I have never been a fan of shounen anime, but dear God if this isn't one of the best shows to come out in the past few years. My gripes with the genre are consistently made to seem completely unfounded every week as new episodes air. To have a shounen manga adaptation clip along at a decent pace is already an impressive feat, but to also include incredible characters, stellar animation, and great music is just a medium-shattering achievement, especially when the series came straight out of SHONEN JUMP. The last I remember having this much pure unadulterated hype and fun with shounen was with YuYu Hakusho back when it aired on Toonami, and there's something to be said for recapturing (and going above) that magic. Oh, did I mention yet that there's nearly no filler? Yeah, there's only ONE anime-original episode, and the only way you'd even pick it out was if you were an avid manga reader.

It's been said to death by the anime community at large, but the secret to HeroAca's quality is in its perfect execution of what we already expect. You're going to get all of your standard shounen tropes here; HeroAca embraces them to the fullest degree. The difference is in HOW the show does them, and does them so, so, so right. Deku is the most compelling shounen main character I've encountered to date, with, for possibly the first time in shounen history, a believable reason to actually be considered an underdog. You can't help but empthaize with him in his struggles and be hype as all hell for his achievements, and the same can be said for the rest of the cast as well. So much obvious loving time and care was put into making our core cast feel like actual fucking characters instead of power-husk show-offs. Personality-rich, driven, and (most importantly) believable characters are the name of the game here, and I can't help but enjoy pretty much every character that gets any ounce of screentime.

None of this is to say that HeroAca, and by extension this second season, is perfect by any metric. There are some misgivings with the plot and some of the general anime "bleh" that plagues all releases to come out within the past several years (high school setting, etc...). World-building is also a little suspect, and there's a clear requirement of being able to both suspend disbelief and to not question the lack of exposition regarding the character's environment. This issue is especially notable when the show likes to play with the idea of the "ideal" of being a "real hero", with some heavy handed messages about how widespread power has warped public perception about what being a hero really is and what sort of behavior they should exhibit. Although an interesting and compelling discussion for HeroAca, it's heavily damaged by this lack of meaningful exposition, and can come across as misplaced and even boring if you haven't properly "bought-in" to the series.

Still, if we're talking in-genre here, and if you've been with me for this song-and-dance before you know we always are, you'll be hard pressed to find anything better than this. If you have ever been a fan of shounen anime, or you are just looking for an new pick-up with a fair bit of content on the bone, I implore you to check this one out. Whether you end up watching it or just dive straight into the manga, you definitely won't be disappointed.