Review for My Hero Academia Season 6 - Part 1

Introduction

I’ve been excited about the new era of shonen anime. Before, they followed the Saturday morning ‘toon model, where regardless of whether there was content to adapt, there had to be an episode put out on a weekly schedule. With shows like Bleach and Naruto, that meant long stretches of filler, content created by the animation studio when the latest manga instalment was yet to be published. Such filler rarely matched the adaptation in quality. The broadcast landscape has changed since then, and now, there can be distinct gaps between anime ‘seasons’ as the studios wait for material to adapt. My Hero Academia follows that model, and until quite recently, I thought that was an immeasurable improvement over the old way of doing things. But then I watched Season 5, and I started feeling things going off the boil in the world of My Hero Academia. I’m still buying the show on momentum, and I hope that Season 6 can pick up again when it comes to the story.


You can call them superpowers, you can call them mutations. In the world of My Hero Academia, they’re mundanely thought of as Quirks. I say mundanely, as some 80% of the world’s population have Quirks, some power or ability that makes them special in some way. Naturally there are people who use their Quirks for selfish, even illegal gain. Standing against them are the heroes, those who use their powers for the common good. From the day Izuku Midoriya saw the world’s #1 hero, All Might in action, he was certain that he too would become a great superhero. The only problem was that Izuku was one of the 20%, born without a Quirk.


But Izuku’s selfless actions in a crisis situation caught the attention of All Might, who decided that the young boy would inherit his power. Getting used to a sudden new Quirk doesn’t happen overnight, and even with intensive training, Izuku is still playing catch-up when he enters U.A. High School, where the world’s heroes are trained. But he and his class 1-A manage to distinguish themselves when the League of Villains attacks.


As season six begins, the time has come for the Pro Heroes to deal with The League of Villains, and their new allies, the Paranormal Liberation Front (I thought they were called the Meta Liberation Army in the previous collection). It means capturing the villains and dealing with the seemingly indestructible Nomus. The students of UA have also been drafted in to provide support, making sure that the citizens in the surrounding area are protected and evacuated, with a select few using their abilities in the assault alongside the Pro Heroes.


Thirteen episodes are presented across two discs from Crunchyroll.

Disc 1
114. A Quiet Beginning
115. Mirko, the No. 5 Hero
116. One’s Justice
117. Inheritance
118. The Thrill of Destruction
119. Encounter, Part 2
120. Disaster Walker

Disc 2
121. League of Villains vs. U.A. Students
122. Katsuki Bakugo: Rising
123. The Ones Within Us
124. Dabi’s Dance
125. Threads of Hope
126. Final Performance

Picture

My Hero Academia gets a 1.78:1 widescreen 1080p transfer on these Blu-ray discs. The image is clear and sharp, the animation is smooth, and there’s no problem with visible compression, and there is only the slightest occasional hint of digital banding. Studio Bones do the honours for the animation, and they have pedigree bringing across Weekly Shonen Jump properties to anime such as Full Metal Alchemist and Soul Eater. It all begs the question as to what happened with My Hero Academia, or whether the quality of the source material is such that there was nothing that Bones could do with it. This is a simplistic animation, with generic character designs, and a basic looking world design. It looks like the kind of show that runs for years and years on a weekly basis as lowest bidder animators churn out their work conveyer belt style. That’s the look of the show, not the actual animation, as Bones takes this basic looking story and animate as much as they can, creating something that is dynamic, vibrant, and of decent quality. But you can’t get away from how basic the show looks. It looks like kids’ TV, which is probably exactly what it is. And then they deliver an amazing fight animation sequence and it’s like you’re watching a completely different show!

Sound

You have the choice between Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Surround English and 2.0 Stereo Japanese with optional translated subtitles and signs. I checked that the English dub exists (it does), but stuck with the Japanese for the duration, and was happy with the experience, with the characters suitably cast, and giving the full intensity required for their performances. The action is well represented in the stereo, and the music suits the show well. The subtitles are accurately timed and are free of typos.

Extras

You get two discs in a BD Amaray style case, one on each inner face. You get an o-card slipcover for the case (The previous collection didn’t have one!). Now it’s Crunchyroll on the spine, and they’ve ditched the digital copy that was all that Funimation kept from the Manga releases. I still hope you’re not OCD about your Blu-ray shelves and displaying your collection. The inner sleeve has some nice comic style art referencing the episodes.

The discs boot to static menus.


The extras are on disc 2.

OVA: Make It! Do-or-Die Survival Training Part 1 (23:21)
OVA: Make It! Do-or-Die Survival Training Part 2 (23:22)
Promo Videos (5:15)
Textless Credits

Conclusion

The usual complaints about a long running shonen show apply here, surprisingly exacerbated by the one thing that I thought My Hero Academia does better, the shorter season releases as opposed to a constant weekly drip-drip of inconsequential filler. The thing is that there are such gaps between releases now, that it’s hard to keep storylines and character arcs in mind when a new release shows up. They’ve been going 9 months between releases, and it took me another six months before I actually got around to watching this. It felt like being thrown into the deep end with this release, especially as this arc really expands the universe to a grand battle between heroes and villains; the peak of character overload. It was hard enough keeping the students of class 1-A delineated, now add over a hundred more characters. And the 13 episodes in this collection comprise one big war between powered individuals. In terms of story and tone, there is a monotony to this collection that previous seasons have steered clear of.


To counter that, you do get two bonus OVA episodes in the extras. They revert to the other state of My Hero Academia narratives, the classroom dynamic, with a group of students being put through a test before they get their provisional hero licenses, a simulation where they have to work together to rescue someone from an underground shopping mall in the middle of a disaster. These academic episodes tend to ease the tension, and explore the interpersonal dynamics of the characters in a more fun way, even if the stakes may be high for that particular drama.


In the main story, the heroes have united to act against the League of Villains, which means a two pronged attack on a mansion where the majority of villains are sheltering, as well as on a hospital where the villainous scientist is performing his evil experiments, creating the Nomus, and levelling up Shigaraki. All this time, the students of UA are assigned to keep the residents of a nearby city safe. Of course no plan survives contact with the enemy, and a lengthy conflict ensues, with the balance shifting between the sides, and plenty of unexpected reveals. You can tell that the stakes have never been this high, as not everyone survives the experience unscathed.


There is character development occurring in the meantime, with more revelations about Izuku and Shigaraki, and the legacies of their respective quirks, One For All and All For One. Bakugo learns something about himself during the battle, but really the biggest development regards Shoto Todoroki’s family, a reveal that will have consequences for certain as the story continues. Given that Shoto’s father Enju, a.k.a. Endeavour is the current #1 hero, and also given how this war arc concludes, those consequences will be significant indeed.


I have to put this in context. By this point in shows like Naruto or Bleach, I would be lamenting filler so bad that it would make me contemplate my life choices. In comparison, the comparative monotony of a thirteen-episode battle arc is heaven-sent. It’s just that when you’re getting your My Hero Academia hits piecemeal, and several months apart, then you don’t have a sense of the flow of the story. And I’ve so much anime now, that I can’t do what I did when I first got into the medium; rewatch a show from the beginning, every time a new instalment came out. So we have an oxymoron of a release, as I find Season 6 Part 1 of My Hero Academia to be exciting and tedious.

My Hero Academia Season 6 Part 1 is available from Anime On Line, Anime Limited, and the usual mainstream e-tailers.