My Hero Academia Stuff
Featuring the My Hero Academia anime, some of the manga, the OVA's, movies, My Hero Ultra Rumble, My Hero One's Justice 2, and the My Hero Academia: Vigilantes anime.
My Hero Ultra Rumble
Playing this game has made me remember, I quite like thy battle royale genre. They're pretty much exactly what I want out of multiplayer games. They're chaotic fun, partially because of randomized elements, but largely due to the nature of pitting large numbers of players against each other at once.
I think I've now finally found a favorite battle royal. There have been one's I've enjoyed like Tetris 99 and Fall Guys, but I feel like this one's gonna stick with me the strongest. I'm not super confident in pointing out what makes this game strike well with me, but my greatest estimate is the characters. This game's in part a hero shooter, due to how characters have unique movesets from each other, or perhaps it'd be more accurate to compare this game to a fighting game considering the developers' previous work on My Hero Academia arena fighters, alongside mechanics like the knockdown system. It feels awesome trying out and learning what different characters do.
With that said though, this is a free-to-play, live-service, gatcha game. You can't just play as all the characters, you have to unlock them through various means. I've been wanting to try Eijiro (Red Drive), but I simply haven't gotten lucky enough to get them from the gatcha yet, nor have I rolled enough times to buy him through the game's pity system. I've got like 18/46 characters so far which is honestly better than I expected, although after seeing someone else try the game I believe I got somewhat lucky. Regardless, after like 20 hours, I got to a point in which progress drastically slowed down.
I admittedly don't have the wisdom to be sure, but the game balance also seems wack. More recent characters like OFA Izuku feel noticably stronger than older ones like Izuku (Original). There's also essentially a perk system which I somewhat enjoy, although it's design feeds into an overarching meta progression I'm not a big fan of.
My Hero One's Justice 2
This game reminds me quite a bit of another anime arena fighter that I quite love, Kill La Kill If. I don't just wanna compare this to a game I like more, so to keep my comparison short, this game feels sillier than Kill La Kill If, in some ways I like, and some ways I don't.
General attacks feel good, and this game has familiar foundations to a fighting game player like me.
(I cut down the supers for brevity. This is one of those games where supers can easily take a majority of the combo length.)
The largest oddity with the controls to me is how dodges and dashes are on separate buttons, it makes sense to me, but with the way this game's air dodge and air dash work, I find myself using air dodge as if it were the air dash since it's much less linear and committal. Overall though I like the movement, it's pretty open.
There are 3 exclusions to this game's system mechanics which seem bizarre to me, the lack of a standard air block, the lack of tech options against a lot of moves, and the lack of unblockable protection. There's a just guard in this game, I don't know how lenient it is (it seems less than BlazBlue), and it's required to air block. Characters don't always have anti-airs though, so it doesn't necessarily discourage jumping, it just makes the game feel really scrambly when you do jump. The lack of standard air blocking ties into the lack of tech options against certain attacks though. Very strangely, some attacks can be multi-direcrionally teched out of if your opponent doesn't follow up on them fast enough (similar to many Arc System Works games), but then some attacks will just leave you airborne in the same spot if your opponent doesn't follow up fast enough (similar to most Marvel VS Capcom games). These mechanics lead into scenarios in which your opponent can drop combos, but then continue hitting you anyways because you failed to just guard which was your only option of escape. What makes these particularly bizarre to me is that the game actually has a reset protection system, if you get combo reset then the following combo will have its damage heavily scaled back, so I think the developers were aware of this sort of thing. And then there's the lack of unblockable protection, since this game's an assist based fighting game, if you make someone block an assist with enough blockstun, then you can just unblockable and combo them:
There's a guard cancel which helps with situations like this, but it costs a decent chunk of super meter.
I like assists in fighting games, but they way they're designed in this game isn't preferable to me. First of all, they're on long cooldowns, I simply prefer short assist cooldowns. This game also isn't a tag fighter, just an assist fighter, so even though they're based on the characters you can play as, they feel more like functions to me, which just makes me wanna pick the good ones. They don't seem super balanced either, although I'm admittedly not the best judge, some assists like Kaminari and Rappa feel much stronger than others (even if though their cooldowns are longer). There's some very unique assists in this game, like Tsuyu's which grabs their teammate and flings them forward. It can be used to escape the (multiple seconds) long animation of Kaminari frying his brain after his install runs out, which I found neat.
The way assists spawn to your sides, in a 3D game in which opponents are always directly facing each other, makes it difficult for a lot of characters to even counteract assists. Combined with the pretty standard fighting game element of your assists not going away when you're hit, makes calling assists a surprisingly effective defensive option (even though there's a special animation that seems to exist specifically to make you more punishable while calling assists):
It seems weird to me that you don't start off with your assists charged at the start of matches, especially since they also act as combo breakers. Even without assists though, the super meter you're granted at the start of a match allows for potentially large early leads.
I think the wall mechanics also add to this game's wackyness, the occasionally disorienting camera adding to the hilarity as well.
I think the characters have a good amount of gameplay variety. As standard as that is amongst most fighting games, anime arena fighters are known for struggling with that, and while I doubt this game is an infinite well of things to learn, it's nice just having characters with differing playstyles to switch things up.
As for gamemodes, I didn't really try anything very much outside of Versus and Training. The Training mode's reset feature is pretty wack, it doesn't actually reset everything. I'm looking forward to hopefully getting the next game in this series, All's Justice, when it releases.
I keep rewatching this trailer over and over again.
My Hero Academia (Anime + A Little Bit Of The Manga)
I was actually interested in watching some of this before trying out My Hero Ultra Rumble, I just hopped into that game first because I'm a
🚩Spoilers🚩
(The
Show/Hide button I would normally use for spoilers doesn't work for
multiple paragraphs of text, and I don't wanna bother finding or
stitching together a substitute right now.)
I
found the first couple of episodes to be an extremely strong hook. I
was hooked by the very start, the emotions are sold very well. I was pretty disappointed to see All Might
just offer Izuku his powers, I feel like the the premise would've been best payed off by Izuku remaining without super powers. It helped though that All Might's power had to be used sparingly at first, due to the physical strain it would influct on Izuku's young teenage body, so it still felt like he was limited compared to his peers.
I
quite enjoyed the Sports Festival in Season 2, I like tournament arcs.
My favorite fights in the series were probably Ochako vs. Bakugo, and
Izuku vs. Shoto (conveniently they happen back to back). I
appreciate that Izuku doesn't just get high-highs and low-lows,
sometimes he's a bit in the middle of the pack in terms of performance which
keeps things unpredictable. Sometimes I feel there's an unnecessary
curveball though, like the after the Culinary Battle, when it's revealed Todoroki conveniently snuck his team a couple extra points which just barely saved them from elimination. Unsatisfying twists like this were a recurring issue throughout the entire series I think, it particularly got more annoying as stakes were raised in later seasons.
I felt it was
anticlimactic to see how Izuku learned to stop breaking his bones with his super power, he essentially teaches himself (Gran Torino helped a bit I guess) in a low stakes environment. I figure Izuku couldn't be the underdog
forever, but regardless it felt like from then onwards the series had lost part of what made Izuku interesting. It doesn't help that Izuku's power is particularly best for brute force, this is somewhat remedied as the series goes on, but oftentimes I felt more interested in seeing other characters fight. Mineta couldn't just jump at his opponents really fast, and punch them really hard.
The
battles against the antagonists in the first 3 seasons all felt pretty
sudden, although I guess that's the point. The villians catch the heroes off guard is part of what's supposed to make them threatening I guess.
I don't think their first few attacks flew super fluently with the rest of the plot
though. I think Season 4 and onwards the series did a pretty decent job at getting me invested in the villains. I continued to dislike of All For One though, his schtick of being evil simply for the sake of being evil was relatively uncompelling. I like how a lot of the other villains' backstories explore unique tragedies that would arise in superhuman society.
This
isn't really surprising to me for a shonen action anime, but the
dialogue can get really cheesy at times. I was surprised though that the
phrase "Plus Ultra" isn't ever really explained. I think I could tell
from context clues though, Plus Ultra seems to in-universe slang for
pushing beyond your limits, and then sometimes it's alternatively used
in place of the word "awesome". One thing I found very silly was in
Season 4, the characters kept pretty drastically downplaying the stakes
by focusing so much on Eri. Yeah sure a specific child's safety was at
stake, but Overhaul was yapping about plans to de-evolve humanity at one
point.
I'm
glad the characters were able to actually have their musical
performance in Season 4. I was worried that it simply wasn't going to
happen out of a "need" for conflict, but no, there gets to be a fun
episode dedicated to the school festival. I was surprised afterwards when there were a couple episodes focused on Endeavor. I didn't expect the series to focus on him and his family so much, although I ended up enjoying his character arc, and Dabi was really fun to watch once he just completely snapped.
The team tournament in Season 5 was entertaining, although I can't point out any particular fight I liked. The My Villain Academia portion of Season 5 really helped to make me like some of the earlier villains. I was shocked when League Of Legends was mentioned, it was funny to see that 2 of the villains bonded over it. I also found it funny that Re-Destro, the guy that I've seen memes of for resembling Dr Doofenshmirtz, just gets washed.
I enjoyed 2 the giant battles during the first half of Season 6, but it felt really unsatisfying that things didn't wrap up then and there. I didn't like the how Tomura got a huge power buff from biological engineering. Granted the series wasn't super grounded in the first place (Izawa fighting a group of thugs on his own in Season 1 was kinda crazy, even if he is really skilled), but it felt really out there to give a character super strength and durability, and then say that those buffs weren't super power based. I'm surprised Mirko didn't really do anything in the plot but fight. She's one of those characters I feel like I've seen a bunch of fanart of, but I guess you don't gotta be super relevant to get fanart. She was pretty fun to watch, I kinda liked that one of the big players on the hero side had like no emotional connection to anyone.
I found the 2nd half of Season 6 was comically moody, but Deku actually ended up getting some really cool fights, and it was really satisfying to see Ochako berate citizens for their ungratefulness towards super heroes. Around here I think was also when the series started exploring racism, but towards animalistic super powers. I didn't find the rasicm to be a particularly interesting exploration of superhuman society. Maybe I missed some stuff earlier on but, I found it weird that the racism wasn't brought up until so late into the series.
The big cluster of fights throughout seasons 7 and 8 were enjoyable. Some of the villains really felt like they pulled some nonsense to prolong the fights though. While I guess it's nice that the story didn't become even more bloated, it was a disappointing to see some of the fights get so glossed over. The battle featuring Star And Stripe totally felt like filler, she was introduced then removed from the plot so quickly. As mentioned earlier, the anime isn't finished as of writing this, so I read the manga to finish the series. I haven't read much manga in general, I was worried I might just not like it simply due to the lack of color, but I actually ended up really liking the artwork. The epilogue was sweet.
(Paragraph Added On December 15th, 2025)
I was really baffled that Izuku and Ochako feelings for each other never lead to anything, but turns out there was a bonus chapter that I missed in which they actually confess to each other. Like a handful of romance arcs I've seen, I still didn't end up being super pleased since no time is given to exploring it once the pair are actually together (the confession literally takes up the very last pages of the chapter). (The subbed version of) Season 8 has finished at this point, it didn't adapt that bonus chapter, but I enjoyed watching what was adapted moreso than reading it.
My Hero Academia OVA's And Movies
Aside from the really short (like 3 minutes each) movie tie-ins, the OVA's basically felt like regular episodes. They get pretty silly, in a fun, playful kinda way. My favorite OVA was probably the baseball one. As for the movie tie-ins, they didn't leave much of an impression on me. I guess Departure had a joke that I found amusing enough to remember (the part when Izuku draws attention to Endeavor).
The movies were a solid outlet to have some additional action to watch. I really liked the change of outfits characters received in Two Heroes, I think they boosted the movie to having the most distinct visual identity. I was disappointed that World Heroes' Mission and You're Next didn't feature Izuku's classmates as much, I really liked that the first 2 movies gave all of them some screentime. The 2nd movie, Heroes: Rising, I think might've had the flashiest ending, although it was visually noisy to the point of me not liking it that much. I kinda liked how World Heroes' Mission turned into a road trip movie midway through. It was also the only movie in which I didn't feel like the climax was bloated. I'm not really sure why but, I noticed every movie introduces side characters that add some sort of family theme to the story (Giulio and Anna in You're Next aren't family, but I think they're close enough for my observation). I don't have much to say I liked about You're Next in particular, Giulio and Dark Might were cool I guess.
My Hero Academia: Vigilantes Anime (Season 1)
I don't care much for this spin-off's premise. I tend to not want prequels in the first place as I don't like when the context of stories are retroactively altered by other stories. I also just don't particularly value what the vigilante aspect adds, since I feel the perspectives of people wanting to bypass superhero licencing were already well explored in the main series.
With that said though, I think this series is fine from what I've seen so far. The only character I care much about is Knuckleduster, since he's the only one I feel actually has an interesting role in the plotline. I haven't watched much anime but, Koichi strikes me as what people would consider a generic male amine protagonist. He seems like a pretty average person, but he happens to end up surrounded by people who happen to be (not necessarily romantically) interested in him, regardless of wether or not he likes it. Ultimately I don't really dislike any of the characters, they can have fun moments.
This is the first anime to make me think about how manga chapters don't really cleanly fit into 20 minutes episodes. Particularly episode 5 incredibly abruptly drops a plotline 2/3 of the way through.
I didn't realize until I was nearly finished writing this blog post the Vigilantes manga is already completed. I could go read that I guess, but I don't feel like it right now.
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