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My Hero Academia: Season Two, Part One Limited Edition Blu-ray/DVD Review
Loading...Izuku Midoriya and the young hero recruits of U.A. High School are back in the second season of My Hero Academia, the breakout anime and manga franchise. Season 2 kicks off as the the heroes-in-training are up for the Sports Festival, and the competition is fiercer than ever. For the show’s Season 2, Part 1 home video release, Funimation has put out a limited edition boxed set that’s packed to the gills with extra goodies.
The Series: In the first season of My Hero Academia, young teen Izuku Midoriya has a chance meeting with his favorite superhero, the greatly beloved All Might. Despite Midoriya being born without super powers, or quirks as they are called in this world, All Might recognizes Midoriya’s potential to become a superhero. So, All Might helps transfer his own personal quirk, “One For All,” to Midoriya, who is then able to enroll into the top hero training school in the nation, U.A. High School.
Season 2, Part One picks up with episodes 13.5-25 of the series, which covers the Sports Festival arc from Kohei Horikoshi’s original manga. The competition is fierce as everyone is jonesing for the top win in the tournament. Winning or having an impressive showing in the tournament will have a big impact on the students’ future success as professional heroes. Unfortunately for Midoriya, he’s still struggling to get a handle on using his quirk without wrecking his body.
Meanwhile, other students are also jonesing for the win in the Sports Festival tournament. This arc does a lot in terms of developing Shoto Todoroki, who happens to be the estranged son of one Enji Todoroki, aka Endeavor. Shoto Todoroki actually holds two quirk powers. He inherited flame powers from his father and ice powers from his mother. Todoroki resents his father over his abusive relationship with his mother, basically causing her to go insane. While Midoriya sympathizes with Todoroki’s personal issues, he might be the only way to help Todoroki use his powers to his full extent.
The Sports Festival was a solid Shounen Jump-style tournament arc. A lot of the other strong supporting characters of the story get to have a bit more spotlight, such as Fumikage Tokoyami. Shoto Todoroki actually emerges as one of the strongest and most well-rounded personalities of the show. He’s a bit of a quiet loner, but he’s not a jerk. In fact, the personalities of a lot of the students throughout the show are very refreshing. They feel more like natural personalities instead of stereotypical anime characters, besides Minoru Mineta, who is pretty much your prototypical perverted anime character, but even Mineta has his moments throughout the show.
While it did feel a bit early for the show to be going the tournament arc route, the producers and writers get the most out of the storyline. Fortunately, it’s not dragged out too long. This plays out as the right length for this type of story. In fact, My Hero Academia is pretty good in general in having lengthy battles but not dragging them out too excessively like other Shounen Jump-based properties.
This is a good season, but the best stories for My Hero Academia are still yet to come.
Video Info: So far, the animation for the series is holding up pretty well throughout season two, courtesy of Studio Bones. The Sports Festival features some really exciting action beats and fights for the series. One the Sports Festival transitions into the one-on-one fights is when the animators really get to show off. The show has a nice, bright and lush color palette that makes it really pop. The animation continues to look really sharp and fluid.
Audio Info: The Blu-ray version overall boasts a crisp and pristine soundtrack and mix. Once again, I’m continuing to really enjoy the English dub produced by Funimation and the English voice cast. David Matranga does a great job with the more personal and emotional moments for Todoroki, and Patrick Seitz also does a great job as Endeavor. Overall, it’s an exceptional English dub for the series.
Packaging and Special Features: The Season Two, Part 2 Limited Edition set is a Blu-ray/DVD combo pack. It’s an even bigger set than the Limited Edition set for Season One. Like the first set there are quite a few packed goodies too. For completist fans who still enjoy getting physical box sets, this is a pretty great value at about $63.
The set is packaged in a cardboard slipcase, with a nice dynamic cover featuring All Might on the front and a group shot of the cast on the back. Like the first season limited edition box set release, it’s packed in with a hardcover art book featuring character designs and artwork from the series. It also has a tournament guide.
Additionally, there’s a UA tournament headband, two sports pennants, one featuring the UA logo and the other with the MHA logo. There’s an acrylic All Might keychain, and 10 collectible holographic trading cards featuring various characters from the show. The Blu-ray also has a nice group of special features across the two discs.
Episode 13.5 – Hero Notebook: Episode 13.5 acts as a recap episode of the first season of My Hero Academia. It’s a decent, functional episode to whet the appetite for the new season. It’s not a tremendous extra but a welcome one.
Inside The Episode: This feature from the first season set is back. A number of episodes for the first half of the second season features select members of the English cast taking a deeper look at the episode. It’s a cool feature I’d like to see Funimation try on other anime releases as well.
Anime Expo 2017 Interview With Yoshihiko Umakoshi: The anime panel with series character designer and animation director from the 2017 Anime Expo is present. It’s a great and welcome addition to the set.
Textless opening and closing songs for the show as well as promotional videos are also included to round out the extras.
