Sitrep: at the close of this season, the Vigilante anime has used up 66 of the manga’s 126 chapters. I’m no math major but the numbers speak pretty clearly – two more cours if the series is to be done right. Both seasons have been 13 episodes so in fact, if the ones to (hopefully) follow are 12-12 or 12-13, etc., it would work out just about perfectly. The adaptation has moved a few things around – namely sticking the Aizawa origin story before the Sky Egg arc. But it’s pretty much covered every chapter in linear fashion.

For the second time in two days I’ve flaunted my usual policy and attached a “Season Finale” to the title line despite their being no official announcement of another. If anything I’m even more confident here, since this is the Boku no Hero Academia universe we’re talking about. Illegals may not be as popular as HeroAca itself – not much is – but in anime terms, it’s pretty much the only game in town to keep the franchise going. And it (like Fumetsu) teased the next arc at the close of the finale. I’m just that little bit shy of absolute certainty, but if the series doesn’t get a full adaptation I’d consider is a pretty major upset.

What we don’t get this season, sadly, is a reunion between Knuckleduster and his surrogate kids. We get plenty of him this episode, but it’s all in fighting Number 6, who’s full of surprises. The freak is right – Ogura may know more about “Overclock” than he does, but he doesn’t know much about him. The term “Nomu” probably wasn’t even being used by their creators yet, but it’s pretty clear that Number 6 is a proto-nomu in all but name. And that means he can do some very freaky things. Not a finished product by any means, but a true wild card at this stage of the game.

We don’t in fact know what happened to the former O’Clock at the end of that battle – though thanks to the epilogue we do know what happened to No. 6. All we know is it ended with a bang, Ogura’s blood was spilled, and he’s missing. He may have his faults – a dodgy relationship with ethics among them – but I agree with Six, Knuckleduster is pretty cool. I mean, how many heroes lose their quirks and build themselves back up to virtually hero power levels just based on brains and brawn? He’s badass, and a little thing like an exploding freak isn’t going to finish Ogura off.

In the aftermath of the Sky Egg incident, Captain Celebrity has gotten his share of the credit after all. That can only be called richly deserved – he saved the day, pretty much – and it’s thanks to Best Jeanist conscientiously making sure CC’s role was well-documented. As for The Crawler, though, no such public acclaim is forthcoming. Chris knows the score, and the level of his admiration for Kouichi is obvious in his farewell speech. But even he isn’t allowed to name names, because if The Crawler was outed as a hero of “Sky Egg”, the cops would have no choice but to make an example of him. They’ll look the other way as a token of thanks for the role he played, but only if he keeps that role under wraps.

That sucks, quite frankly. Not least because Kouichi really deserves some notoriety here. It takes more balls to throw yourself in harm’s way when your quirk isn’t an OP one like All Might or Fatgum, but The Crawler is always there when it goes down. Mind you, Naruhata knows him, and after a time skip of a couple years we see he’s developed quite a reputation around town. With Chris gone the official hero game in Naruhata is pretty non-existent so it’s a good thing, too. Makoto has gone with Chris – and Pamela – back to New York, as it happens – to study, she says, but I think she just can’t bear the thought of C.C. trying to get by without her.

In the end, things have gone more or less back to normal around town. Kazuho is still as tsundere for Kouichi as ever, and he’s still clueless about it. Dumb punks still harass the good folk of Naruhata, but now the Hotta Brothers and Kamayan are patrolling the streets, forcing hoodlums into sub-minimum wage labor. They’ve also turned the recycle shop into a cat cafe, which pretty much guarantees Eraser is still a regular since it combines three obsessions – cats, coffee, and intel. But now Kouichi is graduating from college, and that means putting hero dreams behind him and getting a real (and presumably crappy) job.

It can’t end like that, can it? Pop certainly hopes not. And we do have 60 chapters to go. Dr. Garaki and AFO are hard at work on perfecting Number 6, which means there’ll no rest for the quiet heroes who patrol the streets of Naruhata and places like it. Altogether more modest and human-sized in every way, Vigilante excels at telling their stories. Stories about regular people in a world where exceptionalism is both big business and a pseudo-religion. It’s a distinct and fascinating spin on the HeroAca mythology, and a worthy steward of the franchise banner.