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.
