English Dub Review: My Hero Academia “All Hands on Deck! Class 1-A”

Overview:

There’s an emergency drill at U.A. High School, and Class 1-A is requested to report for duty!

Our Take:

Ahh, filler and/or recaps… the bane of any anime fan. The first episode of every new season of My Hero Academia is usually a recap of the previous season and reintroduces us to the class and their quirks. One pitfall this show has managed to avoid that so many others have not is making them interesting and enjoyable. I would not recommend skipping this episode by any means. It doesn’t offer anything meaningful to the plot really (outside of a post-credits scene) but it’s still fun and we get some cool character moments.

I would also like to take a moment and thank Funimation for getting this dubbed so quick. It’s only been two weeks and we got it. Seems the dubbing from home process is getting more streamlined. Not quite as quick as their simuldubs were but the effort is appreciated especially with everything going on.

In this episode, there was an emergency drill where there was a disaster, and civilians need to be rescued. Eventually, some “villains” show up. Their roles are played by Nejire and Amajiki, their upperclassmen and member of the U.A. Big Three. After the events of last season, Mirio (the third member) no longer has his quirk but plays the role of a civilian in need of rescue hilariously.

One thing MHA does really well in my opinion is giving everyone a chance to shine. Everyone in Class 1-A has at least a moment or two. It’s also how we get reintroduced to everyone’s quirks. Even characters like Ojiro and Hagakure get time to shine, which is pretty impressive given Hagakure is literally invisible. The only downside to something like that is our main character Deku didn’t really have a big moment. Kind of hard to give a whole class equal screentime in twenty minutes. Bakugo’s moment stood out because he’s well… Bakugo.

All your favorite voice actors are back. Justin Briner is still excellent as Deku and it’s probably a no-brainer but I think this is his best role. The standout to me has always been Clifford Chapin as Bakugo. How the guy doesn’t lose his voice every recording session is beyond me but he is always impressive. This episode was no different with him screaming “DIE!!!” like usual, this is going to be a fun season.

Openings and endings in this series are almost always good ones and this season is no different. The opening is “No. 1” by Dish// who has also done an opening for Naruto. The ending is handled by a group that has seemed to be in hot demand the last few years. It’s “Ashiato” by The Peggies who also did amazing openings for Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai and more recently Rent-A-Girlfriend. I am looking forward to the rest of this season and think we are in for a treat or should I say… Plus Ultra!!!