English Dub Review: My Hero Academia “Red Riot”

Overview(Spoilers Below):

With Tamaki behind, Fatgum and Kirishima continue to push forward.

Our Take:

Here we finally get a little about Kirishima’s backstory, and it’s surprisingly relatable. When Kirishima is blown back by some of the Hassaikai goons, he is paralyzed by fear. He’s injured, his quirk has seemingly failed him against a larger power, and he doesn’t know what to do. As one of the Hassaikai notes, fear freezes people, and if he lets it consume him, then he has already lost the fight.

Back in middle school, Kirishima was much more passive. He was, by all accounts, a regular kid who had a flashy quirk but didn’t stand out. He didn’t really want to be a hero, even if he did admire heroes and want to do the greater good. The issue is that he was cowardly– unlike his classmate, Mina, who would throw herself in harm’s way to protect those in harm, Kirishima finds himself paralyzed. When a villain threatens two girls, Kirishima can do nothing but stand there. Mina manages to misdirect the situation, but no matter how much Kirishima wanted to do something, he couldn’t. He hated that part of himself, and that was the impetus to change. His penchant towards ‘manliness’ comes from a hero he admired, one whose advice he takes to improve himself and not just think the right thing, but do the right thing.

Kirishima now is extremely confident, very self-assured and willing to help everyone out. He is so naturally positive that it comes as a surprise that he wasn’t always like that, but that his optimism was something that he had to learn. I really like this a lot, because it is hard to be heroic. It’s infinitely easier to be a bystander, to take no action at all. There are a lot of naturally heroic characters, Midoriya being the obvious example, and Mina being the other. This is a story centering around heroes, so it’s natural to see them around. Knowing that Kirishima had to push himself into heroism, that it isn’t purely natural, that it’s something anyone can do with the right amount of effort– that’s genuinely good. Because that shows that anyone can do heroic things, no matter how small, if they put in the effort to make a difference. I like that a lot more than people are heroically inclined and remain heroically inclined.