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A 10 episode dragged-out filler arc. An advertisement for a mediocre movie. And a butchered, overhyped villain arc. That's My Hero Academia Season 5 in a nutshell.

Previous seasons of My Hero have been decent all things considered; Season 4 being more mixed compared to the others with some disappointing lows, but also having some of the highest highs in the series so far. By comparison, Season 5 is completely unsalvageable.

It immediately hits us with 10 episodes of filler that doesn't progress the story or develop any of the characters AT ALL. The premise behind Class 1A vs 1B is completely useless; forcing an already oversized ... cast of our main 1A students going up against an equally oversized group of 1B nobodies that 99% have never been on screen or had a single line of dialogue beforehand. Not to mention that this arc is probably the worst take on the "tournament arc" trope I've seen yet, in a show that already managed to pull it off in season 2. Whether a team wins or lose doesn't matter in the slightest, there are literally zero stakes or reason to care about whoever wins. It's just a obscenely long sparring match disguised as a showcase for the quirks of B-list characters that no one cares about. None of our main cast change or learn anything throughout these episodes, the only exception being Midoriya whom barely justifies this pointless arc by gaining one new power up. That's it. Everyone else has nothing to do throughout this entire filler arc.

You can easily skip the entire first half of this season, as you will miss literally nothing.

Next up is the Agency Arc. Aka, a blatant advertisement for the third movie that ends way too quickly, and shows characters and plot lines made specifically for a non-canon movie. It's only 5 episodes long and has our main characters do nothing for the entire arc. Sound familiar? It introduces some details that will set up actually interesting arcs down the road, but otherwise you can skip this one as well.

And finally, My Villain Academia. The arc that was supposedly gonna change the tone of the show into a more serious and dark story. Before it aired, people described it as the "edgy, dark, and violent" version of My Hero, and praised it as the saving grace for the season. Shame it fell flat on it's mid face. Don't get me wrong, at least stuff actually HAPPENS here. But the execution is so poorly paced and weak. It's basically a bunch of mini-skirmishes with the villains that we somewhat care about vs. an army of nobodies that were barely built up and the show suddenly acts like we should care about. Sound familiar? x2

Also the show spoils the end of the arc at the beginning of the previous arc, so you won't have to worry about having "stakes" or "engagement" in this show since it already tells you the ending before MVA even begins. The ONLY legitimately good episode was a flashback episode, where the show actually makes you feel emotional for our main lead in this arc. Everything else is woefully subpar, with this entire arc boiling down to "defeat the bad guys = win", and "Why not be evil?" for villains that were already evil and had no issue with their morality for the past 5 seasons. Except this time it's "Why not be MORE evil?!?"

*slow claps*

Finally, it ends with the promise of another big arc coming, that will "change everything". Ah yes. The very same thing that MVA was supposed to be and failed. What a joke of a season.

Both openings are terrible as well. The first one has a good song, but completely ignores Class 1B despite them being THE MAIN PREMISE of that arc. And the rest is Class 1A fighting thin air instead of showcasing any semblance of 1B.

And the second is half assed to say the least. Not only does the song suck and doesn't fit ANY of the arcs with how cringe the lyrics are, but a majority of it focuses on the Agency Arc which ends 3 episodes after the opening starts. And MVA only gets small sprinkles of random powerpoint screenshots + a bare minimum logo change, even though it's the majority of the remaining show. As you can see, priority/common sense was thrown out the window for this season.

All in all, My Hero Season 5 is a complete waste of your time.

Even if you're a MHA fan, there is no reason for you to watch this garbage. None of the characters develop or do anything remotely interesting. It's 90% filler and 10% badly executed story arcs that had the potential to be amazing. And unlike Season 1-4, there are no highlights in this season. Not even a single sakuga fight scene to at least admire for animation sake, since they moved the entire animation team to work on a movie that no one asked for. The best you're gonna get is 5 seconds of 3D buildings. Gee thanks My Hero. It's a shame how far this show has fallen considering how much care and attention was given to S1-4. Nowadays we're lucky if Bones remembers to change the PNG logo for MVA.

Do yourself a favor and skip this entire season.

This gets a 1/10

(but I'd honestly give it a 0 if I could)

Shikimori's main hook is that the couple are together right from the start.

A refreshing take on the romance genre considering a majority of shows only have the couples be together at the very end and then the show never shows us anything beyond that. It's a hook that is really interesting and the massive hype from the general anime community before the show aired is emblematic of that.

However, after the first few episodes the show got bombarded by negative reviews because Shikimori showed exactly what was promised: A cute romance story about a couple that are already dating. Nothing more, nothing less. The problem ... for most is that is was also JUST that premise. No drama, no conflict, no development. On paper, it sounds like a very boring show and I can understand why some might think that if they aren't hooked immediately.

But for my personal opinion, I think the show is vastly over hated.

If you're going in expecting it to have frustrating relationship drama or unnecessary angst, then you're only setting yourself up for disappointment. It's a cute show that's supposed to make you feel good, that's it. It's not everyone's cup of tea, but if you have the right mindset and curb your high expectations, then it's a show that should fill you with "the good feels" every episode and leave you sad once you realize it's over.

The first 2 episodes were really enjoyable due to the fact that Shikimori and Izumi are together. The middle episodes was the only area where it can drag since it's the main characters just enjoying life. But then everything after episode 7 was great, even more interesting than everything the show has shown so far.

It's a shame that so much of the hate came in the middle episodes, and people dropped the show right before the interesting episodes happen due to the "3 episodes rule" that most diehard anime fans have. If you decide to watch the show or have previously dropped it, then I highly recommend you at least give the later episodes a chance because you're really missing out on the best parts of the show.

I think the cast of characters were great. Each one had a sizeable amount of screen time, distinct personalities, and were all likeable (Kamiya best girl). The weakest link is obviously Izumi and I won't deny that his cliche can get a bit much. However, he alone doesn't ruin the show when there are so many other fun characters and his "bad luck syndrome" only occasionally appears.

Shikimori is just as obviously the star character. She's design to be the perfect girl, but a lot of her charm comes from when she shows her other various sides of her character (determined, angry, flustered, jealous etc.).

Every other character could also hold their own and the show explores the different dynamic each characters have with each other, not just focusing on Izumi/Shikimori, and I'd argue that these dynamics are just as interesting as our main couple.

The art style is beautiful and the animation is serviceable for a romance show. The OP and ED are also great, with each of them being both bangers and enjoyable to watch every time.

In conclusion, Shikimori is a great show if you want to feel good about a wholesome and healthy relationship.

Not everything needs to be filled with drama and negativity. And I think the people who call it boring have forgotten what it's like to watch a multi-season romance anime where nothing happens with the main couple until the end. The "Will they, won't they" formula isn't for everyone, especially someone like me who is sick of the frustrating suspension of disbelief over how some of those shows justify their main couple dancing around a confession and act like unrealistic anime stereotypes.

Likewise, this show isn't for everyone. But for those it is made for, it's a wholesome show that will give you a good time.

9/10

Going into Season 3 of Kaguya-sama I already had high hopes for it to live up to the hype. Both of the previous seasons are 10/10 in my opinion, and I already knew that "you know what" was happening this season from everyone spoiling it in every single Youtube comment section. The expectations for this season was even higher consider that we had to wait TWICE as long between S2/S3 (taking 2 years to make) compared to S1/S2, which was probably because of the pandemic but it was still something to consider as a fan.

So I had no reason to suspect anything would be wrong ... or that this season wouldn't be as enjoyable as I expect from this series.

Unfortunately, Kaguya-sama Season 3 drops the ball hard in terms of what gave the series it's charm.

To get the good out of the way, the animation is still good. They really went the extra mile in certain episodes, and the rest is what you'd expect from the series. Music is still on par, although the opening is probably the weakest of the 3 both in terms of music and visuals but it isn't bad by any means.

Now for the bad...

Kaguya-sama has always nailed it with its comedy. Every single episode in S1 and S2 has me bursting out laughing from how creative and unexpected each joke was. So it brings me no pleasure to say that I barely chuckled throughout Season 3. None of the humor lands, and any attempt at a joke is so sparse now since this season is more focused on the "Storyline" and introducing a bunch of new characters that we've never seen before. It might get a snicker from me every once in a while, but after 24 episodes most of their jokes are either repeats from what they've done before or "Character reacts in a overdramatic way". It just isn't funny and it seems like they've run out of tricks to pull so they resort to trying to tell a dragged out story instead of setting up comedic scenarios to build up actual jokes.

(Vague Spoilers Below)
I'm not going to go through any specific plot point, but like I said before this season is more focused on establishing background characters and less so the main 5 we all know and love. It just feels like a waste because they don't actually develop these characters in any meaningful way. The show states who they are and then constantly repeat whatever cliche they are given before making the audience care about them. I don't even remember any of their names to be quite honest because they were all forgettable. There are exceptions to this, but as a whole focusing on new characters instead of the ones we actually care about was a mistake.

And even our main characters have suddenly turned into the most brainrot versions of themselves. Kaguya will go through a 10 minute monologue about how she will finally put her foot down and do what needs to be done, and then the next episode revert back to that "Boo hoo I want him to confess to me!!!!!!!!!" stick. It was cute when we first saw her, now it's it's unbearable because we already gone through her "Okay, I will finally confess" character development multiple times already. Iino barely does anything in this season, Ishigami goes from being an absolute chad to just a romance foil for Kaguya, Fujiwara barely shows up period and doesn't have her happy-go-lucky personality anymore instead just being straight up stupid at times. Shirogane is the only one that acts like he's supposed to, but he alone can't carry the entire show.

But my biggest complaint is how dragged out this show has become. In the previous seasons, you didn't really care if Shirogane and Kaguya confessed or not. The fun was seeing how the two tried to weasel a confession out of the other, and how their situations often blew up in their face. I personally wasn't ever frustrated when they got close to confessing and then something magical happens to interfere, as long as it was funny and entertaining then it didn't matter. But now that I've said that the show isn't funny anymore, all that we are left with is a painfully long slog till the end to get anything meaningful from this already drawn out game of cat and mouse.

Very often is there zero payoff and without the comedy to make the bait enjoyable, it just becomes around mediocre rom-com where the main characters don't do anything until the very end.

As someone who loved S1 and 2 of this series, Kaguya-Sama Season 3 is a massive disappointment. The comedy is gone. the fun of the "will they/won't they?" is gone. The main characters are gone. And most importantly, the charm is gone.

I hope Season 4 can somehow regain what it lost with this season, but I have zero hopes that the rest of the series will be good again.

3/10