My Hero Academia Episode 101

Interview Training

I’m probably forgetting an earlier episode that I said this about, but My Hero Academia Season 5 Episode 101 is the most boring filler episode of the series. I don’t care if this content was in the manga. It’s filler. You can’t honestly think that this wasn’t filler.

And, because I know that someone is going to say “Well, it wasn’t filler because there were important scenes before the OP and after the ED,” allow me to point out why those scenes don’t matter. We’re going to be shown them again next week anyway.

We’re definitely going to see the first scene of the episode again. And while we might not see the exact same scene from the end of this episode again, we’re going to be reminded of it at the start of the next episode because that’s just how these things work.

I’ll go over those scenes more later on. For now, let’s look at the portion of the episode that was all about practicing for interviews. Midnight and Mt. Lady are brought in to teach the Class 1-A students how to interact with the media.

This is certainly a good skill for heroes to have. However, I don’t think it makes for very good content. It just turned into all of the students re-introducing themselves to us and giving basic explanations of their quirks.

If you don’t know the Class 1-A students and their quirks after 100 episodes, I honestly don’t think even these re-introductions and recaps can help you. The My Hero Academia anime also seems to do this every 12-13 episodes or so. Do they honestly think we need reminders? Or is it just to fill time?

Christmas in June

While I don’t know for certain, and I don’t care enough to check, I’m going to assume that this chapter of the manga came out in December. I get that it’s Christmas in-universe. But it still seems odd to me to include a Christmas scene outside of that time of year.

But, maybe I’m the weird one for thinking that. After all, I hate that the entire month of December is dominated by Christmas-themed stuff. It’s why December is the worst time of year. So the idea that someone would willingly do something Christmas-themed even outside of December is insane to me.

On top of that, I don’t see what this scene added other than fan service. Nothing in it mattered. It was just included because some people like seeing the characters in random scenes like this, I guess. I don’t really understand why you would be interested in that, but whatever.

The only real redeeming part of this episode was that Eri made an appearance. The fact that she was dressed up like Santa doesn’t matter to me. I just like it when she shows up for brief moments. If she actually stuck around, I think she’d lose her appeal.

But, going back to the whole Christmas thing, even if this chapter came out in December, that doesn’t mean it needs to be included in the anime in June. Since it doesn’t actually add anything to the story, why not just cut it from the anime? This season could have been 24 episodes instead of 25 and nothing would be lost.

And for anyone thinking that this episode would have aired in December and is only airing in June because of pandemic delays, that’s not exactly true. The production team admitted there would be delays when they announced that work on Season 5 was starting in 2020. So, they knew this episode wasn’t airing in December from the beginning.

The Next Arc

Despite the fact that none of it actually matters because we’re going to see it again next week, let’s go over the scenes from the start and end of the episode. The next arc of the series was set up, which is going to focus on Deku, Bakugo, and Shoto working under Endeavor.

Now, you might think that this next arc is also going to be about the incident that occurred in the opening scene. I’m not convinced that’s going to be the case. Remember when Gigantomachia (I think that’s his name) was introduced like two seasons ago? Did anything ever come of that? I don’t think so.

To me, whatever the incident was that we saw at the start of the episode seems like it’s just setting up a later arc — not necessarily the next arc. It put this next arc in motion because it forced hero work-studies to come back. But I don’t think we’ll see that villain any time soon.

So, with that said, the important scene to me is the ending scene, not the beginning one. At the end, Shoto asks Deku and Bakugo if they want to do their work-studies under Endeavor with him. Why exactly he asked them this isn’t quite clear just yet.

On one hand, you could argue that Endeavor asked Shoto to invite them. After all, Deku and Bakugo are kind of scene as the two other students from Class 1-A who are on par with Shoto. So it makes sense for Endeavor to show interest in them.

On the other hand, Deku and Bakugo don’t have work-studies to return to, so Shoto may have invited them on his own. Sir Nighteye died and his agency is too busy to bring Deku back. And Best Jeanist went missing, so Bakugo can’t go back to him either.

Conclusion

What did you think of My Hero Academia Season 5 Episode 101? Was it really as bad as I made it out to be? Or do you think it was a good episode? And who do you prefer, Midnight or Mt. Lady? I’d have to pick Mt. Lady, but let me know your choice in the comments.

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My review of Episode 102 is available now.