SMASH!! continues the trend of turning our heroes into zeroes
Creative Staff
Original Concept: Kohei Horikoshi
Story & Art: Hirofumi Neda
Translation: Caleb Cook
Lettering: John Hunt
Designer: Julian Robinson
Editor: Hope Donovan
What They Say:
Hirofumi Neda returns with his debauched alternate take on My Hero Academia. Volume two covers the Sports Festival arc through the Hero Killer Stain arc – each with completely different outcomes. SMASH!! is the perfect example of why you should never meet your heroes (laughing at them is a different story).
The Review
Content (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Here’s my first piece of advice for reading Smash!! – forget everything you know about My Hero Academia. Okay, maybe not everything, just imagine everyone as a caricature of themselves. Neda takes fan service to its absolute limits, teetering on the line between parody and homage every step of the way. Volume one felt like it was dipping its toe in the water, not fully committed to ruining Horikoshi’s characters. But by volume two, Neda is confidently showing our heroes in their most degenerate forms.
The Sports Festival arc is a pinnacle turning point for fans of My Hero Academia. With tons of action and great character development, this is where our story starts to pick up steam. So you must be wondering – how does SMASH!! handle one of the most hype arcs in recent shonen? Well… at times it’s hard to even recognize it as the same series.
Neda takes liberties in completely changing the festival format. For the first test, we still get an obstacle course, but the obstacles they’re dodging are a bit more personal. From dangling porn in front of Mineta to hitting Todoroki with his daddy issues, Neda ain’t pulling any punches. Maybe this version of the tournament is actually more of a challenge… Next up, the cavalry battle is replaced with a baseball game. Uraraka leads the charge in this tense matchup, reading more like the Diamond no Ace manga than My Hero Academia. The tournament segment is left relatively unaltered, but each match ends on a gag rather than an epic fight. After the tournament, Neda takes a bit of a detour to show some love for Tsuyu. These chapters are as wholesome as they are hilarious.
The latter section covers the hero internship chapters as well as the Stain arc. My favorite bit of volume two is the complete 180 to Stain’s character. He goes from a badass anti-hero to a literal internet troll. Neda really has a knack for completely changing a character’s personality while still maintaining some semblance of their original form.
Similarly to Volume One, we get a few bonus chapters. The first set of bonus content turns our heroes into toddlers, making for an extremely cute cooldown to all the previous nonsense. We get an official “My Hero Kindergarten” drawing from Horikoshi as well. The final bonus chapter continues the story of Neda and Horikoshi’s meeting. I appreciate getting the personal aspect of Neda’s involvement with My Hero Academia. I never would have known he worked as an assistant alongside Horikoshi! Now it makes sense why he’s able to disparage Horikoshi’s characters so liberally.
Neda’s art is a bit rough at times, but it has its own flairs, namely in the goofy reaction shots. In terms of the text, the translations neatly capture the personalities of each character, but to a more extreme degree. Sometimes I couldn’t believe the words coming out of these kids’ mouths. They’re supposed to be heroes…right?
In Summary:
My Hero Academia SMASH!! Volume Two somehow manages to be even more ridiculous and humorous than the first volume. I never expected to enjoy this little spin-off so much, but now I can’t wait to see how Neda will continue to shake-up Horikoshi’s story.
Content Grade: A
Art Grade: B
Packaging Grade: B
Text/Translation Grade: A
Age Rating: Teen
Released By: VIZ Media
Release Date: November 5th, 2019
MSRP: $9.99
