My Hero Academia 66: Midoriya's Class Observational Record

Apologies for the delayed release of this review.

So Bakugou and Midoriya are brought to Recovery Girl's office to recover, and since Midoriya is still conscious he asks to stay and watch his classmates' complete their tests. I think that would be some sort of policy breach, since this is the End of Term exam and all, but evidently not as she agrees. I like it though, as it fits well into Midoriya's character and it gives an in-story excuse to view the rest of the class.

Knowing Kouhei, I was sure that we were going to see how the entire class handled their tests, but I was expecting just a page or two for the secondary characters similar to what happened in the Sports Festival tournament. It's now looking like each pair from this point on is going to get around 1/2 to 1/3 of a chapter dedicated to them; which I'm not complaining about. I was partially hoping that the upcoming anime would stretch out the scenes we see nothing or very little of as filler (like Iida vs. Thorn Girl in the Sports festival, where we only heard him describe how he won). They can still do that though, however, given the manga's fast pacing.

Tsuyu and Tokoyami both placed very high in the recent popularity poll, so it's not surprising to see the two of them place third. They handle themselves pretty well, and both Midoriya and Recovery Girl note them as being very skilled. I just want to take a moment to say how awesome Ectoplasm is, both in quirk and in appearance; probably my favorite Pro Hero right now sans All Might. I do think the way the two ending up winning could have been portrayed a little better; the fast pacing hurt the scene in my opinion and just made Ectoplasm look negligent. This is one of those scenes that I hope gets expanded on in the anime.

We see Ashido and Kaminari being played with like the principal. I don't know if he's a Pro Hero, but I love the mouse guy too. He always seemed kind of random to me, but Recovery Girl's comment about him being toyed with by humans completely turned the character around in my mind. The way he messes with the two from above using construction equipment to alter their surroundings brings to mind imagery of a lab mouse in a maze. I wonder if he was once an ordinary mouse, that somehow obtained a quirk through experimentation? I would love to see some backstory for him in the future.

Next we have Present Mic testing Jirou and Kouda in a forest area. Both are secondary characters (as far as the class goes), and Kouda is one of the rare few who we still know next to nothing about. The author seems to have realized that and remedied it by giving him arguably the biggest focus in this scene. We had an offhand mention of his quirk a few chapters ago, but its only here that it actually comes into play. We even get a brief flashback from him as he learns to overcome a crippling phobia he has. I did like how this test ended up concluding.

I expect to spend 2-3 more chapters following the rest of the class' tests before moving on. Looking back at the chapter where the pairs were announced, it seems like the remaining matches are:

• The Principal vs. Ashido and Kaminari
• No. 13 vs. Aoyama and Uraraka 
• I imagine this one will be on the longer side, as we still need to see the results of Uraraka's training Battle Hero Gunhead in the Field Training Arc. 
• Midnight vs. Sero and Mineta
• As I recall, Sero is out of commission from Midnight's quirk. Given that Mineta appears at the end of this chapter, I'm guessing the next one is likely to involve them.
• Snipe vs. Hagakure and Shouji
• Shouji is another character who has mostly been in the background; but I personally think of him as one of the class' best. If not in this arc, I really want to see him have a chance to shine.
• Cementoss vs. Satou and Kirishima
• Satou is probably tied with Kouda for being the least developed of any character in 1-A. We don't even know his quirk. I'm expecting this match to play out a lot like Jirou and Kouda's.
• Power Loader vs. Iida and Ojiro
• Power Loader is like Ectoplasm in that he's a hero that we know exactly nothing about (as far as I recall, at least). Hoping to see Iida in action soon so he can showcase some of his character development from the last arc.

I'm hoping that all of this development is setting up for something big. Everyone who passes this test is supposed to be heading to a forest lodge over summer break, and, given how the series usually alternates between school activities and real villain combat, it's likely that something is going to go wrong. 

On a side note, my order of My Hero Academia Volume 2 has come in this morning, along with One Piece 76, Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer 3-4, and Hunter x Hunter 17 (a missing number in my collection). I haven't gotten around to rereading Volume 1, but I do plan to do that before I review Volume 2.

UQ Holder 101: Kuroumaru-Kun's Cares

A few chapters ago I said I was concerned that Kuroumaru, after admitting his feelings, would continue another 100 chapters without any real development, and it seems that Akamatsu is proving me wrong. Although I don't care much for the Kuroumaru/Touta ship, I'm glad to see that the former is finally getting some character development. It still completely revolves around Touta and that shows no signs of changing, but I'll take it.

The genderless-until-teens attribute of Kuroumaru's tribe we've known about for 80+ chapters is finally coming to a head, and his interest in Touta seems to have officially made him (now her I guess) female. Since (s)he clearly identified as male early on in the series I was partially hoping that this would stick, but deep down I always knew that Kuroumaru would end up a girl. Akamatsu is known for his work in harem/fanservice mangas, and if he had the chance to make more female characters I was sure he would go for it (even if this technically wasn't a harem series until a few chapters ago). Still, if this is what it takes for Kuroumaru to finally be fleshed out then I'm completely for it.

Apparently Kuromaru doesn't actually get a choice in what gender she becomes as I previously thought, but rather it naturally develops from her mental state. So if she likes a boy then she'll become a girl and vice-versa. It seems clear that the changes are past the point of no return now, with Akamatsu really driving home the point by putting a picture her in girl's clothing as the cover image and dressing her in a sundress in the actual chapter.

Kirie vows to help foster Kuroumaru's relationship with Touta despite obviously having the hots for him as well. So it seems clear that we're going to get an arc about her coming to terms with her feelings for him in the future too. I actually didn't mind her attraction to him in the past because it was always in the background and kind of funny, but I hope every female character's development doesn't revolve around how they like Touta. Even Yukihime seems like she's going to go in that direction (and I still stand behind my prediction that she's probably going to be the winner of the harem in the end, if any winner is revealed at all).

Despite all this, I just don't get why everyone is suddenly longing for Touta. Kuromaru gives us an explanation as to what she finds appealing in him, and - other than pulling her out of a life of immortal hunting for a tribe of people who thought of her as trash way back in the first volume - everything else just comes off as Marty Stu-ish to me. Even the one thing I can agree with I find a bit distasteful because of how simply cliche that whole encounter was. Touta's relationship with past-Evangaline I liked, even if it felt a bit fast-paced, and Kirie's attraction to him always came off as a little girl with a crush, but Mizore's came completely out of left field. Shinobu, while obviously liking him, has had so little impact that I barely even notice her presence. Maybe in the future these latter two will get more focus, but for now their only purpose seems to be to fill out the harem in my eyes.

The thing is, I could totally see why all the girls in Negima crushed after Negi. Many started it jokingly because he was smart/cute, but when it became clear just how immense of a hardworker he was it started to become a serious attraction. While obviously played up (because harem manga), the class' interest in him, for the most part, actually made sense to me. Not to mention that Negi's obliviousness was well-excused there due to him being both a child and their teacher, and when it became undeniable he actually struggled to not hurt their feelings. In contrast, Touta just has a harem dumped on him for being super talented and cool, and he's such an airhead that he doesn't get the message even when someone confesses to his face. I really hope he grows out of this in the future.

The end of this chapter makes it seem likely that this is going to happen, at least in regards to Kuroumaru, so I'm really interested to see where this goes.

One Piece 806: Right Belly Fortress

It seems we're doing a repeat of the From the Decks of the World cover story. Probably better than devoting pages in the actual story to showcasing everyone's reactions as Oda has done in the past, but I don't think really all that much is likely to have changed from the last time. Maybe this will be shorter than the previous one, or maybe it will unveil details the last one didn't get to show. I still would have liked to see something about other characters introduced since - give us an arc about the misadventures of one of Luffy's new subordinate crews for instance.

The weird rain that Sanji's group encountered a few chapters ago turns out to be seawater spat out by the elephant's trunk - which I think was pretty obvious. I like the detail Oda goes into explaining how the Mink civilization works.

So Jack came to Zou looking for someone - possibly a Mink. And apparently he's dead from the battle we last saw him preparing to enter. But, of course, no body was found, so the laws of shounen dictate that he's still out there somewhere. Still no confirmation that he's with Kaido either, though I still think it's likely.

I wonder if Kaido himself is a mink - it might explain those strange horns of his, and it could possibly relate to the Zou elephant's apparent immortality. Could Jack have been looking for Kaido? There are several horned characters in the story as well - Caeser Clown and the butler Merry from what I recall. Could they possibly have some mink blood?

The relationship of Law's crew to Zou has been explained through Bepo, but there's still some unknown links we don't know of. What was the samurai's goal in traveling to Zou? Why were the people Sanji's group fought back in 795 reportedly looking for samurai? Were they Minks (having been riding the same kind of crocodile as Wanda, some having devil-like horns, and weird animal-like powers) or Kaido/Jack's men? Why did Kin'emon react negatively upon hearing Kaido's name way back before Dressrosa. And why are the samurai being so secretive about this? They said they were going to come clean upon reaching the top of Zou, but being the troll that he is it seems that Oda's going to be making a running gag out of them getting knocked down before they can climb all the way down.

If I had to guess, the Sheepshead person Sanji took out is in fact working for Kaido, horn ability he uses is either the result of a Paramecia horn fruit or an artificial zoan.

After freaking ages, our crew is finally reunited. Almost. Sanji, Brook, Momonosuke, and Caesar (if you can really count the last two) are still nowhere to be seen. And apparently something's up with Sanji, but Oda dickishly cleverly ends the chapter mid-sentence. Is it related to the Only Alive message on his wanted poster? It's pretty much impossible that he's dead, but it might be that the characters believe he is.

Right now I'm thinking that Zou might turn out to be a fairly short arc - right now there just doesn't seem to be any real conflict that's necessarily tied to the island. If Jack doesn't show up out of nowhere, then we might get another 5-20 chapters of exposition/flashbacks before the crew decides to set sail for some reason that will be revealed in that time (right now, looking like it will be due to Sanji). We'll probably get some explanation of the Mink's Electro power too, and maybe there will be some sort of short training/trial of strength arc where the crew is pitted against Zou's warriors (Oda has to be introducing them for some reason). I really hope they're not just being introduced here to be another group in Luffy's army of subordinates.

Fairy Tail 459-460: Double Chapter

Fairy Tail 459: Weakness
Fairy Tail 460: Pegasus Descends

Natsu saves Erza, who soon passes out as would be expected. I should note that since my last review I've recalled that the reason Erza didn't use her Wind Armor/Water Sword earlier was that Marin was negating her requip for most of the fight (though she was using it just fine at the start of the fight). I'm not particularly satisfied with that explanation considering that Marin was on the other side of the city and the size of a toothpick at the time. His power is very OP for a B villain, and Fairy Tail is immensely lucky Brandish weakened him. Still, it's a better explanation than I previously thought, so that's good.


The pollen kicked up by Ajeel's sandstorm sends Brandish into a sneezing fit and gives a chance to easily take her out. Pretty darn lucky as well, but I guess not everything has to go wrong for the heroes in a story.

Wahl shows up with some mechanical soldiers designed to counter Gray, Juvia, and the Strauss Siblings and then decides to leave. Kind of a dumb move considering how obvious the counter to this is - he could have at least made like ten of them for each of the five targets; but maybe the magic is limited to just one per person.

He confronts the Thunder God Tribe, and when their eye magics fail to have an effect on him he reveals himself as a machine too. Makes me wonder why he was disguising himself as human to begin with considering that he decides to transform at pretty much the drop of a hat. I kind of prefered his old appearance, but I guess both of his transformations are more shounen in appearance.

I did like Ichiya as comedic relief here as well.

While it had really cool art, the climax of this battle showcases a recurring problem I have with Fairy Tail battles - oneshots abound. The villain is utterly crushing the heroes, until they either have a friendship power up or pull out a new power and claim victory in a single big panel exactly like the one at the end of chapter 460. The other Thunder Gods oneshot their opponents too once they decide to switch, which was disappointing to me as I wanted to see more of them. Whatever, I guess they are C-listers. Although it does seem likely that Wahl will recover somehow soon, it doesn't make his easy defeat here after powering up any more forgivable.

Tower of God S2 Ep.174

Hoaquin is upset at Rachel's weakness and vows to not let her participate anymore. No way it will end just like that, though; there's definitely something up with Rachel. If I had to guess, she's aiming for the Slayer Candidate position. I'm interested to see if Rachel will survive this arc and cement herself as an antagonist - there's still clearly a lot we don't know about her, Baam has been chasing after her without success practically the entire season. I don't want this arc to end with things just going back to how they were. We still know very little about FUG, except that they seem to be literally responsible for every bad thing the heroes encounter. Yuri's presence, after not having been around Baam since the first few chapters, seems promising, but this happened before at the end of Season 1 and they ended up not meeting.

Then again, I absolutely loved the end of Season 1, so if SIU can pull off a similar feat here I would be glad.

We get some other cutaway scenes that I don't think were wholly necessary. Yuri comments about Kun having shown some skill in the last chapter, notes that the conductor doesn't seem to have much time, and one of them says they should continue watching. Kun is sitting while his team is celebrating contemplating things we already know. I'm sure he's foreshadowing that Vicente is planning to betray Wangnan's group (seriously, he's been suspicious as heck ever since easily forgiving Wangnan for backstabbing him), but I still think it could have been done in a way that actually gives us more information. Prince's group gets a scene where they recap the fact that, yes, they've just been stuck in a cage for a month doing nothing. So much for those three's (Akraptor, Miseng, Prince) big badass introduction in beating the Mirotic Guardian just a bit earlier in this arc; once again they seemed doomed to becoming fodder. I still have some hope for Wangnan, but the rest I can't see actually truly mattering again. They mention seeing something and then the scene cuts away. Basically these three scenes only served to assure that something deeper is going on, but don't try to give us anything really substantive.

Even though this isn't the typical shounen, right now it sure feels like a pretty cliche tournament arc where we get boring cutaways of characters commenting or talking between every fight but not actually doing anything.

Second stage kicks off in an enormous, labyrinth-like engine called 'The 74th Motor Section'. The name is weird as heck and kind of sucks the drama out of the scene, but I get the intention. Its supposed to be an enormous engine for the Hell Train that doubles as a battle stage, and the Hell Train is so huge that apparently there are at least 74.

We get an explanation of the rules for the second game 'Transferring the Sweetfish'. The part about splitting into teams and navigating the labyrinth to the core is pretty straightforward, but the Dallar aspect really starts to get confusing. They can steal Dallars by fighting with the enemy, use 15 dallars to lock doors and avoid fighting, but the part about the amount of Dallars doubling or even quadrupling I'm not sure about. Maybe I'm missing something. Only Kun seems to have the multiplier applied, and it only multiplies the sum of his teammate's dallars. I guess because he's the only one with more than 10?

Overall, I'm a bit conflicted over the Dallar Show game in general. Keeping track of who has what seems like it could bog down the narrative, and so far it doesn't actually seem like it's really necessary. Without the Dallars it would be a be a simple labyrinth run which I guess SIU doesn't like doing, but by adding them we now have to keep track of who has what and what they can afford to do. Except, in my mind, SIU clearly knew that what he gave out in the preceding chapters wasn't enough to make things interesting, so he added the complicated 'doubling, tripling, quadrupling' system. I think there are much simpler ways he could have gone about this. Not that I dislike the concept completely; I once ran a roleplay with a similar challenge called 'Points Game' that I remember fondly.

This whole chapter was set up, so we'll see how the action unfolds next time. I'm not expecting Baam's team to maintain their lead for long.

UQ Holder 100: Intimate Exchange

More harem developments that I don't really care much about. With both another nude scene and another bath scene both in this chapter, it brings to mind the last arc of Negima which I felt really tried to both bring back and ramp up the fanservice as if to make up for the very long and serious magical world arc. I'm not really a fan, and was hoping we'd have something more plot heavy for the big 100th chapter.

Notably, Kuroumaru briefly thought about how right it felt when he was protecting Touta. Maybe he'll have some development sooner than I thought.

At the end Yukihime ended up inadvertently performing the 'back scrubbing ritual', which to me is a sign that Akamatsu is really aiming to push that ship. The previous arc has already given her the biggest leg to stand on amongst the harem, even if she's already rejected the notion. Although, I'm wondering if we'll yet again have the series end without it ever being resolved.

And Santa's just sitting there relaxing. When can he matter again? Why aren't there any girls fawning over him?

Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer Volume 1-2

I was first introduced to Mizukami Satoshi's work through Spirit Circle which I greatly enjoyed. I heard good things about his other work, Lucifer and the Biscuit Hammer, and decided to buy the first volume (actually the first two, since they're released in English in two volume omnibuses).

Even just two volumes in, I found myself greatly enjoying this manga. Many long running series like this really take their time to get into gear, and this series too clearly had a lot that needed to be set up - it's even admitted at the end of the second volume the entire story up to this point was merely a prologue to the true story - but I feel that the author managed to achieve a good balance. Rather than introducing us to the world, he spent almost all of the two volumes introducing us to the characters and allowing us to really come to love them. The result is that we still know very little - Who is the Mage? Why is he trying to destroy the world? What exactly are the Beast Knights that are trying to stop him, and why do they say that this has all happened before? What happens when the characters dream? Really, almost nothing about the setting and threat we are facing has been answered.

But, the author has succeeded beautifully in making me want to find out. The setting, so far, doesn't seem to be anything especially groundbreaking for an action/adventure manga - it's the characters, their developments, and their relationships where this series truly shines. If you're looking for a shounen series filled with obligatory fight scenes and flashy superpowers, then this might not be for you as characters spend a lot more time out of combat than it. When the fights do happen, they are definitely a treat, but I found myself enjoying watching the characters as they went about their lives - going on dates, a night of drinking, celebrating birthdays, or going to visit ailing family members - just as much.

Each volume within the Omnibus loosely follows its own self-contained plot which gives finishing each half a sense of satisfaction; although Volume 1 doesn't have quite as strong a finish as Volume 2 did. With a character integral to Volume 2 (actually named in the volume's title... the Dog Knight) being introduced rather suddenly at the end of Volume 1, I would say the two halves fit very well together.

Said character, Hangetsu, (or rather, his abilities) annoyed me at first, completely exemplifying the Always Someone Better trope despite not even using his Dog Knight powers; but Volume 2 did a good job of warming me up to him. Aside from everything related to the Princess, Beast Knights, and the Mage, this manga's setting seemed fairly grounded in reality; so to see him effortlessly defeating people capable of sending large cars flying long distances was rather jarring. I would expect to see something like that in a series like One Piece where Charles Atlas powers are commonplace, I wasn't expecting it here after how big a deal was made of normal people not standing a chance against the golems. Another character made a big deal out of Hangetsu being famous for his strength, so that helped alleviate it, but I still wasn't satisfied with the explanation behind it ("he practices ancient martial arts, so obviously he's strong"). Maybe this will be expanded on later, though, so this isn't a judgement I can make just yet.

The two main characters were a breath of fresh air. Yuuhi's reluctance to accept the call, while done fairly commonly in series like these, was fun to see. His commitment to that decision is admirable (after all, what do they really expect a normal person to be able to do against a planet-sized superweapon, and even the power he receives as the Lizard Knight isn't good for much more than flipping skirts), and, when he inevitably does come around, his partner Noi is appropriately horrified at his reasoning. I've read numerous other series with similar antisocial, jerkish lead characters; a pet peeve of mine is when this is never elaborated on and they are portrayed as jerks just for the sake of being jerks. I am glad that Yuuhi did not fall into this pitfall - much of the first volume is spent exploring the reason for how he has become who he is today and his struggle to break free of that. Sometimes I prefer big character development arcs to be saved for a bit later in a longer series, otherwise the character will either end up stagnating afterwards or else the author will continually have to raise the bar in order to keep him/her interesting, but I'm glad we got this out of the way right off the bat.

The female lead, Samidare, was kept fairly mysterious in the first volume, though her childish simple-mindedness was something that set her apart from the lead characters of other series. I expected her to be the typical hotheaded shounen idiot hero at first, as she definitely shows elements of one, but she too has been portrayed in a way that keeps her from mixing too deeply into that group. Her backstory was explored a little more in the second volume (though there's still much to know), and like Yuuhi it made her character more understandable although she hasn't experienced much development yet.

So far, I definitely have to recommend this series, and I can't wait to read the next pair of volumes.