Last time on My Hero Academia,
the students began their rigorous training course under the Wild, Wild Pussycats.
They only have a week to train, so everyone is finding ways to power up their
quirks or find ways to overcome their weaknesses. Izuku tries to connect with
Kota, the nephew (second cousin) of Mandalay of the Pussycats. He’s got some
real baggage against heroes after his pro hero parents were KIA fighting a
powerful villain two years back. It doesn’t go well. The students try to have a
fun night doing a Test of Courage, it’s like an impromptu haunted house sort of
thing, but it’s ruined by the opening salvos of the League of Villains next
attack. Let’s see how things progress, shall we?
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| Two new fighters have entered the ring! |
We open on Kota hiding at his “secret
base” on a cliff side. He’s remembering a conversation he’d had with Mandalay
earlier where his guardian tried to tell him that one day, he’ll understand why
heroes do what they do. She claims one
day someone will save him at the risk of their own life and it’ll make things
click. He’s drawn out of these thoughts by Dabi’s explosions in the distance,
and we’re shown a shadowy figure moving up behind him.
Back with Izuku, two members of the
league of villains have Pixie-Bob unconscious at their feet while everyone
looks on in horror. The lizard-man, as I mentioned last time, is called
Spinner. He’s a “disciple” of Stain and is trying to emulate the hero killer,
to the point of dressing like him and trying to adopt his philosophy of killing
fake heroes to expose the true ones. The one in sunglasses with a giant something
covered in cloth is Magne, a trans woman who seems to just be here to cause
some damage.
We jump back a few minutes to what
Aizawa, Kirishima and the other remedial students were doing just before the attack.
Aizawa dragged the students back to the main building where he and Vlad King
were going to go over extra lessons with them, along with Monoma from 1B. He
seems to think somehow that there being five failures from 1A is somehow more
embarrassing than him being the only failing student from 1B, but that’s neither
here nor there. The lesson is interrupted before it can really begin by
Mandalay sending a telepathic message out to warn everyone of the attack. One
of the other students mentions that Mandalay can only broadcast her thoughts,
not receive anyone else’s. Super inconvenient that. Aizawa tells Vlad to stay
with the students and rushes out to help. He makes it outside to see the smoke
and fire, seconds before getting hit pointblank by Dabi’s fireblast. Oh no.
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| Detention Cancelled? Yeah Because of Villain Attack? Boo |
Spinner officially introduces
himself as part of the League of Villains Vanguard Action Squad. Damn, that’s a
long name. To show he means business, he pulls out his massive sword… which is
made out of random cutting implements like smaller knives, cleavers, and such
strapped together. There’s no way that thing is structurally sound. Tiger, clearly
barely suppressing his anger, chastises the two for attacking his friend and implies
he’s going to screw them up in a second. Mandalay tells the students to fall
back and leave this to her and Tiger. The others do so, but Izuku tells Mandalay
he knows were Kota is and is going after him.
In the forest, we’re show Kendo
running through the mist, using her large hands to try and shield her
classmates from the mist while doing her best to breathe through her shirt
sleeve to filter the air. She runs into Tetsutetsu (steel shifter from the
Sports Festival) and Ibara (Vine haired girl from Sports Festival). They have gas
masks that they got from Yaoyorozu, of which they hand out the extra’s to Kendo’s
group. Tetsutetsu tells them all to head back, but he plans on staying and fighting.
When Kendo objects, he points out that the reason 1A is better than they are is
because they have real battle experience and he refuse to miss out on getting
some of his own.
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| It's safe to say that the Water Hose heroes left their mark on him. I'll just show myself out. |
We cut over to Kota. Mandalay,
clearly frantic, tells her nephew to get back to the main building immediately.
He’d have some trouble with that, as the giant cloaked member of the League of
Villains is menacing him. The villain takes off his mask and shows off a
horribly scarred face with a freaky looking fake eye in the left socket. Kota
remembers the news reports about his parent’s death, and that this guy is the
one that killed them. The villain called Muscular. A fitting name as we see
muscle fibers grow out of his skin, visibly bulking Muscular up before he
rushes in to crush Kota. What sort of sociopath tries to kill a kid for
literally no reason? Thankfully, Izuku leaps in and pulls Kota out off the way
at the last second, at the cost of his phone. Knowing that he can’t call for
backup, Izuku vows to defeat Muscular and protect Kota.
Meanwhile, Bakugo and Todoroki are
wandering through the mist as well. They seem to be on the outer edge as it isn’t
as thick near them. They come across the other black clad League of Villain
member, this one also sporting some weird headgear, crouched over a severed
hand. Todoroki remembers that the two ahead of them were Tokoyami and Shoji…
that’s probably not good. This villain is known as Moonfish… because reasons.
Bakugo smiles menacingly as he asks Todoroki if the rule was “No Fighting” or
not.
We cut back over to the Pussycats
vs. Spinner and Magne. Mandalay is able to use some pretty weak flattery and
her telepathy to keep Spinner off-balance, before she’s pulled off her feet by
Magne’s magnet quirk. This will be explained next time, but for clarification
now, Magne’s power lets her give a person a strong magnetic polarity. That
coupled with her large magnet lets her push and pull people around with relative
ease. The polarity is based on gender, with women getting polarized north, men
south. Suddenly I wonder how it’d work on Tiger… A thought for another day. Tiger
attacks Magne and lists off her surprisingly full rap sheet as they battle. She’s
been involved in a lot of assaults and murders. Mandalay and Tiger note that it’s
odd that Ragdoll hasn’t checked in, with the Leaguers implying something happened
to her. We’re shown a lot of blood on top of the altar that Ragdoll was last
seen at, so yeah, she’s probably not okay.
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| Okay, note to self, if you really want to motivate Izuku Midoriya, threaten a child near him. It's a little unethical, but just look at the results! |
Back with Izuku, he’s getting the
crap kicked out of him by Muscular. His ability to enhance his strength and
speed with his super charged muscle fibers is making it impossible for Izuku to
keep up with him. Izuku keeps getting back up, but he’s knocked down harder and
harder each time. Muscular mocks Izuku’s inferior enhancement quirk, claiming
Izuku is just an inferior version of him. Remembering that he does have a job
to do, Muscular asks Izuku if he knows where Bakugo is. Izuku doesn’t answer
out loud, but internally panics when he hears his “friend” might be targeted.
Kota ends up throwing a rock at Muscular to distract him. Muscular starts
mocking Kota’s dead parents because he’s a monster. Izuku rushes him, getting
his hand under one of Muscular’s muscle fibers as it reconnects. Tied now to
Muscular, Izuku unleashes a full power OFA smash to Muscular. This causes a
small explosion, launching Kota into the air, but Izuku saves him at the last second.
His arm is looking pretty beat up at this point, first time we’ve seen it badly
broken like this in a while.
Muscular, unfortunately, gets back
up. He threw up layers of muscle in front of him before Izuku hit, forming a
meat shield, literally, around himself. He’s pretty pissed off at this point,
and decides to come at Izuku for real. To show case this change in attitude he swaps
out his fake eye for another one. Izuku is able to dodge out of the way with
Kota, but just barely. He get’s hit again a moment later and knocked to the
dirt. Izuku tries to think of a plan, but he doesn’t have any good options. He
tells Kota to run when Izuku has Muscular distracted. He rushes the villain and
unleashes another full power smash. He hits Muscular’s meat shield again, his impact
being completely absorbed. Caught again, Muscular starts forcing Izuku to the
ground, intent on crushing him this time. Kota hits Muscular with a spray of
water. His attempt at helping Izuku seems to strike a chord with the young hero
and he’s able to force Muscular up again. He triggers OFA again and hits Muscular
with OFA 1 Million percent. This was a more symbolic number than literal, just
an FYI. He knocks Muscular to the side, leaving him unconscious. Kota looks on
at Izuku with tears in his eyes, remembers what Mandalay told him and realized that
Izuku was “[His] Hero.” And the credits roll.
Overall, this is a great battle episode.
Compared to his other two attacks, this League strike is almost scarily
coordinated. The pro heroes are cut off from each other, two of the four Pussycats
are KOed, Aizawa (arguably the most important hero for controlling this battle)
has either been temporarily or permanently neutralized by Dabi, and a good percentage
of the students are either out cold or lost in the mist. And there are still
Leaguers that haven’t gotten into the fighting yet! Spinner and Magne are an
interesting pair, with one being a disciple of Stain and the other being more
of an agent of Chaos. While Spinner will spout off about hero cleansing, Magne
seems content just beating the crap out of people. It’s a good dynamic. Izuku’s
battle with Muscular is intense. While it isn’t wholly unique, the “hero goes
up against a better version of himself” fight is a treat when it’s done well.
The fact that he and Muscular are both Strongmen style fighters, close combat
specialists that hit like trucks, means you know that each of the punches that
land on Izuku are probably cracking bones at the very least. The visual of
seeing his muscle fibers poke out from his skin and reconnect to his body to
show his physical power increase is creepy but a kind of cool visual. The fact that
he’s literally the villain that killed Kota’s parents is a little coincidental,
but the fight makes up for that big of coincidence pretty easily for me. It was
all worth it for the 1 million percent smash and seeing Izuku roar with
triumph. Too bad that’s only 1/10 of the baddies present disabled. The fight is
just beginning, but we’ll talk about that next time. Have a good night,
everybody.
Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero
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