English Dub Review: My Hero Academia “Rescue Exercises”

Search and rescue, not as easy as it sounds.

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Class 1-A has made it through the initial state of the Provisional License Exam, but its no time at all before they get started on the second and final stage examination of their might and mettle. After some brief talks with the Shiketsu students, the examinees are informed that this next test will be about civilian rescue, with our heroes having to rescue some “professional bystanders”, actors paid to pretend to be people in need.

The exam begins and the students get to work on saving the bystanders, but quickly realize their lack of preparation for this sort of work. The bystanders criticize our heroes at every turn, offering them advice and revealing to them that there’s more to being a hero than just good use of their powers.

Eventually, things pick up for the examinees, who start to get a handle on saving as many people as they can, but all does not stay well for long. The exam just couldn’t be that easy, and soon, a powerful hero named “Gang Orca” appears to act as a villain preying on the innocent bystanders. This means things aren’t going to be easy for our heroes, who have to figure out a way to fight and protect at the same time.

Our Take:

You gotta love My Hero Academia for its little details. Every episode expands the world of MHA a little bit more, getting into the nuances of what a hero society is really like. To that end, having professional “bystanders” is nothing short of brilliant, and doubly so, since they end up acting as sherpas for the cast to learn from. Its one thing to have professional bystanders as a sort of gag, but quite another to give them significance within the story, and I’m impressed that their brief lines in the show were vital to the theming of the episode.

Normally, I’m not too fond of romantic subplots being thrown in the mix of my shounen anime, but the subtlety and restraint which Uraraka struggles with her feelings for Midoriya have quickly endeared me to her character. There is a feeling of sincerity in her inner conflict that isn’t easy to achieve in anime, especially while still retaining her own agency as a character. Her crush on Midoriya doesn’t get in the way of the main plot while still remaining important enough to her character that it feels like a unique part of her story.

This episode does a pretty splendid job at preserving tension and is honestly one of the more intense episodes we’ve had in recent memory. This is curious because this episode is all about rescue as opposed to fighting, which you think would be the more difficult challenge for our heroes to face. But its an excellent inversion of expectation that My Hero Academia recognizes the gravity of preserving other people’s lives when you’re trying to save the day. That weight underscores the entire episode in all its corners, proving time and time again to our heroes that they’re not the hot shots they may think they are. This episode gets into the nitty-gritty of actual hero work, and towards the end of the episode, I identified with the level of intimidation that Class 1-A is no doubt feeling, especially once Gang Orcs shows up on the scene.

This is certainly one of the better episodes we’ve had this season. While it doesn’t offer much in terms of fighting, it makes up for that with some excellent storytelling. While it could be a little bit heavy on exposition sometimes, overall I was completely taken by this episode from start to finish, and am on the edge of my seat to see what happens next.