Reviews

This side series continues to surprise me with how much I wind up enjoying everything it has on offer! While there are a few sillier things going on in this volume (such as the entire introduction to Captain Celebrity,) we also get some absolutely fascinating world-building and lore/history in this volume!

We're introduced to Detective Tsukauchi's younger sister Makoto, as a potential rival to Kazuho (Pop Step) for our main boy Koichi's affections, as she meets him at the college they both attend and offers to help him with some coursework. In the process, Makoto gives us some background on the history of vigilantes and the establishment of heroes, which really raises some interesting questions and criticisms about the hero system as a whole. Additionally, during this little history lesson, Makoto states the first official heroes were instated in the USA, specifically tied to events in Rhode Island, and that of the nearly 200 operating vigilantes at the time, only 7 were found qualified to be instated as the first heroes. You can imagine on reading this, my inner DC geek was delighted and took this as a silent little nod to the Justice League, given the were 7 founding members and the earliest base of operations was out of Rhode Island before the creation of the Hall of Justice. (And given the sheer number of references to western superheroes that already exist in Vigilantes alone, this isn't out of the question as a possibility!)

We also get to meet Koichi's mom in this volume, as well as spending more time with Makoto and Ingenium, and it really helps to hint at Koichi's growing relationships and his potential for his quirk to become stronger. All of this is good stuff and I'm eating it up!

Additionally, this volume has two special chapters on the side. One is a very lighthearted little story about how All Might and Detective Tsukauchi met and became friends, with the detective coming to share All Might's secret. The other is a meetup of various heroes to discuss the events of the story so far (the Trigger drug and the people who've been affected by it.) We mostly follow Aizawa here as he silently criticizes and points out flaws in Endeavor's logic, and then his resulting discussion with Midnight as they leave the meeting. She announces to him that she is about to start teaching at UA, and as she begins to talk in her rather...uncomfortable way about her excitement for teaching, Aizawa outright tells her that what she's saying is disturbing. (He's not wrong. Keep your kink out of the classroom, Midnight.) From there, the two of them briefly team up to stop a distraught, angry suicide bomber, which...given Midnight's presence, goes about how you might expect. Afterwards, Midnight suggests Aizawa should also consider teaching, which he scoffs at as irrational. Days later she calls him and tells him that she recommended him to Principal Nezu despite Aizawa's objections. Small wonder he's not a great teacher, he never wanted to be there in the first place! Makes you wonder why he said yes.

Anyway, if it wasn't clear, I think everyone who is a fan of the main series should consider picking this up! It's fun and there's a lot you'll get from it, I think.