Viewer Log: My Hero Academia ep 158

Uraraka tries one last time to reach Toga.

Last time on My Hero Academia the Todorokis faced off against their Black Sheep. The heroes learn that Dabi’s been building up his internal heat since he woke up from his first fight with Shoto. He’s building that energy up in an insane attempt to turn himself into a high yield bomb that will not only kill Endeavor, but the civilian members of his family, who are stuck in their UA Block nearby due to sabotage. All Might calls up Shoto and Iida and tells the boys that they have to get out there and stop Dabi, and that he got a hero on staff to face off against AFO. Iida and Shoto combine their powers to travel at the speed of a fighter jet to get across the island in time. He still would have been to slow, though, without help. Endeavor did his best to lead his son away, but his injuries kept him from going far. Dabi latches onto his father and Endeavor realizes Dabi has completely lost his mind and is babbling incoherently. He grabs Dabi and tries to fly upwards to try to be Dabi’s only victim, which he feels is his just punishment for so breaking his son. He wouldn’t have gotten high enough, but he was saved by the rest of his family. Rei, Fuyumi, and Natsuo use their ice powers to reduce Dabi’s heat and also beg their son or brother to not do this. Dabi has an epiphany that he doesn’t want to end like this, and he wants to spend time with his family. He also is a bit heartbroken to realize they still showed up for him. He nearly goes off, but Shoto rushes in and uses his Great Glacial Aegir to take away Dabi’s heat entirely. The whole family is burned after this, a visible scarring to match their internal ones. Endeavor drags himself to Dabi and sobs over him, repeating that he’s sorry to him as well as his wife and other children while a burnt-out Dabi mutters how much he hates him. Enough Recapping. Let’s get to it, shall we?

 

After recapping Shoto’s defeat of Dabi, we join with Toga. Still in Twice’s form, she sees Dabi’s fireball go out and remembers his philosophy of living for the day. If life is going to change and your options are to laugh or cry, you might as well laugh, basically. Toga starts tearing up at realizing that her friend was captured and wonders if he was able to laugh through that. We see her twice clones have captured Jiro, Tsu and Uraraka and they seem to be piling themselves up to protect her. We see that the Duplication of Twices are starting to overwhelm the heroes, who are all beaten and badly injured from all the fighting. Narrator Present Mic tells us that the heroes have no way of knowing what the time limit is to Toga’s transformation, and if they don’t stop her soon, the whole nation will be swallowed up by the clones. We get confirmation that Shoto and Iida are both still down after their final freeze and mad dash respectively. Hawks, exhausted and depowered, stands up and prepares to fight with his feather sword if he has to. Uraraka frees herself for a moment with anti-gravity but the Twices tangle her and pull her down.

 

Toga looks over at where she last saw Dabi and wonders if he’s okay or if he’s leaving her too. She’s caught off-guard when Uraraka gets one of her rope lines tangled around Toga’s arm and yanks herself toward the main Toga. She tells Uraraka to back off and tries to cut the line loose. Uraraka yells at Toga that she wants to understand the other girl. She says that they’ve only known each other since last summer, but Toga has changed her perspective on things. Toga tells her to shut up, Uraraka refuses and says she knows that Toga was crying because she couldn’t fully become Twice. She remembers Tsu’s theory that Toga can’t make clones of her other friends because she didn’t love them enough, but Uraraka has a different theory. Namely, that the murderous intent Toga is carrying in her heart is keeping her from her full potential. The hate she feels towards everyone is basically drowning the love she feels for her friends. Toga doesn’t want to hear this and throws a wave of clones at her. Toga draws up Tsu and prepares to cut her down, lashing out at Uraraka for daring to think she can understand the life that Toga has led. She says that Uraraka has lived a life where she wanted for nothing while Toga suffered. … I should point out that Uraraka lived with poor working-class parents and for a while a recurring gag bit in the manga was a series of one-page stories about the ways Uraraka would try to save money. The Urarakas weren’t living in the lap of luxury… but I see her point.

 

Toga flashes back to her childhood. From a young age people were offput by her Quirk and her desire to drink the blood of things she likes. She was slapped as a child where her parents thought she’d killed a bird to drink its blood, something Toga denied. She found it injured and tried to drink it after. That’s still not great, but better than what her parents thought. She was given counseling to try to ‘correct’ her behavior, the psychiatrist telling her parents this kind of ‘perversion’ is common in kids with strong quirks and they will correct her. We see that Toga develops a nervous tick of gnawing at her fingers in this time and she’d regularly chew it until she bled. We see a particularly traumatic moment where her parents were shrieking at her for apparently trying to drink her friend’s blood. She insists she was just trying to stop her friend from bleeding, so what if she drank it? She asks why she has to lie to have a normal life and can’t she have a life where she drinks blood because it makes her happy. They both denounce their clearly pre-teen daughter as a monster. She remembers Curious of the Meta Liberation Arm psychoanalyzing her and saying that she tries to hide herself behind a mask.

 

Toga slashes at Tsu, but Uraraka yanks her away at the last second. She kicks off using compressed air in his boots to pull them both away. Kamui Woods grabs Jiro and pulls her free as Tsu falls towards Jiro. Jiro tries to catch her, but Kamui tells her to stop as that isn’t Tsu, he’s got the real one in his other branch. No, that’s a Toga clone. Turns out, the Clones have been drinking the blood of the injured and have started shifting forms to sew more chaos. Jiro sees a few of herself in the mix and says that is so damn creepy. Kamui says that they need to gather everyone together so they don’t get tricked by clones. The Duplication of Twices start surging around them. Tsu tries to talk to Toga, telling one of the clones that she used to have a very black and white mindset. Tsu follows rules, and that makes her a hero, some people break rules, so that makes them villains, sort of thing. She says that Uraraka doesn’t think like that and all she’s trying to do is talk to Toga. She begs Toga to just have on honest conversation with Uraraka. The real Toga lunges at Uraraka and stabs her in the gut.

 

Uraraka spits up blood as Toga tells her that she refuses to have them pity her based on the rules they made up. She flashes back to when the League of Villains was on the run and Twice asked her if she’d come up with a villain name yet. Twice, Spinner and Mr. Compress pitch her a few that are objectively terrible. Dabi says that its kind of pointless as Quirk registrations made aliases a moot point. Compress points out that’s rich coming from “Dabi.” Tomura says that codenames are silly and that they’re societies attempt to make the real world into a comic book. Toga leaps up and says that’s why she joined the League, she’ll live her life as her authentic self as Himeko Toga.

 

She tries to stab Uraraka again, but Uraraka grabs her to make her float. Toga kicks off her and says that Uraraka acts nice but what she wants is to cage Toga and sentence her to death. Toga says that this is a win or lose, life or death scenario. Her Twice form sort of melts, transforming into a costume reminiscent of his but is more Toga. She says that one of them will die and Uraraka is bleeding out, and that Toga has the numbers advantage. She calls up her redubbed Sad Man’s Legion. The Twice clones climb to the sky forming a gray goo like situation. The Reporter Yu watches from above and says that this is proof of the Quirk Doomsday Theory, that powers will grow until they go out of control and that this one girl proved it. Toga sends a wave of Clones at Uraraka, who uses her Gunhead Marital Arts to touch and scatter the no floating clones. Toga says that’s no big deal as she didn’t hurt the clones or her. Uraraka says that’s the point, she doesn’t want Anti-Gravity to be used to hurt people. Toga remembers her earlier fight with Uraraka when she claimed that she’d never enjoy hurting people. Uraraka tries to make Toga see that she’s trying to understand her, but Toga thinks its just more lies. Uraraka says that when they met, she was terrified of Toga and thought that the other girl just liked causing pain. Toga remembers Twice encouraging to do what she wants and her mother telling her she’s a monster. She screams at Uraraka to just die already.

 

Uraraka says that she’s sorry for pushing her away before. She says that she’s seen a lot of happy people, so Toga can trust her when she said that the smile Toga had when she confessed her feelings to Izuku was pure. There’s also a brief flashback to when as a child Uraraka saw a hero save someone and she did an exaggerated happy dance. She looked behind her and saw a very sad Toga watching as well. Not sure if this is diegetic or not. Uraraka says she doesn’t want to pretend she never saw that beautiful smile as she unleashes a huge wave of Anti-Gravity power, causing everyone to start floating. She tells Toga that while there are things Toga has done that she can’t forgive, she still wants to talk to her about love and life and she’ll offer up all the blood she needs to get Toga to open up to her. We see the child versions of them again, with little Uraraka offering up her arm to Toga. Jiro is among the floating people and she’s clearly in awe that her friend was able to use her Quirk like this.

 

A Twice Clone tries to make a fresh copy but even the new copy floats as well. Kamui Woods grabs Tiger and anchors him to the ground. Tiger is wowed by Uraraka’s display of power, as previously had a limit of about three tons. Safe to say she’s surpassed that. He thinks they’ve grown so much since the training camp.

 

Uraraka is bleeding out and says she’s feeling cold. But she doesn’t care about that, as she wants to reach out and touch Toga’s cold heart. She reveals her backstory about her family’s financial troubles and how she wanted to be a hero for them. But as she grew older she understood that there are more people out there then her parents. She fell in love with Izuku and met Toga and now she wants to help everyone. She asks Toga what is on her mind. Toga is enraged by this and goes for the stab. The mental image of the two shows Toga turning into a Venom like monster, but when she tries to stab little Uraraka she doesn’t move. In the real world, a sobbing Toga says that she falls in love too easily. She falls for people, animals, and even heroes. She tells Uraraka about how Izuku reminded her of a boy she liked named Saito, he was Izuku but Blue instead of Green. She says that she couldn’t tell him she wanted to drink his blood as he’d lecture her like Izuku and Uraraka would have about how that isn’t right. She says that is the whole reason she joined the league, as it was the only place she could live and love like how she wanted. She goes to stab at Uraraka, but it turns into a hug. Uraraka says that Toga was sending her signs of what she wanted but she just didn’t see it. Toga hits her time limit and Twice’s power starts to disintegrate. She says that Jin is leaving her again.

 

They start to drift to the ground. Uraraka tells Toga that if she’s being completely honest, she also thinks it’s admirable to see someone work so hard they get bruised. She tells Toga that she probably can’t take the place of the League, but she can try. Toga asks if she’s cute while smiling her natural, somewhat sinister if I’m honest, smile. And Uraraka says she’s the cutest in the world. We peel back to see a really pretty skyline. It’s a mix of the pink energy of Anti-Gravity and the black dust formed by the dissolving Twice clones.

 

Well, that was an emotional gut punch. Uraraka as a character felt like she was stuck in place basically from the moment she realized she had a crush on Izuku. Before that point, while she was ‘the girl’ of Izuku’s friend group, she had a lot of combat skill and a drive that just seemed to fade with time. More of her screentime was devoted to being flustered that she’s got a thing for green-haired nerds. I think Horikoshi just wasn’t sure what to do with her up until she set her sights on helping/beating Toga, so he fell back on the old fiction stereotype that the number one priority of teenage girls is their crushes. It’s a common trope for a reason. Thankfully, after her one on one with Toga during the raid on Gunga Villa, she seemed to refocus on helping Toga, this girl that she has a kindred connection with that she can’t even fully explain. I liked how they brought her desire to help Toga back to this childhood love of making people happy that she wants to bring forward into her adulthood. I like Toga’s arc. When she was first introduced, she was an implied psychopath dressed in a schoolgirl uniform that likes cutting people and drinking blood. But as we went along, we learned she’s actually a deeply empathetic person with just this unfortunate mental health issue where she conflates pain with love. She’s someone that absolutely needed a psychiatrist, but not the kind she received. Maybe I’m getting this wrong, but I’d compare the help Toga got vs what she needed as like conversion therapy. Her parents wanted her to conform to the strict social norms of Japan, she was told how she felt and acted was wrong, monstrous, and she should be ashamed by her desires. Sounds a bit like what a queer person might hear from bigoted parents, now doesn’t it? She needed someone that could have helped her find other ways to express her feelings, or how to approach someone where she could eventually bring up her desire for blood. I’m not sure how this could be done, all I’m saying is she needed to find ways to live closer to authentic self than to try to bury her desires like her parents wanted. I also liked that Uraraka never tried to trivialize Toga’s relationship with the League of Villains. Like, we all know those guys were a bad influence on her, but at the same time they represent her first real group of friends that didn’t judge her or make her try to conform. They weren’t good for her, but they were hers. I also felt a pang of sorrow when Twice’s power ran out. Toga and he had a connection, proven by him being the only person besides Uraraka whose power she could mimic. They cared about each other a lot, so seeing her have to say goodbye to him again hurt quite a bit. So… Toga’s down. That’s the whole original League of Villains defeated, killed or captured save Tomura and AFO. The story ends how it began, with these two. I suppose Kurogiri is still out there, but I don’t think he’s going to be a huge threat for a bit. We’ll have to wait and see how All Might is going to challenge AFO. I’m so excited for next month. Have a good night everyone, and stay safe. 

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Viewer Log: My Hero Academia ep 157

 Fire and Ice collide one final time. 

Last time on My Hero Academia titans laid the smack down on AFO. Dark Shadow pummeled AFO so hard with its giant fists that AFO had to regenerate into an even younger form. For a moment, it looks like he’s going to get back up when Gigantomachia arrives, but to his shock the giant attacks him and is joined by Mt. Lady. We do a flashback to the villain goons attacking the building holding Gigantomachia. They free him using a high frequence radio to send AFO’s voice to him. Kirishima tries to grab Shinso so he can brainwash Gigantomachia, but he was grabbed by Sludge-man. Shinso is saved by Ashido who runs up and uses her acid on Sludge-man to try to bail. Shinso brainwashes Gigantomachia and he and Kirishima ride on his scalp to battle. To their surprise, Gigantomachia fights through Shinso’s control, but he continues to fight AFO. He’s actually feeling super hurt and betrayed by AFO and Tomura Shigaraki abandoning him despite his loyalty. AFO takes a truly glorious beating, but frees himself by attacking Mt. Lady during a lull in their attacks and then fires a laser to hurt Gigantomachia and dispel Dark Shadow. He steals Hawks’ Quirk and considers taking Dark Shadow as well. Mineta, in his most badass moment thus far, distracts him for a moment, begging AFO to leave Dark Shadow with Tokoyami and take his Quirk instead. Realizing that he’s running out of time AFO abandons them all and flies off. Depowered, Hawks says they haven’t lost hope just yet. At the same time, we’re shown via some journalists that the video of Gentle Criminal saving the Flying Coffin has gotten out and been viewed by all of the movie only characters, thus canonizing Two Heroes, Heroes Rising, World Hero Mission, and You’re Next! to the anime. Neat. Enough recapping. Let’s get to it, shall we?

 

We open at the underground refugee shelter at UA. The map shows us the route that the UA plates are going to take to Shiketsu Academy on the other side of the island. We see the rest of the Todoroki family, Shoto’s older brother Natsuo is doing his best to watch over their mom and their older sister. The rest of the civilians are watching the news feeds and have… mixed feelings about how the heroes are handling them. We pull in on a video that takes us to Izuku grappling with Tomura. Tomura has regrown his hands and Izuku is doing his best to keep the hands from touching anything. We get a close up of Tomura’s face and he looks absolutely deranged.

 

At headquarters, they’re trying to assess the situation. They know that AFO is on the move again. Tsukauchi asks La Brava for a status report. She reports that most of the UA trams are moving as they should and headed towards Shiketsu. Only one has a malfunction (The one the Todorokis are on) and she immediately clocks that its sabotage. We are shown one of the moles shown earlier attempting to blow a fuse using his Quirk to prove himself worthy of the Demon Lord. A hero spies him and tries to stop him, but he sets off an explosion. The explosion rocks the container and causes some debris to fall. Kendo and Tetsutetsu from Class 1B are there and Tetsutetsu runs to try to catch the debris. But he’s too slow… and it’s caught by none other than Death Arms. The huge man holds the slab of concrete up, tears in his eyes as he says that he knows what comes next. People will gawk at him, call him stupid and just deride him like they did before. We see his phone on the ground and he was also watching the video. He remembers watching Izuku run in to try to save Bakugo from Slime-man back on the first episode and says that his body moved without thinking.

 

At Headquarters, they say several more trams are on their way. They also spotted AFO over Ido City. Tsukauchi asks who they have to intercept him, but none of the heroes that could make it are in fighting shape. One of the analysts screams and falls back from his seat, saying they’re all dead. Tsukauchi tells him to calm down and tell him what’s happening. He says that the heat around Dabi is climbing rapidly. Endeavor is still okay but they say he’ll be dead soon if he doesn’t get out of there. They’ve analyzed Dabi and know that he’s building up heat at the core of his body and has been since his initial capture. He thinks that within the next ten minutes, Dabi’s body will be consumed by the heat and when he does he’ll create an explosion 5 kms in diameter. He’s basically turning himself into a nuke. La Brava tells them that the stalled tram block is right in the blast radius. Tsukauchi is shocked to hear this and wonders how Dabi could have possibly known where his family’s block would be on the tram. They think Skeptic must have filled him in. La Brava says to stall the other blocks, they can’t save the stalled one, but they can save the ones behind it. In the block we see the hero Gunhead start leading people to the escape hatches. They’re then given the worse news that AFO will reach the point where he’ll be able to sludge warp to Izuku and Tomura’s location. They realize that when that happens, they’re all dead. Tsukauchi asks if they have ANYONE, and unfortunately, they don’t. Everyone that could go is down. They’d need a Hail Mary play if they are to save the day… and who should get in contact over the radio but one Toshinori “All Might” Yagi, the king of Hail Mary’s.

 

Back at Kamino Ward, Iida is helping Shoto to walk, although he loudly reminds his friend that he’s too exhausted from Phosphor to be of much use. Shoto says that he doesn’t matter, they need to stop AFO from reaching Izuku. Iida tries to talk to Shoto about what happened, saying that he empathizes with Shoto about how hard it must have been to face Dabi and then to see him run off before they could stop him. Iida admits that he admires Shoto a lot and that he’s reminded Iida of the kind of hero that he wants to be. He says its unfair that he has to suffer like this. They’re talk is interrupted by All Might over the radio. He tells them to race to Gunga, as Dabi is going to self-destruct soon and take the Todorokis and their whole block out with them. He encourages Shoto, saying that he knows that the mind and body work together. Shoto asks who is going to stop AFO, and All Might says he has a hero waiting in the wings to do just that. He encourages the boys to do their best and stop Dabi. Shoto asks how they can possibly do that with Iida’s engines shot. Iida clips his mask on Shoto’s face, saying that the rain has cooled him off and that running like this is what he was born to do. He activates his engines, which cause just flipping huge exhaust pipes to spring from his legs. Iida gets Shoto on his back and says that he’s decided that his Quirk is meant to help lost children find their way home. They’re being watched from a distance by Stain, who judges Iida and Todoroki as selfless and brave heroes. Iida rockets forward, the two of them shooting like comet towards their destiny.

 

We cut back to All Might who says he’s proud of those boys and that he’s leaving Dabi to them. He gets a call from Tsukauchi, who immediately starts yelling at him. All Might says that he’s fine and it was his fight to begin with. He sees AFO approaching and prepares. He thinks that Tomura’s hate is affecting AFO and because of that, he won’t be able to ignore All Might. He whips out a brief case that starts to glow with green light. He remembers Izuku asking if someone without a Quirk can be a hero. We see a close up of AFO’s face, yes he has seen All Might, and yes all other thoughts have left his mind besides ‘Kill that Blonde Bastard that ruined me!” All Might announces that “I AM HERE!” and his car reacts by transforming behind him.

 

Back at the block, Kendo and Tetsutetsu have restrained the moles as the populace try to evacuate. They’re about two kms from Gunga at the moment. They system has been fried, though, so they can’t get it running again. Topside, the Todorokis look behind them despite Kendo’s warning and see the huge ball of blue fire that is Dabi. Rei clutches at her heart as she calls out her oldest son’s name. Meanwhile, Endeavor is racing ahead of his boy. He knows that everyone, the evacuees as well as the heroes and villains will be incinerated. He can’t run much farther, either, as he’s exhausted and badly injured from all the fighting today. Dabi shrieks at his father to look at him. He winds up and unleashes a huge fireball that sends Endeavor flying back. Dabi tackles him and Endeavor begs Toya to put out his flames. Dabi then calls out to Natsuo and asks him to play. Endeavor realizes that his son has absolutely lost touch with reality and doesn’t know what’s going on. The fire he’s radiating is so hot it’s even burning Endeavor’s heat-resistant skin. He reaches for Dabi’s chest and wonders how he’s kept himself together for so long. He wonders if Dabi’s recent near death experience enhanced his Quirk somehow. It’s that or he’s just going all out because he knows he’ll die soon. Endeavor sees one of the blue flowers Rei likes blooming in his minds eye… and then he sees ice forming at Dabi’s chest. He realizes that that is Rei’s quirk. His life flashes before his eyes and he remembers his promise to win and keep looking at Toya. He realizes that he’s responsible for all of Dabi’s actions. He says he swore to find atonement, and yet there was Dabi, constantly following him and being the ever present example of how weak that vow was. He admits that he still has that dream of Rei, Fuyumi, Natsuo, and Shoto having dinner without him and realizes that he has to make that dream real. He captures Dabi in a bear hug, telling his son that he won’t die alone. He rockets upward while clutching Dabi to him. He is trying to get them high enough to protect everyone else, but its slow going. Dabi nearly explodes… but they’re both hit by a wave of ice. He looks over and sees Rei.

 

There’s a quick flashback to when Rei looked back and saw Dabi’s fire. She told Natsuo to look after Fuyumi and makes a robot take her to them. She unleashes a huge cold wave, but starts to get burned by the intense heat. Endeavor yells at her to run, but she refuses. She knows that Endeavor planned to die with Toya and she refuses to let that happen. Dabi seems to recognize his mom and calls out to her. She apologizes to him. Dabi then calls out to Fuyumi and Natsuo, who followed and are adding their ice power. Fuyumi refuses to lose anyone else, and Natsuo tells his stupid big brother to stop causing the family trouble. Endeavor knows he can’t get high enough to save them and begs Toya to just kill him and not anyone else. Dabi becomes more lucid in this moment, realizing that his family are all watching him right now. He has a mental image of him standing with them, everyone is healthy and healed and smiling with him. He wonders if just showing up would have been all it took to bring everyone to him. His body starts to break down as he wishes he’d known that sooner. According to the analysts, Dabi isn’t getting as hot as quickly, but he’s still about to blow. We see the civilians try to escape, the preschool teacher telling the kids they’ll be fine, Tiger of the Wild, Wild Pussycats telling Uraraka and co to run, that pink haired kid that idolized Endeavor praying for them, the reporters recording the incident, and then a high-speed rocket shooting across Japan. The preschoolers says that Five Wienies is on the way and he’ll save everyone. The analysts realize that Iida and Shoto, who have made a jet made of ice, are flying as fast as a fighter jet to Gunga Villa. Tsukauchi is stunned by these boys and says that All Might must be a hell of a teacher. Iida’s armor and body give out, he tells his friend that this is as far as he can take him. Iida drops and Shoto leaps from his back and keeps running, igniting Phosphor as he does. Iida yells after him that he was inspired by Shoto to become the man that he wants to be and he begs Shoto to chose to do the same today.

 

Shoto remembers when he started writing letters to his mom. He tells her that he’s trying to be more social with his friends and how they’re growing more connected. In the present, Shoto is sprinting to the finish to be with his family. He arrives at the last possible moment and leaps at them. Dabi has the epiphany that he, in fact, loves his family and that he still wants to be with them. There are things he wants to talk to them about; to argue with them, he wants more time! He’s about to go off when Shoto uses his Great Glacial Aegir attack. The flash freeze sucks up all the heat and destroys the flame bubble Dabi made. Everyone watches, totally stunned. As the smoke clears, Shoto realizes that his family were all there and he thanks them for their help. He knows that he wouldn’t have made it in time without them freezing Toya. All members of the Todoroki house were burned in that fight, the worst being Endeavor. Dabi is barely conscious at this point, muttering that they all deserve death. Natsuo wonders what they’re supposed to do now. Endeavor, broken and burnt, drags himself to Toya, and repeats that he’s sorry. He says he should have gone to the peak to see him. Dabi cries for the first time, (its technically condensation from Shoto’s ice… but still counts) and he says he hates him and blames him for everything. Endeavor sobs as he apologizes to Toya, his wife, and other children for being a complete POS. Shoto drops, exhausted as the credits roll.

 

Well, that was an emotional rollercoaster. I’ll start with the finale tease, All Might stepping up to face off against All For One. I like the entire framing of what we know is coming. All Might knows it’s an obvious trap, that he’s putting himself out as bait to slow down AFO and that at best he can hope to just be a stumbling block to him. AFO knows it’s an obvious trap, that All Might can’t possibly hope to beat him and thus he’s only there to try to buy Izuku more time. But they also both know AFO can’t resist All Might. They’re each other’s Moby Dick and Captain Ahab, the center of an obsession that is even greater than AFO’s obsession with getting OFA. Why? Because All Might beat him. All Might broke him. All Might, the upstart that didn’t even have Quirk of his own faced off against him and RUINED the Demon Lord like no previous Wielder of OFA had ever done. He proved that AFO could bleed, so obviously he must die for that. I’m so hyped to see All Might whip out his final gambit. The tragic story of the House of Todoroki has hit a climax, me thinks. Was it schmaltzy to have all of them gather to see Toya, that it was the combination of their ice and attention that seemed to slow him just long enough for Shoto to arrive and finally stop him? Yes. But I still teared up when Dabi had his epiphany that he didn’t want to go just yet and then Shoto unleashed his ice. Dabi is on borrowed time after this, he’s basically a skeleton with just bits of burned meat stubbornly clinging to him, and if he’s feeling anything its pain. But his family has a chance to be with him for however long he has left. I like that he didn’t stop being angry once he cooled off, that’s a realistic reaction even if he doesn’t necessarily want to be the one to kill them all anymore. I also liked how Dabi realized that it honestly would have been that easy. He could have come home, and they’d have all come to him. It adds to the tragedy that he didn’t even try. And that Endeavor sobbed as he apologized. Nothing he says will undo what he did, but I think he’s shown that his remorse is genuine. My only real complaint about this episode was how it highlights this friendship between Iida and Shoto that they never really brought up before. Like... I think they’ve only really had one not-class or hero related heart-to-heart and that was just before the war started. That we saw at least. It’s like Shoji’s tragic backstory, I with this could have been teased or shown earlier so it didn’t feel like an info dump. Do I buy that Shoto and Iida are friends? Absolutely. They’re similar in a lot of ways and they have Izuku pulling them both into his orbit. I just would have liked to see more of them interacting before Iida basically calls Shoto his new hero role model. It just felt… forced. But that’s a complaint I often have with these kinds of large ensemble casts, unless you’re One Piece, a lot of the secondary and tertiary character relationships just don’t get a chance to shine. Well, now, it looks like Dabi is checked off for certain. With him, Spinner, Twice, Mr. Compress, and Gigantomachia down, that just leaves Toga, Tomura, and AFO on the board as final bosses. Let’s see them tie off a few more loose ends, then. See you later. Have a good night and stay safe. 

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Viewer Log: My Hero Academia ep 156

 All For One gets a triple smackdown. 

Last time on My Hero Academia Izuku got backup. Lady Nagant used her power, despite her injury, to dis-hand Tomura Shigaraki, leaving him temporarily vulnerable to Izuku. Our hero knocked the two of them from the Flying Coffin to make it easier to save the Coffin. Tomura seems to have wrestled total control of his body back from AFO and has vowed to destroy everything because he wants to, not for his master. La Brava and Gentle Criminal are able to get the Flying Coffin up and running again, and thanks to the Business Course’s attempts at documentation, La Brava released the footage of her beloved being a hero to the world. Aizawa and Present Mic are knocked from the Coffin but are nabbed by Kurogiri. He teleports them away, so its anyone’s guess at the moment if they were saved or kidnapped. Back at Gunga Villa, Hawks tries to stand up to AFO, but he’s a dude with feathers against a demi-god, it doesn’t go well. It looks like Hawks is obliterated in front of Tokoyami, but he was saved by the arrival of Shiketsu High students Camie’s illusion, and Shishikura used his weird meatball ability to knock him aside. Yoarashi of Shiketsu also pulls up and used his wind powers to start sucking up Twice clones and disrupt AFO’s attacks. AFO plan to kill him first and then start harvesting powers. He unleashes a barrage on the heroes, but they’re able to tank the hits. Tokoyami then reveals why he is here. They know that AFO can’t steal powers by touching a manifestation of that power, ie Endeavor coats himself in his own flames therefore AFO can’t touch him and steal the power, and logically that’s true for anyone. So, they used the dark, overcast day to powerup Dark Shadow to its maximum and Tokoyami slams it into AFO. And in an after-credit scene, we see Uraraka, Tsu, and Jiro begin their search for Toga, believing that they can stop the clones if they can find the real her. We also learn that for some reason Toga can’t make copies of anyone else that can use the originals powers. She can make clones of Tomura, Dabi, AFO and the rest but all they can do is make clones. Lost among the Duplication of Twices, Toga is flummoxed by her inability to fully become Twice. Enough recapping. Let’s get to it, shall we?

 

 We open with a recap of the after-credits scene. Tsu explains the limitation of Toga’s quirk, and we find the original Toga furious that she can’t copy her other friend’s powers. She can copy Twice’s cloning or Uraraka’s anti-gravity, but no one else’s, despite her saying that she loves Dabi and Shigaraki as much as Twice. Narrator Present Mic comes in and lets us know that because Uraraka’s one sincerest wish is to make others happy, she noticed Toga’s tears on a Twice face despite the rain.

 

We jump over to Dark Shadow just wailing on AFO with his enormous claws. Hawks, who is using his powers to keep Tokoyami aloft since he can’t ride Dark Shadow right now, tells him to not let up. He doesn’t think this’ll stop AFO as he is right now, but he knows that if they can’t just hold him off for long enough they’ll burn through his time and he’ll de-age to nothing. Jiro shouts at the others to make the area as dark as possible to boost Dark Shadow, the other heroes all agree to give him cover. As Dark Shadow’s fists pull back, we see AFO no worse for wear. Actually, he’s looking even better than he did before Dark Shadow started to attack him, as he’s de-aged back to what looks like his late teens to early 20s. He flies off, as he realizes that his time is running out. The heroes try to give chase, but then the latest snag arrives… Gigantomachia. Present Mic comes in to narrate, saying that both Hawks and AFO think this’ll benefit their side. AFO orders Machia to attack his pursuiters, but to his surprise, Gigantomachia throws a chunk of Earth at HIM. We pull in as AFO calls them clever bastards. We see none other than Kirishima riding on Machia’s head along with Shinso! That’s right, they’re using his vocal mimicry power to make Machia fight with them. Kirishima loudly announces that they’ll never let him get close to Midoriya.

 

We flashback 15 minutes (in universe) to the facility where they were holding Gigantomachia right after Dabi was supposedly defeated. The squad over there had handled a lot of the ground troops sent against them, but the masked leader of this group had a flying-type quirk that allowed him to escape their softened earth ambush. He uses a high frequency sonic device to try to wake up Machia. The device fires off waves so intense it actually breaks up buildings, so I’m shocked anyone is still standing. Mt. Lady rushes him and tries to smack him with a gigantic wrench, but she’s too late and Machia breaks free. He headbutts her from behind. Ashido watches the attack and thinks that Machia is a walking symbol of Trauma. Kirishima races over to get Shinso. He reveals to us that they hid Shinso after their first big attack to keep him safe as they might need him as a trump card for this fight. He shouts at Shinso to get in Machia’s head… but its revealed that he’s been grabbed by Sludge-man. Remember him? The Slime monster that All Might was chasing in the first episode and almost killed Bakugo? Ya, he’s back. He says that he was laying low until the fighting died down, and that hiding in Shinso was even easier than hiding in that angry middle schooler. Hearing him disparage Bakugo while grabbing Shinso pisses off Kirishima to no end and he switches to his maximum hardness. The villain leading the charge mocks the heroes and gloats about how the strong will rule the world. His gloating is ruined by Ashido whipping just a huge amount of her acid at Gigantomachia, in a concentration that actually burns his rocky skin, Acid Man Alma. She reveals to us that after the last fight with Machia, she got intensive training tips from Bakugo and Shoto because she never wanted to feel as powerless fighting someone like him again. She then rushes over and punches into Sludge-man, giving him a dose of her acid too. She uses enough of it so that the bright pinkness of her skin fades in places to a more natural tone. Sludge-man tries to run, but Shinso calls out to him in Sludge-man’s voice, tricking him to answering and putting him in a trance. Shinso thanks her for saving him. She says she’s channeling Shoji and choosing not to fight for revenge. She gives us a speech about how she understands fear as she doesn’t have a particularly strong power. She forms bonds with people easily, though, and she wants to protect those important to her. She tries to convince the villains to back off, but her words don’t move them. Shinso calls out Machia using AFO’s voice. He has Machia attack the goons, knocking them out. He reveals that he’d been studying voice recordings of AFO from his time in Tartarus to perfect his mimicry. Bet he’s going to feel really stupid for how much he gloated in prison in a little bit.

 

Ashido is exhausted after all that and drops, but Kirishima catches her. He tells her to be careful and apologizes for not being much use in that fight. She remembers how he knocked her aside and tanked Machia’s attack the last time they fought it and says she’s just happy she got to pay him back. He’s stunned by that, and says that she doesn’t owe him anything, as she’s always been his hero. That’s really sweet. Mt. Lady reports in, gets the bad news about AFO’s rampage and gets her orders from Tsukauchi. We return to the present to see Mind Controlled Machia, Mt. Lady with her wrench, and Dark Shadow all take a swing at AFO, who blocks it with a shockwave.

 

They keep attacking AFO, but he’s a speedy little bastard. Tokoyami and Hawks are stunned to see Machia here, but Hawks admits that this is a gamble they have to take. AFO understands now how the Aoyamas were able to lie to him and says that his tactics are rubbing off on the heroes. He fires an energy bust at Gigantomachia. Hawks is terrified that the hit will hurt Shinso and break his control of Machia, but there’s not anything he can do. Machia is hit… but weirdly, rather than attack he asks his master why he was left behind. Machia flashes back to when AFO told him years ago that he’s going to go away for a while and Machia will just have to wait for his successor to find him. Machia says that he met the successor, who smells like him and even sounded like him when he spoke. So, he wants to know why the successor abandoned him. He starts crying as he begs AFO to explain. We zoom into his hair line where we see that Kirishima blocked the hit for Shinso. Shinso reveals that he is still controlling Machia, but the behemoth is fighting his control. Machia is the first person to do that since Izuku. He adds that even while under control, Machia was muttering about how his master betrayed him. He thinks that Machia’s rage is their greatest weapon right now, and that he’s really only here as a safety measure in case Machia turns on them again. Shinso says that for years he’s been told he’s got a villains power, but his quirk has limitations, he can’t change someone’s heart. Hawks gloats to AFO, saying that even his loyalist henchman doesn’t want to see him right now, as the three titans continue to pummel him. He eggs everyone on, saying they need to wear AFO down until he disappears.

 

We jump back to the Flying Coffin where an insane news crew is flying in via their helicopter. The reporter is the same woman we’ve seen a handful of times in various scenes where reporters swarmed. She doesn’t have an official name so I’m going to call her Yu Shimamura after her Japanese voice actor. Yu convinced a pilot to take them up because she wants to cover this story super bad. She realized that she’d interviewed Izuku almost a year ago and was shocked to see that scared kid as the masked vigilante and now the one dueling Shigaraki. Her camerawoman notices another helicopter and Yu laughs at some idiot flying in the hurricane. We shift to that copter and see it’s the woman that was at the press conference after the last big battle with AFO. She’s the one that yelled at Endeavor for failing as a hero as her own mother was injured in the fighting. She tells her Birdman camera man that she wasn’t acting like a journalist then and that she’d been quick to judge. Not just Endeavor, but all the heroes and the others fighting, on her phone she’s watching Gentle save the Coffin. We flash to various characters watching the Gentle Criminal video, we see the US president, Admiral Ackbar, Melissa Shield (first movie), Maharo and Katsuma Shimano (second movie), Rody Soul and his siblings (third movie) and Guilio and Anna (fourth movie) as the views rack up. She says that she’ll see to it that the world knows the story isn’t over.

 

Mt. Lady keeps breaking her weapons and getting them replaced by new gigantic weapons. They’re pummeling the hell out of AFO. That is until he sends out a tendril that bites a chunk out of Mt. Lady’s side and then fires a plasma beam that cuts Gigantomachia across the chest. We’re shown that he was taking a lot of damage from their attacks, but he’s already regenerating, bones and muscle knit together as he says that he was just putting down a dog that bit him. He wonders if somehow the other him, the bit with Tomura is influencing him. He feels a rage rolling at his core. He says that as he gets younger, it gets harder to hold it in. He fires a plasma burst that obliterates Dark Shadow and sends Hawks and Tokoyami plummeting. He says that he’s drawing out more power from his quirks as he fights, “Such vitality! It’s good to be young.” Kirishima shouts for someone to catch them, but Yoarashi can’t let up on his wind attacks. There’s a huge explosion. When we cut back in, the whole area is wrecked and everyone is down. AFO says that that Shadow bird was formidable, so much so that he’s going to take it. After he’s done with Hawks. We see that Hawks was able to stab him when AFO picked him up by the throat, but that was it. He drains Fierce Wings from Hawks. He commends Hawks for lasting so long with a garbage power. Hawks notes that his Quirks aren’t being affected by the de-aging and calls him a bastard. AFO notices that the more damage that Rewind erases from his body, the faster its de-aging works. A visual side effect of that we’re shown is that even once his body is fully recovered, we see gold patches of light leaking from his skin, implying that Rewind is still working.

 

A purple ball rolls over to him and sticks on his cloak. Mineta of all people is standing, he says that taking Dark Shadow will just make AFO an emo edgelord. If he wants a REAL power, he should take Mineta’s Pop Off. He says that AFO will get a cool hairstyle as a bonus and begs AFO to not take Dark Shadow from Tokoyami. AFO remembers Jiro yelling at him and mutters how the weak howl. AFO sees the choppers incoming and says that’ll show humanity that they’ve failed. He flies off. Depowered, pulls himself up from the ground. He remembers the Shiketsu students saying that the refugees they’d been sent to pick up never arrived, and then adds that AFO is wrong, they still have hope.

 

I’ll admit, Mineta earned a huge amount of respect from me with that last stand. Mineta has been a creep and gross, but when push came to shove, he offered up his own power in order to protect Tokoyami. He recognizes that Dark Shadow isn’t just Tokoyami’s power, it’s his best friend, his other half. Mineta, gross little pervert Mineta, understood that he could potentially survive being Quirkless whereas Tokoyami absolutely couldn’t. That’s a bit of emotional development that I didn’t think the little creep was capable of even after his part in getting Izuku back. Shifting focus, I loved this little plotline with Gigantomachia. Seeing the heroes spring their trap in order to turn the giant to their side… only to learn that he wants to fight AFO on his own because his beloved Master abandoned him was so freaking cool! It’s like the first time Darth Maul came back and vowed vengeance against the Emperor in Star Wars. I especially like that Horikoshi decided to give Machia that bit of agency. Up to this point he seemed like a mindless drone, stupid and only capable of following orders. But now we see that while he was modified and given a lot of abilities to make him extremely efficient at following orders, he’s still enough of his own person to feel betrayal. It was a nice twist and kind of helped to remove the ethical quandary of Shinso taking his agency like that. Also loved giving Ashido a big moment where she singlehandedly stopped Machia and freed Shinso. She might not have the strongest power, but she used it expertly to get the job done. And it was sweet that Kirishima admitted that she’s always been his hero. I ship them, so I’m biased, but it was just incredibly sweet for Kirishima to give her such high praise. They’re clearly good friends and hearing something like that is a real confidence boost when you need it. I met a friend of my nephew when I visited him at college and said friend says he talks about me all the time, and I was grinning the rest of the day. I feel like that’s how Ashido is going to be when the fighting is over. The triple giant beatdown was just so much fun. It highlighted AFO’s incredible power when he was able to recover from those hits. And yet, also really stresses that he isn’t invincible, not when he has to recover from so much damage, and he admits that that recovery is eating up his limited time. I like that Horikoshi made a scenario where the other heroes obviously couldn’t stop AFO, but they still did major damage to him in slowing him down for so long. We’re hitting the endgame here in a minute. I know what’s coming. You know what’s coming unless you’ve been living under a rock. We’re about to see a legend get one last ride. I’m so excited for it. See you then, have a good night and stay safe. 

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Viewer Log: My Hero Academia ep 155

Revel in the Dark. 

Last time on My Hero Academia Izuku got some unexpected backup. Kurogiri used his warp gates to spread Twice clones along every battlefield and get Dabi to the fight with his father. Chaos ensues. Hawks does his best to slow down AFO from reaching Tomura, and Endeavor resolves to stop Dabi. Tomura’s mutation culminated in a huge energy burst as he sheds his skin, damaging the anti-gravity units on the Flying Coffin. And at the same time, Skeptic hacks into the system and prepares to get control of UA’s refugee area. But he’s ultimately stopped by La Brava. Gentle Criminal’s number 1 fan agreed to help the heroes combat the villains for her beloved. She’d hacked Skeptic’s system before, so wresting control from him again wasn’t hard. She works frantically to get the system up and running again while Gentle buys her time. Gentle Criminal, we learned, was the sole reason why his prison was the only one to have not one Jailbreaker after AFO started demolishing the super max prisons. As a reward for that bit of heroism, he asked for two things. To see his La Brava again, and to do whatever he could to help Izuku Midoriya. La Brava gave him a Plus Ultra version of her Love power up, making his elastic Quirk strong enough to slow the fall of UA. Shigaraki, temporarily stunned from his evolution, starts to move and almost touches the ground with his hand… but then it’s shot off. We pull back to see a bandaged Lady Nagant on the roof of the hospital reloading her gun arm. Enough recapping. Let’s get to it, shall we?

 

We find ourselves at Central Hospital just after Kurogiri was reactivated and escaped. It looks like the hospital staff are doing their damnedest to find room for anyone that was hurt in the riot. One doctor insists that his patient get back in bed immediately, as she’s liable to reopen her wounds. The woman is Lady Nagant. She’s looking much better than a woman that was basically set on fire last week should. Sure, she’s covered in bandages still, but the only noticeable scarring is the lines on her face that cut through her eyebrows. She says she doesn’t care and wants to be pointed at the enemy. The doctor says that he can’t help a Jailbreaker. She keeps struggling forward and the doctor tries to help her, but Rock Lock shows up and says that he’ll take responsibility for her and anything she does. He gives her his special hero phone that has been sending him updates about the battle. He warns her that it’s bleak out there. He says that they’ve put all their faith in Izuku Midoriya as he’s the only one that can possibly win. And it’s because of that and Nagant’s dedication to follow through on something Izuku told her that Rock Lock is willing to trust her. Nagant makes it to the roof and uses her quirk to target Tomura. She makes the shot and takes off Tomura’s hand. The shot visibly damages her, causing blood to shoot out along her scars. Despite the pain, she insists she’s got one more shot in her. She tells us that Izuku and Hawks helped remind her of what’s important in life and reminded her of the drive that made her want to be a hero in the first place. She takes the second shot and removes Tomura’s other hand as he tries to touch the ground.

 

Izuku reacts with lightning speed, springing at Shigaraki and grappling with him. He uses Black Whip to grab Tomura around the wrists. He runs them both off the side of the Coffin. Togeta asks where he’s going, and Izuku tells us that if Shigaraki can use his powers, its pointless to keep him on the coffin, he’s too dangerous for the injured so he’s putting some distance between them.

 

We peek into the mindscape again and AFO isn’t having a fun time. He’s falling apart within Tomura’s mind, throwing up purple bile and fingers. He rages against Nagant and her stupid betrayal of him. Tomura cuts in and tells his master that betrayal doesn’t feel good now does it? Tomura’s apparently done some thinking, and he realized that AFO had tried to use the same tactics on Lady Nagant that he did on Tomura. He tried to use her resentment and hatred towards specific people to fuel her rage, but it backfired with her. He recognizes now that AFO used his connections to Nana Shimura and All Might to push him, to shape him into the vessel that he wanted. AFO needed Tomura to be his weapon against All Might as he was the only real shot AFO had at getting OFA. Eventually, they began the procedure to merge their consciousnesses and Tomura didn’t really care about that experience. He claims that he was able to take the core part of himself, the part of him that is still Tenko Shimura in some way, and hid it away and protected it until it was needed. The visualization is he used a bunch of hands to surround himself in a complex cage. He claims to not need AFO anymore and that he’ll use his powers like he wants to now. AFO is starting to panic at this point and calls out to Kurogiri and demands he warp Shigaraki back to AFO’s main body so they can regroup. Kurogiri tries to respond… but we see Oboro Shirakumo manifest within the black swirl of Kurogiri’s body. The Kurogiri part wants to obey his orders, but the Shirakumo part has such an overwhelming desire to protect his friends that he’s got Kurogiri trapped in a loop. Tomura fully breaks free of AFO’s binding in his mind. He says that he won’t be controlled or have his heart changed like the weak-willed fools like Gentle Criminal and Nagant. He states that everything wrong in his life started in his wretched excuse for his childhood home.

 

In meat space, he tells Izuku that he wants to destroy EVERYTHING connected to that old house. That’s the only thing that will save him. They land and Izuku and him separate, though Izuku keeps the Black Whip bindings on him. Izuku says he can’t let that happen, but he can’t pretend that he didn’t see a child crying out for help within Shigaraki in the last few minutes.

 

Gentle faulter, his air trampoline starting to rip from the strain. He says that the love powerup he got isn’t to blame, he simply stretched himself too thin trying to hold up everything. La Brava tells him to just hang on a little longer as she’s almost got her new flight plan programmed in. Alone with his thoughts for a moment, Gentle wonders if Izuku left the Flying Coffin because he trusted Gentle to save it. He shakes his head after a moment, believing that Izuku probably doesn’t even realize he’s there. He realizes that there are no cameras or an audience to this and that he’s made peace with the fact he’s at best going to be an unsung hero when this is all over… until he realizes that two of the business course students are filming him from out a window. He tries to be chivalrous, telling the dumb boys to get inside as he could drop them at any moment. They tell him to shut up and let them film. When he starts to protest again, they tell HIM that this is their part in the fighting. The business course students are filming to make a real record of what’s happening. He says that part of the civil unrest that is happening is because they didn’t have good enough records to refute some of the things that Dabi said about Endeavor. They’re making sure that doesn’t happen again and this is how business course students act like heroes. La Brava compliments the camera work as she gets the engines back online. Tsukauchi tells her to stop fooling around, and La Brava says it’s fine, she’s working on her next project. She’s hacked the business course students’ phones and is uploading their footage to the internet. She says Gentle might not care how he’s viewed anymore, but she’ll be certain the whole world knows what a hero her beloved is. The engines kick on and Gentle’s load gets lighter.

 

 On the upper part of the Flying Coffin, Kurogiri is still perplexed about what he should be doing. Aizawa and Monoma get overwhelmed by Twice clones, Toga saying that she’ll make them all pay. Present Mic and Aizawa are thrown off the side. Kaminari sees them fall and his rage is great enough that he kicks up an electric attack that melts a bunch of Twice clones. Before they hit the water, though, Kurogiri opens up a warp gate catching them both. Kaminari asks if Kurogiri just saved them. Mandalay says maybe, but it’s just as likely that Kurogiri was trying to get rid of erasure, as that would help Shigaraki. She tells them that they can only hope they’ll be okay for now. They need to trust in Midoriya. We see Tomura snap the Black Whip bonds as Izuku rushes him.

 

Back at Gunga Villa, AFO is trying to escape and muses about the situation. He says that Tomura was meant to become him in a very literal sense. He didn’t want to have his and Tomura’s personalities mixing to form a new being that was a bit of him and a bit of Tomura, like what seemed to happen. He obviously banked on his mind being stronger than Tomura’s and being able to repress the other man. He underestimated Tomura’s rage. He plans on meeting up with Tomura and forcing another Quirk factor on him, one that AFO doesn’t need anymore but will increase his Vestige’s strength enough to let it dominate the body again. AFO says that will be how his story ends. He just needs to get away from a little gnat. That gnat being Hawks. Hawks says that this is all of their story and he refuses to let it end the way he wants. AFO turns his attention on Hawks and tells the other man that he doesn’t realize how much the wind is blowing in his favor. AFO blasts Hawks and disintegrates most of his body as a terrified Tokoyami watches… that is until Hawks reforms looking like a Shoujo protagonist (the girl targeted equivalent of the Shonen manga, focuses heavily on romance titles) and saying that he can’t possibly die yet. We then learn that Shiketsu High has arrived. The students were just meant to help their UA counterparts evacuate, but given the Duplication of Twices, they decided to step in. Camie used her powers to make a Hawks double to distract AFO while Shishikura uses his weird meatball powers to push Hawks out of the way. Inasa Yoarashi is also there and is making a tornado storm to throw off the Twices. Yoarashi announces that he’s the one that dictates how the wind blows. Shishikura reveals that he’s here specifically to avenge his father, who was a guard at one of the super max prisons. The other Shiketsu academy students amplify the hero forces. One of them knocks a Twice Clone at AFO, who obliterates it.

 

AFO reveals that he needs to touch a person’s real body to steal their quirk, and he thought that’s why they tried to keep the forces fighting him to a minimum and used range specialists like Hawks and Endeavor. But they’re desperate now so he can’t blame them for throwing caution to the wind. He mutates his back, causing spines to grow and starts raining hellfire down on the heroes from the spines. He scoffs at the heroes, asking if they REALLY think they can stand against him. AFO points out that the only one who managed to hurt him was Endeavor and he’s not even there. We get a quick glimpse of the Todoroki patriarch leading his prodigal son away from the others. He says that the world today has forgotten what life was like during his prime, that none of them remember what it was like before All Might became the symbol of peace. He claims it was a world of darkness, a golden age of suspicion and resentment. Yoarashi tells him ‘whatever’ and that they’re only taught the important stuff in contemporary history. All he knows is that Shoto is his buddy, and he’s been watching the house of Todoroki, he’s cheering them on to the end. Their hot blood passion burned away his fear of AFO. AFO decides that he’s going to kill Yoarashi first to stop the wind and then start taking quirks. He tries to attack Yoarashi, but the wind throws off his attacks. Yoarashi is encouraged to not let up and suck up the Duplication. He says he will, as the shitty weather that was already here makes his wind power all the stronger. He says that AFO’s the past and that tomorrow they’ll make a better world without him in it. Hawks charges, he thinks about how OFA is a crystallization of power and how it connects people. He thinks that Endeavor has been doing his best to connect people too, as he forms a feather sword and prepares to strike. AFO is surprised to see hope in Hawks’ eyes… but then realizes that hope is wavering with all the stuff he’s thrown at them. The Shiketsu kids arriving to bolster their forces just poured gasoline on the fire of his hope to try to keep it going. Before he can attack Hawks, he senses something behind him. He turns and sees Dark Shadow the size of a kaiju. Tokoyami is in an expositional mood and tells AFO some important things he’s missed. 1. The storm clouds that the fires created have made the area dark and overcast. 2. Dark Shadow gets stronger the more darkness is around it. And 3. They know that he can’t steal power through touching the power itself. IE, Endeavor was wrapped in his own flames, effectively making him immune to having his Quirk stolen. He says this strategy was the whole reason he was chosen to back up this group, Dark Shadow is his power and it’s raring to go. He fully releases Dark Shadow and uses “Black Abyss. Light of Baldur!” on him. Ya know AFO is legit afraid as he throws up a barrier to try to block the attack rather than try to tank the blow like he has with every other one. The fist passes through it and slams it into the ground.

 

We get a post credit scene, damn it Studio Bones. We flash back a few minutes to when things started turning for the worst. Hawks and AFO faced off, and Present Mic’s narration explains that they both realized that this situation wasn’t as good or as bad as it could be. We’re shown clones of Tomura, Dabi, and AFO mixed in with all the Twices, but they’re destroyed extremely easily and without a fuss. Uraraka, Tsu, and Jiro are running towards the fight and Tsu explains what she thinks is happening. While Twice could use his quirk to make a copy of someone and have the copy use the original’s power, Toga can’t. Tsu thinks it’s a side effect of Toga’s mimicry being based on how much she likes the person she’s taken the form of. Her clones just can’t make other clones with powers other than copy. She thinks that maybe if they can cause some turmoil in Toga’s mind, maybe they can disable the clones. Uraraka starts searching through the Duplication of Twices for Toga. We’re shown Toga lost in the sea of Twices. She’s extremely confused as she can’t make clones that can access their powers. She is confident she loves Tomura, Dabi, and the others just as much as she loved Twice, but she can’t make it work. Her panicked thoughts are played against her angry thoughts of killing all the heroes. We’re shown one Twice that is standing perfectly still, looking at their hands as she wonders aloud “Why can’t I become Jin?” That’s Twice’s real name if you forgot it.

 

Once again, a rollercoaster of emotions. I will definitely give Horikoshi props for this, the man knows how to add drama and tension to a long fight without dragging it down. Obviously Izuku vs. Tomura is the main fight, but while that’s only progressed forward minutes at this point, I don’t feel like its dragging quite like the infamous destruction of Namek plot line of Dragonball Z. If you’re too young to remember that, there was a point in Z’s story where the villainous alien emperor Freeza dropped a death ball to destroy the planet Namek rather than lose to series protagonist Son Goku. He bragged that the planet would be destroyed in 5 minutes. The planet then continued to exist for six more episodes, or 120 minutes. Sort of kills the momentum when you’re on the third episode after a declaration like that and the planet still hasn’t blown up. MHA has done a better job flushing out the other big plot of this final arc, the battle with AFO, that I’m fine hitting the pause button on Izuku’s fight repeatedly to catch up what’s happening elsewhere. I like that while things are bleak for the heroes at Gunga villa, they keep finding ways to keep going for just a few more minutes. Back up arrives, heroes bust out bigger attacks, Hawks rallies yet again to try to cut AFO down, and so on. I’m glad that this fight has so many long distance fighters or else it’d be way more one sided now that AFO is able to move so freely. Really would have taken the luster off any win Izuku gets if a bunch of heroes and his close friends ended up losing their powers in the fight. The Shiketsu kids getting a chance to shine is neat, particularly Yoarashi who is still just so intense. The only downside of their arrival is Camie. Not for anything she does… it’s just that I am never more aware that this supposedly 16-year-old girl is actually voiced by a 39-year-old-woman than when she tries to use Gen Z slang. Her English voice actor, Brittney Karbowski, is a millennial like me, and you can just tell that she has no idea what the hell she’s saying when she’s playing Camie. But that’s my big nitpick. And finally, while I’m annoyed by yet another post credit scene, setting up Uraraka and cos plot line of tracking down Toga to hopefully stop the Duplication of Twices is something I like. I’d prefer it if it had been part of the main plot of the episode, but I’d rather it get started now rather than try to stuff it into the next episode. Hopefully, Uraraka will track her down before Toga’s Twice clones cause any more damage. Also, I hope Present Mic and Aizawa are okay. Hopefully the two of them getting nabbed by Kurogiri was more Shirakumo than Kurogiri. But we’ll have to wait and see. See you later. Have a good night and stay safe. 

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Bluesky: @basicssuperhero.bsky.social

Viewer Log: My Hero Academia ep 154

 Some old faces return.

Last time on My Hero Academia there was some good news and some bad news. The good news is that thanks to a combination of Shoji’s words and the stubborn defiance of Central Hospital’s medical staff, the civilian members of Spinner’s mob (which made the bulk of their forces) backed down. Shoji made the right call and did tell the guy speaking on behalf of the civilians that his feelings of anger and hate were valid, they just need to find a better way to channel them in a way that can someday bring societal change. Spinner makes it to Kurogiri but gets blasted by Present Mic’s sonic boom. Mic weighs his options and ultimately decides to try to put down Kurogiri once and for all. High School buddy reanimated corpse or no, he’s just too dangerous as a Nomu to keep going. Unfortunately, Spinner is able to get up and put Tomura’s hand-mask on Kurogiri, waking him up. Kurogiri works fast, using his warp gates to quickly ferry Dabi and Toga to the battlefield with Endeavor and Hawks. Toga had decided to use her vial of Twice’s blood to take on his shape, meaning that for the next forty minutes the heroes will have to deal with endless clones. So, the final battle is about to shift back into gear. Enough recapping. Let’s get to it, shall we?

 

Gunga Villa has turned into a madhouse as it’s now covered in Twice’s muddy clones. The clones are piled atop each other in a weird matrix that reminds me of the One Reborn from the video game Bloodborne. Just an unsettling image. Komori, the mushroom maker from Class 1B, is the first to state what everyone is thinking, that there’s just too many clones and they’re all hosed. One silver lining to the moment is that Uraraka and Tsu slide through the warp gate just as it closes, Uraraka saying that she’s not losing sight of Toga again now that she’s caught. We get a brief flashback to show that after Uraraka’s wire attack failed, Tsu grabbed Uraraka with her frog tongue and threw them both through the portal. Uraraka calls out to Toga again, saying they have to talk. This gets either Toga or a clone to react, letting Twice’s face melt off so she can look at Uraraka with her own eyes and tell her to back off. We cut to that weather girl, Meryl, from last episode, who talks about the butterfly effect and says that a single person has the power to change the world.

 

The clones start to overwhelm the heroes, as their numbers are insane, and Dabi’s flames are so intense that Komori can’t do her crazy spore attack. Uraraka uses her anti-gravity powers on Tsu so they can both float over the crowd. Tsu, being a negative nelly for once, says that they’ll need to stop Toga AND Dabi in order to turn this around. She does a little prayer for Shoto and Shoji too. They’re joined by Tokoyami and Jiro. They assess the situation, lots of fires, lots of clones, and no obvious solution to either. Well… crap.

 

Endeavor takes out a bunch of Twice clones despite his injuries, which include losing an arm, before focusing on his oldest. He noticed the X shape flames on Dabi’s chest are like Phosphor and demands to know what Dabi has done to his little brother. Dabi is man enough to admit that Shoto was too strong for him to kill, which ruined his perfect image of presenting the youngest Todoroki to the patriarch in the rain. Since he can’t have that, he’s decided to just burn the country that Endeavor has worked so hard to protect to the ground. AFO watches from a distance and is smugly confident in his ability to win. He knows that Kurogiri would have followed his programming and gone to aid Tomura. He muses on how much more powerful Warp Gate is to the sludge teleport he uses and wonders if he should’ve kept that Quirk. He decides that he’s had enough fun around here and tries to fly off to aid Tomura. Hawks zooms over and blocks him, knocking the reverse-aging villain back. AFO tries to mock him, saying that he really should be on the ground and facing off against Twice’s last wish. Hawks counters by saying that he’s in an awfully big hurry and wonders if he’s not confident in Tomura. This strikes a nerve for AFO, but he admits that Tomura isn’t complete yet, so he really does need AFO’s back up. Hawks yells to Endeavor to focus on Toya, as the flames will take out everyone out if they don’t. AFO calls Hawks cruel for that one and asks if he’s really asking Endeavor to give up on his duty to beat AFO. Hawks tells him to shut up, and points out that Endeavor isn’t abandoning anything, as he already killed AFO once today. This really pisses off AFO who mutters, “How pedantic.” Dabi rockets at his father, going in for the kill. Endeavor looks at the burning ball of hate that is his oldest son and swears that this time he will watch Toya.

 

Back at the flying Coffin, Kurogiri throws Present Mic at Aizawa, Manual and Monoma. He also pulls in a bunch of Twice clones. It looks like he isn’t playing any more. They do their best to hold them off, but it’s three against like 15. To his credit, Monoma keeps his eyes on Shigaraki until the moment that he’s forced to the ground and hits his head. In the Coffin, Shigaraki’s body bursts as his mutation hits critical mass. It destroys the electromagnetic barrier, and Skeptic is able to hack their system and causes the Coffin to start to drop. Mandalay uses her telepathy to get everyone up to speed on the situation. Izuku has his attention forced back to Tomura. He’s basically back to normal, but he’s now got a billowing cape of shed skin around his waist. Gross. He asks Izuku what he’d do with Tomura even ‘if’ he’s still in his own head. He sarcastically asks if they’d have another chat at the mall like they did all the way back in season 2. He announces that they both know who he is, he’s Deku’s villain. Skeptic frantically hacks away, saying that he’s got full control of the evacuation system and swears that no one here will survive.

 

Izuku realizes that he’s kind of screwed. In the next few minutes, he has to find a way to get the Flying Coffin to land as gently as possible or else everyone in the lower levels will die. He also has to keep an eye on Tomura to make sure he doesn’t escape, and to do that he also has to keep track of Kurogiri, the guy whose whole thing is rapid teleportation. And to make matters worse, he’s having trouble breathing. Using the amped-up version of Gear Shift seems to have messed with his lungs and he’s having trouble taking in air. Kudo manifests beside Izuku and says that he can’t die just yet. He gives Izuku some good news. Right now, All for One and One for All are resonating in a way that’s letting them peer into each other’s mindscape. Within, they see that the Shigaraki’s unity is falling apart. In the mindscape, AFO is surrounded by purple goo and seems to be scrambling to try to get Tomura back under his control. Kudo assesses that right now Shigaraki might not be able to move at all. He tells Izuku to take a moment to catch his breath and then use all the anger he’s feeling to push himself forward.

 

Things are looking dire… but then Skeptic is hit with an unexpected curveball. In the form of a pink mini jester. That’s right, Manami ‘La Brava’ Aiba, the tiny girl with a big heart and hacking skills like no other has entered the battle. She says that he’s pretty good, but he wouldn’t be able to hide from her for long, as she’s working for Gentle Criminal’s sake. While the others at the HQ scramble to try to get info on what’s happening at Gunga Villa, La Brava is having a grand old time. She reveals that years ago when she was still a shut in, on a whim she hacked the server at Skeptic’s company, Feel Good Inc, and replaced all their ads with a pic of a kitty character she likes. This infuriates Skeptic, who remembers that incident and the MILLIONS that La Brava cost him. Knowing that it really pissed him off, she does it again. Skeptic uses his powers to make a few minions to help him carry his equipment. He’s willing to sacrifice everything else so long as he can get back into the UA Evac system, saying that he’ll just move locations and start over. La Brava shifts her focus to trying to help Izuku. One of the guards tells her that they need to make sure UA lands safely. She does her best, but the big explosion knocked out a lot of critical parts so she’s scrambling. One of the security guys says that he can’t believe they let their last line of defense be this little criminal. Tsukauchi say that a crime is a crime… but maybe not everyone who is a villain is a lost cause, thinking of Aoyama.

 

Tomura reiterates that he’s Izuku’s villain. He says that Izuku refuses to accept that there is a fundamental difference between them and its for that reason that they’re facing off. Mandalay rallies the electric heroes to help her handle the… Duplication of Twices. Ethan and his wingman wedge try to find a way to shoot at the Duplication, but Aizawa and their other guys are mixed in there. They’re briefly distracted when they notice something on the water below them. A gray-haired gentleman, crackling with pink energy is trampolining on a bit of air. Oh, so Gentle is getting involved too.

 

Skeptic makes it out of the cave but runs into Ms. Joke, UA Guidance Counselor Hound Dog, and their squad. Ms. Joke asks if he really thought he’d get away from them. Hound Dog takes off his mask and says that he can’t believe they’re putting their faith in villains and hopes they’ll live up to their end of the bargain. Tsukauchi tells Gentle that he’s up, and La Brava sends all her love to him. Gentle says that he’ll do whatever it takes to help the boy.

 

We flash back a month, during the big prison riots, to Mikuzu Prison. Muscular leads the break and tells the villains to have fun on the streets. The criminals start to head for the broken walls, but Gentle jumps in front of them and tries to talk the other criminals down. His speech doesn’t sway them and they charge him. Gentle remembers Izuku’s speech about wanting to show the world a bright future and the screen flashes. When we cut back in, we see it’s dawn. The gorilla cop walks in, and says that with seven prison breakouts that night, Mikuzu was the only one to not have a single breakout. We see Gentle, looking exhausted but alive, sitting with the other prisoners either tied up in air or in rubberized steel beams. Mr. Kong asks what he wants. Gentle says that he wants two things, to see La Brava, and then to help.

 

La Brava encourages Gentle over the radio, saying that she used to think she’d be happy just being around Gentle. But, she’s since learned that she’s happiest when he’s happy, so she wants that above all. Gentle and La Brava agree that absence makes the heart grow fonder… which is a big deal because La Brava’s quirk lets her power up the people that she loves proportional to her feelings. And she has even bigger feelings towards one Danjoro “Gentle Criminal” Tobita. He unleashes their super Gently Superlover attack, which lets him slow the falling UA. He asks if Izuku is still trying to fight to save someone’s smile. He thinks that all he’s ever wanted to do was to try to help. Mandalay telepathically tells Izuku that they seemed to have been caught by a trampoline made of air. Izuku is ecstatic to hear the Gentle is helping, but Banjo manifests and tells him to pay attention. Shigaraki has recovered, and he’s moving his hand toward the ground. Banjo reminds Izuku that even if they’re floating, when Tomura’s hand touches the ground they’re all dead. Izuku is still too exhausted to move, Tomura’s hand drops and he’s inches from the ground… when a bullet rockets through the air and takes his hand clean off. Tsukauchi gives a little speech about how villains are people too and you have to give people the chance to do better. We cut to the nearby hospital, were we see a bandaged but still mobile Lady Nagant standing with her gun armed raised. I guess this is the rise of heroic villains.

 

Well, as far as episode’s go, this was very much a good news/bad news situation. The villains have bounced back extremely quickly and are going to be causing a lot of trouble just with the Duplication of Twices.  Endeavor has to live his nightmare and fight Toya, more than likely to the death. Hawks is the only one standing between AFO and AFO going after Tomura. Uraraka, Tsu, Jiro, and Tokoyami are more or less powerless at this moment to do anything. That’s all bad. But they’ve effectively removed the villains’ communications and hacking expert in one fell swoop, Gentle saved basically everyone in the lower areas from a fiery death, and Nagant has disarmed (teehee) Shigaraki at least for the moment. That’s all very good. If you’d told me seventy episodes ago when they were first introduced that I’d be happy to see Gentle Criminal and La Brava return, I’d have laughed in your face. Two characters that I’d written off at the start of their story as joke villains meant to waste time while we gear up for the next big fight are back and are trying to show that they’ve had character growth as well. The flashback to the prison was really well done to show that Gentle took Izuku and Mr. Kong’s words to heart and is refusing to step back or stay still anymore. Plus, it was really sweet to hear his priorities were to see the love of his life and then help Izuku in that order. What? I like when two characters that are supposedly in love act like it, so sue me. It was also nice to see Izuku learn that Gentle was helping. Much like having Kota show up to talk with him at the UA refugee camp, knowing that he has had a positive impact on someone I think is going to help Izuku moving forward. Gives him a little more oomph. And obviously Lady Nagant coming in clutch to save everyone by taking off one of Shigaraki’s hands was dope. Remember, Shigaraki’s power is focused through his fingers, so it’s not like he can just jam his stump on the ground and cause it to melt. Sure, he’ll just regrow the hand now that he’s got access to his powers again, but that’ll take time and every minute they buy help out Izuku. Hopefully they can keep up this momentum. But we’ll have to wait and see. Have a good night, and stay safe. 

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Bluesky: @basicssuperhero.bsky.social

Viewer Log: My Hero Academia ep 153

Some people will do anything to help their friends. 

Last time on My Hero Academia we got some backstory on the stoic Mezo Shoji. Shoji grew up in a rural area where things were… tense with Heteromorphic quirk havers. While by the river one day, he saw a little girl getting swept away and dived in to save her. This was his one good memory of his hometown, and unfortunately was the root of his main bad one. See, rather than focusing on him saving a life, the other villagers were infuriated that the freaky armed Shoji kid touched one of their ‘normal’ children. He was severely beaten for this, which gave him scars on his face, which lead to him wearing a mask. He and Koda volunteered to go with Present Mic to try to protect Central Hospital and the captured Kurogiri from being released. He’d learned from Ippon, the large fox woman, that Heteromorphs are gathering to raid the place. They faced off against Spinner, who was given a gigantification quirk to make himself more physically intimidating, at the cost of his brain, and an armored quirk to make it harder to stop him. Shoji fights hard against Spinner while trying to convince the civilian Heteromorphs that lashing out against everyone is the wrong thing to do. He very nearly convinces a few, but Spinner strings together enough words to convince his followers that hurting those that hurt you is always justified and h charges into the hospital. Oh, and Koda captures this spider-face dude who was acting as Spinner’s interpreter via an Alfred Hitchcock reference. Which was neat. Enough recapping. Let’s get to it, shall we?

 

The episode begins right where the last one left off, with Spinner in his new armored form breaking into Central Hospital. We learn that before the mission began, AFO gave Spinner a recording device, saying that when he finds Kurogiri to use it to play either his or Tomua’s voice in order to rouse the perfect Nomu. He says that in this Spinner has to become Tomura’s hero and free Kurogiri. Several Heteromorphs follow him in, but they’re met with the medical staff. The doctors and nurses stand as a wall trying to keep the invaders from the patients. They don’t say a word, just staring defiantly at them. The rioters remember Shoji telling them that they better have a plan for when they go into the hospital. This seems to break something in some of the rioters, who drop their weapons. Spinner rushes ahead, not noticing. We enter his mind space, where Spinner still sees himself as a normal lizard man. He admits that he never thought that he’d amount to much, but he decided that if he followed ‘him,’ maybe he’d do something important. He asks Tomura Shigaraki if he can see him, and if he can see all the people following him. In meat space he breaks through a wall, looks back and is only then made aware that he’s all alone. Or so it looks for just a moment. Present Mic walks up, saying that Shoji broke through to his followers. He knows what the plot was here and he refuses to allow Kurogiri to be used again. He unleashes a sonic boom that obliterates Spinner’s plates, knocking him to the ground and frying his recorder. I guess the damage he’s taken today has finally caught up with him as well, as he deflates as he passes out.

 

We jump back a few minutes to when Present Mic first chased after Spinner. He left Shoji and Koda outside and tells them to do their best to handle the mob. Shoji stands his ground while Koda wrestles Spiderface to the ground. A goon rushes Shoji and tries to smack him in the head with an axe. He’s saved at the last second by the pig-man that had been part of the group that followed Spinner inside. Hank, as I shall hereby call him, says that he thinks they’re channeling their anger the wrong way. Spiderface tries to keep the hate high, but Hank and the others are very conflicted at this point. Hank says that when he first heard the call to action, he felt better standing up and doing something. After seeing Shoji stand up to them, Spinner’s melted brain indifference, and the medical staff standing up to protect the innocent, he’s not sure that he CAN blame everyone anymore. Spiderface starts to panic, as he and the other PLF members were counting on using the civilian rioters as their meat shields in this fight. He tries to get everyone angry again, but he’s just so less intimidating with Koda grappling him. Hank asks Shoji if he was wrong to ask, if he should have just sat quietly and hoped for the best. Shoji tells him that his feelings are valid, that they need to bring their oppressors into the light. He may have acted rashly coming here, but when push came to shove, Hank and the others didn’t lose their heads. Shoji says that they’re all the light that will help bring change to this world. The fight goes out of the mob, which allows Rock Lock and the other heroes to run into the hospital and back up Present Mic.

 

Present Mic notices that Kurogiri’s shadowy form is still completely inert. He notes that Kurogiri hasn’t moved since the day when Shirakumo broke through for just a moment and tipped them off about the League’s plans. He wonders if that act of defiance broke him beyond repair. Spinner is conscious but paralyzed. Spinner calls himself a failure. He remembers a conversation with Dabi a while back where the prodigal son of the Todoroki house called him an empty cosplayer. He remembers how he got started as Spinner with the League, and then Shoji asked him to think about how he’s using his anger. Spinner, sorrowfully, says that he DID and that he’d chosen to follow Tomura Shigaraki. He wanted to lift up his friend. Present Mic reports Spinner is down and prepares to do the hard thing. He knows that Kurogiri is a major lynchpin of the League’s plans, and that even if he stopped Spinner here, someone else will come for him. He hates himself for having to do this, but in his mind, Shirakumo is dead and his other best friend, Aizawa, has already given a leg and an eye for this fight. He inhales and prepares to execute Kurogiri, begging Shirakumo for forgiveness. This rouses Spinner, who grabs Tomura’s hand mask that he brought along with him. He gets the hand on Kurogiri and tells him to save Tomura. This rouses Kurogiri just as Present Mic unleashes a sonic scream. Spinner gets knocked out, but Kurogiri is unaffected. He breaks free, a bit of his shadows peeled back so Present Mic could see Shigarkumo’s face in the black. He says that he’ll protect Tomura Shigaraki and envelop everyone in darkness.

 

We cut to National Weather Service report in the US. The weather girl informs the viewers that the US is experiencing a weird amount of cloud cover due to the heat and smoke that the battle between the house of Todoroki has created. The weather girl turns the report into a speech, saying that our leaders are selling us all out to All For One and that people need to rise up to stop it. Her producer cuts her off and says that the network will have their heads for this.

 

Back at Kamino, Dabi is powering up. Iida keeps Shoto from launching himself at his brother, saying that Dabi’s heat is too intense for him and that he’s already exhausted himself using his Phosphor. Shoto still struggles to get into the fight, knowing that he’s the only one that can really stand up to Dabi. He’s frustrated that Dabi is rallying so much faster and stronger than he is. Dabi is also frustrated, as he realizes that he’s too far away from Gunga villa to reach his dad. He also knows that if he stick around trying to kill Shoto, his body will definitely give out. He starts to fly away, planning to try to reach Endeavor anyway. Shoto tries to bait him into fighting more, but Dabi isn’t listening. Burnin’ is shocked that Dabi is still standing, as she was assured that his body is compatible with his quirk, so he should be down by now. Skeptic radios in and says that someone is covering Dabi’s travel cost. A moment later, Kurogiri’s portal opens.

 

We return to the Coffin in the Sky. Rain is pelting them and the fortress is floating slightly to the side. Manual tells Aizawa and Monoma that with the storm getting worse he might have trouble controlling the water. Monoma is more interested in making sure that the history books make it clear that he’s the one that won the battle for them. He knows that the others are working hard to battle Tomura, and all he has to do is not blink, there’s no way that he can complain. Then the Kurogiri portal opens and Present Mic is thrown through along with the hand-mask.

 

We return to Gunga Villa where the restored AFO explains his brilliant plan. He says in his experience, he’s learned to bet on people’s emotions. He knew that Spinner, lonely, forsaken Spinner, who valued his friendship with Tomura so much, would put his entire being into getting to Kurogiri. The hand mask was implanted with something that got Kurogiri up to speed on what has been happening. He has Kurogiri bring Dabi to face off against Endeavor, and for Hawks, he has his own karmic punishment. That being Toga in the form of Twice. Remember, if Toga has a strong affinity for the person who’s blood she drinks, she can copy their powers as well. AFO tells Hawks that, if he hadn’t prioritized killing the ‘poor broken soul’ that was Twice, this is how that last battle would have ended. Hawks screams at Endeavor to destroy the clones, NOW.

 

We jump back a few minutes to the island. The League are holding out against the heroes, Toga is doing her best to hide her movements by causing swells in the water before she attacks. She nearly stabs Tsu, but Uraraka intercepts. She, Tsu and two pros with sensor powers prepare to capture Toga. Gang Orca and his squad take down the Nomu that was breaking its body to pieces to cause the waves that hid Toga. He announces that this Nomu doesn’t have super regeneration either, and that they’ve nearly gotten the villains captured. They just have to keep at it and the battle is theirs. Toga starts to panic, as fewer allies means its harder for her to use her hit and run tactics. She considers using Twice’s blood to take on his form and use his clones to escape, but she’s only got enough blood for forty minutes at the most. With her stuck on the island, Twice’s Sad Man’s Parade would be wasted. She wonders if they realized she had Twice’s blood and that’s why they brought her here. She decides to put her faith in Spinner getting teleportation back on the table and goes for the vial. Narrator Present Mic interrupts for a moment to say that before today, Toga was a being of instinct. She really didn’t strategize or think things out, she reacted. But the death of Twice and seeing her house burn has caused her to shift into full villainy. She tries to drink the vial, but Tsu sees and fires her tongue at it, shattering the vial. Only for Toga to admit that that vial was a decoy. It was filled with a chemical that draws the Nomu’s attention. The spike Nomu fires a volley at Tsu, disabling her and giving Toga the opportunity to take Tsu shape and dive at her. Using Tsu as a shield, she drinks Twice’s blood. As she made Twice clones, Kurogiri manifests and asks what her desire is. She wants to kill Hawks and then every other hero. She tells him to scatter her around the battlefield. Uraraka tries to stop Toga, launching wires at her, but she cuts them off. Uraraka then tries her last gambit, saying that they hadn’t had their talk, about boys and romance. Toga, regretfully says that she knows and wishes that they could have before slipping through the portal.

 

In the present, Twice clones start raining down. Hawks is terrified of this, he was sure that he’d destroyed all of the samples the League had of Twice’s blood when he was undercover, but they must have had some left. He wonders if Dabi somehow planned this. Toga tells Hawks he’s a dead bird as she unleashes “Infinite Doubles: Sad Man’s Death Parade.” A wave of Twice clones spray down on them. Dabi’s speech at Toga’s house is echoed, saying that he’s going to make sure that they keep laughing, forever as the episode ends.

 

One thing that I like about All for One is that he understands empathy. Don’t get me wrong, he’s an amoral sociopath that will use anyone and everyone for his goals, but he understands people with more complex emotions form connections to others and how to use them. He knows how to weaponize them. It’s why making Spinner, a man that still bears scars from when he was a NEET (an anti-social shut-in) without a friend, fetch Shigaraki was so brilliant. Spinner is desperate to be useful to Tomura Shigaraki, his first genuine friend that he shared a lot in common with. He’d fight tooth and claw, sacrificing anything and everything to help him. Which is why he was willing to leap in the way of Present Mic’s finisher in order to potentially free Kurogiri. And that just makes it sadder when I realized that, if you took supervillainy out of the equation, Spinner and Tomura would have been bros and probably been each other’s support system that they needed so badly! Same with Uraraka and Toga, they seem to have a sort of spiritual connection that really would have helped the more destructive Toga get through the rough patch that has been her whole life had they met under other circumstances. The fact that Toga would rather get her revenge on Hawks than to live out her friendship fantasy with Uraraka says a lot. So… Kurogiri is back on the board, the villains have ferried their most powerful fighters back into position, and now all that’s stopping All For One from joining Tomura and finally claiming One For All is his level of interest in this upcoming fight. Thank god that the man loves the drama that’s about to unfold or he’d be at UA already. Have a good night, and stay safe. 

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Bluesky: @basicssuperhero.bsky.social