Let me get this out of the way, these were two of the best directed and animated episodes that I have seen in my 20+ years of watching this stuff. I honestly couldn’t believe the quality while I was seeing it and was left utterly amazed after both of those episodes ended despite knowing what was going to happen (manga reader).
I'll keep the plot summary short. In these two episodes our heroes Midoriya, Todoroki and Iida confront Stain the hero killer. Here we see Iida, who is out for revenge, tries to confront Stain to avenge his brother that Stain nearly killed but only paralyzed. Iida, blinded by his rage, is easily overwhelmed by Stain. When Iida explains why he is trying to stop him he realizes Iida is motivated by vengeance and selfishness and decides to kill him. From there Midoryia and Shoto come to save Iida and in the end all three of them, manage to take him down. However in the end Stain manages to break free of his bonds and saves Midoriya from one of the nomus ravaging the city and produces such a powerful presence that even the second highest ranked hero (Shoto's father, Endeavour) was overwhelmed by him. I don't want to mention more but Endeavour also had a time to shine in this arc!
What I'd like to focus on here is the amazing production values that Studio Madhouse delivered for us.
Art
It's quite clear a gigantic budget was spent on the art work for this episode. There are so many great scenes that it's hard just to pick a few.
Animation
Great art is nothing without great animation and these two episodes blew away my wildest expectations.
I'll only put one gif for now, since I don't want to make this post a pain to load.
Character Growth
All the main characters are given a good amount of screen time and personal growth here. Iida learns what it truly means to be a hero, even when personal feelings are involved and realizes how immature he is compared to Midoriya and Shoto.
Shoto learns that his reliance on his quirk is his biggest weakness and was nearly killed several times despite probably having the most powerful quirk out of all the people there (midoriya can only use 5% safely so he doesn't count!).
Midoriya learns to fight using 5% of his power and further conditions himself to controlling his power, and what a way to do it!
Stain by far was the highlight! His intentions were made clear by the end of the arc noting that he didn't even consider Endeavour a true hero. Stain believes that the current heroes are all fakes and that the standard for being called a hero is awful. Considering Iida's and Endeavour's actions, he maybe right. Iida fought him based solely on vengeance but Endeavour was far worse. Without knowing the entire situation he went ahead and killed a Nomu with no hesitation by burning his head to ash and then attempting to kill another by impaling him through the head with a fire spear.
All I can say at this point is to reiterate again that these are some of the best episodes in any anime I have ever seen (and I've seen a fair number). Anyway, if you guys like upvote, resteem or simply leave a comment and check out my other posts here
https://steemit.com/gaming/@gd1551/upcoming-games-to-look-out-for-this-year
https://steemit.com/gaming/@gd1551/industry-trends-mods-and-their-effects-on-gaming
I'll be doing a couple more of these anime related posts so look out for those in addition to my gaming stuff.
Credits to Madhouse for doing such an amazing adaptation