Episode 6 of
My Hero Academia: Vigilantes season 2 begins with
Midnight petting a
cat and telling
Eraser Head about her being a teacher. She then tries to convince him to work at
UA as a teacher, too. For some reason, that makes him mad, though. She hints that there’s something he’s trying to forget, and he gets even angrier.
Suddenly,
Koichi runs past him while a
werewolf chases him and a girl wearing a red hoodie. The boy is holding a box with a little cat, which the thug wants to eat. Thankfully, Eraser quickly traps the villain and solves the situation.
Since it starts raining, Koichi and Eraser Head stay hidden from the rain under a store’s awning. They talk about the cat the boy has found, and Eraser admonishes him, saying that taking care of pets is a big responsibility.
Koichi asks Eraser if he doesn’t like cats, and the hero says he isn’t reprimanding him because of that.
Then the hero starts remembering his past, especially a day when he found a kitten in the rain. He couldn’t leave the pet there, but he also didn’t think he’d be the right person to save it either. He left it under his umbrella and went to class. He got there in an awful, self-deprecating mood, and
Hizashi Yamada (Present Mic in the future) mocked him.
However, his mood changed a bit when his other friend,
Oboro Shirakumo, arrived. He’s very confident and a bit of a clown, and he’s always using his cloud powers to move around. But more importantly, at that moment, he showed Aizawa that he rescued the cat and brought it to class.
The tense resignation in his life started to change that summer. But he still faced some trials while that happened, such as not finding an internship.
Aizawa had all kinds of classes, all set in developing incredible heroes with a different set of abilities. Although he wasn’t excited for any of them, he also didn’t have many problems. At least if you weren’t mentioning practical exercises.
In one of them, he used his
erasure quirk on his opponent, making him temporarily quirkless. However, Aizawa wasn’t good at fighting, so it didn’t change anything and he was defeated. To make things worse, his opponent despised him for having such a quirk.
One day, Aizawa was eating with Shirakumo and Yamada, and they were all talking about the cat. Shirakumo had been taking care of it, but he wasn’t that good at it, so they needed a permanent solution.
Kayama, their veteran and the woman who becomes Midnight in the future, overheard and joined the conversation. She found the cat cute and volunteered to take care of it for a while. The girl affirmed she wouldn’t keep it, but they knew that’s probably what would happen.
A while later, Yamada got a work study opportunity in a crime-fighting agency. His friends were surprised he got involved with something like that, but they also found it impressive. With that, they were the only two who didn’t have an internship opportunity.
However, that was about to change. Midnight suddenly arrived to tell them about the cat, but changed the subject to invite them to work with her. She proudly told them they would work for her boss,
Purple Highness, a clear reference to
Prince.
The Episode Review
My Hero Academia: Vigilantes switches its focus to Aizawa and his backstory. It’s a crucial point, heavily related to several important points in the main series. It’s a highly anticipated moment and it’s sad to say that, although the episode isn’t bad, it’s hardly exciting.
It’s great to see Aizawa’s personality in the past and a new character like Shirakumo, who has a great quirk. The episode also presents a few interesting points about the hero’s world. Instead of just theoretical and practical classes, the students also had to learn how to dance, as they’d become role models and public personas. A teacher also mentions that
Aizawa’s erasure quirk might relate to his negative personality.
That’s the type of thing that leaves viewers wanting more, but the show never delivers. It feels like it always wants to hint at how
heroes and quirks affect society, but almost never commits to exploring it. The main series has great examples of fulfilling that potential, so it’s hard not to compare.
It’s also unfortunate that the last part of the episode only focuses on their (not-so-funny) conversation with Midnight. The character often feels like she is only there for fanservice, and this time isn’t so different. Hopefully, seeing her in action in the following episodes might change that.
Vigilantes have been on a rise lately, delivering more fun episodes than usual. So, this is an arc that can cement that and take it to a new heights.