My Hero Academia Season 7 Episode #4 Release Date & Time

Summary My Hero Academia season 7, episode #4 premieres on Saturday, May 25.

My Hero Academia season 7, episode #3 revealed Aoyama as the traitor and set him up to be a major player in the final arc.

The reveal may have come too late in the series, but it still came with plenty of emotional depth.

My Hero Academia has finally delivered on one of the oldest plot threads in the series, and its resolution sets up season 7, episode #4 to be another episode of big, emotional tension for the final arc. As always, there’s a lot to be excited about with the My Hero Academia anime, and that creates a lot of anticipation for the next episode’s release.

What Time My Hero Academia Season 7, Episode 4 Releases

Produced by Bones, based on the manga by Kohei Horikoshi

My Hero Academia streams on both Crunchyroll and Hulu, which can be accessed through their websites, their apps, or through third-party websites like Amazon Prime and Disney+. Assuming there are no delays, My Hero Academia season 7, episode #4 should premiere on Saturday, May 25 at 2:30 AM Pacific Standard Time (PST), 5:30 AM Eastern Standard Time (EST), and 10:30 AM Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).

What Happened in My Hero Academia Season 7, Episode 3?

The Traitor of U.A. High Was Revealed

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In My Hero Academia season 7, episode #3, “Villain”, as everyone was training for the final battle against Shigaraki and All For One, Hagakure, noticing that Aoyama wasn’t with them and noting how depressed he had been of late, went looking for him to cheer him up. Hagakure stumbled upon Aoyama talking with his parents in the woods, and in doing so, learned a shocking truth: Aoyama was the traitor who had leaked information about U.A. to the League of Villains in the past.

Hagakure got Izuku to listen in with her, and it was further revealed that Aoyama, once born Quirkless, was being forced to work for All For One as payment for being given a Quirk. Aoyama, struggling with both the guilt of his betrayal and his desperate desire to protect his parents, started attacking Izuku, but Hagakure used her Quirk to deflect Aoyama’s attack, Hagakure's face even being briefly exposed for the first time. Hagakure then berated Aoyama for putting everyone in danger, and with him distracted, Izuku could restrain Aoyama and his parents.

Everyone was sympathetic towards Aoyama and understood he didn’t betray them out of malice, but it didn’t change how he still committed a major crime that only added more pressure to their situation. However, as they were going over the ins and outs of how Aoyama contacted All For One, Midoriya realized that Aoyama could help them lure out All For One so they could fight him on their terms, meaning that Aoyama, ironically, was now their best bet for defeating Shigaraki and All For One.

My Hero Academia’s Traitor Couldn’t Have Been Anyone but Aoyama

A Years-long Storyline Comes to Fruition

Aoyama was finally revealed to be the traitor years after My Hero Academia seemingly dropped that plot thread, and in retrospect, it couldn’t have been anyone else. The two other characters commonly believed to be the traitor were Kaminari thanks to some vaguely suspicious actions and Hagakure because of her invisibility, the latter even being teased at the beginning of the episode. Between the three of them, however, Aoyama was the only one given enough attention to make it clear he was hiding something, so it wouldn’t have made as much sense for someone else to have been the traitor.

More than that, of course, is how it makes the most sense for Aoyama to be the traitor from a narrative perspective. Earlier seasons contrasted Aoyama’s cowardice and struggles with his Quirk with Izuku’s determination and struggles with One For All, and that dichotomy was even reinforced when Aoyama talked about how learning Izuku was Quirkless just like him only made him feel guiltier for betraying everyone. Even before the reveal, Aoyama was someone with a surprising amount of parallels to Izuku’s character, and that makes it the most satisfying for him to be the traitor above anyone else.

My Hero Academia Might Have Been Too Late with Aoyama’s Big Reveal

As great as it is to finally have My Hero Academia’s traitor subplot over and done with, the timing of it is more than a little off. After being brought up in season 3, the plot line went largely unaddressed in the six years to follow, and now that it’s only coming out in My Hero Academia's final arc, the reveal of Aoyama being the traitor ends up feeling nowhere near as impactful as it should have been. A lot of that is probably due to other stories taking priority, but it’s still a shame that it couldn’t have come out earlier.

That being said, the episode was still able to get a lot out of the reveal, even if it was oddly timed. The directing and voice acting from Aoyama, Izuku, and Hagakure did a great job of selling the emotional impact of the traitor reveal, and overall, everything surrounding the reveal and everyone’s reactions to it perfectly embodied the emotional core of the series. My Hero Academia got everything it needed to out of its big reveal, and it will be great to see how that plays into the rest of season 7.

Be sure to watch My Hero Academia season 7, episode #4 when it releases on Saturday, May 25.