The My Hero Academia panel at Comic Con 2019 hosted by Funimation social content producer Lauren Moore featured a preview of the first episode of season 4, as well as the world premiere of the English dubbed season 4 trailer. Unfortunately, they did not show a complete episode as they did at Anime Expo two weeks ago.
The panel was mostly intended as a celebration of the My Hero Academia franchise, with a specific focus on the anime. Although they did briefly promote the mangas licensed by Viz Media, including the Vigilantes and Smash spinoffs and in addition to the School Briefs novels.
Funimation brought in voice actors Justin Briner, Clifford Chapin, and Kellen Goff, who play Izuku Midoriya, Katsuki Bakugo, and Overhaul respectively, as is typical for a convention panel. Much less typically, they also brought in Marcus Davenport, defensive end for the New Orleans Saints, and Adam Gettis, guard for the Atlanta Falcons.
Having two professional football players on a shonen anime panel is an unorthodox choice, but Funimation is making a point about how mainstream anime is becoming. Davenport and Gettis discussed not only their love of My Hero Academia, but also anime in general and the ubiquity of anime fandom in the National Football League.
To the point that Marcus Davenport’s teammate on the Atlanta Falcons, wide receiver Mohamed Sanu, appeared at a Funimation Dragon Ball panel later the same day. Davenport laughed that before arriving in San Diego, he didn’t even know Sanu was an anime fan, despite having lockers side by side. (After seeing the Dragon Ball panel, I wonder how this could be true, since Sanu showed off the impressive Vegeta tattoo on his forearm).
It was a unique perspective on the popular anime series, which has certainly been discussed at great length in many different forums. Much of the panel was devoted to question and answer from Lauren Moore to the panelists. Kellen Goff struggled to answer questions without season four spoilers, since his character, Overhaul, first appears in the upcoming season. Goff joked that he was the Tom Holland (who plays Spider-Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe) of the panel.
Questions included what quirks the panelists would like to have (and what quirks they think they possess in real life), favorite moments in the series, and what they’re excited about in season 4. The panelists gave fun answers, including interesting fan thoughts from the two football players.
But the real highlight was the preview of the season 4 anime. Funimation brought their English dub of the first episode and showed two scenes: one where Overhaul first meets Shigaraki, which included my personal favorite character, Himiko Toga. It was nice to see her again.
The other scene had Izuku in a job interview with Sir Nighteye about doing a work study with his hero agency. It was a high-tension scene and Funimation cut the clip right before the climax. I’m mad and don’t want to wait until October to find out. Maybe I’ll have to pop open the manga.
Unfortunately, the most hyped feature of the panel, arm wrestling among the panelists, did not come to pass. I feel cheated that I will never know if Justin Briner would win a match against Marcus Davenport.
