see a series which transition is this awkward.

Once again we start our newest season with a recap filler, followed by a build up phase which I'd like to metaphorically compare to the act of someone trying to restart a fusion core after it's been poisoned. It's slow, boring and drags on, and it would be faster to just shut it down entirely and try again. I find myself asking why exactly am I once again stuck at watching this series like it's a new slice of life IP when it's supposed to be a BTS on full roll and come with some type of smoothness already at this point. Instead it repeatedly falls into its own trap, repeating this cycle each new arc to a point where it has become tiresome and feels like a task. The sad part being that this level really seems to be what the series is now aiming to achieve, not even trying to be better, just settling with utter mediocrity and being okay with that. Will it ever maintain some type of stability instead of sawing up and down like Tesla's stock? At this point I very much doubt it will and, based to the lack of hype, it's safe to conclude that I am not the only one. You could literally start watching this series directly from season 4 and only miss the parts where the series was still entertaining to follow.

For years now, manga readers have been echoing that this fourth season will be the best one because it supposedly covers the best arc. While this is entirely possible in term of writing and characters, after all, there is still very little development thus far and the story board has now infinite different possible routes to take, I can't help but to be very skeptical about its delivery due to Bones' vision with the series. For some reason, our director's idea for the action sequences is to make them drag on, pause them, make them overly dramatic, play spoon-fed flashbacks from events that occured just few seconds earlier, and.. simply make them feel like a tease without any reward to be had. Why not make them like, you know, thrilling instead? Remove;tension Add;idle time! This series currently would really need some more classic shonen tropes and less of this nonsense that ruins the flow of these scenes entirely. The writing itself is still far from impressive and quite dull. "We, the selected few, are looking for this specific guy." And 2 minutes later "Oh, look, it's that guy. Sup?" The story board is just weak. If the plot was a line, what it does is put one dot next to the ongoing line and immediately connects it. There aren't many people on this planet who cannot do that. Not much room to be impressed.

To continue with the lack of development: It's really making this series problematic. When I am looking the characters now versus what they were in the beginning of season 3, I do not see much growth. In the beginning of last season, the characters were acting highly comedic and the feelings related ponder was also used as a running gag. It was lame and just a waste. During end season, the focus was in drama, and what this did was show us fractions of different sides of the cast, sides we had not seen before - like proving that these sides also exist. And now we are once again looking at characters who could be removed from their current timeline, get the "relife treatment" (current self send in the past shell) and there wouldn't be much differences to spot. Send Naruto from the beginning of The 4th Great Ninja War into Pain Saga and see how history is rewritten. Do this with Deku and be prepared to listen to Initial D's OST, more specifically 'deja vu' on repeat. ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬ It's not even a mystery~yy~!

The characters really don't seem to carry anything special with them from previous arc to next. This is a huge difference compared to other shonen titles and perhaps the reason why - at least I personally - as a viewer, am feeling very distanced from the series. It's not resonating with me on any level anymore. Be it Deku doing a smash the 9th milliont time, Bakugo yelling at 135dB or Uragravigirl being too close! with her body, none of it just has its charm anymore at this point. Rather it feels like some outcast, once-upon-a-time-famous celebrity is trying to be relevant with gimmicks that got old a decade ago. If I was the editor, I'd have adviced this guy write an arc where Deku stops being useless, Bakugo is forced to go on an anger management meeting, Uragravity actually does something to move the relationship onward -- like there's a filler I'd watch, and also give the frog girl all the screen time because she is the best girl. The series is at a point where I don't prefer the canon, even at times when it tries to distant itself from these same goofs it has already overusen.

As it is, I do believe that this season is going to improve since it's unlikely that it would dwell in its slower parts for 2 cours, but I also find it as unlikely that the series as a whole is going to improve for the better, or that I'd personally start caring again. New high peaks may occur but the same errs are bound to exist forever since the characters' lack of improvement seems to be something like a reflection of the author not learning from his own mistakes either. I'd say it's now a good time to lose hope with this and start looking for new titles to fill the shonen quota with something that has a bit more -- or preferedly; a lot more heart to it.

Helpful

read more

My Hero Academia's biggest weakness is how painfully slow the plot moves forward. We're 6 episodes into the season, and nothing has happened that couldn't have been condensed into 1 episode.

That's not to say there aren't other glaring issues like a dialogue that could be written by a 12 year old. To the point you could skip an entire scene and know what happened. But we aren't here to be blown away by dialogue, it's a shounen. We're here to see good animation, fun characters, and an intriguing plot. So do we get any of that?

Animation: 4/10

The animation quality is the same as it's been in season 1 with no progression. It seems they're content with "mediocre" to "bad". Fight scenes are very rare, and when they do occur there's a whole lot of stills with camera panning. It feels like a cop-out and the rest of the show are stills with moving mouths... where's the budget for an insanely popular show?

Characters: 1/10

So are the characters fun at least? Not really. They've been the same person re-learning "I need to be the best" in varying ways. They're all identical to who they were in Season 1. There is nothing interesting about Midoriya since he's a parrot that can only say "I need to get stronger" for 70 episodes. His arc for every season is the same because it's solely that. Everyone else is just as bad or simply forgotten about unless they want to spend 10 minutes naming them all. The humor in this show is so repetitive and childish. All of the characters suck is all I really have to say.

Plot: 2/10

But the plot must be good! Alas, it isn't. The villains screen time is so limited it's basically them doing "villain" things and what that means is... they show up on screen as stills for 5 seconds and some announcer tells you what they did and then we get to hear the heroes talk about it for 10 minutes. That or they get an actual scene and it's some of the best the show has to offer, but it ends on a "mysterious" note never to be touched up on again. Each episode ends on a "wow, this is about to get real" but it's just a cliffhanger that ends anti-climactically every time. There's no pay off, it's just forced tension. Now it's just another plot line where they get to talk about what they're going to do for 2-3 episodes to save on budget and get you "hyped" for a fight incoming. Which will most likely be underwhelming as well.

Summary: 2/10

So is it worth watching? Not really, you could skip past all the dialogue and know what they talked about(and even if you didn't) they'll bring it up in flashbacks every episode anyway. Painfully boring dialogues and humor that's mixed in serious scenes to make it so you aren't "as bored" always miss and just make it worse... I guess you could skim through episodes and wait for the pay-off episode at the end where they actually fight and the animation is either mediocre or good in places. That's about where all the budget for this show goes considering it sure as hell isn't in writing or talking mouth stills.

Helpful

read more

Since it first began airing, “My Hero Academia” has been the unwitting punching bag for joyless old dogs like me who have lost the childlike fascination with watching cartoon characters whale on each other with little rhyme or reason. Not that My Hero Academia has ever really prided itself on intricate or brutal fights worth revisiting when compared to some of its peers, because in all honesty, as of late, this anime has lacked even that to keep me motivated to continue on.

If there’s one thing that My Hero Academia’s 4th season has proven, it’s that mangaka Kohei Horikoshi has mastered the art of spinning his wheels. And that’s not to say that the production team attached to this project doesn’t share a portion of the blame, for all I know, the manga could just be THAT much better. But this score, this review, it’s not a nagging response as a disgruntled fan of the manga frustrated with the panel to frame fidelity, I don’t have that frame of reference to care all that much. I’m sure it doesn’t need to be said because the general lack of excitement for this season more or less speaks for itself, but this is the most uneven and nonessential season of the My Hero Academia anime to date.

Not counting any brief transitional arcs, Season 4 can essentially be divided into two major story arcs, the “Shie Hassaikai arc” (for brevity's sake I’ll simply refer to it as the “Overhaul arc”) as well as the “U.A. School Festival arc”. If I were to describe the essential structure of this season, it’s sort of a weird Frankenstein’s monster of the latter halves of both the Second and Third season. Cursory filler aside, the Overhaul arc doesn’t take much time to get going and after a point resigns itself as a collection of poorly strung together action sequences of varying quality. Let me just say, for as poorly handled as that License arc was in the third season as both a transition from the previous arc and as a necessary plot device, I contend the School Festival arc might be even worse.

There are plenty of fans who have dubbed this arc “filler”, which isn’t necessarily true in the literal application of the term. But the severe lack of consequence in this arc does make it feel like fluff. I’ll humor anyone who’s curious about Gentle and La Brava later.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a season of My Hero Academia without debilitating amounts of pointless character introductions, most of which you’ll probably never see again and live and die with their shallow characterization. The reverence for comic books is cool, it really is, but unlike comic books which have the benefit of recontextualization, My Hero Academia feels pointlessly overstuffed. I’m not expecting Frank Miller or Grant Morrison to write their own takes on these characters, so it just feels like Horikoshi is overpopulating this world for the sake of it (I will gladly eat my crow if more manga like Vigilantes are green-lit).

One issue I have with the way Horikoshi writes characters is the utilitarian manner in which he will introduce and then dispose of them like they never mattered all that much I.e., scapegoating. This happens a few times throughout this season, one of which is with Mirio. With the way the kid was gassed up by his peers and specifically by Nighteye for being more deserving of the torch that All Might left behind than Deku, it was a clear path to this kid’s demise.

The obvious parallel you can draw with the Overhaul arc is with the Hero Killer arc but it also heavily treads territory that the Raid arc did in Season 3. Mirio is essentially a stand-in for All Might, both of them being used in the exact same way. Have both of them fight the villain, have both of them lose their powers, have both of them reaffirm Deku’s goal as the “Number 1 Hero”. Not to diminish Mirio’s character, he’s likable enough on his own, but his lack of presence in the story up until that point only makes his story beat vastly inferior to All Might’s (and it’s already annoying enough that they were used in the same way). Nighteye is handled in a similar fashion. The show expects you to care about what ultimately ends up transpiring but barely gives you a chance to even digest his character before it happens. If nothing else, it’s pitiful.

Eri is the latest addition in a long line of prepubescent power-sources (lolis specifically) to be exploited for the protagonist’s use. You’ve seen it in Berserk. You’ve seen it in the Monogatari Series. You’ve seen it in the A Certain Series. I get it though, I get the fun hacky appeal of having a little girl be the source of immense power, it’s “ironic” if not just a bit on the nose. The issue is, compared to characters like Schierke and Shinobu, Eri’s character starts and ends with her status as a plot device. She has no personality, not much of a backstory, not much of anything really, but the story expects you to care and buy into the other characters’ investment in saving her because she’s a little girl. It’s such an easy out.

Deku in Season 4 is like that beater car you bought with your first two paychecks in high school. 6 years later and now it has a tacky spoiler, phone mount, and a full tank of gas. At this point, you can’t be bothered to change anything about it because you’re just going to get rid of it when given the chance. Deku in Season 4 is just Deku from Season 1, except now he has cup-holders. I get that the intent was to make his conflict simple and relatable for the audience by having him overcome his bullies as well as the societal role handed to him because of his shortcomings. But all of that hard work and studying is undercut by the number of plot conveniences and hand-outs hoisted upon him. For as hard as Horikoshi tries to make this kid relatable, his character arc feels as insincere as Naruto finding out he was kid Jesus.

That said, Horikoshi, please, You have A TON of characters in Class 1-A that have yet to do much of anything, stop needlessly proliferating this fucking cast like a pack of rabbits in heat and use the characters you’ve already established for crying out loud! Bakugo for instance, he had a great character arc that culminated fantastically in the previous season! He’s an afterthought in this season!

The conflict in My Hero Academia just isn’t palpable. Cutting up Deku's fingers and giving him a sunburn on his arm just isn’t good enough for me. Having All Might fall from grace is a given, but a good step in the right direction but that’s not enough to hold things over for much longer. There is no tension in this series, it’s only a step-up from shows like Fairy Tail that tout friendship and love as a badge of honor. Nothing of significant consequence happens in this show’s story, and Season 4 perhaps the worst offender of that notion to date.

In itself, the entire concept of having these kids do work-study/interning for agencies that will very likely throw them in perilous situations is just asinine to me. The series made it a point of conflict in the past to highlight the school's reckless abandon for security as a fundamental flaw in the system, so why leave these kids to handle these situations on their own when death is clearly a looming danger? I get that these kids are hot-shots with provisional licenses but why leave Mirio, Tamaki, Deku, Kirishima, etc. to their own devices when they are clearly dealing with literal Yakuza who are out for their heads at any given chance? For consistency’s sake, isn’t that an incredible oversight in terms of the school’s security policy? Does this piece of plastic essentially wipe the school’s hands clean of any responsibility if a death were to occur while a student is on assignment interning for an agency?

You know, maybe it’s just the child murder renaissance we’re living in (I’m American if you couldn’t tell), but it’s not like Horikoshi has a limited roster to choose from. It’s a simple solution and admittedly would probably only put a bandaid on this series’ several chronic ailments, but having the guts to kill a major character from 1-A can be spun in a variety of ways. Imagine the fallout and backlash this would cause for the school. Imagine how Deku would internalize this. That’s an interesting conflict to work with, and as I already hammered down on, this show is in DESPERATE need of decent conflict and tension.

Oh God, I haven’t even touched base with the villains yet.

I have my reservations about Stain, his paper-thin platitudes, and the very obvious holes in his flawed ideology, but I could buy into his persona as a delusional loon with a few screws loose. Overhaul doesn’t really have much of an excuse.

The dude comes in and kills one of Shigaraki’s goons (good, Shigaraki and the League of Villains get on my fucking nerves) and clearly carries himself with a menacing cool. Another notable aspect to his character is his overtly paradoxical ideology. So you’re telling me the guy considers Quirks a plague upon humanity (setting aside the fact that he himself heavily relies on his own Quirk) and his master plan is to create a vaccine as well as a vaccine for the vaccine...because Yakuza? Overhaul is a joke, to put it bluntly, and to further rub salt in the wound, he lets a loser like Shigaraki get the best of him.

Gentle and La Brava have been both hated and lauded for their pitiable backstories and relatability. If it wasn’t made clear by La Brava spelling it out during their fight, Gentle is essentially a “this could’ve been you” character for Deku. Gentle lacked the aptitude and ambition to make the cut as a pro-hero and spirals into depression when he is ostracized from society after making a miscalculation. Listen, I appreciate the sentiment and under the supervision of a better writer, this very well could’ve been an effective dynamic, but does anyone really expect the thematic underpinnings of these two characters’ stories to significantly alter the trajectory of the story or Deku’s character?

The story has already moved on without them like they never mattered. It’s like Horikoshi lacks the self-awareness to realize that these villains deeply undermine Deku as a character. I get such mixed messages as to what the point of these characters was because they only make Deku look like even more of a child of privilege. Was that the message he was trying to convey by introducing and disposing of these villains? That if you hit a rut in life but still have that fire in your belly to realize your dreams and “be a hero” maybe some venerable benefactor will literally drop from the heavens and bail you out? It’s depressing to think about.

Fittingly, there were plenty of power-point reminiscent montage stills of characters just doing things, really dialed back my clock to high school when I would do the same thing. I guess that was the point since they’re in high school? But hey, at least Horikoshi’s designs are perdy to look at. I haven’t fully kept up on news as far as this season’s production schedule but it’s worth noting that this season was produced in tandem with a film (that I’ve yet to see) which apparently affected which animators were available to work on the TV series. Maybe my eye isn’t trained enough to catch the subtleties in the key-frames or perhaps my lack of investment in the manga makes this a point of contention that just flew over my head, but this season seemed pretty par for the course for the previous seasons. If there’s one thing I’ll say about Horikoshi, it’s that he’s a fantastic character designer and a pretty talented artist, even if the anime doesn’t properly translate his panel-work.

Horikoshi has gone on record taking breaks for “research”, but in reality, I feel that research is really just to buy himself time to conjure more story. For lack of a better phrase, it really does just feel like he’s making shit up as he goes along or rehashing the same story with a shallow coat of paint. This season is so under-written that you could basically just read a list of a handful of notable bullet points and skip the entire thing without missing so much as a good action sequence. Perhaps I’m overthinking it, but to that end, I’d say that cutting this show slack is only doing a disservice to the countless number of well-wrought comic books and battle shonen to choose from in this modern era. Some may call this a predictable review, and to them I say, it’s only appropriate to fight fire with fire.

Helpful

read more

Do you remember the times when BnHA was actually good?
Do you remember the times when BnHA tried something different?
Do you remember the times when BnHA had touching moments?

Those times are now gone. BnHA, which used to be separated from other shounen-action series with the Hero Academy concept, chose to be an ordinary shounen-action series instead of focusing on its most prominent concept. In the third season, it gave us some signals about that, but I still wanted to believe. I wanted to believe that the Hero Academy concept will not be put aside and this series will focus on it again with its fourth season, but it did not happen. Without the Hero Academy concept, BnHA is just an ordinary shounen-action series, but it still chose to puts aside its only unique (at least unique for anime shows) element and became an ordinary series. I'm really sad for Boku no Hero Academia.

~STORY~
Boku no Hero Academia 4th Season has two major arcs. The first of these arcs, "A Yakuza Who Wears The Worst Mask In The World, Detains A Little Girl For His Own Benefits And Our Heroes Are Trying To Save That Little Girl" looks like an interesting idea at the first sight, but its execution is terrible. This damn arc could only last around seven episodes, but we watched it thirteen episodes because of the terrible pace. The main reason for this arc to progress so slowly is unnecessary dialogues and unimportant background story details. Because of these unnecessary details, fights were unnecessarily long and dull, except for Mirio and Deku's fight scenes. However, Mirio's fight scene, which had the potential to be the best fight of the entire series, is wasted because of horrible animation quality; but he still managed to carry an entire arc alone thanks to his heroic theme.
Our second major arc, "1-A Class Trying to Perform Stage Performance at the Culture Festival and Meanwhile, A Man That Excluded From The Society (Gentle) and His Dwarf Assistant (La Brava) Trying to Ruin This Festival" lasts six episodes and all the scenes without Gentle & La Brava are below mediocre. It is both funny and sad that these two characters who are here just to show Deku's new technique in practice and to get some action scenes while students are preparing for the culture festival are the best elements of the arc. However, the main reason why these two are good is only La Brava's backstory and love theme; there's not much thing that Gentle is doing. The performance of the 1-A class at the cultural festival and scenes of the preparation for that performance are extremely boring. Because, due to the scenes of La Brava and Gentle, we can't see the scenes where students are prepared for the performance, and therefore we are not getting excited about this performance. Also, the performance itself is also pretty bad; I would rather watch Mineta's screaming for five minutes in a row instead of watching 1-A Class' culture festival performance. This culture festival event could have been worse than the first half of the season if it wasn't for the part that Eri smiles while watching 1-A students' show. If you want to see a good performance at school, you can watch the first five episodes of Kono Oto Tomare. In this way, you can better understand how awful the performance of 1-A class is.

Major arcs were bad and boring, but there was something that made me annoy more: What a terrible school UA is. Has UA done anything remarkable for its students since "Two Students vs. One Teacher" training at the end of the second season? The training camp was a disaster because camp ended with the kidnapping of Bakugo. The training scenes on the school campus were not different from physical education classes of normal high schools: Supervisor teacher rarely advised students and the students were trying to learn something with their own efforts. The places where these students really learn something were internships and not every student had a chance to do it. If this is the status of the best hero school in Japan, they have a lot of troubles as a nation in the BnHA's universe.

~CHARACTERS~
Although BnHA characters seem to be developing very slowly, it's actually the fault of the story. Because in this series only seven months have passed during the four seasons after Deku entered UA. Naturally, the characters didn't develop so much in seven months. If the story did not progress unnecessarily slowly at some points, our main characters might have already moved to the second grade now. But unfortunately, we are stuck in the first grade with the main characters. I hope this series doesn't skip directly to the episodes where Deku is the number one hero, because I want to watch the developments of these characters properly.
Also, shouldn't All Might be a father figure for Deku? Why did this man do almost nothing for Deku during the fourth season? All he did for Deku was saying a few worthless words that seemed deep, and giving a new tip on how to use his power. The worst thing about that is the fourth season was a season where Deku needed life lessons. The boy was almost in psychological trauma because he couldn't save Eri in the first quarter of the season, but the only thing All Might did was saying; "Sorry Deku, I couldn't help you." I'd rather have a father figure like Endeavor instead of All Might.

~ART & SOUND~
Another bad aspect of this season is art quality. Recently, the second season of another Bones anime, Mob Psycho 100, was out and there was a huge decrease in drawing quality (even though the animation quality was still very good). Since most viewers loved the second season more in terms of story and characters, they ignored or didn't notice that decrease so there wasn't much problem for Bones. However, Bones wasn't that lucky at BnHA. Unlike Mob Psycho, people were very upset with Bones on BnHA 4th Season, because of the decrease in both animation and story quality compared to previous seasons. And I, as someone who is frustrated that people never talked about the decrease in drawing quality in Mob Psycho 100 II, enjoyed watching people get angry at Bones because of the BnHA 4th Season. Especially Mirio vs. Overhaul scene was a complete fiasco, the scene that should have been the best scene of the season lost most of its impact because of PowerPoint presentation quality animations. And when symmetry problems were added to the decrease in animation quality, BnHA, which was a watchable show even in the boring arcs thanks to the art quality, had a sudden collapse. Also, the drop in technical quality is not only limited with art, there is also a decrease in sound quality too. Although voice actings and sound effects are still good, soundtracks are not as effective as before because of their usage in this season. In the previous seasons, even on a scene about a character that I didn't care about, I was able to get emotional just because of soundtracks, but that didn't happen in this season (except for the last episode).

~ENJOYMENT~
Erstwhile, even though it was an average shounen-action anime, BnHA was separating itself from other shounen-action shows thanks to the Hero Academy concept. But with this season, it turned into an ordinary shounen-action show. However, I will continue to watch this anime; because I want to watch this series slowly sink to the bottom like a sloth in a swamp.

Take care and stay healthy!

Helpful

read more

Im going to be straight forward and preface this by saying, I read the manga and am all caught up so I don't remember all the details from the Overhaul arc, and my review for the most part is overall.

I believe this is probably one of the best seasons of bnha so far. The overhaul arc is a lot darker than the rest of the show however the execution of the story-to me atleast- is amazing.

In this arc, they only focus on I think 7 UA students total, of course Midoriya and Mirio being the top 2. Personally I love the way they showed the 1-A Students with their upperclassmen + pro hero, I think it was an amazing insight to see how the select few would be as pro hero's and overall really helps deepen that watcher-character connection.

Overall alongside the story, characters and the AMAZING MUSIC of course! bnha s4 is one of my favorite seasons of the show and omg Overhauls theme is so sick 😂

Helpful

read more

My hero academia, after having an explosion in its popularity while season 2 was airing, is arguably the most popular shounen right now that is not One Piece. And the hype is mostly deserved be it for having a well-balanced cast of characters, or for the fantastically animated and choreographed fights, the latter of which had a massive dip in quality this season. This entire season does not live up to the extreme hype perpetuated by the manga community.

The animation is very stiff even relying on still frames at times; the characters feel like they haven’t progressed at all since the beginning of season 3 even though some of them went through huge developments; the main antagonist, Overhaul, isn’t explored through introspection, and the potential he had is lost when reliance on flashbacks is preferred for the “justification” of his motives.

Every season of MHA can be broken down into two sections, viz. the villains attacking UA, and the villains planning on attacking UA, and this season is no different. The season can be split into two parts – Overhaul arc, and the Cultural Festival arc. Herein lies the pacing problem of the show, the splitting of a season into two works for seasonal runtime but in reality, the actual plot, the story that it set out to tell, has been lost somewhere. It has been 88 episodes since the debut of the first episode and we have seen very little plot progression. The overhaul arc was unnecessarily long, eating up 17 episodes when it could’ve been truncated to 12. The said arc, though entertaining, did little for almost all characters, except Kirishima and Mirio, and was of even less import in the big scheme of things.

For me the characters in MHA have always been the highlight. The characters are quintessential shounen characters but are imbued with subtle nuances and traits, but after witnessing them in this season I feel like they’re slowly regressing back to being just your average shounen protagonists and sidekicks. Bakugo for example, who had a change of personality in the preceding season, is more or less back to his previously angry self for no reason. Sure, there are changes to his prior disposition, but they don’t seem to follow up. Midoriya had some interesting moments in S3, for example the aftereffects of his fights with Muscular and Bakugo were enduring to watch, but this season he has reverted back to being the character who says “I want to become stronger” a lot. Kirishima and Mirio get some good character work done on them and I’m thankful for that. Kirishima’s backstory with Mina did feel like a plot device as we’ve almost never seen them interact as friends on any prior occasion, but suddenly it’s revealed that Mina was in the same middle school as Kirishima? I call BS.

Sir Nighteye, Mirio’s mentor and All Might’s former sidekick is introduced this season, who had chosen Mirio to be the successor to All Might and was against the fact that All Might had passed on One for All to Midoriya. This leads to the development of some great character dynamics between Midoriya and Nighteye, which, unfortunately were only touched upon superficially. It had potential to lay solid groundwork for Midoriya’s development, but no such task is undertaken by the author.

One unfounded complaint I’ve heard about this season is that only a few characters get the focus while the rest are discarded which is a problem only if you see it as one. Other characters do get the spotlight at various instances in the previous seasons, but the seasonal nature of the show makes it seem like characters are forgotten at times. Take the Chimera Ant Arc in Hunter x Hunter for example. In this arc two of the main protagonists are not given any screen time for 60 straight episodes and no one batted an eye.

As for the main antagonist this season, Overhaul, was neither exceptional nor bad, he was just OK. He didn’t stand out as much as Stain did, but he felt like a rehashed version of him. I liked Overhaul aka Chisaki as a character, but his motivations are baseless and his ‘means justify the end’ scream hypocrisy. He proclaims that quirks are diseases and should not be allowed to transfer on the next generation, but at the same time invents drugs to increase the potency of one’s quirk.

Speaking of antagonists, it doesn’t feel like the main antagonist of the series, Shigaraki Tomura, has done much progressing since the beginning of the series. I really hope he gets some major role in the upcoming seasons, because I’m honestly starting to get tired of him. At least he’s stopped scratching his neck and being pissed about anything and everything, which is a plus, I guess.

One of the most disappointing aspects of this season has been the lackluster animation. The fights don’t have the fluidity they possessed in the earlier seasons. For the climax of one of the biggest fights this season, Mirio vs Overhaul, we get an amazing slideshow which anyone could’ve made given they had access to the manga, photoshop and MS Powerpoint. They totally made up for it in the succeeding fight, but the stagnant animation and lack of music towards the climax of the previously mentioned fight really takes away much of the poignancy off the payoff.

The animation is by no means bad, but it’s not what I’ve come to expect form My Hero Academia. I hope they’ll fix it in the Blu-ray.

The music is great as always. I wasn’t a fan of either the first or the second opening and ending songs, but that’s just me. Rest of the music, though misused at times, was great.

For me, this season of MHA has been the weakest season yet. I’m more disappointed in the writing and pacing in this season than I am in the animation.

Helpful

read more

Boku no Hero Academia 4 was one of the most underwhelming of the series I’ve seen yet but also the most exciting season I’ve seen yet. The transition between Season 3 and Season 4 was mainly the cause of the first arc being underwhelming and awkward to even begin with. Despite this, the series was still able to barely push out of the boulder it trapped itself in and put momentum into it.

Despite the first arc being called dragged out by many people, I would beg to differ. The first arc may not have been as straightforward as how a shounen anime should have been, I believe it was the right choice to have done it this way. The grief Midoriya and the others felt, the stress and effort they were put under when strategizing for this invasion were all build-up to the climax of the arc. They poured all their effort into strategizing for the invasion and it portrays how both sides were going to deal with the opposing parties. The determination and grit Lemillion and Deku held wouldn’t have been portrayed well enough without the so-called “unnecessary drag”. Eri wasn’t the only one suffering, everybody was. It was the right move to have portrayed that.

Putting the considerably unstable and controversial first arc aside, we reached the second arc—the School Festival Arc. Well, basically my favorite arc every anime that ever had it. However, I really liked how Boku no Hero Academia moved with this arc. Believe me or not, I’m not a big fan of battle shounen. That also goes to show that I’m not the biggest fan of Boku no Hero Academia either. However, one thing that caught my attention the most is the festival arcs. They do exceptionally well in that factor, and this School Festival arc allowed me to ensure that.

In the Sports Festival, they were able to portray and develop the students of Class 1A. One of the notable ones would be Todoroki, his backstory heavily portrayed who he is now, and his battle with Midoriya changed him. There are a lot more but I want to talk about it but this is the wrong review for it, so I’ll hold back my words and use it for a more appropriate occasion. Now back to the School Festival, I loved how this time they portrayed and developed the more underrated characters, one of them especially is Jirou—best girl. She felt unappreciated and this was the perfect time for her to shine. But most importantly, this arc’s main focus wasn’t just about having fun, it was also to make a certain girl smile again. To get her out of the self-deprecation she is in and the stress she’s put herself under, just to see Eri’s precious smile again was something that just made me go, “TAKE MY MONEY“. I’ve been there before, emotionally scarred and ended up being a self-deprecating freak. People may find her smiling again being trivial and some may not even be concerned about it, but to me, I treasure it a lot. Being able to stand up again and face humanity is a great feat.

We also had a small follow up with Todoroki and the rest about their licensing exam, which also gave us a quick outlook on what’s happening to the world. My favorite one being quirks getting more and more complex. Reason? It’s realistic, just like how humans constantly evolve, get smarter and make more complex things; Quirks constantly evolve and start to give itself more and more variety, with the result being those children. This can potentially be an arc in the future and I’m curious to see how they deal with it.

Overall, Boku no Hero Academia Season 4 has its share of flaws, one thing I think they’ll still have to work on is transitioning. However besides that, the OP and EDs are as great as ever, the characters are still as fun as ever. And most importantly, you’ll have a blast watching it!

On a side note, stay healthy, stay at home and keep watching anime!

Helpful

read more

If you've watched any of the previous seasons of BnHA, then you know what to expect by this point. The animation is still pretty decent and seems on point. At least, nothing has stood out aside from a goofy moment or two. VAs seem on point as well. The usual characters are back with all their glory and we'll be getting some interesting developments for some of the favourites moving forward. We already have seen some developments and a lot of reveals so look forward to more of that.

The current arc should also be great for anime-only watchers and will have you feeling a wide range of emotions as our heroes try and navigate their way around society, realizing that things are not as easy as anticipated. After all, society is quite complex.

All in all, this has been a great watch so far!

Helpful

read more

If I were to resume this season of MHA in one word it would be : Boring.

*This review may contain mild SPOILERS*



As someone who loved last season and cried my balls out I came in this season excited and boy was I disappointed. I liked the first episode. I thought it did a good job of closing Midoriya and All might arc. Or so I thought. First of all I didn't read the manga and I don't really care about what happened there, it has no value in an anime review.

- Characters :

Midoriya is the main character, he's supposed to take the mantle of All might and become the new symbol of justice. That's something that has been talked about for the last 3 seasons. Why is it that in the 4th season he's still struggling to know who he is as a hero and what he should do? What is Midoriya's value to the overall story? I'm seriously asking. It's been the same since season. I always found his relationship with All Might pretty toxic but that's a subject for another discussion. Please at the end of this season make him grow up, take firm and smart decisions by himself and be a real hero. Also his power is awesome so just having him do the smash thing over and over again is lazy.

Funny how we are introduced to new characters without even completing any of the previous characters arc. Everyone is still the same goofy boring person they were in season 1. Except frog girl and pervy dude, I like them. What's worst with these new characters is that someone at the studio thought it would be smart to put in the middle of a fight a freaking backstory. Why would you do that? Do we need to know how each and every one of them was treated as a child to understand them? Do we even have to understand someone who's gonna have 10 min of screen time and then disappear forever?

The only lovable characters this season are the villains. I even thought it would be the focus. I thought we would see how they operate, understand better their convictions. They did a little bit of that but not enough. It's just someone does X thing. X thing is bad. Only villains do bad things. Therefore someone is a villain.

Plot :

Who wrote this thing? What was their objective? With a world as rich as MHA world with so many powers and possibilities why did they choose to go this way? Eleven episode in and nothing special happened. I kid you not they spend most of the episodes talking. There is that one fight episode where they seriously spent 80% of the run time explaining powers and doing backstories. It went like this :

- Here's this random hero, his power is this and that and he can also do that other thing.
- What? you mean he can do this and that and that other thing as well?
- Indeed, but only when this and that condition are met.
- So you mean this and that condition are met right now?
* camera shift to random hero*
- "Now I will use the power of this and that and that other thing to defeat him. Luckily for me the condition for this and that are met so now I can unleash my full power"
*shows 10s fight*

Even the villains big plan which was teased in the beginning of the season seems like something that came out of a kid's mind. They happened to find something that happens to do that other thing that prevent the hero from winning. But thanks to the power of friendship the hero will win. I know it's a shounen but gosh...

Too much stills, it's a shounen I want to see some action. Stop with the powerpoint anime !

I don't know if the second half of the season will be better but so far it's bad. And we haven't even seen Midoriya fight yet. You showed us since Season 1 that the show is "Midoriya & friends". Why make it "Random new characters & Midoriya" now?

Do better.

Helpful

read more

The annual tradition continues and that means, we have another season of hero and villains in this franchise we should all be familiar with by now: My Hero Academia. With the expanding roster, this is a franchise that has been adding its legacy to catch up to the manga at every chance it gets. But with all the chances it has cashed on, isn’t it ironic that the more we see this show, the weaker it gets? As someone who has been following this anime from the very beginning back in 2016, this season hit me like a hammer on the hand. And that’s not a pleasant feeling.

We start out with a seemingly long recap event episode because the season decided it’s suitable to retell the plot most fans are familiar with. Shounen adaptations are known for this cliché but My Hero Academia seems to let the narrative run its mouth with no shame. Nonetheless, we are soon given the circumstances of a new threat in the form of a character named Overhaul. He leads a group known as the Eight Precepts of Death and acts as one of the major antagonists this season. What he has is an ambition, a personal goal this season to wipe out individuals with quirks. This seemingly goal is driven by his deep desire to reform the world and in essence, allow him to rule with dominance. The first half of the season deals with this looming threat in society as his ideals and plans clashes with the heroes.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll realize that My Hero Academia consists of a large cast of heroes made up of unique individuals with special abilities. Among the main cast is a young boy named Deku and up to this season, he has evolved into a confident hero with an identity. He’s making a name of himself in both the public and underworld for his deeds and even earned the respect of powerful heroes such as All Might. In this season, he also catches the attention of Nighteye, an intimidating pro hero with great intelligence but also one shrouded with mystery. And as the season progresses, Deku once again gets caught up into complicated affairs with events of the dark side. We soon meet Eri, a young girl who is an absolute essential to Overhaul’s grand plans. Eri’s innocence and vulnerability shows that Overhaul is willingly to do anything to make his dream come true. Unfortunately, she becomes a trapped animal just waiting to be used like an experimental weapon. A main objective involves the heroes trying to prevent Overhaul’s plans from succeeding and also free Eri from her cage.

But how should the audience judge Eri? On the surface level, she’s a vulnerable girl with a dark past. It doesn’t take long for us to realize that she is fearful not just for society but herself. The quirk she possesses causes great psychological distress to the point that she is socially withdrawn from people. That is…until she meets Deku. Fate seems to designate him to change Eri’s future of becoming an experimental weapon. Deku’s ambition to help Eri see the light and rebuilding her life is a complicated process. It takes time, commitment, and is a personal challenge for Eri. Given her age, she’s at the stage in life where there are limitless choices. If she makes the wrong choices, she could become a person worse she is now. But of course, Deku is there to guide her to make the right choices. That’s right, this season has this theme about choices in which characters follow their paths. It’s a recycled concept since the beginning and honestly, Season 4 doesn’t step up to the plate with its storytelling. Even with returning characters such as Toga, Twice, Eijiro, All Might, Fat Gum, and others getting some occasional spotlight, the show never seems to take risks to be more different from its previous seasons. In respect, it’s easy to feel bored when watching this season with the oversaturated character cast. In some cases, it injects elements of humor with comedic episodes. These include the heroes interacting with kids or character gags such as Bakugo’s short temper. But is that what the fans really want?

Honestly, it’s an ambiguous question but after running over three seasons, My Hero Academia feels like it’s overstayed its welcome. Let’s face it, the show took its hero elements to the point where there’s not much more it can expand on. Or at least from face value, this became a season that’s hard to get excited about. There are fans that have said this season had potential to be the best one but to me, it’s far from the truth. Maybe if you’re a hardcore fan of the franchise, this could be like a Christmas present. But for most people, My Hero Academia Season 4 seems more like a show for fans to see what else is really new rather than what to get excited for. Sure, there are some new characters introduced but they don’t make a heavy impact in the show together. The biggest culprit is Eri, an underdeveloped character that needs more time to really appreciate. Likewise, you’re probably not going come out of this season with a memorable quote besides the iconic ‘Plus Ultra’.

With four seasons and a fifth one announced for future broadcasting, this is a franchise that I think people needs to start keeping their hype in check. I used to really enjoy the previous seasons but this sequel has showed me that it contains haunting weaknesses. And while I do appreciate this series for making the hero theme more popular for the anime medium, time has done its damage in the creativity realm. That is to say, you can certainly watch season 4 and it has its moments. But getting excited about it? That’s sadly a bit out of reach.

Helpful

read more

It pains me how much My Hero Academia's animation is declining.

Season 2 and the first half of season 3 really were the best in this regard. I'd rate those a 9, easily. Season 3's second half, however, was a lot like this season in terms of decreasing quality. Even though the story and characters are still enjoyable, the fact that one of the story's most important fights this season has been reduced to a cheap slideshow a la Food Wars really shows just how deeply producing a filler movie at the same time as a canon season hurts the TV production.

Now, I do like this show, and it's really not garbage by any means. It doesn't warrant a trashy rating unless you're just on a circlejerk of hating popular mainstream shounen series. But even though My Hero Academia's popularity is at a high, it's undeniable that the anime's quality is waning.

And really, even if the characters and story are good, and if the sound and art are just as okay as they previously were-- anime is anime, and the animation is most important. It's obviously less fluid and inspired now that most of the more talented staff is set to working on the filler movie(s). That aside, one thing I can definitely praise 100% is the voice acting. It continues to remain strong even in the face of weaker animation.

As a manga reader, it's sorely disappointing to me that this show's animation isn't as good as it used to be. It sucks knowing that things can be great, but just isn't anymore.

I can only hope that future arcs I actually care more about won't be overshadowed by a third movie's production.

Helpful

read more

This is my first time ever writing a review so I’m kinda nervous. With that in mind let’s jump into this.
I really enjoyed MHA 2 and 3. It wasn’t anywhere near close to the same level as Hunter X Hunter when it comes to shounens that I enjoyed watching. The characters were enjoyable, the animation was stunning and the score was pleasant to listen to. Unfortunately none of those features are present in this season from what I’ve seen and it’s a shame. Let’s dive in shall we?

(Note: this review contains spoilers. You have been warned.)

The show starts out with our hero Izuku Midoriya looking for an internship. He winds up with Sir Nighteye, a former partner of All Might’s, along with Mirio Togata a member of the famous big three of the UA. He later gets roped into helping take down a crime lord named Overhaul who is tearing apart his “daughter” Eri and putting her back together in order to create bullets that can permanently erase quirks. Tamaki and Kirishima, who are working under the hero Fatgum as well as Ochako Tsuyu and Nejire, who are working under the hero Ryuuko are all roped into this conflict as well as an attempt to stop Overhaul and help Deku.

With that basic premise out of the way let’s talk the characters. I’m going to start by talking about Mirio because he was quite honestly my favorite part of this show so far. Sure he’s upbeat and always cheerful but I appreciated how the show went to showcase how hard he had to train to control his quirk and his desire to save people felt a lot more believable then Deku’s. I’ll save talking about the rest of his story for later on in the review but I generally believe that it was really well done for the most part. Then there’s Tamaki. I felt that for the most part, Tamaki was a really solid character. Not perfect but he did have some good moments and great chemistry with Mirio and Fatgum. He’s nothing to amazing or noteworthy but he was good for what he was.

Sadly I can’t say the same for all of the other new characters. Fatgum and Ryuuko were both decent enough, if not very forgettable. Both of them kinda got the sideline in terms of the story and aren’t really anything special at all so there’s not much I can say about them. Nighteye on the other hand is pretty much a poor man’s Knov from Hunter X Hunter down to the design, the personality and the Shinichiro Miki voice acting. There’s nothing about him that makes me care about him and he just isn’t memorable which wouldn’t be a bad thing if it wasn’t for well…I’ll talk about that later in the review. Then we have Overhaul. Oh boy. I really don’t have anything positive to say about this character. The stuff he does is awful and he’s painted as a monster, which wouldn’t be a bad thing usually but the show tries to paint him as sympathetic throughout flashbacks and his flashbacks interrupt very serious fight scenes for no reason what so ever. Flashbacks in MHA have typically been whatever for me but this feels like the first time they became tedious to sit through. I feel like the show couldn’t decide whether he was supposed to be sympathetic or a complete and utter monster and decided to give us a bizarre messy mix of them both. And finally we have Eri. I really don’t have anything positive to say about her as a character, to be 100% honest. Her entire character exists to gain sympathy from the audience with her whole “smol, cute, traumatized, need to be protecc” thing. There’s nothing to her outside of that, no personality traits, no humanizing features and honestly? I think Nezuko had more of a personality than her. If you want to write a character the audience can properly feel sorry for and want to see happy you shouldn’t rely on their cuteness, but actual character traits to make us actually care about them.

Even if she debuted in the beginning of the show I’d like to talk about Uraraka’s decline as well. I know all of this may sound hypocritical as an Izuocha shipper but this entire season she’s only had one line, that line being Deku. She’s getting to the point were her entire character revolves around Izuku and that’s just…not good at all. What happened to wanting to make money for her parents and giving them a better life? Nah we got ships to tease. It’s so bad for her character and every time she’s on screen it’s annoying to hear her talk about only Deku and only be focused on him. As for Deku his arc is very tedious to watch as well. Why is he still learning to control his powers and wondering if he’s worthy of One for All four seasons into the show? There’s an entire scene were Nighteye claims that Mirio should’ve inherited One For All but we’ve seen this stuff before. It’s getting pretty tiring not to mention repetitive. Why can’t Izuku struggle with new things and new powers?

Then there’s how dark the plot gets. I don’t mind dark stories. I’m a huge fan of Fire Emblem 4, Madoka Magica and Hunter X Hunter 2011. What irks me about how dark this arc was, is the fact that I felt it was only that way because well…it just feels so god damn out of place. With Hunter X Hunter it didn’t just slam the Chimera Ant arc on you to the point where it felt baffling, the show had actually gone to so rather dark places in other arcs so it didn’t feel super out of place. That’s not the case with MHA. It just happens so suddenly without warning and no hits that the show would go down this route. You could argue that Ragdoll losing her quirk was pretty dark sure, but the show only really makes it an afterthought at the end of the day and Ragdoll has never been brought up again. There’s zero hints the show is going to do this and it does it so suddenly it’s just jarring.
Now onto the Overhaul fight and to talk about Mirio more. As I said above, I firmly believe that Mirio was the best character introduced in this season and it’s time to discuss why, mainly because of his sacrifice. Because the show had built up how hard he worked to control his quirk as well as his dream, seeing him throw it away for Eri was actually pretty heartbreaking and well done. He’s lost everything, all to save one little girl and he doesn’t regret it one bit. That’s what makes a true hero at the end of the day for me at the very least and it’s a very powerful scene (also to Edna Mode: you were wrong about capes). But does it last? Ha ha no it was all pointless because Mirio exits with Eri only for her to return to the battlefield. Despite everything he went through Mirio isn’t the one to become her hero and save her, Deku is and it ruins one of the best moments from the show. Everything he did was just a lead up to Deku taking the glory which I wouldn’t mind so much if the show actually acknowledged it but nope.

Oh and Nighteye dies. There’s that as well. I’m just randomly putting it in here because the show did as well. Remember when I compared him to Knov from Hunter X Hunter? The two are pretty much the exact same character but Nighteye is so much weaker there’s nothing memorable about him to care about his death. To Knov’s credit, while he wasn’t on screen much, he made every point count with some pretty damn badass moments. Nighteye doesn’t do that. He just pushes a useless “can we change the future” subplot which both X-Men and Fire Emblem Awakening did better anyways. The show expects you to care when he dies but you just aren’t able to because we’ve barely seen a thing of his character. The show wants you to feel something because they’ve killed off this character but there’s zero impact.

And finally we have the animation. I really loved the animation for Season 1, 2 and even 3 but the animation here is insanely weak. Fights are reduced to slideshows at times and everything is just so sloppy. The shading is pretty bad as well, especially when Deku is going super saiyan. I don’t blame Bones for this at all. I think that they are doing the best they can but between two movies and so many new seasons I’m starting to wonder if they’re pushing themselves too hard to get MHA content out. I’m sure no harm would be done if they paced themselves a little bit better because it’s really starting to show and it ain’t pretty.

All in all at the end of the day the rating I give the first half of this show is a 3/10. It’s just lacking and disappointing and you’d be better off with Hunter X Hunter 2011, Haikyuu, One Punch Man (not the second season) or Demon Slayer because all of those shows actually have substance.

Helpful

read more

I lost interest in MHA a while after the third season aired. Mostly because the animation got a lot worse. I never really cared for the series but it at least had cool fights to back up the show. That's not the case anymore. In this latest season the animation is really bad that I don't even know if this was actually made by Bones or not. This is definitely the ugliest Bones anime I've ever seen

The plot in this season is ok but it's completely uncalled out for. The main villains were already established and set, so why the need for another group? Not to mention they're just as generic and bland as they get, trying to control society with drugs that can enhance and delete quirks, you know, because reasons.

The first half of the show is already done and still it feels like almost nothing happened. 12 episodes and they got from the entrance of a household to the near end of it, it feels really slow. It also bothers me a lot that the characters talk a lot during the fights. It's like a punch and then they hover for 10 seconds thinking how to defeat the enemy. It works fairly in manga format but in anime it's very boring. The backgrounds during the fights are sometimes just a single coloured blur and then obviously the animation itself is just bleh.

I cannot understand how so many people love this show so much. The ratings on MAL are ridiculously high for something so mediocre.

Helpful

read more

There it is, the fourth installment of one of the most successful battle shounen of the recent years. 4 seasons and 2 movies in the spawn of 4 years is no joke. Hero Academia had the charm of being simple and for that, I respected it. I used to be a fanboy for the first 3 seasons, thinking it was one of the best recent shounen, peaking at Stain's arc and delivering a great sendoff with AFO vs OFA, and after season 3 ended, I came to realize that it wasn't as good as I initially thought, but I still respected it for it's simplicity.

It wasn't until Season 4 came that everything fell apart and I started to realize how the small issues that were present before started to mass, draining the enjoyment and love I once had with this series. You see, there's nothing wrong on aiming for something different, the problem is, that many things that Season 4 introduced, were introduced way too late and/or felt like a spit to the face. Suddenly, the simplicity I praised on this anime, vanished, and every detail on the plot started to be spoon fed to you as if you were mentally ill to the point is obnoxious. I understand the point of adding flashbacks and monologues, that's important when it comes to the manga, because manga lacks animation, so it's understandable that they add the thought process of the characters and what are they thinking on certain scenarios, however, when it comes to anime, you can rely more on "show, don't tell" instead of relying on monologues and flashbacks to explain what's happening. We can see what's happening, we know what the characters are thinking by looking at their reaction, there's no need to keep showing the same flashbacks over and over again. You may debate whether or not the audience that this anime is aiming for needs it or not, but I refuse to think that teenagers need to be constantly told what a character is thinking to understand what's happening. Nighteye's flashbacks were exhausted to the point it was obvious what was going to happen, because, if you remember, Deku is the one narrating his own story, so we know as a fact that he's going to succeed no matter what. All emotional weight Nighteye could've had is thrown to the drain by this fact. His quirk should have been only movement prediction rather than future sight. The only way that could've worked were if Nighteye's future sight wasn't put on Deku, but rather, on another character that doesn't have plot armor and could actually had the risk of dying, like Mirio for example.

Now that I talk about it, remember when I said that this season felt like a spit to the face? Mirio, is part of this problem, not because I hate him or anything, but because it's crystal clear that he should have been the main character since day one, it shadows Deku in every way and his quirk, while it doesn't rely on random power ups, is the best when it comes to skills, it's a matter of seeing how bravely Mirio fought against Overhaul. This isn't just about Mirio, Gentle, while I hated him for being a shitty excuse of a villain, still had a better and understandable background story than Daddy Issues Shigaraki, if Gentle were a Day 1 villain, I probably wouldn't have hated him. Sadly, just like Stain, Mirio and Gentle are just disposable plot devices for Deku.

This season also fell on the same mistakes many battle shounen do (specially, recent battle shounen) and it's the poor power balance these series have. I once praised the creativity behind quirks and how I thought it was a great power system, boy I was wrong. It felt in the same problem Re:Creators had, there's barely any control to it, it was never properly explained, and, because of that, broken and overpowered quirks is a thing. Let's take Hunter x Hunter for example, it's power system is very open and wide, but it's restricted to the user and it's type and achieving incredible powers has a lot of consequences, it's only through long long training that Gon and Killua were capable of improving a lot without random power ups, not a single character in HxH felt broken and/or over powered with no reason. Ever since AFO vs OFA, Hero Academia kept adding over powered stuff for the fun of it. Deku's fight against Overhaul was extremely insulting as it was a battle of insane powers rather of skills: Overhaul transforming himself into a giant while Deku had a battery on his back that was able to restore him, making him able to use his powers to the max without breaking his bones. It was just a flashy fight of insane powers clashing with each other with absolutely no value at all, Bones then relies on adding cheap audiovisual value in an attempt to make this fight memorable, but backfires, as the whole fight isn't even tense at all, specially since we know Deku succeeds. All the budget should have gone towards Mirio's fight rather than Deku. There is this short middle arc for the ones who failed the license exam, which is one of the most ridiculous things I've seen when it comes to power balance, can someone explain me, how the heck does some kids have full control of crazy abbilities and better thought process than heroes in training?

Another big problem of this season, is that it keeps introducing more and more and more characters, which, if done right, shouldn't be a problem, however, we already have a large cast of characters, which, not even half of them are relevant and aren't really fleshed out properly, yet, this anime introduces way more characters, shadowing those that were already established, and even if they get their spotlight, it arrives way too late. If, we had a smaller cast, this could've worked way better, that way characters wouldn't be left out and development would feel rewarding. Giving several characters a tiny bit of development each time the story feels like remembering them isn't a good way to develop or even try to add depth to a character. There is a good chunk of characters that doesn't add ANYTHING to the plot, and makes me think, how the likes of Mineta or the Invisible girl approved the hero test while someone like Gentle didn't. It just doesn't make sense and it's heavily contrived in favor of shitty comic relief and wasted potential.

Talking about Comedy, while it is a very subjective topic, making a joke by explicitly making a character point it out ISN'T BY ANY MEANS FUNNY, it actually ruins the visual joke which are all lame and repetitive anyway. Recent battle shounen comedy heavily relies on doing silly faces and very predictable jokes that are often out of place.

The only thing left out to talk about is the animation, which took a massive downgrade of still frames that were already happening since Season 3. I know there was a movie in the making, but that's not excuse for doing a power point presentation. The scene I'm talking about is Mirio's fight, which entirely consisted on still frames, specially the quirkless Mirio part. Many people excuses this by saying that all they got in the manga was a black panel of Deku Narrating what happened, but that's not an excuse. David Production did a 1 minute lenght of 4 small manga panels for Vento Aureo, so why couldn't Bones do it?

If only this anime had stuck to it's main simplicity instead of aiming for a more ambitious approach, things could've gone better, what I got in return was a disjointed ambitious project filled with plot holes, plot devices, conveniences, wasted potential for ideas that could've worked since day one and many other small issues that made this season a complete disappointment.

Helpful

read more

I had so much hype coming for into this season. The manga had these moments where I was in tears because of the hype. Now up to episode 11, I'm utterly disappointed, specifically animation-wise. I guess releasing a movie the same time you're doing a show wasn't the brightest idea for Bones. What could have been potentially the best fight of the series has turned into a slideshow. This adaptation just lacks so much. Some details and key moments are missing as well. A picture animation slideshow of the manga with a great background music could've done better. The studio just didn't gave justice on the key moments that were potentially be the reason as to why this anime could become a classic. They wasted an amazing arc on disappointing animation. It just feels so lackluster compared to earlier seasons. I guess we're gonna be back in the trope where shonen mangas are superior than the anime adaptations. But for real, this season is a tad bit disappointing so far. Especially that one fight I was so excited about where I waited years to come into fruition. Guess I was just underwhelmed comparing the hype previous seasons game. Animation can actually make or break a story. It did break for me on this one.

Helpful

read more

Boku No Hero Academia or My Hero Academia is the most typical shounen anime possible. The motto of our main character Izuku Midoriya(Deku) is also like other typical shounen anime. His goal is to get strong enough so that he can reach a level where he can save everyone with a smile.Then why is this different?Why is this always the most hyped anime of each season?
The reason is it's story telling.It's gradual character building.Explosiveness of each ark.And undeniably those mind blowing use of sound effects.From the beginning of the anime we all knew that Deku would be the no.1 hero. But the gradual progress of his growth is so satisfying and soothing that you will become one with Deku.
This season is mostly about the result of Deku's growth till Season 3 .How he implements what he has learned, how sharp is his sense of justice and thrive to protect everyone.In an honest opinion season 3 was BNHA's best season till now. If you want to match the story with previous season and wish for season 4 to reward you with that same level of emotional satisfaction you will be disappointed. This season their battles are back to back and less impactful.The beginning of this season won't award you as much as it did in S3.But if you can stick with the story there will be a lot coming up that will not only fill up your thirst but also overlap your boredom.

Helpful

read more

I have been telling this to so many friends who love MHA. I just don't get it. World is not only about hero and villains, its a lot more complicated than that, the hierarchy created where villans don't enjoy or are given an opportunity to better themselves as human, the villans have to operate in shadow, no one tries to understand their perspectives, how according to them its a very injustice society requiring change and not their defeat.
Their world is much very much similar to our world where there are those with power, and not.

But the series neither goes into this complexity and is just a plain anime with heroes and villains, and heroes will win because who cares about villains.
Just take the current arc going on as reference, they want to save Eri-chan, but there are so many Eri-chans out there who needs saving. It's not simple as that he makes it sound and he also can't get away with saying he will save everyone.
The only part I liked was Stains arc, his motivation to defeat hero resonated with me, and I loved him, but after it, the whole story again went to focus on things it relied on from the start.
Those who compare Naruto and MHA, just don't get it, naruto is lot complex and deep then what it seems, the story of Madara, why he left leaf, predicting the discrimination Uchichas will feel, also then Pain, knowing truly what is to survive the war. Those things are at whole another level.

I get it the animation is excellent, bones are doing a hell of a job, but storywise this anime is for an amateur who is not that much interested in the complexity of the story and are just there for entertainment and fights, and there is nothing wrong with that.

PS - One should question himself/herself if this anime was handled by some other studio lets say studio pierrot behind black clover who gets so much hate, will you then also consider this anime E P I C
I don't think so. I find Black Clover more complex than this in spite of its animation.
Also, I am in no way trying to say this anime is bad, it serves a purpose for enjoyment and don't deluge much into some complexity, and those are fine with that please enjoy but for me at least I watch anime or tv series which end teaches or inspire me in some way, which for sure this doesn't.

Helpful

read more

Overall, probably one of few on this tbh, but Season 4 as the best season yet imo. I know some people whom think it's slow or boring or whatever but no way. there are some pacing issues at the start of the second cour here but honestly with how the season ended I don't have that issue anymore like I did a few weeks back. Bones actually wrapped things up this season very well.

This season gave us one of the best arcs in all MHA animated. All the moment leading up to the big fight. Kirishima and Fatgum incredible fight, Suneater incredible fight, the whole we're kept ramping up so well. The Hasaikai were no joke. Overhaul was a complex villain unlike we'd seen beforehand here. Stain and AFO each had their ideals while Overhaul wanted to take things a step even further. Controlling the whole world through Eri quirk. Abusing and draining that little girl of her life.

Thrilling experience seeing that arc animated. Mirio showing why he's one of the best MHA characters. Putting it all on the line to save that little girl. Losing his quirk in such a horrible way but fighting still no matter what! Lemillion going beyond Plus Ultra! Deku then carrying on Mirio mission to stop Overhaul. That brilliant fight between them, Deku going 100%!! It was all spectacular. The animation was pristine the emotion was palpable, the insert song from Heroes Rising setting the mode perfectly. Bringing such tears to my eyes. Deku reaching out to Eri even if it was the harder way, it's pretty incredible.

The arc that followed while not at high octane as Overhaul still provided some awesome moments. The remedial course with Todoroki and Bakugo was fun then we got to the School Festival and Gentle Criminal! Not as an imposing threat as Overhaul was but still a great arc to see animated. Gentle adds a bunch of more depth to their hero society. Someone who fell through the cracks and turned to crime, something we see happen massively today. Deku vs Gentle looked so good and brought some heavy emotion too. Deku realizing he could've turned out just like Gentle if All Might hadn't showed up. Loved The dynamic between Gentle and La Brava, how they supported each other in their loneliness. Gentle always protecting her no matter what. Leading to that jaw dropping performance from Class A! Hero too was one of the best things this whole season. Didn't think we'd get a performance like that but holy hell. It was special to see.

Ending the season on what is a very special kind of arc. Leaving our regular heroes behind for a bit to focus on the pros. Specifically of course on Endeavor and Hawks. Seeing them two interacting animated was really cool. I love them dynamic too honestly like big brother little brother. Hawks looks up to Endeavor in an endearing way. Endeavor now becoming number one has reflected in his past. Natsuo remarking how he's leaning all blood goes behind, but that's not it at all. He's realized how he messed everything up. How things weren't so simple as he though to surpass All Might. I love his development and what's to come later for Endeavor in these next arcs we see him in.

This season once cements My Hero Academia as one of the best current running shonen imo. We finally got to see a big arc adapted and it did not disappoint. Loved this season so much over these past months! Not having MHA anime for a while was rough but it came back to deliver some of the best! Excited for Season 5 with the next arcs that are due up. They'll change the game once again.

10/10

Helpful

read more

Boku no Hero Academia is a simple and predictable shonen anime. Boku no Hero Academia for the fourth season in a role brings the same plot points from the previous three seasons. It’s pointless. In this season, Midoriya encounters a villain that uses a child for benefits. Apparently, that child has some special quirks that can be used to create a “bullet” that temporarily messes with another Hero’s quirks. So, you guessed it, the plot is now to rescue the child because they are HEROS. The same thing happens in season 3. Villains capture Bakugou and their intention is to have him join them to destroy the Heros and its society. Of course, the heroes rescued him eventually. In season 1, the villains directly come to the Academy to kill the Heros in the hope to start their plan to destroy the society. In season 2…. I forgot. I guess what I want to say is this anime series is forgettable trash when it comes to storytelling.

Story: 4/10

If you have seen all three seasons, then you probably noticed the trend here. This anime focuses on one or two-character per season. When I post this review, I have watched 10 episodes. In this season, we see the character’s back story and development of Kirishima. Not gonna lie, this is the best of the anime. In season 2, it was Todoroki, season 3, it was Bakugou. For me, it works. Though, the anime doesn’t continue the further development of its characters. After, they finished Bakugou and Todoroki’s character arcs they forgot about it. The anime left them on the sidelines. Thus, they became again uninteresting. As of the main character Midoriya...I don’t feel a thing. He’s just an average protagonist that we have seen countless times. I don’t even want to get into his motivations, personalities and character traits. It’s pointless.

Edit: As of Episode 14, Nighteye dies. (I laughed the whole way through that scene.) Everyone including Midoriya was crying their eyes out. I'm sorry, but I didn't feel a goddamn thing! This anime is trying so hard to make you care, but it just landed flat.

Character: 4/10

This anime is really enjoyable to watch when you are in the moment. Largely due to this anime’s fight scenes and they are the best. That is because of each character’s back story and their motivations are revealed right before the fights. After that, you forgot about it. Lastly, the pacing of this anime is terrible. We start the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th season with an episode recap. I really don’t understand why they feel urgent for a recap episode of the previous season. Especially, when we have watched the previous seasons. Then, they have to start developing the story for the current season from episode 2 to episode 7. This really messes with the pacing of this anime, and it tests my patience. Whenever an anime test a viewer’s patience, it’s a clear sign of a problem.

Enjoyment: 5/10

Overall, this anime series has lots of problems with pacing, characters and story beats. But. it is enjoyable to watch when you are in the moment.

Overall: 4/10

Helpful

read more