What They Say:
In the future, mankind is blessed with superhuman abilities called Quirks and in a response to the growing crime rate, superheroing becomes a viable profession. Izuku “Deku” Midoriya dreams of one day becoming a great hero like his idol All-Might, but he was born completely quirkless with no powers at all. However, when Deku ends up having a chance encounter with All-Might in the flesh, it changes his destiny forever.
The Review:
Content (warning as portions of this review may contain spoilers):
Alright so coming into this one I was a little mixed. On the one hand, pacing has generally been my #1 issue with the anime in general, so the idea of it taking an episode to do a side story when the manga is currently miles ahead of it seemed pretty ridiculous to me. On the other hand MHA has a pretty neat world to explore and with the show’s general uptick in quality lately, I was kind of interested to see what they could do with it. What I ultimately got here though, was pretty low key, but something that’s probably made MHA feel more like a superhero series than just about any of the other material from it I’ve seen so far.
So the general focus of this episode is pretty straightforward. After breezing through a bit more of some of the other internships, we zero in on Tsuyu who’s currently working with a sea based hero named Selkie and his sidekick Sirius. When they find themselves on a mission to catch some cargo smugglers, Tsuyu is eager to jump in on the action but gets told to remain on standby with Sirius. While she isn’t too happy about the idea of having to remain on the sidelines, it turns out to have been a pretty smart decision as Selkie ends up getting caught in a trap while the actual smugglers attempt to ride off into the sunset. Tsuyu and Sirius catch up with them but end up finding themselves in a bind, and Tsuyu is forced to make a judgement call between trying to handle the situation on her own, or calling for backup. In the end she goes for the latter option and with Selkie’s help they manage to take down the smugglers, and Tsuyu gets another step closer towards being recognized as a hero.
As far as filler stories go this is about as standard as it gets, but it’s kind of interesting when you frame it within the context of the show itself. MHA has always been far more of a standard shonen thing than a superhero thing, and while Hokoroshi clearly has a lot of dedication to exploring superhero themes, the story has pretty much always been structured in a way where you could swap out superheroes with some other sub-genre and not end up changing too much of it’s general scope. Weirdly enough though, this episode is probably the closest MHA has ever felt towards being an actual superhero cartoon as everything from the episode’s basic premise to the way it’s structured feels like it would be right at home with your average episode of Justice League or something. Of course if you’re in this just for the shonen antics than this might feel a little kind of weird, and admittedly this episode is a little at odds with some of Tsuyu’s earlier characterization as she’s generally been shown to be a bit more level headed than she comes off here, but it’s thankfully not to the point of feeling like the episode went completely off the rails with her. That nitpick aside though, this turned out to be a pretty nice little romp and while I’d still prefer that the show focus on getting through as much of it’s source material as possible, this was a pretty good way for the series to get a little more in touch with it’s superhero sub-genre and I wouldn’t mind something like this again later down the line.
In Summary:
So despite my mixed feelings on the show opting to have a side story in spite of its abundance of available material, this turned out to be pretty fun. Some parts of the story here felt a bit at odds with Tsuyu’s previous characterization, but this is also the closest the show has ever really come to embracing it’s superhero roots at the basic level, and it felt a lot like watching a Saturday morning superhero toon. If you’re mostly just interested in the shonen aspects of the series then this episode probably feels a lot more like a distraction, but for me it worked out pretty well, and while I’m eager to get back to the main story, this was a fun enough detour that I wouldn’t mind something like it again.
Grade: B
Streamed By: Funimation, Crunchyroll, VRV
