The Decline of My Hero Academy Part 2: Season 3 https://www..com/watch?v=SIph1LLCQiE Season 2https://anilist.co/review/13277 SPOILER WARNING FOR HUNTER X HUNTER FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST AND NARUTO + SHIPPUDEN Season 3 is bad. It is the point where you finally realize that all the potential the earlier seasons flashed was no more than just that: unrealized potential. And all the problems with the writing werent blips they become a constant problem that deflates the tension and drama in every arc. Every time Deku were told Deku is risking his body only for him to be fine after a day in the hospital every time a villain is hyped up only for them to lose while barely accomplishing anything every time stakes are established and then retreated from immediately. It all starts to add up. Decline of Visuals 1 Now one thing thats important to note is that the decline of the MHA anime is not entirely due to Horikoshis writing. A fair amount of blame should be attributed to Studio Bones as well. I complimented the show based on how there was a lot more effort than I remember in season 1 and the reason I was surprised by that is because of how low the quality of visuals is in seasons 3 and 4. MHAs visuals in general have never been that sharp especially in terms of backgrounds but season 1 did a good job of covering for that by being loose and creative with the visuals. That is no longer the case. The visuals are flat and the tone is overly stiff. Which uh is a lot less fun to watch. And if youre not enjoying what youre watching you tend to be less engaged. And when youre not engaged by whats in the foreground you start to zone out and look at the backgrounds out of boredom. https://i.ur.com/RxsxW21.png https://i.ur.com/P6C5mQw.png At which point you start to notice how cheaplooking and shoddily thrown together the backgrounds in this show look. Youll notice the same tree copy and pasted over and over again stale coloring buildings with no style or personality put into how theyre drawn and sometimes you cant even tell what youre even looking at: https://i.ur.com/tCl2Jdl.png This is supposed to be an establishing shot of the city. What the hell is this? Looks like a bunch of digital garbage. https://i.ur.com/9SEjjIV.png What the hell are those things in the background even supposed to be? Forest Training Camp Arc The first two arcs of season 3 are the forest training camp arc and class raid arcs and they are both very bad. So bad that season 3 and really the whole series never recovers from it. What you realize while watching these arcs that all the bad aspects of Horikoshis writing thus far arent going to go away: the problem has actually gotten much worse and is deflating any potential drama and tension for new arcs. The Forest Training Camp arc isnt as bad as the Class Raid arc butits still bad and starts season 3 off on a very bad note. Most of why I dislike this arc is the emergence of Horikoshis writing becominglazy. The problems that pop up in the Class Raid arc are recurring issues that have spun out of control but The Forest Training Camp arc started to make me question if he even had a plan for where the story is going. Heres a brief summary: Students go on a class trip to train. Deku meets Kota a kid who lost his parents and hates heroes as a result. Villains attack Pixie Bob is injured Deku fights muscle guy and beats him Bakugo gets kidnapped arc end. Theres a lot of dumb shit all over the place here but lets start with the villains reason for the raid: https://i.ur.com/z4uppDK.png https://i.ur.com/FqrZMCA.png What the fuck does that mean? Something Ive noticed while rewatching is with the villains you kind of have to ignore what they say at times to make the writing coherent. Like with Stain when he says that money and fame worshippers are ruining hero society despite there being sort of 1 example of each that fit that description even existing. What he does in the alley though points to a more coherent ideology. https://i.ur.com/n1WvlG4.png https://i.ur.com/XuaVuRT.png Iida ignored an injured hero because he was too busy trying to get revenge on Stain for his brother. That selfishness and inability to control his emotions is bad and holds Iida back. You gave me an example of something Stain opposes directly and showed me rather than told me excellent. Then you have this shit. I dont know what the fuck make them see that their peace is resting in our hands means. Thats confusing vague nonsense. Later on they explain that they want to kidnap Bakugo and try to show him that there are options other than being a hero. So why not just say that to begin with? You want to kidnap students to convert them to your cause. It conveys your motivations better than whatever the hell make them see that their peace is resting in our hands is. Anyways. Most of the villain attack is standard MHA stuff. Villains attack have mixed results students counterattack. Blah blah blah. The real garbage starts here with Pixie Bob getting hurt: https://i.ur.com/BKOKx4h.png This is lazy last minute garbage. Lastminute characterization is something I really dont care much for but this is pathetic. This is literally just Horikoshi saying Hey I know you barely got to know this character but you should feel something because Im abruptly telling you shes getting married. Theres no emotional anything here. I dont know how important marriage is to her I dont know who shes getting married to I dont know anything about this woman If this plot line had been developed ahead of time aka Horikoshi had scenes where we saw her doting over her fianc or just scenes of the 2 together in general then there would be grounds to put this line here. Because then the show would have actually earned it. But you cant do it like this. This is lazy. Well get back to this problem in part 4 as it like the other parts of Horikoshis writing snowballs out of control. And then we get to the big fight from this arc Deku vs muscle guy. I dont care what his name is. His design is bad hes badly written his only notable feature is how muscley he is. Hes muscley guy. https://i.ur.com/rhEOqV8.png muscle guy Before getting to the fight we need to talk about Kota. https://i.ur.com/aYgpQLy.png Kota is this little dipshit. His parents are heroes that were killed in the line of duty and he now he hates heroes. Which is whatever. Generic backstory depends on what you do with it. Its fine by itself. But what I dislike about this is Dekus reasons for wanting to help him. The show treats Kota as though his opinion about heroes iswrong. Something that needs to be corrected. This is an annoying part of the way MHA is written and is yet another problem that spirals out of control in seasons 3 and 4. On its own it isnt a big deal. But when you take into consideration the fact that Horikoshi very clearly wants to write villains who represent problems with society but at the same time is unwilling to write flawed superheroes or hold accountable UA or his societys heroes and also seems to treat all criticism of the heroes as wronglike which is it? You cant have both they clash with each other. So obviously this muscley guy is not a very good villain. Kotas backstory with his parents was already pretty token but did you really have to make muscley guy the same guy that killed his parents? Thats like the lamest twist ever. Then you have the fight itself. Which iswhatever. Theres some neat animation here I guess but overall I dont really care. The villain is bad the drama is bad and there arent really any stakes with Deku injuring his body because I know after the arc is over hell sit in a hospital bed for a bit and then be fine. Speaking of... Before we get to the episodes after the forest training camp arc Id like to highlight one thing Deku says during this fight: https://i.ur.com/24y9z90.png https://i.ur.com/w12l2KR.png Remember this quote. Ill refer back to it a lot going forward. Fake Stakes 1 The episodes between the end of the Forest training camp arc and the class raid are important in that they highlight the one problem with MHA that it has proven unable to escape from: Horikoshi is deathly afraid of taking risks. His writing is among the stalest and safest in a popular shounen Ive ever seen. Hes overly attached to his characters he never provides longlasting consequences for the actions of his characters and he seems terrified of moving a single piece out of place. There are 2 categories of this Id like to highlight here: UA The first problem area when it comes to fakes stakes is this ongoing storyline with the medias criticism of UA and their failures to protect their students. Or rather its just Horikoshi pretending there will be consequences for the students getting into trouble for both UA and the students but then immediately retreating from it because actual consequences would be hard to write. Anyways were gonna establish the details of this subplot that are important and Ill explain why this part of the story is a problem in a bit. In season 1 the media manages to sneak onto school grounds after Shigaraki blows up the wall. This one isnt as notable as the others but I just wanted to point it out because in this instance UA couldnt even keep reporters off their school grounds. Maybe a wall and sensor isnt a great security system in a world where nearly everyone has superpowers yeah? You think maybe someone might try to just jump over the wall or blow it up? https://i.ur.com/CNFLmNd.png Anyways then you have the villains that attack students at the end of season 1. Also does not reflect well on the school and they receive criticism for it. This looks even worse when you consider the people that got in were proven to be morons. Thats basically the subplot. The media goes after UA for letting the students fall into danger and thats uh. Thats it. As for the students: In episode 31 the police guy tells Deku and friends that they and the other heroes are going to receive strict punishment...and then they dont do that at all. Not a huge deal they dont follow through here. But next time they get into trouble there needs to be actual punishment for the students or UA. This could just be to establish stakes for the future. All you gotta do is follow through next time. There you go thats how all that...stuff is setup. The important part of this plotline is that somewhere along the line the show has to be able to establish real consequences for UA for not protecting its students and for the students of class A for getting into trouble. And...well get to that in a minute. Deku Destroying His Body Another recurring problem is Dekus body. The threat of Deku damaging his body so badly he cant be a hero anymore is established pretty early. Its a good way of keeping One for All from feeling overpowered and a constant source of drama during Dekus fights. At least it would be. If Horikoshi was willing to actually commit to it. https://i.ur.com/GcsxjwJ.png Knowing that Deku could permanently damage his body so badly he could never walk again is an interesting subplot but it cant be if every time he risks his body he stays in the hospital for a day and then hes fine again. This is again something that isnt a struggle for other popular battle shounens: Were back to Naruto and Hunter x Hunter again. In Naruto when Rock Lee uses his Hidden Lotus ability it has very similar risks to Dekus ability with Lees being a bit more extreme the further he goes with it. Anyways when we see Deku and Rock Lee overuse their ability to try to win we do see them exhausted crippled etc. But its what the writers do after the fight ends that separate the two. Rock Lees body is torn up really badly after his fight with Gaara and they tell Guy that its likely hell never fight again. But then they follow through on that. He is absent from combat for the next 76 episodes but it is a source of ongoing drama as we see his recovery process and struggle to come to terms with the possibly giving up his entire way of life. And then several arcs later when he pops out to fight Kimimaro you get a huge adrenaline rush. This happens for 3 reasons: one Rock Lee was gone for so long. Two the last time we saw him he was in the most entertaining fight of the show thus far. And most importantly three we saw his recovery process and knew how hard it was for him. So when he jumps out here we know that his recovery is complete hes back as a ninja and we finally get to see him fight again. Great moment and a great example of establishing stakes for a fight and actually sticking with them. https://i.ur.com/pZfae7j.png In Hunter x Hunter Gon loses control of his emotions after he finds out Kite is dead. His anger leads him to use everything to kill Pitou. But since Gon is nowhere near strong enough to even fight Pitou he has to sacrifice...well everything. Based on what we know about nen and the way it works seeing him suddenly obtain this much power means the amount he sacrificed is so great he will probably die. Okay so our main character has taken on a colossal risk and the stakes are his sacrifice took a massive toll on his body and he could die. How do we follow up on this? https://i.ur.com/wFJZl89.png https://i.ur.com/cfHdWqQ.png https://i.ur.com/wpNaP04.png This is what it looks like to create stakes and stick with them. Gon nearly dies and Killua has to go through tons of hoops to save him. And while yes Gon does recover. He is completely absent from the manga for the following arcs. No really. The protagonist is out of the story for several major story arcs. He cant use nen because of what he did to beat Pitou. Kurapika is the main character during the prince succession arc which is the current arc. Togashi was willing to take that risk to make it clear that when he declares stakes no matter how great he will follow through. As a result when they say something like we could die I believe it regardless of who its referring to. And yet with Deku we are told time and time again that he is risking his body by being reckless and every single time he goes to the hospital the nurse heals him and hes fine again. There are no stakes here. Deku has the strongest plot armor on Ive ever seen. https://i.ur.com/crZ044G.png https://i.ur.com/c7Mz7qj.png This isnt even that hard to fix either. Heres how you do it: Have the nurse heal him a couple times then have the villains kill her cutting Deku off from having an instaheal every time hes reckless with his body. He will then be forced to actually deal with the damage hes doing to his body and for the first time in the series actually following through with the stakes it established. It would also ground Deku preventing him from just doing whatever he wants with no consequences. But killing the nurse lady would be a risky choice to make and we cant have that Or alternatively stop reminding us of this plot point if you refuse to do anything with it. If youre gonna keep saying hes risking his body then show the stakes Have him damage his body so badly that hes absent for an arc. Naruto did it with Rock Lee. And Hunter x Hunter is doing it with Gon right now. The other guys dont seem to have a problem with it and if MHA is as great as people say it is it shouldnt either. Class Raid Arc Now. The reason I brought up all of that now is because the episodes between the Forest Training Camp arc and the Class Raid arc are so fucking stupid and its because of the issues with the writing I just talked about. Deku suffers colossal damage to his body. He is up and walking immediately after. The heroes say that theyre going to keep a closer eye on the students and LITERALLY THE FUCKING NIGHT AFTER THEY SAY THIS THEY LET THE STUDENTS SNEAK OUT. You even have the stupid fucking press conference the teachers put on acknowledging all the criticism UA has rightfully gotten for putting its students in danger. AND AS THEY ARE SAYING THIS NO ONE IS WATCHING THE INJURED STUDENTS AT ALL SO THEY ALL SNEAK OUT. https://i.ur.com/24y9z90.png https://i.ur.com/w12l2KR.png Remember this? Do you remember this fucking line? This is My Hero Academy summarized in a single fucking line. Say youre gonna do one thing and never follow through. It constantly contradicts the message of its own main theme because of its incompetent and lazy writing. Yes were taking the criticism seriously and are making changes as they are letting the students sneak out because no one bothered to keep an eye on them. Deku is threatened with losing his arms and yet THE LITERAL DAY AFTER THE ATTACK he sneaks out with the other students to go get Bakugo back Ridiculous. And Iida understandably objects to this stupid ass plan but since Horikoshi refuses to take a risk like slowing down for a bit to enforce the stakes he just established Iida backs down and goes with them. This was the point where I could no longer deny the truth: My Hero Academy is a big piece of shit. Horikoshi is unable to establish any drama or stakes or tension due to his overly safe and lazy writing and Studio Bones effort in its production has gone down significantly. It had another chance though. It had one last chance to fix its villain problem. This could have done a lot to ease my growing irritation with the series. But again it blew it. All for One and Why the Villains Need to Kill So a growing issue I have had with MHA is the villains. Like yes theyre bad. If were keeping track of only the ones weve seen so far Shigaraki is an idiot allegedly on purpose and Stain doesnt accomplish much onscreen. Thats in terms of writing though. Another big problem I have is that they never kill anyone. You see when you have a problem with weak villains like MHA does a great way to establish a new villain as a threat would be to show them killing a hero we know on screen. Not in the past not telling us they kill people actually showing them kill someone. This ties into my problem of Horikoshi being overly attached to his characters and not wanting to make sacrifices or take risks with them. Because there are tons of expendable ones. Anyways the reason I bring this up now is because the class raid arc is where we are introduced to All for One the Ying to All Mights Yang and supposedly the strongest villain there is. He has dozens of quirks stored away. He can use multiple quirks at once. This guy is a FORCE. So naturally Im expecting him to have a big impact in his first appearance. After all All for One is THE GUY. Finally a competent villain This is gonna be great https://i.ur.com/hKNG2S3.png ...Oh. https://i.ur.com/W9i3pZg.png Oh All for One is disappointing for a number of reasons but really All for One being disappointing is a backbreaker itself. He NEEDED to succeed and needed to make an impression on the audience. The villains up to this point have been a joke. They also kinda justalways lose. Not every villain can just inflict psychological damage to the heroes or whatever. Its the battle shounen equivalent of a moral victory. Thats what Shiggy did in season 1. His raid was a laughable failure that got him ridiculed by the students and All Might. Stain loses without killing anyone in season 2. Dudes name is literally Stain the Hero Killer yet we see him kill no one and then he gets arrested. Eventually a villain needs to actually win. Succeed at their goal outsmart the heroes kill someone. Just something so I can believe for once that theres some competency to these dumbass villains. The most dangerous villain in the show has to establish themselves as a threat somehow when they show up. They cant just not kill anyone and get owned. Why? Because it makes them look incompetent and that has a trickledown effect on the other villains. You REALLY arent going to take the other villains seriously. After all if the biggest baddest villain isnt allowed to win if the heroes all have plot armor that cant be penetrated even now ...what threat are the lesser villains? I see them as a joke now as a result of All for Ones first appearance. His goal here is to kill All Might here. He does make All Might retire but whatever. He still loses and gets captured. This is another moral victory. The best way to shock your audience and establish this guy would be to have him cut down a hero. It would be great Hasnt happened before so it would shock everyone. Horikoshi even has 3 excellent opportunities to do it. https://i.ur.com/BjGhP6B.png Obviously the preferred choice would be All Might. Him dying in a fight with All for One is a better way of inflicting fear admist uncertainty among the citizens for future arcs than him just retiring. And it would display vividly the ultimate act of what All Might says is the most important qualification for a hero: The spirit of selfsacrifice. It doesnt have to be him though. Best Jeanist is incredibly expendable. Gran Torino is old and senile. Theyre so expendable and yet Horikoshi just...cant...let go of them. You kill Best Jeanist here and the following fight with All Might suddenly becomes incredible tense. Why? Because when you kill a hero like that it firmly establishes the stakes as life and death. Something that was kinda not established during the season 1 raid Stain arc from season 2 and the forest training camp arc. And it would completely shock the audience thus raising their investment. And that shit is important for a series like MHA. An important principle of being a hero in this series and formost battle shounens is that they are fighting for their lives. As such its important to establish that the stakes of fights are well life and death. This is something I think My Hero Academy is trying to do. But without examples of heroes we know LOSING their lives fighting or just generally its hard to really say the stakes are that high. Were told that people could die but were never shown it. Because all the heroes have plot armor. They arent allowed to die because theyre heroes. Why? Horikoshi is unwilling to take risks. And no heroes that died before the show starts dont count. Heroes we know and that have been established that weve seen in the series dying. Thats what it is needed here. This is again something writers of other popular battle shounens understand. Lets knock these down quick I dont need a paragraph to explain each: Hunter x Hunter: https://i.ur.com/BMyQSJD.png Everyone Hisoka kills during the Hunter exams: establishes Hisoka as a serious threat and that the Hunter exam is very much life or death which is very much true. https://i.ur.com/cKeuiJY.png Ponzu and Pokkle: displays how ruthless and cruel the chimera ants can be. https://i.ur.com/OgejFyx.png Kite: juxtaposed with how Kite wiped out an entire squadron with one swing earlier establishes how unbelievably strong the Royal Guard are. https://i.ur.com/7UwZRSV.png Those 2 dudes at the beginning of the Zoldyck arc that get killed by Mike: establishes up front how dangerous the Zoldyck manor is. Fullmetal Alchemist: https://i.ur.com/GZDBy7C.png Hughes: this is a message from the Homonculi to the audience and the Elric brothers: if you keep snooping around well kill you. https://i.ur.com/NWtZyPT.png Basque Grand: makes it clear that Scar can kill any state alchemist if he gets the opportunity and Edward and Alphonse are not safe. Naruto: https://i.ur.com/Wdosiv0.png Jiraiya: establishes Pain as a huge threat. He just killed one of the legendary sanin for fucks sake. https://i.ur.com/OUPhJXf.png Gaara mercilessly slaughtering those rain ninja in the forest of death and killing Dosu: establishes deadly stakes for the fight vs Rock Lee and vs Sasuke respectively. https://i.ur.com/x4uOVzm.png Orochimaru kills Hirouzen: makes it clear how dangerous he is and more importantly makes the audience worry about whats going to happen when Sasuke decides to chase after him. Oh shit. that guy killed the hokage. And Sasukes going to go with him? Stuff like this sends a message and its usually pretty good at scaring the audience if theyre invested. When a villain kills someone it says this could happen to one of the protagonists if they arent careful. https://i.ur.com/EG2JvWX.png Killing a character is an amazing way to establish danger something that MHA sorely lacks at this point due to how shit the villains are and how safe the writing is. This is especially true here because it ruins what could be a genuinely great fight. On paper the way its set up works. But to once again have no one die and the villain lose despite setting the stakes higher than ever that just cant happen here. In Between Arcs 1/Fake Stakes 2 Now hold on just a minute. Because everything I complained about in the Fake Stakes sections immediately comes back again after the All for One vs All Might fight. During the first half of episode 50 All Might yells at Deku for destroying his body and sneaking out even though All Might and the other dumbass teachers werent watching the students and thus let it happen. Also Deku is fine after all that. Walking around with some bandages. In the second half of episode 50 Dekus mom takes a stand against All Might and UA for continuously allowing them to endanger her son and threatens to pull Deku out of UA. This of course does not happen. All Might begs and she gives up. flashback to Iida giving up trying to stop the students from sneaking out?. The show declares stakes in the form of consequences for a student and UA and this is again retreated from in the same scene. https://i.ur.com/hFZwoXj.png Despite episode 50 focusing on the fallout from the class raid for UA and the students including showing several parents of class A students angry with the school not one of those parents pulls their kid out. So no consequences of any kind for anyone. The most we get is that UA has a dorm system now. Ugh. Later in this same episode Eraser says that he wouldve expelled almost all of them if not for All Mights retirement. The fuck does All Mights retirement have to do with anything? Just expel them. All Mights retirement is just a lazy excuse to not follow through with stakes you yourself established. Stop being lazy and taking shortcuts with the writing. You keep saying youre going to do one thing and then you dont because youre scared of the risk. As I recall that seems to contradict what you said earlier: https://i.ur.com/4yOWugL.png https://i.ur.com/qrzfjTo.png Provisional Hero License Exam And finally we have the last arc from season 3. Like usual we start with the stakes: https://i.ur.com/tGaVJ5x.png Thats actually pretty intense Sure hope they dont immediately retreat from that after the exam like they always do. Overall this arc isbleh. I think its main problem is that it feels like it goes on forever. And due to the repetitive plot structure this just feels like the 10000th exam stage. I dont believe you about the stakes. Deku will be fine no matter what they do. None of this matters. Im not invested anymore. And of course the visuals dont help matters at all. https://i.ur.com/Co1ZdWk.png https://i.ur.com/sgHBysN.png I think the training camp and Bakugo retrieval arcs were just so bad that the show cant recover now. I am actively irritated with the show now while watching. Also the tone is incredibly tiresome and stiff now. I miss the loose feel of season 1 where All Might swore in front of Deku and it didnt take itself as seriously as a heart attack. Seeing the number one hero in the world the symbol of peace swear in front of a young kid is hilarious. It made me feel like at least part of his hero persona was a front that he put on. As such he felt a bit more human. I liked that side of him. I dont really like him at all now. Hes boring. This exam stage in particular is really fucking boring. Theyre doing a little with making the people theyre supposed to be rescuing assholes but it isnt enough. And then theres this guy who has possibly the funniest backstory ever written. https://i.ur.com/HLenXqH.png Todoroki was mean to me and now I dont like him ahahahahaha Exam Stages/Fake Stakes 3 Oh and guess what? Just like I said they waved off the stakes. Those who failed can take a 3 month course to get their provisional licenses anyways. Since this is now a problem I cant ignore Ill address it here. One of the biggest offenders of fake stakes in this series is the exam stages. Horikoshi has a crippling habit of creating stakes for the students during exams only to backtrack as quickly as possible once the arc is over. For example: In episode 5 Aizawa threatened to expel the student that scored the lowest on an entrance exam. This is quickly retreated from the next episode. Not a big deal that they backed away from it here. Just make sure you follow through next time that way I can believe theres actual stakes to these exams. In episode 38 the students are threatened with having to go to summer school if they fail. https://i.ur.com/Kigy4ze.png This is again retreated from after the arc ends. Now its a problem. Because twice now you have declared there to be stakes via consequences for failing or performing poorly in an exam and both times you failed to follow through. There will be more examples later. So why is this bad? Because 1 I dont believe the show when it tells me there will be consequences when someone fails. Because there never are. Be it the students getting into trouble UA failing to protect its students or something as simple as student failing an exam. You always retreat from it afterwards. And because of that Im less engaged during exams. After all there are no stakes because Horikoshi insists on giving plot armor to everyone in class A. And 2 because its supposed to be difficult to get through UA right? They tell us that very early in the show: https://i.ur.com/iGzGL1Y.png From episode 4 Like a lot of things the show does this is telling without showing. The show will tell us it is difficult to get through UA but it really isnt at all. The school bends over backwards constantly to keep students from failing. This is not really something that should be a struggle for a battle shounen at all at least if youre a writer thats willing to take risks. Want some examples? Lets look at the Hunter exam from Hunter x Hunter and the chuunin exams from Naruto. These are basically the same thing as the exams the characters go through in UA. To become a pro hunter/ninja you have to pass these exams. Naruto and Hunter x Hunter want you to know that these tests are difficult and making it through is a significant is a huge feat. So how do Kishimoto and Togashi support it? Uh by having people fail. A LOT of entrants fail in both the chuunin exams and Hunter exams. And not scrubs either. One of the main characters fails the first time in Hunter x Hunter and most of the entrants that you end up spending most of the show with end up failing in Naruto. As for as numbers go: Most of the characters lose before the finals including main characters. Killua fails in Hunter x Hunter. if you look at insignificant characters all but 7 failed the hunter exam. 400+ examinees failed. In the chuunin exams hundreds failed as well. There were only 5 genin remaining when the Konoha Crush interrupts the exams. Failing is a bit different in Naruto. You can lose in the finals and still become a chuunin. Why does this matter? https://i.ur.com/79vx7M7.png Killua fails the Hunter exam Because part of the point of having these exams in the first place is to make it clear how difficult it is to become a shinobi/hunter. People need to fail out so 1 the threat of characters failing is established. 2 to establish stakes. And 3 establish the extreme level of difficulty to accomplish the goal for the purposes of making the task seem daunting which will be a constant source of drama and to make those that have accomplished it in this case the pro heroes worthy of respect for having reached it. Hunter x Hunter and Naruto wanted their exam stages to seem difficult and intense so they supported it by being willing to have characters fail. Its really that simple. Kishimoto and Togashi as writers are willing to take those risks to make their manga better. Horikoshi is not. Class B Another example of fake exam stakes that annoys me is how they keep telling us that if class A trips up students from class B could replace them. This is another good source of drama and adds even more stakes for the class A students. But like all the other stakes the show never follows through with it. I really wish they would too because there are some weak characters in class A I really wish would get cut out. Like the animal guy and the tail guy and especially this guy: https://i.ur.com/AwREDD9.png Hes boring and his power is boring. Get rid of him. I would love for Horikoshi to take a risk and move one of these boring dorks out for someone like Shinso but Horikoshi is again too afraid to move even a single character out of place for some reason. So once again you say this one thing will happen and then retreat from it afterwards. You never follow through with what you say youre gonna do which again contradicts this: https://i.ur.com/CnecvXq.png https://i.ur.com/XGQg8xg.png Deku vs Bakugo Capping off season 3 we have Deku vs Bakugo. And look. I know people think this fight is amazing. AndI mean it could be. If it was organic to the narrative had stakes and wasnt forced into a place in the story it doesnt belong. The problem I have with this fight is it doesnt represent a moment where past and/or current differences and philosophies collide naturally due to the narrative. The show is pausing its story to have this fight. Deku vs Bakugo is MHAs version of Naruto vs Sasuke. But with Naruto vs Sasuke it was very much the right time for that fight and there were real stakes. Sasuke wants to go off and join Orochimaru to gain power but Naruto knows and we as an audience know that Orochimaru only wants to use Sasuke as a vessel to switch bodies. And while you might think Sasuke can handle himself we watched Orochimaru kill a hokage earlier. One of the benefits of killing off characters btw. So we know he is a serious threat to kill Sasuke. Thats the kind of stakes and emotional drama you need for a fight between main characters. Which is what I think this fight lacks. Granted there isnt really a rule to how you write a fight like this. And Im not really advocating for it to just do what Naruto did. It isnt a bad fight. I just think you need a little more here. Something to be lost for Deku when hes defeated. And have it be written more organically into the story rather than shoving it awkwardly between arcs. In Between Arcs 2 We end season 3 with episode 62. The first half of it is looking into the idea of how All Mights retirement is affecting normal citizens. This is of course a very good idea. The show hasnt really put any effort into humanizing the citizens so we gave a shit when villains attack and put their lives in danger. It also is the start of the idea that Endeavor doesnt really work as an All Might replacement. He lacks the charisma and people just dont react to him the same way. Itsinteresting. And they follow up on it later. Uh good stuff. The second half is more fake stakes for Dekus body and consequences after his fight with Bakugo. Deku is fine again. Deku and Bakugo broke curfew destroyed a bunch of shit fought and their only punishment is they have to clean more. Really? After sneaking out during the class raid? Have the teachers at UA learned absolutely nothing this entire time? Big three arrives season over. Two Heroeshttps://anilist.co/review/13322