Anime: Boku no Hero Academia (2017)

Note: This review only covers the second season of My Hero Academia

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Review
Boku no Hero Academia (My Hero Academia) initially offered an interesting tale of a boy bullied by a society where everyone but him had superpowers. It was a good approach to a coming of age story, yet it quickly showed its true colors as superpowers became just excuses for many characters and the heart of a typical long-running shounen took over the premise. The protagonist ended up being just your average shounen lead with annoying characteristics and what was left was just a enjoyable carefree experience with tiny bits of high-quality content.

The first season, however, ended up with the stakes fairly high. Villains attacked the school, the youngsters were put into a dangerous trial, and the secret agents behind the scenes were teased, allowing us to expect a sequence filled with revelations and a lot more interesting fights. That was the idea...

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1. But you can forget it
   Yup. My Hero Academia abruptly stops its plot progression from the first season. Instead of giving a continuation of what was happening with the Villain League, we are thrown into the academy setting where our heroes must undergo classes and participate in lame activities of a sports festival. This involves some really children-like activities akin to a Japanese Game Show, presented by an annoying narrator, and offering just the most basic introduction to the cast's superpowers. Although the choice of these episodes are understandable to present us to the cast, the characters are still far too unexplored and have powers that are far too simple for a really exciting show-off.
   
   And it drags
   This presentation using the sports festivals drags for half the season, where Deku does what he already did a dozen times in the past and everyone else repetitively shows us the powers we already knew. There is simply no danger in this, no surprises, no enemy attack, no plot development at all. It works as a filler for long-running shounens, but this is a 25-episode show and we don't have time to waste here.
   
   It shines when it wants though
   Finally, after losing half a season with a half-baked competition between children, My Hero Academia moves to where it matters. The villains attack, our young heroes face off powerful foes, and the plot thickens with some revelations and twists. Deku and his friends are put into real ordeals as they must grow in terms of power and learn about what moves the world in order to reach their dreams. These harsh moments give us typical shounen-power-ups and also small bits of development in the resolve of some characters...
   
   But there's too many
   Yeah. There are dozens of them, each portraying an exquisite quirky that can vary from X-Men like powers to just a lame and weird ones. This massive number of characters, however, makes most of them feel just as the superficial excuses for powers as they are. The main cast is already quite numerous you see, we have Deku, All Might, Bakugo, Todoroki, Ten'ya, Tsuyu, and sometimes even Ochako. There is simply not enough time to make these guys interesting AND presenting us to a dozen more students, teachers, and villains. The result is an overall mess where only Deku, Todoroki and Ten'ya seem to be positively explored while the rest is just left to the sidelines or even completely forgotten.
   
   It ends in a down note too
   Although its middle part offers an exciting combat and some plot progression, My Hero Academia once again goes to the lamest possible filler episodes: fanservice battles of students versus teachers. There is no reason for that aside from once again remembering us what the powers of those random students and teachers were and even then it just ends up as being short fillers with zero value to anyone. Ok. We got a shark teacher with a pun-name with concrete, the noisy narrator has a super-power, and the sexy student was embarrassed after her loss and needs a push. These could all be presented while giving us plot progression and that would give even more charisma to the cast, yet it seems all lost in these fanservice combats.
   

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Comments
My Hero Academia seems to move further from its potential. The first season was a decent shounen and it lured me with its darker parts where the heroes were at apparent danger. This second season is a major bummer though. It starts by dragging a lot with a filler content that reminded me of the likes of Naruto and Bleach, where episodes are wasted just so you know that two guys have the same power or that there is another class competing even though they don't really matter at all.

I thought the show would truly kick in after the middle events though, which somehow reminded me of Hunter x Hunter's Kurapika arc, where things got surprisingly serious and some powerful foes were presented. Sadly though, it was a flickery thing. It was not long when once again some form of lame tournament or test took over and the plot stalled for half a dozen episodes. Considering this show is being aired by seasons, it seems too much of a waste of time to present it as if it were One Piece, DBZ, or any other eternally running shounen.