My Hero Academia has had a profound impact on the anime and superhero cartoon communities. It seemed to reunite the two fandoms that seem less joined at the hip than they did back in the 2000s, when legendary Cartoon Network action block Toonami aired Justice League and Teen Titans alongside Dragonball Z and Naruto. During the live action superhero boom of the 2010s, it seemed fandom lost interest in superhero animation, seeing the Marvel cartoons as glorified commercials for the “real” live action superheroes. Cue My Hero Academia becoming arguably the single biggest superhero cartoon of the entire 2010s, and the biggest anime around until Demon Slayer stole its thunder. Although My Hero Academia seems to be not quite the cultural tour de force as during its late 2010s peak, a lot of fans were very excited about its penultimate season.
Admittedly, this season has shown the major reason why My Hero Academia isn’t the top dog of 2020s anime. The 2020s has started a new trend of anime with lavish production values and extremely fluid and kinetic fight scenes. When Demon Slayer came out in 2019, this wave officially began and Jujutsu Kaisen, Chainsaw Man, Kaiju No 8, and now Dan Da Dan have given fans some of the most amazing visuals ever seen. You would think Studio Bones would try to compete with the new wave of battle shonen, but this current season of My Hero Academia (2024) looks not too different from season 1 (2016). Fight scenes contain lots of still frames, with very little dynamic movement. By 2024 standards, the fight scenes are outright bad, but there is one thing I must say about My Hero Academia that made it so beloved in spite of its antiquated animation, its big heart and focus on the plot rather than pretty pictures is what makes this show still stand out in this new era of anime.
My Hero Academia has that degree of sappiness that is a feature, not a bug. This season covered the first half of the final battle between superheroes and superheroes in training versus the League of Villains and can be divided into several smaller conflicts, main villains Shigaraki and All for One vs. the everybody, Spinner vs Shoji, Dabi vs his estranged family, and Togo vs Ochako. 
The emotional drama in the latter two conflicts are by far the highlights of the season and are sure to get fans of the series to get the feels. The series, especially the later seasons, is dramatically stronger when it comes to to drama than to action, but unfortunately, there are lots and lots of episodes with “mediocre at best” fight scenes, so that I yearned for highlights like season 6’s Todoroki family therapy session episode. Spinner vs. Shoji’s conflict was interesting, but its parallels to real life social issues and its handling of said social issues gave me mixed feelings about this arc. Next few paragraphs have some major plot spoilers, so read at your own discretion.
Really, it’s the final few episodes that make this season worth watching after the loads and loads of subpar action featuring the climax of the two aforementioned emotional arcs. There is an obvious thematic beat to the series that the villains turned to villainy because society rejected them, and that villainy wouldn’t be so enticing if society were loving and accepting of those who were different. The heroes defeat the villains by showing the importance of said love and tolerance. Toga has been ostracized from society and joined the League of Villains as a result. Ochako shows her kindness during their fight, which is essentially a draw. Her sappy pep talk to the villain was probably the most notable scene in the season. In second place comes the Todoroki family having to deal with Dabi, who turned to the League of Villains because he believed his biological family didn’t love him. The previously dysfunctional family comes together in an attempt to save Dabi from himself and is able to defeat him. Spinner, who is discriminated and shunned by society for being a lizard person (and turns to the League of Villains), continues this theme.
Another major positive of this season is brining back nearly every character back for the show, including fan favorite characters like Gentle and La Brava. It was great seeing so many fan favorites return, even if in the grand scheme of things, they don’t contribute much to the plot.
The final episode contains the long awaited return of depowered superhero All Might, who has been the main mentor figure of the show. He shows up in Iron Man-esque armor and fights All for One. This is all in all, a pretty decent action scene by the standards of the show, and it was cool seeing All Might show up to save the day for the “really for really – for real!” final battle in 2025.
While the 2020s seems to be the era of flashy anime visuals, this
2010s holdover series has much more heart than a great deal of this current wave of anime where the visuals take precedence over the emotions. The story’s rich themes of the meaning of heroism lead me to declare this one of the greatest Japanese animated series of all time, and one of the greatest superhero cartoons of all time. I hear the manga the anime is based on had a controversial ending that lead fans to believe it no longer deserves such accolades, but we’ll see if season 8 really is as bad as fans say. For now, Plus Ultra!
