Viewer Log: My Hero Academia ep 157

 Fire and Ice collide one final time. 

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Viewer Log: My Hero Academia ep 156

 All For One gets a triple smackdown. 

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Viewer Log: My Hero Academia ep 155

Revel in the Dark. 

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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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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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Viewer Log: My Hero Academia ep 152

Shoji takes center stage.  

Last time on My Hero Academia Izuku and Tomura had their rematch. He made it to the fight thanks to Ethan, the fighter pilot and Star and Stripe’s squad. Seeing Bakugo dead and most of his allies badly beaten and not moving, he briefly freaks out, but Mirio gets him to focus by saying everyone (besides Bakugo, but they’re working on him) is alive. Izuku focuses on the fight and Mirio lets Izuku know that AFO and Tomura seem to be not as unified as they might think. This point is proven as Shigaraki’s body continues to Mutate and one of the hands he grows seems to have the face of his family members appear on them. Izuku uses all of his powers together to hit Tomura as hard as possible. He’s able to knock him to the ground, but AFO begins to rally within Tomura’s body. And we zoom out and learn that the other villains are rallying as well, Dabi’s fire is engulfing Kamino Ward, a huge storm is forming over the island Toga is on, Gunga villa starts to smoke, and we end on the hulked-out Spinner standing over some carnage. Damn. Enough recapping. Let’s get to it, shall we?

 

We open on a rainy day. This is a flashback, we’re seeing a day when a mob appeared outside of someone’s home and forced him to leave the village, saying that he’s a monster and that he should never come back. We then return to the present… or well, a few minutes before Izuku joined the fight at the UA fly coffin. Spinner led an assault on Central Hospital trying to free Kurogiri, the Nomu that future narrator Izuku dubs the masterpiece of that awful project. His army had about 1500 members and was composed of heteromorph members of the former Paranormal Liberation Front and ordinary folks that joined up to follow Spinner. The heroes are doing their best to hold them off, Rock Lock freezes several in place, and Present Mic unleashes a huge sonic attack to try to force people back, asking himself when his old friend Shirikumo (the man that was modified into Kurogiri) when he got so popular. He gets knocked aside by an attack and almost skewered, but he’s saved by Koda summoning a flock of crows to grab him. Present Mic asks what happened to Shoji and Koda says they got separated. The rioters break through, saying that no one that ‘looks human’ can understand what they’re going through.

 

One of the league members preaches the lies of modern society, saying that while cities might be ‘more accepting’ but going out into the countryside and Heteromorphs are treated as monsters. He unmasks himself, revealing a spidery face, and says that they’ll unmask society as well. He flashes back to talking with Skeptic, who says that it doesn’t matter if the League of Villains are real allies of their liberation or not, they’ll mold them into the figure heads they need. We see this in action with Spinner, who is dubbed the group’s leader, but is currently a drooling idiot, barely able to understand what is going on around him. He prepares to execute an officer with his huge sword, but is stopped by Shoji attacking, attacking with hundreds of fists. He gets mobbed and pulled down by the crowd. They call him a traitor to his ‘kind.’ Shoji counters by asking what any of their cries for equality have to do with attacking a hospital. He reminds them that the heroes prioritizes getting the Jaku hospital patients before the raid really started. We learn that it was Shoji’s memory we saw at the start of the episode, not Spinner, and obviously being forced from his home messed with him a lot. He throws off the mob with his tentacles, asking if they have a plan to do something similar, and if they don’t, he’ll never forgive them. This is the first time we see Shoji without his mask, and we see that he’s got a sort of horse-like face. And he’s got several prominent scars around his mouth.  

 

Shoji’s words confused Spinner, his brain is basically mush at this point. And Spinner’s confusion is increased as his ‘followers’ ask him to give them orders. Spinner probably was at least a decent mouthpiece before his transformation, but whatever Quirk he was given to hulk out his body definitely fried his brain. The shouting drives him to shout that he don’t care. Spider-face tries to translate what Spinner said to something more inspiring and orders everyone forward. They move, but the group has clearly lost some momentum already. Shoji asks Spinner why he’s doing this and accuses him of setting back heteromorph rights back 30 years with his actions. Spinner tells him to shut up. We get a flashback to when re was given the muscle quirk ‘Bulk up,’ and learn that AFO gave him a third quirk on top of that called ‘Scale Mail.’ Scale Mail caused dozens of blood red plates to erupt painfully from Spinner’s body, covering him in blood red armor. He also briefly remembers bonding with Tomura over the fact they’re both gamers before he charges Shoji. He slashes and takes off one of Shoji’s hands. I’m pretty sure that’s a dupli-arm hand, so he should be fine, but still, graphic.

 

Koda is stressed out at seeing Shoji hurt, as I guess the two of them are good friends. We flashback to a night with class 1A where Shoji showed his face to his friends and said that he got the scars due to a ‘blood purification’ ritual. See, his parents didn’t have his additional limbs, so they could pass as more human than Shoji could. When the rest of the villagers found out about him, there was a riot where they tried to kill him but Shoji escaped. He says that while the city Heteromorphs like Koda, Tokoyami and Tsu might think of these as ancient history, they’re still very real. Ashido says that the world shouldn’t have people like that, but Shoji shrugs and says that’s a nice thought. Mineta realizes that when he first met Shoji, he said something about how he had crazy octopus’ arms, and just now realizes that might have been offensive to him. He profusely apologizes. Shoji laughs this off and says that is no big deal. He says that they need to be able to talk about stuff like this. He also adds that he’s seen popularity lists of heroes that folks assume will turn bad and the ones that top those tend to be scarred heteromorphs. He wears a mask to try to not give folks the wrong first impression. He says that his life has been hard, but there’s been good stuff too. We flashback farther to when he was at the river near his hometown and saw another kid drowning in the water. He leapt in and save them, the little girl sobbed in his arms, and he says that he’s instead going to focus on the one good memory he has. The others all give him a big group hug and tell him that he can’t think of it like that, promising to help him make good memories that outnumber the bad. Shoji is touched by their words, but knows it’s a lot harder than that. Heteromorph prejudice has been an issue for a century and no one generation can fix it. He swears to make the world he leaves behind better than the way he found it. In the present, Koda grows a crest on his head… which I guess was always a part of his body, but he somehow repressed it to seem more human? Maybe? Who knows?

 

Shoji battles with Spinner, screaming that nothing that has happened to them can be justified, but fighting like this will just make it worse. As they fight, his words seem to get mob to calm down a little and question what is happening. Spider-face says that Shoji’s words are the naïve words of a child. He’d probably had said worse, but then a crown of crows start to encircle him, a crying Koda telling him to NEVER laugh at Shoji. Shoji wraps his extra arms around the main one, bulking it up to and power up his punches. Spinner says that power is gross, but Shoji screams that’s just who he is. Present Mic flashes back to before the fight where he saw Shoji and Koda asking to be put on the team protecting Central hospital. All Might and Aizawa were shocked that he knows about that, as he hadn’t mentioned it to the students yet. Shoji says that he spoke with the fox lady, Ippon, and she let him know that things weren’t great for Heteromorphs out in the city and that they’re all being headhunted to join a group that will attack the hospital. He and Koda what to face this head on. After that, Aizawa asked Mic to look after his students. Present Mic does just that, sprinting to try to back Shoji up and mentioning that these kids are way stronger than he and Aizawa were as students.

 

Koda has a flashback to when his mother told him about his powers. She told him that he might grow horns like hers as he grew up. She says that that’ll let him communicate with animals from much farther away. She adds that she used to be bullied because of her horns, but Koda’s father (who was a non-heteromorph) stood up for her. She tells Koda to follow his dad’s example and stand up for people in need. He uses his big attack “Hitchcock BIRDS!” to knock Spider-face from the building in a flurry of black wings. Present Mic does a sonic blast to shatter Spinner’s blade, letting Shoji get a powerful blow that knocks Spinner to the ground. He screams at everyone to not let these villains use their scars against them, and that if they keep fighting like this, next time it could be their children that get used. He flashes back to just after when he was attacked, the little girl he saved crying and saying she was sorry. That maybe if he hadn’t saved her, he wouldn’t have been attacked for being different. Spinner rights himself and catches himself on a building. He screams that his hatred won’t go away. He roars at his followers that if someone hurts them, they have the RIGHT to hurt them back. He roars that they should follow him to the future before leaping away. That rallies the Heteromorphs and they start fighting again. Shoji is at a loss that Spinner is still up after that attack. The gorilla head cop we’ve seen a few times draws his dun and says that they can’t keep this up. The episode ends as Spinner breaks into the hospital as gunshots ring out.

 

I’ll be honest, it sucks that we’re one hundred and fifty-two episodes and four movies into this series and we’re just now getting this background stuff on Shoji. Shoji has been a background character for all this time, but he’s one of the most visually distinct characters of class 1A. He’s like six feet tall with six arms and a mask over his face, he naturally draws the eye. But I don’t think he’s ever had more than a dozen lines in a season, he spoke so rarely that I am just now learning he’s voiced by Ian Sinclair, the voice actor for Brooke from One Piece. We’re just now learning that he’s been the target of heteromorph racism and been severely beaten because of it. I get it, manga writers are on extremely tight timetables and just about all of them have to be plodders, not plotters (ie, they aren’t given the luxury of being able to write their stories much in advance), so there probably wasn’t time for Horikoshi to set this up. I wish he’d had the time, as Shoji backstory is compelling as hell and I wish it was backfilled like this. That’s enough complaining. I do like this fight overall, with Shoji doing his best to try to turn these justifiably angry people away from causing more damage and unfortunately perpetuating the prejudice cycle. People think of them as inhuman monsters and treat them like dirt, so they retaliate and unfortunately prove to anyone watching that they are inhuman monsters. I like that Shoji’s backstory has the bittersweet memory with this kid. Like, he got to feel like a hero at a young age by saving this child from drowning, but it was that very heroic action that led to him getting maimed so badly that he chose to wear a mask to not put people off. That’s just such a real background. I like that Shoji is also socially aware enough to know that he had to be at the fighting with the Heteromorphs to be a voice of reason in a chaotic situation. It shows that he’s a very intelligent young man and that he can think strategically. Plus getting to see him rock his full strength was cool. I liked that they also gave Koda a bit to do, showing off his own strengthened power and that he’s not one to take kindly to someone being mean to a friend of his. Spinner is just straight up tragic at this point. He was a social outcast that found meaning in a crazed man’s speech about heroic purity and justice through violence, finding camaraderie and real friendship with this group of other social outcasts, to being made the face of a political revolution, which unfortunately led to his brain being fried because he could be made into a better tool if given more power. It’s not great for Spinner. Especially if a theory I had about multiple quirks pans out and it’s revealed that the more you have the faster your body breaks down. Three seems like it’ll do more damage to him than two is all I’m saying. So, Spinner is breaking out Kurogiri out unless someone gets in his way. Guess you’ll have to wait and see who steps up. Or watch ahead of me. Either way. Have a good night, and stay safe. 

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Bluesky: @basicssuperhero.bsky.social

Viewer Log: My Hero Academia ep 151

 Izuku vs. Shigaraki, round 1, FIGHT!

Last time on My Hero Academia the villains had their The Empire Strikes Back moment. Dabi recovered, having saved himself from Shoto’s final blow by copying his Phosphor technique and is once again on the hunt for his father. Meanwhile, All For One used his Hail Mary play, injecting himself with an artificial version of Eri’s Rewind quirk. The drug has restored him to his physical peak, even regrowing his eyes, but the downside is he’s going to keep getting younger until he ceases to be. The hero Edgeshot used his ability to reduce himself to tiny threads in a last-ditch effort to seal Bakugo’s wounds and restart his heart. Mirko and the Big Three try to buy him time. Mirko gets her other arm ripped off in the fighting, but that barely slowed her down as she rained kicks down on the villain. Shigaraki’s mind seems to be fracturing bit by bit as the Tenko Shimura in him is growing stronger. The constant attacks cause Shigaraki to mutate his form again, gaining armored plates in the form of hands all over his body. He quickly dispatches Mirko, Amajiki, and Nejire, and dubs Mirio as not worth his time. Mandalay tells them telepathically she’s going to power down the shield and she needs them to buy two seconds. Mirio, freaking out a bit by all this, decides to fall back on Sir Nighteye’s advice and tries to use one of his strengths. So, he gets in front of Shigaraki and effectively moons him, saying, “brought a peach for ya!” The sheer insanity of the moment stuns Shigaraki just long enough for Izuku to slingshot himself into the field. And the League of Villain’s member Skeptic seems to be doing something to the UA shelter with his hacking, which can’t possibly be good. Enough recapping. Let’s get to it, shall we?

 

After Izuku gives a quick summary of the situation (Villains scattered, villains rallying, he’s racing to get to the Coffin in the Sky) we learn how he covered the distance so quickly. The US Air Force guys flew their bombers to pick him up. Ethan the fighter pilot scolds Izuku for making them pick him up. He tells Izuku that he has orders to return home, but his squad is technically committing treason to help him to honor Star and Stripes’ wishes. He tells Izuku to go and beat the worst villain in history. Izuku slingshot his way to Coffin and kicks Shigaraki square in the face. He hits hard enough to disintegrate some of Shigaraki’s armor. With Izuku inside they get the barrier back up and Shigaraki gets a good shock for his trouble when he hits it. Shigaraki notes that Izuku seems stronger than before and wonders if the energy he saw sparking around him was the same as Lee’s, the second wielder. Izuku asks if everyone is okay… but stops when he sees everyone except Mirio is extremely injured… or dead. He freezes up when he sees it. Shigaraki starts to gloat, condescendingly asking him to tell the others why he’s late. He tells Izuku to avoid taking responsibility like everyone else does. Izuku’s power starts to go out of control, he unleashes a smokescreen, causes Blackwhip to erupt all around his body, and Fa Jinn energy builds up as well. Shigaraki gets off the ground and is clearly feeling smug. He thinks to himself how lucky he is, as when Izuku gets mad, he gets predicable, and so he’s confident that he’ll be able to severe Izuku’s spine when he tries to attack. Mirio grabs his friend and tells him that it’s not as bad as it looks, everyone but Bakugo is still breathing and Edgeshot is still working to save him. Everyone is okay (relatively speaking), so he just needs to calm down and focus. Shigaraki says that Mirio is just trying to help him avoid reality. Mirio says that heroes are supposed to fight and chase the ideal future, who else will make it reality? Izuku remembers All Might and Ethan encouraging him, and Banjo telling him to keep control of his heart. This lets Izuku refocus and he prepares to fight. He asks AFO if Shigaraki is still inside that body.

 

We are shown a brief glimpse into Shigaraki’s Mindscape as he explains that he is both AFO and Tomura, two consciousnesses merged into one. We’re shown the visual of AFO’s body as a small Tenko Shimura tries to get out of him like a chest burster, ya know, to symbolically imply that there’s more inner turmoil here than he’s letting on. AFO claims that his is the dominant personality because he’s older… and totally not because he engineered this whole plot to steal Tomura’s body. He warns Izuku to not think for a moment that a happy ending is possible. Mirio doesn’t believe the fusion story, and he tells Izuku about how he reacted to being told he doesn’t have any friends. He thought that after that, every hit caused Shigaraki to react, to show weakness. Nana Shimura briefly manifests and tells Izuku that her grandson is still in there. She knows this by looking at Shigaraki’s mutant left hand, which has human heads on the tips of the fingers, and she recognizes one of them as Tomura’s father, her son. Shigaraki leaps and the force of it causes the Coffin to list to the side. He tells Izuku that he’s coming for his brother. Izuku tanks the hit and says that he better not think he’s getting a happy ending either.

 

He strikes Shigaraki with a combination of Blackwhip and Fa Jinn, which hurts but doesn’t do much. Then we see that attack was just to put some distance between them for Izuku’s actual big attack. Kudo manifests and tells Izuku that he has five minutes to finish this or its all over. Izuku uses Gear Shift and goes into second. He moves at blinding speed and strikes Shigaraki in the gut, then hits him twice more as he shifts into third and then top gear.  He hits Shigaraki so hard with that last one that he breaks the sound barrier. Shigaraki is noticeably panicking at this moment as he realizes that Izuku is using Gear Shift, and that it’s more potent than it was the last time he saw it. Kudo says that his Quirk has shifted over the years and its allowing Izuku to battle at 120% his full power. He Detroit Smashes Shigaraki into the ground. Both Shigaraki brothers manifest with that hit, OFA telling AFO that they need to finish this.

 

AFO has a flashback to when he killed Kudo. We see that AFO slaughtered at least a dozen members of Kudo’s militia before grabbing the man by the throat and holding him aloft. He figured out Kudo’s Quirk could change the speed of things, but it only worked on small objects. Kudo, to show his defiance, tried to strike AFO in the back of the head with a knife he’d touched, but it doesn’t work. He dubs Kudo as worthless, beneath his notice. He’s confused as to why in the present that he sees Kudo alongside his little brother as Izuku piledrives him into the ground. Izuku’s power is great enough to even impress Aizawa. Kudo explains that his power, like the others, grew more powerful over the ages as OFA has been passed on. It’s grown potent enough to affect things on a cellular level. He claims when Izuku uses it on himself it causes him to have a punch that, and I quote, can “break the laws of reality itself.” Izuku Detroit Smashes Shigaraki with a Quintuple force. Shigaraki realized that the hit wasn’t as strong the last one and that it’s probably because Izuku didn’t use Fa Jinn to charge up. Still, he’s confident now that he can figure out Izuku’s trajectory and tries to counter his next hit. Unfortunately for him, Izuku’s Gear Shift doesn’t have to follow the laws of Physics, so he is able to downshift mid flight and escape his attack. Shigaraki tries to hit him anyway and Izuku unleashes a smoke screen. Izuku tangles him Blackwhip and pulls him upward. He uses all his Quirks together to position Shigaraki just right and then unleash a full power strike. Kudo tells Izuku to remember that meta abilities aren’t the most important thing, the real power is in the hero that uses them. Izuku and Shigaraki clash with their super powered punches. They’re stuck in limbo for a second before Izuku bursts through, and shatters through Shigaraki’s defenses. The first wielder manifests and says that it feels like his OFA and his brother’s AFO are resonating. He thinks that Mirio is right and that something is off here, and that all that’s happening is breaking the balance between AFO and Tomura. Kudo tells Izuku that he has to finish off Shigaraki, now, like he swore he’d do when he spoke with Nana. Shigaraki is infuriated by all of this. He’s the quintessential sore loser, blaming everyone around him for what’s happening. The heroes are cheating by blocking his quirks while Izuku uses all of his combined. They cheated when they split the two Shigarakis up and trapped him in a cage. Shigaraki swears he’s not done yet. It’s at this moment that we learn that Shigaraki the Younger is named Yoichi as AFO gloats. He claims that he’s not done yet, he thinks victory is still well within his reach. We’re shown the battlefields, Dabi’s fire is engulfing Kamino, a storm is forming over the island, Gunga villa is smoking, and then we see a hulked-out Spinner standing over some carnage. Damn. That’s a hell of a spot to stop at.

 

I hoped that the Shigaraki vs. Deku brawl would be memorable and it did not disappoint. The fight itself was phenomenal. I love how they worked in each of his powers into the fight at one point and that even someone like Shigaraki, who theoretically should have been the most prepared to fight someone with the perfected One For All was overwhelmed by it. I think it gives us a little insight into AFO’s mindset. He was overconfident for the entire series because he assumed that no matter how strong OFA’s quirks grew they’d never match him. The ones he met with their original wielders were weak, so they could never grow strong enough to challenge him. And Izuku obliterates that assumption by spamming his gear shift and moving at, like, quantum speed. And that final hi was so good a part of me is bummed that we have another season and a half to go. That would have been a perfect ending hit. I also enjoyed the build up to the fight, with Izuku briefly losing control of his power and how Mirio talked him back down. Izuku and Mirio have had a connection basically since they met, and I like that Horikoshi never forgot that Mirio is Izuku’s older brother for all intents and purposes. He knew what Izuku needed to hear, and how important it was that he heard it. If Izuku had rampaged, like he almost did, I don’t doubt that the one sidedness of this fight would have been in Shigaraki’s favor unless maybe Izuku gear shifted right away and became to fast to hit. I also appreciate that Mirio also detected and is letting Izuku know his suspicions that AFO and Shigaraki aren’t fully integrated. I’ve seen other series insist on only the protagonist having the awareness or insight to notice when something funky is up with the big bad. But Mirio is also extremely intelligent and insightful despite being a bit of a goof, so he would notice things being as off with Shigaraki as they are. I can’t wait to see how the situation is going to get worse. See you next time. Have a good night and stay safe. 

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