OP: “ODD FUTURE” by UVERworld
There’s something so Bones-like about starting the third season of Boku no Hero Academia with a recap episode. They’re the studio you love to love but sometimes just drives you crazy and makes you shake your head in bafflement. In the larger picture this isn’t a big deal – it’s a pretty safe bet all of BnHA is going to get adapted in due course. But I can’t help but ask “why?”. I mean, it’s not as though there isn’t plenty of manga to work into this season’s 25 episodes (it was just confirmed that 25 will once again be the number). I can’t imagine budgeting is a huge issue with this franchise, and you certainly shouldn’t (not even Bones) be running behind schedule on a premiere.
Whatever the reasoning behind it, this ep being a recap doesn’t give us much to talk about apart from the OP and ED, pretty much. There’s some new material squeezed in here – basically, Mineta and Kaminari get permission to use the pool for “endurance training” before the school training camp starts, after overhears the girls talking about getting the OK to use it for sunbathing. They invite Deku for good boy cover, but he goes and invites everybody else, and Iida takes over and turns into a hard-core training session. Eventually all this ends up with the big three about to face off in a 50M freestyle (quirks allowed) sim heat, but Aizawa-sensei turns up at 5:00 on the dot and puts a stop to the festivities.
As for the OP and ED, they’re fine – I would say both are better in terms of the animation sequence than the song (that being especially true with the OP). But really, that’s not a matter of great weightiness to me – I’m just ready to get this party started, because this should be the best season of Boku no Hero Academia yet. The parts of the manga we’re likely to get in these two cours are some of Horikoshi-sensei’s most subtle and poignant as a writer, and they should make stellar shounen anime, even better than the first two seasons (and that’s a high bar). It sucks having to wait an extra week to start letting the awesome wash over us, but when the season is over it’s not like any of us will care…
ED: “Update (アップデート)” by miwa
DauntingOverlord
April 8, 2018 at 12:46 amIt’s a shame it was a recap, but oh well I guess. I’ve been eagerly awaiting this season (I concur with you that this would be the best so far if done right) and I can’t wait for the true start of season 3 next week!
Guardian Enzo
April 8, 2018 at 1:15 amIn other news, damn – Deku got buff.
sonicsenryaku
April 8, 2018 at 5:20 amHe is getting swole as fuck; and the cool part about is that you can actually see the study progression of his physique throughout both seasons. We are literally being shown how deku grows into the greatest superhero of his time. As for this season of HeroAca. my concern for the first half of the series is that Bones has assigned a lot of their elite staff members to work on the movie. For one, this means that chief animation director Umakoshi is no longer the animation director on this season, which kinda sucks but at least he’s got some good replacements. They got more freelance key animators to work on this half of heroAca so that will be interesting to see what kind of talent the production team was able to pull in. I’m excited, but little worried because their working on this season while trying to finish the movie and that might strain the production. I mean, season 2 also started with a semi-recap for those who might have forgot but with this season it felt more like they had to do it rather than just it serving as a reminder because it had been a year and some change since the series ended and that they had switched to a new broadcasting channel.
Kaz
April 15, 2018 at 7:19 amIs it confirmed that the elite staff members will be back for the 2nd cour of the season, like Umakoshi? And I hope Yutaka Nakamura will come back and work on an episode (hopefully the most epic scenes again, just like the Deku vs Todoroki final part) 🙂
Darrel
April 8, 2018 at 5:10 amI’m fairly sure the recap is there because there isnt enough material up to the climax to cover one cour. Sure if you look at the whole manga theres certainly enough material, but I think the director intends the first cour to end with _______ so they will have to pad things out a little.
Guardian Enzo
April 8, 2018 at 5:29 amThat occurred to me, but… I don’t know – seems extreme you couldn’t figure out a way to work around that given a whole cour to plan.
Simone
April 8, 2018 at 6:03 amYeah, you could do the same exact thing anyway with a filler episode that doesn’t have stuff like Eraserhead literally listing the kids and their powers. A scene of them goofing off in some other way, like a game of dodgeball or so, would have been plenty to showcase all of their quirks.
sqwert
April 8, 2018 at 11:54 amMy guess is that the recap was to allow new casual watchers to jump in and to remind returning casual watchers of the previous events. The series is starting back from , possibly in a new timeslot, after being on hold for two seasons. This time is certainly not a lot for people invested in the show like most people commenting on the internet about it, but people who only watch it sometimes if and when they have free time, this need not be the case.
I could also see HeroAca appealing to a younger crowd (12 and below), and they could certainly welcome a refresher on the character’s abilities and the events up until now.
Also, this is my first time commeting but I have been reading for a long time, back since Hunter x Hunter 2011 started adapting the Chimera Ant arc. Thanks for your blog, Enzo. Your posts are always thoughtful and reflective. Keep up the good work!
Guardian Enzo
April 8, 2018 at 3:54 pmYou’re welcome – always nice to hear from a long-time lurker. Thanks for jumping into the conversation and for being a supporter of the site.
The wild guesser
April 9, 2018 at 4:34 pmIf there’s anyone’s who can handle recap episodes it is studio Bones. “Interlude Party” remains one of my favorite FMA Brotherhood episodes.
Also, didn’t anyone else notice that the person giving All Might the One for All ability is a woman? It’s pretty rare, though not unheard of, to have females in shounen in prominent mentor roles. I’m curious to see how BHA handles it.