The sixth season of My Hero Academia is 25 episodes long. Unlike the previous seasons where the first episode is usually a nice slow one to ease you back in, this season starts immediately after the previous one in which the League of Villains combined with the Meta Liberation Army. Now that Shiragaki is the leader and a huge threat, the heroes must launch a pre-emptive attack as they know that there is no going back if they allow the villains the first strike. Of course, the students at U.A. can participate, even though they are mostly in the reserve to help with evacuation efforts.
Naturally, things do not go accordingly to plan, and they go spectacularly wrong early on. From the misjudgement of the villains and their powers to just sheer bad luck, the pro heroes have a lot of work to do. The anime has progressively gotten more serious and darker, but this season starts out with some heavy stuff. We’ve seen some deaths before but be prepared for characters to die in sad and horrible ways. It can feel like that their deaths were meaningless at times, and just happened which is reflective of reality. It’s not something that you would expect from the anime, so it hits you all the much harder when it happens.
The first arc of the season splits the group into two. The anime jumps between the two locations as it showcases the events happening simultaneously. It does the usual scene skip when it gets intense, leaving you at a cliffhanger. It’s not bad but sometimes can be annoying as it can feel like it is dragging the plot out for quite a bit. By this point, a lot of the characters are familiar, and their actions feel genuine, especially when they act like true heroes, suppressing their fear and giving it their all to help others.
Despite it being a long fight scene, there are enough developments for it not to feel boring at all. Shiragaki is way too strong now. it’s like he cheated to gain all the power that he got just so he could be a one-man army that can take on all the heroes at once. Nevertheless, various things in the previous seasons do make their appearance again and since you’re already familiar with those concepts, it can lead to some tense situations where you know the consequences will be devastating if the villains succeed.
Scattered throughout the big battle are a lot of flashbacks for character development. Several prominent characters, who were shrouded in mystery up until now, finally have their backstories revealed. Some revelations are big, but it does feel like the stakes have to keep escalating so it’s getting ridiculous with how exaggerated things can get. The season tries to get its highs from big returning characters, but these are cheap thrills. It’s still great to see them in action once again but they quickly drop off into the background against the huge cast of characters.
Annoyingly, there is a not insignificant amount of exposition in the dialogue. Characters have big speeches justifying their actions with their motivations. These are long winded and slow down the pacing of the current scene even more, especially when it is combined with the flashback scenes. It doesn’t help that their justifications can be confusing to make sense of at times.
The season turns the situation around with the heroes facing a bleak future. This is heavy stuff, especially compared to the previous seasons. It had political themes, some more drama, and is darker. It does this to allow the characters to shine with their genuineness and ability to push forward through hard times, which is inspiring. The second half turns even darker but goes overboard with the stuff. Deku becomes annoyingly stubborn, and his actions reveal that he did not learn the most aspects of his time at U.A. he's trying to take on everything by himself, pushing everyone away.
The extreme serious tone of the doesn’t quite work towards the end. There are times where Deku, supposedly grittier, edgier, and more morally grey in his methods, becomes like it is trying too hard. Deku goes from slowly growing into his power of One For All to suddenly being able to competently use the many facets of it. The plot had time skipped too much and the jump in power and proficiency is too large a gapt o ignore. Throughout the anime, the students, while powerful in their own right, are often humbled by actual superheroes and supervillains. Yet Deku can now easily dispatch some supposedly tough villains.
There is a redemption arc for Deku and while the anime has done some typical arcs before, it usually puts its own twist on things that make it engaging. Unfortunately, that’s not the case this time as it is a predictable arc, where everyone comes to punch some sense into Deku. There are one or two scenes where it works but the whole schtick where every character gets a piece of dialogue about their time together with Deku is corny and cheesy. The season finishes off with a small ray of hope within the darkness. It was starting to get depressing, but the anime can finally get back to having more of the upbeat positive vibe that it always had. While things can be too idealistic, it has its charms.
Overall, the sixth season of My Hero Academia is weaker than previous seasons. It is not bad, but it is more so that the previous season were just that good. This season spent a lot of time with complex issues involving ideology and had a darker theme as a result. Then we get Deku straying from the path and his beliefs, before spending the rest of the season to have him finally saved by his friends. Deku rapidly gaining power from One For All also means it is a missed opportunity to see him grow like we had done in the past.
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