REVIEW: ‘My Hero Academia’ Season 5 OVA

OVAs, Original Video Animations, are the elements of anime where things don’t have to make sense. For existing series, OVAs give audiences a way to sit back, relax, and forget the stakes. And if you’re a My Hero Academia fan, well, you’ll need this joy before we start Season 6 (it’s pure emotional damage, probably only topped by what’s coming in Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2). In two episodes, “HLB” and “Laugh! As If You Are In Hell,” studio BONES has managed to highlight heroes that often get the sidelines and showcase teamwork from our beloved main trio with the My Hero Academia Season 5 OVA. 

A baseball episode (of course), “HLB” is all about Hero League baseball, a baseball league founded by pro-heroes who love baseball. The start to the My Hero Academia Season 5 OVA, this one is dedicated to fan-favorites who quite honestly need more screentime. With a whole season played, “HLB” is all about the championship game between Gang Orca and Shishido’s two rival agencies. Here, we get to see the Orcas battle it out with the Lionels and beat each other senseless with baseball-themed attacks and, of course, baseball rules.

This episode is really all about watching heroes we don’t usually get too much time with show off their ingenuity and powers in exciting ways. With big moves and, of course, Aizawa and Present Mic as the Emcees, “HLB” is just pure fun to kick off the My Hero Academia Season 5 OVA. Taking each other out one at a time with no rules to stop and absolutely fun quirk usages, I don’t have many other ways to describe the pure joy in this episode. Sure they’re interrupted by a villain before the finish, but the truth is, this one is all about baseball quirk chaos, and it doesn’t need to be anything more.

The pivot in the narrative, though, is clear in the second part of the My Hero Academia Season 5 OVA, “Laugh! As If You Are In Hell.” Here, we jump into Deku, Bakugo, and Todoroki’s internship under Endeavor’s agency. One of the agency’s tasks right now? Take down a chaotic villain named “Smiley,” who is leaving graffiti all across the city with no care for law and order. But let’s be real, doodling on a wall doesn’t require the No. 1 Hero’s attention, that is until Smiley draws a doodle on Endeavor’s house. Furious, Endeavor, and the 1-A trio go out to get the villain. The hard part of it all, though, is that Smiley’s quirk makes every person who looks into his eyes burst out in hysterics, unable to fight the laughter and body spasms he evades every hero sent his way.

This description is fun, no doubt, but the episode’s second half brings some introspective elements when Deku finds a small piece of himself in Smiley. I mean, drawing delightful doodles can’t be all that bad, right? Add in the fact that we get a “villain” showdown and the close to the OVA makes the 44 minutes a damn good time.

Overall, there isn’t anything groundbreaking for the My Hero Academia Season 5 OVA, but there doesn’t have to be. We get a My Hero Academia baseball episode and some fun 1-A trio action; what more could you want? Fun and joyous, the My Hero Academia Season 5 OVA is well worth the watch. The only thing I wish is that the OVA episodes had more impact, and one way is to bring us more of HLB with even more heroes.

My Hero Academia Season 5 OVA “HLB” & “Laugh! As If You Are In Hell” are streaming exclusively on Crunchyroll in English and Japanese on August 1, 2022.