Give it a million percent!
Creative Staff
Story/Art: Kohei Horikoshi
Translation: Caleb Cook
What They Say
It’s off to summer camp for Midoriya and the U.A. students! But this is no ordinary vacation it’s high-impact training where the students are expected to develop their Quirks even further! The teachers have set up some tough challenges, but none will be as difficult and as life changing as the threat a new group of enemies poses. What’s even worse is who the villains’ target is and why.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Things this time open up with our heroes all training their Quirks, which is… okay, I guess? It’s more or less just some light gag content, though it fortunately doesn’t drag on for too terribly long. That’s because we soon jump over to the real core of this arc, which is Deku trying to connect with Kota. He actually makes a decent speech in trying to get through to the troubled youth, but it doesn’t quite turn out to be enough.
As all that’s going on, we jump to setting up for a test of courage. So it looks like we’re heading right for something super tropey… only for the new members of the League of Villains, their “Vanguard Action Squad,” to attack the training camp in force! It comes in at just the right moment, when it looks like we’re hitting the usual doldrums of a training arc, and they hit hard and fast, making it feel like a truly dangerous and chaotic situation! There’s just a lot for the heroes to deal with, and it feels like the adults are legitimately and earnestly overwhelmed, which makes for a good reason for the main cast to actually get involved, having to defend themselves.
The big battle this time around is for Deku, as he squares off against a monstrous villain with a muscle enhancing quirk. As he points out while boasting, this works out as a little more varied and, at the moment, much more powerful version of what Deku can do. Now, the one thing I really don’t like is that this fight is set up by having our hero rush to save Kota… and then it turns out that this dude is the one who killed Kota’s parents in the past. It’s just WAY too big of a coincidence to be believable, and is obviously just there to cheaply throw in an extra bit of personal stakes. I really feel like the whole arc with Kota would’ve been fine without that little detail, so this is all just kind of distracting and a bit much in my mind. It’s a good fight overall, even if it ends with Deku using “1,000,000 percent” (which the author later points out in a note is obviously figurative, and he even apologizes for the confusing nature of that, so I don’t think it’s too hard to roll with it).
But in the end, will our heroes be able to fend off the villains in their entirety? Or will their foes manage at least some of their goals in this massive assault?
In Summary
This volume definitely starts off a little slow, and for a bit, it looks like it might end up a bit of a drag, just being your general trope filled training arc. However, fortunately it quickly shifts gears and things heat up HEAVILY. After that point, the book is packed to the gills with action, and its well played, giving things a fittingly chaotic, wild, and downright dangerous feel. Deku also does get a rather nice fight along the way… though I do have some qualms with the finer details of the execution, which bring it down just a bit. But honestly, it’s a fun ride, and one that’s sure to provide plenty to love for fans of the series.
Content Grade: A-
Art Grade: A-
Packaging Grade: B+
Text/Translation Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Viz Media
Release Date: August 1st, 2017
MSRP: $9.99
