My Hero Academia Season 7 Premiere Review
Superhero fatigue? What superhero fatigue? My Hero Academia begins its seventh season by exploding the notion that there’s no more fun or creativity to be had with costumed crusaders and their souped-up nemeses. In the span of 23 minutes, we get a thrilling fight, an unforgettable hero introduction, the growing complexities of a villain’s story, some intriguing worldbuilding, and even some social commentary as a little treat. “In the Nick of Time! A Big-Time Maverick from the West” promises another banger season for the long-running show.
Last season, My Hero Academia made up for several years of poor pacing and convoluted plotting by unleashing its villains and letting all hell break loose – pointing its story toward an ending. But none of that matters anymore, because America’s number-one hero is finally here! In true red, white, and blue fashion, Star and Stripe arrives at the scene with a squadron of fighter jets, all guns blazing. This is one of the anime’s best character introductions to date. It helps that Star and Stripe has a design that inspires awe and exudes coolness, immediately standing out from the Japanese heroes. Indeed, it’s as if Star and Stripe stepped out of a Marvel comic, while retaining the look of a manga character. She is Barbenheimer personified, a gal with style and smiles that who’ll nuke you the second she gets a chance to, with a strike-first-ask-questions-later attitude that’s perfect for the quick pace of the premiere. (But not so quick that it skips over the reveal that Star and Stripe is the girl we see in the prologue to Two Heroes, confirming that the MHA movies are indeed canon.) Romi Park is the perfect casting for Star, giving the character gravitas, but also an enthusiasm and optimism that makes it hard not to root for her even if her quirk is a bit messed up.
You see, Star and Stripe has the ability to alter the natures of people and things – turning the air around Shigaraki into a vacuum, for example, or transforming lasers into something she can touch and grab . What’s more, the quirk is called New Order — author Kōhei Horikoshi has never been subtle. This is not only a fantastic quirk to watch , but a well-defined one, too: The fact that Star can only create two new “rules” at a time makes it interesting and unpredictable without being too over the top. “In the Nick of Time! A Big-Time Maverick from the West” does a great job of telling us how New Order works when Shigaraki figures out its limitations, but it also shows how the quirk works when Star’s body weakens after she relinquishes her super strength in order to institute two other rules.
The episode focuses entirely on this fight between Star and Stripe and Shigaraki, who has embraced his role as the new Symbol of Evil. Deku is nowhere to be seen, and it works for the best: The situation is so desperate that none of the characters we know can help, and they have to rely on foreign powers to intervene. (How likely is it that Star and Stripe’s role will work about as well as U.S. interventionism works in real life?) This smaller focus also allows the episode to deepen Shigaraki’s identity crisis. We learned that All For One is taking over Shigaraki’s body last season, but “In the Nick of Time! A Big-Time Maverick from the West” implies that the transition is not as quick or seamless as the supervillain would like.
Who, exactly, Shigaraki is right now is complicated; it seems to be a question that the rest of the season will ask again and again. Likewise, the premiere introduces the idea of Spinner becoming a bigger player and taking more of a public leadership role as a beacon of revolution for people with quirks that fully mutate their bodies. It is still nice to see My Hero Academia not forget its own equivalent of X-Men’s mutant allegory – the very concept of quirks and heroes/villains is being interrogated in the world of the show, and the repercussions are being shown here.
As an action-focused premiere, “In the Nick of Time! A Big-Time Maverick from the West” does not disappoint. The fight is nicely choreographed, with enough variation in visuals to feel fresh and exciting – especially whenever Star and Stripe uses her power, or the fighter jets try to take down Shigaraki and his flying Nomu.
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