Viewer Log: My Hero Academia ep 2

You ever hear the advice to “never meet your heroes?” Of course you have, it’s basically common knowledge. I can kind of understand why. If you deeply respect someone, nearly worship the ground they walk on, finding out said hero doesn’t agree with your actions or has some serious moral flaw themselves can be pretty damaging. But I’m getting ahead of myself, let’s get to the episode.

Cause that's a face of a hero... maybe.

We open to a flashback of Izuku watching All Might’s YouTube video and then learning he doesn’t have a quirk. Seriously, Dr. K-Buttkiss needs to work on his bedside manner. In the present, he asks All-Might the most pressing question of his existence, can someone without powers be a hero? Can he ever hope to be someone like All Might? Before All Might can answer he starts steaming. Literally, steam comes off him. Izuku doesn’t notice and starts fanboying out to All Might. All Might, meanwhile, seizes up before disappearing in a puff of smoke. Izuku is interrupted in his fanboying to see his all-time favorite hero turn into a really sickly looking man. Ain’t that a kick in the teeth.

Meanwhile, Mr. Goo wakes up in his soda bottle prison. Apparently, All Might accidently dropped him mid jump. Bakugo and his cronies happen to be passing by and kick said bottle prison, freeing him. Not good. Mr. Goo leaps free and grabs Bakugo, intent on making him the new skin suit. Even more not good.

In a fire, in a slime monster. Yeah, this literally could not
be worse.

Back with Izuku and All Might, Izuku is obviously having a major freak out about his hero’s sudden transformation. After All Might calms Izuku down, he explains. Basically, he’s using his Quirk to flex. Ya know, to make himself seem super buff and awesome. Like a guy at the pool. He goes on to explain that he got a serious injury to his left side about five years back. His stomach is gone and his respiratory system is basically shot. The damage is so bad that he’s pretty much been wasting away, and now can only hold his “hero” form for about three hours a day. The rest of the time, he looks like he’s been starved for about six month. Izuku guesses that it was a wound from a bad guy with an awesome name, Toxic Chainsaw, five years prior. All Might, while impressed with Izuku’s knowledge about his antics, dismisses this idea. Toxic Chainsaw was tough, but not anything out of the ordinary for All Might. The wound was from a fight that he has tried extremely hard to keep it under wraps. How mysterious. Obviously extremely depressed, All Might gives Izuku the advice he most doesn’t want to hear. That, All-Might believes that some villains can’t be defeated without powers, so no, he doesn’t believe that someone can be a hero without a Quirk. His words, it’s “Not bad to have a dream, young man. Just make sure your dreams are attainable. Realistic, understand?” Not terrible advice, to be 100% honest. Just saying.

All Might leaves, and then realizes he lost the bottle. And then an explosion happens. Super not good. Its revealed that, while Mr. Goo is in the process of possessing Bakugo, he can use his explosive powers as well. So, he’s blowing the heck out of the shopping district. This led to a perfect storm of awful for the area. The shopping district is too tight a space for the giant hero Mt. Lady to enter, strongman hero Death Arms isn’t strong enough to do damage to the viscus creature, and the remaining heroes are either not combat orientated or don’t handle fire well. And they have to be worried about not hurting Bakugo, since Mr. Goo is using him as a human shield. Why must civilian’s complicate things? But, to Bakugo’s credit, he’s not going quietly. He keeps trying to use his explosive powers to escape, but Mr. Goo is just too tough. All-Might arrives on the scene, but is too winded to transform. He’s furious that he got distracted, not by Izuku, but by worrying too much about using up his Hero Time. He’s a class act, that All-Might.

Gah, gnarly looking, isn't it?

Izuku also arrives, having walked to the scene of the battle without thinking. He sees Mr. Goo’s current rampage. that Bakugo is in danger, and blames himself for distracting All Might. Moments later Izuku runs in and does his best to save Bakugo. Not sure why, I’d have let him stew a while longer. He throws his bag at Mr. Goo to distract him, and tries to rip Bakugo free. It doesn’t work, but Izuku’s valiant effort gives All Might the kick in the pants he needs to transform. All Might rushes in, saving Izuku, and smacks Mr. Goo so hard that he scatters the creature into gooey chunks and changes the very weather from sunny to rainy. After that, Mr. Goo is gathered up, Izuku is scolded for being reckless, Bakugo is praised for being brave in the face of adversity and All Might is given a ton of publicity shots. So many mixed signals here on how to handle a crisis.

Later on, Izuku runs into Bakugo on the way home. Bakugo angrily shouts that he never needed or wanted Izuku’s help. Bakugo has some real emotional problems to work out, me thinks. After Bakugo walks off in a huff, All-Might runs in. Despite being as kind of hard to miss, All Might was somehow able to dodge the reporters and catch up to Izuku. He’s a quick bugger. The burly superhero shrinks back down to his normal form, and then takes back what he said about Izuku. He claims that all heroes share one thing in common, when someone else is in danger, they run head long into danger without thinking of their own safety. Which Izuku did with gusto. The episode ends with All-Might proudly saying, “Young man, you too can become a hero.” Which is all that he ever really wanted to hear.

All Might does everything intensely, even apologizing.

Once again, one of the qualities that I like about Izuku is that, first and foremost he’s a thinker. It’s hinted at here, and explored in depth as the series goes on, that he thinks first and acts second. It’s a skill that All Might’s successor needs to master. Even when rushing Mr. Goo, he’s remembers his notes and uses successful strategies utilized by actual heroes to some effect. Sure, all he really did was throw his bag at the monster and gives All Might the necessary motivation to transform. But, that was what was necessary for the heroes to win the day, today. Speaking of All Might, I think this second episode really highlighted a good aspect of him. That, even when in a situation where he could shift the blame, he doesn’t shift the blame. A lesser person would have latched onto Izuku’s meddling that caused Mr. Goo to escape. Which is true, had he just been able to Superjump away, that’d have been the end of it. But, it is also true that All-Might rushing lead to losing Mr. Goo. Had he just listened to a young fan’s questions, he’d have never lost Mr. Goo, either. All Might, never even once thinks about blaming Izuku. In his eyes, the blame is his and his alone. It takes a very big person to shoulder all responsibility for mistakes. Just saying. And I really love this ending. For starters, it did a call back to Bakugo’s ‘theory’ about heroes. If you recall, the little schmuck claimed that the thing that all heroes have in common is that they ‘appeared early.’ Namely, if you want to be a ‘somebody’ you’d better be a prodigy or something. Bakugo is a believer in fate, I guess. All Might’s theory is significantly better, that truly great heroes are selfless. Period. It’s a simple but rare quality to have, I’d say. All Might’s final words, and Izuku sobbing tears of joy is a powerful image to end on. Next time, young Midoriya takes the next step in his journey to becoming a hero, janitorial work. It’ll make sense later.

Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero

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