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REVIEW: My Hero Academia - Season One Limited Edition BD+DVD


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zrnzle500



Joined: 04 Oct 2014
Posts: 3767
PostPosted: Wed Jun 21, 2017 11:04 am Reply with quote
I don't think that animation highlights were that few and far between. Deku vs. Bakugo and especially All Might vs. Nomu come to mind. If you think that is glacial, source material pacing, you haven't seen One Piece, where some recent episodes have adapted less than one chapter of the manga.

I would like to know what Mr. Creamer thinks of the currently running second season (past the first episode), since, while I don't know the ratio of chapter to episode is, it seems well paced and I would look askance on anyone who says the second season at least rarely takes advantage of its medium to pull off great animation highlights. Has it become the version of the show that you wanted?


Last edited by zrnzle500 on Wed Jun 21, 2017 11:08 am; edited 1 time in total
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Ethe





PostPosted: Wed Jun 21, 2017 11:05 am Reply with quote
Quote:
it takes nearly forever for anything to happen - the show is full of repeated, unnecessary flashbacks, long pans that kill dramatic tension, and sequences where single-panel gags are stretched out over far too many seconds of screen time.


My main problem with Boku no Hero Academia right here. I'd also like to mention the constant need for characters to explain what's going on in a fight, but I know that's shounen logic. It's just that it can get too ridicolous sometimes, especially in season 2.

Other than that I love this show. It has become one of my favourites. It's impossible not to love these kids. As for the grading, I'd personally give the animation in S1 an A- Razz
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meiam



Joined: 23 Jun 2013
Posts: 3442
PostPosted: Wed Jun 21, 2017 12:07 pm Reply with quote
MHA really didn't work for me. Big part of that was the pacing that was already highlighted (I remember thinking the first two episodes could have been done in half an episode with room to spare) but this only feed into my biggest problem with the series, which most likely translate to the manga, to me this show is the perfect example of a "tell, don't show" kind of story.

Every message is repeated on and on at nausea but nothing is actually backed up by the the actual event that happen in the story. I agree that the message the story want to say is that heroism is about inspiration, but I only know that because the show was constantly telling me about its message, not because that's what the story actually says. Ultimately Midori wasn't able to become a hero because all might inspired him, but rather because all might gave him his power, except that's something that can only be done once to one person and didn't require Midori to be inspired at all (and in fact giving it to Midori is probably the worse possibility). And trough the story Midori just win because he has overwhelming power, not because he inspires others. Yes his power have drawback, but there's so strong that he only need one shoot to win. All might himself isn't the greatest hero because he's the most inspirational, he is because he's the most successful (which again come back to his power being amazingly good), if anything he's inspirational solely because of his prowess. The real message of the show is closer to "results are everything" or "luck is all that matters".

This extend to almost all aspect of the story, for example we're constantly told Bakugo power are amazing, yet they're incredibly weak, he lose all the fight he's in and generally he's less effective at being a hero than a normal person with a gun, oh and also apparently in that world bully can become hero (once again power > inspiration, except for the fact that his power are super weak but the story doesn't realize that).
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zrnzle500



Joined: 04 Oct 2014
Posts: 3767
PostPosted: Wed Jun 21, 2017 12:32 pm Reply with quote
^The actual giving of the power did not require inspiration, but All Might would not have given it to him otherwise, so it is not incidental. His power is also not enough to take down everyone, given Nomu was unfazed by it, and that's only going by the first season.

Bakugo is also not as weak as you make him out to be. Maybe his prowess wasn't as apparent in the first season, but in the second season spoiler[He wins all of his one on one fights and gets first place in the tournament, albeit because Todoroki, the most powerful student in their class when he wants to be, didn't go all out against him like he did against Midoriya. By the way, Todoroki took on several of Midoriya's smashes including the last full power one, which he overpowered. You could say power won in that round, but he only used his full power because Midoriya inspired him to (briefly) let go of his qualms with using one part of his power (due to family issues), which as mentioned earlier, Bakugo did not. Todoroki had the greater power but lost due to not being inspired to overcome his family issues, a fact that frustrated Bakugo greatly.]
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v1cious



Joined: 31 Dec 2002
Posts: 6199
Location: Houston, TX
PostPosted: Wed Jun 21, 2017 1:57 pm Reply with quote
I agree completely with this review. The pacing of the first season was terrible. There were a lot of times where it felt like they were dragging things out to fill time. So far Season 2 has been way better, so things did work out for the best.
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John Thacker



Joined: 28 Oct 2013
Posts: 1006
PostPosted: Wed Jun 21, 2017 2:17 pm Reply with quote
I believe that the slow pacing is directly related to this being a daytime show. Daytime shows have to appeal to a general audience as well, not just people who DVR or otherwise make sure to watch every episode. Due to that, they tend to be episodic, have lots of filler, have lots of recap, long previews, or repeated scenes between episodes, or in some other way make it so someone who misses the occasional episode isn't totally lost. Whether Meitantei Conan, Naruto, One Piece, Dragon Ball, early Gundam series, or Precure, it doesn't matter, they all do something like this. Slow pacing is one way to deal with it; if not a lot happens between episodes, then someone can miss one episode and catch the next without feeling totally lost.

If you tell me that MHA is slower paced than daytime Jump shows like Dragon Ball or One Piece, I'll laugh. All of those shows were designed so that a kid could watch every other episode and not be lost.

What makes MHA distinct is that it's a daytime show that is yet split into bite size seasons with long gaps between seasons rather than being a long-running continuous show like most of the other Jump series or other daytime and primetime shows. So it's a daytime show, but with more of a late night anime feel. Back in the 90s we had a fair number of at least early evening shows (such as Utena or Evangelion) that had continuing plot, but they probably had more filler than MHA. These days, there's almost no such shows.
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Snakebit1995



Joined: 25 Apr 2015
Posts: 842
PostPosted: Wed Jun 21, 2017 2:31 pm Reply with quote
First off have the LE myself and it's great, I put rubber Deku on my car keys

zrnzle500 wrote:
If you think that is glacial, source material pacing, you haven't seen One Piece, where some recent episodes have adapted less than one chapter of the manga.



Isn't that Nick's point though? One Piece's anime has been running nearly 20 years at this point, it's a little more excusable for it to have 1chapter=1 episode pacing than it is form MHA, which was just starting to have a similar pacing.

The fact that the first chapter of the manga is split into two episodes (1 and a half really) should have been the first warning signs that the pacing was gonna be slow. And that same pacing issue has continued somewhat into season two (The pacing is better but still now where I think it could be)

It's funny because I had the complete opposite pacing issue with another Jump property that aired around the same time, Food Wars Season 2. If MHA was glacial slow well Food Wars was neckbreakingly fast. It's like if you averaged the two shows you'd get a properly paced show.
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zrnzle500



Joined: 04 Oct 2014
Posts: 3767
PostPosted: Wed Jun 21, 2017 3:00 pm Reply with quote
^Now I'm not a manga reader but IIRC the first chapter was longer so splitting across two episodes may not be unwarranted relatively speaking. I don't know that Nick's point was specific to this show and not a general "1 chapter per episode is too little to fill an episode" and even in One Piece I don't know that I would disagree, let alone for ones that are even slower than that. One Piece's pacing has less to do with its length than their approach of minimizing filler by stretching the material.
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John Thacker



Joined: 28 Oct 2013
Posts: 1006
PostPosted: Wed Jun 21, 2017 3:06 pm Reply with quote
Snakebit1995 wrote:
It's funny because I had the complete opposite pacing issue with another Jump property that aired around the same time, Food Wars Season 2. If MHA was glacial slow well Food Wars was neckbreakingly fast. It's like if you averaged the two shows you'd get a properly paced show.


Food Wars aired at 2:30 in the morning Japan time. That by itself explains a lot of the different pacing issues with other Jump shows, and just goes to prove the rule. Daytime shows have either slower pacing or more filler or recap, to accommodate normal viewers who might miss an episode here or there.
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Snakebit1995



Joined: 25 Apr 2015
Posts: 842
PostPosted: Wed Jun 21, 2017 3:08 pm Reply with quote
zrnzle500 wrote:
^Now I'm not a manga reader but IIRC the first chapter was longer so splitting across two episodes may not be unwarranted relatively speaking. I don't know that Nick's point was specific to this show and not a general "1 chapter per episode is too little to fill an episode" and even in One Piece I don't know that I would disagree, let alone for ones that are even slower than that. One Piece's pacing has less to do with its length than their approach of minimizing filler by stretching the material.


Most manga have a longer first chapter, most chapters are aound 15-20 pages but the first chapter of a series is usually double those. But most anime animate the whole first chapter as one episode, One Piece, Bleach, Fairy Tail, etc all had a long first chapter contained in one episode.
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killjoy_the



Joined: 30 May 2015
Posts: 2457
PostPosted: Wed Jun 21, 2017 4:27 pm Reply with quote
zrnzle500 wrote:
I would like to know what Mr. Creamer thinks of the currently running second season (past the first episode)


He has thoughts on every episode at his blog. In short, I'd say no but he thinks it's at least a little better.
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cutslo



Joined: 23 Dec 2016
Posts: 53
PostPosted: Wed Jun 21, 2017 5:19 pm Reply with quote
It's never a good idea to claim that something is actually okay because some other thing is even worse. I can't comment on how terrible One Piece's pacing is nowadays, but if it's worse than MHA it must be a sorry sight indeed. Also, One Piece is 700+ episodes in and anybody still watching it must have developed a huge tolerance for what it does. MHA is just getting started and its dead slow execution of an already slow shounen story where the running commentary has its own running commentary is certainly something you should warn everyone considering it about.

I have to disagree that the show's not a looker though, when it finally gets down to business the animation is top-tier. Sure, that's not very often, but that's more because a statistically significant percentage of the show is flashbacks to the last episode when people were saying the same things they are also currently taking too long to say, which would not have benefitted from being animated better either way.

EDIT: Oh yeah and please let's not pretend that "you have the strongest power but using it IS BAD FOR YOU" is in any way a novel or interesting concept. It's in every other story of this type.
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Bartholomew Kuma



Joined: 21 Jun 2017
Posts: 16
PostPosted: Wed Jun 21, 2017 6:59 pm Reply with quote
Snakebit1995 wrote:
zrnzle500 wrote:
^Now I'm not a manga reader but IIRC the first chapter was longer so splitting across two episodes may not be unwarranted relatively speaking. I don't know that Nick's point was specific to this show and not a general "1 chapter per episode is too little to fill an episode" and even in One Piece I don't know that I would disagree, let alone for ones that are even slower than that. One Piece's pacing has less to do with its length than their approach of minimizing filler by stretching the material.


Most manga have a longer first chapter, most chapters are aound 15-20 pages but the first chapter of a series is usually double those. But most anime animate the whole first chapter as one episode, One Piece, Bleach, Fairy Tail, etc all had a long first chapter contained in one episode.


The first episode of One Piece didn't even cover the first chapter it was switched with the second and came later, the first episode of Bleach condensed a lot of material from the first chapter to fit the episode everything else was contributed into other episodes in the first season. Nagasaki wanted the first chapter to be adapted into two episodes so that the final scene in the second episode would have more impact since it was a very important scene in the manga that couldn't really fit in the first episode so it was a deliberate choice rather than something meant to squeeze as much material in as to not go ahead of the material. The episodes that followed covered two chapters per episode which is normal by most shounen adaptations (One Piece is notorious for covering half a chapter per episode, episodes 6-12 of SnK would also only cover one chapter per episode while also skipping material).

cutslo wrote:
It's never a good idea to claim that something is actually okay because some other thing is even worse. I can't comment on how terrible One Piece's pacing is nowadays, but if it's worse than MHA it must be a sorry sight indeed. Also, One Piece is 700+ episodes in and anybody still watching it must have developed a huge tolerance for what it does. MHA is just getting started and its dead slow execution of an already slow shounen story where the running commentary has its own running commentary is certainly something you should warn everyone considering it about.

You're literally saying its okay for One Piece to do it when fans has always bitched about how slow the anime goes in comparison to the manga, which is usually the case with most shounen adaptations, for years. As someone who indulges in shounen anime I don't really see how MHA pacing is any worse than the bulk of them that just seems more so as an excuse for people who aren't interested in what's happening on screen so they have to blame pacing for it because its not getting to the "good stuff" soon enough. Truth be told if you're invested enough in a show than you won't care how slow or fast is go (see One Piece, Naruto, Attack On Titan, etc.) but I'll tell you this from experience most people complain about pacing if its moves too fast versus it being too slow case in point the first half of FMA Brotherhood gets criticized heavily with how it sped through the material incomparison to the 2003 anime so its not a topic that's mutually agreed upon.

Quote:

EDIT: Oh yeah and please let's not pretend that "you have the strongest power but using it IS BAD FOR YOU" is in any way a novel or interesting concept. It's in every other story of this type.

Who cares? If you're so concern with how "original" a trope is versus its execution then you're not going to find a lot of things to enjoy.
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cutslo



Joined: 23 Dec 2016
Posts: 53
PostPosted: Wed Jun 21, 2017 8:26 pm Reply with quote
Bartholomew Kuma wrote:

Quote:

EDIT: Oh yeah and please let's not pretend that "you have the strongest power but using it IS BAD FOR YOU" is in any way a novel or interesting concept. It's in every other story of this type.

Who cares? If you're so concern with how "original" a trope is versus its execution then you're not going to find a lot of things to enjoy.


Nick Creamer does, as he praises it as "particularly well-chosen" in the review you are currently posting in the comment thread of.

Also I am literally not "literally saying that it's acceptable for One PIece", I am in fact saying that OP reportedly having worse pacing is a scary thought and makes me very glad I don't care at all about One Piece.
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Pierrot.





PostPosted: Wed Jun 21, 2017 11:04 pm Reply with quote
The pacing is part of the main reason I dropped the second season. One of the good thing about the manga is that it's fast paced and doesn't drag out events unnecessarily which is the complete opposite of what the anime is trying to do.
John Thacker wrote:
I believe that the slow pacing is directly related to this being a daytime show.

Haikyuu! also aired at daytime but I don't recall if it had any pacing issues.
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