My Hero Academia 5×01 Review: the best filler ever?

Here we are, finally the fifth season of My Hero Academia debuts on our screens. To a great surprise, while VVVVID (at the time of writing) is still silent on the publication of the simulcast episodes, on the morning of Saturday 27 March Crunchyroll thought about publishing the first episode of the new season by Studio BONES, obviously in the original language with subtitles in Italian. Let’s go to the discovery of this restart, for a season whose first part promises to be quite transitional while reserving some interesting twists.

The revenge of 1-A

Let’s start immediately with “cooling” the minds of all those who, well aware of the narrative direction of the manga by Horikoshi-sensei, already expected from this first episode that the plot would proceed quickly towards the elusive narrative arc of the exercise between classes A and B of the first year. As per tradition, by now, for a couple of seasons, in fact, the authors of the anime have packaged a cousin totally filler episode which has the function of reintroducing the narrative universe in which the superhero adventures of Deku and his companions take place. But we tell you from the beginning, however, that this time the guys from BONES managed to pack a filler of absolute quality, by far the best of the entire television series so far. If with the Season 3 of My Hero Academia he had opted for an episode with tones slice of slife set in the pool, and with the fourth instead the authors had introduced a new character as deus ex machina to summarize the recent plot, this time the writers of the anime have taken a step forward, creating an episode with a banal plot but characterized by an excellent technical sector.

The story is simple: it begins within the walls of class 1-A with a brief summary of the explosive final of My Hero Academia 4, culminating in the incredible battle between Endeavor and a Nomu. Immediately afterwards, Professor Aizawa enters the classroom, announcing to his students that they will take part in a new exercise. Yes, that’s right: the protagonists, in the remaining twenty minutes of the episode, will have to face yet another simulation, with the excuse of “always having to be ready for the worst” now that their provisional licenses make them operational Heroes in all respects. all.

Against the background of a very banal script already seen, in reality, a surprising episode develops on a technical and emotional level. The ensuing clash, in which the Big Three play the part of the villains and civilians to be rescued, essentially sees Izuku and his friends affrontare Nejire Hado e Tamaki Amajiki, complete with a summary of the Quirks of each of the protagonists. A sort of revenge, for our team, who at the end of the third season had not managed to scratch Milio Togata in the least, and who instead now hold their own against his two companions.

In short, we reiterate that the intent of the episode is basically to provide the audience a recap on everything you need to remember about the boys from 1-A: a real celebration of the protagonists, consecrated by a medley of music that combines some new instrumental pieces (which, we are sure, we will hear often during Season 5) to other much more well-known ones, among which the two classic versions of “You Say Run“. Keeping ourselves on the sound we also really appreciated the new themes, fully in the style of My Hero Academia: capable, that is, of combining a pop style and adolescent tones with the most disparate action sequences.

Ultimately the best element of the episode, together with the sound, are the animations. Although My Hero Academia 5×01 doesn’t pack some flawless drawings, with some smudging in the wider shots, the simulated clashes between the students of the Yuei are rendered very well. In this sense, our hope is that the technical quality shown in the first episode can represent a sort of “demo” on what we can expect from the action sequences of this Season, given that the fourth block of episodes (as we told you about at the time in the review of My Hero Academia 4) had disappointed us precisely on the aesthetic side.

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