One night to relax before it hits the fan.
Last time on My Hero Academia,
Uraraka stepped up. The civilians gathered within UA were terrified at the
thought of bringing Izuku into the shelter, for fear that he was a Nomu or that
he’d draw the League of Villains to him. These fears are largely unwarranted,
as in a flashback Nezu revealed to the 1A students that UA’s campus is nigh
impregnable at this point and is capable of rapidly removing the civilians if
necessary to other shelters via secret, heavily defended high speed rail.
Present Mic and some of the teachers tried to calm them down, but they weren’t
having it. Uraraka nabs Mic’s Megaphone and uses her power to jump atop the UA
building and does her best to get the crowd to realize that helping Izuku is
helping themselves, and that he’s a kid at the end of his rope. Uraraka has
been pondering for a while who helps heroes when they need it and decided that
they need to all help each other. Her words, coupled with Kota and Ippen Josei
running to Izuku’s aid when he breaks down crying at Uraraka’s words convince
everyone to let him be. He swears to one of the crowd that asks about AFO that
he will get things back to normal. There’s a big cheer at that and everyone
relaxes. With that crisis handled, All Might heads out in his car, wanting to
check on the anti-hero groups that have been refusing to work with them.
Unbeknownst to him, Stain, the Hero killer, is stalking him. Enough recapping.
Let’s get to it, shall we?
We open with All Might arriving at
the scene of the Deku snatch and grab, finding Izuku’s fallen mask near some
ice blocks and his statue with the sign on it. He beats himself up for not
being able to help Izuku in his time of need. He has a flashback to when Aizawa
told him to just be near the kids, as All Might has a habit of inspiring others
to greatness, but he’s not sure he believes that anymore. He starts to walk
away, but a rusty, chipped katana gets put in his face by Stain. He heard All
Might disparage himself, and Stain says that he’ll cut up the heretic. Stain
refuses to believe that All Might is who he says he is, even when All Might
beefs himself up for a few seconds to convince him. Stain demands to know who
this man is to try to besmirch All Might. All Might says that he’s always been
one to run into danger to try to help people, showing us a flashback of teen
All Might doing just that, but since he’s retired things have just gotten worse
and worse. He says that he can’t even help his students. Stain grabs him around
the neck and holds his sword against it. All Might, still with a hero’s wit,
says that “I’m usually a hugger, but we just met.” Stain shushes him as they
hide behind some rubble. We see a woman arrive who is annoyed to see someone
put the “I AM NOT HERE,” sign back up. She uses her bubble summoning power to
reach up, snap the sign off and begins to clean the statue. Stain says that she
has come by every day to clean the statue. He speculates that she’s staying at
a nearby shelter and that the people there probably don’t want her doing this.
All Might asks why she’s doing this. Stain reveals that she was the last person
that All Might saved. All Might flashes back to his battle with All For One,
and yes, this woman was trapped under rubble near that fight and AFO had tried
to use her as a target. Ya know, she was the opposite of a human shield, meant
to bait the valiant All Might into jumping in the way of AFO’s attack. Stain
insists that it wasn’t All Might’s power that made him great, but his
insistence of fighting crime with a smile and reassuring word to others. Stain
forces him to look at the woman cleaning the statue and says that that is the
moldering embers that All Might left behind. He insists that this blaze will
reignite if they just tend it. All Might starts to tear up watching the woman
cleaning and at Stain’s words. He starts to walk off, All Might calls out to
him to try to stop him, but Stain instead throws a pile of papers skewered on a
blade at him. He says he stole those from Tartarus and asks him to use that
info to stop All For One. And encourages All Might to come stop the Hero Killer
Stain, if he still has a hero’s heart. The rain starts to clear, which is heavy
handed symbolism, but I’ll allow it.
Back at school, Izuku’s classmates
are going overboard trying to look after him. The boys strip him down and
literally throw him into the bath to get him clean. Bakugo is annoyed that they
did that, saying that they’re dirtying up the bathwater. According to him,
Izuku needs to be scrubbed down with steel wool and bleach before being put
into the tub. Dude is hardcore in all things. Bakugo joins them in the water,
reminding them all that they’re all his rivals, that he’s going to be the
number one hero, and that he’s mostly talking to Izuku when he said that. And
props to him using Izuku’s real name for the first time in like 13 years.
After the bath, Izuku asks where
Uraraka went, and Jiro tells him she basically passed out after the adrenaline
rush ended. Turns out worrying for your friend/love interest is exhausting
work. Jiro says that a few others are out like that too. Izuku sits down in the
living room with about half of his classmates, and apologizes once again for
running off like that. Ashido says that she’s impressed he kept his power under
wraps for so long, but after reading his confession about All For One and One
For All, nothing is going to surprise her anymore. Tokoyami says that Izuku
could have told Hawks to return his calls. His classmates ask about his power
and what it was like going from Quirkless to having one of the strongest
quirks. Shoto comes in and tells them to leave Izuku alone for a bit so he can
sleep. Izuku says that he can’t sleep, he’s too wired, and he needs to
apologize to All Might. He mentions that All Might isn’t picking up his phone…
and is shocked when Shoto just points outside and we see All Might at the
window looking like a wraith.
All Might comes in, bows, and begs
forgiveness for being a poor teacher to Izuku. Izuku says that All Might helped
him a lot, and Ashido butts in, saying that if he has to apologize to anyone
it’s to the rest of 1A for taking their friend away. All Might doesn’t
apologize, but tells them all that the final battle is approaching. He has a
flashback to when he picked up Stain’s intel and he swore that even if he has
to crawl to get there, he will be there to watch his students take up the
mantel of hero at the very least. He says that they’ll need everyone’s help in
that battle, and that even in his weakened body, he’ll give his support. Izuku
thanks him for the food, and everyone resolves to be ready for the fight. All
Might heads out, saying that he needs to check in with the others and prepare.
Tokoyami tells him to tell Hawks to call him. As they head back in, Ashido
teases Tokoyami for being an angry bird. Tokoyami says that he’s not angry,
just concerned. Sato asks why the heroes don’t just set up shop in UA, and
Shoto says Endeavor wouldn’t do that without a damn good reason. Because he
knows that if people see him, they’ll start thinking about Dabi and that’ll
spread panic. Izuku finally passes out. Kirishima points out that that sucks
for Shoto since he really didn’t do anything wrong, it’s just about who he’s
related to. Shoto says that he did let his family tree blind him for a while
but he’s resolved to do better with his friends and regain the public’s trust.
Kirishima is moved by his chivalry and starts crying manly tears. Jiro says
that if they have civilians that aren’t fans of theirs, they can just fix it.
She pulls in Kaminari, Yaoyorozu and Tokoyami with her earphone jacks. Shoto
asks what she means. Jiro compares to what they’re dealing with now is similar
(if on a much grander scale) to when other students were giving them the side
eye during the cultural festival. She grabs Bakugo as well and suggests that
they can just do what they did then to make everyone relax. In case you forgot,
their class band consisted of Jiro, Kaminari, Yaoyorozu, Tokoyami and Bakugo.
She says that they won’t go back to normal, but make something even better.
We cut to the heroes, Endeavor is
flying while Hawks and Jeanist are using Jeanist’s car. Hawks explains that
they got some info about Shigaraki’s upgrades. They cross referenced info they
got out of Garaki during a polygraph test and the notes they took from his lab
about Nomu creation. Hawks says that while its not a perfect comparison, a
modified living person is worlds different from a modified corpse, they have
learned some things. They assumed that they had two months before Tomura
Shigaraki’s body is complete. With comments they’ve gotten from Nagant and
Dictator, they assumed they had another 30 days to handle the situation. But…
then they got the info from Stain. He stole data from Tartarus and included it
along with a… passionate letter to All Might.
We flashback a month. During the
escape, Stain got his hands on a knife and used it to execute an escapee that
was shouting about doing something terrible to girls. Stain enters the
surveillance room. He sees that all the guards are dead save one. The others
died with their weapons in their hand, but the survivor was clutching a box to
his chest like his life depended on it. Stain takes it, the guard offers weak
resistance but he’s 3/4ths dead already. Stain opens the container
to find data storage devices inside. The guard grabs a gun and says that he
can’t take those as its supposed to go to someone just. Stain says that he will
pass on the guard’s conviction. The guard asks if Stain is a man or monster,
and Stain says that he’s a monster, but one that wants to make a better world.
Stain watches as AFO leads the riot, not sure why the data cubes mattered so
much, but resolving to bring it to the only person that he trusts. He leaps
into the water outside Tartarus and swims to shore. Over the next month, he gathers
gear, and makes his way to All Might’s statue.
We return to the night when All
Might left Izuku with his classmates. He met up with Detective Tsukauchi and
passed the Stain info along to him. He says that he’s happy All Might and Izuku
made up, as he’ll take any good news right now. Especially since they’re
relying on news from a murderer like Stain. All Might explains to us that
Tartarus has a security system that was off grid, totally inaccessible outside
the base. Without Stain, they’d have never gotten this info, which would have
been bad as it includes how the Shigaraki’s knocked out Tartarus’ security. He
used high powered radio waves throughout the prison to knock out security, both
from Tomura Shigaraki attacking from above and AFO Shigaraki attacking from
below. Tsukauchi’s partner, the cat cop Sansa, asks if they could communicate
telepathically via their shared Quirk. All Might tells him “kinda.” While that
telepathy can happen, that sort of communication doesn’t go both ways. He uses
himself as an example. He has a Vestige within OFA. That Vestige knows
everything that All Might knows… but All Might can’t get any info from his
Vestige. He only recently got information from his Vestige when he touched
Izuku while he’d been in a coma. All Might can’t make sense of how AFO was able
to do this. But the cops had been able to analyze that radio waves that
Shigaraki’s had been using to communicate, and, scarily, one of the messages
they received was that Tomura Shigaraki would be complete in 38 days. All Might
is now sure that AFO planted that information to give everyone a false sense of
security. So… they have 3 days before AFO is complete. Well, crap.
We cut to the UN. The security
council are arguing about what to do. All Might has asked for aid from them,
and for them to send their heroes TOMORROW. This is impossible, as there’s just
so much paperwork to do, and moving heroes around like that is an international
nightmare. Removing heroes from their home turf causes an uprising in villain
activity, and they have reason to believe that Shigaraki has international
allies ready to act the moment they hear of such movements. Egypt mentions that
their biggest hero, Salaam who featured in the World Heroes Mission, is
chomping at the bit to go to Japan. He’s convinced that he’ll be the one to
stop AFO. The USA admits that their number one… has already left. The Top US
Hero, Stars and Stripes, is rushing to Japan on a fleet of stealth bombers. One
of the pilots’ radios to her that she’ll be in big trouble when this is over.
Stars isn’t worried, as she’s got a mission to do. She couldn’t ignore a
request for help from her old master All Might even if she wanted to.
Izuku has a nightmare of AFO saying
“Now, it’s your turn!” before being attacked by a spectral version of Tomura.
He wakes up with a start and almost hits Uraraka with Black Whip. She wishes
him good morning. The others tell him to relax, and Mineta tells him to retract
Black Whip as it looks gross. They all assure Izuku that he can relax because
they’re with him. Izuku resolves to stop AFO and save the world along with his
friends. The credits roll and that’s season 6.
That’s a hell of a way to do a
season finale. Obviously, the highest stakes action part of the story ended two
episodes ago with Class 1A bringing Izuku home, and the emotional stakes were
mostly resolved with Uraraka’s speech to the civilians… so the only thing left
to do was build up the final battle. Which is kind of terrifying when there are
2 seasons, 32 episodes and one more movie to go. I know that the last two
seasons are a rollercoaster ride of action and pain, but still. I like that we
got to see All Might meet Stain. The hero killer was obsessed with the former
number 1, but like All Might himself said, once Stain was imprisoned and All
Might lost his powers, I kind of assumed that there’d be no need for them to
meet. So it was extremely weird to see Stain be the one to get All Might to
believe in himself again, seemingly just so All Might would be able to take him
down eventually. Dude has a one-track mind. I like that the heroes got the
heads up about AFO’s timetable and that it’s definitely one of those ‘it might
already be too late,’ kind of things. Like… they can only do so much prep in 3
days. I’m sure that while AFO has planned on a lot, I don’t think he’s ready
for the likes of Stars and Stripes to arrive. She strikes me as what All Might was
like during the height of his power. I think she’ll be a big asset. I also
liked seeing Izuku settle back in with his class. Things aren’t exactly going
to be fun for him going forward, so it was nice to see him relax in a bath, get
to talk with his classmates, and see the beginnings of a potential jam session
with Jiro and her band again. Such calm moments are fleeting, so one should
savor them while they can. So… they’re prepping for one last brawl. It’d be
cruel of me to not continue with this series next month, ya? Well… I guess
you’ll have to wait to see how cruel I am, now don’t you? Have a good night and
stay safe.
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Bluesky: @basicssuperhero.bsky.social