6 Replies to “Hot Takes on Yu Yu Hakusho and My Hero Academia”
My Hero Academia is certainly a “traditional” shonen, although he subverts things in an interesting ways at times. As I’m sure you are aware, that is intentional.
I agree that it makes it less engaging despite being enjoyable and fun to watch. I’ve not actually gotten around to picking up the third season, partially because I’m read most of the manga it covers already.
In My Hero Academia teachers that they “lose to” normally wipe the floors with the villians when they get involved. For example Eraser with the first villian arc was easily defeating all the regular villians and just got cheap shotted by the main villian and use wrap friend. Then he got beat up by the special anti-hero dude which the students couldn’t do anything against.
The teachers in the school are normally considered the “top heroes” where most of the non-student heroes that get beaten up are more normal heroes. The students are in the best school in the country so they are probably the strongest students in the country too.
What My Hero Academia lacks in addictiveness it makes up for in other ways. I really like, for example, what it’s done with Bakugo and All Might.
Something just doesn’t sit quite right about the power levels. They’re able to hold off or even defeat presumably strong villains while having trouble with Class B and (in the currently airing arc) students from less prestigious schools. Maybe I’ve just been spoiled by Hunter x Hunter doing its power levels so right.
I dunno. I mean in that fight with the other schools, they took advantage of the fact that they knew all their powers from the tournament. And they ganged up on them.
Also, I’ve been thinking about the power level thing. This isn’t a “Dragon Ball Z” type show where people have power levels in the first place. Everyone has powers and maybe they get stronger with training but it’s really a matter of how they use them.
There are outliers like All Might and even the #2 hero I think that “stronger heroes” and “stronger villains” aren’t necessarily on some “higher level” than students.
If you think about belts in martial arts. It’s not like a black belt is 10 times stronger than a blue belt or something.
What modern shonen would you consider are so much better than yyh? because I honestly find most of them fall into the same trappings as yyh but end up being less entertaining in a lot of aspects compared to it. the ones like naruto, bleach, mha and demon slayer I find to be very lacking with their cast compared to the yyh one.
Even if yyh’s fights are more simple I’ll take yusuke getting pissed off and powering up to lay the smackdown while talking tons of shit over whatever strategy deku or his friends are cooking up in their head as they go over the same strategy in their head 5 times for an entire episode.
Or Ed and Al concocting some strategy against an opponent which usually leads to the predictable outcome of Ed or Al being battered messes that go on to verbally beat themselves up after the fight and stew in their own self pity for another entire episode.
I suppose stuff like FMA or Tokyo Ghoul don’t follow the same trappings but Ed and Al can be wet blankets sometime compared to the more energetic cast of YYH meanwhile Tokyo Ghoul was a downright horrific viewing experience for me.
I’d also recommend the dub instead of sub for yyh since it colors up the dialogue quite a bit and makes the characters far more entertaining than their japanese counterparts. One of the few instances where I consider the dub the definitive version of an anime.
My Hero Academia is certainly a “traditional” shonen, although he subverts things in an interesting ways at times. As I’m sure you are aware, that is intentional.
I agree that it makes it less engaging despite being enjoyable and fun to watch. I’ve not actually gotten around to picking up the third season, partially because I’m read most of the manga it covers already.
In My Hero Academia teachers that they “lose to” normally wipe the floors with the villians when they get involved. For example Eraser with the first villian arc was easily defeating all the regular villians and just got cheap shotted by the main villian and use wrap friend. Then he got beat up by the special anti-hero dude which the students couldn’t do anything against.
The teachers in the school are normally considered the “top heroes” where most of the non-student heroes that get beaten up are more normal heroes. The students are in the best school in the country so they are probably the strongest students in the country too.
What My Hero Academia lacks in addictiveness it makes up for in other ways. I really like, for example, what it’s done with Bakugo and All Might.
Something just doesn’t sit quite right about the power levels. They’re able to hold off or even defeat presumably strong villains while having trouble with Class B and (in the currently airing arc) students from less prestigious schools. Maybe I’ve just been spoiled by Hunter x Hunter doing its power levels so right.
I dunno. I mean in that fight with the other schools, they took advantage of the fact that they knew all their powers from the tournament. And they ganged up on them.
Also, I’ve been thinking about the power level thing. This isn’t a “Dragon Ball Z” type show where people have power levels in the first place. Everyone has powers and maybe they get stronger with training but it’s really a matter of how they use them.
There are outliers like All Might and even the #2 hero I think that “stronger heroes” and “stronger villains” aren’t necessarily on some “higher level” than students.
If you think about belts in martial arts. It’s not like a black belt is 10 times stronger than a blue belt or something.
So can raptor speak Japanese fluently now?
Give me another 2 years. If I get good enough, I’ll be a volunteer translator at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
What modern shonen would you consider are so much better than yyh? because I honestly find most of them fall into the same trappings as yyh but end up being less entertaining in a lot of aspects compared to it. the ones like naruto, bleach, mha and demon slayer I find to be very lacking with their cast compared to the yyh one.
Even if yyh’s fights are more simple I’ll take yusuke getting pissed off and powering up to lay the smackdown while talking tons of shit over whatever strategy deku or his friends are cooking up in their head as they go over the same strategy in their head 5 times for an entire episode.
Or Ed and Al concocting some strategy against an opponent which usually leads to the predictable outcome of Ed or Al being battered messes that go on to verbally beat themselves up after the fight and stew in their own self pity for another entire episode.
I suppose stuff like FMA or Tokyo Ghoul don’t follow the same trappings but Ed and Al can be wet blankets sometime compared to the more energetic cast of YYH meanwhile Tokyo Ghoul was a downright horrific viewing experience for me.
I’d also recommend the dub instead of sub for yyh since it colors up the dialogue quite a bit and makes the characters far more entertaining than their japanese counterparts. One of the few instances where I consider the dub the definitive version of an anime.