Highlights
- My Hero Academia Season 7 opens with a calm before the storm, focusing on Deku and Class 1-A in a rare moment of normalcy.
- Star and Stripe’s battle with Shigaraki showcases creative quirks and sets the tone for a high-stakes season ahead.
- The line blurs between Shigaraki and All for One, adding complexity to the story and raising questions about their intertwined identities.
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Title |
My Hero Academia Season 7 |
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Director |
Naomi Nakayama, Kenji Nagasaki (Chief Director) |
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Studio |
Bones |
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Episode Air Date |
5/4/2024 |
Warning: The following contains spoilers for My Hero Academia, Episode 139, now streaming on Crunchyroll.
With My Hero Academia entering its final arc, expectations have never been higher for the series, nor has discourse about the show’s quality been so simultaneously polarizing. Much has been said about the quality of the animation in the time since Kenji Nagasaki went from “director” to “chief director,” but with new director Naomi Nakayama at the helm, things are looking promising.
Season 6 ended with the revelation that it would only take three days for Shigaraki to reach his full power, with All Might calling on heroes from around the globe to assist Japan in the war to come. While countries remained hesitant to deploy their heroes, fearing for their security, America’s #1 hero and protégé of All Might, Star and Stripe, didn’t wait for permission to fly to Japan.
A Quiet Start to a Terrible War
It’s been a little over a year since the last season ended – when Deku was at his lowest point and only his classmates could get it through his skull that he didn’t have to face Shigaraki alone. Even before then, almost the entirety of Season 6 was consumed by a constantly escalating disaster that seldom gave these characters a breather. So it’s surprisingly effective for Season 7 to open on a scene of Deku doing something as mundane as laundry.
For some, it might be hard to remember/imagine the last time that Deku – or any of the members of Class 1-A for that matter – woke up to a calm and peaceful morning. This is an anime-original sequence, and it works, suggesting the kind of “normalcy” that’s been missing for some time, even if it’s only illusory. One only needs to look past the treeline to see the wall that’s been erected around UA – a reminder of the dark times these kids have no choice but to live through.
The Class is Back Together
As simple as this opening is, there’s something sweet about that simplicity when Deku joins the rest of his friends downstairs as if nothing had changed since the last time they were all together. It speaks to the charm of this cast and this story that this is all that was needed after quite a while being away from them. Thank goodness this scene and the one after it were added, because, without them, the premiere might have felt unceremonious as it plowed ahead at full steam.
It was necessary to ease back into the conflict, and the scene following the intro does just that while also expanding the scope of the conflict. So much time is spent in Japan in this series that it can be easy to forget the impact of the story around the globe. Watching the U.S. soldiers react to the chaos on the news and seeing their frustration at not being deployed to help Japan speaks to the gravity of the crisis, and makes what comes next all the more satisfying.
Star and Stripe Comes to the Rescue
The reason the scene with Deku and Class 1-A at the start feels so integral is that the start of this arc clearly doesn’t have time for them otherwise. Star and Stripe barely enters Japanese airspace before a battle between her and Shigaraki begins that will undoubtedly set the tone for this coming season. Shigaraki has become an increasingly overpowered antagonist, which presents potential problems within the storytelling but also invites more potent creativity.
Kohei Horikoshi’s imagination as an author shines in fights like this, where strange and unique powers clash in unexpected ways. Shigaraki can kill a person through touch alone, so anyone who fights him has to be able to account for this through clever circumvention. “New Order” might be one of the coolest quirks in a while, allowing Star and Stripe to impose rules on herself and anything/anyone she touches, even manipulating the air itself.
There is a lot this fight has going for it on a conceptual level. Setting the battle in the sky has unique advantages and disadvantages for both combatants, especially for Shigaraki, given how much his quirk can devastate terrain. To that extent, having the jets equipped with shielding means Star and Stripe doesn’t have to worry about her platforms being destroyed with a simple touch. If anything, it gives her an advantage few before her have possessed, assuming she can make the most of it.
The Line Between All for One and Shigaraki
Shigaraki is slowly merging with All for One, and the way this shift in his character plays into the fight is a stroke of genius. If New Order can impose a rule on an individual called out by name upon physical contact, then what happens if their internal identity conflicts with the name stipulated in the rule? It’s a clever way of turning the fight around, though it’s a development that plays into the series’ more divisive tendencies.
Often people have complained about the amount of exposition in My Hero Academia and how often it tells the audience things that it already does a decent job of showing visually. The degree to which this occurs can vary, and it’s not always a problem because some quirks warrant closer examination. If anything is holding back this premiere, it could be argued to be the exposition, but to its credit, it reveals a quality to Shigaraki that feels quite familiar.
At a certain point, while pondering Star and Stripe’s power, Shigaraki snaps himself out of his rant, realizing he’s gotten distracted. His apparent excitement at the thought of this cool power feels darkly reminiscent of Deku’s analytical – almost encyclopedic insight into quirks. It’s a small touch, but one that goes to show how Deku and Shigaraki parallel one another. By the same token, however, it makes one wonder how much of Shikaraki’s personality is his versus All for One’s.
As far as premieres go, My Hero Academia Season 7 wastes very little time getting to its first major confrontation, which itself bodes ill for Star and Stripe. Shigaraki can’t possibly lose a fight this early, which only begs the question of what degree she will lose instead and how badly. This episode was only held back by the limited time allotted to the main characters and some lengthy exposition, but otherwise, this was a solid return for the series.
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