Visualist x100!! – My Hero Academia Season Three: Episode Twenty-Three

Thankfully, the battle wasn’t stopped for a good majority of its course! What came out of the fight between Midoriya and Bakugo? What does it mean to the bigger picture and the show’s general quality? Karandi and I discuss and ponder out loud.

Karandi

I’m in slightly mixed feelings about the episode this week. Mostly because this episode was great fun to watch. Seeing Bakugo and Midoriya finally acknowledge everything that has just been sitting between them and actually seeing Bakugo have something resembling a human like response to trauma and guilt was fantastic. The fight was nicely done with enough variation that it didn’t feel like it got repetitive or boring and it really felt like there was some solid character work between the two boys and All Might.

But, then I finished the episode and realised there was nothing resembling a plot development during the episode, and part of the reason I liked the episode so much was because there were only four characters in it. With a much tighter focus it was fantastic, but My Hero Academia insists on trying to show the whole class in most situations and just keeps bringing in new characters.

So my feelings end up all mixed up because I definitely enjoyed the episode and was thoroughly engrossed in the action and the emotional moment they were trying to convey but it made me even more keenly aware that overall season three hasn’t really worked for me. Season three has had some truly amazing moments, particularly All Might’s final fight which was perhaps the best moment My Hero Academia had ever delivered, but overall there’s been no actual focus or direction this season as we’ve just kind of bounced from point to point, and this is probably the first episode where I felt any of the students outside of Midoriya had some decent character development.

With two episodes to go, I’m getting the feeling we’re either going to have a rushed conclusion this season or a cliffhanger ending and either way I think it is going to make for a difficult season review to write.

Kapodaco

Let me present a haiku:

Scream your feelings high
Midoriya-Kacchan dance
This show’s good again

I didn’t care for the way it was presented. These boys fight and suddenly Bakugo starts vomiting out all his frustrations in incredibly blatant fashion. Suits his character? Perhaps. Even so, the straightforward manner of “RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA” felt a little cheesy, but I can forgive it for what good it brought to the table.

Otherwise, I had no problems with this episode. I thought it was among the best episodes of the entire season. Bakugo getting a lot of humane development and the acknowledgement of Bakugo and Midoriya as, Gasp!, friends is a very welcome sight. Rivals can be friends, right? I only wonder if this will open the door to Bakugo hanging out with Midoriya and his gang more and others taking notice. That’d be pretty fun.

Structurally, basically nothing happened this episode, but what was under the microscope came up bigger than many could muster. Even the animation at one point in the fight kicked itself into 120% capacity. This was clearly something that had been ruminating for a while, both in the context of the characters and outside to the mangaka’s pacing style. I can only hope he can write some other characters as well as he can write Todoroki (in season two) and Bakugo now.

(To see all posts concerning this collab, check out my Collabs page!)