“Regarding the Enemy”
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 opens with a pretty decent bit of Tsukuyomi doing their best to deal with All For One by pummeling at them now that Hawks has broken the mask. It’s the kind of moment where they know they can do only so much damage, but there’s always the problem of, as they say, gnats swarming and causing much damage. There’s a good push with that and we see them dealing with All For One in a solid way, repeatedly going at him and giving Tsukuyomi a chance to shine, which is part of the draw of this arc. There’s some fun in the way they approach this as they’re confident but not cocky and using this as a way to try and draw attention and keep All For One off-balance while trying to do as much damage as they can.
For All For One, this just lets them sink deeper into their own head because of the way their powers work with the lack of senses, using Quirks to try and understand the world itself. It’s an interesting sequence as it plays out as it seems like his control over the Quirks isn’t as strong as it was before and having someone like these guys pushing back against him just makes him reaffirm everything in his past as to why he’s doing this. They are making an impact on him physically but his resolve is only increasing with all of this and seeing the way he rallies toward the end is pretty solid. The chapter is a solid one as Tsukuyomi gets to shine nicely in dealing with All For One and there are some interesting things here for longtime fans to try and grapple with in regards to the Quirks rebelling and the why of it, which is a touch beyond me as a far more casual fan.
In Summary:
The series continues to work well in delivering some strong action sequences and that makes for an enjoyable read from that alone. Coming into this as late as I am is always problematic but it reminds me of doing similar with Bleach in that you’re able to at least enjoy the visual design. And Horikoshi and his team here are delivering some really good stuff in the pages that they have week after week where you get a good sense of power behind. It doesn’t fill in the backgrounds with a lot of, well, location background things, but they’re full and busy panels that have a lot going on so that it’s not something that feels sparse or minimalist. And that definitely helps to keep it flowing through and through.
Content Grade: B
Art Grade: B
Text/Translation Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Shonen Jump
Release Date: June 19th, 2022
