My Hero Academia: Vigilantes Season 2

Episode 26

It's really nice when the climax of a season perfectly sums up how I felt about that season as a whole. There are definitely some nice moments here, but the problem with the climax of this season is that it feels so disjointed from the rest of the episodes that preceded it, to the point I felt I was being gaslighted into thinking that I watched an amazing conclusion to a character arc that did not happen. I know some people like to look at Vigilantes as just a spinoff slice-of-life, or they like it for the more low-stakes, on-the-ground hero work. I like that too, but the show will still have moments like this episode, where it will act as if it built up to a moment that it did not earn whatsoever, or it will introduce a bunch of plot just to ask me to ignore it because the show can't make up its mind about its focus.

Let's start with Captain Celebrity, because that was one of the more endearing moments of the episode, both with his wife showing up to check in on him and on his return to America. That was sweet, and it was nice that everybody was trying to give Koichi his flowers because if it wasn't for him, there's a good chance that Captain Celebrity would not be alive. Now I definitely have problems with why they can't give Koichi credit for helping out, which I will get to later, but the idea of everybody congratulating him in this really small, intimate setting compared to on a big stage like the other heroes should've been the perfect emotional mirror between this show and the main series. Koichi is a little bit like Spider-Man, where his whole thing is that he's not going to get the huge celebratory recognition because he's not a hero, he's a vigilante doing the little stuff that gets overlooked. I even liked that moment between him and Pop at the end, where he says that he would be satisfied with Pop just telling him he did a good job. I don't think that scene is supposed to be taken romantically, but that's probably the best moment the two of them have shared throughout the entire series.

Outside of that, there are just a lot of little things throughout this episode that genuinely bothered me, and I wonder if I'm alone in this. Koichi being dumbed down to the point where he doesn't recognize the fact that everybody has been thanking him was really weird and almost out of character. The guy can be a bit of a space cadet, but I don't remember him ever being written that stupid. People were being very direct about how much they appreciated him, and he just didn't register it. It wasn't funny and takes away from the speech that both Celebrity and Makoto gave him. Speaking of giving thanks, while I understand and actually like the idea on paper about Koichi not being a public hero because he had been engaging in vigilante activities, and the police don't want to highlight that behavior, in execution, it's really flimsy as a justification because the show never really makes Koichi feel like a vigilante that is breaking the law. Just a few episodes ago, Midnight made it clear that they could easily keep his identity secret, and she even argues that his actions as the Crawler mostly fell within the spectrum of the law. There have been numerous examples of others besides Koichi using their powers to apprehend other people under extenuating circumstances, but the show never really distinguishes what makes Koichi's actions different.

Koichi could be charged with helping Knuckleduster, who has definitely broken the law in several ways, but the show never makes that argument. Is that why Knuckleduster never interacts with Koichi throughout this season despite making a big deal about the thematic parallels between him and Number Six? If Knuckleduster is a real vigilante, then what on earth is Koichi? Is he a criminal? Everyone overlooked his behavior before, especially other heroes, which feels especially weird that this idea of hiding his identity is having this attention drawn to it when Koichi NEVER hides his identity. Even towards the end of this episode, after the weird two-year time skip, he's posing with his face fully exposed and taking pictures with people who are no doubt going to post them online. There is literally nothing stopping the police from just knocking on this man's door and arresting him if he really was engaging in serious vigilante activity that required a cover-up. If they wanted to make Koichi a more down-to-earth hero who performs community service and helps people, they could easily do that. I would honestly like to watch that show, because outside of last week, it almost feels like the show is also afraid to make him do anything serious.

That could explain why this finale feels so off because it treats Koichi as the main character throughout this entire season when he has barely felt like one. Captain Celebrity, Aizawa, and even Naomasa have felt more like main characters throughout this season. Then Koichi ends the season on this weird note about what it means to be the Crawler, and it just feels so tone deaf. I feel like this arc needed to happen almost immediately after the end of season one for this to feel more natural, so maybe my biggest issue with this season is that it just had way too much padding?

In the end, this final episode promises that everything I wanted is going to be in the next season, and I hope it will be. This season didn't ruin my faith in this series, but it definitely made me lose a lot of the goodwill I had for it. I want to know what's going to happen with Number Six. I want to see what Koichi's future actually looks like as he leaves college and figures out what he wants to do as an adult. I know the mark of a good series is to always leave you wanting more, but this season really went about stoking that desire in the wrong way.

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