The season one finale of My Hero Academia left us not only wanting to shout alongside All Might as he sent the Big Bad flying into the stratosphere but also needing more with pressing questions on our minds. How will the attack on the school influence the lives of the students and teachers involved? Would All Might be alright after stressing himself like he did? What of the villains? Fortunately, a lot of these questions were answered in the season 2 premiere last Saturday, though enough were left unanswered to keep us coming back for more.
For those of you who are only just introducing yourselves to My Hero Academia, this anime takes place in a time where humanity evolved to have weird and extraordinary powers called quirks. With that in mind, Our main character Izuku Midoriya, an otherwise quirk-less weak boy who dreamed of someday becoming a hero encountered his all time role model, All Might. It’s from here on that Midoriya’s hero turned mentor leads him to help him become the new greatest hero ever but they must hurry because time isn’t going to wait for them. It isn’t going to be easy with villains lurking in the shadows planning behind the scenes.
As to be expected, at the start of season 2, everyone is still recuperating from the attack on their school and the teachers are reflecting on the invasion of the League of Villains. However, only Midoriya and a select few of the hero teachers are aware of how little time All Might has in his current status. After the grueling battle with the villains and Nomu at the end of season one during the invasion, All Might’s time as a hero has been reduced from a few hours to a mere 50 minutes. This poses as an added complication for Midoriya who must now not only make All Might’s quirk his own and become the new All Might but also do so before our fearless symbol of peace becomes powerless. It’s here we begin to see Midoraya understanding early on that time is of the essence and that he has a very important job to accomplish. If this wasn’t enough weight to add to the young man’s shoulders, the U.A. Sports Festival is right around the corner but with some encouraging words from his role model, All Might, he is determined to see his responsibility through to the end.
With the coming of the U.A. Sports Festival, we’re treated to a few goodies including a peek at Uraraka’s family and her reason for wanting to be a hero as well as some details on how the paths of the students are laid out for them. As explained by the stubborn and heavily bandaged Mr. Aizawa, The U.A. Sports Festival serves as a substitute for the Olympics to Japan, while also being used as a medium for big time heroes to scout potential sidekicks. This, of course, gets all of the students pumped and excited to show everything they’ve got just to be noticed. It’s during this hype that All Might shows up to invite Midoriya to lunch to talk about the upcoming sporting event. Afterward, it’s shown that the students are taking notice of the relationship between All Might and Midoriya and we can see suspicion beginning to form.
The first episode of season two helped shine some light on some burning questions fans had after season one’s cliffhanger of an ending. This episode felt relatively short, partly because a big chunk of it was dedicated to recapping what happened in season one, but in all, it didn’t fail to ramp up the hype towards the end of the episode as All Might laid it all on Midoriya with a concluding speech about how he must get himself noticed in the U.A Sports Festival as the potential new Symbol of Peace. Despite the weight of what lies ahead, the episode still manages to keep the tone rather uplifting throughout its length as the kids are seemingly not the least bit phased and instead, just view the attack from the League of Villains as a learning experience rather than a traumatic one. As for the villains Tomura, Kurogiri, and Noumu, we will have to wait and see if the next episode brings more information as to their whereabouts. It seems like the arc of this season will be the U.A Sports Festival and I have faith that My Hero Academia will do something great with it. Sure, we may have to deal with another cliche anime competition, but that shouldn’t discourage any anime fan from giving this great heroic anime a shot.
Last modified: July 3, 2018