Vigilantes Season 2 Episode 1 Review: A Slow Start or Just a Warmup Before Koichi Acts?

We waited a year for this?

My Hero Academia: Vigilantes Season 2 is here, and... well, it’s certainly colorful. But if you tuned in expecting Koichi to be sliding around beating up villains, you probably fell asleep halfway through.

Episode 1, "The Idol's Burden," decides to bench our main character in favor of a Pop☆Step concert.

The "School Festival" Syndrome

Remember the School Festival arc in the main series? Where we spent weeks watching Deku learn to dance instead of fighting villains?

This episode feels exactly like that.

We get 15 minutes of Pop☆Step dealing with idol drama, agency contracts, and backstage politics. It’s well-animated, sure (Studio Bones Film didn't cheap out on the dance choreography), but it feels like a different genre. This is supposed to be Vigilantes, the gritty street-level spinoff. Instead, we got Oshi no Ko with quirks.

Where is Koichi?

Koichi (The Crawler) is relegated to the background, literally cleaning up trash after the concert.

While this fits his character (he is the ultimate nice guy janitor), it’s a frustrating way to open a season. We know the stakes are rising. We know Number 6 is out there. So spending the premiere on a subplot about Pop Step's popularity ranking feels like a stall tactic.

Don't drop it yet.

Manga readers know what’s coming. This "idol phase" is the calm before the storm. The series is disarming you with cuteness before it pulls the rug out. It’s a slow burn, but once the flame catches, it’s going to burn Tokyo to the ground.

Score: 7.5/10

Pros: Animation is clean, Pop Step is cute.

Cons: Pacing is glacial, Koichi does nothing.