Red Riot is front and center once again in a battle against all the odds as he and Fat Gum faceoff against Rappa and Hekiji. While the battle itself was intense, the overall episode and now the season is dwindling down, as the overarching story is taking a massive hit from prolonging the inevitable.
Nine episodes in and we have yet to the get the showdown this season has been teasing and setting up since the very first episode. It is now apparent that the main cast of the anime series has taken the back seat to push secondary characters to the forefront, to shed some light on who they are and they have had to overcome prior to and during their tenure at U.A. and now as first-year heroes at the frontlines of an evitable war.
As I mentioned above this is the second episode that focuses on Kishirima aka Red Riot. This time around we a nice little origin story about his childhood, his elementary school days and the discovery of his quirk.
We learn how Kirishima found his quirk useless and how he struggled to overcome that self-loathing. The overarching theme it seems with most of these secondary characters is fear and how they have to overcome that fear; and how that fear was birthed within them as children. But how the current battle they are having in the present time is the only time they’ve literally had their back against the wall and had to fully overcome that fear on their own.
This is a great way to tell a story but we’ve seen this done before on several occasions with My Hero Academia, and now on several occasions throughout this season alone. Sadly, it’s becoming very repetitive and hurting the pacing of the overall story and how it’s being presented to the viewing audience. Something My Hero Academia is not really known for.
Overall this episode wasn’t the greatest but it’s not the worst episode either. While this season has found itself stumbling nearly ten episodes in, it still manages to give you at least one great action piece while keeping you coming back for more.
My Hero Academia Season 4 is now streaming on Hulu, Funimation, and Crunchyroll.