Season 4 of My Hero Academia is a strange, ambitious mix of arcs that swing between the intense, the heartfelt, and the slightly filler‑adjacent. It’s a season defined by contrasts: the brutality of the Shie Hassaikai raid set against the softness of the School Festival, the philosophical weight of Overhaul’s ideology beside the earnest optimism of Mirio and Eri, the emergence of Endeavour as a character worth caring about after years of narrative distance. When the season hits, it hits hard, emotionally, thematically, and visually. When it drifts, you can feel the momentum slip. But taken as a whole, Season 4 is a turning point: a season that expands the world, deepens its characters, and quietly sets the stage for the show’s next evolution.
The Shie Hassaikai arc is the season’s centrepiece. It’s sprawling, intense, and thematically rich, even if it lingers longer than it needs to. Overhaul is one of the most conceptually interesting villains the show has introduced, not because he’s powerful, but because his ideology is so extreme. His plan to erase quirks entirely, to roll society back to a pre‑quirk state, is a direct challenge to everything the world has built itself upon. It’s a twisted mirror of Stain’s philosophy: where Stain wanted to purify hero society, Overhaul wants to dismantle the very foundation it stands on. Both see the current world as broken; both believe they’re the ones to fix it. The show doesn’t force the comparison, but it lets the ideas echo.
At the centre of all this is Eri, one of the most sympathetic characters the series has introduced. Her existence alone is transformative: a child whose quirk can rewind living beings to earlier states, a living key to Overhaul’s vision of a quirkless world. The horror of her situation is handled with surprising restraint, and the emotional weight of her rescue becomes the arc’s true heartbeat. She’s more than just a plot device; she’s a person whose trauma shapes the entire season.
Mirio (Lemillion) is the standout here. His relentless positivity, even after losing his quirk, is genuinely inspiring. The love he shows Eri – protective, gentle, unwavering – gives the arc its emotional grounding. His sacrifice lands because it’s not framed as tragedy; it’s framed as choice. And Eraserhead’s role in stabilising Eri’s power is a brilliant use of his quirk, reinforcing his place as one of the show’s most essential heroes.
Sir Nighteye adds another layer of complexity. His cold logic, his fixation on prediction, and his strained relationship with All Might make him a fascinating counterpoint to the optimism that defines the series. His death is one of the rare moments where the show slows down enough to let grief settle, and it works because the arc has taken the time to show who he was beneath the rigidity.
The Shie Hassaikai arc is imperfect. It’s too long and too dense. However, its ideas are strong, its characters compelling, and its emotional core undeniable. It’s a messy, ambitious swing, and even when it drags, it never stops being interesting.
The remedial course arc a stretch where it’s apparent that the show’s heart is in the right place, even if the narrative momentum isn’t. Coming off the intensity of the Shie Hassaikai raid, the shift to a light, school‑centric side mission feels abrupt, and the arc never quite shakes that “extended cooldown” energy. There is charm in watching the heroes try to wrangle a group of overpowered, emotionally volatile children and the teamwork on display is warm and sincere. You can see why these kids will eventually make good heroes: they’re patient, adaptable, and willing to meet their students where they are. As a teacher, this is also alarmingly relatable…
But beyond that, the arc doesn’t add much. It doesn’t deepen the world, it doesn’t meaningfully advance the characters, and it doesn’t carry the emotional weight of the arcs around it. It’s pleasant, occasionally funny, and relatable in a very grounded way, but it’s also undeniably filler‑adjacent.
The School Festival arc starts in a way that feels undeniably slight. After the emotional brutality of the Shie Hassaikai raid, the sudden pivot to band practice, committee politics, and light‑hearted hijinks feels like the show easing off the gas a little too abruptly. It has the same filler‑adjacent energy as the remedial course arc; pleasant enough, but not immediately compelling. The setup leans heavily on comedy, and for a while it feels like the show is circling rather than moving.
But the arc earns its place because of the emotional threads it chooses to follow. Kyoka Jiro’s storyline is the standout: her insecurity about her musical talent, her fear of disappointing her parents, and the quiet flashback where she admits she’s choosing heroism over the thing she’s naturally gifted at. It’s a small moment, but it hits with surprising force. It reframes Jiro not as the “cool music girl,” but as someone who made a real sacrifice to be here, and someone who still carries the weight of that choice. Her performance becomes a kind of emotional reclamation, a moment where she gets to be both things at once.
The arc also works because it gives Class 1‑A a chance to show who they are outside of a crisis. Their determination to create something joyful, something that will genuinely help Eri smile, is a reminder that heroism isn’t always about punching villains. Sometimes it’s about kindness, community, and giving people a moment of peace. The festival becomes a celebration of everything the class has endured, and everything they want to protect.
And then there’s Eri. Her joyful reaction to the performance, that tiny, trembling smile finally breaking through, is the emotional payoff the entire season has been building toward. It’s not just cute; it’s cathartic. It’s the moment the show proves that all the pain of the Shie Hassaikai arc wasn’t for nothing. Eri gets to be a child again, even if only for a moment, and the show lets that moment land with real sincerity.
The School Festival arc may start slow, but it ends with some of the most heartfelt character work in the season. It’s a reminder that My Hero Academia is at its best when it balances spectacle with softness, when it lets its characters breathe, grow, and heal.
I’m not crying. You’re crying.
The beginning of the Pro Hero arc is where Season 4 finds its sharpest focus in the very final couple of episodes. For the first time in the entire series, the show asks us to care about Endeavour, not as the abrasive, overbearing Number Two, and not as the abusive father whose past still casts a long shadow, but as a man standing at the edge of a role he never really thought he’d inherit. His earlier conversation with All Might, where he quietly asks how to become a symbol, is the first crack in the armour. But it’s the high-stakes Nomu fight that shatters it completely.
This battle is brutal in a way the show rarely allows itself to be. Endeavour isn’t polished or elegant; he’s desperate, bleeding, and seconds from collapse. He works with Hawks because he has to, pushes himself past every limit he’s ever known, and fights like someone who finally understands what it means to be watched not as a powerhouse, but as a symbol. It’s the first time we see him genuinely struggle for something beyond pride. The moment he rises, shaking and scorched, and throws his fist into the air isn’t triumph; it’s transformation. It’s the moment he stops trying to replace All Might and starts trying to become better than the man he used to be.
It’s powerful. It’s messy. It’s beautiful. And it’s the perfect way to close a season built on the idea that people can change. Sure, that change might be slow, painful, and requiring great effort, but it’s still change.
I found Season 4 of My Hero Academia to be quite uneven, but when it lands, it lands with real force. The Shie Hassaikai arc gives the show some of its most ambitious ideas and most heartfelt character work, even if it runs a little long. The lighter arcs wobble, but they still offer moments of genuine warmth, especially through Jiro and Eri. And the season’s final movement, Endeavour’s brutal, transformative stand, is one of the strongest pieces of storytelling the series has delivered thus far. It’s a season that stumbles, but it also soars, and its best moments are powerful enough to stay with you long after the credits roll.