Viewer Log: My Hero Academia ep 35

What do Ice, Fire and Russian Nesting Dolls have in common? They're all in this episode.

Last time on My Hero Academia the students prepped for their end of semester exams. Lots of cramming was done for the three-day written portion of the exam. The students were hopeful for an easy practical, as they’d received information that it was going more or less be a repeat of their entrance exam where they fought all of the Robots. I bet Izuku was really looking forward to earning some combat points this time. But alas, this proved not to be the case. Worried that villain activity will only increase after the Stain fiasco, the teachers decided to up the difficulty of the exam. This time, the students will fight in pairs against a teacher. Yes, Izuku is paired with Bakugo and is going up against All Might. Because being the protagonist sucks sometimes. The first round was a lost for Kirishima and a more minor character named Sato. Next it’s Tsu and Tokoyami vs. Ectoplasm. Let’s get to it.

Definitely one of the more unique
methods of cloning I've seen.

The frog and bird themed heroes-in-training are pretty much immediately surrounded by Ectoplasms. He has the power to create clones of himself, around 30 to 36, provided karaoke is involved. What? That’s the explanation Present Mic gave. Tokoyami uses his Dark Shadow to toss Tsu in the air, who then grabs him with her tongue and lifts him out of the encircled Ectoplasms. They try to make a break for it, but end up having to fight more of the clones.

In the observation room, Recovery Girl comes back to fill Izuku and Uraraka in on some exposition. See, the tests were designed to target the student’s weaknesses or flaws and attempt to force them to sure them up. Recovery Girl explains that Tsu lacks a glaring weakness of her own, but is in this test to give Tokoyami support. The crow headed young man has trouble with close combat, as he relies pretty heavily on Dark Shadow to fight for him. And when you’ve got thirty guys rushing you, there’s no way that Dark Shadow is fast enough to cover them all.

Anyone else think that Ectoplasm could have lead with this?

The twosome is able to fight their way through most of the Ectoplasms and make it back to the room with the escape gate. Ectoplasm elects to use quality over quantity and barfs up one supersized clone. The titan Ectoplasm captures both Tsu and Tokoyami in its body. Tokoyami tries to send Dark Shadow through the Escape Gate, as that would still be a win for them, but the real Ectoplasm blocks it. Tsu then tells Tokoyami to pull Dark Shadow back to them for just a second, and to avert his eyes as she needs to do something gross. He does so, and they hand Dark Shadow something. The being of darkness rushes Ectoplasm again, whom kicks at it, but gets the handcuffs stuck to his peg leg. Turns out Tsu had swallowed and stored the cuffs in her stomach in case of emergency… I wonder if Frogs can actually do something like that, but am too grossed out to check. Regardless, they get a win and a congrats from Ectoplasm. Hooray!

What blows my mind is that this isn't the last time Iida's
piggyback rides lead to victory.

We then jump over to Iida and Ojiro’s test, already in progress. They are up against Power Loader, who can burrow like one of the giant worm creatures from Tremors and has laid a bunch of traps throughout the area to trip the boys up. They perform a Fusion, Iida carries Ojiro on his back, and make a break for the exit. Iida uses his recipro-burst to high speed dash for it. Power Loader explodes up for the ground, shattering the area around Iida. Iida has Ojiro wrap his massive tail around Iida’s leg, performs another recipro burst and launches Ojiro at the gate. He uses his prehensile tail to smack Power Loader aside and fly through the exit. They pass too, although someone has to unbury Iida afterwards.

The final test of the episode is Todoroki and Yaoyorozu vs. Aizawa. Todoroki comes up with a pretty simple plan to have Yaoyorozu use her power to constantly make small objects. If she stops making them, then they’re obviously in Aizawa’s sights. She elects to make a never-ending stream of Russian Nesting dolls. I can’t remember if this is from an extra info page or revealed in a later chapter, but the dolls were among the first things she’d learned to create and thus can make them without focusing at all. Yaoyorozu almost says something when Todoroki gave her his plan, but backed off. Yaoyorozu compliments him on his fast thinking. Todoroki tries to brush it off, but Yaoyorozu reveals that she actually feels somewhat envious of him. See, they were both admitted to the school by recommendation, Todoroki by his dad and I believe Yaoyorozu by her mother, and she seems to think of herself as the lesser of that category in their class. Before they can talk it out more, Todoroki notices the dolls had stopped falling and Aizawa attacks.

The pro-hero quickly captures Todoroki in his scarf. It’s a specially designed capture weapon, being incredibly strong and flexible. Todoroki tells Yaoyorozu to run while he’s getting tangled. Aizawa ties Todoroki in it, lifts him off the ground and throws a bunch of caltrops beneath the boy, to make him really question if he wants to burn himself free when Aizawa left. Yaoyorozu has a bit of a freak out, questioning just about every choice she’d made since coming to the damn school in her anxiety. Aizawa tries to nab her and gets one of her arms. She notices that she can still use her powers for some reason, and is able to slip away by tangling a creation in the scarf instead. She runs off.

In an internal monologue, Aizawa explained Yaoyorozu’s issue. He and the other teachers had noticed she was going through some confidence issues after the sports festival. They rightly assume being so quickly beaten by Tokoyami during the final tournament coupled with the rapid growth of some of our more main characters have left her feeling inadequate at best. He admits to himself he wants to help, but a test really isn’t the place for that.

Yaoyorozu makes it back to Todoroki. She freezes up for a minute when she notices Aizawa following. Todoroki tells her to do whatever she’d planned to do at the start of the test. She still hesitates, until he reveals he was the other person to vote for her in that class rep election earlier in the year. Finding out that a McBadass like Todoroki believes in her, Yaoyorozu shows off her skills. She throws nesting dolls at Aizawa, and reveals they all have flash grenades inside them. While Aizawa is blinded, they run.

At about the same time, we learn from both Aizawa and Yaoyorozu that Aizawa’s powers had weakened since his near deadly encounter with the Nomu. He can’t cancel out powers for as long and needs more time to recover between uses. Which turns out to be their big chance. They time it so that the next time Aizawa blinked, Todoroki instantly threw up one of his massive ice walls to defend themselves. With the breathing room that created, Yaoyorozu made several feet of her own spin on Aizawa’s scarf. How interesting.

Aizawa, hoisted by his own petard.

Aizawa had decided not to move from where he’d landed after dodging the ice wave. He figured it was safer to camp near the exit than risk them slipping by while he searched. Which proved to be the right call as he spots two cloaked figures running through one of the alleys. He nabs one, which was revealed to be a decoy that Yaoyorozu was holding while tugging a catapult with the scarf piled on it. Her hand slips on the trigger, but she sets it off before Aizawa can do more than dodge. He’s surrounded by the material, and then attacked by Todoroki’s flame. He’d been hiding behind the other cloak, which Aizawa had also dismissed as a decoy when the catapult was revealed. He heats up the air, just as Yaoyorozu explains her scarf is made with a special metal alloy. A kind that reverts back to it’s original shape when Heated. Aizawa gets tangled in the scarf, and they earn a win. While they help untangle Aizawa, Yaoyorozu wonders why Aizawa hesitated and jumped back when her hand initially slipped. He plays it off as being due to not known where Todoroki was or if he’d attack with ice or fire. But it seemed implied he let them win so she could get a confidence boost. Oh, Aizawa, you are a big softy.

In a post credit scene, no I don’t know why they keep doing those, we see a bit of Uraraka and Aoyama’s test already in progress. They’re both just barely holding onto a railing while 13 uses his black hole power to keep sucking them up. Aoyama tries to use his costume to redirect his naval laser through his knees, but the energy gets sucked up to. Uraraka tries to think of a way out of this, to what Deku would do. At which point Aoyama asks if she’s thinking about Izuku and if it’s because she likes him. First off, duh. Second off, WHO ASKS THAT DURING A TEST! Sorry, sorry, that was a bit much.

Okay, so far, I like how the tests are being held. Everyone is getting a moment to shine, while the obviously less character improving tests get a bit of a rush job. I like Iida, but we got several episodes about his character growth not that long ago, and after his resolve to not get his hand completely fixed until he feels like he’s a good hero, seeing him struggle through this test would have been a bit repetitive. That and I kind of loved the ingenuity it took to decide the best strategy was to kick your team mate like a ball through the goal. I also liked the nod that Tsuyu Asui is overall a well-rounded combatant without any really glaring weaknesses. From what we’ve seen of her, both in the canon material and filler, she’s a pretty intuitive fighter, being able to move incredibly fast and hit hard at both short range with her kicks and mid-range with her tongue. Side note, I hope she’s not constantly tasting concrete, wood and people with that thing. They continue to hint at Tokoyami’s weaknesses on relying too much on Dark Shadow without going too into it. That seems to be a series long struggle for him, though so I don’t mind them teasing it out a bit. I also really enjoyed seeing Todoroki and Yaoyorozu in this one, even if their names are somewhat tedious to type out over and over again. The confidence issues that Yaoyorozu had been having were hinted at almost immediately after her loss in the sports festival tournament and have been hinted at a few other times after, though only in segments too small for me to have drawn attention to. It was also fun to find out who voted for her in that class rep election. It wasn’t a huge thing, but when you consider that like four students didn’t vote for themselves, you start to wonder who else felt that they weren’t up for a leadership position. Which is somewhat fitting for Todoroki, he always struck me as someone that didn’t go naturally to teamwork. And that’s all I have to say about that. Have a good night everybody. 

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Viewer Log: My Hero Academia ep 34

Wondering if the option to punch your teacher makes a test worse or better...

Last time on My Hero Academia, Izuku learned a little history about the power he inherited. In brief, the villain known only as All For One used his power to steal and transfer powers to give his supposedly powerless brother some. The Quirk he was given, a means of stockpiling power whatever that means, mixed with Baby B’s own unknown Transference Quirk to create One For All. And that, despite being at least a hundred years old and having been thought killed by All Might years earlier, All For One has resurfaced and is the power behind the League of Villains. Oh, and the students have their end of semester exams coming up. It’s so weird to see school and power stuff mixing together.

This is his fighting face. Yes, it is the same as his angry face.

The episode proper opens on Aizawa warning his students to be prepared for their finals, both the written portion and the practical that will follow. Its at this point we learn most of the students academic standing. The top five are, in order, Yaoyorozu, Iida, Bakugo, Izuku and Todoroki. Yeah, I some times forget that Bakugo is actually really smart, too. The only others I’ll mention is the odd fact that Uraraka and Tokoyami are both in the bottom half of their class of twenty. Somehow, I also forget that being high on the secondary character list doesn’t equate to smarts. Oh, and Mineta is #9. I have no words for that.

Huh, guess it's also his tutoring face.

After the kids on the bottom half of the class freak out a little, they break for lunch. Monoma, that dick from the other hero class comes over to heckle them, but he’s knocked out by his class’s rep, Kendo, again. She lets them know that an upper classman friend let her know that the first semester practical is fighting more robots, which is a great relief to the dummies. The students break off and spend the next week training, some in groups, some solo. We then skip over the 3-day written portion, thank goodness, I’d hate to see an episode centered around filling in the accused scantron, and get into the practical.

The students gather and are somewhat psyched for what they think will be a breezy practical. That is until principle Nezu pops out of Aizawa’s scarf… I really wish we could have seen that pitch, and tells the students that for this practical, they’re changing things up and the students will fight the teachers. They’ll be put into pairs and set against one of their mentors. Alright, care to take a guess as to who Izuku’s partner will be and who he’ll fight against? If you answered anything besides Bakugo for partner and All Might for teacher, then you obviously need to pay more attention.

Really wish I could have seen Nezu's pitch to get Aizawa to
agree to this.

We get a brief flashback to the planning meeting for this practical. The teachers were somewhat concerned that the League of Villains and Stain’s antics will make hero work infinitely more dangerous for their young charges. They decided that robots were too easy, but an out and out brawl with teachers would be too hard. They decide to have the students fight them anyway, but agree that their charges will get a few handicaps.

The teams are as follows: Sato (Hulks out from eating sugar) and Kirishima (hardens his body) vs Cementoss (manipulates concrete); Tsu and Tokoyami (Dark Shadow) vs. Ectoplasm (clones himself); Ojiro (Has a big tail) and Iida vs. Power Loader (Metal claws and also specializes in designing equipment); Todoroki and Yaoyorozu (can create objects) vs. Aizawa (power nullification); Uraraka and Aoyama (laser from his naval) vs. 13 (Black holes at his fingertips); Kaminari (Lightning) and Ashido (Acid) vs. Principle Nezu (Is a hyper intelligent animal of unknown species); Jiro (extendable earphone jack earlobes) and Koda (talks to animals) vs. Present Mic (Can amplify his voice to destructive levels); Shoji (Tentacle like arms he can create additional appendages on) and Toru (is Invisible) vs. Snipe (controls the trajectory of his bullets); Sero (Tape firing elbows) and Mineta (can create super sticky balls from his scalp) vs. Midnight (creates mind controlling pheromones); and wraps up with Izuku and Bakugo vs. All Might. It’s a packed day.

Anyone else feel like the final boss just dropped in?

The rules are simple, the students have thirty minutes to either A. Capture their teacher with restraints or B. Escape the battlefield. Neither option will be all that easy. The teachers are all also going to wear ultra-dense weights to slow them down. Said weights were designed by support course student, and weirdo Mei Hatsume. All Might basically tells the boys that he’s going to enjoy fighting them.

The matches start with Sero and Kirishima vs. Cementoss. The students are given the option to either watch the matches before their own, or strategize. Izuku and Uraraka end up being the only two to start watching. Their partners being… difficult to work with, but for different reasons. Meaning Bakugo is too prideful and Aoyama too vain to work with them, which is kind of sad when you think about it.

The match begins with Sato and Kirishima both powering up and rushing Cementoss, believing defeating a teacher will earn more points than running. They both put in a valiant effort, but are quickly overwhelmed and defeated. The fight lasts less than four minutes. The issue was that neither student’s power could outlast Cementoss. Sato’s power will run out after three minutes, and eating more sugar fries his brain, and Kirishima’s hardening will wear off from too much use. They’re told that they need to learn their limits.

The second match of Tsu and Tokoyami vs. Ectoplasm is next. Within seconds of the match starting they’re surrounded by clones. Oh this should end nicely… next time.

So, this was a good build up episode. The life and death stakes of the last arc make a hard test a nice change of pace… even if the risk of injury in this test is still high. I liked seeing where the students fell academically and how they each reacted to the stresses of cramming for tests. Takes me back to my college days… which started ten years ago, now that I think about it. I never thought that I’d feel old at 28. Sigh. Anyway, seeing them prep for the tests was fun. Not shocked at all to see that Bakugo tutored Kirishima, and spent most of that time seemingly yelling at and hitting him with a book. I also liked how seeing how the students broke up the groups. They stated that the pairs are based on either complimentary weaknesses, or other issues. Todoroki and Yaoyorozu are both smart, and have long names, but Todoroki relies too much on brute force while Yaoyorozu has trouble adapting to situations. They’re pair off against Aizawa so they both can learn to think and act on their feat without their powers. Make sense? Good. I’ll save the reasoning behind the Izuku and Bakugo team for their episode. Seeing Sato and Kirishima both go down in under five minutes was a good story telling choice. They’re both minor enough that them losing and potentially missing the training camp isn’t too devastating, but their strength has been shown off before, so the fact they were taken out so fast is a word of warning to the other students. The fights coming up, by the way, are great. Even the handful of other losses. But I’m getting ahead of myself. See you next time. 

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Viewer Log: My Hero Academia ep 33

A little training and then a history lesson. It's much more exciting then I make it sound.

So… Maybe Spider-Man in the MCU isn’t dead? No, no I refuse to get my hopes up. More anime!

Last time on My Hero Academia, we got some filler in the form of what the other students were doing while Izuku was recovering. Bakugo yelled at some kids, Uraraka learned some fighting moves, and Tsuyu Asui stopped some drug smugglers on the high seas with a buff Selkie. Again, I really want to know how a Japanese man chose to name himself after a predominantly female Celtic Fae. How does that even happen? Anyway, now that the filler is done, back to the action. Let’s get to it.

Something seems different about Uraraka. She get a new haircut?
New Shirt? No, wait, it's the crazy intense Aura. I knew I'd get there.

We open on Izuku saying goodbye to Gran Torino. The old man gives his young student some last-minute advice, basically don’t lose focus and risk breaking his bones again. Izuku asks Torino why the former trainer of All Might and a pretty powerful hero in his own right is basically unknown. Torino gives a vague answer about not caring that much about being a pro, and tells Izuku that if he wants to know more, he should talk to Toshinori aka All Might. As Izuku walks off, Torino acts senile again and asks Izuku who he is. Izuku, finally realizing what Torino means and tells him “I’m Deku!” Woo!

The next day, class resumes. Most of the students discuss what they did during their internships. Sounds like everyone had a pretty normal week, other than Izuku, Iida, Todoroki and in the Anime, Tsu. Oh, and Uraraka is super intense after finishing her week of intensive Martial Arts training. After a bit, the other students congratulate the trio for meeting Stain. Kaminari reveals that a video about Stain is still circulating. Oh, and his real name is Chizome Akaguro. Kaminari accidentally compliments Stain, but Iida doesn’t hold it against him. He resolves once again to be a perfect hero, specifically to ensure another Stain incident never occurs again.

Later on, they have class with All Might. Their first hero class is a race, five students enter an industrial zone like training course and have to race to All Might. Izuku is going up against Iida, Ojiro (kid with the tail), Ashido (Pink skinned acid shooter) and Sero (Spider-Man but with Tape elbows). Izuku is pretty much written off by his classmates, until the race starts. He shows off his new control of his powers, plus his kind of crazy intense parkour skills. Bakugo is particularly pissed off because Izuku seems to have copied his parkour skills perfectly. Izuku gets confident, but then slips and falls. Sero ends up winning. All Might compliments everyone for how they’ve improved. He also tells Izuku to see him after class. Oo, ominous.

Oh, and Mineta gets stabbed in the eye by Jiro’s Earphone Jack for being super pervy again. I so enjoy seeing him in pain.

That is a disturbingly good impression. Do Bakugo next!

Izuku meets up with All Might. The Symbol of Peace starts off by alleviating, after creating, Izuku’s fears that Stain might have stolen One For All when he licked up Izuku’s blood. Turns out, OFA can only be transferred when the holder wants to give it up. Izuku could potentially give OFA to someone who doesn’t want it, but it can’t be taken from him.

All Might tells Izuku about All For One. All Might explains that AFO was a man that was born around when Quirks first appeared. He chose to go by the name of his power. AFO allows him to forcibly take powers from others, either keeping them for himself or transferring them to other hosts. He was basically Magneto, rallying the disenfranchised and anyone that wanted powers and became king of the underworld. The tumult from the fighting that AFO caused, and the general fighting between Mutants and Normies… wait, sorry that’s X-Men. The fighting caused by AFO and the general fighting between Quirked and Quirkless set back technological development back too, hence why 21XX Japan doesn’t have interstellar colonies. This is why race wars suck people; they keep us from space travel. Also the discrimination, but also keeping us from space travel.

AFO had a younger brother. His baby B was a sickly young man, Quirkless, but also had a strong sense of justice. He tried to convince AFO to give up his evil ways. In order to toughen up his brother… maybe, maybe he was just being a dick, AFO gave him a quirk. The power was an ability to stockpile power, making him stronger. All Might explains that there were occasionally weird side effects to AFO mixing powers with his own. The strain of multiple quirks could render their hosts brain dead, and for others the powers mixed together in unexpected ways. Turns out, the younger brother had a power, it was just kind of useless. His original ability was the ability to transfer his quirk. The transference and power stockpiling quirks mixed together and created One For All.

Okay, can anyone else understand why All Might assumed he'd
killed All For One?

Izuku asks why this is relevant, since All For One should definitely be dead by now. Remember while they haven’t given an exact date, we’re about a hundred years or so in the future. All Might says that AFO had gotten his hands on a power that made him immortal. Knowing that his brother was too tough for him to handle, and possibly because he didn’t want to fight his brother, the original One For All holder transferred his power to the next generation. It passed through six other holders before coming to Toshinori Yagi aka All Might. He fought and supposedly killed AFO five years ago. Izuku, motivated by All Might’s speech, swears to use OFA to defeat AFO once and for all. He knows he can do it with All Might at his back.  All Might sends Izuku off. He was tempted to tell Izuku the truth but chickens out. Turns out, All Might is dying. Damn.

In a post credit scene, they reveal what the next arc will pertain. The kids summer break is coming up. Japan’s school year runs from April to July, then a month break, and then back for September to December, another month off, and a final trimester running from February to April. So, they aren’t done with the first year already, they’re almost done with the first Trimester. Mr. Aizawa lets them know that after their semester final, they’ll have a summer training camp to improve their skills. Provided that they pass the exam. Whoo!

We then cut over to AFO. His doctor reveals that AFO is also not doing well. Turns out he only stole Super Regenerator recently, and most of his wounds had scared over all ready. It can’t fix things already mostly healed. AFO is planning to use Stain’s arrest to boost the League of Villains ranks, and to turn Tomura Shigaraki into the new AFO. Well, crap.

It was very cool to see how the rest of the students reacted to Izuku’s increased power. In a week he went from breaking his bones to leaping around like a real Strongman type hero. Granted, it was actually several months in the Manga, but in universe it was a really short time. I liked that it seems Bakugo is legitimately getting frustrated at Izuku’s growth. While he has a better handle on it than earlier, the thought of his old punching bag potentially catching up to him seems to still be freaking him out. The lore on how One For All came to be is very interesting. The fact that it was a power created by accident seems fitting. In an attempt to make his brother more like him, All For One created the power that is the greatest threat to him. I believe that’s Irony. While it was a bit of a minor line, I did like that they for once confirmed that things were… unstable after Quirks began to manifest. While I wish that if some sort of psychic or mystical powers were created/discovered would ultimately be for the good, I also know that if the real world started to look like Marvel comics, there’d be RAMPANT destruction and chaos in the streets. Like, reshaping the map kind of destruction. So, the fact that Horikoshi Kouhei has a realistic view of how people would handle sudden super powers is kind of cool. Also, the foreshadowing of what the students will soon be facing and the upgrading of the League of Villains ranks is really well done. We’re towards the end of season 2 here, but they’re really doing their damnedest to set up season 3. 

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Viewer Log: My Hero Academia ep 32

What do side characters do when the Protagonist is laid up? Let's find out!

Spider-Man is officially out. And I’m sad. ☹ Let’s talk about anime to make me feel better.

So, we have a filler episode. All of these events were created for the anime to fill out the season. But, it’s good filler. Sure, it doesn’t really matter, but I love 99% of these characters (you suck, Mineta) and seeing more of them is a good thing in my books. Bonus points for this one as the filler once again fits into the story pretty well. No Bleach filler where they have to completely stop the story for an unrelated bit off insanity for this anime. Let’s get to it.

Think it's hard to breath with that much denim over your face?

This episode begins with a quick recap by Izuku. He mentions that he’ll be in the hospital for a little while longer recovering. The news is laser focused on Stain, his motivations, his history, and his capture. The boys weren’t named, and even though he got the credit Endeavor is clearly annoyed. Iida went home to be with his family, and Todoroki wasn’t hurt too bad so he’s going back on his internship. And I’m sure he’s totally not going to rub his actual defeat of Stain in his dick of a father’s face. Izuku wonders how everyone’s internships are doing.

We’re shown brief snippets of how some of the internships are going. Bakugo is scaring children with his intensity while on patrol with Best Jeanist. Uraraka is sparring with her mentor, Gunhead. He’s showing her how to handle a knife fight. Yaoyorozu and Kendo are doing photoshoots with their mentor Uwabami, and wondering if this is really hero work. Kirishima and Tetsutetsu are working with their mentor Fourth-Kind to clean up a local park. I guess Fourth-Kind and All Might read the same teaching books. And Jiro is doing recon work for the super strong hero Death Arms.

But now we’ll shift to the meat of this episode, Tsuyu Asui. Tsu is working as a deckhand for a sailing hero. She’s takes a break with her mentor’s sidekick, Sirius, who gives her a speech about pushing through the boring stuff and learning about what it really means to be a hero. Their hero, Selkie walks in and at first admonishes them for slacking off, but then apologies for jumping to conclusions. His ‘cute face’ of apology is super intense. Side note, I would like to hear how a Japanese man decided to name himself after a predominantly female Celtic Fairy. Legend has them looking like beautiful women that put on a seal skin coat to transform into a sea lion, fall in love with sailors only to get homesick after seven years and return to the sea. What? I’m Irish and I like folk lore, obviously I’d look up my people’s mermaid.

Shame on whoever told him this pose was cute. 

Anyway, they’re called in on a mission. The coast guard got a call about some stowaways on a freighter. Said stowaways vanished by the time the coast guards got there, but so did several crates of cargo. When asked, Tsu theorizes that they probably jumped ship, literally, onto another smaller ship and scurried away. Selkie’s team and several other aquatic specialists are going to search the area for them. The crew will use the ship’s sonar to search, while Selkie will use his echolocation and other sealion powers to search himself. They’re able to locate the boat and weigh anchor. Once they arrive, Sirius, Tsu and the helmsman are left on board while the rest of the crew go to search the fishing boat. Tsu is initially upset by this, but accepts her captain’s orders.

Selkie and the crew don’t find anything top side, but force the fishing boats crew to open the hold. When everyone’s backs are turned, the crew shove Selkie and his men into the hold, and then the two squid looking people force the human crewman into the hold. They escape into the water, claiming that they’ve bought enough time for their boss Innsmouth to finish his work… huh, guess that makes these two Howard and Philips… or Arkham and Dunwich.

So we have a Japanese man named after a Celtic Fairy and one
named after a fictitious town created by acclaimed but racist
turn of the century horror writer in the same episode?
I love my hobby.

Selkie, using his echolocation powers and Morse code to communicate to Sirius what happened. Her power is super sensitive hearing, fyi. He tells them to search for the real boat and that the rest of the crew will catch up when they can. They find the real boat hidden in some sort of deep-sea grotto. Tsu, Sirius and the Helmsman capture a third squid-person. Guess this makes her Lovecraft? Maybe Gloucester? Anyway, they disable the girl squid-person and land on the ship. They’re immediately attacked by a huge octopus-man, the aforementioned Innsmouth. He hits the Helmsman with ink before tossing him aside, smacks Tsu and grabs Sirius. Sirius gets a call from one of the captured crewmen, informing her that they’re still caught but Selkie got out and is on the way. Innsmouth takes her communication earpiece and gives it to Tsu, telling her to tell the them that they’d lost the boat. Tsu remembers what Sirius told her about being a real hero, and she opts to tell the crewman where they’re at. Tsu leaps around, wrestling with Innsmouth. He grabs her tongue when she tries to grab Sirius, and looks like he’s about to beat her to death. At the last minute, he’s hit with Robert and Olmstead (possible name for the nameless protagonist from Shadow Over Innsmouth) and then tackled by Selkie. The two have pitched battle, which only ends when Sirius grabs his legs to trip him up and Selkie smacks him hard. They capture the Lovecraft bandits, Tsu gets a congratulations from the coast guard, and then the credits roll.

So yeah, as far as filler goes this was a fun episode. I liked seeing a little bit of what the other students were doing while Izuku was laid up. Bakugo’s vignette went exactly how I’d expect it to. I doubt he’ll ever be a hero beloved by children. I would have liked to see a bit more of Uraraka’s story personally, just because I’m one hundred percent for her developing hand to hand skills. What? No series was ever lessened by the love interest learning martial arts. Kirishima doing community service was fun, I’d also would have liked to see more of that. It was a reference to Izuku’s training period back in the first couple of episodes. I’m not sure why the second half of the episode was a Tsuyu Asui episode, but I’m not complaining. What? I like her whole thing. Plus, the design of Innsmouth was kind of cool. He didn’t really look like a deep one or an eldritch horror but combining human and cephalopod traits together make for a rather creepy looking bad guy. I wonder what it was they were stealing? No, it was never addressed so it’s up to your imagination. I think it was crates and crates of octopi to make calamari. Next time, we’ll get a bit of the background on this mysterious All for One and the history of One for All. 

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Viewer Log: My Hero Academia ep 31

Heroes recover while villains gather.

I’ll open this one up by saying, yes, I heard Spider-Man was out, and have heard recent rumors that he may be back in the MCU. At the time of writing this, nothing is official, but I’m holding out hope. But I’m not going to talk about it because I’m trying to stay optimistic, so let’s focus on a series that still makes me happy without stressing me out.

Last time on My Hero Academia, three teenage heroes in training took down superhero serial killer Stain in an epic brawl. While they received more than their fair share of cuts and bruises, Stain is the one that ended up on the ground. The shocking thing to see was him escaping his bonds, not to kill but to save protagonist Izuku Midoriya from being carried off by a flying Nomu. He was recaptured, but not after scaring the crap out of everyone as he proclaimed Izuku worthy of the title of hero. Let’s see the fall out, shall we?

Say what you like about Kurogiri's life choices, but he's
a very snazzy dresser.

We open on a news crew in a helicopter recording the destruction that the Nomu had wrought across Hosu city. They’re attention is briefly drawn to two individuals standing on a water tower, Tomura Shigaraki and Kurogiri. The two bail, with Kurogiri asking his boss if he was happy with the night’s event. Shigaraki rather smugly states that he might be, depending on tomorrow’s headlines. Creepy hand wearing SOB.

The boys are taken to the hospital to recover. Izuku and Todoroki are, by and large, okay. Mostly cuts, scraps and bruises. Iida, on the other hand, is pretty messed up. Both his arms are pretty mangled, but his left arm is the worst. The slice he took blocking Stain’s attack on Todoroki was particularly severe. The three young men are interrupted in their discussion of the night’s events by the arrival of their mentors. Grand Torino is somewhat annoyed by Izuku ignoring his orders and Manuel is disappointed in Iida running off, but otherwise the mentors aren’t too irate. What a shock, Endeavor isn’t there for his son. Eye roll. The issue comes in the form of Chief Kenji Tsuragamae of the Hosu police. Yes, yes, he does have a dog’s head. He explains that the boy’s actions have put him in something of a pickle. On the one hand, they stopped a dangerous serial killer and brought him to justice. Which is good. But they used their powers to do so, something that is illegal for anyone (including the police) to do without a hero license. Which is bad. He offers them an out, saying that they’ll give credit to taking down Stain to Endeavor and will just ignore their rule breaking. The boys agree, and Tsuragamae gives them a bow of thanks. The mentors will still be punished, but not anything too severe.

Question, who was it that gave a dog headed man a
Dalmatian spotted tie?

The next day, the Nomu did make the news, but they were completely eclipsed by Stain’s capture. We see several shadowy individuals that include a dirty looking school girl, a guy with severe burns and piercings on his face and arms, a lizard man, and a creature lurking in a misty forest listening to the news on Stain. How creepy. Shigaraki is clearly infuriated by being overshadowed by Stain, but somehow doesn’t throw a hissy fit and disintegrate stuff. So… Progress?

We get a quick peak at how some of the major minor characters react to the news. Bakugo is literally quivering with Rage while Best Jeanist gives him and the other sidekicks a pep talk. Kirishima is relieved that no one was killed. And Uraraka is happy that Izuku gave her a call and filled her in on what happened. Izuku is just hyped that he got to talk to a girl on the phone. Little victories.

Back in the hospital room, Iida gets his results back. While he escaped being crippled, there is some permanent damage. He’s got mild nerve damage in his left arm, which will lead to trouble moving the fingers in his left arm and numbness. The problem can potentially be repaired, but he’s sworn to not have it fixed until he feels he’s earned the title of hero. Todoroki is legit concerned that he’s cursed or something, as every time he gets involved a friend’s hand is permanently damaged.

Really starting to question if the spontaneous bleeding is
from fear or just something that happens when he's tense.

Back with All Might, he gets a call from Grand Torino. Turns out, his punishment for Izuku’s extracurricular brawl is to get his teaching license suspended and his pay docked for six months. He’s not too upset about it, honestly, but is concerned by Stain. He’s worried that a charismatic and convicted sociopath might give the criminals of the world a rallying point. An anti-symbol of peace, if you will. Grand Torino and All Might are both worried that this is a sign that All for One is back. Dun dun dun!!!!

Two days later, criminals are converging. An arms dealer points out that Stain is super buzz worthy right now, and it appears that the hinted at criminals from earlier are gathering.

This episode was an excellent epilogue to the Stain story arc. The villain is taken care of, the heroes get rewards (in a manner of speaking), scars have been earned, and yet it hints at that Stain’s defeat is just the tip of the iceberg. I like that Iida has a permanent damage for his reckless actions. I believe I’ve stated before that one of my least favorite aspects of comics is a lack of consequences. Break Batman’s back, but he’s back again in three months with no lingering pain or damage. Big whoop. But a young man rushes in to a battle with someone significantly more dangerous than he is, gets the living crap beaten out of him by said dangerous fella, and receives a nearly crippling injury protecting his friends that came to save him is a much better story. The fact that none the kids aren’t getting credit for it is a good plot point. A nice “no good deed goes unpunished” sort of end to the story. I also like the foreshadowing with the new league of villain’s recruits. Yeah, the evil looking school girl and the burned guy will be back for more. Creepy. Next time, some filler!

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