My Hero Academia Season 6 Episode 10 aired this past Saturday slowing things down a bit for the sake of character development and, truthfully, it was needed. This season of My Hero Academia has been pedal to the metal since the very start. And now, 10 episodes into the season, it’s at the perfect spot for a little bit of a breather.
I think we’ve all had so much information to digest between Deku and Shigaraki at this point in the series that we all just want the final bell to ring and them to continue the fight until one is left standing. But, in a way, the first half of the episode that focused on the two was very well adapted from the manga. The voice acting was great and, as always, Yuki Hayashi blessed us with a beautiful soundtrack to really capture the feeling of everything that was happening.
The scene between Nana Shimura/Deku and All For One is what it is. They pretty much spewed the same stuff we already know other than All For One explaining how quirks themselves have memories just as cells do, so that was cool in a way. Again, this episode was to slow everything down before it picks back up in the next episode. You can’t have a shonen war arc without some heavy dialogue exchanges, even though this was more so just All For One preaching how cool he thinks he and his quirk are. But I don’t even think the exchange between the whole group was the most interesting of the episode. It’s the exchange between Ochako and Toga that got my attention the most.
To start, I just need to say that the voice acting by both Ayane Sakura (Ochako) and Misato Fukuen (Toga) was brilliant in this episode. Toga’s soft-spoken words questioning what truly defines a hero and Ochako’s pleas of anger as she faces off against Toga is just the kind of parts that just don’t hit the same in the manga the way they do in the anime. Their back-and-forth is actually one of my favorite moments of this arc and this episode left off at the perfect time, leaving me extremely excited for this week’s episode.
Another thing I’d love to note is that during the whole Deku/Shigaraki exchange, the use of the soundtrack was apparent and desperately needed. But between Ochako and Toga, notice how all the music and outside noise all stopped as soon as Ochako entered the house. Here the sound production was brilliant, hearing Toga’s voice pan back and forth from left to right with that touch of reverb is something we haven’t really received much of this season. And as they began to face off, it wasn’t more so a soundtrack, but rather eerie noises just slowly building up as if something was about to happen then BOOM! The episode ends with them about to fight.
And I’m not even going into detail about the clashing philosophies between Ochako and Toga, because then we’d all be here awhile. But the two were in perfect contrast with each other all the way down to the tone of their voices in this episode. The episode direction flowed everything together perfectly between those two and it couldn’t have been executed any better.
Overall, episode 10 of My Hero Academia Season 6 was a great bridge into the next phase of this arc. It was slower than any of the previous nine episodes, yes, but it wasn’t necessarily slow either. It laid the groundwork for a lot of philosophical differences to be established and that’s part of having a great war arc in the first place. Then there’s Dabi, just smiling and not caring about what anyone else in this entire war does, waiting for his episode to air this Saturday.
Episode 10 rating: 8/10
If you enjoyed My Hero Academia Season 6 Episode 10, be sure to vote for it in our weekly poll! Episode 11, titled “Dabi’s Dance” will air on Saturday, December 10.
Images via Crunchyroll
© Kohei Horikoshi / SHUEISHA, “My Hero Academia” Production Committee