Alright, now that we’ve gotten the flashback episode out of the way we can really begin the season. Class A begins on it’s way to where the training camp will be held, halfway there the bus pulls over for what one would assume is a pitstop. Only to find out this is where they are getting off and they have to fight their way through a forest full of Monsters to get to the place they are staying.
The monsters are provided by a team of pro heros with an interesting gimmick, and by that I mean what anime/manga is complete without catgirls?
They are told to get through the forest in 3 hours and the kids set out to fight off these earth monsters. At least, they seem to be doing really good but by the time they crawl out of the forest far outside the 3 hours they were told to do it in, I can’t help but feel sorry for them. They are all suffering from their quirks side effects. They look so beaten up, broken and hurt.
Then they are told that they weren’t actually expected to do it in three hours and they actually got there faster then was expected of them. One of the Cat girls points to the core team [Midoriya, Iida, Bakugo and Todoroki] and praises them for doing the best out there.
The kids are permitted to eat and relax, and how could we get through an episode with a summer get away without the iconic bath house scene. Walls are meant to be climbed and Mineta intends to climb his way to victory using his quirk.
He climbs up the wall only to get stopped by the little cousin of one of the cat girl heroes, who I intend to talk about later in the post. After catching a small glimpse of his girls himself, the cousin passes out and falls down towards the boys side Midoriya catches him and brings him to rest.
The rest of the episode is outlying some of the things to come, like the idea that while Class A has grown mentally over the school year they have gained very little in the way of Stamina and not had much growth with their quirks. So that’s what they’re going to be focusing on in the training camp.
That is, if the villains don’t get there and rain on their parade.
The core of this episode though is the cousin character. Kota Izumi, he is very jaded and cynical of heroes due to his parents deaths. Midoriya grew up surounded by people who wanted to become heroes, he grew up as someone who wanted nothing more then to become a hero. So Kota is sort of an enigma to him.
It brings up a great point on how peoples worldviews are changed by their experiences in their lives. What’s good to one person, may not necessarily be good to another. The next episode is named after him, so I feel like we are going to get a decent amount of development for this character. I wonder how meeting him will force Midoriya to change.
My friend watching this with me mentioned that the pacing seemed rather quick, that he was shocked that we were getting to Kota’s bit as fast as we were and that the cat girl chapters seemed to drag a bit. Though ended before they could outstay their welcome. I stress again that I haven’t read the manga, so I don’t know about how true this is.
My final thought of the episode was one of the first things to come out of my mouth when we were in the beginning of the episode with Shigaraki discussing how they now know the location of the training camp.
“Huh, I guess even villains need a union.”
The villians’ union is a good thing, because they need their fair and equitable treatment. Provided they don’t go too far, and get corrupted and shiftless, and eventually get eaten alive by the Heroes’ Association, those tights-wearing, social-justice tenders.