Tag Archives: My Hero Academia

Spring 2018 – Week 4 in Review

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Well well well. Here we are again. Wednesday has arrived, and as you all know, the astral spheres have clearly designated this of all days to be the chosen day of seasonal anime reflection. And on the third day, God watched Naruto, and it was good.

As far as this week in particular goes, the anime is doing pretty all right at the moment. This continues to be a season that’s sorely lacking in my kinds of character dramas or theme pieces, but fortunately, its top contenders in other genres are impressive enough to keep my interest anyway. My Hero Academia absolutely killed it this week, and while Megalo Box wasn’t at its best, it’s still maintaining a polish of execution and sturdiness of storytelling that make it an easy watch. And as long as I have Yang Wen-li mildly commenting on the inherent inhumanity of war, I’ll probably be okay. The cartoons are doing pretty alright, and I’m eager to talk about them. Let’s start with some megalo boxing and run this week down!

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Spring 2018 – Week 3 in Review

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It’s Wednesday my dudes. Three weeks into the spring season, I’ve at last more or less “caught up,” and solidified the list of shows I’ll definitely be sticking with. As of now, I’m set on My Hero Academia, Megalo Box, Hinamatsuri, and Legend of the Galactic Heroes, with Wotakoi currently on the bubble. I’m pretty darn happy with that list – it’d be nice to have a more dedicated character drama like After the Rain, or a rich message piece like Gatchaman Crowds, but I have very few complaints with the four I’m sold on, and there’s a stacked bench waiting if I feel inclined to pick up Persona 5 or something. Megalo Box might be the only true stunner this season, but there are plenty of very solid shows just behind it, and I’m having a great time on the whole. Let’s catch up with some cartoons and run this week down!

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Why It Works: The Anime-Original Secrets of My Hero Academia

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Today on Crunchyroll, I focused on precisely the kind of nitty-gritty craft stuff that makes me so happy to have this column, exploring how the added content for My Hero Academia’s new season reflected the overall authorial voice of the show versus the manga. Obviously they didn’t include any overbearing new foreshadowing or anything, but the way My Hero Academia The Show sees its own cast is interesting to me, and material that diverges from the manga is one of the clearest avenues for exploring that perspective. This was a fun one to write, and I hope you enjoy it!

The Anime-Original Secrets of My Hero Academia

Spring 2018 – Week 2 in Review

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The anime was… alright, I’ll level with you, I have nowhere near caught up with ongoing anime. The first episodes of everything, sure, yeah, I had to review all that, but any episode twos? Well, I found time for the punch-happy shows I watch with my housemates anyway, but that’s basically it. Hell, I only found time to watch After the Rain’s finale two days ago! I’ve basically just been finishing up preview week and catching up on other projects in the aftermath, so “airing anime” isn’t really a concept for me at the moment. But hey, let’s run down what I did manage to get to, and hopefully by next week I’ll have caught up enough on writing about anime to actually watch some anime. Let’s get to it!

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Spring 2018 – Virtually Every First Episode Retrospective

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Hey all, and welcome to the Spring 2018 Premiere Retrospective! If you haven’t been here before, here’s the deal: my work at Anime News Network means I end up watching and reviewing nearly every single new premiere in a season. That normally adds up to somewhere between thirty and forty premieres, and given a solid percentage of those premieres tend to be shows I wouldn’t inflict on my worst enemy, it seems like a worthwhile idea to rank these episodes to aid future travelers. As usual, I’m not implying these rankings are “objective” or anything, and obviously my own tastes will dictate a great deal of how things shake out. I also should stress that a show ending up somewhere further down the ranking isn’t necessarily a bad thing – I grumble about it, but in truth, the majority of anime are perfectly watchable, and will likely appeal to an audience who finds their premise intriguing. You can check out the full list of ANN reviews here, and I’ll be grouping my own critiques into vague tiers below. Alright, that’s enough preamble. Let’s rank some shows!

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Why It Works: Where Must the Members of Class 1-A Go From Here?

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Today on Crunchyroll, I’m hyping up the new season of My Hero Academia by once again diving into the fragile self-image of its principle leads. I’m mid-preview week at the moment and have no time to chat, so you can check out the article below and I guess that’s it. I’m off!

Where Must the Members of Class 1-A Go From Here?

What’s in Store for My Hero Academia?

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Today on Crunchyroll I’m basically just hyping the hell out of My Hero Academia’s third season, which was easy to do, considering I myself am hype as fuck for this one. My Hero Academia’s second anime season was a dramatic step up quality-wise from the first, and with the material this third season’s covering offering an even more significant quality jump, I’m pumped to see whatever Bones can pull together. It’s awesome to have a tentpole shounen like My Hero Academia receive such a strong episode-to-episode adaptation, and can’t wait to see Midoriya punch stuff good one more time.

What’s in Store for My Hero Academia?

Spring 2018 Season Preview

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It’s that time again, folks. With the winter season entering its final act, it’s time to set our eyes forward to the upcoming season, and start pinning our hopes of anime redemption on whatever shows await beyond the horizon. After a relatively reserved winter season, this spring promises some long-awaited revivals, beloved continuations, and high-profile adaptations, along with a variety of more tentatively exciting productions. There’s no single obvious pick, but plenty of reasons to be excited for what’s on the way. As usual, I won’t be running down the names and synopses for every single upcoming show – you can find out show premises on any site like MAL, and check out the full list of shows over at anichart. I’ll just be focusing on my own personal list – the shows I myself am looking out for, along with the presumably tangible reasons I’m excited for them. Plotted out in vague order of my own hype, let’s break down what stars await in the spring season!

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My Hero Academia, Volume 11 – Review

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It’s the end of an era in My Hero Academia. This volume was easily one of Academia’s best yet, and All Might’s climactic battle gave me tons to sink into in both a craft and thematic sense. The themey-wemey stuff took precedence this time, though – All Might’s fight essentially condensed Academia’s views on the conscience of society as a whole into one furious bout, and the volume’s second half then returned us to the engaging parent/child focus of the sports festival. Ridiculously compelling stuff all around, and I had an excellent time writing about it.

You can check out my full review over at ANN.

Top Ten Anime of 2017

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That fabled time has come once again. With four full seasons of anime on the books, it’s time to mark out the true all-stars, the cream of the crop, the shows we just might remember in spite of our recency-mad fandom culture. I normally preface posts like this with a glib assurance that rankings don’t really matter, art deserves to be engaged with in a manner more meaningful than relative evaluation, and thus this whole ordeal is a hopeless exercise. That all remains true, but at the end of a year that’s offered plenty of things to be cynical about in the real world, I’d rather end this introduction on a note of honest positivity. Rankings aren’t bad things. Not only are they fun to read, but to people who actually haven’t spent countless hours poring over the year’s better and worse selections, rankings can genuinely help point people in useful directions. On top of that, simply celebrating the shows I love is one of my favorite things about criticism, and what’s a better venue for pure celebration than a list of my recent favorites? So let’s put the critical knives aside, and appreciate how good some cartoons can be. Here’s my Top 10 Anime of 2017!

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