Viewer Log: My Hero Academia ep 144

The final battle, round 1, Ready? FIGHT!

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/viewer-log-my-ep-154469463

Bluesky: @basicssuperhero.bsky.social

Viewer Log: My Hero Academia ep 143

 Izuku and friends find their resolve before the big showdown. 

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/viewer-log-my-ep-154373428

Bluesky: @basicssuperhero.bsky.social

Review: My Hero Academia: You're Next

The only thing worse than a toxic fan is a toxic fan with superpowers.

So, I’m gotten some contradicting opinions on where this one falls in the timeline. My Hero Academia: You’re Next is supposed to fall somewhere in the week leading up to the final battle with Shigaraki. The kids are all training for most of that time, so ya, a sudden movie villain that they have to face could fit in there. But I’ve seen folks claim it could happen between the third and fourth, fourth and fifth, or fifth and sixth episode’s run time. Kind of a wide gap. The most compelling evidence I’ve seen is for the fourth episode though, as that’s the point where Izuku and his friends are broken into teams in order to try to find Shigaraki and the League of Villains. So that’s what we’re going with. Here’s My Hero Academia: You’re Next! Let’s get to it, shall we?

 

The movie opens with a large man sitting in a room covered in Photos and watching the final battle between All For One and All Might. Considering this is suppose to be news footage, the orchestral score is impressive. The man suddenly stands and applauds All Might’s victory. He speaks with an Italian Accent and a suspiciously familiar voice. We only see a little of his head, but it’s clear that he’s got All Might’s hairstyle and is wearing an iron mask over his face. When All Might makes his famous, “You’re Next!” declaration, the man bows and promises that he will be the one to take All Might’s mantle.

 

We cut to a man with an eyepatch and a possible prosthetic arm preparing coffee in the middle of the street. He has a picture of a blonde girl on his makeshift table. A pair of refugees from across the street see him and scoff at his search for this little girl, saying that she’s probably dead. Before Eyepatch can sip his coffee, a siren goes off warning of a potential villain attack. Eyepatch packs up his gear on an armored motorcycle and rushes to the scene. The Villains in question attack a truck and one of them uses his Quirk to merge with the truck, turning it into an evil version of Mater from Cars. Another villain bounces around like a bouncy ball and another throws explosive daggers. They escape by bursting through a wall. Izuku’s team, consisting of himself, Jiro, Sero, Uraraka, Hagakure and Ojiro are the ones to start the chase. Jiro is riding up front in an armored vehicle driven by a UA robot and is the one to pick up on the disturbance. It’s weird to remember that these kids are all around 16 and thus would definitely need a driver. Izuku does some quick stretching to limber up and power up his Fa Jin shift power before floating out the back of their truck and fling off. He rockets towards the truck, using his Air Force flick attack to speed up. The criminals see him coming and immediately panic when they recognize the Jailbreak Hunter. Izuku catches the truck with Blackwhip, and while holding it dodges the other two. He pulls back hard and flips the truck. The other two try to attack him, but he binds up one of them in Blackwhip and the rest of his team catch the other. Jiro compliments the power of One For All as Sero asks that he save some fighting for the rest of them. Izuku looks up and sees Eye Patch watching them before driving off.

 

There’s an opening credit montage for the movie that serves to catch everyone up on the situation if you haven’t followed the show. It’d be weird to watch this if you haven’t, but whatever. All For One and the League of Villains Orchestrated a massive breakout from the hero prisons, the US hero Star and Stripe was killed battling Shigaraki, and Izuku and co are doing their best to help. It also foreshadows the man that looks like All Might and an army of what looks like Mobster style Nomu mobilizing and shows us Eye Patch and the blonde girl a few more times.

 

After that, Izuku and co turn over the criminals they captured to the cops. Sero radios the others that Team 3 captured three villains. Bakugo scoffs at that, saying that his team, consisting of himself, Ashido, Tokoyami, Koda, Sato and Kirishima, brought in four, therefore he wins. And three, two one… Team 2 consisting of Shoto Todoroki, Kaminari, Mineta, Iida, Yaoyorozu, Tsu, and Shoji brought in six jailbreakers. Bakugo screams that its not a competition, and Iida chides him for being so focused on the numbers, this is about helping people. Izuku’s team gets an alert about a Jailbreaker named Genji. His quirk lets him attack with a second mouth on his stomach. Izuku’s team moves out, with team 1 and 2 in route.

 

Genji runs through town cackling madly as he drags along the blonde woman from Eye Patch’s photo. He cackles again, saying that no one can stop him with her. She yells at him to let her go, as he promised to free her, but he tells her to shut up and keep moving. Genji sees Izuku’s truck incoming and uses his shoulder mounted mouths to rip open a hole in the wall and change direction. Team 3 detects this change and realize he’s headed for a shelter. Izuku leaps from his truck and Floats after them. He catches up quickly and notes that the two mouths mounted on stalks on his shoulders are new. The girl keeps screaming at him to free her, but he refuses. Izuku rushes in and tries to grab the girl’s hand, but she screams and tries to pull back. Izuku brushes her arm and has a weird vision of rose petals floating around them. He gets a headache and drops, hitting the ground hard. Genji keeps running with the girl. Izuku tries to get up and follow but whatever happened when he touched the girl rapidly drained his stamina.

 

Genji breaks into the shelter. Some guards shoot at him with lasers, but he grabs them with his stomach mouths and crushes them. He reaches to try to grab another hostage, but Izuku arrives and uses Blackwhip to grab him. Genji shrieks that he’s going to make this hurt, as he does, he mutates, more arm tentacles growing from his body and his body at least doubling in size. A rose also starts growing near his waist. The man’s strength increases by a lot and he thrashes around, actually overcoming Izuku’s impressive strength. Izuku is thrown through a wall out of the shelter, but he keeps Blackwhip on Genji. Suddenly, we’re looking down a sniper scope. Eyepatch has pushed up his eyepatch, revealing a bionic eye. He takes a shot with a sniper rifle at Genji, causing the monster to drop the girl’s hand. She falls and flowers bloom around her. Eyepatch stows his rifle and drives towards them. As he pulls up, he transforms his robot arm into a rifle and he takes a shot at the blonde girl. She sees the bullet coming, closes her eyes and seems to prepare to take the hit, but the bullet hits a weird field around her. A man in a fancy suit apologizes for being late. When Genji tries to attack him, he expands the field, freezing Genji as well. Izuku takes a close look and realizes that the field is slowing things, not stopping them entirely. Eyepatch takes several more shots at the girl, but they all hit the slow field. Izuku Blackwhips the gun and tells him to stop shoot. Eyepatch reloads his gun, and weirdly Izuku notes that his Danger Sense isn’t going off. The suit guy walks through his field towards the girl, touching her and placing a localized slow field around her. He lifts her and walks away. Once he’s a few steps away, the slow field collapses, Genji stumbles forward and is hit by Eyepatch’s bullets.

 

Team 3 pulls up and they ask what the heck is going on. Izuku says it’s complicated. Hagakure looks over and tells everyone to look up. They see a ship approaching them. It’s a literal yacht, lit up with neon lights. The ship touches down and we see more mobster looking guys standing aboard it. A cackling man in a white suit steps up and we see that it’s the man in the mask. He announces that they need not fear because “I am here!” He takes off his mask and reveals himself to look a lot like All Might. The animators are able to get this uncanny valley look to the dude by essentially just drawing All Might without the added shadows around his face and eyes so you can see everything. He basically looks like All Might when he was in his 20s, but with thicker eyebrows, shorter hair points, and a mean looking smile. Izuku notes the differences immediately, but is still shocked by this Temu All Might. His Danger Sense is going crazy as he looks at him. Eyepatch calls him Gollini. The slowmo guy brings the girl to regular speed and she immediately freaks out and tries to escape. A woman on the yacht uses her power to put the girl in a trance. Gollini says that she must have been scared and that she’s lucky he arrived. The girl, clearly under mind control, says that he was very brave for coming to save her. The woman of the goons chastises a rat faced guy named Bruno for letting her escape and Bruno says it won’t happen again. The goons bring the two on board via telekinesis. Eyepatch tries to go after them, but Izuku holds him still with Blackwhip. He begs for Izuku to let him go and says he needs to make this right. Genji runs and starts smashing buildings, which distracts the heroes from getting involved. Izuku and co capture Genji but then have to contend with falling buildings. Eyepatch rides his motorcycle after them, and takes several shots, but the mafia guys slow his bullets and him, and another smacks him with debris into a wall.

 

Genji tries to run, saying that if he’d kept the girl he’d have gotten away, but is met with Gollini. Gollini chastises Genji for betraying him. Genji tries to attack, but Gollini knocks him back with an energy punch that sends him flying. Genji crashes next to Izuku, shrinking down as he passes out. Gollini meets up with Izuku, saying that it looks like the young man wants to be a hero. Izuku is clearly freaked out by this. Gollini offers him a chocolate bar, which he refuses, which confuses the man. Gollini claims that he’s going to be the new symbol of peace, and his aura must be confusing this young man. Gollini heads for his boat and tells Izuku that he’s going to explain this so even a child could comprehend him. He flicks out several gold coins, and as they land, they turn into energy and manifest dozens of cameras, lights and flying drones. The cameras hack every TV screen that they can reach and Gollini broadcasts himself to the world. Everyone is surprised to see this guy, not the least of which being All Might. Gollini declares himself the new All Might. He says that All Might is viewed as the greatest hero due to his overwhelming power, and plans to use his own immense power to take his spot. He announces that, “From now on, It’s MY Turn!” Izuku isn’t standing for that, floating up and saying that Gollini use unnecessary force and put innocent people in danger. He’s nothing like All Might. Gollini says that when he shows off what he can do, Izuku will eat his words. He leans on his ship, takes off his cloak and grabs the girl. As he does, the girl’s hair darkens and roses sprout all around them. Gollini scatters coins, and as they land they spread out that weird liquid light. The light starts drawing people in.

 

Back at UA, Iida radios the teachers and asks if they’re seeing this. They are and everyone is confused by what’s happening. All Might runs in and asks if they’ve got any news from the kids on the ground. Team 3 watches as the light expands and Mineta asks if anyone can stop this. Shoto throws his ice at it, and it temporarily stops the wall, but it then springs forward, engulfing Team 3. Team 2’s truck tries to drive away, much to Bakugo’s irritation, but the robot driver tells him to not be stupid. Unfortunately, the light catches them as well. From the UA office we see that the light resolves into a giant citadel with an All Might, or maybe Gollini, statue in the center. All Might is in awe of what is happening and asks if this is really all one man’s doing. Hawks tells All Might to look at their files, and reveals that this is the Gollini family. All Might is visibly angry to hear that name. He explains that the Gollini Family is made of villains and that they’re the largest criminal organization in Europe. We see Gollini flick another coin and vegetation starts to form.

 

Izuku is woken up by his team and he’s shocked to find that they’re in the middle of a forest. No one knows how they got there. Izuku knocks on one of the trees and hears that it is hollow. He dubs the whole jungle is an illusion. He wonders if his power is like Yaoyorozu but on a grander scale. They can’t get a signal, so they’re on their own for now. Izuku tells his team that they need to find the others and then get in contact with UA.

 

We cut to Team 1 and find that they’re in the middle of some kind of evil amusement park. Bakugo screams “where are we?” And when the others tell him an amusement park, he tells them, “I can see that!” and then he yells at Ashido for riding the carousel. Team 2 find themselves on the outskirts of a city, which, ya know, is weird. Shoji tells them to look at the town and they see a giant All Might Statue at the center. Mineta says that whoever is running this place has a weird All Might obsession. I’m surprised no one says something like, ‘Ya, worse than Midoriya’s!’ They run towards the town to check it out.

 

Gollini creates a ballroom and asks the girl, Anna, what she thinks of the place. Anna, still in a trance, says that it’s exquisite. Gollini snaps his fingers and is brought a phone. Back at UA, Cementoss says that All Might’s doppelganger is on the line and will only speak to him. They pull up the call on the video screen. Gollini is happy to see his predecessor, saying that he didn’t know All Might would be at UA but he must be lucky today. All Might demands to know what happened to the students. Gollini says that the ‘specimens’ are safe for now. Gollini swears to All Might that he’s going to take up All Might’s mantel and use his great power to live up to and surpass All Might. He will ‘unify’ the fractured county. All Might demands he release the hostages, and Gollini refuses, saying that he needs them as part of his plan. All Might refuses to call this man his successor, saying that he sounds heroic, but he’s got a heart of darkness. Gollini likes the sound of that and dubs himself Dark Might on the spot. All Might says that Dark Might is his opposite and that he could never accept him. He has a successor and the next generation of heroes are coming to stop him. Dark Might says that the next time they’ll talk it’ll be with those students kneeling at his feet. He hangs up, though before he does loudly announces that that was a fun chat. Gollini sits down and pulls up several video screens. He’s sure from that chat that All Might’s successor must be among the students they abducted. They see Eyepatch on the video screen, and Paulo demands the chance to fight this guy in order to make up for letting Anna get stolen by that ‘compatible’ Genji. Dark Might allows this, tells him that this is his last chance, and demands that all his people call him Dark Might from this moment onwards. Paulo kneels to Anna, kissing her hand, which causes the rose on his lapel to grow bigger and causes Anna’s blonde hair to darken further. The rest of the Golinni’s do the same, the darkness spreading further on Anna’s hair. He dubs himself a legend as they finish powering up. The fortress like ship they’re inside starts to move, it rains down the same liquid light, sucking up people and objects into itself as it moves. The UA team watches the ship move, and All Might asks why Dark Might referred to the hostages as ‘specimens.’

 

Izuku and his team run through the woods, until Izuku hits something and falls to the ground. They hit a super lifelike wall. Hagakure finds a manhole that they open. It’s creepy looking, but they need to check it out. Izuku and Uraraka use their powers to float down, Izuku in the lead. As they float down, someone says “Erasure Spot” and that disables Izuku’s powers. He drops, but he catches himself on the walls. He calls up to Uraraka and tells her to get Sero to tape pull him up. Izuku slips and falls crotch first down the tube. He ends up flying out of a mountain and into a lake at the end. Uraraka tells the others what happened and Sero starts feeding tape into the tube to try to save their leader.

 

Izuku pulls himself from the lake and says, “I thought I was going to die.” He starts walking, realizing that he still can’t use his powers. He finds Eyepatch and goes to speak with him. Eyepatch pulls a gun on him and demands to know where the exit is. Izuku says he doesn’t know, and Eyepatch dismisses him. He turns to go back to his coffee. Izuku demands to know why he shot at the girl, but Eyepatch refuses to answer. He pulls another gun and shoots, not at Izuku but at a goon that rose up behind him. Eyepatch says it’s a shock bullet. More goons start shooting at them and the two duck behind a rock. Eyepatch asks Izuku why he isn’t helping. Izuku admits he doesn’t have access to his powers. Eyepatch sighs and shoves Izuku out, he draws the fire from the goons allowing Eyepatch to get around and shoot the guards. He demands to know where Miss Anna is, but they refuse to talk. He shoots them with stun bullets and then goes to lift his motorcycle. Eyepatch struggles to lift it, but Izuku helps, saying that he’s pretty strong even without his powers.

 

Team 2 enters the city and find at trail of comatose civilians laying among rose petals. They head farther in and see the woman member of the Gollini and Anna standing before a crowd of people. One man grabs Anna’s hand, and passes out. The woman sees Team 2 head toward them and she zaps them with her power. This puts them all in trances. Mineta and Kaminari have a vision of being fawned over by bikini babes, Shoto turns back into a child and is playing ball with all three of his siblings as his parents watch, Yaoyorozu enjoys a cup of team, Iida races along with his brother Tenya, Tsu has relaxes with her frog family on a bridge, and Shoji is walking with a little girl for some reason. We pull out to see them all just sitting around, Iida running into a wall. The woman says that she’ll let them enjoy their daydreams for a while. She turns back to her work, saying that she hopes they can find compatibles among the masses, but she’s not holding her breath. The Gollini only had six from their 20000+ family after all. Anna keeps on touching people and knocking them out.

 

Team 1 breaks into the castle and rush inside. They find Dark Might waiting for them. He changed his look a bit and is now sporting a black suit with like peacock feathers. Bakugo tells him that he’s going to regret impersonating All Might. He flexes as he offers to have the students face his challenge to see if they’re worthy of being knights in his new world order. Bakugo asks if he realizes how stupid he sounds. Dark Might calls them brats and tells them to put on a good show. He uses his powers to open a hole and drop them all into a dungeon. Team 1 power up and prepare to fight the monsters within. Thankfully they’re a very combat heavy team so this shouldn’t be too hard. As they fight, a man in a wizard costume asks if any of them will survive this.

 

Izuku and Eyepatch ride on his motorcycle. Izuku thanks him for bringing him along, and Eyepatch shrugs, saying that he’s practical and right now Izuku is doing the practical job of being his human shield. He gives Izuku a device and says that he took it from a goon. He rationalizes that if Izuku’s powers don’t work here, they should try to find a different area and see if they come back. Izuku hits the button and reveals a secret tunnel in the mountain that they drive through. Izuku wonders why the goons attacked them, and Eyepatch says that they’re after him and that they’re probably wondering why he’s seeking Miss Anna’s death. Izuku says he wants to know that too, but they’re distracted by missile fire. They dodge around the missiles and pull out into a costal area. They’re up against Paulo, the slow time guy and a dude with a rocket launcher for a head. Eyepatch leaps from the motorcycle and leaves it to a panicked Izuku. It crashes and Izuku rolls off. He notes that they can use their powers while the last batch of guys relied on guns. Paulo asks who he is and why he wants to kill Anna, and Eyepatch says that he made a promise. Paulo says that he must be “Scervino’s pawn.” Eyepatch begs them not use Anna’s quirk anymore, saying they don’t understand how it works. They say they’ll use her as they see fit. They say she’s going to play an essential role in their boss’s ascent. They start fighting. Eyepatch hits the rocket launcher head guy, his head morphs back into normal and he pulls a minigun on them. Izuku is pretty sure Paulo is the one blocking his power after realizing that he’s the only one not moving at all. He tells Eyepatch to help him take that guy out and that’ll get his powers back. Eyepatch uses his motorcycle, remote controlling it from his arm, and uses it to distract the goons long enough to allow Izuku to rush them. He figured out that Paolo is creating an anti-Quirk field, but also a buffer within that field to make sure his guys can use theirs. Within it, he can use OFA and he quickly dispatches them. He turns to look at Eyepatch, who pulled a gun on him. He turns upward and shoots at Dark Might who is watching from a balcony. Dark Might realizes that since Izuku has multiple Quirks that he might be All Might’s successor. Izuku demands to know what he’s doing and Dark Might says he’s going to take his rightful place as the new Symbol of Peace. Izuku tries to rush him, but Dark Might uses a power enhanced punch, knocking him aside. Eyepatch run over and pulls him from the crater he made in the wall. Dark Might throws a pair of coins and causes two monster guys to manifest. They grab Paulo and Dark Might chastises him for failing. Paulo begs for his life, and Dark Might considers it… but says he’ll try mercy on Paulo in his next life. He drops Paulo into a pit. He then yells at Eyepatch to tell Izuku that he’ll gladly accept more of Izuku’s challenges until he submits to Dark Might. He walks off and into a hall that seems to manifest as they walk. A cut opens on his face from Izuku’s kick, and he is visibly angry at the kid marring his perfect face.

 

The rest of team 3 have climbed down the pipe and found the mountain. Thankfully their powers are still working, with Hagakure mentioning that losing their powers would have been awkward for her. I’ll be honest, I hate that she’s canonically naked all the time. Uraraka is gung-ho about finding Deku, but they’re stopped by falling into a crater and appearing before the woman and Anna.

 

The wizard guy is still watching Team 1 battling the monsters. He thinks that they’ve been beaten and is a bit bummed that they’ll not see his costume. Then Bakugo blows a hole in the wall and asks if he’s the final boss. The goon is furious that Bakugo made a shortcut and says they’ve broken the game. Bakugo Howitzer blasts him and says that he’s a walking Cheat code. Dark Might drops him into a pit, congratulates them, and then says that was just the first act. He then summons more of his monster goons to attack them. Bakugo tells the ‘extras’ to do their worst.

 

Izuku wakes up on the back of Eyepatch’s motorcycle. It’s lacking its armor now since it used up all its weapons in that fight. Izuku introduces himself to Eyepatch, who reciprocates and we learn his name is Giulio Gandini. Izuku thanks him, and Giulio says that he saved him because Izuku could be useful. He says that Deku is an unusual name, but Izuku says he likes it. They pull out of the tunnel and see the town in the distance. They pull up and Izuku finds everyone including his friends knocked out. Izuku wonders what happened and Giulio says they’re incompatible with his lady’s quirk. Izuku asks what she has to do with this, but they’re interrupted by Ojiro’s scream of pain. They find Anna standing with the lady Gollini. Izuku asks what’s going on. Giulio says that those that are compatible with Anna’s power are being made into soldiers against their will. Giulio pulls his gun arm on her and says that she must be the one controlling his lady. She confirms this, saying that normally she can only hypnotize one person at a time, but with Anna’s power she can trance out tons of people. She says she’ll put them in a pleasant dream and mindblasts them. Izuku is a child in his room full of even more All Might merch than normal. All Might in his prime arrives and says that they’ll save the world together. Izuku is super excited… but then Shigaraki the younger appears in Izuku’s mind and reminds him that this isn’t real. Izuku breaks out of the dream and is pulled into another mental plane. The other former wielders appear, explaining that behind them is everyone else trapped in the dream. They say he needs to find another way out, as he can’t just break out of this illusion. We see all of Izuku’s friends trapped in what looks like a mental doll house, each of them living out the dreams they were placed in. Izuku wonders what that can mean and looks around, seeing Giulio’s dream in the distance. His body is whole without any cyborg parts. He’s serving Anna tea, who offers to have him drink tea with her. He refuses, saying they have to be proper. She says that he’s always mean to him and goes to drink her tea when she starts seizing up from her Quirk. Giulio grabs her shoulder and seems to siphon off the excess energy from her. She apologizes for being a burden on him. She thanks him for always hoping her, and saying that he’ll always be with her. She asks him if he means it, and when he says yes, it’s my duty, she looks depressed. The Gollini, Deborah, watches this from the outside and deems that Giulio could be problem so has a puppet grab him by the throat. From his perspective it looks like Anna is choking him. Izuku tries to run at them, and screams that its an illusion. Giulio realizes it’s an illusion when he sees he’s still got his right arm. He uses his bionic eye to sight on Deborah and shoots her. This breaks her hold completely. She demands to know how he did that. Anna breaks free and tries to run to him, but Giulio pulls his gun on her. We hear the promise he made to kill her to stop her from losing control and he tries to fire, but Izuku knocks the shot aside. Before he can try again, Deborah escapes, pulling Anna along through a sky balcony.

 

Sidenote, I hate that Deborah has the same name as my mom, but am glad it’s a different spelling.

 

Izuku tries to say they’ll find another way, and Giulio runs over and yells at him for meddling. He says that Izuku is meddling in things that don’t concern him. Izuku says that he did it because aiming at Anna put him in agony. He thinks Giulio really wants to help her, he says “OF COURSE!” but killing her is the only way to do that now. He explains that her quirk is Overmodification, she temporarily boost Quirks to a level they could never reach. But if you’re incompatible with her power, it causes them pain. He says that he thinks she’s afraid of human contact, he says that when he met her, she was locked away in a room like a fairytale princess. Giulio’s quirk is nullification, he touches someone with their right hand and that temporarily stops her power, keeping her from feeling the pain of stockpiling her power too much. Anna’s father thanks Giulio for helping Anna have something of a normal life now. Giulio thanks him for taking care of him as well. Anna’s father is worried her power is growing and that there may come a time when he can’t repress it anymore. We see Giulio helping Anna by repressing her power in the night and she asks him to kill her if it gets out of control. The Gollinis eventually found out, attacking the family, killing Anna’s father, and everyone else there. Giulio is hurt badly in the fight, losing his right arm, left leg and right eye. Izuku says that he could stop him, but Giulio screams “have you looked at me!” and gestures as his missing arm. He says that if Anna’s power keeps being abused, she’ll mutate the power of whoever is using her until they’re unstoppable. Izuku says that he saw how Giulio looked at Anna in the dream and that they obviously care about each other. He’s not sure that Giulio could do it if he tried. Izuku promises to save her and bring back both their smiles, but Giulio says to shut up, they need to do what she wanted. Uraraka joins them, recovering Anna’s picture and says they can help. The others agree and promise to help him save Anna. They’re interrupted by team 1 joining them and Bakugo saying that they have a fake All Might to stop.

 

Dark Might reveals to his family that he eliminated the other failures, but he’s sure Deborah won’t fail him. Dark Might remembers All Might’s declaration, and that he’s indominable even in retirement. He says that if the students want to survive the coming days they’ll need to submit to him. The giant fortress turns in it’s movements and heads toward UA high. The heroes gather and prepare to hold him off. The students help make the hostages comfortable when Dark Might makes another announcement. He says that he’s going to destroy previous society to make a new world, and that he’s planning on destroying UA to rebuild it and start a new legend. Metaphorically killing All Might to build anew. Bakugo is furious and orders the other students around. He orders most of his classmates to help the civilians, but him, Izuku, Shoto, and Tokoyami are going to stop him.

 

The heroes prepare for the Dark Might attack. They’re impressed by the size, even Mt. Lady and she’s an actual giant. Endeavor starts the opening attack, using a huge fireblast to burst a hole in it. They heroes cheer, but the building immediately regenerates. All Might says that this’ll be harder than they thought, and Hawks says that he sent in an ace to help out. The ace turns out to be Lemillion, who takes over leading the civilians to safety.

 

Izuku and co head toward Dark Might’s fortress. Giulio pulls up as well, and Bakugo tells the “cool side character” to beat it. He refuses as he needs to save Anna. Dark Might watches their approach and he’s ecstatic. He welcomes them inside with open arms. They head in and are attacked by more monster goons in a colosseum. Tokoyami tells the others to go on ahead as he can handle them all with Dark Shadow. Izuku tells him to be careful, and Tokoyami says back at ya.

 

The others are attacked by more monsters, and Class 1A heads to face them, giving Lemillion, Tsu, Sero, Koda, and Hagakure to lead the evacuees away. They rush the monsters.

 

The lead team hit another pair of goons, a guy with a huge nose and a bruiser. Bakugo and Shoto stay behind to face them, Izuku lifts Giulio’s bike and they head into the inner sanctum. Shoto tries to take the two out in one blast, but they teleport out of his range.

 

Izuku and Giulio immediately find Dark Might waiting for them with Anna. Giulio rushes in to save her, and get caught in the time manipulators bubble. He shoves Giulio over and walks toward Izuku to try to catch him in the bubble. Izuku uses his quirks combined to rocket towards the time manipulator, moving so fast that the slow field barely affects him. Dark Might runs off with Anna and they rush after them.

 

 Bakugo and Shoto have trouble with their pair. The big guy teleports and the little one has telekinesis. The others are able to handle the various monster goons pretty well. Overall they’re stronger than the monsters, but there’s just so many of them, Iida tells them to keep fighting and protect the civilians. Outside, Lemillion pops out of the ship and signals the others to attack that spot and free the civilians. The heroes unleash an all out attack to break into the fortress and save the civilians. Endeavor blasts a hole in it and everyone else use their powers to catch them as they fall. Lemillion gets the last of them out and then runs back into help. Endeavor is exhausted from all of this, but he intends to keep blasting to give the heroes a chance to break in as well.

 

Izuku and Giulio enter a dark room and Dark Might turns it into a field. Giulio explains Dark Might’s quirk, he uses Alchemy. He’s able to make any matter he wants with a catalyst. He used this power to reshape his face to match All Might’s and to mimic his power as best he can. We see how he originally looked and Valdo Gollini is an incredibly sour looking man. Izuku asks why he’d change his face to look like All Might. Dark Might answers, saying that if he’s going to take All Might’s place he should take his face as well. He reveals that he’s in All Might’s Golden Age costume. He takes a hit of Anna’s power and the fight begins. Giulio tries to stop him as he knows Anna is hitting her limit, but Dark Might’s power is insane. He knocks Izuku back and rushes Giulio. Giulio fires a dozen rounds into Dark Might’s chest. This stops him for a moment, but not for long. He admits that unlike All Might, he can’t take damage like he could, but he’s Plus Ultra, so that doesn’t matter. He morphs the bullets into lances and he attacks them all with his full force. He tell Giulio that he’s trying to have a heart to heart with a real hero, so but out nobody. He tries to crush Giulio with a golden hand, but Izuku blocks it. He realizes that Alchemy seems like multiple quirks, but it’s just one overcharged power. Giulio gets up, and Izuku tells him regardless of Dark Might’s power, saving Anna is their priority. He uses a maximum smokescreen and they start running around in the dark. Izuku clashes with Dark Might as Giulio runs to Anna. He tries to reach out to her, but then stops and drops, he’s hit by Deborah’s power, who announces that she’s not going anywhere. Izuku gets knocked into the ceiling.

 

Bakugo and Shoto figure out the mechanics of the teleporter’s power, realizing he can only move short range and within line of sight. So they use their combined powers to set the whole area on fire and force them to where they need. Bakugo blasts them and then Shoto freezes them in place.

 

Izuku tells Giulio to get up, and Dark Might captures him in a binding. Deborah orders Anna to kill Giulio. Dark Might tells Izuku to sit there and watch. Once he’s fallen into despair, he’ll accept Dark Might as the new Symbol of Peace. Izuku refuse and he keeps yelling at Anna to wake up.

 

Outside, Endeavor hits the fortress with a full power blast and Mt. Lady rips a hole open. The shaking it causes makes Anna drop her knife, buying Giulio more time. Izuku shouts at Giulio to fight for Anna, and that causes his support items to start reacting. He tries to shoot Deborah, but his arm is out of bullets. She laughs at him… but then Giulio’s leg rockets him forward and into Deborah, knocking her out. Anna wakes up and tries to run to Giulio, but Dark Might grabs her. Bakugo and Shoto join Izuku and they prepare to battle. Dark Might absorbs more of Anna’s power and the fight begins. UA’s three Musketeers work well together, they dodge around Dark Might’s attacks. Dark Might powers up and expands into a giant. The heroes make it inside, Hawks backs up Tokoyami and the others reach class 1A. The monsters merge into a super mode, which look like sea anemone. Iida tells everyone to keep fighting.

 

Giulio gets up and limps towards Anna. Dark Might keeps blasting everyone around with his megaton punches. Dark Might reiterates that he is the future, and that pisses off the boys. They each shout about how much All might meant to them and unleash their full power on Dark Might. The three heroes quickly overwhelm Dark Might. Bakugo hits him with so much force that it forces him to revert to his original face. They leave the last attack to Deku, who uses his slingshot move to rocket to Dark Might and hits him with about fifteen States of Smash. Dark Might flashes back to when he was younger, he faced off against his father who told him that he’ll never lead their family to greatness. Dark Might says that All Might became great due to his power, but his father said that All Might’s focus was Strength, not Power. Dark Might shot and killed his father. In the present he passes out and all his monster’s crumble. Dark Might’s butler tries to flee, but Lemillion catches him and knocks him out.  The fortress crumbles and everyone cheers.

 

Izuku helps dig out Giulio, who is badly hurt, but says he’ll survive. He lips towards Anna, whose hair is almost entirely black now. He runs to her as her power overwhelms her. She causes monster roots to sprout and is encased in them. Giulio is launched into the air, Izuku catches him and Giulio begs him to get him close to her. Izuku tries but he’s blasted back by her power. Anna’s power rages and she rebuilds the fortress. She wraps up Dark Might in threads of her power and turns him into a black Hulk. So I guess we’re into round two. Dark Might announces that he’s the new world and they all start fighting. Giulio drags himself to Anna and grabs her with his robot hand, but his power can’t work through it. He tries to will his nullification to work. Bakugo and Shoto blast mega Dark Might, who forces Anna to enhance him even further. He throws Bakugo and Shoto back. Giulio reaches Anna and holds her to his chest. Giulio remembers promising that Anna would always be normal with him around. This seems to trigger his power as it’s revealed that he’s compatible with Anna. She super charges his nullification, which causes her power to retract. Izuku, Bakugo, and Shoto do a combo attack on Dark Might. The two blasters super heat him allowing Izuku to do a Super Mega Ultra Kamen Rider kick, knocking Dark Might through his All Might statue and shattering the fortress to dust.

 

As the sun sets, we see Giulio cradling Anna in his arms. He falls as she wakes up. She begs him not to leave her, and he tells her to not label him a corpse anymore. He explains that she super charged his quirk and he effectively rendered her Quirkless. He thanks her for everything that she’s done for him, and says that without her quirk, they’re contract is over and she’s free to go wherever she wants. … I think that he honestly doesn’t get that she’s in love with him. Thankfully, she stops him from walking off, hugging him, telling him to call her Anna, and asking him to stay with her. Izuku swears that they’ll move forward and find a way to make everyone smile. And then the credits roll.

 

In an after Credit scene, we’re shown Tomura Shigaraki waking up from the coma that Star and Stipe put him in as AFO watches.

 

I’ll try to keep my thoughts short as you’ve already read my fourteen-page summary. I find it funny that ultimately the best villain we’ve had for a My Hero Academia movie was a version of All Might. I think that each of these four MHA movies has improved with each entry on its villains and heroes. Wolfram from Two Heroes was a generic bad guy that wanted to increase his own power. Nine from Heroes Raising was slightly better since he had an actual ideology and plan that he was working towards. Was it a generic ‘might makes right, therefore I rule because I’m mightiest’ situation? Yes. But it was helped out by Johnny Yong Basch’s performance. Flect Turn from World Heroes Mission was better still, with his anti-quirk ideology and self-loathing. And finally, we’ve got Valdo Gollini, the disturbed fan that wants to be the villainous version of All Might. He’s every toxic fanboy. Those guys that think they love Superman but say it’s unrealistic that he doesn’t use his immense power to rule the world. Or think Batman is all about beating up criminals and the mentally unwell, ignoring that Bruce Wayne is forever fighting the corruption in Gotham in other ways. He thanks All Might is all about Power, and because he has the most power, in his eyes, he needs to carry the mantel. I also appreciate that he’s so delusional that he thinks this is all him when he explicitly needs to constantly take power from his hostage to perform at this heightened level. Like, bro doesn’t at all see the contradiction here, does he?

 

The heroes of these films, the ones that get to have longer arcs because Izuku and co need to go back to the main story and get character development there, are also improved with each entry. Melissa in Two Heroes is a fun character that’s like Izuku, Quirkless and trying to find how she fits into hero society in her own way. She works hard and gets to help the next symbol of peace, Izuku, as her father did with All Might. The two kids, Mahoro and Katsuma, from Heroes Rising had to learn to grow. Mahoro had to accept that she couldn’t protect her brother from everything, and Katsuma learned that he could be a hero in his own right with his healing power. Rody from World Heroes Mission was a man that society failed that needed to find hope to try again. He was forced into Izuku’s orbit, and was dragged along, learning that his father didn’t abandon him, and in fact fought to the bitter end to protect him and his siblings. He had to learn to stand up again, and as the movie ended, he was on a better path. Giulio is the best yet, being a man that is trying desperately to perform the final request of the person he loves most. I genuinely think he didn’t realize that Anna was in love with him, or he was with her, and that he thought he was just doing his duty. Man lost an eye, arm, and leg, but still thought he was just doing a job chasing his boss. He wanted to perform his duty and see Anna’s request fulfilled. But he NEEDED to find the strength to save her so she could live a life and do as she please, which incidentally involves being with him. I also like that, like with Rody, he was involved in the final battle. And, like Rory, his job is arguably more important than Izuku and co beating up the bad guy. Rory had to stop the doomsday weapon going off, and Giulio had to stop Anna’s power from rampaging and destroying everything. He saved the girl, did his duty, and got his reward. It’s a nice little arc. This was a crazy day and a half for Izuku and company, weird how they probably won’t mention it again. Lol

So ya, overall, liked this movie. I think it’s the best of the four MHA movies thus far, and if it’s the last one they ever make, they ended it on a high note. The action was great, the art stunning, and our one-off heroes and villains were all entertaining. Next time, back to the main story. Have a good night, and stay safe. 

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Bluesky: @basicssuperhero.bsky.social

Viewer Log: My Hero Academia ep 142

 They've got 12% of a plan. So... ya, that's really more of a concept. 

Last time on My Hero Academia, they finally figured out who the mole in UA is. The episode briefly teases that it might be Hagakure, before revealing it was in fact Yuga Aoyama. Aoyama was born Quirkless like Midoriya, but his wealthy parents were able to get in contact with All For One who gave Aoyama his Belly Laser quirk in exchange for their service. Aoyama served as a pawn but is clearly hitting his breaking point continuing to do this. Hagakure observed Aoyama’s parents telling him his new orders, and she runs off to get Izuku. Izuku tries to talk to Aoyama, but fearing for his parent’s safety, he attacks his friend to give them a chance to escape. Hagakure leaps in the way of his laser and uses her power to refract the attack. Izuku captures the Aoyamas with Blackwhip and tells Yuga that he can stop struggling. The Aoyamas are taken prisoner and admit to Detective Tsukauchi, All Might and the UA staff, but they can’t give much as AFO kept all the power in their ‘relationship.’ That actually led to his capture in the Kamino Ward incident because the Aoyamas were unable to contact him to warn him of the raid. The students are heartbroken to learn that their friend was working against them this whole time, and Aoyama himself declares he’s nothing but a villain, rotten to the core. Izuku cuts in at this point and reminds everyone that Aoyama did a lot of good too, such as trying to protect Bakugo and Tokoyami during the summer camp attack or giving Izuku his encouraging cheese messages. He also suggests that Aoyama can still be a hero, as capturing him means they can potentially lure AFO out on their terms. Enough recapping. Let’s get to it, shall we?

 

We begin with a brief recap of Yuga Aoyama admitting to working for the League of Villains and then Izuku rejecting him describing himself as a villain and insisting he can still be a hero. Yaoyorozu agrees with Izuku that having Aoyama try to trick AFO is a great plan. Aoyama is very confused by their unwillingness to turn their back on him, to treat him like a terrible person. Present Mic asks his students if they’re really sure they want to trust someone that is an admitted traitor. Iida steps up and speaks for the group by saying yes, they do, and adding that he feels that its partially on them for not realizing that Aoyama was dealing with so much. They still see him as a friend and see this as a way to heal the damage between them all. Bakugo is still upset about the kidnapping thing, but says he’ll let it go if he can blast Aoyama with his Howitzer blast 5 times. Sero asks if maybe he’s overreacting. Kirishima is very vocal about supporting Aoyama. He is sure that Aoyama was only working with AFO because he had no other way out and that Aoyama was being completely honest with his parents when he said he wanted out. He tells Aoyama they didn’t turn their backs on Izuku when they found out he was Quirkless and they won’t do it to him either. He insists that meddling in your friends life is like the most important aspect of being a hero. The students all start talking at once and Tsukauchi tells them to calm down. He reminds them that they’ve got procedures they need to follow, and that they need to be smart about this. The Aoyamas said that they can’t lie, as AFO will sense it and probably kill them. Before anyone can suggest another idea, Aizawa cuts in via a video call. He’s looking a bit shabbier than usual but he’s recovering. His right eye is gone, covered by a patch, and he’s still in his hospital scrubs. He asks if Izuku has an actual plan. Izuku confirms he’s only got a rough idea for a plan. Aizawa expected as much, and turns his attention to Aoyama. He tells Aoyama that he has no intention of expelling him from class 1A. He has a plan to move forward. After deafening the Aoyamas for this, Aizawa explains his plan to the students. We don’t get to hear it, but I am sure it’ll get filled in as they go.

 

We cut to Aizawa, All Might, Tsukauchi, Present Mic, Ectoplasm, and Nezu having a private meeting. Nezu thinks the plan they proposed can work, if they scout each location and prepare it. All Might says that it all rides on ‘him’ though. Aizawa reminds the others that they only have a week to get this set up if they want to use their temporary advantage. Tsukauchi thinks it could work and heads back to base to figure out the particulars. The Aoyamas are taken away by the cops, but Izuku shouts after Yuga that everything will be okay.

 

The students head back to their dorm and all resolve to see this through. Izuku and Iida agree that they both need new costumes after the last week, and everyone else tries to think of ways to improve their skills. Izuku and Iida head over to Mei Hatsume’s lab to get new gear. Izuku goes to knock on the door, but much like last time, gets blasted as whatever Mei was working on at the time exploded. And much like last time, Izuku found himself getting smothered by Mei’s boobs. She says its been a minute and that she’s always happy to hear their item requests. Iida asks about new costumes, Mei asks why they don’t go through the support store, and Iida reminds her that they’re pretty much defunct now due to all this (gestures as the all but open war in the streets.) Mei says that sounds like a major pain, thus revealing she has no idea what’s been going on. Power Loader, the Support course teacher comes out, realizes what the students want and calls them inside. The lab has had some changes to it, as Power Loader is in charge of the barrier around UA and has to constantly maintain it.

 

Izuku shows Mei his compression bands that he got from Melissa Shield in the US and wonders if she can repair it. She asks if he’ll need it soon, and Izuku confirms he needs it like yesterday. She says that’s rough and starts running away, saying that that she’d basically have to build it from scratch. When Iida asks about building him new armor, she runs away faster. Her other classmates offer their services, which is a relief to the boys. Iida points out that it’s a bit weird that Mei is avoiding working on a project, but we learn her new all consuming project is super important. She’s working on perfecting the evacuation system for UA to get the civilians out. Her current goal is to try to get the whole school to fly. God, I love how insane this girl is. As she types and tries to figure out how to solve this problem, Izuku remembers her ‘unique’ mindset, like her suggestion for Iida to run with his arms if he wants to cool off his legs. Izuku is impressed with her work ethic, and isn’t all that surprised that she hasn’t noticed how troubled stuff is. She admits to actually knowing how bad things are, but she’s trying to put her focus on what she can do to help. Building things is how Support Course students help people after all. Izuku starts to compliment her, but Mei cuts him off by throwing a pair of gauntlets at him. She says their inferior version of the ones he had, but if he’s cool with that, he can give those babies a spin. They look like his Air Shot gloves with the binder coming off them like a sleeve. She also throws a set of armor at Iida, and they ask her if she just whipped this stuff up with her left hand as her right was busy working on her flying school idea. She doesn’t answer, but I think you know it. The other Support course students in that time had only found their measuring tape… so they’re just gonna leave.

 

Iida and Izuku meet up with the rest of their classmates, their faces still caved in from getting their new gear thrown at them. Mt. Lady joins the students and tells them that while she sympathizes with what they’ve been dealing with, they need to focus on find and stopping the league of villains and the remnants of the PLF. Ashido asks if Aoyama will come around, and Izuku says that he believes in his friend. Bakugo says that he hopes that it doesn’t bite them in the ass. Shoto joins Izuku and says that Aoyama has done the most soul searching of all of them and will be back. Mt. Lady tells them that its time to head out. She assigns Izuku, Bakugo, and Shoto as heads of squads and tells them to divide the class into groups to search for their targets.

 

We jump over to the ruins of a city where Nejire, and Amajiki with Fat Gum and Ryukyu are helping get people to shelters. They take the civilians to Shiketsu High. Ryukyu mentions that they want to save everyone, but with fewer people out and about they’ll have less intel coming in. Fat Gum agrees, and says that he can feel it in his bones that they’re approaching all out war.

 

We shift to Central Hospital where All Might and the other allies meet to discuss their plan. The group consists of Hawks, Tsukauchi and the cops, Star and Stripe’s squad, and Ragdoll of the Wild, Wild Pussycats. All Might and Hawks tell them that they’ve been brought in due to their loyalty and past actions and asks that they don’t leak any of this information. Ragdoll asks why the rest of the team aren’t included, and they says that it isn’t because All Might doesn’t trust them, but because they’re needed in the field. All Might explains the plan. Step one, split the villains. The reports they’ve received suggest Tomura is the more powerful of the two now, and given AFO’s strength that’s saying something. The two can communicate via radio waves and through their Vestige link in the Mindscape, but keeping them apart should keep them from overwhelming the heroes. Nathan asks why AFO didn’t attack with Tomura and beat Star that way, and All Might thinks its because AFO knew how New Order worked and worried about being subjected to that power. The plan is to keep the villains at least 10 km apart. Tsukauchi thinks they’ll plan on this, will have contingencies in place. All Might agrees and points out that Dabi alone has been one of their best weapons to sew chaos and divide heroes in the past. All Might says that their plan has to be to split all of the League up, to keep Dabi, Toga, Spinner and any of their other vanguard away from the Shigarakis if they want to beat them. The cops point out that that’ll be hard given past interactions. All Might is planning on using Aoyama. Tsukauchi is skeptical and is refusing to accept the mitigating circumstances of how Aoyama was used up to this point. All Might has faith, in Aoyama and Aizawa, who is going to talk to him.

 

Aizawa meets Aoyama in an interrogation room at the hospital. A lizardlike doctor says that Aoyama’s test results came through as normal, which make Aizawa believe that AFO must have gotten the self-destruct Quirk he gave Lady Nagant after he was captured, since he didn’t implant it in Aoyama. Which also makes sense as if AFO could just do that, he wouldn’t have had to work so hard to scare all the Aoyamas into falling in line. No, he thinks AFO kept Aoyama in check by just making him terrified. Aizawa tells his student that he won’t make a lot of friends like the ones he’s made in UA and asks what is scaring him. Aoyama admits he’s scared of AFO but also admits that he’s scare that he can’t ‘twinkle’ like the rest of his class can. He explains that it’s like the more they believe in him, the less confident he feels he can meet their expectations of him. He’s terrified that if they put their trust in him, and AFO appears before him, that he’ll betray them all over again. He says they should just put in a dark hole and forget about him. Aizawa is brutally honest with his student, telling him this’ll never just go away. The others were being nice because they are his friends, but as Aoyama’s teacher, Aizawa gives him the cold hard truth. He’s probably never going to be able to call UA home again after this. Aizawa thinks to himself that Aoyama’s fear has to be ripped out of him. Aoyama tries to rationalize it away, but Aizawa cuts him off. He says he won’t let Aoyama just give up. He has to face this, he isn’t allowed to drown in his guilt. He thinks of his own school days with Present Mic and Oboro (Kurogiri before he was a Nomu) as he speaks about standing with his friends. Aoyama asks what difference a single person can make, especially a criminal. Aizawa says they won’t leave him to do anything alone. They’ll all walk the path to the future together. The episode ends with Aoyama crying.

 

In a post credit scene, a couple students come up to Hitoshi Shinso, saying they should be gone already. Shinso agrees. He’s the brainwashing kid, if the name doesn’t click something in your brain.

 

This episode was mostly set up for the final arc to me. Izuku and Iida get new gear, they’re trying to find a way to encourage Aoyama to be their bait, the adults start to formulate their plan of attack and so on. Lots of smaller things that are building to the big thing which is the all out brawl they’re going to have with AFO and company. Of all the things in this episode, I think I like seeing how much Aoyama is struggling with accepting that his friends have faith in him. I get this idea that the more they try to build him up, the lower he sinks because he doesn’t think he can measure up. There are few things that sting worse than thinking that someone believes in you when you can’t believe in yourself. Despite how he’s presented himself up to this point, Aoyama is a depressed young man that has spent most of his life but for sure the last year with a weight on his back that is far greater than he should ever have been expected to handle. To betray people he cares about so obviously, badly, and totally, only for them to still believe in him has to create a weird maelstrom of emotions. From a story perspective, I know he’s going to do it, you know he’s going to do it, if you presented this info to my 90-year-old grandmother, she’d be able to figure out he’s going to do it, but I like how it realistically presents his struggle. It’s good writing. I liked catching up with Mei Hatsume, as she’s one of my favorite tertiary characters. She’s fun for these quick gags about her being such a gear head she barely remembers Iida’s name. I like that the story established she’d been keeping busy working on the school’s defenses, as it feels like she’s levelled up off screen like so many of the class 1A students have on screen. Sure, things still blow up around her, but I get the vibe its down significantly from when she seemed to just be ramming pieces together to see what she could make. She’s a more focused character now, and is so talented at building that she can work on several projects at once. She’s definitely growing. So now, the students have their mission, Aizawa is working on Aoyama, and the League of Villains is definitely preparing to pounce. I wonder what happens next? We’ll see tomorrow. Have a good night and stay safe. 

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Bluesky: @basicssuperhero.bsky.social

Viewer Log: My Hero Academia ep 141

 The students prepare and the mole is finally revealed. 

Last time on My Hero Academia, titans clashed. The US top hero Star and Stripe did her best to try to finish off Tomura Shigaraki by dropping a few dozen Tiamat cruise missiles onto him. Unfortunately, he escaped the destruction by using decay to bury himself deep underground and used his Nomu as a decoy to throw them off. The two clashed again, and ultimately Tomura touched Star and absorbed her power. He also hit her with decay at the same time. Star tried to protect herself with an Order, but decay overcame her power. AFO within Tomura starts gloating, admitting that taking New Order from Star was on his to-do list but it was much farther along. He says that she was one of the few people that could ruin his plans, but having defeated her like this his victory is basically assured. But then Star reveals her final gambit. In a desperate attempt to ensure AFO couldn’t get her Quirk without regretting it, she set a new Order just before they clashed, for New Order to destroy any other quirk it comes into contact with. Star’s Vestige within Shigaraki rampages, destroying quirks within the villain. Shigaraki panics and tries to escape, searching desperately for someone he could dump New Order into. Star’s squad slows him down for a bit but he’s able to escape. He tries to dump New Order on a petty criminal he found, but just before he could, New Order gets used up and disintegrates within him. AFO had too many stored-up Quirks for her to destroy them all, but Star’s Vestige takes solace that she put the fear of Heroes back into him. All Might gives his students the bad news but also reveals that Star’s final attack has bought them a week to prepare. The damage she did to Shigaraki’s body not only removed some of his Quirks but also slowed down Shigaraki’s metamorphosis into AFOs new Vessel. He advises his students to redouble their training in that time, which they reveal that they’ve been doing that since before Izuku left. All Might is immensely proud of his students as the credits roll. Enough recapping. Let’s get to it, shall we?

 

The episode begins with the League of Villains in their hidden cave base. AFO, Toga, Spinner, and Dabi watch as Tomura Shigaraki writhes on the floor and screams in agony as his body attempts to recover from the ordeal that his fight with Star and Stripe put him through. AFO tells his ‘other me’ to endure the pain he’s going through. He uses his quirk to make his life support system to float behind him so he can check on Tomura. He says that Tomura’s Quirks are fatigued after all that he’s been through and that once he’s recovered a little, he’ll get access to his powers again. Toga and Spinner look incredibly uncomfortable with this situation, but they’re unable to do much about their situation at this point. Tomura screams that he’ll make everyone pay, he won’t stop until everyone that so much as remembers All Might’s face has suffered. AFO senses that his Vestige within Tomura have begun to merge, the rage that Tomura is feeling seems to be accelerating the process. He laments not getting hold of New Order but thinks that Star fueling Tomura’s rage so much that integration became easier was a blessing in disguise. He tells Dabi that he’ll have to wait a little longer before acting. Dabi is annoyed by this, as he feels it’s unfair that he has to be cooped up while his father runs free. AFO says that he and Dabi are alike in a lot of ways, but how they differ in how they handle problems. Dabi is single minded on his goal, while AFO says the wise man tries multiple paths to try to get to their destination. He boasts about how he has set up multiple contingency plans in order to reach his desired goal of ‘being the demon lord.’ Tomura’s eyes shoot open and we follow his senses towards UA. AFO says that while it’s unfortunate that Izuku made it back to UA and is now recovering and preparing to face them, he has “many friends” that can help in this situation. We see a brief flash of Hagakure’s outline and her gloves, which, ya know, heavy handedly implies that the UA spy is the invisible girl.

 

At UA, we see the students practicing with their powers. Koda and Sero are helping Tokoyami work on fighting while using Dark Shadow as armor; Kirishima is trying to perfect his defenses by having all the super strength guys wail on him; Yaoyorozu and Kaminari use their powers to make a bunch of generators and charge them up in one go; Mineta hurls his sticky balls at Ashido and Jiro to help them practice destroying targets; Tsu and Uraraka combine their powers to turn Tsu’s tongue into a rubble covered flail to try to hit Iida, who is trying to go faster; and Izuku is using Blackwhip and Air shot to duel Bakugo. Bakugo blasts Izuku out of the air and gives him an explosion Afro. Bakugo brags that he’s perfecting using multiple explosions one after the other for increased power. Izuku figures out that Bakugo is in his winter uniform to sweat more so he has more nitro sweat to work with. Izuku comments that everyone is improving as he watches Shoto try to use his left and right side in perfect synchronization. Shoto himself thinks that he’s almost reached the point where he can use both sides at the same level and hopes that his fire and ice combined will be enough to stop Dabi.

 

We shift focus to Kaminari and Mineta taking a break together. The lightning kid is rehydrating, while Mineta keeps pulling his sticky balls from his head. I assume to both give them more ammo to practice with and to try to increase the amount of balls he can make before his scalp starts breathing. Kaminari comments that while All Might said they’ll be going into an all-out war, he thinks that the two big bads are at their most vulnerable, particularly because Gigantomachia is still being held prisoner. He thinks that they could take them down pretty easily. Bakugo comes up and says that he’s an idiot that forgot three things. One; AFO is a master at hiding himself. They’ve found a lot of his individual bases, but the man himself is always long gone when they do. He also calls him a nutsack face, which is one of Bakugo’s better insults. Jiro and Yaoyorozu join, Yaoyorozu adding that even in a weakened condition they barely survived fighting Tomura, so a more complete version of him is going to be even tougher. And Bakugo says that at the end of the day, the League will be the one to decide where and when they fight. He says that with the Search quirk AFO stole from Ragdoll, he’s basically impossible to sneak up on, but he hopes that that was a Quirk New Order destroyed. Izuku starts saying that his next move will have to be extremely precise, but before he can go into detail about that, Iida karate chops his explosion afro and corrects him that their next move needs to be precise. The others gather round to reinforce this statement. Izuku asks if it’s cool for him to look around campus for a bit, and Iida says that should be fine. He makes a point to say that after Uraraka’s speech, the students and civilians have been getting along well, much to her embarrassment.

 

We cut to the woods just outside of the UA dorms, with Hagakure commenting that ‘you’ve’ been extremely depressed since the raid on the PLF. That ‘you’ took it worse than anyone else. We hear a woman with a noticeably French accent telling her son that they’ve gotten new orders that they must act on, and not to worry as they were in code so no one should realize they’re ‘bad’ orders. If the French accent comment didn’t give it away, yes, its revealed here that the mole is Yuga Aoyama. She says that Aoyama has been depressed for a while and that he even looked sad when they got Izuku back. Aoyama’s mother insists that with AFO out of prison, that everything that he wants will happen and that Aoyama has to follow orders or he and his parents will be killed. Aoyama sobs during this conversation, especially when his mother explicitly states that he was the one that leaked to the League of Villains about the USJ and the Training Camp. Hagakure is horrified when she realizes that Aoyama has been the mole from the beginning. We learn from Aoyama’s parents that Aoyama was originally Quirkless, and in an attempt to give him as normal a life as possible, his parents sought out AFO and got a Quirk from him. His father insists if they’d known what AFO would demand in payment for it, they’d never have done it, but his mother says they’re in too deep to say no now. Hagakure tries to find a way to slip away to get a teacher or someone of authority. Aoyama, still crying, says that the guilt of what he’s done has been crushing him despite the brave face he’s been putting on. He says that when he saw AFO losing to All Might and begin captured after the Kamino Ward incident that he let himself hope that that was the end of his involvement with the villain and he could live a normal life… but obviously that isn’t the case. He hates that he has to keep doing this. There is a rustle in the grass, and the Aoyamas look up to see… Izuku, looking shocked and heartbroken. He says that he ran into Hagakure who told him about what was happening. Mrs. Aoyama tries to play it off as Hagakure being mistaken… but Yuga can’t keep lying to Izuku. He says “of course, it’s you, Midoriya.” He admits that the hates himself for being the only student that couldn’t say anything to get Izuku to come back to UA with the others. Izuku tries to say something, but Aoyama cuts him off. He flashes back to when he got the message that told him that Izuku was given his Quirk by All Might and that AFO wanted it. Izuku cuts into his reminiscence and says that he wasn’t here by accident and had actually gone looking for Aoyama since he thought Aoyama had been acting oddly since he got back. Aoyama admits to everything, calling himself a ‘revolting villain.’

 

Back with the League of Villains, Dabi scoffs at this idea of having ‘friends’ and at AFO trusting a bunch of Randos to get stuff done. AFO compares his ‘friends’ to a cheap lighter, a tool that can be useful but that you throw away the moment it stops working properly. The tool helps him, maybe gives him a laugh, but ultimately it is just something to use up to get to his final destination. None of them are essential.

 

Back in the forest, Aoyama shoves his parents away and tells them to run. He gives us a brief overview of his life story, which was like Izuku’s in some ways. His parents came from wealth and were very happy and loving towards him. They discovered he was quirkless at four or five and had the ‘he’s got the full pinky toe’ explanation that Izuku and his mom got. Because the Aoyama’s were rich, and even more socially paranoid about their son being outcast for being different, they found AFO and were able to get Aoyama a Quirk. Naval laser wasn’t all that compatible with Aoyama’s body, hence his stomach issues whenever he overused it. His parents got him his first belt to help alleviate his issues, and the Aoyamas did their best to act like everything was fine. We see brief glimpses of Aoyama looking terrified as we hear the start of his conversations about UA with AFO, “Tell me when your class will be unsupervised,’ and ‘Tell me more about this training camp.” He was also ordered to lure Izuku out into the open if he ever returned to UA. As Aoyama and his family try to run, he admits that when he read Izuku’s letter about how he got his powers, it filled him with despair. Trying to let his family escape, Aoyama fires off a full power naval laser at Izuku. Izuku preps full cowling to take the hit, but Hagakure jumps in the way. Her Quirk lets her refract light, not just be invisible, so she blocked the attack with almost no effort. She asks Aoyama how he could possibly sleep at night and act like he wasn’t a part of all of this for so long. In this moment we also, for the first time, see a glimpse of Hagakure’s face and she looks as heartbroken as Izuku. Aoyama’s parents try to defend him, but Izuku captures all three in Blackwhip. He tells Aoyama that Hagakure set him free, that he doesn’t have to keep lying and hiding anymore. Izuku asks him to stop fighting so they can work this out.

 

Yuga Aoyama and his parents are restrained and are brought before All Might, the teachers, Detective Tsukauchi and the cops, and the entirety of Class 1A. Tsukauchi sums up the situation, Aoyama was given his Quirk about ten years ago and he was forced to be AFO’s mole in payment. He’s thankful he wasn’t rigged to explode like Lady Nagant. Present Mic flashes back to when he pointed out that there was a mole at UA and admits that he never thought it’d be a student. Principle Nezu asks the other students to give them the room, but they refuse. None of the students want to believe it. Hagakure and Ashido, whom to me always seemed to be very close with Aoyama, are taking it extremely hard and need to be physically supported by their other friends. Ojiro asks what he would have done next for AFO, and Mineta asks if he was brainwashed or something. Bakugo comments how odd it was to have two hero course students without a Quirk. Tsukauchi says that with the current state of things, the Aoyamas could get more leniency if they gave up all they knew about AFO. Mr. Aoyama says that they don’t have much to tell, they were low level pawns in this game. They were given orders, told to report back, and were shown what the price of disloyalty was. Mr. Aoyama says that anyone that tried to go to the police was murdered shortly thereafter. He says that death is inevitable if one betrayed AFO, he always found traitors. He tries to protect his son, saying that Yuga never learned any of the particulars, that he was told to lay low and report. Yuga remembers seeing Hagakure’s horrified face when she confronted him, and apologizes to his classmates. He says that he laughed and tried to be friends with them because that is what he wanted more than anything. He says that when he learned all about Izuku’s situation, he grew disgusted with himself and hated himself for focusing on himself when Izuku was hurting just as bad. He calls himself rotten to the core. This sets off Izuku, as one thing he cannot stand is someone ragging on one of his friends. He calls out all the good that Yuga did despite his mole status, how he tried to save Bakugo and Tokoyami at the training camp, how he left Izuku those weird but encouraging messages made out of cheese, or his other encouraging words though out the year. Izuku realized that that cheese message was a desperate cry for help that went over his head at the time. Izuku realizes that Yuga is like Lady Nagant, someone that was used by AFO and had their spirit broken. But just as importantly, that he’s someone that doesn’t have to be a villain forever. Izuku says that the tears Yuga is crying isn’t because he failed his mission but because he hurt his friends. Izuku begs Yuga to take his hand and realize he can still be a hero. Tsukauchi stops this speech, though, and says that they need to bring Yuga in. He orders Yuga gagged, not to be an asshole, but for fear that Yuga might still be boobytrapped in some way and if he says the wrong thing he could explode. He has to be gagged for his own safety at least until they can check him out at the hospital. Tsukauchi asks why they didn’t warn AFO about the Kamino Ward raid. Mr. Aoyama admits that that was because they couldn’t reach him. AFO controlled everything, he decided when they met and he changed the method each time. Tsukauchi realizes that that was to make them useless if they were ever captured. A still crying Izuku suggests that their situation has changed, that he can still be of use. The other kids get it, that with Aoyama’s status as a mole revealed they could potentially use him to trick AFO into a fight on the heroes terms. Izuku nods and assures Yuga that he can still be a hero.

 

So, I’d been aware that Yuga Aoyama was the mole for some time. I’m one of the rare individuals that does not care if a twist is ‘spoiled’ and didn’t try that hard to avoid the information when the manga chapter dropped a couple years back. So even knowing that he was the one slipping info to the League of Villains it was still a gun punch to get that revealed in universe. Using Hagakure to find out about the treachery was a good call from a writing standpoint as I recall basically from the moment that a mole was suggested, a noticeable bit of the fandom immediately assumed it was Hagakure. Is it stereotyping to assume the person with invisibility is a spy? Yes… but that’s a stereotype for a reason. It’s doubly effective to me given how close Hagakure seemed to be to Aoyama. My summaries aren’t perfect, but I hope I’ve conveyed that those two were often seen together in larger class projects. The story never focused on the two of them, but I recall often seeing them work together along with Ojiro, and Aoyama often did things with the 1A girls, so imagine the horror you’d feel at learning a good friend of yours was working against you this whole time. I appreciate how Horikoshi went about setting him up as well, because he gave us a few clues about Aoyama. Basically the first thing we learn about the dude after his name and his faux French accent was that overusing his quirk gave him a stomachache. Now, we learn this in the first dozen chapters, so one could just assume he’s just young and doesn’t have much stamina with his power yet. But its been commented on a few times that compatibility is hugely important with Quirks and just shifting abilities from one person to another doesn’t work perfectly. While he loves being in the spotlight, he always seemed to disappear when things got hairy. Heck, even giving him this super flashy quirk that was firing a laser from his stomach was a good red herring (anti-red herring?) to suggest why he wouldn’t be a mole. I do wonder if Horikoshi knew from the beginning that this is where he’d go with Aoyama or he came to the decision about who the mole was while writing. Something to ask if I ever meet him I suppose. I liked that Izuku never gave up on him, and that he was the one to suggest that Aoyama could redeem himself and be a hero. That is like his whole thing that anyone can be a hero if they want. We’ll have to wait and see how this plan turns out. See you tomorrow. Have a good night and stay safe. 

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Bluesky: @basicssuperhero.bsky.social

Viewer Log: My Hero Academia ep 140

 We've had a few Unstoppable Forces meet Immovable Objects before, but this is one of the flashier ones. 

Last time on My Hero Academia, Star and Stripe entered the field. The US’s top hero flew into Japan with a small fleet of stealth bombers to lend aide to the embattled nation, as Star views All Might as her mentor. The fledgling Symbol of Peace had saved her family from some rampaging villains, as shown in the flashback of My Hero Academia: Two Heroes, and afterwards she modeled her whole career after his. She was met immediately by Tomura Shigaraki, as AFO piloting his body is almost literally salivating at getting Star’s quirk. Her Quirk, New Order, lets her manipulate reality itself. She just needs to touch something or someone, say its name, and then she can imbue it with whatever quality she wants. Like removing the air from the space in front of her or making it so she can handle lasers. She hits Shigaraki hard and attempts to use her quirk to make it so that his heart will stop if he moves. Unfortunately, Shigaraki is going through a bit of an identity crisis as he can’t decide if he is Tomura Shigaraki, AFO Shigaraki or some new entity all together. This lets him fight her Order. Getting desperate and wanting to finish the fight quickly, Star creates a giant air golem of herself and slams Shigaraki to the ocean with a beam of laser energy. She makes a call to Commander Ackbar of the US and gets permission to use a bunch of Tiamat missiles to try to kill Shigaraki all in one blow. Enough Recapping. Let’s get to it, shall we?

 

We start with a flashback to when Star was first training with her squad. She looks beaten up, and it’s implied she just finished a training exercise with her team. In voice over she explains that her Quirk sounds awesome but has a power cap to it. No matter how she words her Order, she can’t make certain things happen. The implication being that she tried to New Order herself to be as strong as All Might, but it didn’t work. She says that no one knows why this is, but the theories range from ‘that’s just how your power works’ to ‘because you’re a girl.’ Nathan and her squad tell her that its no big deal if she can’t get to All Might’s level, she’s probably number 2 beneath him in power, and she has the rest of them to pick up the slack for her.

 

In the present, Star is keeping Shigaraki pinned beneath her sword of laser energy as the Tiamat missiles get closer. Her squad ask her what they need to do. She says she’ll need to use the missiles to finish him off, but to do that, she’ll have to drop her laser manipulating order. She orders her men to keep him pinned down under heavy fire to give her time to manipulate the missiles into her big attack. Shigaraki meanwhile is trapped in the beam of light but isn’t seriously harmed. He has reasoned out that this is a stalling tactic from Star and Stripe and that she’ll be trying to unleash one big Deathblow to finish him off once and for all. He realizes that this is a do or die moment for both of them. Star gives her guys a three count before she releases the beam and switches her order to allow her to redirect the Tiamat missiles.

 

The airmen blast Shigaraki with their lasers when he tries to reach star, pinning him in place to allow Star to try to hit him with her ballistic missile punch. She believes if even one hits it’ll be enough. She swings and seems to hit him, unleashing a massive cloud of destructive force. The blast is big enough that Endeavor and the others can see it from the highway. There’s a moment where they think it’s over… but obviously no ones beating Shigaraki besides Izuku. Shigaraki darts forward, looking incredibly burnt and broken, but alive. He reveals that using his mastered Decay Quirk, he buried himself deep under the sea floor to protect himself from the blast. The thing that darted up to try to attack Star was in actuality the Nomu he’d been riding on. He’d realized that Star could only use her Quirk on two things at once, so had to wait for just the right moment when she switched between Orders to bury himself. Shigaraki says that that tactic would have worked on anyone else, but he’s too powerful now.

 

The airmen try to shoot him down, but he’s too fast. He dodges between their blasts and then detonates his Nomu to give himself further cover. In the seconds he’d been freed, he’d already regrown most of his skin and hair, showing off how potent his regeneration is. He lands on Nathan’s ship and prepared to strike. Nathan has enough time to tell Star to just do it, crush his ship and kill Tomura in the explosion. But Star realizes that that won’t work as Tomura regenerates too fast. She gives a resigned smile as Tomura darts forward and grabs her by the face.

 

We pause for a moment for AFO to explain a few things. He admits to actually being afraid of what would have happened if Star and Stripe had met with Deku and the two of them had attacked him together. He feared it so much that he had his contacts in other countries begin widespread attacks on their own nations in the hope it’d keep Star from arriving too soon. His plan was to wait until his new body was complete, face Izuku and steal OFA from him. With the power enhancement of OFA in his hand, he would then face off against Star, steal New Order, and then used the compounded Quirks to become so uber powerful that he’d all other resistance would be like ants going up against an elephant. He tells Star that her arrival was the biggest potential problem with his plan, so he had to risk fighting her in his incomplete state. He gloats about how that risky gamble paid off. We watch as he drains New Order from her, in the form of red energy seeping from her face as Decay begins to destroy her body.

 

She tries to stop it by using New Order to make herself immune to Decay, but Shigaraki’s enhanced Quirk is too much for her. Shigaraki draws all of New Order out of Star. He gloats that because he used Decay at the same instant that he began to steal her Quirk, he forced her to choose between saving her body or her power, and because she chose her own body, she lost everything. He takes a moment to gloat to the memory of his brother, who is revealed to be named Yoichi. He reminds us that the brothers used to read a series of manga together about a hero and the demon lord. He says that Yoichi stopped reading because he didn’t know that there was a final volume that showed the hero winning in the end, but he says he always knew, he just didn’t want to waste time when he knew how it ended. He tries out New Order… but is shocked when Star appears in his mindscape. We see Shigaraki has mostly merged with Tomura into a blob… right before in the real world Shigaraki’s body starts exploding. He’s confused by this, saying that it feels like his Quirks are exploding.

 

We then learn that the moment Star realized destroying the jet wouldn’t work, she shifted her strategy. She used New Order to change it so that her Quirk would destroy any other Quirk it came into contact with. Her attempt at saving her body was the second, last ditch effort to save herself. She realized that Shigaraki getting her Quirk without repercussions would be the worst outcome, so she made it hurt. Within the mindscape we see the Vestige of Star hulk out and start ripping up the Vestiges of other Quirk users in Shigaraki’s mindscape, the representations of the Quirks he’s stole within that space. Star says that she’d have liked to survive, but if this was the price to pay for peace, she paid it gladly. Star disintegrates and her last thoughts were to thank her team and Commander Ackbar. Shigaraki starts to panic as the damage builds. All For One lets him take or give Quirks, but it doesn’t let him just destroy them outright. He needs to get rid of New Order before it damages him too badly. He decides he’ll pass it to a pilot, but they don’t give him the chance, they catch him in their laser canon fire. Star’s vestige destroys Reflect within Shigaraki, weakening him further.

 

Star, who is still dying, thinks about All Might. He says that he saved her when she was a child and he changed her life. She flashes back to when they met when she was a kid and how proud she was to meet him. Her last act in life is to Salute All Might and announce that she’d finally returned the favor. Shigaraki uses the wing quirk he stole from his Nomu to fly out of the beams and to try to escape. He has to hurry to find someone to give New Order to or Star’s Vestige will destroy all his powers. He is furious at being attacked yet again by someone inspired by All Might. He blames the big blonde hero for everything and hates that another of his disciples has wounded him this badly. He fires off a shockwave that freezes up the planes long enough for him to fly away. Nathan watches as Star’s ashes fall to the ocean and thinks that she surpassed All Might in that moment, and that to him, she was always the greatest hero.

 

We cut to a port city where a pair of escapees from one of the lesser prisons are hiding out. The woman of the pair complains that nothing is on TV, and the man says that it’s the fault of the rampaging escapees. He compliments his own brilliance at choosing to lay low… right as Shigaraki bursts into their house. He’s looking terrible at this point, his hair is long and matted and his body is in tatters. He lunges the man and attempts to steal his Quirk and shift it with New Order. In the Mindscape, Star calls him an idiot. She reveals that while New Order did a lot of damage to Shigaraki, she knew that the Quirk wouldn’t be enough to destroy all of his Quirks before it hit its own limit. She regrets that she couldn’t kill him herself but takes solace in knowing that she scared the shit out of him and showed that regardless of how powerful he is, there will always be someone ready to stand up and embody what it means to be a hero to try to stop him. AFO tells her that in the end, the winner is the last man standing and for her to be gone. New Order breaks down to dust. We see Shigaraki’s mental avatar. The outer later, made up of Tomura and AFO is blobby at this point, clearly damaged but surviving. We see a huge hole in the mass and deep within it, we see the child Tomura used to be, Tenko Shimura, within. He looks like he’s absolutely covered in hands, which is… disturbing to say the least. Tenko thinks about Star’s last words and immediately thinks of that ‘hero’ that will face him, Izuku Midoriya.

 

Future Narrator Izuku takes over, saying that the heroes and police swooped in immediately to try to catch any trace of Shigaraki. But he hightailed it out of there. We see the two criminals he attacked, their bodies withered and decayed. FN Izuku tells us that Star’s death shook the world, and lead to the other nations of the world putting a tighter rein on their heroes, basically killing any hope of getting international help. We’re shown Salaam, the flat Hieroglyph hero from Egypt rage against this, but his superiors tell him that they’re just trying to protect their own. We join All Might as he and his allies learn from Star’s team what happened. Nathan tells him that Star didn’t just leave a heroic legacy. He reveals their stealth bombers, X-Double-6’s, have recording equipment and they gathered as much data on Tomura Shigaraki during the fight as they could.

 

All Might goes to Class 1A the following day and tells his kids that Star bought them an extension. He tells them that they learned that Shigaraki’s body was supposed to be complete by tomorrow, but Star royally screwed him up. The damage New Order was able to do while within him should delay his maturation by about a week. Izuku realizes that she bought them some time to plan. All Might tells them that they think a bunch of his Quirks was destroyed in that attack. The kids point out that now is the best time to attack. All Might agrees and reveals that basically every hero not working rescue duty right now is on high alert trying to find him. But he warns his students that they have no idea how Shigaraki will react to this setback. He lists their adversaries, Shigaraki, AFO, Dabi, Toga, the remnants of their short-lived Paranormal Liberation Front, and the remaining Escapees from the prisons. Shoji adds there could also be other foes they don’t know about. All Might says that while Star just died, that he wants his students to spend the next week training as hard as they can to make sure that they’re ready for the war. Bakugo yells “WHAT DO YOU THINK WE’VE BEEN DOING!!?” The students reveal that they’ve been training the best they could since the raid on the PLF bases, and that they’ll keep training in order to be ready to fight alongside Izuku. Izuku says that Bakugo and the others agreed to spar with him after this is over. Bakugo yells that that’s not what he agreed to, and the other students broke into talking about their training. All Might smiles, thinking about their first training session. He determines that his students hatched into proper heroes a long time ago, and that AFO made a big mistake when he picked a fight with these kids. He calls his students one tough class as the episode ends.

 

The story of Star and Stripe was quick, but effective. She came in fast, broke a bunch of shit, and left the heroes better off than they’d been before. Part of me feels like she was a bit rushed, as she only appeared in three episodes. But when I think about what she was made to do, I can admit she did it well. She was introduced in order to show off how powerful Shigaraki has become but also to buy the author Horikoshi just a little more breathing room to tie off some loose ends before starting the big final arc. He probably could have just written that it would take Shigaraki a week to be complete to do that, but by making this time the hard one prize for another hero’s heroic sacrifice it adds a bit more gusto to the kids training. I liked Star and Stripe a lot, her design was what I’d imagine Superman and Wonder Woman’s daughter might have worn if the New 52 versions of the character had reproduced. An American Flag themed Superman costume, it’s as visually bold and loud as you’re thinking. Her brief time in the spotlight also highlighted that she’s smart as well as brave. She figured out the best way to end this no-win scenario. Losing her and her Quirk is an obvious blow to the already damaged world of heroes, but she’d single handedly did more damage to Tomura Shigaraki and to AFO’s overall plans than anyone else had done thus far. She stole power from a man that had been hording Quirks for over a century and stolen his ultimate victory from him right as he was gloating to himself that he’d gotten everything that he wanted. That’s writing at its finest. So, a salute to you, Star and Stripe, a fictional Super Woman worthy to be compared to the OG Superman. The kids have a bit of time to train, to reinforce their bonds… and maybe find out who that mole is that’s been with them since the USJ attack. Oh, I wonder who it could be. … Yes, I know already, I’m being dramatic. Have a good night and stay safe.

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Bluesky: @basicssuperhero.bsky.social