If a manufacturer can’t offer perfect blacks in a television, then they better put a ton of horsepower behind pure panel brightness and color quality. That appears to be what Samsung aimed for here with the QN90B.

While it can’t hit the “inky” blacks of an OLED, the Mini LED array and Quantum Dots make up for it with enough brightness and glare resistance to offer a great viewing experience even in a brightly lit room. But as good as the panel is, Samsung’s frustrating software along with its high asking price holds the QN90B back.

Samsung QN90B – Design and Build

The QN90B is an attractive television when viewed from the front or the side. If you’re not going to wall mount it, the included stand is both heavy and sturdy while also managing to look nice below what is basically an uninterrupted giant screen.

Most televisions these days look basically the same now as they aim to put as much emphasis on what is displayed than on anything else. Samsung’s stand design lets it do that but also raises the panel up above your console just enough to fit most slim form-factor soundbars comfortably underneath, something that the Sony A95K doesn’t allow you to do, even if that stand is a real show stopper.

So while the QN90B isn’t going to drop your jaw quite like that, it’s far more practical for more people.

If the trend of big, thin, and heavy that comes with some televisions (especially OLEDs) scares you, not to worry: the QN90B is very light by comparison and a lot tougher. While it is still quite thin for a non-OLED, it feels a lot less like you’re going to break it while you’re setting it up.

The rear of the TV is just as simple as the front, which is nice to look at but it does result in some downsides. For one, it’s hard to tell what any of the ports are because the labels are either very subtle or missing altogether. Luckily, the eARC port can be located pretty quickly and since all four HDMI ports support full bandwidth HDMI 2.1 (which is required to get 4K at 120Hz on current-generation consoles), you probably won’t need to poke around that much back there. The QN90B supports FreeSync Premium Pro, G-Sync, and Variable Refresh Rate (VRR), and Samsung also has a low-frame rate compensation system (LFC) that kicks in when there are low refresh rates to help reduce screen tearing.

In addition to those four HDMI ports, the QN90B has two USB ports, digital optical audio out, a cable coaxial port, and ethernet, but there is no 3.5mm headphone jack. The TV also supports Bluetooth 5.2 and WiFi 5 (not WiFi 6, unfortunately).

The second issue with this super-simple backside is that the cable management is pretty poor. While yes, technically you can run cables through the gutters on the back of the TV and down the rear of the stand, it’s a tedious and often frustrating and fruitless endeavor. It doesn’t fit all cable sizes, such as the extra thick HDMI cables, and I’ve never had any luck with thinner cables (such as the TV’s power cable) staying in place.

Samsung QN90B – The Remote

I have generally been a fan of Samsung’s recent remote controls and that remains the case here. The QN90B’s remote is slim, simple, and features solar charging via a panel on the back. This completely eliminates the need for AA or AAA batteries which does contribute to how slim the remote is.

While I appreciate removing unnecessary buttons like the number pad, Samsung may have gone a bit too simple here. The company combined settings, a digital number pad, and the shortcut tools into one button, which makes accessing any of those three items much slower than if they had their own dedicated button. That is especially ironic for the shortcut menu.

It’s also not that intuitive to get to the Game Bar, which requires that you hold down the Play/Pause button while a compatible gaming console is plugged in. If you miss that prompt on screen, you’ll be mashing buttons until you’re blue in the face to try and get it to pop up.

The remote has four pre-set shortcuts for different services – my review unit featured Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+, and Samsung TV Plus.

Samsung QN90B – Software and UI

Speaking of Samsung’s free streaming service – it is where some of my least favorite aspects of the Samsung Tizen operating system coalesce.

I don’t know anyone who will say they love Tizen, and other reviewers I’ve spoken to are at best lukewarm on it. For me, it has become my least favorite smart TV operating system for a number of reasons.

First and most notably, Samsung shoves Samsung TV Plus down your throat at every opportunity. When you first set up the television and are looking through the settings, it will auto-start the Samsung TV Plus constantly and unrelentingly. I get that it is smart to have some actual content on screen before you decide how you want to view it, but the QN90B has so few picture options that anyone who has some familiarity with televisions is likely just going to set it one mode and leave it there, especially since there are so few options on this television (more on that shortly). You also cannot delete the TV Plus app, at least not through any means I could find.

Tizen also finds multiple clever ways to advertise to you, and by clever I mean extremely intrusive. The main app screen will always have some kind of ad on it, as will the gaming standby screen. The way it is set up, the operating system makes it hard to not hover over the advertisement which will immediately begin to auto-play. This TV loves auto-play and will always be trying to get something to start no matter what your actual desire is at the time. In short, it’s just a lot to be forced to look at for the price that Samsung asks for this TV.

As I touched on above, another issue I have with Tizen is the lack of picture options. The QN90B only offers a choice between Dynamic, Standard, Movie, and Filmmaker modes, and the settings beyond that are extremely limited. Coming from LG and Sony which give you a lot of customization options to choose from, the Samsung QN90B feels sparse by comparison.

For the casual user, this is probably a pro and not a con, since it’s easier to just start watching content and there isn’t a lot you can mess up. I can appreciate that, but I do wish there was a bit more here to support both sides of that equation.

It should also be noted that Samsung still doesn’t support Dolby Vision, but it does support HDR10+.

In addition to the new main gaming menu which I’ll delve into below, Samsung kept the excellent Game Bar which becomes available when the TV senses a connected PC or console. From here, you can adjust input lag settings and display how many frames per second are currently being shown with on-screen content. You can also adjust HDR, variable refresh rate, screen ratio, and a few other game-specific settings. This is pretty much the only menu in this Tizen operating system I really like, and I’m glad to see it here.

One menu shift over from the gaming section is Samsung’s promised support for NFT art, which can be browsed and purchased directly from the QN90B. That art can be set as the ambient screensaver when the TV is not in use if that’s something that interests you.

Samsung QN90B – Cloud Gaming

Samsung has amped up the gaming capability of this television in a way you probably wouldn’t expect: built-in cloud-based game streaming support via a dedicated gaming menu. You are given the choice among a few streaming options like Xbox Game Pass (via the beta of Cloud Gaming), Stadia, and Nvidia GeForce Now. I tested it with Game Pass and an Xbox controller and I have to admit, it’s pretty awesome to be able to fire up Halo Infinite natively on my television without owning an Xbox.

There are obviously some limitations that come with streaming a video game, and resolution is one of them: it’s capped at 720p at the time of publication. Additionally, during cutscenes, some artifacting was visible due to compression.

The Game Bar also doesn’t seem to work in this mode, which I found strange. Instead, a different and far less useful menu appears that shows games I’m not interested in and a very limited set of streaming-specific controls. I wasn’t able to get the television to display the current resolution or framerate as a result, but I don’t think I was getting 60FPS, even though that is what I told Halo to target.

The QN90B doesn’t handle menu selection requests particularly smoothly while playing a game and it can take a few seconds for it to recognize commands, but the actual game plays quite well and was pretty responsive. I was honestly impressed with how well the overall gaming experience felt, especially considering it was being streamed directly to my television with no other hardware needed besides a controller.

I think children specifically are a great audience for this feature since they will be a lot less discerning when it comes to high-end gaming features and the lower overall resolution and framerates aren’t going to be an issue.

Samsung QN90B – Picture Quality

The QN90B panel uses both Quantum Dots and a panel of Mini LEDs, which means it has a lot more control over what is displayed on screen versus a typical LED television, but not quite as much as OLED. I think of Mini LED as a tech that strikes a solid balance between good black levels and excellent brightness, since OLED panels may provide better black levels but they can’t get quite as bright as LED.

Samsung’s Mini LEDs in the QN90B provide very fine control over dimming zones, and while halo-ing around bright objects on screen is minimized, it’s not fully eliminated and I can still see it in testing. That said, it’s not really noticeable at all when watching regular content or while gaming, so most people will be quite happy with the results.

The television is capable of nailing pretty dark blacks as well, though not nearly the “inky” level that you would see in an OLED. But because the QN90B can get so bright – over 1,000 nits of peak brightness in SDR – the contrast ratio is still significant, and as such content looks fantastic on screen.

Straight out of the box, color accuracy is pretty good. I measured 97.4% coverage of sRGB, 76.7% of Adobe RGB, and 91% of DCI P3 with an average Delta-E of 2.55. Samsung touts its QLED televisions as able to achieve 100% of the DCI P3 color space, but obviously, the television did not reach those lofty heights in lab testing though it is possible that could be achieved with professional calibration.

Still, over 90% is very good and while it would have been nice to see a Delta E of less than 2, these results are great for a display that is meant to sit in your living room. I don’t, however, think it would make for a very good computer monitor.

Screen uniformity was also very good: the entire screen either hit nominal or recommended tolerance.

Almost everything looked great on the Samsung QN90B with one exception: there was a bit of stutter when viewing slow panning content. This is a relatively minor complaint as it is not something everyone will notice and it’s really only going to show up in very specific scenes.

I mentioned earlier that I use the Filmmaker Mode picture setting and that is what I recommend for those who pick up the QN90B. Outside of gaming, where you’ll need to stick with the Game Mode, the other three picture modes on this television result in weird colors, especially Dynamic and Standard, where saturation is pushed way beyond where it should be.

Samsung QN90B – Gaming Performance

Gaming on the Samsung QN90B is generally pretty great thanks to the panel’s outstanding brightness, low input lag, and excellent response time. Because the TV has so much dynamic range to work with, HDR gaming in particular can look incredible.

I played mainly Returnal and Destiny 2 on the QN90B and both games looked and played outstandingly. The particle and lighting effects that are at the core of what makes Returnal such a gorgeous game are amped up here to a level that makes them just a joy to look at on screen – even the bits of light that are actively trying to kill you look so fabulous you might not even mind being hit by them.

Gaming at 120Hz in 4K HDR in Destiny 2’s Crucible is also quite nice, and while the combat of those maps often takes attention away from the environments, it’s hard to not marvel at the colors of explosions as much as the subtle details found in hallways or the outstanding skyboxes when seen on the QN90B.

The one issue I ran into is that when in HDR, the television’s panel can be a bit slow to transition between bright and dark, such as a menu and the game world, and from light areas to dark areas.

For example, in Destiny 2, hitting the character menu from anywhere in the game world will cause the screen to briefly flash brightly white and then back to the proper exposure of the menu. Leaving the menu causes it to do that again. The best way I can describe it is akin to how slow autofocus works on older cameras. Sometimes the camera has to overshoot the focus area in order to understand where it is and then come back to proper focus. You do eventually get the photo in focus, but you also have to wait for the camera to calibrate itself every time.

The way the HDR racks in and out of brightness is a bit distracting and every time it does it, it takes me out of the game world just a little bit. It’s even noticeable when changing between games from the Playstation 5 main menu, where icons will flash bright and then dim as I move between games.

Almost every television I’ve tested does this to some degree (and I’ve complained about it before, such as on the Vizio MQ6 Quantum and Samsung’s QN90A), but Samsung’s QN90B is doing it slower and more obviously than many other televisions on the 2022 market, so it stands out.

Samsung QN90B – Audio Quality

Just about every television manufacturer will say something in their marketing about how they’re doing something fancy with audio and it is my experience that they almost always greatly exaggerate reality.

Samsung touts its “object tracking sound” technology that leverages Dolby Atmos to provide surround sound from the television directly, and it certainly does not do that. That said, it’s not terrible and while audio does unsurprisingly lack low-end and even mids, I’ve certainly heard worse from other thin televisions. The QN90B does get pretty loud as well, which is nice.

I think Samsung knows that a slim, flat television isn’t going to be capable of delivering great audio on its own (and that comes down to just the limits of physics) and so – similar to what Sony is doing – the company has a technology that links with Samsung soundbars to combine the audio coming from the TV and the soundbar together. It’s called “Q-Symphony” and while I wasn’t able to test it since I don’t own a Samsung soundbar, it qualifies as a “nice to have” feature.

Samsung QN90B – The Competition

There is a lot to like about the Samsung QN90B, but its $2,600 asking price for a 65-inch set ($1,600 for a 55-inch) feels like a lot, even if it is a Mini LED panel. That’s more than LG’s excellent C2 OLED, and even Samsung’s own new S95B QD OLED isn’t much more expensive for a 65-inch model at $3,000. Sure, these prices are before you might find any sales, but it does go to show what Samsung thinks its Mini LED panel is worth compared to QD OLED, which we know is fantastic since the current TV to beat, the Sony A95K, uses the same panel.

When I look at the QN90B, I think it compares favorably against similar Mini LED-style televisions from the likes of TCL, but it is also a lot more expensive. While yes, I think the picture quality of the QN90B is superior, it’s not so much that it deserves over double the price, especially considering the number of irritations involved with the Tizen operating system.

Since it’s so closely priced to QD OLED and OLED options, the only time the QN90B makes sense is if it is going to live in a room that has a ton of window light. There, its brightness will certainly make it desirable. Otherwise, OLED and QD OLED have better blacks, color, and pixel response time.

Purchasing Guide

The Samsung QN90B is available from Best Buy and Samsung with an MSRP of $2,599 for the 65" model, though it's currently on sale for $2,299.

Paper Girls premieres July 29 on Prime Video.

Paper Girls is the streaming series adaptation of Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang’s recent Image Comics hit of the same name. The Prime Video series faithfully carries over the core story about four paper delivery girls from the suburbs of Cleveland who stumble into a time-traveling opus that hurdles them through several years, starting in 1988 with detours to 1999 and 2019. While it’s been compared to Stranger Things, the tone of the series actually aligns more with Rob Reiner’s 1986 classic Stand By Me, just with a primarily female cast of characters. And it’s those girls in the title who are the standouts of this adaptation, embodied by four young actresses who are all exceptional in selling the realness of their characters and the growing relationships between them. Unfortunately, they often have to overcome some very slow pacing and a time-travel arc that feels vague and less than propulsive.

Season 1 consists of eight episodes, with the first one, “Growing Pains,” doing a lot of the heavy lifting to establish tone, relationships, and basic mythology. Set in Stony Stream, a suburb outside of Cleveland, Ohio, Erin Tieng (Riley Lai Nelet) wakes at 4:30 am for her first day as a carrier for the The Cleveland Preserver newspaper. Determined but nervous, she assures her Chinese mother that she’ll be fine as she sets out by bike. It’s when she’s threatened by a male neighbor for stealing his paper that fellow carrier Tiffany Quilken (Camryn Jones) appears to defend her and then dispense with some tips and tricks of their trade. The two end up connecting with other paper girls – tough girl Mac Coyle (Sofia Rosinsky) and rich girl KJ Brandman (Fina Strazza) – forming a loose alliance against the older teen boys harassing them in the wake of Hell Night. When Tiff’s new walkie talkie is stolen, the girls go to a construction site to get it back and the weirdness begins.

The sky turns an ominous fuschia color, which is straight out of Chiang’s sequential art, and the gang holes up in Mac’s empty house to figure out what’s happening. As the girls wait, they try to navigate the differences in their disparate socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds. Mac, for instance, initially lets loose with the casual racism she’s gotten from her neglectful blue collar dad, while Erin is reticent in opening up about her Chinese-speaking mom because of the lack of acceptance from her bigoeted neighbors. Tiff is the assured intellect of the group while KJ is the peacemaker. When an exterior searchlight freaks them out, an accidental shooting happens, which forces them to head to the hospital. But they’re intercepted by two facially disfigured men in robes who force them into a capsule that dumps them all in 2019.

Observing the men get killed by soldiers in white, futuristic uniforms, the four girls realize the dire straits they’re suddenly in and they run to Erin’s house, where they meet Older Erin (Ali Wong) inside, who is just as confused about everything as they are. But after the initial shock, she allows them to stay as they try to piece together what is happening, and why.

As with all time-travel tales, the rules and minutiae of the premise change based on the individual needs of the story. Paper Girls spends the majority of the season allowing the girls, Older Erin, and others to piece together the specifics of how it happens and determining that it’s a by-product of a ongoing “time war” in the future between the Old Watch, who wants no unauthorized time travel to retain one pure timeline, and STF Underground, who are rebels trying to peel the corrupt power away from those in charge. It’s fairly typical sci-fi stuff, which makes it the least interesting element of the series. However, it drives the plot of the story, so how much you connect to the time mythology is going to be directly related to how patient you are with the show’s slow drip of discovery that comes over the course of eight hours, and how much you really love time-travel paradox stories.

What’s a lot easier to connect to are the four girls. Each year they get stuck in gives the storyline a bit of a reboot as they have to band together anew to get resourceful about keeping themselves alive and figuring out how to get home. And since they’re only 12 years old, there’s also the constant temptation for any of them to find their families, and older selves, to get a glimpse at their futures. All of them succumb and end up relatively disappointed in how their future selves have handled their lives. That translates into some great scenes of existential confrontation, as the optimism of youth butts heads against the realities of age and regret. It’s in those moments, which are peppered judiciously throughout the season, that the time-travel story is at its most interesting. Because the girls are pretty ruthless in their assessments of their destinies, the series remains clear-eyed in its grounded vibe, never delving into the potentially maudlin or cloying – and that’s refreshing.

The cast is also excellent. All four young actresses give performances that are entirely authentic to their ages and their origin era. Each straddles that ineffable line of teen girls who are still clinging to some of their innocence, like not knowing what to do when one of them gets their period, but also coming across like old souls. And that’s only augmented by their time-hopping adventures. When one of them wearily says, “I’m just tired” in the last episode of the season, that’s a line entirely earned and owned by each character. The actresses playing their older selves are also great, with Ali Wong palpably carrying Older Erin’s failures on her person and then shedding it more and more as she comes to protect the girls. Older Tiff (Sekai Abenì), too, is a delight to watch, especially in scenes where she’s pitted against Camryn Jones as the two brainiacs ably spar with one another. Theirs are some of the best scenes in the back half of the season.

As mentioned before, the time-travel antics, which include a Terminator-esque Old Watch soldier (Adina Porter) and Larry (Nate Corddry), a nebulous STF soldier the girls find in their orbit repeatedly, don’t really move the radar in terms of overarching interest. There’s also some out-of-nowhere tech elements that feel like they were lifted from Pacific Rim and disappear as quickly as they show up. Jason Mantzoukas is a welcome presence who adds some lightness to the piece but he’s essentially in a cameo role that needs a lot more fleshing out if more seasons are picked up.

Overall, the series mostly suffers from a lack of propulsion. There is certainly a lot of expansion from the comic book in regards to the lives of the four girls, which is welcome. But the episodes are almost too indulgent when it comes to digging into their lives, especially in 1999 and 2019. The fifth episode does have a welcome burst of CGI action and some major stakes playing out, but the series returns to a simmer until the finale. It’s always a tough call for showrunners to gauge how quickly a new series should burn through story, but in this case, Christopher C. Rogers and his writers could have been more ambitious in getting us deeper into the lore, while adding those emotional moments of character building. Less patient viewers might find Paper Girls too meandering, or derivative of other time-travel stories, and they wouldn’t be wrong. But there’s still plenty to latch onto that makes the ride worthwhile.

If you've been looking for a great set of wireless earbuds, the Apple AirPods Pro are a stellar choice. While they have the best functionality and synergy with iOS devices, you can also pair them with other Bluetooth phones (like the Google Pixel and more) and tech.

Right now, Amazon is selling AirPods Pro with the magsafe charging case for $179, which nets you a very nice savings of $69 off their usual price of $249.

AirPods Pro Sale on Amazon

If you are looking for another sweet piece of tech to pair with these, you can check out the new PlayStation variant of the Backbone One controller for iPhone.

Brian Barnett writes reviews, wiki guides, deals posts, features, and more for IGN. You can get your fix of his antics on Twitter (@Ribnax), Twitch (Ribnax), & YouTube, or check out his weekly video game talk show on Twitch (The Platformers).

Surface debuts globally on July 29 exclusively on Apple TV+.  

A satisfying potboiler mystery is always a fun summer diversion and Apple TV+’s Surface ticks all the boxes for what makes the genre worthy: gorgeous, wealthy characters; a gray moral compass; love triangles; and a lead character with amnesia and no long-term memory. It’s a smorgasbord of tropes but series creator/executive producer Veronica West manages to arrange the pieces in suitably entertaining ways, shifting and playing on our assumptions with enough finesse that the outcome feels unexpected and worth the ride.

Set in the most affluent neighborhoods of San Francisco, Surface opens with Sophie (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) waking from a nightmare of her recent horrific near-drowning. Having fallen from a ferry five months earlier, she’s trying to navigate her “new normal” with no memory of her past, or her present as the wife of James (Oliver Jackson-Cohen), a wealthy VC portfolio manager. She’s spent months convalescing in their gorgeous Victorian home, being doted on by a concerned (and helicoptering) James, and figuring out how to cope with the help of her therapist, Hannah (Marianne Jean-Baptiste), with the aftermath of being told she jumped off the ferry. Everything from the fancy dresses in her closet to the pictures on their walls are mysteries that she trusts James and her best friend Caroline (Ari Graynor) to reveal to her. But Sophie clearly doesn’t believe in the narrative she’s being fed.

As she begins to venture out into the outside world, volunteering at the local hospital and socializing at James’ work soirees, Sophie's curiosity prompts her to look at her own medical records which have some startling notes. And then she’s approached by a stranger, Thomas Baden (Stephan James), who slips her matches to a bar in Chinatown. Intrigued by the possibility of some answers, Sophie ventures to the dive bar and Baden reveals this was her old haunt and that he was the officer assigned to her case after her incident. He spurs her to dig deeper into inconsistencies regarding James’ behavior, and her former selves’ actions.

Like peeling back the layers of an enigmatic onion, Sophie pieces together that her pre-accident self was making some very morally complicated life choices with Baden. And as she continues to pull more aggressively at the threads of her past life — despite her therapist’s warnings — a lot of mess comes bubbling up in her fractured memories. James becomes more fraught with her erratic behavior and they challenge one another about the secrets they’re both keeping. He looks more shifty in his obsession with knowing her whereabouts, while Sophie digs into their marriage with observations by Caroline and James’ best friend, Harrison (François Arnaud).

The “Pilot” episode lays the groundwork for Sophie’s predicament very well, with all of the players in her small circle both helping and hindering her from feeling like she’s getting the true story about her life before. But West and her writers don’t quite get a hold of the pacing of their mystery until Episode 5, “It Comes in Waves.” In it, director Sam Miller plays with Sophie’s increasing impulses to push the boundaries of who she is now, by trying experimental memory recovery, drinking, popping pills, and unrepentantly flip-flopping between James and Baden’s affections. Tripping out at Caroline’s art show flips a switch in opening up Sophie as a character in regards to how she will continue to pursue her history and the “truths” that will continue to make her, and us, swing wildly back and forth, reassessing each new piece of information that comes to light. It’s after this point that the series pushes forward with renewed momentum and cliffhangers that are more propulsive going straight through to the finale.

As a series, Surface is gorgeously shot, portraying an almost fairytale version of San Francisco that’s always glowing with wet streets of reflected neon and neighborhoods only possessing expensive cars and luxuriously appointed abodes. It’s visual wealth porn similarly captured in Big Little Lies or Little Fires Everywhere. It’s not surprising that all three are executive produced by Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine production shingle, so there’s a throughline here of watching the dappled lives of the uber rich deal with their niche problems. However, where Surface acquits itself differently is showing Sophie's distaste and unease with her affluent life. As she struggles with being in her own skin, she’s also not in accord with the life James has built for her and that puts another strain on their relationship, which is interesting and feels authentic in her journey of discovery. That’s expanded upon in the sixth episode, which is one of the better efforts of the season.

The cast is also integral to selling this whole story, with Mbatha-Raw giving a sympathetic yet ambiguous performance as Sophie. She starts as a blank slate innocent, but as more and more of who she was comes into focus, Mbatha-Raw flirts with all the iterations of who Sophie has been and could be. At times, we’re watching her decide which Sophie she wants to be and it’s engaging to watch. Jackson-Cohen vacillates between loving and obsessive well, as his performance leaves us on our toes about whether he’s the cause of her problems or the sad recipient of Sophie’s choices. Graynor is also great at leaving us wondering if she’s a friend or foe. Unfortunately, Stephan James’ Baden isn’t given enough backstory to flesh out beyond the face value, which is really unfortunate because his character feels the most underserved in the story. He’s given scenes where you’re left wanting to know more about his work life or his personal life, but he’s only oriented around Sophie, which means we don’t get much of his internal life outside of his devotion to her.

Maybe the most disappointing element of the series is how it ends. There’s a strong argument that where it's left is just fine, like a great book that leaves you thinking about it for days or weeks. West and her creative team leave us with some answers, some questions but no need to keep going. Yet the very final minutes all but require that, which feels like it's been mandated to stretch the premise, regardless of its plausibility. And that’s always the cardinal sin of a great mystery: not knowing when to end the game.

Both My Hero Academia Season 5 OVAs, "HLB" and "Laugh! As If You Are in Hell," will be available to stream on Crunchyroll on Aug. 1, 2022.

My Hero Academia is back! Kind of. The two new OVAs (Original Video Animation) may not contribute much to the overall plot of the show or offer many clues as to what's coming next, but they are good reminders of what My Hero can do at its best. These standalone stories get you reacquainted with most of the main cast, expand the world of MHA, and also provide enough superpowered laughs and fun to make the wait for Season 6 easier.

OVAs, in general, are not what they used to be. Back in the '80s and '90s, when home video exploded in popularity, they were an avenue to produce edgier, more mature animation that couldn't get past TV sensors. From gory and violent shows like Bubblegum Crisis and Hellsing Ultimate, to experimental ones like FLCL and Gunbuster, or complex, epic sci-fi operas like Legend of the Galactic Heroes, there was an OVA for everything. Nowadays, most high-profile OVAs tend to be short episodes or bonus features released on home video as cool extras to reward fans. Shows like Attack on Titan released OVAs that expanded their world without distracting from the main plot.

My Hero Academia had already released several OVAs, but not to this level of anticipation. After a lackluster reception to Season 5, a smash hit film, and an adaptation of an acclaimed arc coming soon, it is the perfect time for the show to remind us why we've stuck with it for many years, and prepare us for what's to come.

The two new OVAs are as different as they come. HLB, or Hero League Baseball, is essentially an episode-long game of baseball between Gang Orca's hero agency and Lion Hero: Shishido and his agency. Meanwhile, Laugh! As If You Are in Hell feels more like a standard episode of the show, with Midoriya, Bakugo, and Todoroki working with Endeavor to stop a criminal whose quirk makes people around him laugh uncontrollably.

Just like the last time a big shonen anime did a baseball episode (Jujutsu Kaisen), the HLB episode is a hilarious success. Rather than remotely attempt to connect this episode to the events of last season, it is mostly just an excuse to show how superpowers would affect sports in this world. The result is essentially Super Mario Strikers but with baseball — i.e. a no-holds-barred bloodbath. The animation may not reach the hights of the main series, but it still knows when deliver energetic moments of action to highlight the quirks.

And this is what makes this an essential episode for My Hero Academia, even if it doesn't move things forward. It explores a rather mundane part of the show's world and uses its runtime to answer the question of how it would work with superpowers, all while reminding us of which character has which power ahead of the new season. Seeing the over-the-top violent and creative ways the players use their quirks not just to score but to put the other team out of commission is thrilling and some of the most fun the show has been in a long while. Whether it’s Mineta using one of his adhesive spheres disguised as a baseball to knock out the batter using his own strength, or Gang Orca using his sonar to affect the ball's movement, or Shishido just throwing the ball so hard it destroys the home base and knocks out both the batter, the catcher, and even the umpire, it’s all delightful, superpowered madness.

Sadly, the second episode feels more like retreading old ground, focusing on a criminal that must be stopped. That the villain is essentially a Joker-like character does result in some fun scenarios where every character starts laughing uncontrollably. Also, the episode does work well as a season premiere-like recap, bringing us up to speed on where the characters are in their journeys, with Midoriya, Bakugo, and Todoroki still doing their Hero Work-Studies at Endeavor's Agency, and mentions of the Meta Liberation Army and other story beats from last season. Still, it feels rather inconsequential, and the episode ends a bit too abruptly.

Did we need these OVAs? No. Do you need to watch them to understand the previous or the next season? Probably not. That being said, you can still gain something from them. If nothing else, they serve as good reintroductions to this world and these characters before the new season, and the baseball episode is a delightful one-off story I wouldn't mind seeing more of. How does football, or wrestling work with quirks? Maybe we'll find out one day.