As this is my first review on MAL I’ll start with a summary of it:
Overall I liked the first arcs of Hero Academia, but it was too inconsistent plot wise for me to continue reading. The manga would do things to reel me in just to lose me the next arc and I decided to might as well drop it.
My problems can be explained in 3 aspects of the writing:
Deku as a protagonist:
Deku to me is a boring character. He has undeniably right ideals and motivation, he has an overpowered quirk and he never faces real consequences. His idea of a hero and why he
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wants to be one are too pure and cliche to be noteworthy. Mentally, he won’t change and in a long run that proves to be boring to me. Then, can his quirk make him interesting? Well, the story behind is, but a quirk that can just smash through everything is too plain in a series about how everyone has unique powers. Bakugou can use his explosions in creative ways, Uraraka has to be clever to fight with zero gravity, but Deku just powers up to the next percent and punches to win. And when he doesn't win per se, the situation always solves itself. He can’t use OFA or else he gets injured? Only happens in UA and he can be healed right away. He does get injured in an important battle? Doesn’t matter he can just man up. He breaks government or school rules? Oh, well you did good so let’s move on. I find supporting characters like Bakugou or Todoroki way more interesting but the problem is that everyone’s developments are tied too much to Deku. I know he is the protagonist and the plot is about him, but some characters should be allowed to shine on their own. As a rival, Bakugou’s development is obviously tied to him. Todorki’s arc revolves around Deku and his pep talks. Iida’s arc gets intense but of course Deku has to be there. And poor Uraraka, a lot of times she is just there to be Deku’s future love interest.
Villains:
Extending the perfect protagonist point, he have to talk about villains. If our hero is too good, then we need a good villain to keep the narrative interesting. If the hero is too pure, then the villain should challenge him in a philosophical way. Either make him doubt himself or make an impression on the reader. If the hero is too powerful, then the villain should be able to challenge him to keep fights engaging; and if the hero progresses his power the villain should too. If the hero never loses, then the villain should be resourceful enough to keep things close. So far all the villains (Shigaraki, Stain, Overhaul, Gentle) have none of these traits. Now, they don’t need to be perfect too and hit on all 3 traits but one should be enough to make things interesting. All 4 are too crazy to sympathize with and too evil that they’ll never shake Deku’s ideals or motivations. All 4 are nowhere near close to Deku’s fighting prowess, and, if they somehow were, they would just get obliterated by the next OFA percent. All 4 are also incapable of forming interesting strategies. Stain, Overhaul and Gentle just straight up end up fighting the good guys up front without being even close to escape, and Shigaraki has to have his behind saved all the time.
Focus:
Now I did say that at first I liked the manga and that is true. When the author limited himself to a couple of students and All Might’s life in UA and how they dealt with their emotions as events unfolded it was a good read. The background of a school and setup of the classrooms to have at least 20 other supporting characters was promising. But, for some reason or another the author kept adding more students, more heroes, more villains before giving proper time to the ones we had already. This made one dimensional, secondary characters more plain that they already were that it makes me question why are they even there in the first place. The story went from exploring characters in this interesting world to trying to explore the world and then maybe the characters themselves in a really sudden change.
I really recommend reading the first few arcs. For me, they were good and they introduced some characters that I started to like and care for before they were thrown into the bench with little hope to dive into them as much as I would have hoped. The later arcs varied too much in quality for me and at one point the story took a different route that I don't really care for. Out of the 180 chapters I read I would say it was a 50/50 hit and miss ratio.
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Jan 25, 2019
Boku no Hero Academia
(Manga)
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As this is my first review on MAL I’ll start with a summary of it:
Overall I liked the first arcs of Hero Academia, but it was too inconsistent plot wise for me to continue reading. The manga would do things to reel me in just to lose me the next arc and I decided to might as well drop it. My problems can be explained in 3 aspects of the writing: Deku as a protagonist: Deku to me is a boring character. He has undeniably right ideals and motivation, he has an overpowered quirk and he never faces real consequences. His idea of a hero and why he ... |
