In the future, mankind is blessed with superhuman abilities called “Quirks” and in 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 some portions of this review may contain spoilers):
My Hero Academia has been pretty busy the past few weeks as the aftermath of Bakugo’s abduction and All-Might’s fall from grace has weighed heavily on both its world and its characters. With all that in mind, now seems about as good a time as any for a breather, and things take a much lighter turn this week as the kids focus on moving into their new dorms. The episode is exactly about as fluffy as that setup sounds and while it might not seem like something that could really work for a whole 20 minutes, there’s just fun here to keep it from feeling too much like the show is just spinning its wheels.
As the kids prepare to start their new lives at the dorms, things get off to a somewhat awkward start when Aizawa gives them a warning over how they responded to Bakugo’s capture. Since the teachers are still busy handling the situation with All-Might, the kids are more or less let off the hook for their reckless behavior, but Aizawa also makes it clear that if it weren’t for that, he would have expelled almost the entire class, including the kids who did nothing to stop Deku and the others from acting on their own. Thanks to their tendency to act on their own, Aizawa claims that the kids have now breached the trust between them and the teachers, and now it’s something they’re going to have to earn back. Compared to the last few weeks this isn’t really a whole lot to chew on, but it certainly does come as a bit of a shock to the kids, and re-establishes that vigilantism isn’t exactly something that they should be aspiring for some it’ll be interesting to see if anything comes of that later.
From there things pretty much take a turn towards full-on comedy as the girls decide it would be fun for everyone to have a contest showing off how they’ve decorated their rooms. Since the personalities of most of the 1-A kids have been pretty firmly established at this point, most of the rooms look about what you’d expect from them. Deku’s is full of All-Might merch like the fanboy he is, Kirishima’s exudes “manliness” and Mineta’s is so potentially disturbing that the gang opts to avoid looking at it entirely. With Mineta being well…Mineta, he claims that the girls should show off theirs too and takes the opportunity to creep on their stuff. It’s mostly just fluff and some of these gags worked a little better than others, but the most interesting takeaway from this whole bit was learning that the big lipped kid Sato apparently learned how to bake sweets in order to make better use of his quirk and it’s one of those goofy little touches that really demonstrates how much detail has been put into how these abilities work.
While the room contest takes up the majority of the episode, things do end on a slightly more serious note when Tsuyu calls everyone together afterward. She remarks on how she called out Deku and the others earlier when they decided to rescue Bakugo on their own, and how she said that taking matters into their own hands is more like what villains would do. Although she doesn’t regret what she said, and still feels frustrated that they decided to go through with the rescue attempt anyway, she’s worried that her words might have caused a divide between the class, and the room contest was a way of burying the hatchet so everyone could get along again. Like the earlier thing with Aizawa it’s not a super impactful scene, but it’s refreshing to know that even though they may have their differences, the kids know its important to support each other, and with the time swiftly approaching where they’ll be the ones standing as the symbols of hero society, it’s definitely for the best that they can cooperate when things get rough. With the solidarity between the group reestablished the next thing on the agenda for the kids is preparing to get their provisional hero licenses, and while we’re gonna have to wait an extra week to see how that pans out, I’m still excited to see how the anime handles everything coming next.
In Summary:
After spending several weeks on All-Might’s big stand against All-For-One and it’s aftermath, the show takes a bit of a breather this week to focus on the kids having fun moving into their new dorms. While the emphasis on comedy means there isn’t too much deeper material to chew on, it’s still pretty fun regardless, and it was nice to see the kids decide its best to move on from what happened during the incident and to try getting along again, since the class being united is probably going to be pretty important for what lies ahead with them. Now that the kids have taken a new step with their lives at UA, I’m looking forward to watching how the anime adapts what’s coming next for them.
Grade: B
Streamed By: Funimation, Crunchyroll, VRV, Hulu
