REVIEW: ‘My Hero Academia: Vigilantes’ Season 2 Episode 5 – “The Man Returns”

While there’s been unquestionable charm even in his absence, Knuckleduster’s (Yasuhiro Mamiya) return in My Hero Academia Vigilantes Season 2 Episode 5 is a welcome one. In many ways, more than Koichi (Shūichirō Umeda), he was the protagonist of Season 1. At the very least, he took the driver’s seat in terms of directing the plot. And now, in “The Man Returns,” we remember what made him such a draw: both someone for Koichi to learn from and a figure who helped expose the ways this society of heroes was letting things fall through the cracks. 

Before that, though, My Hero Academia Vigilantes Season 2 Episode 5 busies itself with some more investigative work, bringing in another My Hero Academia alum into the fold with Midnight (Akeno Watanabe). Orchestrated by Eraser Head (Junichi Suwabe) and Tsukauchi (Tokuyoshi Kawashima), the plan is for Midnight to go undercover to infiltrate a mixer being attended by the band the Mad Hatters, Koichi, and two other girls from his college. Midnight also inexplicably invites Pop (Ikumi Hasegawa) to go undercover. 

The objective is to find more leads on the Trigger case, especially following recent events where people have been undergoing effects similar to those the drug produces. They hope that they can find out who is supplying the drug once they find someone who is utilizing it for their own gain. 

Season 2 of the prequel series adopts a procedural format.

The perpetrator this time is a typically timid girl, Rin, who becomes jealous when her close friend seems to flirt with Koichi. In an effort to derail those one-sided affections, Rin spikes everyone’s drinks, causing mayhem in the restaurant and forcing Midnight to use her Quirk to make the men pass out. This allows Midnight to – rightfully – shine while also highlighting some of the differences between Koichi’s world and Midoriya’s, again. The college atmosphere, even with Pop undercover, immediately gives it a more grounded atmosphere. It’s not better but pleasantly different—enough to further distinguish the two series. 

One of the clever, if oddly paced, things about Season 2 is how it tackles the ongoing story of Trigger, the Scarred Man, and how it all culminates in elements that permeate the origin series. In many ways, the writing is playing it all in a case-of-the-week style of pacing. But instead of it being a wholly new villain or mystery, it’s instead revealing the main object of the mysterious villain layer by layer in a way that’s surprisingly measured. 

There’s no desire to know Koichi or Pop better beyond their interactions or the small ways they engage with the world. It’s the biggest hurdle the series has yet to overcome, even though they’re easy to root for, because the writing hasn’t taken the time to really get to the core of who they are or to know them beyond the surface. Instead, evident in My Hero Academia Vigilantes Season 2 Episode 5, the series, based on the manga by Hideyuki Furuhashi and illustrated by Betten Court, is more interested in laying the groundwork for the operations of this world and the underbelly of a hero society. 

The characters who fare the best are the ones most established. 

It’s essentially a superhero procedural. There’s an overarching villain and week-to-week subplots that help flesh out the threat and the world at large. It’s why Knuckleduster is the most interesting out of the core three. Yes, he’s given more to do with a backstory and a daughter connected to the main antagonist of Season 1. But it’s also because, as a fully adult character, he carries with him a built-in gravitas. The Batman-style vigilante brawling style is fun, but it wouldn’t work so well if the character didn’t already feel so established. 

Similarly, it’s why we’re rushing to see more of Eraser Head in this world, especially in how Trigger links to the events he’s engaged with in My Hero Academia. In My Hero Academia Vigilantes Season 2 Episode 5, he, Tsukauchi, and the Hotta Brothers (delightfully sticking around) discuss the drug and the intention to use it in such public spaces.

They believe someone is orchestrating it so they can observe the Quirks from the sidelines as they go haywire. And then, in a more deliberate offensive move, target the Quirks that they believe to be the most powerful to warp further and enhance them to their own design. 

The Trigger storyline in My Hero Academia Vigilantes Season 2 Episode 5 connects the past and future.

We’ve seen the long-term effects of this. Be it in the modified bodies of the Nomu, or, related to Eraser Head, later in his story, Kurogiri. We see it in the Overhaul storyline, another pivotal one for Eraser Head. That it all ties back to this timeline makes it all the more impressive, given how sprawling the origin story is. 

The series just needs to find a way to balance these genuine moments of overarching intrigue with better development of the core cast outside of Knuckleduster. In the brief sequence we check in with Knuckleduster’s daughter, Tamao Oguro (Sayaka Senbongi), we get a greater sense of personality from her, Soga (Kohsuke Toriumi), and his friends Rapt (Yûki Hoshi) and Moyuru (Keiji Hirai) than we have from Koichi and Pop in a long while. When the very problematic Soga is displaying more written growth (accepted or not) than your protagonist, it’s time for a shake-up. 

And it all boils back down to the real star of the show. The reintroduction to Knuckleduster is well done, even if it’s confounding for a moment as we try to keep up with the major lore drop that’s delivered to us. Utilizing the Hong Kong backdrop for a step up in vibrant animation, it adds greater weight when he emerges from the shadows, looking a little worse for wear.

Knuckleduster is the real protagonist of My Hero Academia Vigilantes. 

It’s here that we learn, almost nonchalantly, that he used to be a pro-hero who went by the name “Hyper Quadfist,” aka “O’Clock.” O’Clock, who clearly possessed the same type of speed and power that the Scarred Man currently does. Whose prized scar is a mimicry of Knuckledusters. 

It’s just amazing that the show might want us to go back to learning more about Koichi and Pop, while Knuckleduster’s story continues to develop and get more interesting. To see a one-time hero become a vigilante, one who tells other detectives that anyone who runs in with Scarred Man should shoot to disarm, not warn, is a wonderful shock in terms of expectations. It shows both the disillusionment with the hero society and the whole Spider-Man adage about what great power entails, especially when that power falls into the wrong hands. 

While on the surface, My Hero Academia Vigilantes Season 2 Episode 5 plays with procedural conventions, it deceptively delves deeper into the story’s most interesting elements. From Knuckleduster’s backstory to the way that Trigger develops and interweaves with Eraser Head’s past, present, and future, “The Man Returns” flirts with some of the most interesting narratives the prequel series has created so far. It’s just noteworthy that none of them involve the touted protagonist. 

My Hero Academia Vigilantes Season 2 Episode 5 is available now on Crunchyroll. 

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