entou

It does not make for a good first impression for the rest of the series.

The pacing of the episode was ungodly fast, no time to breathe, just next scene right now go GO GO.

Everything but the people looked good I think. They felt too stiff?

I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt now. Maybe there will be episodes not focused on a single MCU movie so the pacing doesn’t need to go by so fast in order to fit in a condensed version of the movie plot.

The popular theory is that it’s because of the new movie, and moving My Villain Academia until after the Endeavour Agency will help to build suspense and mystery. The brief scene of Shigaraki in episode 13 I thought did very well in achieving that, giving a brief taste of what to expect and leaving viewers speculating.

Cut to episode 15 though and it feels like instead of being clever with the suspense and mystery building, it’s instead feeling confusing. The conversation betwween Hawks and Dabi regarding Hawks killing(?) Best Jeanist that happened in 14 worked well because it builds off the foundation that Hawks and Dabi are in cahoots established at the start of Season 5.

But compare that to Hawks meeting the Liberation guys who are now associated with the League. The scenes with secret agent Hawks (outside of conversing with Dabi) only work because of the foundation they were built upon but those scenes haven’t happened yet in the anime and so it just feels like an entire arc was erased, for lack of a better term.

What if instead The League of Villains wasn’t shown to be associated with The Liberation Army until later on? Would that have perhaps been more appropriate?Have that brief scene of Shigaraki to tantalize viewers and then stay silent until necessary.

That Shigaraki mystery feels completed ruined now because in episode 15 Toga explicitly mentions Shigaraki will destroy Japan. So obviously Shigaraki must be doing OK.

I think that instead of building suspense and mystery, it’s just creating confusion.