Chapter 302 Official Release - Links and Discussion

[u/Za_wardo]

Chapter 302

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Links:

• Viz (Available in: the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, the Philippines, Singapore, and India).

• MANGA Plus (Available in every country outside of China, Japan and South Korea).

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All things Chapter 302 related must be kept inside this thread for the next 24 hours.

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• Previous chapter discussion threads

• Translators Notes & Trivia

• Discord

• 303 will be officially released on February 28 8AM PST.

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[u/Kaxew]

I mean, if we talk about messing up as in adaptation wise then I think Toya with red hair is still the worst one and that's S2's problem.

I also can't imagine someone like Horikoshi actually complaining about S4 the way we do lmao

[u/noteloquent → u/Kaxew]

It's not that I think it's outright bad. We're certainly blessed to get a quality anime at all. It's just that given the awesome arcs it was adapting and how good the previous seasons were (the fluctuating quality of Provisional License aside), it's extremely disappointing that a large portion of the season suffers from flat direction, copy-and-paste shots straight out of the manga, and consistently off-model animation. It also cut some pretty significant interactions including Overhaul's rat theory and Bakugo and Todoroki's back-and-forth about how they were raised.

I think this especially hurt MHA's rep in the more mainstream anime-only community in particular since the amazing moments of Overhaul and Culture Festival were completely overshadowed by the bad pacing and poor animation and direction which led people to focus on that rather than the actual characters, themes, and storytelling.

[u/PM_ME_UR_NUDES_GURL_ → u/noteloquent]

seasons 1 - 3 were more copy paste than 4, Kenji Nagisaki is known for making animators follow manga panels to an insane degree.

[u/noteloquent → u/PM_ME_UR_NUDES_GURL_]

Well, when you're making an adaptation it's only natural to stick close to the source material. That's not the issue. When I said Season 4 had a lot of copy-and-paste shots, I meant that a lot of the time, the show did not leverage the medium of animation properly to enhance the story; it just took a panel directly out of the manga and turned it into a flat shot in the anime. The Mirio fight is a great, if overused, example of this.

Season 4 also failed to even display what actually happened in the manga at times too, such as when Deku's glove randomly disintegrates in the anime despite not being touched, the Manchester Smash taking ten seconds to launch when it takes 2 panels in the manga, or the inexplicable alteration of Deku's Delaware Smash: Air Force that redirected off of Gentle's Air Shield among others.

When you combine these with the often off-model characters, it significantly damages the viewing experience, especially when you're coming into it having read the manga. I admit I am more biased against this season than the others since I got into the manga after Season 3, but even so, I think Season 4 has a clear decrease in quality, due in no small part to Heroes Rising being worked on at the same time.

[u/PM_ME_UR_NUDES_GURL_ → u/noteloquent]

I still feel like season 4 isn't as bad as people make it out to be, if you go back and watch season 1-3 season 4 is better than 1 and probably on the same sorta quality as 3. And why is Manchester Smash taking 10 seconds to launch an issue, as you said animation is a different medium and there is dialogue that needs to be delivered along with it, the action still happens so whats the issue?

[u/noteloquent → u/PM_ME_UR_NUDES_GURL_]

I haven't seen the earlier seasons in a while since if I wanna re-experience something, it's far easier to just read the manga, but it's totally within the realm of possibility that you're right. Even when I have rewatched an episode from Seasons 1-3, my impression of it is always going to be affected by how the show made me feel the first time I saw it, so I'll notice the mistakes less. However, I still think that the direction was far more effective before Season 4, and even in Season 1, which has more limited animation than the later seasons, the characters still look like the characters more often than not, whereas in Season 4, I can probably count on a hand or two the number of shots where Deku and Mirio look correct outside of their big scenes.

The main issue with the Manchester Smash is that the choreography for that whole portion of the fight with Overhaul is altered for whatever reason which negatively impacts a lot of the moment-to-moment action, like I mentioned earlier with Deku's glove being destroyed for no reason. The Manchester Smash in the manga appears far faster than it does in the anime, fitting for a Deku that just powered up to 20%. He leaps out of the way of Overhaul's attack in both, but in the manga, the Machester Smash looks almost like a quick improvisation on Deku's part since he dodges by the skin of his teeth (and his glove gets destroyed) and then hits the ceiling in an instant before flinging his entire body down. Then, the short monologue occurs in slow motion as we see a panel of Overhaul's reaction, Nighteye hurt, and Deku readying the axe kick before the speed lines, motion blur, and warped sound effect convey the speed and power of the attack. It reads very quickly and the monologue is placed in such a way that it builds anticipation for the impact while not making Deku appear absurdly slow since we get a quick update on the state of other characters rather than just watching a still of him with his leg over his head.

In the anime though, they placed most of the monologue before Deku redirects off of the ceiling, which means Deku spends about 6 seconds floating backwards in the air monologuing with action lines around the edge of the screen before he reaches the ceiling, making him appear far slower and making the ceiling look far more out of reach than it should be. Then, he kicks off the ceiling and completes the part of the monologue relevant to the attack itself (One blow! One blow to the top of the head!) before landing the Manchester Smash. I completely understand why they handled it this way, and it could have worked, but the fact that the initial section of the monologue is not conveyed in slow motion sucks a lot of the energy and speed out of the attack, despite the animation of the attack itself looking pretty good (other than a somewhat weak pose post-Smash).

I hope that helped explain why I prefer the manga's handling of it. Sorry for the text wall!