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This review contains spoilers for My Hero Academia Season 4, episode 18, “School Festival,” aka episode 81 overall. To refresh your memory of where we left off, check out our review of MHA Season 4, episode 17.

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Back in Season 2, My Hero Academia confidently proved it had the chops to inject new life and excitement into the tired shonen tradition of the ‘tournament arc’. The UA Sports Festival turned out to be one of the show’s highlights, and was, arguably, the arc that allowed My Hero Academia to flex its muscles and show that it is one of the best shonen anime to ever grace our screens. And now, as we enter the final stretch of Season 4, we are treated to a whole new, vibrant, and fun-filled arc: the School Festival.

This episode is split into three acts: the first is the announcement and planning of the School Festival, the second is a sweet extended scene between Midoriya, Mirio, and Eri. The third is a villain-related final act that’s too good to spoil here. Every one of these acts is tonally perfect, full of color and vibrancy, and feels custom-designed to cheer fans up. This is the kind of episode to be re-watched on a rainy Sunday afternoon, so bursting at the seams is it with cheery melodies, optimistic and enthusiastic characters, and excitement for things to come. Everything is on the up; the whole episode is about the clouds clearing and the sun coming out.

After an impactful and emotionally draining arc that ended with the most explosive conclusion we’ve seen so far in My Hero Academia, followed by two episodes that were marred with issues of theme, tone, and pacing (amongst other issues), it feels so good to have an episode not only deliver on hype, humor, and happiness, but to also do so by nailing every aspect of its execution, from its animation to its writing and voice acting.

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The music of this episode is especially outstanding, with experimental blends of guitar-led rock riffs and choir-infused classical pieces. One particular track late in the episode begins with a jaunty acoustic strum, is injected with a groovy bass line, and suddenly a flood of synths and strings enter the fray to make for one of the sweetest melodies ever heard in the show’s history. All of this stellar music doesn’t just add to the bright fun factor of the episode, but also provides some gravity to the surprising emotional range on display here.

In the most exciting moments, as members of Class 1-A throw out their ideas for the School Festival, and in the most uplifting and inspiring, like when Kyoka is encouraged to talk about and be proud of her passion for music, the accompanying tracks are always outstanding. In an episode so centered around song and dance, it only makes sense to have the music be as good as it can be, but it really is phenomenal here, and does a lot to elevate the already electric atmosphere of the episode to new heights.

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Beyond the music and the emphasis on jolly festivities, “School Festival” still manages to give us some excellent character-focused moments filled with insight, growth, and introspection, with Eri and Kyoka taking center stage. In the first act Class 1-A are given the good news by a grumpy Aizawa that they’ll be hosting the School Festival; following this comes a machine-gunning of hilarious one-liners and pitch-perfect banter, with Mineta getting satisfyingly strung up as the punchline. But the character focus comes in the form of Kyoka’s relationship with her passion for music which she convinces herself has no place at school or in the hero business. It’s touching and humanizing, made even better by a few choice moments shared between her and Kaminari that prove to be suitably brief but sweetly touching.

Having more face time with Eri is hugely appreciated as well. So much of her character until now has been defined by her relationship with Overhaul, and the impact of that relationship is both seen and felt here. The way in which the show implies her PTSD is affecting and brutal, and yet she has also been rounded out and provided solid dimension that we’re only going to see grow from here.

The winners of this year’s The Anime Awards, which are presented by Crunchyroll and held at its headquarters in San Francisco, have been revealed and Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba won Anime of the Year.

Demon Slayer also won Best Boy for Tanjiro Kamado and Best Fight Scene for the battle of Tanjiro & Nezuko vs Rui. Mob Psycho 100 II, which IGN awarded Best Anime Series of 2019 and Best Animation of 2019, won Best Animation and Best Opening Sequence.

KAGUYA SAMA: LOVE IS WAR won three categories – Best Ending Sequence, Best Couple, and Best Comedy. Other anime who won multiple awards included The Rising of Shield Hero and The Promised Neverland.

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See the full list of winners at the Fourth Annual Crunchyroll Anime Awards below:

• Anime of the Year – Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba
• Best Animation – Mob Psycho 100 II
• Best Opening Sequence – Mob Psycho 100 II, ♪ 99.9 – MOB CHOIR feat. sajou no hana
• Best Ending Sequence – KAGUYA-SAMA: LOVE IS WAR, ♪ Chikatto Chika Chikaa♡ – Konomi Kohara
• Best Boy – Tanjiro Kamado, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba
• Best Girl – Raphtalia, The Rising of the Shield Hero
• Best Score – Mocky, Carole & Tuesday
• Best VA Performance (JP) – Yuichi Nakamura voices Bruno Bucciarati in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind
• Best VA Performance (EN) – Billy Kametz voices Naofumi in The Rising of the Shield Hero
• Best Director – Tetsuro Araki, Chief Director and Masashi Koizuka, Director – Attack on Titan Season 3
• Best Best Character Design – Satoshi Iwataki, Original Character Design by Hiroyuki Asada, Dororo
• Best Protagonist – Senku, Dr. STONE
• Best Antagonist – Isabella, The Promised Neverland
• Best Fight Scene – Tanjiro & Nezuko vs. Rui, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba
• Best Couple – Kaguya Shinomiya & Miyuki Shirogane, KAGUYA-SAMA: LOVE IS WAR
• Best Drama – Vinland Saga, WIT STUDIO
• Best Fantasy – The Promised Neverland, CloverWorks
• Best Comedy – KAGUYA-SAMA: LOVE IS WAR, A-1 Pictures

Additionally, George Wada, president of Wit Studio, was celebrated as the Industry Icon of this year’s Anime Awards. Wada oversees such series as Attack on Titan, The Ancient Magus’ Bride, and Vinland Saga.

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The results for this year’s Anime Awards were based on over 11 million votes cast by fans from around the world. This is a huge increase over 2019’s 5 million votes. The top five countries that voted this year were the United States, Brazil, Mexico, the United Kingdom, and Canada.

Alongside all the award announcements, Crunchyroll revealed that four new titles would be coming to its platform, including The 8th Son? Are You Kidding Me? (April 2020), My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom! (April 2020), The Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime Season 2 (Fall 2020), and So I’m a Spider, So What? (2020).

For more on Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, check out our op-ed on why we think it earned the right to be called one of the best new anime of 2019.

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Disclosure: IGN’s Miranda Sanchez was a presenter at Crunchyroll’s Fourth Annual Anime Awards.

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Have a tip for us? Want to discuss a possible story? Please send an email to [email protected].

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.

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Only released a few days ago on PlayStation 4, players are already hard at work designing their own creations in Media Molecule’s Dreams. One of the most impressive creations so far is a complete 3D recreation of Stardew Valley’s Pelican Town.

Creator Tooshi, a YouTuber who produces a ton of Stardew Valley videos, shared the remake on Twitter, taking viewers on a quick tour of Pelican Town which features some of Stardew Valley’s most recognizable locations like Jojomart and Stardrop Saloon. Check out the trailer he created at the top of the page.

The Dreams recreation is almost identical to that of Stardew Valley and even allows players to visit various NPC homes — although you can’t go inside. If you’d like to check out the creation for yourself, it can be downloaded for free on the Dreams website. Here’s a birds-eye view of Pelican Town.

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Tooshi detailed the process of his Stardew Valley Dreams creation on YouTube for those interested. You can also find tons of other Stardew creations on his YouTube channel.

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Dreams has been home to tons of different fan creations over the past few months, including Mario, Sonic, and Pokemon creations. Dreams’ early access came to an end in December and released on PS4 earlier this month. Some creators have even created “demakes” of modern games reimagined as PS1 classics, such as this PS1 demake of The Last of Us Part 2 by YouTuber Bearly Regal.

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If you’re interested in the game, be sure to check out our Dreams review as well as a short history of how Dreams came to be. If you’re wondering whether or not Dreams is a legit game design tool, check out an actual game developer’s review of Dreams.

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Andrew Smith is a freelance contributor with IGN. Follow him on Twitter @_andrewtsmith.

Ubisoft has announced Operation Void Edge, the first season of Rainbow Six Siege Year 5. As is tradition, the season adds DLC in the form of two new Operators – Iana and Oryx – a map rework, and a few tweaks to keep the game balanced.

Unlike Siege’s previous operation, which introduced new Operators designed to be fresh alternatives to pre-existing roles, Operation Void Edge’s characters bring wholly new gameplay elements to Rainbow Six. In short: controllable decoy scout holograms and the ability to leap through walls and hatches.

First up is Iana, who is perhaps Siege’s most sci-fi attacker yet. A Dutch operator who previously worked as part of the European space project, her gadget, the Gemini Replicator, creates a controllable holographic copy of herself. Essentially a walking version of Alibi’s Prisma, when activated you effectively (for lack of a better term) leap out of Iana’s body and into the hologram.

Controlling the Gemini Replicator is identical to using a regular Operator, although the hologram cannot shoot, melee, deploy secondary gadgets, climb ladders, or use rappel ropes. It does produce footsteps and noise, though, and so can be used to convince an enemy that an attacker is moving towards their position. Essentially, the Gemini Replicator is a drone that looks like a human, which puts an interesting spin on intelligence gathering.

Unlike an Alibi Prisma hologram, the Gemini Replicator can only be used for a short period of time, and there is a cooldown between uses, which is longer if an enemy destroys the device. Shooting the hologram anywhere in its ‘body mass’ will destroy it, and Mute’s Signal Disruptor will also prevent it from working.

With a 2 speed and 2 armor rating, Iana is a medium-balanced operator. She’s equipped with the popular G36C, previously only used by Ash, and the ARX200 that was first introduced as part of Nomad’s loadout. In her secondary slots is a 9mm MK1, and the option of either smoke or frag grenades.

On defense is Oryx, a Jordanian defender who, like Caviera, has no gadget. Instead he has an ability, Remah Dash, that allows him to charge over short distances and even – at the cost of 10 health points – run through breakable walls. Yup, he’s basically the Kool-Aid Man. The dash can also be used to knock down opponents, which seems especially useful against shield operators like Montagne and Blitz.

As you can imagine, he’s a relatively speedy defender (2 speed, 2 armor), and that athleticism also allows him a second unique passive ability: he can jump up through broken hatches. This is invaluable for quick rotation between split level bomb sites, and makes him perhaps Siege’s most effective roamer.

Oryx’s loadout consists of the MP5LI and the SPAS-12 shotgun, and the Bailiff 410 and USPc40 pistols, plus a choice of barbed wire or bulletproof camera. By having shotgun options on both his primary and secondary, it means Oryx can always have a way to blow through hatches and make a quick rotation. Meanwhile, Remah Dash means he’s effectively a human Impact Grenade when it comes to removing walls between sites.

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As with all Siege operations, Void Edge comes with a map component. It’s another rework, this time to Oregon. The cultist base location has been a firm favourite in the Siege community since launch, and has essentially been untouched due to how well designed it is. But Void Edge makes a few small but important alterations, with the biggest of them being the removal of the Tower bomb site. It has been relocated to Meeting Hall and Kitchen, which will hopefully make it a more viable site for both attackers and defenders.

Other changes have made many areas more open, as well as creating better rotation routes. A new freezer room has been added to the basement with a set of stairs up to the first floor, meaning attackers now have a third entry point into a site that has typically been kinder to defenders. The map now features a few more breakable walls than previously, which certainly feels at least partly done in order to introduce Oryx in an environment perfectly designed for his toolset.

Tweaks and balance changes are an important part of every Siege season, and Void Edge makes some major changes to both Twitch and Lesion. Twitch’s drones now have 3 barbs in a magazine, down from 5, although they will recharge over time, akin to Echo’s Yokai drone. The barbs now only do one point of damage instead of 10, focusing their use on gadget destruction rather than damaging players.

Lesion’s Gu Mines now do not deal damage when triggered, but each ‘sting’ they inflict while a needle is stuck in an enemy player will do two extra damage. Downed operators who crawl over Gu Mines will not trigger them, meaning that Lesion should cause less cheap kills. The icons that indicate Gu Mines on the HUD have been entirely removed unless Lesion is in direct line of sight of them, meaning it’s now harder to tell which mines have been triggered. Overall, the focus seems on making Lesion more of Operator designed to slow attackers, rather than gather accurate situational intelligence based on which mines are triggered.

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Year 4 struggled to offer many Operator options that felt truly viable; Nokk and Warden seemed to have become obscure within weeks of launch, while Amaru and Goyo still don’t quite seem to have hit their stride. Year 5 seems to be kicking off with a much better start, though.

Iana’s hologram is a simple, effective gadget that combines the best of the traditional drone with some fun decoy tactics. However, it’s Oryx that’s certainly the star of Void Edge. His destructive dash is the lure, but it’s his hatch-leaping ability that will hopefully see him become a firm favourite for roamers. It may be similar to Amaru’s grapple in many ways, but it’s an ability that will simply be more valuable to mobile defenders.

For more Rainbow Six Siege, check out our documentary Saving Siege, the full story of the game’s development and journey to FPS domination. Or for something a bit more fun, take a look at Ubisoft’s developers rating IGN’s Operator designs.

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Matt Purslow is IGN’s UK News and Entertainment Writer, and a little upset at what Ubisoft has done to Lesion, even though it’s clearly the right move. You can follow him on Twitter. 

Zoe Kravitz, who stars in Hulu’s new adaptation of High Fidelity, has started working on Matt Reeves’ The Batman, where she’ll play Selina Kyle/Catwoman opposite Robert Pattinson’s Bruce Wayne/Batman.

While doing press for High Fidelity, Kravitz spoke to Variety about co-starring with Pattinson and their time training together.

“I’ve never worked with him before,” she said, “but we’ve been together for the last few weeks. I had to camera test with him and now we’ve been training together and rehearsing together and he’s just a delightful person and such a wonderful, thoughtful actor.”

“I think he’s perfect for the role,” Kravitz added, “and it’s going to be such an adventure. I’m excited to have him as my partner in crime and to be there to support each other, because it’s intense. It’s going to be a long shoot and there’s a lot of pressure, and I know he has my back and I have his.”

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Recently, director Matt Reeves posted a camera test to Twitter, revealing Pattinson as Batman, drawing a few Daredevil comparisons, and making some theorize that the bat symbol on his chest is constructed of the gun that killed Thomas and Martha Wayne.

With Pattinson’s costume partially unveiled, we ranked all the movie batsuits – from Adam West’s camp classic to Michael Keaton’s gothic greatness to Ben Affleck’s Superman-smashing armor.

You can also check out our review of Hulu’s High Fidelity, starring Zoe Kravitz, here.

The Batman is scheduled to be released on June 25, 2021.

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Matt Fowler is a writer for IGN and a member of the Television Critics Association. Follow him on Twitter at @TheMattFowler and Facebook at Facebook.com/MattBFowler.

Tom Holland and Chris Pratt are going on their next marvelous adventure in Pixar and Disney’s new animated movie Onward. IGN will bring you into the adventure by being Disney’s exclusive live stream partner from the red carpet premiere in Hollywood on February 18th!

In addition to interviews with Holland and Pratt, IGN’s hosts Max Scoville and Sydnee Goodman will also be speaking with the incredible voice cast, including Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Octavia Spencer, to the creative team behind the movie, like director Dan Scanlon and executive producer Pete Docter.

And, to top it all off, if you tune into the livestream you’ll get an early look at the new Pixar movie in the form of an exclusive clip!

Here are the important details you need to know:

For more about Onward, be sure to watch the trailer for Pixar’s latest below:

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Set in a suburban fantasy world, Disney and Pixar’s Onward introduces two teenage elf brothers (voices of Chris Pratt and Tom Holland) who embark on an extraordinary quest to discover if there is still a little magic left out there. A new trailer and poster are now available, and new character posters were recently revealed, introducing cast members Mel Rodriguez, who voices Officer Colt Bronco; Lena Waithe, who lends her voice to Officer Specter; and Ali Wong, the voice of Officer Gore.

Directed by Dan Scanlon and produced by Kori Rae, Onward opens in U.S. theaters on March 6, 2020.

Be sure to drop in your questions for the cast and creators in the comments section below for a chance for them to be asked live!

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It’s been quite the first year for Apex Legends, Respawn’s battle royale game. Over its first year, Apex Legends saw numerous changes and in-game adjustments–ranging from the addition of new characters and weapons to the implementation of daily/weekly challenges and limited-time events. Now, the battle royale game is going into its second year with Season 4: Assimilation, which adds new character Revenant, the Sentinel sniper rifle, map changes, a battle pass, and several other in-game adjustments.

With the start of Year 2, Respawn wants to tackle Apex Legends a little differently. Whereas Season 1: Wild Frontier, Season 2: Battle Charge, and Season 3: Meltdown were all designed to establish Apex Legends’ identity, Assimilation kicks off a year where Respawn wants to be more innovative–both in terms of what Apex Legends can offer its community as well as what the gaming industry can expect from a battle royale game. Respawn doesn’t want to abandon its style of episodic storytelling, though.

Year 2: A Year To Innovate

“If you’re getting a theme here for our second year, it really centers around innovation,” Respawn COO Dusty Welch said in an interview with GameSpot. “You think about the first year of launching something, a new IP successfully, and a team that had not engaged in live service before. And so there’s a lot of muscle memory you have to build up and you’ve got to find your stride, and you’ve got to protect the team and the team health along the way. You’ve got to find that sweet spot.”

Respawn excels at storytelling and building strong characters, something the team has managed to implement to some extent in all of its existing games. Even the original Titanfall, with its weak campaign, at least introduced characters that fans fell in love with–most notably Blisk, who’s gone on to be one of the most recognizable characters in the Titanfall/Apex Legends universe.

“There are games in the [battle royale genre] that [are] multiplayer-only,” Welch said. “We want to bring something new. And we think that storytelling–finding a reason for people to really care and latch on to the game on a meaningful and personal level, have that emotional connection to a character–is so much deeper, so much better than not having it. [Players] get invested in that story and the interplay, and they’re buddies with their characters as well, and how they play with each other in the game.”

Continuing To Surprise With Episodic Storytelling

This emphasis on storytelling can be most clearly felt in the final weeks of Meltdown, when Respawn was beginning to advertise what was coming in Assimilation. It pulled the rug under us and introduced a new playable character by relying on misdirection rather than an outright announcement. Initially promoting the seemingly melee-focused Forge, Respawn both adopted the persona of a news anchor to tease story developments on a day-by-day basis and also implemented in-game map changes to further sell the narrative–all of which built a fair amount of hype for the new character. Ultimately, however, Forge was killed by Revenant, the true new playable character.

Though other developers have done similar in-game, day-to-day marketing strategies for their multiplayer games (Epic managed to get its players invested in Fortnite every day for week-long periods with stunts like the giant purple cube and the black hole), it’s rarer to see a team adopt this strategy to tell a game’s story. It emulates the structure of an episodic game, where you’re given the narrative piece by piece every few days as opposed to one large chunk.

“Not being a writer, I don’t want to speak too much for them, but, to me, [Apex Legends] is episodic,” Apex Legends game director Chad Grenier said. “We treat it mostly like that, where each season we figure out what story we want to tell that season. Who’s the new character? How do they play into the past and the present and the future?”

The major difference between Apex Legends and an episodic game, of course, is that Apex Legends is a games-as-a-service title that constantly builds on itself. So if you want to know the story of Apex Legends, you need to stay invested to see it unfold. Those who are just getting into the game right now, for example, can’t ever go back and witness the confusion of the community back in Wild Frontier when the Kings Canyon Repulsor Tower was turned on for the first time to get rid of the flyers that had begun sneaking into the arena, all of which hinted at the major map changes coming in Battle Charge. They can only read articles and old forum posts about what it was like–it can never be experienced first-hand ever again.

Since the beginning, Respawn has leaned into the mystique such a form of storytelling can create by dropping hints that gets fans speculating and theorizing as to what’s going to happen next. And the team is devoted to maintaining this level of mystery going forward into Assimilation and beyond, as implied when I asked about the shadow wolves/dogs that may or may not be running around the new Planet Harvester in World’s Edge and the howling/barking sounds that may or may not be faintly echoing throughout the canyon on the map–all of which may or may not be teasing the upcoming addition of Loba, a new character who may or may not have been hinted at in the Assimilation cinematic launch trailer. “I don’t think we should say anything about that,” Grenier said, laughing. “I think you guys should just keep playing and see what happens.”

“Not talking about the barking, but the storytelling and the crafting of lore was a very purposeful franchise decision from the outset of creation, and we’re super happy that it’s come together,” Welch added. “People are begging us for more and the team here loves it and are really starting to riff and run with it now. We’re just getting started.”

Unlike an episodic game, which usually has an established narrative arc, Apex Legends’ endpoint is allowed to fluctuate however Respawn wants. The team can use the very nature of a games-as-a-service title to both make quick adjustments to Apex Legends’ story or find new ways to tell it–going beyond animated shorts and in-game map changes, for example, and using a made-up news station to tell the story of a crime as details are uncovered.

[The storytelling] is actually pretty free-form,” Grenier said. “We have a really creative team, both on the dev side and the marketing side, and everybody is sort of involved in working on the game. So it could just start as a hallway conversation or a random idea at dinner. And just like anything in this company, people will jump on a great idea and people get really passionate and involved. So we don’t have a structured plan of how to do these things. It’s just sort of the result of a lot of really passionate and talented people being in the same room and talking about these things. We hope to not stick to a formula, necessarily. We like to surprise our fans.”

Making Limited-Time Game Modes Into Permanent Add-Ons

The team isn’t content to only experiment with new ways of storytelling either, as there are plans to continue using the limited-time modes to glean additional insight into the Apex Legends’ playerbase and see what type of new content could work. “Sometimes we do learn valuable information,” Grenier said, in regards to the limited-time modes. “We did a limited-time mode for Solos, and we saw how that impacted the game and the playerbase, who engaged with it and who didn’t, and we learned quite a bit. So you might see that coming back in the future with some tweaks. Same with Duos–we learned a lot, we brought it back.”

“We understand that the fans of the game want these other modes to play, and we want them to have those modes as well,” he continued. “But we need to make sure that we’re introducing them in a way that is healthy for the game and doesn’t take away from all the other great parts of the game. One risk that we have to watch out for is dividing our player base, so we need to make sure that people are still able to find matches, whether it’s in Trios or Solos, or whatever the modes might be. The goal isn’t to take it away from players. The goal is to bring it back in a healthy way that both makes the fans happy and also doesn’t make the overall game experience worse. And so that’s what we’re doing now.”

Dividing the fanbase up too much is an all too familiar situation for Respawn. Despite the niche popularity of Titanfall 2, many of its multiplayer modes like Last Titan Standing and Bounty Hunt saw a massive decrease in players a year out. Nowadays, Attrition is really the only mode you can reliably find matches for. Having choices is good, but only if people are logging into all the ones being offered–otherwise, your playerbase suffers. It’s understandable that the team wants to be careful about how it implements new modes in a permanent capacity.

In the meantime, players can continue to expect to see new limited-time modes make their way into Apex Legends throughout Year 2. And Grenier says that fans can anticipate that some of them will continue to embody the wonderfully odd weirdness of the limited-time modes rotated into Apex Legends throughout Grand Soirée Arcade. “I’ll throw out something that’s just sort of peak weirdness,” he said. “Internally, we had a designer prototype a game mode that would be for a limited time, and it involves bananas–actual bunches of bananas. Now, whether they’re bananas when [the mode] is released into the game, probably not. But that is kind of what happens internally, as far as weird goes. There are lots of crazy ideas.”

Don’t change the bananas, Respawn. I want this unannounced banana mode–I want it so badly.