English Dub Review: My Hero Academia “Japanese Hero Billboard Chart ; His Start”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Class 1-A takes a much deserved break after the festival with some surprise good news: Eri is going to be living at UA so that Aizawa can help her control her quirk, which may be able to return Mirio’s power someday. Also, the Wild Wild Pussycats visit to let the kids know that they’re getting back to active duty, just in time for the announcement of the new Japanese Hero Billboard rankings. This will be the first time the ranks have been listed since All Might’s retirement, featuring the winged hero Hawks taking the #2 spot and Endeavor, the previous second rank, now officially rising to the top. As expected, he’s getting some mixed reception due to being a very different hero from All Might, but Hawks seems to be doing his best to give Endeavor his chance to prove himself on this stage and become the new dependable symbol for everyone to rely on.

Part of that is inviting Endeavor on an investigation of suspicious activity in Hawks’ hometown, which presents numerous opportunities for him to build his publicity, though some aren’t fully into his new pivot in personality. That changes when a new, more powerful Nomu gifted with speech and thought called High End shows up to cause chaos, forcing Endeavor to face it head on while Hawks does evacuation. In addition to being able to fly and having higher strength that a typical Nomu, it can also shoot regular Nomus out of itself to attack civilians. While he holds it off well enough, he takes a mortal blow soon enough, causing people to start panicking and feeling All Might’s absence. Still, some of his existing fans cheer him on, so Endeavor finds the fire within himself to fully wipe out High End as Rei, Shoto, and his other children Toya and Fuyumi look on and see him officially prove himself to be the new #1 hero.

In a post-credits scene, Deku has a nightmare about All for One and One for All’s original battle when One for All’s first user calls him “the Ninth”.

OUR TAKE

My Hero Academia’s fourth season dub finally concludes after a month break with a double feature! And probably good that they handled it this way seeing how these episodes are basically a two part story. When the dubbing at home began, My Hero looked to be one of Funi’s main priority shows as they tried to put out an episode every two weeks, though it seems that was just to finish the School Festival Arc. While the longer pause was puzzling at first, it seems to have been with these episodes in mind, since it would be probably be better to put these last two out at once. And because they’re just the same story split into two parts, it makes talking about them as one episode that much easier! Plus I bet Zeno Robinson probably thought he wouldn’t have to wait THIS long for his character premiere in the show after first showing up in the movie back in February. As for Hawks as a character, he’s off to an interesting start, but I’m sure we’ll be going into more detail on him with the next season.

Endeavor has been a pretty complicated character in this story since his introduction. Initially he was just used with Todoroki as a foil for Deku’s relationship to All Might, but as All Might would eventually have to sacrifice the rest of his power and retire, we got to see something that is, as far as I know, pretty rare in anime rivalries: Seeing how the rival character copes with losing his rival. It’s basically a larger scale version of how Bakugo felt after Todoroki gave up during the last tournament, but this time representative of what being a hero means post-All Might. And in that sense, it shows that the philosophy of being a hero, while being boosted a lot by All Might these past few years, has to survive him and evolve with the world, hence why a new type of top hero is necessary and why Endeavor is the perfect choice to take that job. It’s also why not having All Might in either of these episodes was probably the best call. Those who make the next step forward in a game, industry, or field, can’t rely on the blessings of those who came before to think about taking that next step. Also, couldn’t help but notice that Funi got Todd Haberkorn to voice the Endeavor fan who looked suspiciously like Natsu from Fairy Tail, who Haberkorn also voices.

But that finally puts a wrap on the fourth season’s dub, meaning it’s time once again to take a look back on it from the beginning. Even before production slowed this way down, this season has been through a lot of ups and downs with its characters, themes, and plot, so it’ll be nice to see it all as one solid product now that all this time has passed. At the very least it means they can finally finish the run on Toonami, which I know fans have really wanted for awhile, though I don’t envy whatever show has to fill its spot.