Viewer Log: My Hero Academia ep 3

Training is an important part of any ‘shounen’ manga/anime series. Shounen being a series that is aimed at boys, between the ages of eight and eighteen. The girl equivalent being shojo. Hm… the fact that I’m a twenty-six-year-old man that still enjoys this genre probably says a lot about me… But I’m getting off task. Training is important in this genre. Sometimes it can last a single issue, sometimes it can last an entire arc, and other times it’s pretty much the entire series. I’m looking at you History’s Strongest Disciple Kenichi and Dragonball. In this case. the training story is actually pretty short. Let’s get to it.  

Could you trust that face?
Cause I'm not sure I could.

This one opens right where we left off, Izuku sobbing tears of joy at All Might’s feet. The strongest hero, the Symbol of Peace, the all-around super dude, and he just said Izuku can be a Hero. Dreams really do come true. But, All Might takes it one step further and drops the huge bombshell that he is going to give Izuku his powers. The power of All Might. Izuku obviously freaks out about this, as he’s never heard of Quirks being transferred. He kind freezes up, overanalyzing the situation, until All Might calls him back to reality. All Might explains his power is called “One For All.” It’s a power that works through succession. Each wielder further develops it, makes it stronger, and then passes it on to the next wielder who repeats the cycle. All Might, because of his injury, has been looking for a successor for a while and believes that Izuku is the perfect candidate, in spirit.

Flash forward two days, and we find Izuku on a beach, lugging garbage. Why? For two reasons. One, while he’s a perfect candidate in spirit for “One For All,” he’s not the perfect candidate physically. If he were to be given the power before his body is ready, his limbs would blow off from his body if he tried to use OFA. Not good. And Two, is that the beach needs to beautified. The beach used to be a lovely sea side location, but has been covered in garbage due to some unfortunate tides and illegal dumping. All Might thinks it’ll be a perfect act of a good Samaritan to begin Izuku’s hero training. Why does All Might care? Because this superman believes that a real hero helps where ever he/she/they can, be it stopping villains or helping to improve the community. All Might has prepared a full training and study schedule for Izuku, to maximize his chances of finishing this little project within the time frame, and still have time to study for the written portion. He has ten months to prep. While that’s a tight time table for training, with All-Might’s plan in mind, he’ll make it just in time for the test. Ready? Set? Go!

He's Izuku, hear him roar!

Izuku beings strong, but starts burning out before too long. Why? Because the overachiever pushes himself too hard in an attempt to finish early. He figured it’d be best to finish with a week to spare so he can train with OFA for a bit. All Might chastises Izuku for pushing himself too hard. His plan was specifically designed to maximize Izuku’s training without hurting himself. But, Izuku counters by giving a speech about how he NEEDS to work harder, since he’s going up against the best of the best to get into UA. Kids who will already have a huge leg up, as they’ve had years to master their powers, while he’ll be still figuring this stuff out. All Might, moved by his young student, agrees to adjust the plan to increase Izuku’s chances of finishing early. Ten months later, on the day of the Exam, All Might arrives to the beach to find that Izuku had actually cleared the entire beach, well beyond what he was assigned to clean. It puts him in such a good mood All Might transforms into Hero mode without thinking. After congratulating Izuku, with a huge grin on his face, he begins the transfer process. What does it involve? Izuku eating one of All Might’s hairs. Why? Because he needs a sample of All Might’s DNA to make the exchange. Izuku doesn’t feel all that different after eating the hair, and to further complicate matters he has zero time to practice with OFA before the test. He has to run to make it in time.

The campus of UA is an impressive sight, with an enormous gate, several colossal buildings, and plenty of students milling about. After basking in the campus’ beauty for a few minutes, he runs into Bakugo, who’s still a dick. Lame. But, Izuku does note that in recent weeks Bakugo has been less horrible to him. A side effect of Izuku trying to save him? Unlikely, but hey, stranger things have happened. Bakugo walks off in a huff. Izuku, refusing to let Bakugo ruin his mood, prepares to put his best foot forward metaphorically and literally. He trips. Probably not the best sign, not going to lie. Thankfully, a very nice girl uses her Quirk to keep him from face planting. She apologizes for using her powers on him without asking, and then starts gushing about UA High and how excited she is about getting to take the test. I love this first, and subsequent encounters between these two. I can best describe it as that scene from the end of Inside Out, where we got to see inside other people’s heads, and we saw inside that boy’s head. You know the self-destruct noises going off as the sirens blare ‘GIRL! GIRL! GIRL!’ She heads inside first, Izuku mentally celebrates (not actually) talking to a girl, and then follows.

Pretty Girl = Fried Teenage Brain
             Somethings are universal.

Inside, the DJ hero Present Mic explains the event. Also, get use to this guy, he does a lot of the exposition. Basically, students will be split into groups and sent into mock battle inside a mini-city. In said battle, they’ll fight robots that are worth 1, 2, or 3 points depending on their strength. One super serious student points out that there are four types listed, to which Present Mic just waves off and explains the fourth bot is more of an obstacle and not worth any combat points. Nothing sinister or suspicious about that. I assume that there was a written portion for this exam at some point, but they decided to gloss over that, as it would have obviously been boring. The students are broken up and sent to the areas. It should also be noted that the students are broken up in such a way that students from the same schools don’t fight together. To ensure that the teachers can see a student’s full potential without working off people they’d worked with previously. Once again, set up with no real pay off until next time.

This is largely a setup episode. Which is good. Sure, some folks are annoyed when action/adventure series slow down and take their time with setup, but, if you’ve read my previous V-Log series, I am not one of them. Slower, build up episodes are great when the payoff is good. I like how Izuku getting powers wasn’t a quick, ‘here ya go’ moment. He’s got the mind and spirit of a perfect successor, but expecting him to be the perfect vessel for All Might’s immense physical power would be a little much. I also liked All Might’s chosen training strategy. Having Izuku not only build up his physique and intelligence, but also instill the importance of Random Acts of Kindness was a clever way to force Izuku’s growth, physically and emotionally. And come on, seeing a cleared beach after nearly a year’s worth of work is a pretty nice moment. This episode also introduces some of the secondary characters, like the nice girl, Ochako Uraraka, and the serious dude, Tenya Iida.  We don’t really see much of them other than their base character traits, namely that Uraraka is a sweet girl with a bubbly personality, and that Iida is a super serious student. They’ll be important later on, so seeing just a little bit of them helps set them up a little later. Again, it’s a slower burn in this one, but that’s a good thing. For me at least. Next time, episode 4, the exam begins.

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Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero