Boku no Hero Academia continues its march towards becoming yet another legendary long-running shounen, yet it still keeps a safe "seasonal" release, which gives the production free reins to stop releasing it at anytime so it doesn't take over the manga as it normally happens in the industry. It's a good strategy, especially because the most terrible enemy of long-running shounens are the massive fillers capable of filling voids as big as a whole year.
Anyway, this third season marches unto the mid-year school camp for our troupe of heroes wannabe, and there it explodes into another villain invasion, in a similar experience as it was in the very first season. What can the students do now with their improved powers? How can they survive? What are the villains plotting!!? Oh gods, so many questions!
- Not really
Remember the first season? Well, the first half of this is the first season all over again. Students go somewhere out of school to learn, villains attacks, students barely survive, pro-heroes save the day, etc. The slight different this around is not having All Mighty hanging around, giving room to some other pro-heroes and teachers to shine while also giving us glimpses of what the students can now do in comparison to that first attack. So no, those questions I've made are not really made here. You know the drill already after thirty seven episodes.
Same hits, same mistakes
In a way, this third season is everything the last two were, for good and bad. It means it gets amazing during tense moments where our heroes-wannabes must face much stronger foes and make their powers shine, yet it is cursed with annoying senseless school-element fillers. Yeah. After a thrilling survival at the student camp and a massive clash of powers in the city, what is left to us is a test for a provisional hero-license...
Which make us ponder if this is one big Japanese Game Show
Yup. Another damn test. More "games" for our students. We had the boring school festival, we had match-ups with teachers, and now this. This test for a provisional license, however, is one huge mess, as the first thing it does is promoting ass-hat behavior by pitying candidates in a battle royale game. Only later it moves to hero rescuing. Yeah, I think either they are applying to be professional players of a Japanese Game Show or the Hero Association only wants cheaters and egoistic guys for the later stages to avoid them of becoming full-fledged villains.
Anyway, it is a sad turn of events to become yet another stupid sort of tournament right after having one of the most important events of the series just a few episodes ago.
Yeah, a fuckn mid-season finale
Well, not a finale, because perhaps Boku no Hero Academia may run for a decade or more, but there is a lot of problem solving in the middle of the show, accompanied by everything that would normally come from the ending of a saga or perhaps the major tale. Imagine if Luffy got his hands on the One Piece right after setting foot on the Grand Line. Yeah, that kind of thing. This make us wonder where the show will go with the story hooks it left scattered. So, when right after that we dive into a dozen episodes of a license test, which ends up being yet another assortment of boring games, I come to question what kind of rythmn the showmakers want here.
And be careful with that FUCKN NARRATOR
Oh gods. Hunter x Hunter comes to my mind at some points in this show. Yeah. If you watched it or read my review you know what I'm talking about: that guy narrating EVERY FUCKING SCENE in the show. Boku no Hero Academia walks a thin line here. It is yet far from the monstrosity of what happened in Hunter x Hunter, but at some points we have our narrator explain obvious things, describe the scene happening right before our eyes, or simply repeating what the character just fucking said. There is an aggravation here, the narrator is that annoying prick of a pro-hero with a voice which somehow is found funny by some people (for me is just a major annoying job of a voice-actor). Yeah. If that guy ends up at the level of Hunter x Hunter narrator I certainly will not be able to continue. So. Be. Fuckin. Careful.
More of the same. There is little to talk of this season's changes or surprises because as a whole it is a repeat of what happened in the past, only now our protagonist is a stronger boy than before. However, after the first arc we have an interesting closure of events, which could be the perfect finish for this season, yet it goes on. What happens after that is another bunch of games to expose the quirks of every hero around. Not interesting at all, but at least it can be flashy at some points.
If you enjoyed the previous seasons, get a chair and some snacks because you will certainly enjoy this one. It's just sad to see the problems are not exactly being addressed here and there are some new flaws that have the potential of becoming major turn downs in the future if they get more leeway.
