#o'clock

HAPPY EASTER DAYY!!!!!! ⏳🐰✨

AND THAT'S IT, so far (and stay tuned to the end of this post for a Surprise, lmfao). The new season of this is coming NEXT YEAR and I'm so very looking forward to it because MY GOD this has so much promise and fun and it executes so well on the ideas and themes of the original series in a way I feel the original lost sight of. So. There's a list of what I liked, a list of what I didn't and my ramble (and the ramble has the surprise lmfao).

Alan Moore doing Dark And Gritty™ Comics

MARRIED KNUCKLE-SAN GOES CRAZY omfg

He's so fun and compelling I love shady weirdos

Koichi being all "Let's be friends!" to Soga is adorable

I KNOW THEY'RE TRYING TO WRITE HER HAVING A CRUSH ON HIM BUT THEY REALLY ACCIDENTALLY SIBLINGED IT TF UP AND IT'S SO FUNNY. KNUCKLE-SAN TELLING KOICHI TO HELP OUT POP STEP IS THE MOST FUCKING PARENT SHIT IMAGINABLE. Weirdass found family.

The secret identities being totally unsecret is so fucking funny I love Makoto being another contributor to the Anti-Snitching Crew

Makoto could've taken down All for One and the League and the Hero Commission and fixed the whole plot of the main series in 2 seconds flat if she'd wanted to I am convinced

The intro does bang so hard I'm not even skipping it sometimes

Crying at the idol war room session.

Pop is so sweet omfg that's BABYYYYYYY look at my daughter socializing and making friends I'm so proud

Present Mic has like 80 different jobs and side gigs does this man ever take a day off lmfao

Koichi being bullied by high schoolers is so real

Stop omfg Midnight and Mic being homies is hysterical. And love the way that Mic and Aizawa are literally just treated as a unit

LOVE young Aizawa the most he's really unbothered.

The Knuckles Daughter Reveal is not too shocking but still fun

I'm crying man this secret identity shit is such a funny running gag

New mission: Get Pop Step a girlfriend. I want my daughter happy. Lesbianism is always the solution because men aren't going to do that.

I like that Knuckle-san was a shitty dad and then encouraged Pop Step to do her concert. That's on learning.

AIZAWA YOU SOFTIE HE REALLY DOES JUST WANNA PARENT KIDS

The level of I Pretend I Do Not See It these superheroes all do about the vigilantes is hilarious

Koichi is the most embarrassing lame friend you'll ever see bless him

Knuckle-san really made like so many father figures in this series and peaced tf out lmfaoooooo

Rob Liefeld doing Dark And Gritty™ Comics

I am willing to play ball just this once but if your cool man character needs a woman to be hurt in order to be properly motivated maybe TRY HARDER you chickens

SHOW I'M SO SORRY THEY BOTH HAVE FRECKLES AND DARK HAIR IT'S GIVING WEIRD RELATIVES HAVING A CRUSH ON EACH OTHER PLEASE LET'S DON'T

It's so frustrating to see this show be so good at what it does when the main story is a hot fucking mess by the end icl. Oh man. WE COULD'VE HAD IT ALL.

Pleek bro I love Pop Step dearly but I hate the music so much don't make me listen to it I'm begging I'm on hand and knee

Ok I love my loser high school children but DO NOT MAKE ME LISTEN TO THEM SING <3

I'm ngl Stain and Ingenium having history feels like it kinda kills the vibe of him being a victim when we get to their eventual fated drama in the main story.

This was SUCH a promising start to what is a very exciting show. I think I've mentioned a few times the way that the main series of Hero Academia almost fails to deliver on the "Ordinary people can contain the potential for incredible actions and great moral character" premise it introduces in the first episode. Well. This kind of... delivers. Knuckle-san is quirkless now, Koichi is Literally Just Some Dude, Pop Step isn't even particularly heroic at first but then she slowly gets sucked into it totally by accident.

Whatever limitations this show has it just works with them– can't go as big? Keep the story more narrow and focused. Don't have the artistic chops Horikoshi has for drawing people? Simple. Do a more cartoony style, which lets you imply more of the fighting. Duller powers? BETTER fight scenes with easy to follow choreography.

It's a story that is clean, focused, and TIGHT. It's so fun. Genuinely overjoyed it exists. It makes me feel a whole lot less cynical about the property and universe as a whole– it's got a less overtly bright and happy energy than the original series, but it's actually to me a kinder and more optimistic story– ANYONE can be a hero. Actually anyone!

There's a sort of fun as well to seeing the characters we sort of know from the main series taking shape as themselves in this one– Midnight especially who I thought was really hard done by especially in her death in the main series. Aizawa before he started teaching the kiddos is a ton of fun. SO fun. Naomasa gets a little more fleshed out and makes me very committed to my ACABery but he is INTERESTING in all of this. It's just plain fun! It's got a nuance to it! A tongue-in-cheek sense of humor and a simple premise and the right amount of stakes!

So. Yeah. Idk I just. Loved it. The writing in this is pretty damn great. It's not too complicated, not groundbreaking by any means, but what it chooses to do it does WELL and I love seeing a show bite off exactly what it can chew. No more, no less.

SURPRISE BITCH I READ THE WHOLE MANGA TOO SO LET'S TALK ABOUT THAT

If you care about spoilers for the show and haven't read the manga this is your cue to LOOK AWAY. GET OUT. THIS IS NOT A SAFE PLACE FROM SPOILERS I WILL BE YAPPING

Ok now that everyone who cares about that is gone hi I literally am so fucking. I'm so serious this manga made me gaf about Hero Academia in a way that the main series simply did not manage because it hits EXACTLY the notes the main series SHOULD HAVE OMFGGGGGG. I really do think Horikoshi's original conception for the story would've worked better and it's a crying shame they didn't go with that one because. This is basically like what could've been. Koichi's such a great protagonist.

You can really see the bones of could've been the main series. Obviously Knuckleduster echoes a Gritty All Might on purpose and for the bit ("I AM HERE" to punch some fuckers) but there's the loss of his quirk to All for One, there's the loss of a beloved family (though ig for All Might it's literally just Nana), there's the choosing of a successor because of his heart being in the right place. And he's GREAT. We love Knuckle-san because he's a very flawed motherfucker but he kicks ass and in all of his weirdness he does genuinely care about the two kiddos he scraped off the road.

I LOVED seeing the different responses heroes and law enforcement had to the vigilantes too– from Naomasa absolutely crashing out (haha, suck it pig), to Aizawa thinking they're in over their heads, to Captain Celebrity's whole schtick of coming around on em, to Tensei being. Gay.

There is for me though obviously the frustration at how women are handled here. Because like. WHERE ARE THE WOMEN, BLAWG? Especially in the final arc of the manga where Pop Step is just lying in a hospital bed, we don't see Makoto, we don't have like... any women. Like. Where are they? Midnight basically vanishes too and that's after she's been such a fun character all that time. It's the main thing I hope the anime DOES change going forward bc we do have interesting female characters, they just... vanish. Also maybe sexualize them less but I fear that's a losing battle. SIGH.

BUT I DID FUCKING LOVE SEEING BABY MIRUKO FIGHTING PEOPLE FOR FUN. THAT'S MY GOAT. SHE SHOWED UP LITERALLY JUST TO BEEF WITH PEOPLE SHE IS PEAK SUPERHERO. LOVE HER THE MOST. THAT WAS FOR M E. Seeing her and Rappa team up fr made me BEAM.

Loved seeing more of baby Aizawa and Mic and Oboro too, thought it was so sweet that Midnight's cat came from the kids she adopted. LOVED that Aizawa's soft spot for kids he refuses to admit he has came through so clearly even in his baby flashbacks (and omfg if it doesn't add another layer of emotion to his Problem Child nickname for Izuku that he met Koichi before, and Koichi too had that "my legs moved before I could think" thing)

It's just. Oh my god. I loved it. I thought Number 6 was a fun villain in the sense that we saw him losing it as he wanted to measure up to O'Clock, whose acknowledgement he never got. I think that actually works so well as well because they had him go for Knuckle-san's daughter. It works for me even more because of how we see characters shift and dynamics shift over time (Pop and Makoto getting closer, Captain Celebrity and everyone, SOGA WHO IS A GREAT CHARACTER OMFG), and it makes sense over the broader timescale (cough cough main series cramming everything into one year lmfao what).

It just breathes better. It's great. It's genuinely great. One of the few major gripes I had with it was the art, which I thought was really just. Extremely mediocre to the point it detracts from the overall impression, and I wish it had a little more life in it. The anime actually handles that very well imo, and I hope it continues to do so.

The other thing I think is just that like. I could've done without the power escalation for Koichi. I am glad it's only in the last bit, but having All for One talking about his quirk like it's the Next Big Thing and Better Than Overclock is a little.... at odds with what was so joyful and compelling about it– that it was Normal! That KOICHI in his creativity and his ordinary quirk could be heroic because of his character. But fortunately that's only a minor part of it and it helps a lot to not have to see a lot of it.

Also I have nowhere to put this but All Might and Naomasa's dates had me ROLLING. You cannot tell me that wasn't deliberate. I have seen those exact conversations they were having with the superhero's girlfriend in any superhero comic that features secret identities. I'm so serious. I was cackling. I loved the little mini Nighteye features too where All Might is still broken up about losing his highly competent ex.

I just. Man I had so much fun and this was so much better in writing. A cohesive story that maximized almost all of its characters and running time. A more satisfying arc of growth and interesting plot within 126 chapters than the main series manages in over 400.