I’ve always been confused by the explosive popularity of My Hero – it always felt like a fairly standard action Shounen with one note characters and devoting or plots. Beat for beat, the first season feels eerily reminiscent of old school Naruto. The second season was a definite improvement, but by then my patience was in short supply and I didn’t make it past the halfway point. I went back and watched some of the major plot moments in anticipation for season 3, but I was still not feeling it. Thankfully, season 3 offers us a genuinely great action set piece, similar in style to Hunter X Hunter (the best Shonen anime, in my humble opinion), and has me genuinely reinvested in the series.
I enjoyed breaking down the shot composition for Tokyo Ghoul, so I wanted to to do something similar for My Hero, to show what good directing looks like. I won’t go quite as obsessively in depth, but the presentation is what sells this episode. Every battle has its own unique rhythm that mirrors the fighter’s combat style. For instance, one fight pits Bakugo and Todoroki against a villain with long, metallic teeth that he props himself up on. Since the villain is high above our heroes, he’s introduced using a panning shot that slowly goes upwards. Then, when we see Bakugo talking, we get a upward panning shot of his face, going from his mouth up to a vein on his upper left temple. These shots both serve different purposes – the one gives us a sense of how high up the villain is, and the other puts emphasis on Bakugo’s comically expressive vein (which flinches everytime he gets pissed). By recycling the type of shot, it gives the scene a great sense of continuity.
Once the fight gets underway, the shot moves rapidly through the environment, as the villain swings around on the treetops with his elongated teeth. Then we get a shot of Bakugo standing up after an attack. His movement is highly exaggerated, and the shot’s movement perfectly mirrors his own. We are seeing the same type of shot recycled. There’s no reason we can’t have a still shot of Bakugo standing up. But by using the same shot over again, the scene feels cohesive – the battle has its own distinct flavor.
But the flavor of each individual fight only truly stands out when you experience them side by side. In the Bakugo fight, the shot move across the environment rapidly, zooming in and out and panning fast over scenery. But the fight directly after this one takes place in a toxic fog. Our characters are trapped in the poisonous haze, unable to move. As a result, the shots are all stationary. Also, the shots last much longer than the last scene – some are longer than ten seconds (an eternity for an action sequence). This way of presenting the scene emphasizes the helplessness of the characters. As the fight starts, the shots pan slightly to one side or the other. But once our heroes are being thoroughly trounced, the shots stop moving all together. And once the heroes gain the upper hand again, the shots get briefer and briefer, and exhibit progressively more dynamic movement.
Watching episode five of My Hero was a cathartic experience, especially after the dumpster fire that is Tokyo Ghoul: Re. Anime is an inherently visual media, so it’s frustrating when the visuals do not serve any purpose. But it’s not just the presentation that makes these fights work. What really sells the action is that the characters are capable of thought – when faced with an overwhelming adversary, they’ll retreat. When presented with an enemy ability, they’ll try to figure out how it works. In this regard, the episode has echoes of Hunter X Hunter, which meshed the zany superpowers of a shonen with the rational thinking of a more “serious” show.
If I have an issue with this episode, it’s that that the moments of clarity and strategic thinking make the nonsensical moments stick out like a sore thumb. For example, one of our heroes manages to disperse the toxic fog by using her giant hands as a fan, blowing it away. But why didn’t she try this several minutes ago, when her friend was curled up on the ground, being shot at? Also, right before she uses her fan move, she rushes at the villain and knocks him to the side with her giant hands. But she really only nudges him slightly. Why would you get close to the villain and give him the chance to shoot you, when your plan all along is to blow him away with your fan hands? Also, the villain establishes that he can see the heroes through his fog. If that’s the case, then why even wait for the heroes to get to you? Why not shoot them from a distance, since you can see everything and they can only see a few feet in front of them?
I know this is all very nitpicky, but the episode goes out of its way to show that the characters are thinking strategically. Then a minute later the characters are making completely stupid decisions. The characters are clearly only as smart or as stupid as the plot needs, and this inconsistency reveals the weakness of the writing. I’ve always felt the characters in My Hero are relatively flat and poorly defined, and this episode (as amazing as it is) further confirms this fact. But as an exploding action set piece with a fantastic visual flair and attention to detail, this episode is truly exemplary. Hats off to you My Hero.
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