If you’ve been watching me for long enough, one of my recurring opinions is my general
dislike for long running shows...which more often than not tend to be shounen.
Despite having an ungodly amount of time to fill, because of how these shows are produced
both in anime and manga form, particular kinds of status quos are formed that the plot of
the story keeps going back to again and again without too much variation.
We may learn more about the characters as time passes but rarely do we actually get
to watch these characters grow or change beyond what they started with.
But My Hero Academia is a series that to me has been proving you can have a very good
shounen series, as of yet without a solid conclusion, and still be just as entertaining
as any story that has already had its ending decided.
Ladies, gentlemen and others my name is Arkada and welcome to Glass Reflection.
Today we are looking at the second season of the Studio Bones anime: My Hero Academia.
Let’s Jam.
Now, initially I thought that this superhero premise was just another cliché and the only
thing keeping it interesting was the characters.
I like many others I think are getting close to suffering from genre fatigue as far as
superhero stories go, and to still keep that engaging, a story involving them has to really
step it up.
But now, with all that established, the show literally opened the doors to the public society
with its Sports Festival Arc and what we got was a whole lot of other smaller stories that
paint a much more interesting picture compared to just Deku alone.
MHA has always been trying to answer the question of “What Makes A Hero” and in season 1
we got to see Deku as a character try to be one answer for this, with a hero being more
of a mindset rather than a trait or quirk as it were that you were born with.
But now the show has taken the time to re-introduce several of its characters in ways that attempt
to answer the same question but with different spins on it.
Not only that but we get to experience firsthand that being a hero in this world truly is a
profession, and that has its own industry driven by marketing and presentation.
However this leads into the Hero Killer arc which turns this all on its head by highlighting
how this society has actually deviated from the classical definition of a hero, no longer
just being someone who fights for their ideals despite any risks and material costs.
The fact that UA’s motto is “Go Beyond” might even seem hypocritical in this society,
and so we have a man called Stain who sees the modern hero as fake and wishes to return
to the days of old, by any means necessary.
As of season 2 I can more confidently say that My Hero Academia is less of a carbon
copy of say Sky High, and more of a skillful combination of various kinds of stories gone by.
Some people know superhero movies as these lighthearted (maybe even campy) yet uplifting
experiences such as the McGuire Spiderman films and some of the more recent Marvel stuff.
Though Spiderman in particular was a big inspiration for HeroAca’s original author Kohei Horikoshi
and the biggest element he seemed to take from those films was the idea that people
with exceptional powers still have mundane problems, juxtaposing the ability to help
others with the inability to help yourself.
But that’s not all there is.
All Might himself is the spitting image of Superman with his musical theme being almost
an emulation of the John Williams score.
There’s the notion of heroes and villains inadvertently creating each other in a cycle...which
is classic Batman.
Even the intensely cynical outlook of Birdman, a film that makes out superhero iconography
to be cultural genocide, is addressed in the hero killer Stain himself.
He hates the idea that heroes act as pacifiers to society and believes there to be a more
noble ways to use power than for superficial status.
My Hero Academia proves that superheroes aren’t dead, not just because it’s a popular superhero
show, but because within the show the idea of what it means to be a hero is constantly changing.
The society is held up by the pillar that is All Might but right now he’s losing his
sturdiness.
So with the status quo in peril, every single hero has equal chance of being the solution...yet
they work in a system where their ideals are seen as products.
It has all the optimism of those early superhero stories but also the critical outlook of more
recent ones all at once, something that feels similar but is genuinely new, making it a
show to get deeply immersed in.
This is something that I think so many of my favorite anime are able to get right: it
presents a cast of...essentially, cartoon characters but giving them a sense of relatability
and personality that explains said cartoony-ness.
That’s what makes it feel like they’re real, essentially creating a connection between
our world and something incredible and make believe...and My Hero Academia is the first
show in a while that’s given me that feeling.
I have friends getting invested in this series who I never would have expected to like this show,
they’re not into action or superheroes but for some reason My Hero Academia really appeals
to them.
More importantly I think is the fact that in MHA there really isn’t such a thing as
the status quo.
The series never allows things to get stale through repetition or similarity.
If any story in it, is similar to something it’s only to other superhero narratives that came
before it...but never to itself.
For me Bones has been quite good with this in years past, but even though their previous
outings have been some of the highlights in anime I have watched they
have a habit of adapting uncompleted work and then going on their own to finish it off.
Most people have conflicting opinions on this, on the one hand we actually get endings, and
in most cases they aren’t actually half bad.
The downside is that they aren’t really the “True” ending so to speak, even if
they are approved by the original creators.
So it depends on if you care about such things.
As it is we don’t know if that’s something that they’ll end up doing with MHA.
At the moment there is plenty more story that’s available from the manga, but as always they’ll
probably catch up eventually, or cut it off early.
Though it’s worth waiting for if we have to, because it comes as no surprise that Bones
did a phenomenal job with the visuals.
The amazing thing about My Hero Academia’s visuals is that the characters look like they’ve
been lifted straight from the manga and put into motion.
In many situations when manga like this get adapted the characters will receive a slight
re-design to help suit the animated medium depending on what the top dog wants.
But My Hero Academia’s character designer and animation director is Yoshihiko Umakoshi...who
worked on Mushi-shi, Casshern Sins and Ojamajo Doremi.
I don’t know what kind of water he drinks but a lot of the time there’s so little
difference between his designs and the original illustrations, yet the characters are able
to move so naturally without restraint.
In fact there’s only one character who I don’t think made the transition to the anime
as smoothly as everyone else and that’s one of the show's antagonists:
Tomura Shigaraki
For a guy who’s costume is inspired by body horror and has such a despicable disposition,
the addition of colour, voice acting and even movement just make it feel like there’s
something missing from him.
In the manga, the mess of his hair and worn out skin are given so much more detail and
the intense linework only gets diluted with colour.
His Japanese voice actor is Koki Uchiyama who I’m so used to hearing as stock bored
characters that it didn’t leave much of an impact.
In the dub he’s played by Eric Vale who tried something different, making it sound
like he’s being choked by the hands around his throat but even that didn’t quite do
it for me, so again the gaps left by the manga do him more justice in both appearance and sound.
However...this season served to alleviate one of my biggest problems from season 1,
that being the large size of its main cast.
Class 1-A alone has 20 students and several teachers to develop and in it's initial 13
episodes. So we only really had time for Deku, Bakugo, All Might and a bit of Iida for good
measure.
However the tournament style setup that puts individuals in the spotlight has allowed basically
all the background class members to come into their own.
Many a time in this tournament we either had moments or even entire episodes dedicated
to a character or two that were incredibly personal and engrossing, either for their
quirky charm, the shock of losing, general badassery or a good-old fashion backstory.
We may not have seen equal development for all of them but from what we have seen, and
the manner in which the show has revealed it to us gives me confidence that basically
every one of these kids is just as interesting as Deku!
Sure they all come from different backgrounds but the struggle to become your own hero is
universal.
This show definitely treats its characters with respect.
Its appeal lies in that it’s inherently optimistic but adequately self-aware.
It knows that the main hero will save the day in the end because WE know that...but
as for everything in between it’s anyone’s guess.
Deku is a character who never gives up and always looks towards tomorrow but much like
Edward Elric. He has scars that needs to live with forever, and he knows that he never would’ve
gotten anywhere without the help of others.
There’s just so much to talk about in this series from its lore, world building, social
structure, familial values, themes, deeper allusions, cross-cultural influences, and
a wide cast of characters...who all get adequate development.
Now back when I reviewed season one, I never gave the show a proper
rating.
Mostly because I don’t like giving a rating for shows that have uncompleted stories.
This time around however I think the show at this point, despite it’s lack of a ending
at the moment, deserves a rating regardless.
So for all the heart we’ve been presented with this season, I award My Hero Academia
with the rating of Certified Frosty.
A Rating for only the best of the best or those shows too important to ignore.
The latter of which being what My Hero Academia falls under.
It revitalised my interest in a genre I thought I was tired of, not an easy feat, and even
though it’s far from over storywise what we’ve gotten so far is worth the high rating.
If for whatever reason you haven’t watched the series there will be streaming links down
in the description, but more importantly, the alternate anime recommendations.
First off, the series you might have seen because it also has Academia in the title:
Little Witch Academia.
It’s an anime that also follows the mindset of characters with powers at a school, but
in this case it’s less “Superpowers” and more "Harry Potter magic" basically.
Second recommendation goes to another Bones series from last year: Mob Psycho 100.
It’s a series that is almost the opposite of HeroAca in many ways featuring a hero whose
powers cause him to be ostracized rather than his lack thereof.
Between which you should hopefully find something to your liking.
And that’s it for me thank you for taking the time to watch this
video, I hope you enjoyed it!
As always I’d like to thank my patrons for supporting these videos because without them,
they would not be possible.
More specifically, I’d like to thank: Robert Chumsae, Calhounboy, Siri Yamiko, Viktor Ekmark,
Joshua Garcia, Hedrel Leon, and Bing Thio for being especially awesome.
And until next time, ladies, gentlemen, and others: Stay Frosty!