“The Stroy Of How We All Became Heroes, Part 3”
Creative Staff
Story/Art: Kohei Horikoshi
Translation: Caleb D. Cook
What They Say
Midoriya inherits the superpower of the world’s greatest hero, but greatness won’t come easy.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Jumping into My Hero Academia this far into it continues to be a good bit of fun, especially since the property looks to be entering its final phase next year. Having done this before with other titles helps and having seen a good chunk of the anime balances it out. I’ve liked the property but it’s not something I’m hardcore about – unlike my youngest kid who can’t get enough. With the series working some big moments and playing with an interesting cast of characters, it’s easy to get into it at this point. But there are areas of struggle at times because it does lean into over three hundred chapters of history, so I know I’m missing out at times or having a harder time connecting things. I had liked what little I had seen of Horikoshi’s previous work in Shonen Jump and it’s clearly been a few years since Barrage, so I was looking forward to revisiting his artwork.
With so much information gained from the fight that involved Star and Stripe those with the tactical side of things, and the leadership side, are able to start pulling things together. With a small group brought to the Central Hospital where they’re meeting in secret, a lot of is laid out that it’s going to come down to really needing Aoyama for this. That doesn’t go over well with everyone because of what happened, but most of the UA kids are on board as we saw previously. It’s the adults who, rightly, have concerns based on their real-world experience with such things. The main thrust that comes out of a lot of what’s here is that when they do finally get to go up against the villains of the series at this point, it’s going to involve keeping them both at least ten kilometers apart so they can’t support each other. They’re basically unbeatable if they’re together.
Where the chapter is more interesting, at least to me, is when it shifts to the questioning that Aizawa is doing with Aoyama, who is all bound and kept in place. This gets into how Aoyama was twisted up about things so that he can’t view himself as good and that there’s a deep-seated fear rooted in there. That’s something that Aizawa can use to draw him out and help him in the long run but also that they’re clear about what’s happening. Aoyama knows that he’s being used but we have Aizawa making it clear that he will be helped beyond this and that he won’t be abandoned, that this isn’t another case of what happened to him when he was younger. The fear is so strong in him at this point that it’s really the only way to get things to go in the right direction.
In Summary:
The exploration of what’s going on with Aoyama is nicely handled even if Aizawa always comes across to me like a villain of sorts in how he views everything and works through it. Just his style and delivery reinforce that. You really do feel for Aoyama, much as we have for a bit now, and seeing how it all plays out definitely delivers a good installment here. I like what we get from the planning side as well but it’s mostly just a lot of straightforward dialogue and exposition and mostly just one-sided as well without a lot of back and forth, so there’s not much there until it gets put into action.
Content Grade: B
Art Grade: B+
Text/Translation Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Shonen Jump
Release Date: January 16th, 2022
