My Hero Academia Season 5: What Went Wrong?

if you're at all in tune with anime fandoms you might have heard quite a bit about my hero academia season 5. whether you heard defense of it or criticism of it it is clear that the season was quite controversial as a channel that talks a lot about my hero academia let's talk about the basics here the mha anime was coming straight off of an already controversial season among anime fandoms season 4 caught a lot of flack for not only its inconsistent character art but also for what people perceive to be a lack of creative liberty for things like the myrio fight or just overall inconsistent and odd pacing season four is probably one of the most scrutinized seasons of the series up there with season three part two whether you think the criticism was fair or not people already had pretty low expectations headed into season five besides low viewer expectations season 5 also had the challenge of not only adapting one of the least well-received arcs of the series but immediately after adapting a very challenging arc to animate that is held as the best arc in the series the ark's my villain academia and endeavor agency are considered as some of the best the series has to offer and people were naturally hesitant to see how they would be handled now before i get too into this video let me state something most of the criticisms i'm going to make in this video are not addressed to studio bones they are largely the fault of the production company allegedly all things considered studio bones does a great job adapting what they are given but the production company from my understanding dictates the chapter count and pacing 5's adaptation of the highly controversial joint training arc ranges from about episode 3 to episode 12 leaving us with about 10 episodes for this 23 chapter arc giving us an average of two chapters per episode it's also important to note that at least 11 chapters out of 23 had a lower page count than average ranging between 11 to 13 pages when normally you might see 15 to 17. this led to a lot of pacing problems for this arcs execution two chapters per episode is a lot more reasonable when the page count you're working with is average to above average while the anime's pacing for this arc is still significantly better than the manga it still felt a bit long and dragged out a lot of people myself included expected this arc to only fill about 7 or so episodes of the anime but instead we had a snail speed pacing due to low page counts a massive amount of flashbacks to pad time and a strange desire to keep each match separated into two episodes besides match 4. while the pacing for the arc did suffer the adaptation for this arc might be the most consistent in terms of animation quality and character art that we've ever seen in the series the characters in this arc look unbelievably crisp consistently on model and coupled with a lot of passion from the team over at bones we see great use of 3d backgrounds as well as great animation and character acting it's clear a lot of love went into this adaptation of joint training even if the pacing is off alongside the great visuals yuki hayashi does the usual and makes an amazing soundtrack this dude basically never misses joint training is already a pretty weak arc but i believe the adaptation even including the pacing was overall a success now onto the next arc my villain wait what much to our surprise it was announced the christmas party episode was coming immediately after joint training this was a chapter from the endeavor agency arc which means we skipped myville and academia there was a lot of confusion on this day to say the least some people's worries about mva not being shown this season at all were calmed when the character designs were released also when the op contained characters from nva but this still left people very concerned now we were just left with two arcs that were swapped around one side of the fandom was interested in this decision saying it's about time the anime takes some creative liberties instead of one-to-one recreating the manga and that this is a great opportunity to build some mystery and intrigue for the events of deca city the other side of the fandom was not really having it to them this change effectively killed the underlying themes of the endeavor agency arc as well as growing concerns over mva's pacing and episode count this is probably the most heated i've ever seen in the mh8 community and back and forth arguing and screaming commenced resparking every saturday as each new episode aired and in some people's eyes the situation grew worse and worse the second course opening being mostly trio focus did not help matters at all either one of my least favorite arguments presented is that the fandom was just quote impatient for mba it's a line that is mostly just used to downplay people's problems with the rearrangement most people have a lot of other concerns but at the same time if they are impatient for mva well what's wrong with that it is a massive shift in not only the tone of the story but the direction of it why shouldn't they be impatient for it people usually get excited for things they like especially when the thing before it toward training is not mh at its peak let's take a step back and examine the rearrangement what this means is that chapters 241-255 come before chapters 218-240 swapping entire story arcs like this can be a pretty risky venture what does this mean for the narrative in the anime we're experiencing an endeavor agency arc without knowing of anything that transpired at deca city that means that the tension and underlying sense of dread that is supposed to underline this entire arc is now missing in some ways leaving the entire arc hollow in the manga we don't have a mystery about why the kids need to get stronger and fast because we know exactly what happened we see deku coming to grips with using black whip and learning dual processing with the knowledge that shikaraki is an entirely different beast now he decimated an entire city and now heads the paranormal liberation front shoto and bakugo's growth is also good to see after knowing that toga can now use the quirks of the people she loves and twice can clone himself now endeavor agency wasn't just another training arc it was an arc of necessity underlined by we need to get stronger now let's take a look at a specific example of this lost suspense intention by examining some specific scenes the hawks and endeavour scenes to be specific alfred hitchcock had this to say about suspense let's imagine we are having a very innocent little chat let's suppose there is a bomb underneath this table between us nothing happens and then all of a sudden boom there is an explosion the public is surprised but prior to the surprise it was seen as an absolutely ordinary scene of no special consequence now let's imagine the bomb is under the table and the public knows about it probably because they have seen the anarchists place it there the public is aware the bomb is going to explode at one o'clock and there's a clock in the background the public can see that it is a quarter to one in these conditions the same innocuous conversation becomes fascinating because the public is participating in the scene the audience is longing to warn the characters on the screen in the first scene we have given the public 15 seconds of surprise at the moment of the explosion in the second we have provided them with 15 minutes of suspense the conclusion is that whenever possible the public must be informed except when the surprise is a twist that is when the unexpected ending is in itself the highlight of the story so let's apply this line of thinking to mha in the hawks and endeavor scenes we are stripped of any suspense or tension as we are no longer participating in the scene in the anime in the manga we know what shigaraki is about to endure a surgery to put even one for all in the palm of his hands and all of the ways that endeavor agency felt urgent it was also the calm before the storm serving as a cooldown point for witnessing shigaraki and the love's awakenings instead if we get two back to back slow paced and on the surface low stake arcs this just leads to overall poor pacing management in the source material we slowly raise the tension through joint training maximize it during minefield and academia and come to an unsettling rest during endeavor agency in the anime it drags through both of these arcs never really raising the stakes all that much until it comes to a massive climax in my villain academia lowering the overall perceived stakes of the season furthering the worst tension due to this rearrangement the entire outcome of mva is spoiled we see twice uninjured letting us know that he makes it out fine we see toga alive removing every drop of tension from her bloody intensifying the curious but ursa it's a shonen a main villain would never die if you're a manga reader you should feel ashamed for thinking this the rearrangement also ahead of time lets us know that the league is victorious in their fight against the meta liberation army and that shigaraki now heads an army of over one hundred thousand going into mba spinner compress and dobby all seemed to have no super meaningful dynamics with these characters or meaningful arcs to conclude why wouldn't it be possible to see them as potential fodder for nva's death count not only that but everybody's perspective on media is different you can't tell me that every single reader was convinced toga was going to survive that fight every single conflict in mva is now spoiled and all the tension has been retroactively removed so no i'm not just personally upset and impatient for mba mva and ea are both shelves of their former selves they are placed in this order for a reason and a stretch of mva ea to plw is highly regarded as mha at its strongest for a reason there was no narrative reason to change this it's impossible to talk further about the narrative without also talking about what was taken from it so sometimes when you're adapting things stuff gets cut it is a sometimes unfortunate reality when it comes to adaptations however there is a point where when you voluntarily waste time in previous arcs opting to adapt flashbacks for what feels like a majority of the episode followed by an entire filler episode doing nothing for the series but tying into the movie i can't help but wonder what the your time management truly is to paint the picture of how rushed and chopped apart this arc was let's view how decimated any notion of good pacing was my villain academia is a 21 chapter arc and was fit into 5 episodes remember joint training was at least 10 episodes and was 22 chapters whereas a series defining arc only gets 5 leading to some of the most devastating cuts of the entire series these cut scenes may seem just like fluff to some people but personally i consider them not only important characterization but it also builds our investment in attachment to the lov as not only a group but as the protagonists of this arc you know how a story works what exactly was cut you might ask well the main antagonist of the entire ark's character to start not only was verdestro's entire introduction cut but so was even further characterization his intro included a massive info dump on support items how they fit into society and companies that produce them it is a huge chunk of world building as well as an insight into the mla's ideology and by extension modesto as a person we get further cuts during the toga episode reinforcing radesho's narrative role in the anime as some dude as he talks about who curious was and once again talks about how life is so very precious the scene around the dinner table with the mla was cut which gave the direct answer as to why the cider house gang support equipment blew up i am very confused as to why they left the scene in if they were just going to cut out the explanation since this was cut we also lose more characterization of people like pedestrian gear in and i'm not joking when i say that in the anime radeshwar's character is completely and utterly hollow nearly all of his scenes have been cut another massive cut the love's fight with the creature rejection clan was removed this was a good piece of world building to understand parts of early heroes society as well as going to show just how far the love has fallen after offer one's arrest nearly this entire chapter was cut leading to a massive amount of characterization and interaction being cut from the lov as well as about half of spinner's character arc this might seem like nitpicking but as somebody who has made an entire video on the quality of mha's world building it's unfortunate when stuff adding to it gets cut stuff like the crc or during toca versus curious when curious dialogue about court counseling is completely removed there is more stuff cut but i don't want to drag on for too long here it was funny being told how these cuts were nothing on twitter when these are character defining moments in world building pieces left on the cutting room floor anime only viewers are just getting worse versions of characters like modesto skeptic curious and hell even bakugo maybe i'll talk about that in a different video though well what about you hear this one a lot to show a benefit of the rearrangement we get to see endeavor agency from a new perspective and build intrigue as to what transpired at deca city and perhaps they will get to flex some creative liberty to really increase the mystery of what the love did in reality absolutely nothing was changed all that was done is cutting around to not outright reveal mva and the hiding of faces despite showing them in the opening there was absolutely nothing creative about this decision and i find it hard to believe that they're going for an intriguing atmosphere when we slam on the brakes of the tone and pacing of the endeavor agency arc to have a filler beach episode that exists solely to tie into the movie the only reason why anime only feel any sort of mystery about what occurred is because an entire arc was literally removed of course they're confused and wanting to know what transpired at deca because they were already supposed to know what happened but instead all context has been gutted if you started reading the manga at volume 11 you would probably be pretty curious about who the this almighty dude is and feel a sense of mystery that doesn't mean it's something that we should strive to do it's possible that the quality of this rearrangement could have been improved if anything was done to make it work but unfortunately it was the absolute bare minimum with the most creative scene of the season being a new way to execute flashbacks an already monotonous and grating feature of the mha anime i'd like to be able to give you a concrete definite reason for this arc rearrange but unfortunately there just isn't one all of it is subject to speculation and anybody who believes they know the answer is wrong there are a couple of common points that i'd like to run through three i don't necessarily agree with and one that i feel has the highest chance to be true a common point that people make is that mva just did not perform well enough in japan so to compensate the anime studio would just ruin it not only is this generally not how anime studios function but the negative reception to mva in japan is generally massively overblown while it is true that there was a small dip in sales looking at the sales chart it's really nothing to write home about it sold fairly similarly to the overhaul arcs volumes and that was still fully adapted into an entire core you can also look up the japanese equivalent to the term mva and find loads of people asking where is it they were all as concerned as the western fandom for its adaptation worrying about episode count the opening or if it's even in the season probably the most common theory the dreaded movie people believe that to make the movie make sense the arcs were rearranged so the audience could know ahead of time why the trio was together and working under endeavor in retrospect even including some episode delays it was feasible for mva to be finished airing and for endeavor agency to start the other reason i don't buy this is that this didn't at all stop them for heroes rising which took place after joint training but premiered while season four was airing and slight movie spoilers it's also funny to hear this considering now that we know that this movie was hilariously incorrectly marketed another believable theory was that the rearrangement was done to afford the staff more time to work on such an intensive arc let's assume production of season five began in march 2020 we have verifiable evidence that endeavor agency was done being worked on or at least enough to produce a preview by december of 2020. that means that by the time the first episode even aired they might have begun production on mva that gives them eight months to work on this arc however we see from the shigaraki hospital scene and toga vs curious that while they did bring in freelancers a lot of their cuts were either scaled back dramatically or practically unused due to poor scheduling one of those freelancers even said that the toga episode was still being worked on up until the point of airing it seems any notion of a healthy production was shattered by the actual facts of nva's adaptation this in my opinion is the most credible theory around it wasn't for the ark's performance it wasn't for the movie to make sense nor was it any kind of creative liberty it was simply for profit in reality tv shows aren't made to bring us joy they are made to make the most amount of profit possible for the companies involved you might ask how is this relevant well a big goal for television is selling ad space to sell ad space you need a large and consistent viewer base to dish out those ads to the theory is that similar to the small decline in sales the tv network or production committee or whoever is responsible feared that due to the most popular characters in the polls not appearing for a potential of seven plus episodes they would be risking their viewership levels and by proxy their ad money this could also explain the horrible pacing and low episode count of mva to cram it into as little time as possible and to get back to the real money makers the students again do not take this as fact this is purely speculation and just what i find to be the most possible as it wouldn't be the first time that a corporation butchered a creative word for profit also i don't work in the animation industry some of my facts might be slightly incorrect there are people out there that actually know this stuff so i don't know listen to them adaptation does not equal recreation this is a statement that was used a lot during the adaptation for season five and it is true an adaptation is not a recreation however this does not mean that people cannot be upset about a butcher narrative and for what a lot of mva was just still frames the only real eye candy part of it was shigaraki vs verdestro but it is not a contradictory position to be disappointed in the adaptation and also hyped about a typical mha sakuga filled fight scene amazing animation and art can not bring back the in my opinion permanently damaged narrative cut scenes or undo the dreadful pacing i am however not taking what we got for granted and simply happy to see fights like shigaraki versus verdestro get the premium treatment regardless all of my previous complaints still stand if you're happy with the adaptation we got then i'm happy for you this video is simply my opinion on the rearrangement and season five as a whole don't let some idiot on youtube change your mind if you don't want it to be changed to summarize there are things that i liked about season five it's art and animation has never been so consistent but what was lost was far greater than any consistent animation can make up for awkward pacing in the first quarter to bad pacing in the second to a destructive rearrange that has put an unneeded damper on the best stretch of my hero academia as a series i criticize this not to be a whiner or whatever people want to label me as but because i care deeply for my hero academia as a series i truly do want the best for it and i feel what we got was not the best by any means you

Channel: AsarathaHS

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Length: 17min 56sec (1076 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 25 2021