My Hero Academia Season 6 Episode 2 aired on Saturday giving us an action-packed, electrifying episode. Just two episodes into the Fall 2022 season, My Hero Academia Season 6 is already showing everything it possibly can to be an early contender for “Anime of the Season”. And in doing so, My Hero Academia Season 6 proved something important in episode 2—that this series has phenomenal depth to its side characters. After a wild series premiere, My Hero Academia Season 6 kept the ball rolling with episode 2.
There’s no surprise as to why episode 2 was titled “Mirko, The No. 5 Hero” because my oh my did she take the spotlight and run away with it. And the best part is that there was not a single issue with anything in regard to her part of the episode. The animation looked fantastic (again), the soundtrack was hype, and Sayaka Kinoshita gave me chills the moment Mirko appeared from the smoke smiling with blood running down her face telling us she was just getting started—a mood that is completely and undoubtedly different from any other female hero we’ve seen so far in the anime series. Others have had their moments for sure, but not anywhere near this extent. And fighting a group of High End nomus is only something that Mirko could pull off. Remember, Endeavor fought one singular High End Nomu in Hood. But Mirko? She took on a whole group.
She really became the first female character, main or side, hero or villain, to really give us that epic fight we’ve all wanted to see since we were first introduced to her. It was almost like meeting Mereoleona in Black Clover and seeing her fight for the first time. Mirko filled that hole that just felt like it was missing from the previous seasons of My Hero Academia. And it isn’t just because she’s a female character, it’s how she went about her fight and Kinoshita’s voice acting that blew me away. From having her arm completely sent to hell and not even flinching to the absolutely incredible animation, and even to the sound design of the impacts whenever she landed her kicks, I can say with 100% certainty that her scenes from this episode uplifted those from the manga.
And the best part out of all these glorious Mirko moments in episode 2 is that even though she’s a side character, she felt like the main character. It wasn’t just some three minutes of screen time and it was time to move on, no. She didn’t receive some second-rate animation and compositing for her fight either. She was the center of attention for half the episode and the episode never once cut away from her fight until it was time to. It felt like she was the main character and we were all witnessing greatness.
She received her own epic soundtrack with a heart-pounding piano with a dark orchestra following it that matched the serious tone of the fight and her own character perfectly. I don’t what to hear a soft violin as she’s ripping a nomus’ head off with her legs. I wanted that impactful, dark sound to mirror what was happening and it was perfect. So Yuki Hayashi (music producer) deserves his flowers for this one. Episode director Shouji Ikeno did an outstanding job of making Mirko look like the epic character that she is and the rest of the staff at BONES freaking nailed everything surrounding her big moment in the episode that left me clapping in front of my TV.
And what I might’ve loved above all else, this episode did just an unreal job of making Mirko stand out so much that I guarantee she cracked many My Hero Academia fans’ top 3 favorite characters despite the minimal amount of screentime she’s received over these six seasons in comparison to others. The staff at BONES made sure to consistently keep the focus on her and her fight only in this episode which made it flow perfectly into what was happening on the other side of the war at the villains’ hideout.
Alright, moving on from the electric puns, Denki’s shining moment was incredibly well done and should’ve been followed by a thunderous applause (okay, now I’ll stop) from every My Hero Academia fan across the world. If you’re a fan of the series and neither Mirko’s fight nor Denki’s moment didn’t hype you up to the point you were pumping your fist in the air, then I don’t know what more you can want from any other side characters in this series, or any series for that matter. Despite Denki’s moment being emotionally driven, unlike Mirko’s where it was more “I’m going to kick the crap out of you and I’m going to enjoy it”, it was still a shining moment for his character after so long, and my goodness…what an incredibly hype moment!
And, in all honesty, it fits. Denki is still a teenager and Mirko is an adult. Having the adult keep a level head while fighting and keeping her eyes on the objective while the teenager was nervous about going into a real battle only made each of their moments special to their characters. The timing of the music and the energy being completely different from Mirko’s, his character wrapped in a cacoon of lightning, and the internal emotional build-up throughout the episode for Denki up to this one, singular moment was all just perfect to the finest detail.
I know that one of the big criticisms of My Hero Academia Season 5 was that the art wasn’t detailed enough and looked rather bland compared to the source material. But if anyone thinks that after watching these first two episodes, especially this past week with episode 2, then you are the nittiest of nit-pickers. While the environment artwork (trees, mountains, sky) look rather bland, it also amplifies (I guess I can’t stop the puns) how gorgeous everything in the forefront looks, especially Denki’s big moment.
The only thing that’s stopping me from giving this episode a perfect score is that the first seven minutes of the episode consisted of the Deku intro that we already saw in the season premiere, a recap of the last episode, the opening, and a throw-away scene with Deku, Shoto, Uraraka, Bakugo, and Iida talking to each other. But from there on it was a 10/10 the entire way. I wish I had more to talk about but this episode was more of a “you just need to watch it” kind of episode rather than a “let’s talk about it” one. And for you anime-only fans, it’s going to be like that for the rest of the season so buckle up.
Episode 2 rating: 9/10
You can watch My Hero Academia Season 6 on Crunchyroll, and also vote for it in our weekly poll.
Images via Crunchyroll
© Kohei Horikoshi / SHUEISHA, “My Hero Academia” Production Committee