My Hero Update

Between the season premier, the movie trailer drop, and the fact that I am an idiot, we have some things to talk about. An academia on the academia if you will.

Before we jump into my thoughts on the season five premier, let's talk about why I am an idiot. A couple weeks ago I wrote an article called "Crusade Against The Spoilers" where I talked about my journey to reading all the published My Hero Academia manga in order to stop seeing so many spoilers.

I explained in this article that in the US the manga was only published up to volume 26, with volume 27 releasing on April 6th, in comparison to Japan where they have up to volume 29 with volume 30 coming soon. All of those fact are indeed true. However, I also stated that because I was only reading it legally, I was still seeing spoilers. I said this because people can create what are called "scanlations." This is where they buy the manga in Japanese and then scan it to their computers, translate it into English themselves and then publish online illegally. There are many out there and though I admittedly used them as a teen, I have not as an adult for multiple reasons. My three biggest reasons being: 1) because it's not fair to the creators, 2) the translations are usually not the best and the content gets misconstrued, and 3) these sites usually riddle my phone and/or computer with viruses. SO, when I saw that there were spoilers out there for chapters in volumes not yet published in the US, I assumed they came from scanlations.

That was until this past week when everyone at once started posting the iconic closing image to chapter 306. It. Was. Everywhere. I was frustrated and trying to dodge at first but then something caught me about the image. I finally stopped and stared at the image for a long time. Something was wrong and I couldn't put my finger on it. I stared and stared and then finally realized...the image was too clean. Scanlation images are never clear because they are... scanned... images.. yeah, you get it. Anyways, these were crystal clear. AND ANOTHER THING- all these people were posting at the same time. The chances of all these people using the same scanlation site were low and the sites don't all post at the same time. So, how were these people getting this image? I finally did the logical thing and googled it.

If you didn't know, Shonen Jump has their own app. This is something that I did in fact know already and have had on my phone for over a year. Ya know what I didn't know though? That they publish by chapter NOT by volume. Meaning they translate and publish weekly, on the same schedule as the magazine releases, NOT the manga releases. I. Am. An. Idiot. I had the chapters on my phone this entire time. With that being said, I immediately bought the membership to unlock the chapters and caught up over the course of two days. So, now I can finally say: I. Know. Everything! I know everything, and I am sad. We are in for a world of hurt my friends when they animate this stuff. But no spoilers here for you purely anime watchers, I'll let you survive a little longer.

Moving on to the season five premier! Honestly, I hurt myself in all of this. After just reading the manga and knowing what I do, I was so ready to just jump right on in. I should have known that they would do some sort of reintroduction episode to start, because that's what they usually do! It was super cute though. The intro graphics were cool, having the big three was fun, I adored Mirio the whole episode and as many have already said, Amajiki was a mood. I was very much relieved that they did the after credit roll of Endeavor facing Dabi, which gave life to my soul after the long wait for this episode. They really are setting a good mood going into this season and I am excited to see many of my favorite manga scenes to finally be animated.

Small side note: the new opening and ending sequences were good, not my favorites that they have done but very good all the same. I particularly found the ending sequence to be very cute. I like when they highlight the fact that all these kids now live together, and figuring out their adult life so soon. I am curious as to if they will keep these sequences all season or if they will change over at mid season (or sooner) since it won't really fit the vibe for later this season. That's just a random thought, though they do usually change at mid season. I am curious to see how that will look this time around.

This past weekend we also got the first trailer for the third movie, My Hero Academia The Movie 3: World Heroes' Mission. We have had the spoiler image for a minute and I am loving our boys matching costumes but I was not expecting anything that was contained in that trailer. It gives me great concern already and it's just the first trailer. We also received the release date as August 6th, 2021, so we have that to look forward to this fall.

Overall, there is a lot of amazing things happening for the My Hero fandom this year. New anime season, new manga releases, and the new movie. I am also about to start the different spin off series' which I'm sure will have just as much going on for this universe. I look forward to going a review on all the spin-offs once I catch up! In the mean time, let's all just sit back and enjoy as the content continue to roll out! We can cry as a group together later!

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Thank you for tuning in to this update on My Hero Academia, it isn't often that a series has so many things going on at once so it's been super fun to follow and I hope you enjoy it too! Happy hump day, by the way, I hope you're having a great week! Finish strong and I will see you back on Sunday for The Mess! In the meantime, stay safe, stay nerdy, and stay messy otaku!