My Hero Academia

Episode 56

And thus we end the first part of the Provisional License Exams, as all of Class 1-A manages to swoop in and secure their place in the batch of one hundred students permitted to continue. What this arc lacks in scope, it aims to make up for in small character moments and an affirmation of 1-A's growth and companionship. Even Bakugo is showing signs of change, where he's been developing his attacks so that they don't cause needless friendly fire, and his assessment of Midoriya's ever-developing powers is at least one notch less condescending than usual. When the entire class makes it just barely under the wire, their cheers of relief are genuinely heartwarming.

The biggest stand-out of the group this week ends up being everybody's favorite sparkle boy, Aoyama, who attempts to use his belly button laser to draw enemies to him and give his classmates a chance to escape. However, instead of that being the case, his peers decide to use his laser as a beacon to follow in a 'no man left behind' kind of way. He tries to sacrifice himself, but his friends just aren't having it. Just to drive me crazy, there's a teasing of his backstory and motivations, and it really had me hooked! I wanted to know more about Can't Stop Twinkling, but alas that will have to wait until another day.

It's like I'm at a perpetual standstill with this arc, where I can appreciate it as a respite from the larger story and an opportunity for character writing above plot and spectacle, but it's still a mild and unambitious experience. Seeing the show rotate between Kaminari and Aoyama and company put it in perspective why the filler with Yaoyorozu and the others was necessary, since the heart of this arc is in the small things; we get a chance to see how the larger class is growing beyond just Midoriya. But that's also kind of my problem. The whole thing still feels like nicely-animated and well-written filler.

What I'm hoping to see as we transition into the second phase of the exam is a greater emphasis on the "everybody versus U.A." angle. The rivalries between schools haven't impacted the flow of the story in a meaningful enough way yet. We see that our kids are comfortably on top of the hurdles that come with being mini-celebrities, and the story hasn't explored much beyond that. We also didn't get to see the rules of the ball game create many unique scenarios either. It got various students to cross paths and fight a little, but most of 1-A passes simultaneously at the end simply because it was time to move on to the next thing.

The past few episodes have been feel-good and easygoing, so audience who wants to see the students just being generally kind and supportive of each other will have a lot to enjoy. It's hard to argue with the appeal there, but for my money I'm still waiting on something more.

Rating: B

My Hero Academia is currently streaming on Funimation and Crunchyroll.

Sam Leach records about One Piece for The One Piece Podcast and you can find him on Twitter @LuckyChainsaw