Last time on My Hero Academia, a
simple cavalry battle has tuned into a free for all. Izuku Midoriya is being
hounded by several teams, each aiming to take his Headband which is worth 10
Million points. At the same time, Class 1-A has been systematically targeted by
Class 1-B students. Neito Monoma of class 1-B informs Bakugo that this was a
strategy to wipe out 1-A and stupidly mocks him. Bakugo shifts his team’s focus
from getting Izuku to humiliating Monoma’s team. Let’s get to it.
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| Iida deserved this win. This guy doesn't get enough credit. |
We open to that scummy little perv
Mineta freaking out about having lost his own headband. Really not sure how
that’s possible, what with Shoji’s arm defense, but there you go. Seeing no
other option, he orders Shoji to switch to attack mode. The plan is to use
Shoji’s arms, and assumedly Sue’s frog tongue, to nab as many headbands as
possible with the time remaining, overall not a terrible plan but I don’t see
it working out. With Team Izuku, they’re getting rushed by Team Todoroki.
Todoroki freezes them in place and has team mate Kaminari fire off an electric
blast to stun them, and everyone else rushing Izuku. That includes Team Mineta,
tough break. Todoroki also takes the liberty of liberating a few headbands from
his opponents. Team Izuku is fine, but Izuku’s borrowed jetpack is fried, much
to its inventor Hatsume’s dismay. All I can say is don’t bring toy’s you’re
afraid to lose to a fight. Yaoyorozu is able to block Dark Shadow while
Todoroki lunges at Izuku. They can dodge but Tokoyami’s Dark Shadow takes a
heavy hit from Kaminari’s lightning. Tokoyami informs Izuku why that hit hurt
so bad, and why Kaminari is effectively the most trouble for them. To explain
we flashback (damn these cutaways) to when Izuku recruited Tokoyami as part of
his team. Tokoyami explains that his quirk’s strength is tied to the light
around him. In bright light, like day time, Dark Shadow is much easier to
control but has most of it’s power nullified. In darkness, however, the
creature is much more powerful, but difficult to control and it becomes prone
to rampages. Feels like something they should have remembered right when Team
Todoroki approached, but there you go.
Bakugo is kind of flipping out over
having his headband stolen. He wants revenge about as much, maybe even more so,
then he wants to beat Izuku. He tries a full power blast on Monoma, but gets
his hand deflected by Monoma causing an explosion and then blocked by Monoma hardening
his skin. No, he doesn’t have multiple powers. That’d make him a Noumu.
Monoma’s Quirk, Copy, lets him mimic the power of whomever he touches for five
minutes but he can only hold one at a time. Seeing this kid show off his powers
and mocking him non-stop fills Bakugo with greater seething rage. Bakugo vows
to be the undisputed champion, and to do it he’ll start by taking all of
Monoma’s headbands.
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| The first clash is always memorable. |
Izuku’s team has been staying out
of Todoroki’s reach. They’ve stayed to his left side. Why? It effectively
neutralizes Todoroki as a threat, as he can only generate ice from his right
side, and he actively refuses to use his fire empowered left side during a
fight. And, because Kaminari has fired off several high-powered bolts already,
he’s in danger of overloading and frying his brain for a while. So, their
attack power on that side is virtually nonexistent. Iida then shows off his
newest trick, recipro-burst. This high-speed technique lets him run at blinding
speeds but causes the engines in his legs to stall out. It’s enough of a speed
boost, however, for Todoroki to nab Izuku’s headband. Knowing that they’re
probably screwed, Tokoyami suggest they go after someone else to earn points,
but Izuku knows that by this point the headbands are mixed around too much to
know who has what. Their only option to pass is Todoroki. They charge him,
Izuku even using an OFA enhanced swing to grab. Todoroki, seemingly on
instinct, flares up with his left side to protect himself.
Bakugo, meanwhile, savagely throws
himself at Monoma. Despite the opponent’s skills at swapping out powers with
his team for best defense, Bakugo is able to overpower them and nab two of headbands.
Refusing to let Monoma have even one point, Team Bakugo charges, using the
whole groups combined skill to over power Monoma’s team and get the rest of the
headbands back. All Might, observing with the teachers notes that this is an
important lesson for all the students, that there’s a big difference between
those who strive for the top and those who settle for being in the middle. If
there’s one thing Bakugo is good at, it’s striving.
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| Considering how the rest of the team is looking, something wonky just happened. |
Izuku is able to knock Todoroki’s
hand aside with his OFA swipe and gets one of the headbands. Unfortunately,
it’s only worth 70 points. Turns out Todoroki thought ahead and mixed the 10
Million points band up with several others they’d captured during the chase and
wrapped the lowest point value on they hand on Todoroki’s head. Clever SOBs.
Izuku’s team rushes them again, with Bakugo flying in while shouting “Damn you
ICY-HOT!” he can’t even remember Todoroki’s name, apparently. The buzzer goes
off before they can clash again. The top three teams end up being Todoroki,
Bakugo, and that creepy GC student Shinzo. Izuku is depressed that the team
won’t progress to the final round, until Tokoyami shows him what Dark Shadow
had grabbed. It had also nabbed a headband, not the 10 Million one, obviously,
but the 615 points one they did get plus Izuku’s seventy earns them the fourth
and final team spot. Hooray.
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| Wow, Izuku might actually have a Quirk. Firehose tears. |
Afterwards, Todoroki is
legitimately angry with himself for using his fire power during a fight, even
for a moment. Everyone else is excited, either for themselves or their friends
for moving onwards. We also learn that Team Mineta lost the headband to another
student using her tentacle like vine-hair to nab it while everyone looked away.
Fun. Despite the upbeat vibe of the room, Izuku gets called out by a deadpan Todoroki
so they can have a private chat. At the same time, Todoroki’s father, the Hero
Endeavor, is called out by Izuku’s mentor, All Might. This should be
interesting. Oh, and we get an after-credit scene of Mrs. Midoriya sobbing
tears of joy at seeing her baby boy make it to the finals. Goodness gracious, I
love her overreactions.
I truly believe that one day, Izuku
Midoriya WON’T be forced into a corner and have to struggle to survive. But it
is not this day. Although, while Izuku was constantly on the ropes with this
one, seeing his team having to face off against some of the best members of his
class does suggest that Izuku is excelling at UA. Probably the most important moment
of the episode is when Izuku makes for Todoroki’s headbands for a second time,
when he used OFA to enhance his arm and forced Todoroki to throw up a flame
defense to try and hold him off. This represents the second time that Izuku’s
been able to use his powers without injuring himself. And, technically, the
first time he’s used it on a non-life-threatening enemy. It’s a small moment,
but proof enough that the time he’d used OFA on that Noumu without hurting himself
wasn’t a fluke. It’s also an important moment for Todoroki. I’ll go into
greater detail next time, but, Todoroki vowed to never use his fire powers in a
fight and he has very good reasons to stick with it. That being said, him using
those powers at all, regardless of situation, he feels like he’s betrayed that
goal. Seeing how he reacts after this is pretty damn important. And Bakugo’s little
life lesson was an important one too. As All Might pointed out, there is a
world of difference between settling for mediocrity and striving to be the
best. Bakugo, despite his numerous flaws, embodies that idea in it’s entirety.
He won’t settle for being just okay or in the middle. He fights all the harder
because he NEEDS to be the best. That’s something that Monoma in particular should
probably learn if he wants to keep going. Next time, we learn a little bit
about Todoroki’s familial troubles. If I could summarize it, I’d say that Shoto
Todoroki has no chance of being normal.
Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero
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