My Hero Academia Episode 86

My Hero Academia Episode 86

Let It Flow! School Festival!

The school festival episode is here, which automatically means it can’t be a very good episode. My Hero Academia is one of those series I really don’t care about unless there’s action happening on screen.

And of the major battle shounen series I’ve watched, this is the only one for which that’s the case. I can be interested in Naruto or One Piece basically no matter what’s happening because I’m invested in the characters. I don’t care about the characters of MHA, so seeing them put on a concert does nothing for me.

Though, to be fair, I wouldn’t care if the characters of Naruto or One Piece put on a concert at a school festival either.

Really, episodes such as this just make it harder for me to write about them. There are few, if any, new abilities to discuss. There’s generally little to no character development. And it’s exactly why you don’t see me doing weekly episode reviews for slice of life anime.

Slice of life anime can be really good, but they aren’t the best for discussing on an episode by episode basis.

The good news, however, is that the school festival proper began and ended within this episode. Next week our focus will shift to something much more interesting: The new pro hero rankings.

I think it’s pretty clear that Endeavor will have moved up from his #2 position to #1, but whether or not he’ll be able to hold onto that spot for long is another matter entirely. The next episode preview teased a brand new pro hero who’s likely going to give Endeavor a run for his money.

Hound Dog

Hound Dog, Ryo Inui, isn’t a new character, but he’s a pro hero I’ve never discussed before. He’s actually been around since episode 13.

His quirk is a pretty simple one to understand. It’s called “Dog,” and it gives him the appearance and abilities of a dog. Just like how Tsu’s quirk gives her the appearance (not really) and abilities of a frog. It’s your standard animal-style quirk.

But what exactly are the “abilities of a dog?”

We can assume that he can run fairly quickly — probably on all fours when going at his top speed. He also likely has increased hearing sensitivity. And we know for a fact that his sense of smell is extremely heightened. Basically, he’s a tracker-class hero who specializes in hunting down villains on the run.

Pro hero Hound Dog from the anime series My Hero Academia season 4
Pro hero Hound Dog

Interestingly, Hound Dog’s official position at U.A. is that of the lifestyle guidance counselor. You’d expect him to be the school’s head of security or something, especially after seeing his role during the school festival, but that’s not the case.

What makes his official position even stranger is that he appears to have anger issues. He’s not on the same level as someone like Bakugo, but when he does get angry, which seems to be pretty often, his words become incomprehensible. He regresses into using howls and growls rather than human speech.

Not exactly a quality you’d probably want a guidance counselor to have.

Hopefully we’ll get to see more of Hound Dog in the future. The fact that he’s already been around for so long is a good sign. But many of the pro hero side characters are just that, side characters who don’t get much screen time.

Class 1-A’s Performance

And now we’ve made it to the part of the review where I no longer know what to discuss. Class 1-A’s performance happened. It was a success. And that’s pretty much all there is to say about that.

I’m still not a fan of the current trend of shounen series including English singing. If the character is Japanese and has only ever spoken Japanese, then why do they suddenly sing in English? It’s not like all Japanese musicians sing in English.

Sure, some do, but the vast majority do not — they sing in Japanese. So I don’t really understand where this trend came from.

Mirio and Eri watching Class 1-A's performance from the anime series My Hero Academia season 4
Mirio and Eri watching Class 1-A’s performance

I will say that the only bit of character development in the episode actually came from the part of the episode focused on the concert. We see that the shadow of Overhaul, which was still surrounding Eri, has been washed away by the light of the hero students.

From this point, Eri will be able to move on with her life and not be bound by the fear Overhaul had instilled in her. However, since I don’t know what kind of role Eri’s going to have in the future of this series, I’m not sure how major that development is.

I get the feeling that she’s never going to become one of the main characters of the series, especially considering how potentially broken her quirk is. But at the very least this was a conclusion to her story arc.

End of the Festival

After Class 1-A’s performance, we also get to see two other performances happening around the festival. Class 1-B (I think) put on a play which was a combination of Star Wars, The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Romeo and Juliet, and more.

I’m sure there were other stories tied in, but those are the ones I could remember off the top of my head.

The other performance we saw was the beauty pageant, which Nejire obviously won. She didn’t really have much competition outside of Kendou and the Luvia Edelfelt wannabe, so it was pretty clear she was going to win despite losing the previous year.

Nejire Hadou winning the beauty pageant from the anime series My Hero Academia season 4
Nejire Hadou winning the beauty pageant

Unfortunately, like the pro hero side characters who don’t get enough screen time, the same is true for the hero student side characters. Something tells me that the “Big Three” aren’t going to be all that important going forward.

They each had their time to shine (although Nejire’s was much shorter than the other two, probably because she’s a woman) during the Shie Hassaikai arc. And I don’t really see them being all that important going forward. Mirio is the most important of the three, and he doesn’t even have his quirk anymore.

Conclusion

Did you like My Hero Academia episode 86? If so, what was your favorite part? And even if you didn’t enjoy it, which pro hero would you like to see more of in the future? I’ve already stated in the past that I’d really like to see Rock Lock make a comeback — he had a pretty cool quirk.

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My review of the next episode is available here.

2 Replies to “My Hero Academia Episode 86”

    1. I just don’t care about these characters, so seeing them do slice of life stuff doesn’t interest me in the slightest.

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