My Hero Academia: Winners and losers of Episode 79

My Hero Academia Season 4 gets a bit weird as Bakugo, Todoroki, and others face a challenge unlike anything they’ve seen before.

Caution: There are spoilers for My Hero Academia Episode 79 in this post

We all have our favorite shows to watch. We cherish them deeply and parade them around like they’re the best gift the world has to offer. But even when it comes to our favorites, there always comes a time when we must admit — no matter how biased we are — that our favorites might have slipped up; they may have stunk up the whole joint, one might say.

This, my fellow heroes is one of those instances, as Episode 79 of My Hero Academia is the most forgettable episode of the season so far and, perhaps, of the show to date. Thankfully, this recap shouldn’t be too long, because I’d hate to think about this one for much longer.

Winners

Katsuki Bakugo

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I’m (and I imagine many other My Hero Academia fans) just so flipping happy to have this boy back in the forefront. There wasn’t exactly a lot he did in this episode in particular, so I admit this might be a choice entirely predicated on the idea that’s just fun to see that he is, indeed, back.

However, I would say he deserves credit for his ruthless idea of attacking the kids in order to teach them a lesson—which everyone initially scowled at—since everyone ends up siding with him by the end of the episode. Good job by you Bakugo! I’m sorry that your first real episode of action this season was so lame, though.

Misogyny

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: An anime wasted no time in objectifying a female character with the kind of humor that was funny in the ninth grade. Indeed, while the rather perverted nature of anime is exceedingly common, there was something about this episode’s handling of Camie—a newish character that first made her debut towards the end of Season 3—that was a bit much, even for a scumbag like myself.

Instead of just, like, explaining what her quirk is, we are treated to b**b jokes. It’s one of those moments where I say to myself “Yeah, I guess I can understand why people get turned off by anime.”

Losers

Shoto Todoroki/Shoto

Tough break for the icy hot man himself. Despite how he’s arguably the most powerful student in Class 1-A, Todoroki could do nothing except bore the living hell out of all the kids that came his way.

Do you know how much of a shame that is? Do you know how boring you have to be for kids to be bored by a person who can literally shoot fire and freeze entire buildings with their hands?

Children

Yes, I mean children in the absolute broadest sense. This episode of My Hero Academia makes you hate children. Aside from the aforementioned immaturity regarding Camie, the entire bit of rebellious children just doesn’t feel all that compelling.

Further compounding this issue is how Episode 79 seems like it’s intentionally dragging on the training session into multiple episodes. We get it, these kids are rebellious and it’s the job of the heroes to get them under control and “win their hearts.”

It turns out you’re going to actually have to use your quirks to do that, which feels like something the characters took far too long to figure out. I hope Bakugo blasts one of these annoying cockroaches into oblivion.

But anyway, that’s it for Episode 79 — an episode that feels like it tried desperately to be comic relief, but instead came off as immature and somewhat unnecessary. Here’s hoping that Episode 80 makes up for it!

As always, remember that you can tune in every Saturday for new episodes of My Hero Academia on Funimation and Crunchyroll followed by breakdowns here on Hidden Remote.