A combination of truly awful and surprisingly intriguing.
Creative Staff
Story/Art: Kohei Horikoshi
Translation: Caleb Cook
What They Say
The final match of the battle training between Class A and Class B continues. Zapped by Shinso’s mind control, Midoriya enters a fugue state where he meets one of the former users of One For All. What powerful Quirks have yet to be unlocked? Midoriya will surely need the full potential of One For All someday, but in the meantime, a new enemy—the Meta Liberation Army—begins to make its moves.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
We kick off this time with a big old info dump from one of the former users of One For All. Through that, we learn that the shadowy stuff Deku just unleashed was a powered up version of that man’s Quirk, and that all of the former wielders’ Quirks are included in the power. And I’ve got to say… it feels pretty damn lame to me, just saying out of nowhere, “Oh hey, you’re getting a big bundle of other free superpowers on top of literally having the one from the greatest of the heroes already.” Like, it feels absolutely excessive, even with the note that yeah, Deku’s still too weak to truly tap into those skills properly. Our hero already felt overpowered with the setup, so to give him this much more on top of that just feels like a massive, ridiculous misstep for the series.
Oh, anyway, the pointless training battle is allowed to continue on even though it really probably shouldn’t, and our heroes end up winning this last round, too. At least with that out of the way, though, we can FINALLY move on to something else. And fortunately, that instantly seems a lot more interesting, as we’re introduced to a man trying to carry on the will of the Meta Liberation Army, a different sort of group than the villains we’ve seen thus far. Speaking of which… we actually fully shift focus to the League of Villains. I have to say, I REALLY like this change in perspective, as that group needed more time to shine anyway, and to be blunt, it’s nice to get away from the school and those characters after the absolute drag that was the last arc.
However, when the Liberation Army picks a fight with the League, just what will the result of that clash of villains be? Will our foes turned focal point come out of it even stronger, or have they fallen too far to be the true threats in this series?
In Summary
This volume is a fascinating dichotomy, as to put it bluntly, the first half is probably just about the worst the series has ever been, while the back part is an intriguing new direction. Obviously, the battle training arc remains a serious drag all the way through to the end. However, more importantly, the big twist that we get feels awful and unneeded in a way that feels like it could ultimately derail the entire series. Perhaps it will be handled better in the future, but for now at least, it feels like a massive misstep. And yet, just as that development had me dreading where the series was going, the back half of the book stepped in to provide something that feels fresh and exciting, making for a wonderful change of pace. Thanks to all that, you get a real rollercoaster ride of a book, dipping down to some real dreck before swooping back up to something that at least has me intrigued to see where this arc goes next.
Content Grade: B
Art Grade: A-
Packaging Grade: B+
Text/Translation Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Viz Media
Release Date: February 4th, 2020
MSRP: $9.99
