Review Episode 31:
I”m going to have to write a feature for later in the week on this one because there’s a lot coming through in this episode. It’s called “The Aftermath of Hero Killer Stain” and that’s exactly what it gives us. There’s no simple he went to jail the end scenario here. What he did, what he stood for, how he was captured, all of it has taken on a life of its own fuelled primarily through main stream and social media and now it’s almost become a movement in its own right and that is going to be pretty hard to stop.
The easier part of this episode deals with the three boys, Midoriya, Iida and Todoroki, as they recover from their fight and also get a lecture about actually following the rules and realise there are consequences. Some of these are direct in that they won’t be recognised for their efforts because they’d also have to be punished so they are just going to pretend Endeavor took down Stain (isn’t that culture exactly what Stain was fighting against). Some are less direct as their mentors are facing pay cuts and other penalties for not properly supervising them. Iida is also now facing the possibility of long term damage to his arm due to injuries sustained, though they had a very shōnen way of dealing with that trauma so he’s kind of taking it on as a reminder of what a hero should be (that issue also needs its own post but I’ll probably never get around to writing it).
But it isn’t all doom and gloom. We get an impossibly cute phone moment between Uraraka and Midoriya which will leave you smiling forever even as everything else in this story seems to be taking a turn for the darker. Gran Torino telling All Might he needs to come clean with Midoriya certainly got my attention. Unfortunately, it looks like next week is going to plunge us into some silliness and side stories as we see how the rest of the kids did on their internships. I hate to say it but I have zero interest right now and would really like the main plot to progress.
Review Episode 32:
I was kind of right about the zero interest. The story presented here was actually a really good story but because it had nothing to do with the actual plot I just couldn’t stay invested in it. First we bounced around and checked in on most of the other students of note and their internships. And can I point out, that the only female hero who has interns that we see is not doing anything vaguely heroic. It would have been nice for at least one actual female hero to be doing something heroic (though at least some of the female students are).
However the majority of this episode is spent with Tsuyu and her internship.
As I said, it is a pretty good stand alone story of a student learning the daily grind of a hero before getting a call to action. It has everything it needs, but what it really does is breaks the flow of the story that I actually want to see. I get the impression if I owned this series on DVD, this would be one of the perpetually skipped episodes that I’d come back to at the end to watch as a stand alone.
Looking forward to the next episode.
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Thanks,
Karandi James.
I’d like to think that Momo’s internship with Uwabami was Horikoshi highlighting the more unheroic aspects of their superhero society. Didn’t Uwabami say that she only picked Momo and the other girl because they were cute? Just like in real life sex is the go to for selling merchandise and I think it’s easier to showcase that by having a female hero like Uwabami. Though that’s probably doesn’t make it better… or I’m over analyzing and Horikoshi couldn’t be bothered to make decent female heroes.
I didn’t actually mind the female super hero using the whole sex sells thing, because it does highlight a real issue and an issue that has been present from the start in the society in My Hero Academia. My issue was she was the only female super hero mentor we really saw so there was no contrasting view. And okay, not everything has to be a well gender balanced showcasing but the students have been reasonably well represented with a range of characters and skills getting a moment to be highlighted as the story has gone on.
Episode 31 really highlighted how things work in this hero society. Because of All Might’s presence, the villains have been kept at bay. The only reason that was possible was because how much coverage his actions were getting. Now, there’s Stain. A villain who has just as much charisma as All Might and is getting just as much coverage by the media, if not more. By giving him so much attention, the media have, unknowingly, fuelled a fire in the villains. It just goes to show how powerful the media can be and how much it effects people’s mindsets.
I’m kind of getting more into the idea on Friday with my feature because I really find the hero society of My Hero Academia interesting.
Well, episode 32 was a filler episode and it did it’s job pretty well so we can’t complain, and although we didn’t get something as great as Re:Creators’ recap episode it was still good enough.
For filler it worked, but sometimes it would be lovely to not hit these filler episodes. Still, at least this show was up front about this episode being filler and it didn’t try to pretend to be anything else.