This show got worse? I’m sorry, but what the fuck are you talking about?

How is
this any different than it has ever been?

Ever since working from home became a thing, my alcoholism has gotten exponentially
worse, and I think I’m dying. Sometimes I’ll stand up, and then just find myself on
the floor. Other times I can’t tell if I’m hungover, legitimately ill, or if I
simply laid down funny and part of my body fell asleep. I’ve been an insomniac for
years, but now my circadian rhythm is completely fucked. But the biggest issue is
my memory. I’d rather eat nails than try watching this shit sober, so much of this
season is foggy to me, but what I do remember about it just makes me want to drown
myself in even more liquor. Most of it is spent going back to interclass tournament
arc style bullshit that’s filled with recap footage and feels like filler even when
it isn’t. It was dumb, ugly, and I hated every second of it. The villains come back
toward the end, but they’re still one-dimensional nobodies with nothing interesting
to say about anything, and there’s still zero stakes because, just in case you
forgot, “This is the story of how I became the greatest hero!” The artwork and
coloration are hideous since Bones only cares about making non-canon movies, the
show is 80% still images, the pacing is at once horrendously rushed but at other
times painfully slow, and the fights are more panning stills with people screaming
and crying at each other like autistic babies. It looks awful and nothing about it
is entertaining. Everything it has ever done, is doing, and will continue to do has
been done before, sometimes well, but often terribly, and even in the former case,
many such properties are dragged out until they crash and burn or just slowly
decline into dogshit. This series is somehow doing both, but you wouldn’t think so
if you listened to its common reception, and I find this rather odd. Apparently,
this show began to sully its reputation during season four, and its deterioration
has clearly continued, but what’s weird is this has prompted people to start
reminiscing about better times, and I don’t understand this at all. People talk
about the good ol’ days, back when this was a show about a powerless kid working
hard and overcoming weakness and hardship, whereas now we’re just watching an
overpowered Gary Stu with infinite power who’s totally unsympathetic, and therefore
it’s worse. This is not only bizarre considering the quote I used earlier, where
season one begins by outright telling us Midoriya is destined to become the world’s
greatest hero, but also because the series never embraced these themes to begin
with.

I know it’s typical to refer to the protagonist of a story as the “hero,” but one
should only be celebrated as a hero if they preform heroic feats. People often
conflate heroism with classic altruism, being a selfless actor who is concerned
more with the needs and wishes of others than with their own, but whereas altruism
is more about selflessness no matter the context, actual heroism requires self-
sacrifice, putting yourself in harm’s way for the sake of others. It is for this
reason the word is so often associated with the phrase, “war hero,” a solider who
loses their life in battle placing valor, duty, and honor above their own personal
safety. When it’s revealed All Might wasn’t born with a quirk and had instead been
given one by a benefactor, it squanders the underdog story inherent in Midoriya’s
determination to become a superhero despite his own powerlessness, but it also
makes you wonder. What is even the point of delineating between people with and
without quirks when, by this logic, a quirk isn’t even a congenital factor of one’s
birth? The concept of “disadvantage” doesn’t hold in a world where “advantage” is a
tangible commodity able to be gifted. This misunderstands the burden of superpowers
and what it actually means to have one. The privilege of power materializes only in
what you are physically able to do as compared to those without such privilege.
Advantage is a blessing, a boon, it makes life easier like advanced technology,
modern infrastructure, or even clean water does in the developed world, but as seen
in Italy’s invasion of Ethiopia (then called Abyssinia) in 1935 or Japan’s invasion
of China in 1937, advantage also makes violence and destruction far more
devastating when used against the disadvantaged, so as the saying goes, “with great
power comes great responsibility.” You can’t fuck around like a stupid, self-
obsessed teenager if you can also go nuclear, and this is exactly what boils my
blood about My Hero Academia. They insist it’s about heroism, but it’s really about
ambition. Mount Lady became a hero for the sole purpose of gaining celebrity status
by letting people take pictures of her giant ass in spandex, and Bakugo himself
openly admits he's motivated by glory and proving his egotistic sense of
superiority. What the hell does any of this have do with heroism? This is vanity
and pride. People these days use the word “hero” so glibly, as if “icon” and “hero”
have somehow become synonymous, decided by popularity as opposed to the morality of
one’s conduct.

It seems the real heroism was the sales we made along the way. Any celebrity or
public figure can be christened a hero simply because they’re successful, not
because they’re righteous. Bakugo shouldn’t have been allowed to participate in the
hero exam in the first place! He thinks like a villain, and had the exam really
been a matter of heroism, he would’ve been rejected the second he opened his mouth.
Instead he’s allowed to progress, because as long as he scores high enough in the
exam, anyone can. UA Academy, and by extension this entire show, does not promote
heroism. Being accepted by the school because you’re powerful doesn’t give you
moral license to call yourself a hero because not only have you preformed nothing
heroic, but never does it require you to. It’s therefore not teaching you to be a
hero either, because it permits motivations like fame and glory which by definition
are completely unheroic. In fact, what the series truly promotes is this bizarre
doctrine of social Darwinism. It contradicts the very themes its terminology
attempts to establish while also brainwashing the teenagers and college kids
watching it into thinking heroism is something totally selfish. Midoriya’s origin
story seems to want to promote the idea that you don’t necessarily have to be
powerful to do good, and the desire to do good can itself lead to you becoming
powerful (while also being sure to portray said power as an opportunity to do so).
You only need half a mind to see how it utterly fails to do this when All Might
simply hands him the power needed to proceed, rendering his entire training montage
pointless, but what many don’t realize his how insidious this mindset truly is. I’m
not saying the author of this series is evil—in all likelihood, they’re simply
naive—but they fail to understand the social implications of saying the desire for
power to achieve goals is intrinsically heroic. If you start with nothing and
attempt to become powerful to do good, the probability that your perception of
justice is not seated in jealously of the privileged who you feel have done
injustice to you is incredibly slim, especially in a world like this where the
“have nots” are openly discriminated against by the “haves.” I’m not saying the
only vehicle for realism is cynicism, but what I am saying is such a contrived,
saccharine sweet, cloyingly optimistic view of the world is simply dishonest. This
show just has a wrongheaded idea of what heroism even means, and this is nowhere
near the only toxic message it has to offer.

In life, you learn from your mistakes by enduring the shame, defeat, and loss which
they bear, and only after examining and confronting these consequence of your own
actions and shortcomings do you get back on your feet and win. My Hero Academia,
however, operates by the logic of participation trophies. Nothing is achieved
through genuine determination, and anything which is, is undercut by rendering the
determination unnecessary through extenuating circumstances which would’ve led to a
net gain either way. Even if he loses the tournament, he’s sent to train with the
best teacher. Even if the class is defeated by the villains, no one dies, is taken
hostage, or seriously endangered. Even if his ridiculously overpowered ability
comes at a physical cost, it’s always healed instantly. In this world of heroes and
villains, what defines you isn’t how talented you are or how powerful your quirk
is, it’s about hard work, spirit, and the willingness to help others against all
odds—only it’s not, because he wouldn’t even be a hero if there wasn’t hidden rules
back in the original exam during season one. It’s portrayed as if Midoriya’s hard
work and benevolent intentions were what made him worthy of All Might’s powers
after he trained for a few months—fuck anyone who’s been doing so for their entire
life, am I right?—but you have to realize he began training only AFTER he was
PROMISED THE POWER. His efforts were impure, because his reward was guaranteed. It
doesn’t matter how hard he trained, because there was no risk of failure, since his
self-serving reward was set in stone before he expended ANY effort. I mean, it’s
not even correct to say he trained to earn the power, as much as it is to say he
simply prepared for All Might to gift it to him. All Might is a teacher; this is
academic favoritism. The only thing this series ever got right was Stain. My Hero
Academia is generic superhero shlock, but Stain challenged the very moral
bankruptcy I’ve spend the last two paragraphs detailing, taking the heroes to task
for their hypocritical corporate marketing and corrupt motivations, but after the
anticlimactic battle with him ends, everyone ignores the manner in which he
subverted their bastardization of heroism, all the thematic underpinnings of his
arc are trashed, everyone forgets the incident like nothing happened, and we all go
right back to boring school-life nonsense, filler horseshit, and shounen training
arcs. We’re back to square one, and we learned nothing from the only scrap of
intrigue in the entire series.

Season five is the epitome of everything I’ve bitched about, too, because not only
does it uphold and continue to promote these fraudulent ideas of heroism, but from
the plot to the characters, it’s also the worst possible incarnation of the anime
in every way. I haven’t kept up with this show for years, so coming back and
putting in the hard slave labor of slogging through this season was pure fucking
hell. I’d heard about the broken loli waifu character who could nullify any damage
Midoriya did to himself by being carried into battle with him Guilty Crown style,
but gosh, who knew every other character would get this preposterous?! So
apparently—SPOILERS—Shigaraki is nothing but a literally insane, edgelord school-
shooter now? Wasn’t he supposed to be Big Bad #2? Why would the hack authoring this
disaster remove any chance the series had at a more thoughtful, interesting villain
with new and challenging ideas and instead settle for Jared Leto’s Joker? Now it’s
even more threadbare and hackneyed than before—great! Since I last watched this,
the power creep has seemingly reached Azathoth scale, and I don’t see how anyone is
supposed to matter when a few select characters are insurmountably more powerful
than everyone else. Speaking of which, these fights are still the worst of the
fucking worst. Minus one or two overdone action scenes, they just exchange blows
with nauseating amounts of speed lines and other bullshit to distract you from the
largely embarrassing animation production at hand. Plot conveniences still favor
Midoriya at every step of the way, even when you may think otherwise, and the
author still resorts to excusing asspulls with non-diegetic retcons, like that time
in season three when the 1,000,000% Smash wasn’t actually one million percent
because the author said so on Twitter, the thing which originally made me drop the
show. Even as far back as season two, Midoriya wouldn’t have been able to break the
mind control during the tournament if it weren’t conveniently written in such a way
his quirk could counter, and it’s no surprise they’re still pulling this shit
speaking of the aforementioned power creep, because how else could they limit the
main cast now that they too are overpowered if not by introducing every seemingly
unbeatable power with one single little weakness which just so happens to make the
character in question wildly underpowered when fighting the protagonist who the
series is still for some reason treating like an underdog.

My Hero Academia is a conventional "hero" story. Nothing about it has ever broken
the mold or subverted the expectations of anyone who’s seen anything like it, or in
other words, anyone who’s seen any shounen anime in the history of existence, but
unlike every other shounen anime in the history of existence, My Hero Academia is
ugly. Yes, this season has particularly shitty animation, but that’s not what I’m
talking about. I mean the design sense is awful. Please just take a second to think
about shounen’s Big Three. Depending on the character, the designs in Bleach can be
downright erotic, and it’s filled to the brim with hot babes and chad hunks. One
Piece has some of the most distinctive and eye-catching designs in manga, and while
Naruto’s designs aren’t exactly glamorous or creative, its color palette is at
least consistent, and Tetsuya Nishio’s anime adaptation designs were outstanding.
The newer hits also follow this pattern. I think everyone agrees Demon Slayer’s
artwork is all it has ever had going for it in both manga and anime form, Hiro
Mashima’s success is openly predicated on nothing but sex-appeal, and just look at
One Punch Man. It was a cult classic when ONE was drawing it, but when Yusuke
Murata began drawing it three years later with his insane digital manga detailing
and irresistible women, it took the world by storm. Say what you will about these
series perpetuating visual archetypes despite high-quality artwork, but Jesus
Christ on a fucking bike, at least their character designs are worth advertising!
BUT EVERY CHARACTER in My Hero Academia looks PANTS ON HEAD RETARDED, and forgive
me for sounding so close-minded, but I simply will not entertain an argument to the
contrary. They are just fucking goofy, period. Maybe, just maybe, one or two waifus
are marketable, but most just look dumb, and the thoughtless coloration of the
anime makes the weirder ones stand out like a sore thumb and lose any niche moe
they may’ve had in manga form. Also, and I’m usually not one to complain about
fanservice, but when highschool girls dress like camera sluts despite having a shy
and modest personality, their whole character feels backward. I suppose it doesn’t
matter, though, since even our protagonist himself is an inconsistent mess, an
incongruous chimera who is both a crybaby loser who the viewer can empathize with
during melodrama, and also a stone-faced alpha male they can self-insert with
during hype action to satiate their trashy power fantasies.

A few years ago, people began saying, “A-1 Pictures is the problem,” and I naively
thought everyone was finally waking up to the issues plaguing the industry.
However, since then, everyone has turned their ire toward other studios like Deen
and JC Staff, because Post-Maruyama MAPPA is now guilty of everything everyone
hated A-1 for, but since MAPPA also produces many of the newest fan-favorites,
those same people who were rightfully decrying A-1 for their incorrigible
outsourcing, absurd mismanagement, inhumane scheduling and working conditions, and
cynical “quantity over quality” business model have now had to forgive and forget
so they don’t sound like hypocrites when sucking up to their new favorites. I, on
the other hand, have not forgotten this outrage we used to share, and in an attempt
to rekindle negative attention toward these toxic business practices, I too stopped
saying “A-1 Pictures is the problem,” only so I could instead start saying, “If A-1
Pictures is THE problem, then Bones is MY problem.” Like many others, Bones has
sometimes engaged in these poor practices as well, of course nowhere near as much
as A-1 or MAPPA, but the real reason I feel they should be maligned is different. I
feel they should be maligned for manipulating their impressionable teenage,
college-aged fanbase into marketing their anime for them. Don’t even worry about
the complete fucking trainwrecks like their 20th Anniversary Production, Carole &
Tuesday, and just watch My Hero Academia, Bungou Stray Dogs, Noragami, or even some
of their shit with actual artistic integrity like Captain Earth or Concrete
Revolutio, and I dare you to tell me you found ANY fucking consistency therein.
Sure, you’ll have a few flashy action scenes drawn by a few talented holdouts from
their early Sunrise days like Yutaka Nakamura, but their background art and
compositing are often pitiful, and the animation itself is atrocious outside those
few action scenes. But those action scenes are more then enough, because they’ll
metastasize through social media and forum sites like a cancer and infect every
unsuspecting consumer they can find. Bones earned their reputation in the 2000s and
early 2010s when they were just a bunch of Ex-Sunrise boys whose creative ambitions
were too big for Bandai, but they saw where that creator-focused business model
lead Manglobe, and they aren’t stupid. This is why I call it a me problem and not a
real problem, because not only is it silly to slap a label on entire studios when
many have constantly changing staff, constantly restructured teams, constantly
fluctuating budgets, and are almost always managed by corporate level business
decisions which are made by production committees far above the pay grade of the
actual creators working there, but also because to this day, Bones continues to
produce amazing and objectively impressive works of animation. However, the
prestige they justly earn from such projects goes on to unjustly ascribe prestige
to other projects which look like they were fished out of a fucking pig sty, and
those who’d mistake a Blue Raspberry Ring Pop for a Ten Carat Diamond Ring eat it
up regardless, hailing Bones as the consistent and absolute best.

I’m required to make the disclaimer that I dropped season three six episodes in and
didn’t watch season four. Big funny.

Thank you for reading.

Reviewer’s Rating: 1