The seventh season of My Hero Academia is 21 episodes long. It takes place after the last season where Japan is in deep trouble after All For One has escaped. He’s shown to have many plans and contingencies. The season continues to be darker too, so there aren’t as many moments or scenes where the characters can take a breather and enjoy themselves. It’s mostly anxiousness or worrying or planning for the next thing.
After being hinted at for so long, we finally get to find out the traitor at U.A., who was feeding a lot of information to All For One, which explains why so many things just so happen to Midoriya and his class. The last season had a cheesy scene in which Midoriya was bought back through the power of friendship, and they don’t dwell on it much here which is good. The first two episodes are interesting, introducing Stars and Stripes, America’s strongest hero and on par with All Might. Then the next few episodes have slow pacing as it sets up for the big climactic battle that is coming in fast.
As you go through the season, you’ll come to realize that the whole season is probably going to focus on this big battle. While this is not a bad thing, at the same time, there are pockets of slow pacing that you felt is the story being dragged out so that it can fill up all the episodes. It doesn’t help that there are multiple viewpoints, and so it loves to jump between these viewpoints, cutting in and out. While this can be used to heighten the atmosphere and tenseness of the scenes, sometimes it can get annoying.
This has been going on for a while, but the animation quality is not great in a lot of the scenes. It’s probably one of the worst we’ve seen in the series so far. This goes hand in hand with the fights also not feeling as epic or climactic as ones in previous seasons. There is a lot more talking between the characters with little movement on screen. Even when the characters clash, they clash for a only a short scene or two and the victor is determined.
However, there are still some great moments. While the fights may have decreased in quality, the character development is top notch. After six seasons, there are so many characters that may have been unlikeable in the past, but they’ve moved on and progressed so much tha you can’t help but admire them. You can see how much they have grown and developed. These moments even help you get past the corny and cheesy lines that just keep being spouted from the characters.
That said, the quality does improve as the season goes on. Also, you start to see a trend, and that is that it is bringing a lot of characters from the past into play. It’s supposed to create this sense of nostalgia and warm fuzzy feeling as the characters that Midoriya had met and helped in the past, appear now to help him. It’s kind of cheesy and forced at times. Unfortunately, this giant battle is dragged out to the point where it shows how absurdly overpowered All For One and Tomura are, that they end up overstaying their welcome.
This battle is the final one, and you know that. As the season ends, it starts wrapping up most of the side stories of the various viewpoints. You can say a lot happened, but also not too much. There are a lot of backstories to cover, and the constant jumping back and forwards can get annoying. The season ends just as the biggest fight commences, and of course it must be a cliffhanger, teasing you with its final season.
Overall, the seventh season of My Hero Academia is okay as it never reaches the emotional heights of the earlier seasons. The quality has dropped, and this is evident in the animation, the pacing, and the storytelling. Having the whole season focus on this big fight between the villains and heroes may sound good on paper, but it can be quite tedious and repetitive, especially since it’s not a short season either. The series was building up until this point, and it promises to end in the next season, but you might start to think that the journey was much better than the end.
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