My Hero Academia: Vigilantes Season 2

Episode 24

This episode is finally hitting a lot of notes that I've been begging to see all season. It gave me a really decent emotional hook. I got to see a legitimately tense situation that was brought together with a creative set piece, and look at that, Koichi is finally starting to act like a main character again! The episode managed to utilize some previously underwhelming jokes creatively by finally paying off a lot of the abilities that Koichi had been building up throughout this season. Not only was he using his sticking abilities to stay connected to the building, but his propulsion blasts were strong enough to set off the explosions before they reached Captain Celebrity.

Speaking of Celebrity, it's good that this episode showed that he actually cared about Koichi, despite all his dismissiveness before. The fact that this is the first episode where he refers to Koichi by name was noteworthy, and the fact that he was willing to sacrifice himself to protect him was a classic hero moment. The focus was kept on him despite so many heroes filling the episode. This felt like the right balance between fan service and giving the new cast member center stage. I'm genuinely curious now how this situation is going to resolve, especially since All Might and Knuckleduster look like they're going to be joining the fray, which is a lot earlier than I thought

The only problem with this episode is, ironically, what I thought was going to be the best part about it, and that's the captain's backstory. Everything about him and his wife meeting in school, with their blossoming romance, was genuinely sweet. However, I feel like the backstory only really works when it is watched in a vacuum because Vigilantes did it back in season one, where it will introduce story beats that only really work if you ignore previously established story beats. I feel like I'm kicking a dead horse, but Captain Celebrity was introduced as a narcissistic womanizer who was on the outs with his wife because of his philanthropy. The past couple of episodes have tried to rewrite that to make it seem like the reason why he was in so much legal trouble is that he was taken advantage of by others. This backstory really hammers that home, and it also implies that the string of bad luck put the strain on their relationship.

Even if I ignore everything that came before, which is very hard to do, I'm not sure how all of these issues led to this point. Captain Celebrity monologues about how his wife was always mad at him, and he kept running into trouble. But are those two directly related to each other, or were they having different issues? The flashback doesn't really showcase their marriage falling apart, and the show feels like it's afraid to. Was the pressure of marrying a hero too much? The flashback does go out of its way to portray his wife as a cynic who doesn't really have a high opinion of the world, so maybe she just gave in to all of the bad press and propaganda? Were they having trouble before all of that happened? I don't need everything laid out to me on a silver platter, but it feels like the episode is not being as explicit as it should be in order for me to fully understand what exactly Captain Celebrity is fighting for. He wants to be seen as a true hero to his wife and his kid, which is understandable, but the nature of the relationship is still very vague. It's a shame, because I feel like the episode really nailed that backstory, which was supposed to be the emotional crux.

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