My Hero Academia S02E19: Everyone’s Internships

My Hero Academia S02E19: Everyone’s Internships

Starring: Aoi Yuki, Daiki Yamashita, Nobuhiko Okamoto, & Ayane Sakura
Director: Kenji Nagasaki

Review by: Bee Sigler

In S02E19 of My Hero Academia, Everyone’s Internships, we take a peek at—you guessed it—everyone’s internships. Still recovering from their injuries sustained in the battle against Hero Killer Stain. Our heroes-in-training Izuku Midoriya, Tenya Iida, and Shoto “Hand Crusher” Todoroki move out of the spotlight to give the rest of class 1-A (and two students from 1-B) a moment to shine. Missing from this episode, however, are Yuga Aoyama, Mina Ashido, Mashirao Ojiro, Denki Kaminari, Koji Koda, Rikido Sato, Mezo Shoji, Hanta Sero, Fumikage Tokoyami, Toru Hagakure, and Minoru Mineta from 1-A. We love and miss you all. Except for Minoru. He’s a gremlin. Before we get to the meat of this episode (spoiler: it’s Froppy!), a quick montage of our heroes-in-training and their mentors come into focus.

Toxic Masculinity Boy and Handsome Denim Man to the rescue! Or, rather, Katsuki Bakugo makes children cry and Best Jeanist looks like he just walked out of a shampoo commercial. Have I mentioned how much I love Bakugo’s Best Jeanist hair? Having his hair spring from perfectly-coiffed to angry hedgehog when confronted by the children was a nice touch. If the internships became an entire arc instead of a single episode, I would hope for Bakugo to learn just a little bit of tact from Best Jeanist. However, there are only thirty minutes to work with, so onto the next intern…

Ochaco Uraraka pair with the super-cute Gunhead (his head is a gun, just roll with it) for her internship. A brief sparring scene between the two reinforces the whole tough-but-also-cute thing that Uraraka has going on, and I’m not mad about it at all. Poor Momo Yaoyorozu and Itsuka Kendo (the Class President of 1-B, if you don’t remember her), on the other hand, pair with Uwabami, a glamorous pro hero who appears to pose for photo shoots, sign autographs, and… not much else? An essential part of this episode seems to be pushing our heroes-in-training to cooperate with pro heroes, who are essentially their foils. I can’t help but wish we got to see Uwabami kicking some ass and letting her interns know that you can be glamorous and fight crime.

Next, the weirdly similar Eijiro Kirishima and Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu are given an internship with Fourth Kind, a suit-wearing no nonsense civil servant with four arms. He pushes them to do community service in a scene mirroring Midoriya’s training montage in season one.

There’s not much to say about Kyoka Jiro’s internship with Desutegoro (translated as “Death Arms” in the Crunchyroll simulcast subs). Besides pointing out that she’s the only hero-in-training in this episode deliberately placed in a situation involving villains. Even though, she was only there to guide hostages to safety. I felt my heart grow two sizes when a hostage thanked her and called her a hero. You go, Headphone Jack!

Here’s the main focus of this episode: best girl Asui Tsuyu’s internship with buff seal man Selkie, and his sidekick Vaporeon gijinka Sirius on the Oki Mariner. After being called in by the Coast Guard to investigate what they suspect to be a group of stowaways, Selkie gets captured by a pair of smugglers. Sirius and Tsuyu are left to handle the smugglers on their own. Tsuyu is forced to make a decision based on two conflicting pieces of advice her mentors gave her earlier.

We’re treated to a pretty short battle scene between Tsuyu and one of the smugglers, who has a tentacle-based Quirk. It’s similar enough to Tsuyu’s Quirk that the battle feels well-matched. I’m glad that it never ventures into creepy tentacle porn territory. The scene finishes off with Selkie jumping in to save the day. He cleverly uses his sonar abilities to fight despite being temporarily blind by the smuggler’s squid ink.

The Verdict:
Watch it, if you’re a Froppy fan or completionist! All in all, this episode is a quick reprieve after the dark and fast-paced Hero Killer Stain arc. It’s a mild filler episode that gives us a peek into the internships not explored in the manga. I predict things will pick up again in next week’s episode, Listen Up!! A Tale from the Past, which promises to begin unraveling the mystery of All Might’s Quirk.

Until next time: Plus Ultra!