My Hero Academia Season 6 Episode 4 aired on Saturday proving yet again that this season is easily one of the best, if not the best, series to be airing in the Fall 2022 season. When we talk about perfection in the shonen genre, there are a lot of fronts that need to be covered. In turn, this leaves a lot of shonen series having obvious flaws and holding an anime in the specific genre back from reaching a state of flawlessness. Luckily for us, My Hero Academia Season 6 isn’t just crossing the t’s and dotting the i’s, it has become the most consistently great anime of the Fall 2022 season and this latest episode continued to prove that.
There is Nothing To Criticize…NOTHING!
As I sat here watching this episode I constantly thought about how many moving parts and scene transitions it had compared to the previous three episodes. It didn’t solely focus on just one or two characters for the episode like the previous three episodes either. This became the first episode of the season where it focused on many fronts of the war as it reaches its turning point. At no point did any single character receive too much or too little screen time in this episode. And that’s just one thing nobody can criticize about this episode.
If we continue on to the animation, there’s no room for criticism either. Mirko’s fight scenes looked just as crisp as they did in Episode 2 and even Present Mic had an absolutely amazing animation sequence when he reached Shigaraki. Every scene surrounding Dabi and Endeavor with the color of their flames was absolutely stunning. And it’s even more so when you realized the attention to detail with the composition due to their surroundings. Notice how Dabi stands out more as his scene is basically outside at this point while Endeavor’s flames create smoke in an enclosed environment giving us an image that isn’t as clear. And I’m just getting started.
I’ve made it a point before that the use of close-ups can be extremely repetitive when it’s used carelessly. Yet, My Hero Academia Season 6 has proven when and how to use close-up shots even more extreme in the most brutal and awesome ways possible. Whether it’s for facial expressions or gruesome, split-second moments in a fight, the use of close-ups this season has also been absolutely perfect in more ways than one and this episode didn’t give us any short of them either. Take the shot below of Hawks looking up at Dabi. There is not a single trace of flaws in this close-up of Dabi illuminating Hawks’ face. The absolute fear of death is shown with the details around his eyes. The bright blue highlights with the hard shadows emphasize Dabi’s power to an extreme. The line art to make Hawks’ face pop even more. This is the kind of close-up detail this season, which is what some people missed in the previous season, that My Hero Academia Season 6 has given us from the very first episode and the staff at studio BONES has refused to give up on them as well. Just check out the others below for even more examples.
My Hero Academia Season 6 is on Another Level
And not only has this season given us Oscar-worthy voice acting performances, a beautiful soundtrack, and hype fight scenes. But this episode even brought to the table incredible artwork and the use of different camera angles as well. The one that stood out the most without a doubt is the shot of Shigaraki below with the city above (technically below) him. Something that cannot be found anywhere in the previous three episodes, BONES, yet again, stepped up to the plate and hit a home run giving us even more incredible artwork, storyboards, and photography. So much so that we can begin to seriously create an entire art book from these first four episodes of Season 6 alone.
So let’s see: artwork, animation, photography, composition, voice acting, direction, storyboards, dialogue, plot development, soundtrack, sound effects, character development, contrast, proper source adaptation… What’s missing from this season that hasn’t been great? Simple answer–nothing. There isn’t anything worth criticizing so far about My Hero Academia Season 6 besides the questionable placement of recap moments at the beginning of each episode—THAT’S IT! And that’s one thing that Episode 4 of My Hero Academia Season 6 proved above all else—there isn’t anything to criticize.
And you know what’s the craziest part? We’ve barely seen anything from the majority of our favorite Class-A heroes and this season has still managed to be utterly flawless from the start. But the part that excites me about all of this is that we’re still nowhere near the best part of the Paranormal Liberation War arc and that all truly begins next week’s episode.
Episode 4 rating: 10/10
But until then, if you think episode 4 of My Hero Academia Season 6 was amazing as I did then be sure to vote for the series in our weekly poll! My Hero Academia Season 6 Episode 5 will air on Saturday, October 29, on Crunchyroll.
Images via Crunchyroll
© Kohei Horikoshi / SHUEISHA, “My Hero Academia” Production Committee
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