My Hero Academia Season Four Episode 17, Relief for Licence Trainees Review: Surprisingly Great.

I felt that, after the average sixteenth episode of the fourth season of My Hero Academia, the seventeenth episode would be about the same.
So, imagine my surprise when I found that episode 17, “Relief for Licence Trainees ”, was actually pretty great.
I have read the manga and I don’t remember being particularly engaged during this section of it but something about the way it was adapted in the anime made me invested.
Starting off, the beginning moments of Todoroki, Bakugo, Inasa and Camie trying to win over the children ends great with the aspiring heroes using their quirks to create a playground to entertain them.
This resulted in some fantastic animation that really surprised me.
I would say that, while “Infinite 100%” has the best animation of the season so far by a wide margin, “Relief for Licence Trainees ” has the second best animation.
The use of Camie’s quirk to create illusions, along with Todoroki’s ice slide make for a beautiful visual.
Another thing that I greatly appreciated is how they kept an important piece of Bakugo’s development.
Last episode, one of these moments was cut, so it was great to see Bakugo grab the lead kid’s hand and tell them not to look down on others or they will never realize their own flaws.
This shows just how Bakugo has changed from the arrogant bully of the first season, even if he is still incredibly aggressive in his actions.
Meeting outside the building, we then get a continuation of the beginning of Endeavor’s redemption.
In a scene that visually resembles Deku and All Might’s conversation in episode four, Endeavor tries to make up with Todoroki, telling his son that he is proud of him and will now try to work towards being a hero that he can be proud of.
The change in the pro-hero even seems to spark Inasa into action because, after punching himself in the face, he tells Endeavor that he will be cheering him on.
This moment both shows great changes in the character of Endeavor and Inasa and also provides brilliant humor, which can also be seen through Camie’s illusion of Todoroki and how Bakugo reacts to it at the beginning of the episode.
But it is with Aoyama’s weird behavior that the true humor of this episode lies because he starts trying to befriend Deku in what are pretty creepy, yet funny, ways.
From his feeding Deku cheese when he is not expecting it, to sneaking by Deku’s dorm room and leaving a cheese message for him.
The horror music during this second event really sells the impression that Aoyama has some kind of sinister intent, which is what I felt when reading the manga because, back then, I though this was Horikoshi hinting that Aoyama was the traitor.
Thankfully, this was all just Aoyama’s unique way of trying to become friends with Deku because he found them to be similar because they both have trouble controlling their quirks.
So, all in all, “Relief for Licence Trainees ” is an episode that surprised me because of how enjoyable I found it to be.
With fantastic animation, some great growth for Endeavor and Aoyama and some hilarious moments, it definitely left more of an impression than I thought it would going in.