Are you ready for action,
adventure, and life or death situations? Well… you’ll have to wait a little bit
longer. I promise, this is the last set up episode for the season. Nerds honor.
You can’t see it, but I’m doing the Vulcan salute. And what is the center of
this episode? Breaking and entering, and an effective electoral system. Was
that bizarre enough to get your attention? Good, then let’s get to it.
 |
| Mr. Aizawa naps while the students vote. Why is he allowed to bring a sleeping bag into class? |
For once, we’re opening to a
completely fresh scene, no retreading of the previous episode. Outside UA High,
a massive crowd of reporters are mobbing anyone that comes by. Why? They want
to know about All Might. How he is as a teacher? Who’s his favorite student? Is
he going to retire and be a teacher fulltime? That sort of thing. They try to
get soundbites from students, some like Iida are helpful, and some like Bakugo
are, well… Bakugo. Eventually, Aizawa steps in and tells the press mob to beat
it. One of the reporters, tired of being blocked by teachers like Aizawa, tries
to make her way onto campus grounds. This triggers UA defensives, namely the
dropping of a massive metal gate. The reporter almost loses her head when the
gate drops. How is it that no one told her about these defenses? That feels
like something that should have been covered in orientation before sending her
to cover a story at UA. Just saying. Said defenses trigger whenever anyone’s
tries to enter the campus without the proper pass. Seriously, how do they
afford these things? We’re briefly shown the back of a sinister looking fella
across the street, who’s watching the events unfold. Nothing ominous about
that.
Inside the 1-A class room, Aizawa
reviews some of the student’s performance in the combat training the previous
day. He’s particularly direct with Izuku, pretty much telling him to get a
handle on his powers, as the excuse that he ‘can’t control his powers’ won’t
cut it for much longer. He also tells Bakugo to stop being a baby whenever he
loses a match. After that, he lets the class know that they’re going to have to
pick a class representative. It’s the equivalent of a class president. The
student’s all breathe a sigh of relief that they just have to do ‘normal’
school stuff rather then something terrifying. Now, normally only a few
students would be interested in doing the extra work that the job of class
president/rep requires, but in UA literally every student wants the part. Why?
It’s something to pad the resume when they start looking for jobs at various
hero agencies. Being the class rep at UA shows initiative, leadership skills,
and all that other stuff that gets heroes and their agencies interested in a
new sidekick. With all that in mind, having a vote seems pretty silly, as just
about every student would just vote for themselves. But they try it anyway,
rationalizing that if someone does get
more than one vote, they must be pretty awesome and great pick for the job. To
most of the class’s shock, especially Izuku’s, he wins with three votes. The
brainy girl from the previous episode, Yaoyorozu, gets the VP spot with two
votes.
 |
| Tenya Iida, aka Emergency Exit. There are worse superhero names... |
During lunch, Izuku learns that one
of his three votes was from Iida. This is rather shocking, as Iida made it very clear that he wanted the position. He
was practically shaking with anticipation earlier. He explains that wanting and
feeling one is qualified for a part are two different things. He also let’s
slip that he’s actually from a family of pro heroes. Currently, the most
well-known Iida family member is his older brother, Tensei. He goes by Ingenium,
and is an incredibly popular hero. After hearing Iida’s little speech/family
history, Izuku plans to reveal to both Iida and Uraraka that he’s mostly
succeeding by dumb luck, not by some super skill that everyone thinks he has.
But, he’s cut off by a siren blaring. Everyone starts flipping out, as the
alarm is only supposed to go off if someone snuck inside the school. As they
all assume only a supremely powerful villain could have done this, the student
body freak out is kind of understandable. During the chaos, Iida is pushed
towards a window and finds that the intruder is in fact just the press mob from
this morning. Also, that Mr. Aizawa and Present Mic are already on top of the
situation, and clearly fighting the urge to kick these idiots off campus
themselves. Getting help from Uraraka, Iida floats over the rest of student
body and gets their attention. He gives everyone a rousing speech and gets them
to calm the fudge down. When class starts again, Izuku passes the rep job to
Iida. He feels that, despite Iida’s previous comment, that the speedster is the
absolute best man for the job. And the rest of the class agrees, since Izuku
thinks so. Izuku is clearly still weirded out by his new popularity. Well,
everyone agrees except Yaoyorozu, who’s a little disappointed she’ll be playing
second banana to Iida when she got two more votes.
Meanwhile, the faculty is kind of
freaking out. While the public blames the alarm on the media, it turns out,
that they had just seized an opportunity. In truth, someone had straight up
melted a hole in one of the gates. Kind of hard to blame that on overzealous
reporters. The unknown criminal did something
inside the school grounds, and used the media circus to slip in and out without
being noticed. Something wicked this way comes.
The following day, we see All
Might’s morning commute. The supersized hero is continually sidetracked on his
walk to campus by various civilians in danger. He muses as he leaps through the
air, mentioning that his powers are weakening faster since he began the
transfer of One For All to Izuku. He also remembers warning Izuku to not repeat
their secret to anyone, like Izuku did with Bakugo. Don’t want the baddies to
know that OFA can be passed on. That’d complicate things.
In the classroom, Aizawa lets them
all know that they’ll be doing Search and Rescue training at an off-campus
site. Aizawa, All Might and another pro hero will be instructing this exercise.
After everyone gets in gear, they head out. On the bus ride, the students
compare powers. In a world of teenage superheroes, I imagine this kind of
topics comes up a lot. They agree that the two students that have the most
‘heroic’ powers are Bakugo, with his explosions, and Todoroki, with his Frozen
Flame powers. I refuse to call it Half-Hot Half-Cold. They also all agree that
Bakugo is kind of too much of a jerk to ever make it as a pro. Izuku is still
pretty amazed that he’s the one fitting in and that Bakugo is the one getting
openly mocked. Everyday must feel like Opposite Day for him. One of the
students, Tsuyu Asui, points out that Izuku’s Quirk is oddly similar to All
Might’s. He quickly side quickly tries to shift attention onto one of the other
student’s powers.
They arrive at the facility, and
meet their special instructor, Thirteen. Thirteen is a space themed hero that
specializes in crisis situations and search and rescue ops. He designed this
oversized facility, which houses a ship wreck, landslide, earthquake, typhoon,
and fire disaster simulation, to name a few, to train students in Search and
Rescue ops. He dubs it that Unforeseen Simulation Joint, or USJ. Aizawa notes
that All Might is absent, makes a snide remark about him “booking an interview”
and then is told by Thirteen that All Might used up his hero time on the
commute. Thirteen is more subtle, but Aizawa and Izuku are able to infer what
he meant. All Might promised to recover in time to catch the tail end of the
simulation over the phone.
 |
| The final bosses arrive. Let the game begin! |
Thirteen explains his power, called
Blackhole. As the name implies, he sucks up anything and destroy it. He
explains that part of this test is to make sure the students keep their powers
in check, to ensure the safety of others. Everyone lets out a big cheer, excited
by this new challenge, and then it hits the fan. The power shuts off in the
USJ, and a black portal opens up in the entry way. Villains start pouring out
into the USJ. Of this group of villains, three stand out. One, is the creepy
guy covered in severed hands, later named Tomura Shigaraki, that runs the show.
Another is the villain that created the portals, Kurogiri, that is made of an
ethereal black mist. Kurogiri, FYI, literally translates to Black Mist. Finally,
there is Noumu, the colossal monster that looks like the off-colored offspring
of Donald Duck and She-Hulk. Oh, this is not good. For them. This will be
really fun for the rest of us.
Okay, this is the absolute last
slow episode of the first season. From this point on, we’ll be cranking things
up to 11. And, as the students themselves point out, this IS a high school so
they should get wrapped up in some more typical high school stuff. If only for
a little while. This situation gives us good insight into Iida’s character,
which is good from a story perspective. I am not a huge fan of stories that
only give the lead character development. Iida is a hardworking individual, one
that clearly wants fame, glory and respect, but also realizes that certain
people are more deserving of that recognition then others. As the other’s
pointed out, he clearly wanted the position of Class Rep, but also acknowledged
that Izuku was the better choice. And, Izuku, being a little unsure of himself
still, recognizes that Iida is a little too hard on himself. I really enjoyed
the part where he nominated Iida to take his place, and he’s hyper shocked when
everyone else is like “Izuku is backing him, so we’re cool with it.” The kid
that has never once been given respect is suddenly the big man on campus, it’s
funny as heck. The end of the episode, when the villains break in, is a pretty
epic entrance. Shigaraki, Kurogiri and Noumu are visually distinctive, menacing
characters. Shigaraki being covered in severed hands is both creepy, and a
unique look for a baddy. His right hand, Kurogiri is all kinds of awesome. This
swirling black ball of mist, with a bellowing voice and warping powers, pretty
hard to forget this thing. He seems to be Shigaraki’s right hand man, as well
as the group’s main means of transportation. Teleportation is super convenient
power. Then there’s Noumu, a colossal beak faced monster. He’s at least 10 feet
tall, bulging with muscle, has a grin seemingly forced on his face, and an
exposed brain. I gag a little thinking of how he’d look in a live action
version of this. <Gag> Regardless, Noumu and the others promise to make an intense battle. Next time!
Damn teases. Have a good night everybody.
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