You Say Garbage
My Hero Academia continues its quest to systematically murder the battle-shounen genre in its 4th installment, which promises to be more epic than any that came before it. Can it end its previous seasons' trends of never developing its secondary cast in any meaningful way, making its characters mary sues, never giving enough time to important events, and using one repeated piece of OST to cover for its lack of substance?
Nope.
To elaborate:
The overhaul arc happened. And when it happens, oh boy does it happen with a whimper. It wasn't like the show had built up a reputation for delivering on hyped up characters in any way, starting the trend of squandering all for one last season immediately following beating the first villain of the show in the second episode he showed up in... but nonetheless, it felt like overhaul was going to be different. It felt like he was going to pose a real threat. And the show doesn't put itself out to make you feel like anyone is legitimately threatened except for, ironically, other villains.
This kind of character wouldn't be a problem in seasons 1 or 2. Keep in mind, shounen progression usually deals with this kind of format where the enemies get progressively more and more hyped as they go on, even when the pacing stays consistant and power scaling isn't an issue. But that's what shiguraki's first appearence and stain were for. We're way past the point where villains should posing a real threat to our main characters, and we still haven't seen enough of this beyond the one time somebody killed a dude in season 3.
Deku's trend of beating everybody on the first try sucks for a shounen like this, and it continues all throughout this season. It's horseshit. Every time he needs to, he has a new upgrade to perfectly deal with every new guy that shows up. And somehow it's always just through the virtue of being the most epic perfect guy ever, which I just don't buy.
If the show has to position itself perfectly around a character just to prove how great they are, that makes that character a mary sue. And that's what deku has become. It's asinine, and after 4 seasons I'm just sick of him being treated more importantly than everybody else. He's lost any good will as a protagonist. And his character stays totally stale during season 4.
The season's most egregious sin was once again playing you say run over an "epic" moment to give it that feel, even though the moment they played it over was mundane and empty of personal emotion for the characters involved. Every time they do this I can just picture the director, bashing his head on the table while reading the source material just wondering how he can possibly make this wet fart of a final scene have any impact at all before he has an "eureka" moment and slams it in the "add you say run" cupboard.
The only good parts of this show were the villains besides overhaul. The league of villains feels like the return of the phantom troupe, and is the group I would rather be focusing on, and Gentle Criminale is probably the only character I could see deserving a main character slot in this show, as he's actually more likable than the entire main cast as well as La Brava (but of course the anime sucks deku's dick the entire time he's onscreen regardless). Suneater and Red Riot had good episodes, but they were rare good moments in an otherwise horrible season of anime that I couldn't wait to be over with.
All of the secondary cast besides those are wasted. Everyone besides the main few are treated like sideshow acts, some characters still only get anything to do when there's nothing at stake. The characters were so wasted they even kill them off before we have a chance to care who they are.
The animation was fine despite suffering slide-show disease in a few episodes, and the music, being multiple versions of the same fucking track i've heard a billion times on "inspirational compilations on youtube", sucked balls. Make a new fucking song.
You may notice that the overall score is much lower than the other parts of the score. That's because this show rates a 0 in seasonal improvement, bringing the average down.
If nothing else, MHA 4 proves that the series has no desire to grow or improve, respect its own ideas or characters, actually bother to write real drama, or innovate in any way. And you gotta respect a show that proves itself.
2/10.
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