English Dub Review: My Hero Academia “What a Twist!”

Sadly, not directed by M. Night Shyamalan.

Overview (Spoilers Below)

The battle for the UA summer camp concludes, but things don’t quite go as expected. Class 1-A has their final showdown with the League of Villains Vanguard Action Squad, and push themselves to their limits to save their friends. Despite their valiant efforts, Bakugou is lost, and Class 1-A is left to lick their wounds and suffer their defeat. But it’s not long before talk of a rescue mission is underway; our heroes may just get their chance at redemption yet.

Our Take:

Man oh man, what an episode we got this week. There’s so much to love in so many ways, there’s a reason why this anime is the up-and-coming shounen series taking the world by storm.

To begin, I’ve really got to give credit to the League of Villains for being just the coolest damn anime villains I’ve seen in some time. Every time they’re on screen, I’m glued to my monitor. They feel alive and real, varied and interesting, their viciousness in both action and character design providing incredible foils for the soft, colorful students of UA. Toga is frightening, Twice is silly and over-the-top, and Dabi is morbidly cynical. Not to mention, all of them are competent enough to instill that fear in our heroes. These dudes will kill you if they can, and they’ll probably have a good time doing it.

As for the rest, a lot of what I can say I’ve already said in the past few episode reviews. Quality writing, pacing, and delivery is the norm here, but this episode really touches on something deeper I’d like to express; namely, this is an episode that deals with the difficult concept of failure. Too often in shounen series, even in fan favorites like “One Piece” or “Dragonball Super”, characters consistently overcome an obstacle in extravagant, heroic fashion; rarely do we get to see them struggle in a way that feels realistic. But My Hero Academia takes an inverse approach; instead of having characters that are overly powerful, our main cast of heroes are actually quite weak and struggle with that weakness on a consistent basis. Because of that, when Midoriya and pals do succeed, those successes are that much more satisfying, and when they fail, their desperation weighs heavy on the audience’s soldiers. Here is an episode where everyone does their best but must grapple with the realization that their best is not always good enough. Heroism is not easy and rarely ever fair. People die, people get hurt, and sometimes you lose friends along the way. But it’s those moments when you fail that your determination to succeed is tested, and true heroism can be achieved. My Hero Academia understands that and imparts powerful human drama while still satisfying that delicious shounen itch for adventure and superpowered fighting that nothing else can really scratch. In other words, you better bring a blanket when you watch this episode because you’re gonna get chills.