My Hero Academia: Vigilantes Season 2

Episodes 14-15

Even when My Hero Academia ends, it's never truly over is it? It's ironic that Vigilantes is still continuing as an anime after the anime of the original series ended…considering the fact that the Vigilante's manga ended before the original manga ended. But I will happily take more stories in this world with these fun characters. While I do still have some issues with the first season that are echoed a bit in this premiere, even at its worst this show is still a ton of fun.

First off, the presentation still continues to be on point and I will stand by the fact that Vigilantes captures the comic book influences and aesthetic much better than even the original My Hero Academia did. The dub definitely takes it a bit further by adding in little flourishes and punching up dialogue that leans into those comic book influences. Much love to Kyle Hebert as Fat Gum for just straight up saying superhero quotes. That's the kind of scripting that I think is appropriate and adds more to the overall material. Kayla Temshiv also seems like she's having fun as Kaniko and I'm very much looking forward to hearing more of Aaron Campbell's performance as this new mysterious villain with super speed. There's a lot of foundation that's laid in these first two episodes to showcase some of the new problems that are going to be arising in the season like a new drug trade that the police are actively investigating and even with Koichi's powers evolving. The villain's first season's goal seemed to be to experiment with the new quirk enhancing drug and causing as much mayhem as possible. Now, I wonder what the next goal is.

I'm also curious how Koichi and Pop are going to tie into the larger narrative here. One of my biggest complaints about the first season of Vigilantes is that it felt like there were two plots being told at the same time. We had more character driven stories with Koichi sort of rediscovering his interest in being a hero through his vigilante feats, and then there was the larger plot involving the quirk enhancing drug. The problem was that in the grand scheme of things, Koichi and Pop had very little impact on the overall narrative, occasionally getting involved in incidents sometimes by complete happenstance. Knuckleduster was the real bridge between those two plots, considering his personal attachment to last season's villain, but that was resolved and even Koichi points out that Knuckleduster hasn't really been around anymore as I assume he's taking care of his family. He still featured prominently in the opening, which makes me think that he's going to come back eventually, but these episodes definitely showcase that Koichi and Pop are just really unlucky and end up in these situations rather than actively trying to become a part of them.

That does get me to my second problem with the show and that's how it keeps trying to build up how vigilantes are different from regular heroes, but I feel like the show never did a good job of portraying Koichi and Pop AS vigilantes. I think Knuckleduster definitely fit the edgy vigilante archetype. He was actively going against the law to look into these drugs because of his desire to settle the situation on his own personal terms. I hope his return back to the show is soon or that something else ends up driving Koichi and Pop to get more involved with the plot because as it stands, there isn't really a lot for them to do outside of Pop's new idol responsibilities. That's kinda fun on its own, but it also feels like that's not what the show is trying to sell itself on. With the involved police investigation, and given some of the voiceovers we get from characters like Naomasa, I'm hoping that this season better shows what it wants to do with the vigilante moniker. At least the show is consistent so far, for better and for worse.

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