What They Say:
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 goes off on another detour this week and exits out of the exam entirely for a TV special. To be honest, since the last couple of episodes were a bit on the slow side for me, I was actually kind of looking forward to a fun side story to get me energized on the anime again. Sadly what we got here was only about half that. In truth this one is more or less a tie-in for the movie that’s currently running in theaters, and since it’ll be at least another month before it plays here in the States, I walked away from this one feeling cold.
So the main event of this episode involves Deku and the gang doing a bit of hero training as they deal with a hostage scenario where All-Might plays the part of the villain. However, when All-Might turns up “dead” upon the kids breaking into the crime scene, it quickly turns into a whodunnit as they try to figure out who the mystery killer is. It’s amusing for what it is, and I got a few laughs out of Bakugo’s violent ideas for “solutions” alongside the final punchline, but I’m not much of a murder mystery person, so I can’t say this did a whole lot for me. It doesn’t help that the actual mystery itself is over too quickly to be particularly interesting and by the end, the whole thing just kind of came off as a massive shrug.
The rest of the runtime is spent well…promoting the movie. There a few bits of footage showing off All-Might in his younger years, we’re introduced to a couple of the characters from the movie, and the final scene is literally All-Might and Deku running off to kick-start the plot of the movie. That’s all well and good, but since again, I won’t be seeing said movie for another month, and plenty of folks watching this won’t be seeing it at all, it does come off as a bit shameless, and also kinda weird considering the movie is already airing in Japan, and this seems like something that would have made more sense to do before the theatrical run started. At any rate, we’ll be back to the main storyline next week, so if nothing else this is at least a one-and-done kind of deal, but I can’t say I don’t wish we’d gotten something a little stronger.
In Summary:
My Hero Academia delves into a side story this week, but not a particularly fun one since it’s a pretty by the numbers murder-mystery bit. There’s a few good laughs to be had and it’s not totally boring, but it mostly just ends up knocking the wind out the show’s sails even more than the last couple of episodes did. Hopefully, things will pick back up again soon, but I can safely say this episode isn’t one I’d be excited to revisit anytime soon.
Grade: C+
Streamed By: Funimation, Crunchyroll. VRV, Hulu