Animisery – A Blog About Living Miserably with Anime (Among Other Things)

It’s really odd to think that My Hero Academia’s first season will reach its 10th anniversary in just a year but alas time flies when you’re trying to let the fan base just live in peace. I remember actually watching that first season with my partner at the time and being super stoked on the premise alone: it’s super heroes but in anime form! So many things are improved by just those final four words, you know? It’s The Walking Dead but in anime form! It’s soccer but in anime form! It’s your parents’ divorce but in anime form! My Hero had every chance in the world to take on the tropes and tribulations that come with the cape comics format and create something that provided a fresh spin unlike anything else. Whether it did is up to your own interpretation and personal enjoyment. I thoroughly enjoyed the first four seasons but found the fifth to wear out its welcome with an arc I fundamentally didn’t care about and new additions to Izuku’s repertoire of powers that just had me clutching my chair in disbelief as I knew this very turn of event was going to happen sooner rather than later. I’m rambling though (it’s my blog and I’ll meander if I want to or whatever) and talking about the old school when a brand new My Hero Academia is here and it’s first three episodes honestly show some promise or at least are curating a piece of the MHA universe that I want to see.

The premise is simple. You have to have a hero license to be a hero in the world of My Hero Academia, right? That comes with getting an education at hero school and taking hero classes and passing hero tests and you know the drill. It’s like if X-Men weren’t being regularly ousted for being different even though their powers are hardly different from the rest of the Marvel universe. That said, much like how you would love for the guy who comes to fix your computer to be equipped with a degree saying that he knows what he’s doing, you can also just get your cousin Austin to get all those ads for the hot MILF singles off your Chromebook. That’s essentially the premise of MHA: Vigilantes. Some people just want to take the law in their own hands and they’re not going to take a Spandex 101 course to do it. It really helps to open up the world of MHA as it’s something that probably would plague the thoughts of fans invested in the universe. There’s laws against being an unregistered hero but there’s also laws in our world about not removing people from this mortal coil without their consent and we see how well control of that is going. The core series has no need to address it (at least in the seasons I’ve seen) so it’s left up in the air and Vigilantes is content to grapple with that issue.

We follow nineteen year old college student Koichi who has a pretty lackluster quirk: if he makes three points of contact with his body then he can glide along the ground. Koichi proclaims that he can only go as fast as an old bicycle but this is definitely just Koichi’s own hang ups that prevent him from reaching maximum speed. What makes this an exciting concept for yours truly is that Koichi can use this quirk in interesting ways or at least it has some hidden practical effects if he’s creative. If you’ve seen My Hero Academia’s core show then we’ve witnessed kids with the destructive force of a small American armed force. They have the kind of powers that warrant comic book series of their own but we haven’t seen “the little people” like the kids who have staplers for heads and can only boil tea to a lukewarm temp for a Quirk. Koichi’s quirk is unassuming even as the first three episodes show more ways he can implement it but it’s not going to be classified as a “thrilling shonen power”. I’m very frightened that I’ll be eating my words by the end of this season though and that he’ll use it in conjunction with something he’s learned and then it will be closer to God as a power than it was before. Please don’t do this to me Koichi I beg of you.

Koichi is only so much of the cast as he’s joined in his Vigilante venture by the very Batman from All Star Batman and Robin vibe Knuckleduster and the very adorable Pop⭐Step. Both are equipped with similarly under powered civilian level quirks as Pop⭐Step can jump pretty high with the soles of her feet and Knuckleduster is seemingly quirkless. He’s just really great at throwing a grappling hook around which is a quirk in of itself honestly. These three team up mostly at the behest of Knuckleduster who almost forces them into the endeavor as they seek to stop the spread of a drug called “Trigger” which has the ability to turn harmless quirks into weapons of mass destruction. It’s a grander scale premise than you would think might be in a spin-off prequel as you’d presume that this would be a grander scale issue reserved for a movie or something in the core series. Turning little office workers into skyscraper gargantuan kaiju seems more of an All Might concern than a guy who just motors around on his hands and knees. Of course you have to have your obligatory visit from a big star of the original show and, outside of the inescapable omnipresence of All Might, that comes in the form of Aizawa who has a quirk that stuns the quirk of anyone he looks at. He shows up mostly to give a somewhat thrilling confrontation with Knuckleduster and then goes back off to mess with the main canon after he’s served his purpose. I’m not a big fan of his so it wasn’t particularly rewarding to get more Aizawa but I’m admittedly probably not the target audience with a spin off.

Speaking of spin-off, this anime is apparently not by the core Bones studio but rather Bones Film which, as you may be surprised to find out, have not done any films even including the My Hero Academia ones. They are just apparently a split off of the production company so they can do more? I don’t know. Seems like Bones just wanted to have someone constantly at the helm of the My Hero Academia machine so they weren’t going to spread themselves thin, I say as an armchair observer. It’s not really a big deal but it’s kind of obvious of the nature of Bones Film as far as talent goes but we can only hope they keep up the quality of Bones. The third episode has some wonky animation including what I THINK is an attempt at replicating American comic book style panels but it looks more lazy than stylized. It’s not important but garbage animation is a slippery slope for sure. Once you start doing it then you won’t stop and then the next thing you know: BAM! PowerPoint presentation starring your favorite characters. Truly a fate worse than death.

The small scale nature of Vigilantes is definitely thrilling to me as an American comic book reader. A lot of combat in those stories comes from innovation when power meets power and how you out maneuver your opponent. Vigilantes has a main trio who, at episode three, seem similarly adept which means they we hopefully won’t descend into the “screaming out that you believe you’ll win” power up madness that is prone to happening. I’m not hating on it as I’m very susceptible to hype; I just don’t want it for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snack. I hope that Vigilantes manages to avoid that shift but it’s a spin off of a shonen manga and shonen manga are going to do as shonen manga do. The only hope I have is that I enjoy the characters and plot enough to not mind when it all goes south to shonen town. So far, Vigilantes has me ready for more and debating if I’ll just read the manga to get a fill on the story. I keep paying for the Shonen Jump Manga app just to not read anything and all.

So if you like My Hero Academia then here it is: more My Hero Academia. You’ll eat it up probably. If you don’t like My Hero Academia or have little experience with it then this anime will not be your revolution off if these first three episodes are any indicator. It won’t have some of the more insufferable members of Class 1A though so that might be enough? I’m unsure. If you’re like me and have a love-hate relationship with My Hero then this might be up your alley having another chance to slip into the spandex of an anime superhero without the issues of the original series. The characters are fun enough and I’m enjoying their grouping as they learn to kind of live with each other in Koichi’s apartment. I’m also a fan of Koichi’s strife as he struggles balancing his civilian life with his hero one and how he only wants a better college experience. There’s a lot to like here if you’re someone like me so don’t be too off put by the My Hero Academia (registered trademark) on the title if you’re apprehensive. It’s a soft watch so far but nothing worth too much turmoil if you miss it. It’s on Crunchyroll if you’re looking for it!

Thank you for reading my blog! What are your thoughts on My Hero Academia and this spin off? Are you burned out like I am? Let me know! I’d love to read from you. If you want more of my aimless rambling but in podcast form then go to your preferred podcast streaming service and check out the Anime Brothers Podcast (episode 201 and onward) for more! We’d love to have you there. Have a great spring and great spring 2025 season! I’ll try to post more Seasonal Samplings as there are a few more shows I’m watching that I am enjoying too much to miss an episode of.