My Hero Academia Season 5

Versus Class 1-B Arc

By now, you should know what My Hero Academia (Boku no Hero Academia / 僕のヒーローアカデミア) is, so I’m just going to get right into the review of Season 5. It starts off pretty well with an arc focused on exhibition matches between the Class 1-A and Class 1-B students.

I enjoyed this arc for two reasons. First, we got to see a bunch of new quirks. I think most of the Class 1-B students’ quirks were new to us, so that was fun to see. If you’re interested in my commentary on each of the Class 1-B quirks, it starts in my Episode 91 review and goes on for the next few episodes.

In general, I think I might like the Class 1-B quirks more. They felt a bit more unique than a lot of the quirks we see in Class 1-A. However, generalist quirks are typically both the strongest and most boring, which would explain why Class 1-A has more of them.

The other reason I liked this arc is that we get to see how the Class 1-A and 1-B characters work together when randomly thrown into groups of four (and sometimes five). It’s cool to see how they use their quirks in tandem to overpower their opponents.

And because the groups are selected at random, it’s not as if the students really have any practice working together. They have a short amount of time to come up with strategies based on their quirks and the available information about their opponents.

Additionally, this arc introduces Hitoshi Shinsou as a major supporting character. He previously appeared in the sports festival arc, but now he’s moving from the regular course at UA to the hero course.

Endeavor Work-Study Arc

The middle arc, which focuses on Deku, Bakugo, and Todoroki participating in a work-study program at Endeavor’s hero agency, is by far the worst arc of the season. Endeavor has had some cool moments, such as at the end of Season 4. But this arc wasn’t good.

As I always say, I’m not interested in the Class 1-A students at all. Since this arc focuses pretty heavily on three of them, it’s already going to be a fairly boring arc. But it has Endeavor, so he should be able to salvage it, right?

Wrong. Endeavor doesn’t do anything all that cool in this arc. And he’s not a great character by any means. If Endeavor isn’t going all-out in a fight against a strong opponent, he’s actually pretty boring to watch.

And, what you might not expect is that this arc doesn’t really focus on Deku’s, Bakugo’s, or Todoroki’s development as heroes in training. Instead, the main focus of the arc is on Endeavor learning how to not be a terrible parent. Riveting stuff, I know.

For the most part, the arc simply readdresses everything we already knew about the Todoroki household situation. There is one new piece of information we get in the latter stages of the arc that I have a feeling is going to be relevant later on. But for now, it doesn’t mean much.

I really thought an arc about Endeavor was going to be a good arc. Unfortunately, I forgot that the adult heroes, who I vastly prefer over the students, aren’t all that important. Why would there be a good arc about them? That’s not relatable to the young, male demographic. That’s also why none of the main characters are female.

My Villain Academia Arc

Surprisingly, the third and final arc of the season was pretty good. Of course, the main reason it was good was that it didn’t have any of the hero students. This arc, as the title implies, is all about the villains — specifically the League of Villains.

I believe it’s in the first episode of the season when we see that the League of Villains and an organization known as the Meta Liberation Army are somehow connected. The My Villain Academia arc takes us back in time to before that point and explains how the two groups first came into contact.

This arc also includes some quirk power-ups for a few of the League’s main members. After all, the League of Villains as we knew it before this season wasn’t all that threatening. I’d argue that by the end of Season 4, Class 1-A could have defeated the League of Villains.

But, since the League of Villains is the primary antagonist group of the series, its members obviously need to get stronger over time in order to match the (literal) heroes of the story. I mean, Deku got a power-up this season and has five or six more queued up. Shigaraki can’t risk falling behind.

Something I realized during this arc, though, was that I do actually like some of the villains as characters. I’ve always said I liked Himiko, but that was more because she’s cute. She and Twice got some good development in this arc that genuinely made them better characters than any of the hero students.

I’d also say that I’ve grown to like Shigaraki a bit more. However, I still think he’s kind of just a worse version of Overhaul. Hopefully, as the series progresses, Shigaraki will become more of a unique character.

Conclusion

In the end, I gave My Hero Academia Season 5 a 6/10. It was fine, but that’s about it. The first and last arcs were pretty good. The middle arc sucked. It’s My Hero Academia — I don’t think I really need to say anything more than that.

As for the OP and ED, they’re not good. I watched the OP once and then skipped it every other time. And while I don’t believe I ever skipped the ED, I never paid attention to it after the first time. The ED is when I check Twitter and Discord.

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My review of Season 6 is available now.