C&C - My Hero Academia - "Encounter" [2/23]

[Radical]

Episode 38 was sweet,

Tomura to hate the cool new villains Dabi/Himiko was funny, so a jealous loser, hehehe.

Both Himiko/Dabi, my favorite cool new villains, Himiko so a cute murderous psychopath girl next to Gretel(Black Lagoon) and Fana/Sally(Black Clover), and they admire Stain and want to be like him which is awesome.

Stain being an inspiration to all dangerous villains is cool/interesting.

Tomura vs. Dabi/Himiko was cool, poor Kurogiri though.

The Class 1-A students to go to a training camp during summer vacation, great new plot, the poor students.

Shoto visiting his mother was sweet, he'll get stronger to overcome his fire Quirk problems.

Nice seeing Izuku, Tenya, Ochaco, and the other Class 1-A students hang out and go shopping which was great.

The ending theme playing during the Izuku/Class 1-A students shopping scene was sweet.

Tomura looking for answers to the different between himself and Stain was interesting.

Ochaco so has a crush on Izuku which is cute/sweet.

Izuku/Tomura's confrontation was great, nice seeing Tomura's real ugly face, better with the hand on, hehehe, and knowing the reason for his hatred on Izuku, All Might, and Stain was great.

Ochaco saving Izuku and Izuku to want to know what All For One's evil plan was sweet.

Cool seeing Detective Tsukauchi, best supporting character.

Izuku/All Might's moment was sweet/touching on the reason when the number one hero saves everybody, best mentor/pupil relationship ever next to Kazuki/Captain Bravo(Busou Renkin) and Simon/Kamina's.

Nice seeing Mrs. Midoriya, best mother, the poor mommy worried for Izuku though.

A good foreshadowing on poor All Might failed to save anyone.

Cool seeing All For One, my favorite awesome interesting major villain, he looks really disfigured/damaged, him replacing Tomura in the future is interesting.

I enjoyed the Final Exams Arc and I'll enjoy the cool Forest Training Camp Arc next.

 

[Light Lucario]

I thought that this episode was pretty good. The new villains certainly stood out more than the grunts Shigaraki had for the USJ attack, but of course, he still didn't like all of the attention on the Hero Killer. It was nice to see that everyone in Class 1-A could go to summer camp together, even if the five who failed the exam have to do even harder work now than even the others. It was also cute to see most of the class wanted to go shopping together to prepare for the trip. Obviously Bakugo didn't want to go, but I liked that Todoroki wanted to visit his mother. It was a nice detail that showed he is still trying to overcome his own personal problems with his Quirk, as well as reconnect with his mother after all these years. Hearing the ending theme playing while they were at the mall was neat, although I could have done without Mineta talking about finding a drill since he obviously wanted to use it to peep on girls.

Uraraka got much more flustered over shopping with Midoriya by herself than I thought she would. It was kind of funny, but I felt bad that Midoriya thought that she was implying that he was a pest when that obviously wasn't the case. I do find Uraraka's crush on Midoriya rather cute. Their friendship is sweet and she does admire him, so the notion that she would develop a crush on Midoriya feels natural and believable. It also turned out it was a good thing in a way that she left when she did due to Shigaraki basically taking Midoriya hostage and he could have done the same with Uraraka. Shigaraki talking about how he could easily kill so many people before a hero showed up to stop him was rather unsettling. He already showed that he has no problem killing people, but talking about it in such a casual matter of fact kind of way made it even worse.

While Midoriya was understandably upset over Shigaraki capturing him like that, his comments about the Hero Killer did make Shigaraki come to a realization. He thought that he just wanted to kill All Might because he hates him like he hates everything, but it was more than that. Midoriya and oddly enough the Hero Killer were inspired by All Might to pursue their goals. They obviously have drastically different goals, but there was more intent behind the Hero Killer's actions than just doing it for fun. Shigaraki also wanted to show how fragile this sense of peace within their society truly is by killing All Might. Despite how much Shigaraki hated not getting attention, his conviction isn't too different from Stain's. They both want their actions to affect/change society. The flashes of blood and hands on the ground also made me think that it could be Shigaraki's backstory as well. Shigaraki's face was quite creepy. He was already creepy looking with the hands on his face, but his smile was just unsettling.

It was nice that Uraraka could instantly see that Shigaraki was hurting Midoriya and wanted to help him, but Midoriya didn't want Shigaraki to hurt her or anyone else in the mall. I also liked that they didn't try to pretend that everything was normal after Shigaraki left. I'm kind of used to these kind of villain encounters resulting in the characters just pretending that everything is fine for various reasons, but they did report everything to the police. I liked how All Might was so relieved to see that Midoriya was safe. Their student mentor relationship is still one of the highlights of the series for me, so even a small moment like that is really touching. Shigaraki's comment also made him wonder if even All Might couldn't save everyone who wanted his help. I'm sure that was always the case, but it's even more of a problem now that he can barely use his powers. No hero can be around for every disaster or emergency, but he still tries his best to smile in order to further help anyone he is able to rescue. Tsukauchi claimed that All Might never failed to save anyone once he arrived in an emergency, but All Might's sad expression gave me the opposite impression.

It was sweet how Midoriya's mother was so worried about him. She has had to deal with a lot of scares during just this first semester, so it was understandable why she broke down in tears. Since the League of Villains will become more active, All Might not being at UA might make the school less of a target, but at this point, they'd probably confront the students eventually with or without All Might there, especially when Shigaraki has already personally confronted Midoriya outside of the school. They also are setting up Shigaraki as a polar opposite to Midoriya considering that All For One talked about him being his successor. It was good that they included that scene since it is pretty important setup, but I wonder why they didn't include the whole setup from the season one finale too. It was nice to see All Might help Midoriya by offering him some water after his workout though.

Overall, it was a pretty good episode. It was a bit of a breather after the Practical Exam arc at first, but it also dealt with a lot of setup for the new season. It does work quite nicely as a season finale, much more so than the first season finale did. The end of Midoriya's first semester at UA is a much more natural place to take a break than the first season ending on the USJ attack was. Fortunately, we won't have to wait months for season three, but at least it didn't end on a huge dramatic cliffhanger.

The season itself was really great. While I fell in love with this series pretty much right from the start, I can see why people would say that it really starts going in season two. All the arcs were pretty solid. I think that my favorite one thus far is the Hero Killer arc. Midoriya made some pretty huge progression with his powers, Iida got some good development, Todoroki had some good followup from his development from the Sports Festival and the fight against Stain was quite intense. Plus, I think that focusing on just a smaller amount of characters helped with their developments. Although, the Sports Festival would probably be a good close second. Looking back at it, it was a really solid tournament arc. Todoroki was properly introduced after basically being a background character during season one, the connection Midoriya made with Todoroki was great, most of the supporting characters got a chance to shine and most of the fights were pretty great.

The Practical Exam arc would be my least favorite out of the three by default, but it wasn't a bad arc by any means. Aside from Mineta being rewarded for being a disgusted creep, there wasn't anything bad about it. It was a good breather after the previous two arcs being much more intense, more of the supporting cast got a chance to stand out, with Yaoyorozu standing out in particular in that regard, and the different ways the teams were able to pass the exam made each battle engaging. I also liked both Midoriya and Bakugo were able to overcome their weakness, if only briefly, during the tests. Bakugo worked together with Midoriya despite his prideful attitude while Midoriya was able to overcome his overwhelming admiration for All Might long enough to punch him and save Bakugo. It was still a pretty good arc all things considered. The second season was really great and I'm looking forward to watching season three.

 

[Yojimbo]

I'm wondering if All Might failed to save Shigaraki's parents when he was younger. He called out for All Might to help but no one came.

 

[PicardMan]

Oh boy. I looked up the Adult Swim schedule and they will air the recap episode this Saturday. Kind of sucks when the first was skipped (being a .5 episode rather than a regularly numbered episode probably allowed it to be skipped). I'm sure a lot of us are antsy about seeing the good stuff in this next arc.

 

[Light Lucario]

Oh boy. I looked up the Adult Swim schedule and they will air the recap episode this Saturday. Kind of sucks when the first was skipped (being a .5 episode rather than a regularly numbered episode probably allowed it to be skipped). I'm sure a lot of us are antsy about seeing the good stuff in this next arc.

I was wondering if they would air the recap episode this time. It seems a bit strange when they skipped the previous one, but the fact that it was a .5 episode instead of the actual start to the new season might be why they skipped it.

 

[ZZenigundam]

MHA is kinda losing me. I remain unconvinced that this isn't a kids show.

 

[Nobodyman]

MHA is kinda losing me. I remain unconvinced that this isn't a kids show.

Uh...did anyone claim that it wasn't?

I mean, I guess it depends on what your definition of a "kid's show" is, but while, yes, shonen are, by their definition, targeted towards teens and pre-teens, this show is definitely more geared towards younger audiences.

 

[PapaGreg]

Its a Shonen show which means its in the 12-18 demographic

 

[PicardMan]

Its a Shonen show which means its in the 12-18 demographic

A huge issue is that there is no real place for teen animation on cable. We have Cartoon Network (kids) and Adult Swim (adults) with no real place for teens. Adult Swim has to play double duty for teen and adult shows until Teen Swim actually exists. Anybody remember the speculation of such a thing (the Adult Swim Jr. hoax)?