My Hero Academia Episode 20 + 21 [The Fight For The Top]

Notice: My arm is currently broken and after 2.5 weeks I can finally semi type – I’m so sorry for the delay and bear with me as I strive to catch up to my shows!! In about 2 weeks I should be able to continue as normal, but I will keep everyone posted! 

We return to Hero Academia from a gut-wrenching cliffhanger: Shinsou manages to use his mysterious brainwashing quirk to take over Izuku’s mind. The question is no longer if it will happen, but instead how he will break free. You have to give it to Izuku: he was warned about Shinsou’s powers but got angry enough to potentially lose the whole match for himself. It’s amusing to watch but of course for the entire match I felt the way Izuku did “You idiot, you could lose everything because you didn’t shut up!” But being put in that position made some very interesting things happen for Deku. Right as he is about to mindlessly walk out of bounds, several phantoms appear at the end of the end of the stadium that only Izuku can see. One of them even appears to be All Might- something that makes it seem like the power of One for All itself spoke to Izuku and gave him a moment of control over his powers. After this of course Shinsou loses, but Shinsou is a great example of the type of characters that Hero Academia makes.

As an older anime fan it’s always hard to get enthused about the same characters tropes as they reappear. I find myself stumbling into spoilers for other shows and going, well of course. In Hero Academia everything sort of surprises me and when it seems boring there is usually some powerful character dynamic behind it. Shinsou wants to be a hero but his power has always made people suspicious of his intentions. Because of this he applied knowing he would likely not be placed in the hero class- because his power doesn’t give him the opportunity to fights giant robots or save people easily. But it’s definitely good for him because every hero there thinks that he would be a good sidekick and his quirk is invaluable to the actual world. It’s very true, and I’m glad the mangaka didn’t just write that he was typecast and therefore useless. Brainwashing is a hell of a power.

The heroes, incidentally, make a great segway for the next episode. While it gives good insight into Heroes to have them commenting on things and providing insight, the two episodes really show just how awkwardly the Heroes are written. In the episode showcasing Shinsou and Bakugo there was a lot of helpful feedback, but in the next few episodes and especially the one focused on Uraraka I wonder just how high tier of a hero you need to be to sit in the box seats. In the next episode everyone just gawks about how this hero would be a good sidekick and this one might make you look cute. While this is really good for them a lot of them fail to consider just how high tier some of these students are and that their natures might limit them from even wanting to be sidekicks. I get that Heroes are Pros and sidekicks are their interns, but you tell me Bakugo isn’t going to demand a salary and his own office on Day 1.

The preliminary rounds are both really fun and super boring. What’s boring is that no fight goes against what you might expect: every person you can assume will lose does and all the winners you would assume will win do. The only exception was the fight with Tokoyami and Yaoyorozu – he literally wipes the floor with her by coming up with a vicious assault. Still even if I’m expecting a certain result it was very well done to make me stay engaged. TetsuTetsu and Kirishima are fucking hilarious and really answer a lot of questions you would probably have for the world in the beginning, yes people do end up with very similar quirks and yes it would make it difficult for them to stand out. But TetsuTetsu and Kirishima are bros from then on and I really love watching them fight and arm wrestle. Maybe a dance off next time? And Aoyama loses like he always does, but that’s part of his charm. As soon as he wins I’ll wish he lost, but for now I want him to at least win something.  . . .he even lost the iron tummy competitions to Ochako, but that is next episode. Oh and Iida’s fight was THE ABSOLUTE BEST ONE. Seriously, Mei Hatsume is my hero. Confiscating the entire match to make an AD is the most brilliant thing in my life plz

Thanks again for your patience and let’s look forward to a double episode covering the most intense fights of the season so far! We get to talk about Ochako v Bakugo and then we move on to Midoriya v Todoroki. This is going to be awesome and it will give us a big chance to talk about what kind of show Hero Academia wants to be and how it wants to establish that. Ah shounen. One of the only genres where this far in can be considered ‘establishing’.

Oki