My Hero Academia: Vigilantes

Episode 3

This show sometimes feels way more slice of life than I was expecting, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Some of my favorite parts of the episode were everyone visiting Koichi's place, making themselves at home. I thought that was cute. While I think the way that everybody just formed this group happened a little too quickly, I can't deny that the chemistry is strong. Everyone bounces off each other well, and it leads to naturally funny moments. We also get a little characterization with Koichi, who is more of an everyman protagonist, but it's nice that he's starting to realize that maybe more than being a hero, he just wanted to have some friends.

I'm not sure what was preventing him before, because he doesn't come off as socially awkward or anything, and he seems to have a pretty good head on his shoulders. We don't know much about Koichi's reasons why he felt things in his life were lacking. One of my biggest complaints about Vigilantes so far is that there's a lot of implying but not a lot of showing. Granted, some of this stuff is being set up for later, like how Knuckleduster's whole deal is probably going to be the emotional backbone of the whole show if I were placing any bets. Right now, things feel very surface-level.

I like what was being set up in the final third of this episode, with this high schooler villain creating a mass panic using the drug and her bees. That feels like an escalation in scale that I hoped would happen to get the pro heroes involved. If the show kept utilizing this drug as a major plot point, but didn't have Hero Society taking it more seriously (especially since this is all before the league of villains formally makes a public appearance), I might've called bullshit. But right now, this episode was a suitable palate cleanser before we get into the next dramatic action.

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