“Endeavor”
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 as the big arc plays out continues to be a good bit of fun but it’s not without its problems. While my initial jumping on landed me into some decent character material and then some solid fight material, the exploration of longer character issues I’m unfamiliar with has hit as well. 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.
This chapter kind of plays things to touching base with various groups and updating as the information spreads about the defeat of Dabi. Shoto definitely accomplished a big thing here and it was the kind of win that everyone needed after the initial problem of Deku not ending up where he was supposed to when transported. There’s obviously a level of exhaustion going on there as well for Dabi but there is the knowledge of the win. All-Might in particular takes the news very well in that they might have a shot at this if the plan holds and the pieces come together and seeing the ripple effect as the information gets out to more and more of the UA kids is a lot of fun. There may be a bit too much fist-pumping in a way but it’s pretty natural at this state and for these kids.
Once past that, there’s some decent stuff but it leaps from character and group to character and group with some nice nods, some solid encouragement in some areas, and just a sense that there’s a chance among the UA kids. The bad guys at this point know what the deal is and how things have been laid out in the attacks and why they were split up as they were, but they also have the confidence and intensity of the fight ahead in their belief that they’re on the right side and that tearing it all down is necessary. There’s also the belief that All For One hasn’t been really wrong yet and things are going similar to how he expected, so sticking with the plan makes sense. Besides, once a villain is taken down, the rest usually see that as an opportunity to take their place and move up in things.
In Summary:
The series is picking up steam to be sure but I haven’t latched onto a fight pairing or something that will run long enough to be fully engaging just yet. What we get here is good, it’s enjoyable, and I like seeing the ripple effect of positive news getting to others. There’s a lot going on and this is a big cast with both heroes and villains so it’s going to touch on a lot of them that will slow things down some. But what we get definitely is pushing us toward some bigger moments that I’m excited to get to.
Content Grade: B
Art Grade: B+
Text/Translation Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Shonen Jump
Release Date: May 22nd, 2022
