Boku No Hero Academia Review

The appearance of “quirks,” newly discovered super powers, has been steadily increasing over the years, with 80 percent of humanity possessing various abilities from manipulation of elements to shapeshifting. This leaves the remainder of the world completely powerless, and Izuku Midoriya is one such individual.

Since he was a child, the ambitious middle schooler has wanted nothing more than to be a hero. Izuku’s unfair fate leaves him admiring heroes and taking notes on them whenever he can. But it seems that his persistence has borne some fruit: Izuku meets the number one hero and his personal idol, All Might. All Might’s quirk is a unique ability that can be inherited, and he has chosen Izuku to be his successor!

Enduring many months of grueling training, Izuku enrolls in UA High, a prestigious high school famous for its excellent hero training program, and this year’s freshmen look especially promising. With his bizarre but talented classmates and the looming threat of a villainous organization, Izuku will soon learn what it really means to be a hero.-MAL

 

Boku No Hero Academia is in the midst of season two, and here I’m reviewing season one. Regardless, as they say, “Better late than Never.”

The series came out of the Spring of 2016, Horikoshi Kouhei’s manga of the same name. The plot isn’t it’s strong point, nor is it any different from countless Shounen Anime that has graced us before. In fact, it is somewhat scattered and a lot of things are presented without any proper explanation.

The protagonist Midoriya Izuku has been a quirkless person for most of his life until he meets his hero, All Might. In a world, where the origin of a superhero power is mystery itself, it decides to introduce the secret ability of transferring power. All Might, the greatest superhero currently, shares his own brand of problem and needs a, shall we say, heir, to carry his legacy.

Compared to the plot, I believe the cast of characters could have been better. None of the characters particularly stands out, and Midoriya himself is as lackluster as he could get, and basically goes through the same doubts and fear every shounen protagonist ever goes through.

His rival, Bakugo Katsuki, is a former bully, whose main characteristic is being arrogant and short tempered, however he poses a scope for growth.

Among the villains, the only one who stood out to me is Tomura Shigraki, whose quirk hasn’t been revealed in the first season. This is more because his voice actor did a great job and actually made me shudder a little.

Now, to the good part, the opening and ending songs are certainly good, and  gets your blood pumping.  Add to that we have really well done action sequences, something I know, studio Bones can be trusted with. Despite some faults, it somehow manages to keep you interested and that is it’s strong point.

Well, I’ll hop on to the second season then.