Featured TV on DVD Review: My Hero Academia: Season Two, Volume Two
June 24, 2018
My Hero Academia: Season Two, Volume Two - Buy from Amazon: Blu-ray Combo Pack or Limited Edition Combo Pack
I previously reviewed volume one of the second season of My Hero Academia. Because of that, I don’t need to go into details about the show’s overall plot and can move right into the two arcs in this part of the season. Is the show better than the second half of season two? Or has it peaked?
As I mentioned last time, this show takes place in a world where the vast majority of people have what are called quirks, i.e. Everyone is a super hero, or villain. We follow Izuku Midoriya, a.k.a. Deku, who was quirkless until he proved to his hero, All Might, that he had what it takes to be a real hero. All Might’s quirk, All for One, can be passed down from person to person and he chose Midoriya to be the latest recipient. Furthermore, due to a battle injury, All Might is losing the ability to use All for One and won’t be around much longer.
In the first half of the second season, there was the annual Sports Festival, where all students of U.A. High school compete against their fellow students. Midoriya went up against Shoto Todoroki, one of the most powerful students at the school, but not because he couldn’t compete. In fact, Midoriya didn’t try and win, but instead tried to help Todoroki overcome his refusal to use the fire half of his quirk, which he inherited from his abusive father. In the end, it was Katsuki Bakugo who won the tournament.
The second half of the second season starts with the students of 1-A dealing with Hero Informatics, which sounds really difficult, but just means choosing names. The students need this, because they are starting their internships. Many of the students received offers from big hero organizations, due in part to their performances at the Sports Festival, but not Midoriya. Midoriya doesn’t get a single offer, until the middle of the day and when All Might reads it, just the name of the hero gives him a panic attack. It’s Gran Torino, All Might’s former homeroom teacher and mentor. Seeing All Might’s reaction to Gran Torino makes Midoriya very worried over what he’s about to deal with, although when he first meets Gran Torino, Gran Torino seems like a senile old man. It’s an act. It’s clearly an act, because he’s able to beat up Midoriya in their training sessions. He’s trying to get Midoriya to think of his power in a different way. Up to this point, Midoriya channels his power into one of his limbs to use it, but as a result, causes a great deal of damage to himself. Furthermore, the channeling takes time, so he can’t respond to quick attacks, like the ones Gran Torino dishes out. He has to learn how to channel his power throughout his body continually, so that his basic movement will be faster, stronger, etc. And he really needs to learn soon, because...
The other student we focus on in this season is Tenya Iida. Near the end of the Sports Festival Iida learned his brother, Tensei Iida, a.k.a., Ingenium, was attacked by the Hero Killer Stain, who has been targeting heroes for a while. Tensei was his most recent victim and while we heard about the attack in volume one, we didn’t learn the extent of the damage until the first episode of this volume. Tensei was paralyzed, likely for life, and he wants Tenya to take on his hero name, Ingenium, and continue the family tradition. This is why he takes an internship with a smaller super hero firm in Hosu. Hosu is where the Hero Killer attacked his brother and he’s there to get revenge. The hero he patrols with, Manual, the Normal Hero, figures out this is the case and tells Iida not to let his personal grudge interfere with being a hero.
Before this fight happens, we learn a little bit more about the Hero Killer Stain, when Tomura Shigaraki tries to recruit him. Tomura Shigaraki, is the most visible member of the League of Villains, who we met at the end of season one. They want to destroy the super hero culture, because they think its bad for humanity as a whole. Stain, on the other hand, is killing certain super heroes because he wants to reform heroes. He’s killing or maiming those who abuse their power for personal gain, like money or fame. The two sides don’t see eye-to-eye, and in fact Tomura Shigaraki and Stain try to kill each other. Instead they are separated and Kurogiri teleports Stain back to Hosu. Tomura Shigaraki and Kurogiri follow and Tomura Shigaraki decides to let loose a bunch of Nomus. (A Nomu is the name given to the creatures the League of Villains creates. They take low-level thugs with quirks, pump a bunch of new quirks into them, but as their power grows, their intelligence declines. Now they are basically unintelligent instruments of destruction that can be pointed in the right direction.)
When the Nomus attack, Iida and Normal Hero run off for help, only to see Stain in a random alley, about to kill another hero, Native, who Stain has immobilized. At first Stain is just amused at this kid; however, as soon as Iida explains why he’s there, Stain says he’s acting selfishly and for that Iida has to die. Meanwhile, Midoriya and Gran Torino are traveling by train to Shinjuku and are passing through Hosu when the attack happens, and Gran Torino jumps in to help, telling Midoriya to stay behind. Of course Midoriya doesn’t listen. While this is going on, Normal Hero bumps into Midoriya and asks if he’s seen Iida, who slipped away. As soon as Midoriya knows what’s happening, he goes looking for Iida, and because he knows so much about Stain, he’s able to find the two before Stain can kill either Iida or Native. Before the fight begins, Midoriya sends a text message to all of the students with just his location, but only Shoto Todoroki is close enough to show up. The three of them don’t have to defeat Stain, they just have to stop him from killing anyone until the pros show up. It’s a fight that lasts three episodes.
That sounds like it’s too much, but this is one of the best fight scenes you’ll see anywhere and it has just as much character moments as it has action beats.
Additionally, we see other students dealing with their internships. Obviously this doesn’t move the plot as much as what I’ve already talked about, but there are several good character moments here. Katsuki Bakugo interns with Best Jeanist, the 4th Ranked Pro Hero, who has the power to manipulate fabric. His power works best with denim, hence the name. (Anime is weird.) However, Best Jeanist didn’t try and recruit Bakugo because he liked him. He thinks Bakugo has great power, but doesn’t have the attitude to be a real hero, so wants to mold him into a kinder, gentler hero. You can imagine how well this goes. Ochaco Uraraka has a better experience with Gunhead, who is, as you can probably guess by the name, a more combat-oriented hero. She goes there to be a more well-rounded hero. Finally there’s Momo Yaoyorozu, who was one of two students who interned with Uwabami, but more on that below. There are some character moments in these bits, but others are just fun. Tsuyu Asui’s Interlude: Innsmouth's Attack is probably my favorite. Captain Selkie trying to look cute is one of the best running gags of the season, as is Tsu’s reaction.
The second arc on this set is the Final Exams Arc. The students are paired up based on their weaknesses and have to go up against a teacher, again chosen to test their weaknesses. For the most part, there’s not a lot of character growth here. Some of it, like with Ochaco Uraraka, are way too far into spoiler territory to deal with. However, the best character moments go to Momo Yaoyorozu. Momo Yaoyorozu is one of the top students in the school and got in on a recommendation without needing to take the entrance exam. She quickly showed she deserved to be there, as her quirk, Creation, is incredibly powerful, and she’s the smartest first-year student in the Hero Department. However, she has a weakness. While she’s very smart, she tends to take a lot of time coming up with a plan and can’t think on the fly as well as some other students. This cost her a more favorable outcome at the Sports Festival, which shook her confidence. Then when she and Itsuka Kendo were picked by Uwabami to be interns, it was not because of their quirks, but because Uwabami thought they were cute enough to co-star in a commercial with her. This again caused her to lose more confidence, so she’s at her lowest going into the final exam. It’s rare for shows with this many characters to devote so much screen time over so many episodes building up a supporting character like this.
As I said in my previous review My Hero Academia is surprisingly good, especially for a show aimed mostly at teenage boys. For example, the three-episode fight against Stain isn’t like a three-episode fight in Dragon Ball Z. It isn’t two people screaming for three episodes while their power levels rise above 9000. The fight is used as a way talk about the philosophical beliefs of the villain and generate real character growth. For example, and this is a rather important spoiler, Stain chastises Iida for trying to kill him, rather than trying to save Native, and Iida realizes Stain is right and he has to mature more to become a real hero. Granted, Stain is wrong about pretty much everything else. He decides Iida’s older brother isn’t worthy to be a hero, because he isn’t good enough of a fighter to defeat Stain in battle. However, that’s a very narrow definition of what a hero can be. The show goes out of its way to show heroes rescuing people. The fact that we can have a discussion about the philosophy of a villain in a cartoon aimed at teenage boys says a lot about the quality of the show. It isn’t the only elements of the show that are worth recommending. The animation is fantastic, while there is surprising character depth and growth throughout the season.
On a side note, My Hero Academia does something that very few super hero films aimed at adults do. It looks at how the existence of super heroes would affect civilization. In the world my My Hero Academia, after people started exhibiting quirks, technology development just sort of stopped. It is hard to justify spending resources on scientific discoveries, when a new quirk could upend what we think we know about any subject, or circumvent previous limitations. Granted, this idea isn’t the focus of the show, but this is a deeper look at the super hero genre than we normally get and that adds to the value.
Anime titles rarely have a lot of extras. It’s usually just textless opening and closing credits and maybe some promo material. That is not the case here. The Blu-ray does have those extras, but it has a lot more as well. There are behind-the-scenes featurettes for each episode. Members of the voice cast talk about the episodes, what they like about what the show is doing, etc. They also highlight charities, which is a great thing to do. These add up to an hour of featurettes. There is also a 24-minute long behind-the-scenes / making of featurette on the simulcasts. Finally, there’s an 11-minute long interview that took place at San Diego Comic-Con.
There’s another aspect of this Blu-ray I really like. They have both the subbed and the dubbed version of the show and you can watch the dubbed version with the subs on, so you can look at the differences between the two translations. There are obviously no plot-changing discrepancies between the two versions, a lot of them are trivial, but there are enough changes that it is interesting none-the-less. On a related note, if this kind of discussion interests you, then check out Explanation Point, which has a two-part video on the subject. It is certainly worth checking out.
There is also a limited edition release that is about $10 more and contains several physical extras, like fridge magnets, collector cards, artbook, etc. It’s worth the extra money, if you collect stuff like this.
My Hero Academia: Season Two, Volume Two is better than the the previous season and if you’ve been keeping up with season three, you know the show just keeps on getting better. The extras on the Blu-ray Combo Pack are a lot better than most other Anime titles get, while the Limited Edition Combo Pack is worth the extra cash.
The Show
The Extras
The Verdict
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