The Fall Anime 2025 Preview Guide - My Hero Academia FINAL SEASON

Deku is in the middle of holding back Shigaraki from destroying everything, but bigger issues are on their way! With a younger body, All For One is on his way to connect with his number one student to take over his body and become invincible. With all the other heroes either taken out or occupied, it's up to All Might himself to be the one to defeat his nemesis once and for all!

My Hero Academia FINAL SEASON is based on the My Hero Academia manga series by Kohei Horikoshi. The anime series is streaming on Crunchyroll and Hulu on Saturdays.

My Hero Academia's final season comes cannonballing out of the starting gate, kicking and screaming with barely a moment's pause, even if the first ten minutes are essentially a recap of the previous season's final scenes. This is it – seven seasons of build-up, paying off with elder hero All Might's real, proper final stand against his mortal enemy, All For One. Although he exhausted the remains of his quirk during the battle against All For One in Kamino Ward back in the third season, explicitly passing the baton to Deku and his friends afterwards, All Might's hero's soul was never extinguished. Now, we see the fruits of his time teaching the students of class 1-A, his close observations of their quirks and fighting techniques. The best teachers don't merely impart wisdom and knowledge to the upcoming generations; they continue to grow and learn, even from their students.

Without a quirk of his own to fall back on, All Might resorts to the Iron Man/Batman route of technological supremacy and meticulous planning. He's closely observed his enemy and planned counters upon counters for everything his apocalyptically overpowered foe can throw at him. While it helps that All For One has become cocky and vindictive, especially since the effects of Rewind have returned him to adolescence, his modus operandi has always been to overwhelm and dominate, stealing powers and taking everything for himself. In contrast, All Might nurtures and builds the quirks of his students, borrowing them in synthetic, technological form. Every time he calls out a student's hero name, or quirk to use against All For One, sends another thrill of excitement down my spine, as he creatively uses all of class 1-A's tricks, yes, even Mineta's sticky goo-balls.

It's a phenomenally intense fight, with All Might even utilizing missiles and an aerial laser platform to continually pummel All For One into the ground. He knows he's only biding time, delaying the seemingly inevitable merger between All For One and his protege/replacement body Tomura Shigaraki, but the heroes have no one left to rely on. As the opening monologue reminds us, the only remaining uninjured heroes battle desperately across multiple fronts across the whole country. Once again, All Might rises to the challenge, with his reassuring call of “I am here.”

From the beating he takes, fractured bones, shed blood, and incapacitated limbs, it's clear to us that for All Might, quirkless or not, this is his final fight. Even if he survives, will he even be able to walk? Just as it looks like All For One might turn the tables, help arrives from a surprising source – criminally underused character Stain the Hero Killer. Maybe it's for the best that he's mostly kept to the background for the majority of the series, even as his ideology has inspired a generation of villains to overthrow the hero society. Yet few of these villains meet his high standards, nor do many heroes – except for the shining paragon of justice, whom Stain practically worships, in his own twisted way. I love that characters introduced so long ago, and almost forgotten, have returned recently to play pivotal roles. We saw this last season with Gentle Criminal and La Brava (I love those two), and we also see a cameo from Melissa Shield, the token new female character from MHA's first movie, Two Heroes. It's unusual for shonen shows like this ever to reference their films in canon episodes. That's a nice touch.

Sort-of-traitor Aoyama also gets his chance to (literally) shine against an extremely creepy plant quirk villain. Aoyama initially seemed to be a superficial comedy character. Still, author Kohei Horikoshi's detailed plotting revealed him as a more tragic character, and we finally see him come into his own now, badly-matched, transplanted quirk or not. I love his blindingly bright team-up with (now not so) invisible girl Toru Hagakure. They make such a great team, and I hope he doesn't end up leaving UA, as he threatens to do. Give the poor sparkly boy a break. All Might's approximation of his quirk is also a highlight of the episode, roasting All For One with the quirk he gave Aoyama to blackmail him into spying for him. Also, Toru's reaction to her new rainbow-tinged visibility is hilarious. Who knew she would look so cute?

I can't finish this otherwise glowing review without a strong note of criticism against the show's primary worldwide streaming source, Crunchyroll. I don't know what the hell happened today at Crunchyroll HQ, but while rival Hulu released both MHA and Spy x Family on time, without hitches, every single new show due to debut today on Crunchyroll was delayed by hours (nine hours in MHA's case), and none had English subtitles. I can only hazard a guess at what led to this breakdown today, but it made my and a lot of my colleagues' jobs that much more difficult on a Saturday.

This is a pretty painful episode for All Might fans, as in between flashbacks to his childhood and early career (including his former mentor Nana Shimura's death at the hands of All For One), he repeatedly has the stuffing kicked out of him. His legs no longer work, he's all out of gadgets, and not even the late-game intervention of Hero Killer Stain is enough to prevent All For One's relentless progress towards Tomura Shigaraki's Evil Apotheosis.

Stain gives as good a fight as he can, though, desperate for his heroic idol All Might to succeed and demonstrate once more to the world the true face of heroism. Unfortunately, his Bloodcurdle quirk isn't up to the challenge of immobilizing the Demon Lord for long. Turns out All For One can handily expel all of his blood at once (surprisingly gory and gross), before rewriting his bone marrow to instantly produce completely different blood, negating Stain's blood-licking advantage. Sadly, it's not All Might who finally brings Stain to justice for his crimes, as All For One mercilessly steals his quirk before pummelling him into liquid (I refuse to make the obvious stain joke here!)

One fewer ally left, not even Gentle Criminal, who gamely offers to go toe to toe with All For One, can help. All For One's laser quirk wrecking the floating UA's propulsion system means that levitation quirk-empowered Gentle can't let go of the building, or else everyone will die. Deku fights in a stalemate against the perpetually grinning Shigaraki as All For One draws nearer, taunting him as he carries a limp All Might.

Even though Shigaraki and All Might's goals aren't fully aligned, we can see that Shigaraki is delighted with this turn of events. With Midoriya's attention shifted to his ailing mentor, he's less able to fully commit to battling his opponent. That is, until we glimpse the unexpected potential savior: All Might's other protege. The other kid, who, like Midoriya, has idolized his hero since infancy: Great Explosion Murder God Dynamight. Now I dislike the irritating, mercurial Bakugo as much as the next guy, but I can't help admitting that his glorious, pissed-off return is amazing. It's helped by My Hero Academia's phenomenal soundtrack, which never fails to stir the emotions.

While we already had a chance to hear The Final Season's excellent opening song, "The Revo" from Porno Graffitti last week, this is our first opportunity to hear Bump Of Chicken's great closer, "The Day," with an All Might trading card visual motif that flows beautifully from the ending scene, full of meaning. My Hero Academia's soundtrack has always been a cut above most other shonen anime, and so far this season has not disappointed.

Visually, Studio Bones are no slackers either. This will be a much shorter season than usual, with only really a couple of manga volumes left to adapt, so they seem to have pulled out all of the stops to provide a stunning action spectacle. Of course, the frequent flashbacks temper this and a fairly substantial recap at the episode's beginning, which at times threatens to slow the action down to almost Dragon Ball Z levels of frustration, but thankfully the plot inches along just enough to be satisfying. With all of our heroes beaten, bruised, and exhausted, hopefully, in the next episode, they'll receive a fiery, hot-tempered beacon of light (and heat) when Bakugo proves his worth. I can't wait.

Here it is, the beginning of the end for the My Hero Academia animated series. What better way to start off that final series than with a premiere that spends half of its runtime just showing animation pulled right from the final episode of the last season? I went back to check, and while it is not one-to-one, the only thing different is that scenes or cuts to other events happening during the fight were removed. The first half of this episode is essentially the beginning of that fight, which is where last season ended. Perhaps the animation team felt that this was appropriate, considering that last season ended quite a while ago; however, it does feel distracting when only half of this episode, at most, is new material.

Granted, this fight between All Might and All For One is so beautiful from an animation as well as a thematic standpoint that I almost want to forgive it. All For One is doing his best to reconnect with Shigaraki so that he can take over his body while Deku holds Shigaraki at a standstill. Almost all the major players are either occupied or eliminated, and there is absolutely no backup. Literally the only thing standing between All For One and his ultimate goal is a frail, quirkless old man in his fifties who refuses to die, no matter what this comic book villain does to him. It's really inspirational when you sit down and think about it. All might is literally using the fact that All For One is his number one hater to his advantage.

All For One might insist that he's not taking any of this seriously, but the combination of him being younger, being affected by Shigaraki's hatred, and his own hubris says otherwise. It's really cool that All Might is fighting in a mechanized suit that has attacks inspired by all of his students. The thing here is that while All Might doesn't have his powers anymore, he is still alive thanks to the light given off by his students. The entire theme of My Hero Academia revolves around the idea of passing things on to the next generation. The adults in this world are cynical or complacent. We even get a shot of a family in a foreign country watching this fight unfold, and the adult comments that no matter what happens during this fight, the rest of the world should be OK. But that shot of a kid, gripping his hands, watching the fight intently, says it all.

Hell, it's not just the kids who are being inspired, but even the villains themselves, with Stain, of all people, coming at the last minute to save the day. Will this end up fulfilling the premonition of All Might's demise? Or is this All Might relying on others to overcome his fate? Is this a moment where the final glimmer of light finally goes out? Or will he be immortalized in the light of everybody that he has inspired? There is so much happening in this one fight, and there is still much being set up for the rest of the season. Strap it because it really does feel like we're about to witness an actual event unfold.

They say the night is darkest just before the dawn. That's all I was thinking when watching this episode of My Hero because it really did just boil down to All For One kicking everybody's teeth in before he's able to accomplish his major goal. We saw a bit of an upset with Stain showing up at the last minute in order to bring things full circle. I think it's funny that someone who intentionally labeled themselves as a hero killer went out trying to take down the number one villain in the series. It sucks All For One had a counter but it's at least consistent with what we've seen before. I think it would've been nice if they were able to get at least one more hit in at the end before All For One just pile drives him across the entire city. It's a miracle he was alive long enough for All For One to steal his quirk because outside of his ability to paralyze people, Stain is just a normal guy, right?

Thankfully, Shigaraki defying All For One did prevent him from getting an easy win with his teleportation quirk. However, absolutely nobody's able to stop him as he is doing his best to publicly execute All Might before just taking Shigaraki's body for himself. I love the desperation of everyone's voice as they legitimately can't do anything. Deku has to hold Shigaraki in place otherwise he'll just use decay on all of Japan, Gentle is still holding up the school, and everyone else is either too far away or completely knocked out. All seems lost until Bakugo shows up miraculously at the end. I like the symbolic lead up to that reveal being how All Might was ready to die by sacrificing himself, ironically with something that was supposed to be a reference to Bakugo's quirk.

The idea that All Might would've been happy having his sacrifice because he knows he left a bunch of lights behind him was heart wrenching, but seeing those lights transform into Bakugo and Deku carrying on that legacy in the form of the trading cards that they bonded over as kids was also very poignant. Seeing that transition into the ending theme also brought a sense of finality to everything in a very symbolic way. It just goes to show that while a lot of these are familiar tropes, My Hero is still going out of its way to make sure that they are presented in a way that still heightens a lot of those narrative strengths.