My Hero Academia: Vigilantes Season 2

Episode 16

And so concludes today's episode of “A Day in the Life of Naomasa.”

One thing I do like about Vigilantes is how it takes advantage of its spinoff nature to give a glimpse into the everyday lives of characters who weren't able to get that much focus in the original series. This episode primarily focuses on Naomasa, a police detective who made regular appearances throughout the entire series and was actually one of All Might's only friends. Seeing how he interacts with the other characters while also using his position to move the plot at least a little bit forward was smart. I like his little meet-ups with All Might, and it's also nice to get a look at All Might before he met Deku. He comes off as a lot more shy and introverted here, which makes sense as he didn't have a lot of people he could be vulnerable around before becoming a teacher. I also love the dichotomy between Naomasa and his sister Makoto. He is definitely the more rigid rule follower as a cop, while she is much more of a rebellious free spirit.

It's weird that the show sort of sidesteps the main characters here. There is an attempt to pull Pop into the main story by Naomasa, commenting on how he wants to bring her in as a witness to the incident that happened last week, but Makoto protects her, as she is in charge of Pop's activities. I like Naomasa's comments that Pop has also engaged in vigilante activities, even though she arguably hasn't. She is a street performer, and while she was often seen around Koichi and Knuckleduster, all she really did was just warn citizens to get out of the way whenever something happened. I still don't think she can really be classified as a vigilante. Maybe that's the point and why they weren't really able to bring her in, but it still makes me wonder when our main characters will be brought into the plot as it is brewing.

Koichi is continuing to train and develop his quirk a bit more, and there's a little bit of foreshadowing with our mysterious villainous speedster. I think it's implied that All For One might've stolen the speed quirk of a legacy hero, and this villain was that same speedster's pupil. Now he's just doing his best to perfect this new quirk. I like the parallel of hero and villain slowly developing their skills before they even confront each other. I also got a little glimpse into where a lot of other side characters are, and while it does lead to some pretty funny banter, this episode didn't really advance anything substantial. Next week may focus primarily on Eraserhead, so maybe that's just the structure of this season, developing the plot from different characters' points of view until the show is finally ready to bring our main characters back into focus.

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My Hero Academia: Vigilantes Season 2 is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.