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):
Class 1-A’s final exam rages on as the kids continue their match-ups against the pros. However, it looks like we still have a ways to go before we get to this arc’s main event with Deku and Bakugo’s showdown against All-Might. Instead, this is generally centered around a few smaller fights, and despite some of the slower pacing, the results generally work.
This week starts off with a couple of minor battles featuring the teams of Tokoyami/Tsuyu and Iida/Ojiro. Out of the two though, only the fight with Tokoyami and Tsuyu is actually worth mentioning. Tokoyami decides to take the lead with his Dark Shadow, but despite its offensive powers, it’s not quite enough to break through the teacher’s clone-making quirk on its own. It’s only when Tsuyu comes up with a quick scheme combining their quirks that they manage to succeed in capturing the teacher and passing the exam. In some ways it didn’t exactly feel like this fight needed as much screentime as it ended up getting, but it manages to be pretty fun, even though I can’t really say the same for Iida and Ojiro’s which felt like it could have been skipped entirely since it just consists of a single sprint to the finish line.
The fight ends up taking center stage this week involves Todoroki and Momo going up against Aizawa. While both Todoroki and Momo technically stand at the top of the class, Momo’s taken a massive hit in confidence ever since the events of the Sports Festival and decides to leave all the decision making to Todoroki. This quickly comes back to bite the two of them as Aizawa manages to capture Todoroki with ease, and Momo hesitates to act on her own plans. However, when Aizawa hints to Todoroki that Momo’s been thinking of a plan all along, Todoroki decides to put his faith in her and they manage to pull off a clever strategy for catching Aizawa.
It’s a good fight, though I also can’t help but feel that the show kind of oversold Momo’s confidence issues a little. The anime’s been nice enough to expand on this little miniarc all throughout the season, and I kind of appreciate how much they’ve worked that in, but even with that buildup in mind a lot of her actions in this episode felt a little over-exaggerated compared to her generally composed attitude, even if this was supposed to be her big moment of weakness. It’s handled just well enough to work, but toning her reactions down a little might have made some of this material even stronger. Nitpicks aside, this was a pretty solid episode in spite of some of the obvious padding, and while it looks like it’ll still be a little while before Deku and Bakugo’s team-up, I’m glad that things are managing to stay interesting in the meantime.
In Summary:
The final exams continue on this week as we get a few more student/teacher matchups. Out of what we get this time around, only two of this week’s fights manage to be interesting, but they both work pretty well, and the latter match does a solid job of building on Momo’s self-confidence issues even if they felt a little exaggerated in execution. I’m still mainly holding out on Deku and Bakugo’s upcoming match with All-Might, but I’m glad that the rest of the arc doesn’t seem to be suffering too much from the wait.
Grade: B
Streamed By: Funimation, VRV, Crunchyroll
