You know a cliché that is always
awesome? The angry teacher/mentor discovering his/her/their mentee/students are
being threatened. Why? Because the only comparable fury to that is a mother
going mama-bear to protect her kids. It’s intense, scary and just plan awesome.
This is particularly true with All Might, given that the guy is already drawn
to look super-duper intense normally. Threaten his students, and he enters
demon rage mode. It almost makes you forget that he has a finite amount of time
he can spend in his hero form, which he has already used up today. Not good. Let’s
get to it.
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| Villains cheat? Who knew? |
We open right where we left off
last time, with All Might arriving to save the day. He walks in, ripping his
tie as he does so. He explains that he’d had a bad feeling he couldn’t shake
even while listening to Mr. Nezu’s speeches. Which is impressive, given the
fact that from his two-minute scene earlier, we can easily infer that Mr. Nezu
is a long-winded talker. All Might had been making his way to the USJ when he
ran into Iida, who explained the situation to him. All Might sent Iida to get
the rest of the staff, and continued on to help things at the USJ. Mentally, he
berates himself for letting all this stuff go down while he was recovering. The
guy bears some Atlas level weights on those massive shoulders, doesn’t he? He’s
HYPER pissed that the so-called League of Villains threatened his young charges
and seriously injured his fellow teachers. He barely gives the villains a
chance to breathe, super-speeding around, knocking out the few remaining League
of Villain members still standing, and gathering Izuku, his little team, and
Aizawa. While rushing around, he knocks of Shigaraki’s weird severed hand
mask. Shigaraki kind of freaks out when
All Might arrives and when he loses his mask, but recovers after putting his
hand-mask back on. He reassures himself with the knowledge that All Might is definitely
slower, and definitely weakening. Which is so not good.
Izuku tries to warn him of the
danger that Noumu presents, but All Might tells him not to worry. He charges
over and starts fighting the monster. Noumu is like something out of a
nightmare, taking multiple punches without being phased even a little.
Shigaraki, feeling confident, tells All Might how futile this fight is. Noumu,
he explains, has a Quirk called Shock Absorption. As the name implies, his body will just keep
absorbing the force of All Might’s blows. Armed with this new knowledge, All Might
elects to change his strategy. He grabs Noumu around the middle and suplex him
into the concrete. His thought process is that if he can’t beat the thing into
submission, he’ll bury the monster to keep it from moving. Sound plan, as it
worked on DC’s Doomsday. Everyone is excited to see the monster go down, everyone
but Izuku, that is, who is really nervous. He knows All Might has used up most
of his power today, and that his personality will keep All Might from stopping
even when he hits his limit. No matter how well All Might fights, Izuku
probably won’t feel at ease until All Might can get away.
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| How do you know you've hit someone hard? When your punch visibly distorts their arm! |
We then see how the suplex turned
out. Turns out, shockingly, villains cheat. Who’d have guessed? Kurogiri opened
a warpgate right where All Might was going to slam Noumu. And then opened the
exit right next to it. The result, Noumu materialized at All Might’s back, and
has grabbed the hero’s sides, drawing blood. Noumu is digging in particularly
hard into All Might’s wounded left side. Now having All Might literally in
their grasp, their new plan is to pull All Might half way through the Portal,
and snap it shut. In case there is any confusion, that will cut him in half.
Izuku passes Aizawa’s body to Sue,
and runs in to save All Might. He super leaps over and preps a One For All
Punch. Kurogiri noticed Izuku’s rather stupid plan of attack. He warps in
between them, most likely planning on warping Izuku somewhere else, but is
stopped at the last moment. By who? Bakugo! The angry Firestarter sucker
punches Kurogiri while he was focusing on Izuku. He grabs Kurogiri by the
collar and forces him to the ground. Todoroki also arrives, freezing Noumu.
Kirishima tries to knock out Shigaraki, but he’s a little too quick for
Kirishima. Shigaraki is still pretty confident in his chances of winning,
somehow. Which either speaks volumes about his arrogance, or how powerful his
lackeys are. Meanwhile, Sue and Mineta bring Aizawa to the others. Thirteen,
who is barely conscious, warns the students to hide until the other teachers
arrive.
Bakugo mocks Kurogiri’s rather
simple tactics, of using his smoky warpgate form to cover his physical body.
But, in Kurogiri’s tenuous defense, the simple tactics are often the most
effective. Bakugo threatens to blow Kurogiri’s neck to kingdom come if he
moves. Two villains down, one to go. Or so it seems. In a bout of frustration, Shigaraki
orders Noumu to do something. The creature forces itself to its feet,
shattering his left arm and leg. It’s at this point that everyone is shocked to
learn that Noumu has another Quirk, Super Regeneration. A new arm and leg grow
from the stumps in mere moments. Having multiple, unrelated powers is something
unheard of in this world, FYI. Shigaraki orders the beast to free Kurogiri. It
rushes Bakugo, but All Might grabs him, throws Bakugo out of the way and takes
the full brunt of the attack. Shigaraki spouts some nonsense about the nature
of heroes and villains, how the heroes are glorified for their violence and
villains are demonized for theirs, that sort of thing, but everyone can tell
that Shigaraki is pretty much just reciting lines. He’s here because he likes
causing mayhem, destruction, and killing, there’s no greater goal in this
particular scheme. No poetry to his actions. He’s just a mad dog looking to
bite. The students want to help, but All Might makes them stay back. He gives
Izuku a thumb’s up and rushes Noumu.
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| The face of a hero; battered, bruised, but still smiling. |
The two slam into each other like a
pair of freight trains. They do that perfectly symmetrical punch thing, Noumu’s
right hitting All Might’s left. When the hit each other the first time, we can
see the shockwave travel up Noumu’s arm. After the first strike, they start
smacking each other with a flurry of punches. The wind they kick up while
punching get’s to be so strong that Kurogiri can’t get close enough with a
warpgate. After a few seconds, All Might starts getting the upper hand. He
smacks Noumu around for another minute, shouts “Go beyond, Plus ULTRA!” and
sends Noumu hurtling into the stratosphere. Ho dang! Literally everyone in the
facility, including the guys in the covered/closed off areas feels the
shockwave of the punch. All Might comments on his own waning strength, stating
that in his prime, beating Noumu would have only taken 5 blows, where now it
took 300. Shigaraki, shaking with fury, claims the hero cheated. Shigaraki,
have you met Pot? He’s got a comment about the color of your jumpsuit.
All Might’s battle with Noumu is
pretty darn intense. It’s a roller coaster ride, with All Might gaining and
losing the upper hand more than once as the fight progresses. His
ever-weakening condition plus the fact he’d already burned through most of his
hero time today pretty much ensured this would be difficult battle. Noumu is
pretty much unsettling on every possible level. That cold empty stare, that colossal
beak with the permanent smile plastered on it, and his tank of a body mix
together to make him rather terrifying. Japan, never make a live action version
of this anime, since that Noumu would haunt my nightmares. FYI, the word Noumu
in Japanese means “brainless,” which is exemplified a couple of times this
episode. He never moves or even reacts unless specifically ordered by
Shigaraki. If the situation were a little less dire, I’d like to think someone
would have thought to take out Shigaraki first, as that would leave Noumu
without orders. Just saying. All Might beating Noumu by just ‘hitting him
really hard,” was a little anti-climactic, but launching him into the
stratosphere is pretty impressive, so I’ll give it to him. So yeah, this
episode was a kick ass 20-minute fight scene. Super fun. Just one more episode
left in this season, it’ll be dropping soon. Have a good one.
Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero
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