The world of My Hero Academia is one of schools that provide licenses and allow individuals with extraordinary powers to become public servants who partake in superhero operations. But there is also another kind of superpowered fighter: people who develop their powers and fight criminals under the radar, without authorization or public recognition. Are they villains? Are they heroes? Are they something else? Koichi Haimawari is about to find out. Despite his admiration for the Symbol of Peace, All Might, the superhero life is closed off to him. His power, to slip over pavement when he crawls as fast as a slow bike, would never allow him to enter any hero school or pass an exam. People admire what they see when they look up, he tells us, and not what they see when they look down. Consequently, he completes his degree at college while working late hours at a store, and sometimes puts on some All Might cosplay and does some volunteering. But to his misfortune, he is now on the wrong side of a trio of local delinquents whom he cannot evade forever. When they finally corner him, they also get Pop☆Step, an aspiring idol with a small following. And when things look most bleak, a grinning figure appears in the night…

The dark vigilante kind of superhero is as traditional in the genre as the glorious champion of justice: Superman was created in 1938, and by 1939, Batman was fighting mobsters and supercriminals in rough streets and dark alleys. That parallel gives this spin-off an organic feeling and a lot of storytelling potential. Here is an unexplored area of the MHA world that is in tension with the one we know, and yet which has a logical reason for its existence. Knuckleduster, the grinning man, brings to mind one of the most deranged versions of Batman, the grizzled, crazed vigilante from The Dark Knight Returns, while Pop☆Step and Koichi occupy the traditional places of Batgirl and Robin. Despite this, the episode has a more lighthearted tone than the current season of MHA, bringing to mind the early seasons, and is thus a welcome refresher. Though Vigilantes hasn’t made the case just yet that these alternative superheroes are also needed in this world, I think it will have no difficulty doing so: crime never sleeps, and those who specifically know the area may have an advantage over an outsider. Koichi is already a different enough narrative voice from Izuku Midoriya: He’s more resigned, less emotional, more worldly. It seems he will be a guiding light to Knuckleduster just as much as the grinning rescuer was for him, which is the classic Robin arc. The graphics are as good as ever, and so is the music. The comic-style onomatopoeia effects are a welcome addition. My only real complaint is Pop☆Step’s swimsuit-style outfit, but hey, you can’t have everything. Here we go again! Plus ultra!

My Hero Academia: Vigilantes can be streamed on Crunchyroll.