Viewer Log: My Hero Academia ep 47

Heroes charge, but are they too late?

Last time on My Hero Academia, students recovered while heroes gathered. Izuku gets the bad medical news that he’s on his last legs when it comes to the use of his hands. If he suffers traumatic damage to them on the scale of the Sports Festival or the fight with Muscular even three more times, he’ll probably lose the use of them forever. Despite fears about potential lose, Izuku decides to work with Kirishima, Todoroki and Yaoyorozu to save Bakugo. Iida is furious at first, but elects to go with them to make sure the students bail on their plan if it looks like fighting will break out. They arrive in Kamino Ward where they believe Bakugo is being held, get disguises and move toward the location. Meanwhile, the heroes are gathering to raid the Villain’s hideout, All Might, Gran Torino, Endeavor and several other heroes are being brought in to aid police in taking the villains and saving Bakugo. Bakugo, meanwhile, is given the chance to join the League. He instead elects to attack Shigaraki, removing the hand he wears on his face and telling him to piss off. We closed on a murderous looking Shigaraki staring at the hand calling it Father. That’s a pretty creepy note to end on, not going to lie. Let’s get to it, shall we?

You know, it's pretty amazing that even though his head was all but
squashed by the OG Noumu, that Aizawa only has that relatively
small scar from the experience.

We open today on the press conference that is being held by the UA staff members Principle Nezu, and homeroom teachers Aizawa and Vlad King. One of the reporter’s grills Aizawa on how he can claim he was protecting students by authorizing them to fight. Aizawa claims that the casualties would have been worse if he hadn’t, a point proven by Nezu pointing out that most of the students were hurt in the gas attack by Mustard, an event stopped by 1B students Tetsutetsu and Kendo when the Reporter scoffs. The reporter digs deeper, pointing out that the gifted but violent Bakugo is probably being brainwashed right now by the League, and now can the teachers hope to save him. Vlad pics up on the vibe that the reporter is specifically trying to get a rise out of Aizawa, for sensationalism and mentally urges his coworker to not flip his lid. To everyone’s shock, Aizawa remains calm, verbally takes the full blame for not finding ways to cool Bakugo’s temper, and saying he’s not worried about potential brainwashing. He claims Bakugo’s anger stems from deep-seated conviction and the villains are idiots if they think they can convert Bakugo to them.

Bakugo, who is catching some of the press conference on the Villain Bar’s TV, smirks and admits the teachers knew him better than he thought. He tells the league to screw off again and tries to figure out a way to escape. He’s reasonably confident he won’t be killed given how hard they worked to grab him, which the villains confirm a minute later. Shigaraki looks like he’s about to attack him, Kurogiri even prepping to stop his charge if he tries, but to everyone’s shock Shigaraki just reclaims his hand mask, puts it back on and tries to convert Bakugo one last time. When he doesn’t budge, he turns toward the other TV and asks his Master for his power. Where ever he is, All For One smiles evilly and compliments his student’s strategic thinking.

Izuku and his crew make it to the abandoned warehouse that their tracker was leading them to. Yaoyorozu points out that all they know for certain is that the Noumu is hear, not that this is where they’ve got Bakugo. The group curses the fact they don’t have stealth or recon specialists like Hagakure the invisible girl or Jiro and her earphone jacks. Izuku begins muttering to himself doing his super analyzing thing. While he’s doing that, Iida mentally compliment’s his friend’s analytical nature and vows to be the one to protect him this time.

All Might: I AM HERE!! ... With Friends!

We jump over to the heroes. While Endeavor complains about being taken off of important work for this, it’s clear he and other the heroes are out for blood tonight. It looks like the heroes have been broken up into two groups and that they’ll be attacking two different locations. Looks like they’ll attack the building witnesses saw Dabi enter, and the building that Yaoyorozu’s tracker lead them to. Pretty solid plan. All Might and Gran Torino are both certain All for One (AFO) will make an appearance at this battle. As the heroes and cops deploy, Tsukauchi reveals that Nezu knew all about their plan and intentionally played dumb at the press conference to help convince the villains that they’re safe in their hidey hole. This shifted from a solid to a brilliant plan.

We jump back a few minutes chronologically to Izuku’s team outside the warehouse. After dodging some drunks making a pass at Yaoyorozu, they decide to sneak to the back of the building down a very narrow alley. Once there, Izuku and Kirishima are lifted by the others to the window and Kirishima uses a nightvision scope he brought to look into the darken interior. He makes a horrified noise before passing it to Izuku. In the scope’s lens, they see vats with Noumu exposed brains sticking out of some fluid. Dozens of them. Well, crap.

We jump back to the Villain Bar just after Shigaraki asked for his boss’s power. He orders Kurogiri and Compress to restrain Bakugo and put him on ice again. Bakugo frantically tries to figure out a way to escape out the back door, when a knock occurs on it. A guy claiming he’s delivering a Pizza. The obvious jokes never go out of style. A moment later, the side of the building bursts in and All Might leaps through. He’s joined by Kamui Woods, who uses his branches to tangle up the League, and Gran Torino who quickly leaps over and gives Dabi a concussion to keep the fire elementalist from incinerating said branches. All Might announces, “We are here, now!” to the captured villains. He also infuriates Bakugo when he attempts to comfort the “scared boy.” Shigaraki orders Kurogiri to warp in Noumu, but the shadowy figure can’t pull them in.

I honestly can't decide if I'm more disturbed by the Noumu's exposed
brains or the unnatural liquid portals they're coming through.

Turns out, as this was happening, Mt. Lady performed a colossal ax kick on the side of the building, busting it open and leading team B in to capture the Noumu. The shockwave of her kick knocks our teen heroes to their asses. The heroes start restraining the Noumu, and Tiger is able to find Ragdoll. Hooray! They finished all this with like ten minutes left in the episode. I’m sure things will end without further fuss…

All Might tells Shigaraki that this is over and that he needs to tell them where AFO is. Shigaraki roars that he’s not done yet and orders Kurogiri to get them out. He’s hit in the chest by Edgeshot, one of the other heroes that were brought along. He can fold and distort his body into different shapes. He basically stabbed Kurogiri through the chest, cut off the flow of blood to his brain for just long enough to make Kurogiri pass out. Dangerous but effective. Gran Torino reveals that the police in only a few days were able to compile info on all of the new League of Villains and advises them to surrender. Shigaraki has a flashback to when he first met All For One. From the context clues, he was an orphaned or abandoned child living on the streets when AFO found him. At the time he was known as Tekno Shimura. AFO offered to save this poor, hopeless child, unlike those heroes that ignored him. Shigaraki snaps out of his remembrance and starts shrieking that he hates All Might. At that moment, weird blobs of ooze form in the air and Noumu start appearing out of them. Kamui looks outside to call for backup, but the Noumu are appearing out there too. To make matters worse, Tsukauchi can’t reach Best Jeanist’s team.

Alright, now we know for certain that Denim is pretty terrible
at protecting you from massive energy blasts. Thanks for confirming,
Best Jeanist.

While All Might’s team was securing Shigaraki, Jeanist’s were containing Noumu. Much to Mt. Lady’s disgust. Tiger is looking after Ragdoll, but his teammate is comatose, eyes open but not seeing. Outside, Izuku and his group get up and see what’s happening. They note the heroes are capturing the Noumu and get the context clues that All Might is at another location. They figure he’s already saving Bakugo and prep to leave, thankful that they didn’t get so involved they’d have to come up with lies as to what they were doing. As they start leaving, Izuku pauses as he sees someone approach the heroes. The man in a black suit apologizes to Tiger, admitting Ragdoll won’t be the same as he just had to have her rather unique tracking power. He blames his injuries on him slacking on gathering powers. Best Jeanist activates his power to use the fabric of the man’s suit to bind him in place. Mt. Lady starts to protest, but Jeanist ignores her. I mean, come on, guy in a black suit walks up and talks about attacking a pro hero and stealing her power, obviously he’s not just passing by. The man, AFO in case that wasn’t obvious, break free and unleashes a blast of energy that hits Jeanist hard as the credit’s roll.

Evil has awakened.

After the credits, seriously Studio Bones stop doing this, we see the after effects of AFO’s attack. He obliterated the area in front of him, buildings are ablaze and the heroes he hit are no where in sight. Future Narrator Izuku talks about the bone chilling fear he and his friends felt at seeing this man. He describes AFO as the embodiment of death. In the present, Izuku and his friends look like they’re close to vomiting. We close on an image of AFO’s masked face as he asks if it’s time to begin.

I liked this episode, even if jumping around the different planes of action and timepoints can get a little confusing at points. All I can say is that, in this episode, unless you see or hear evidence that time is progressing (a line from another scene being uttered, seeing debris, etc) assume each new scene is jumping back in time a bit. The heroes plan was fairly well thought out. Hit both locations where you’ve gotten intel the League of Villains is hiding out as. Obviously in the time since getting Yaoyorozu’s tracker, they stacked the places out covertly and determined what was the spot Shigaraki was at. They sent their biggest guns like All Might and Endeavor there to handle the biggest resistance and get Bakugo. They then sent a more covert team with a hero that specializes in captures to handle the Noumu, disabling the League’s planned reinforcements before they can be summoned. It probably would have worked if AFO hadn’t been at the Noumu facility. I assume All Might though he was in an entirely different location or at the bar, or else he’d have insisted on being at the Noumu factory. Izuku and his team didn’t have much to do this time other than find the building, but they’ll make up for it soon with a Bakugo save attempt. But that’ll be next time. I know some of you are hoping I’ll be off the My Hero Academia kick soon, but I have to ask that you indulge me for a few more episodes as we get to the end of this current arc. All For One has just been revealed and you gots to know that All Might is going to try and put this SOB in the ground for real this time. It’s an intense battle coming up, next time. Have a good night.  

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Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero

Viewer Log: My Hero Academia ep 46

Despite his injuries, Izuku is going to risk it all to save someone that seems to genuinely hate his guts. Spider-Man would be proud.

Last time on My Hero Academia, the students fought bravely against the forces of the League of Villains Vanguard Action Squad. The villains almost escaped with Bakugo and Tokoyami imprisoned, but were foiled at the last second by a naval laser from Aoyama and Shoji’s quick hands. Unfortunately, they were only able to get Tokoyami back, the villains bonus objective, still losing Bakugo to Dabi’s quick reflexes. Afterward, the students were brought to a hospital to heal up. Two days later, Kirishima, frustrated at not being able to help the others or save Bakugo, proposes that they save him themselves. He wants to have Yaoyorozu produce another tracking device and follow it to Bakugo. Most are apprehensive at going along, but Todoroki is on board with him, and Kirishima made one last plea to Izuku before the credit’s rolled. Let’s get to it, shall we?

He's only be at this a couple of months and his arms look like this!
Imagine what they'd look like after a couple of years.

We open with the last few minutes of the last episode, Izuku wallowing in self-pity for not saving Bakugo, and Kirishima proposing that they save Bakugo themselves. His plan is met with outrage by Iida, and with apprehension from just about everyone else. Before any plan can be made, Izuku’s doctor has them clear out to give him an examination. Kirishima takes a moment to tell Izuku that they’re going to move tonight. He already has Todoroki and Yaoyorozu on board, and he hopes Izuku will be able to help. Iida overhears and glares. Izuku’s Doctor pops off his casts and gives him a doom and gloom speech. Recovery Girl healed him up, but he’s never going to be at 100% again. Pushing himself to his 1,000,000% in the fight against Muscular exacerbated the damage he already suffered during… all of his other fights. Turns out, busting up your hands and arms so bad that it discolors your flesh MULTIPLE times can have lasting damage. The worst of the damage is in his ligaments and joints, and the strain is getting to be too much for his body to handle. The doctor warns that if Izuku screws up his hands like this even 2 or 3 more times, it will leave him unable to lift his arms anymore. He tells Izuku to focus on healing, and gives him a note from Kota.

Izuku takes the note up to the roof and reads it. Kota pretty much just apologizes for the blow to the Midoriya family jewels and hopes that Izuku gets better soon so he can apologize in person. Kota’s words seem to firm up Izuku’s resolve. He calls up his mom and tells her that while he’s been discharged, but he’s got something going on and won’t be home for a few more days. Inko Midoriya is clearly choked up as she asks her boy if he really has to go to UA. It cuts away before we can hear his answer.  

We’re shown a brief montage of heroes getting called in to help with Tsukauchi’s sting operation. He’s gotten All Might, Endeavor, Gran Torino, Tiger, Kamui Woods, Mt. Lady, and Best Jeanist, to name a few. The heroes gathered, both new and old, makeup most of the top 10 list of greatest heroes (All Might, Endeavor), are extremely well respected in the field (Gran Torino, Kamui) or have a vested interest in kicking as much ass as possible (Tiger). This is going to be a bloody confrontation.

We've got two students that want to be there, two who don't
but are too worried to stay out of it, and one who definitely
shouldn't be there. Dream Team.

That night, Todoroki and Kirishima wait outside the hospital for Yaoyorozu. She arrives a moment later with Izuku. Before they can go into the details of their plan, Iida storms over, clearly still pissed. It seems that he’s most angry at Izuku and Todoroki for going along with this, as they were the ones to come to his rescue while he was flipping out in Hosu. Apparently, hypocrisy is something that pisses off both me and Iida. Izuku tries to calm him down, but that just causes Iida to snap and he socks his friend in the jaw. He admits that he’s worried about Bakugo, but he’s just as worried about everyone else. He’s scared that his friends will do something reckless and end up like his brother, Tensei, crippled for life. The group then admits that they understand his fears and that they aren’t planning on doing any fighting. They’re going to go in, find Bakugo, and get him out if the opportunity presence itself. Izuku’s thoughts are stuck on saving Bakugo, and on All Might’s words of wisdom about how the best heroes all have a story about moving without thinking to save someone. Iida agrees to go along, much to everyone’s shock.

Meanwhile, the heroes have gathered and are prepping to fight.

Well, this tops my worst bar experience. And I was drunk under
the table by a girl half my size that I was trying to impress.
Psychos and murders easily top gaffs like that.

At the Villain Bar, the baddies have Bakugo chained up. Shigaraki gives him a big speech about how the League is about freedom and liberating the world. Got to say, I know Shigaraki is full of crap and all hew wants to do is kill All Might, but had I not known that, I might believe his rhetoric. Bakugo tells him to throw himself into traffic. Kid’s got moxie, I’ll give him that.

We get a rare visit from Future Narrator Izuku, whom admits that, at the time, he and his friends thought that they’d seen real evil during the USJ attack and some of their other fights. It’s only with hindsight that he realized that he was horribly wrong, and he was about to see real evil for the firsts time.

Iida apologizes to Izuku for punching him in the face. Not a “I think I was wrong” apology either, it was a “I’m sorry I think it was necessary” kind of apology, which Izuku accepts. Iida still thinks he’s in the right that this is too dangerous for them to do, and swears that he’ll stop them if he thinks they’re going to do something dangerous. Yaoyorozu doesn’t say it aloud, but she’s planning on doing the same.

The group takes a train to Kamino Ward, a shady district known for crime, gambling and other shady deals, following the tracker. Its about a two-hour ride.  Todoroki tells Izuku and the rest of them that he’d told the rest of the class their plan, and that they were… less than enthused by it. Uraraka and the rest of them are against this plan, but aren’t going to stop them. Todoroki gives them all one last chance to back out, but Izuku and the rests of them won’t.

I think they're going for a group of tough guys look, but I'm getting
more of a West Side Story vibe than Scarface.

They arrive in Kamino Ward. Kirishima wants to run off right away towards the bar, but Yaoyorozu stops him. She reminds them that the villains will recognize them, and so running right at them is a fairly suicidal plan. They all go out shopping, getting costumes to put on tough guy/gal personas. Izuku in particular seems to be trying super hard to seem tough, with poor results, he just looks like he stepped on a LEGO. Todoroki asks the obvious question of why she, the girl with the ability to just make any material or object she wants, didn’t just make them stuff. She hurriedly says that that would be against the law and that she wants to support the economy, but nobody is buying it. She just likes shopping.

The kids hear someone shout UA, which causes them to think that they were caught right away. Turns out, Nezu, Aizawa, and Vlad King are holding a press conference to apologize for letting their students get hurt and one of them getting kidnapped. It’s super weird to see Mr. Aizawa in a suit with his unruly hair tied back. It’s like seeing a bat crawling on the ground, you know it’s possible but are disturbed by it nonetheless. Nezu claims that they’re going to be implementing new security measures to protect their students, though no one watching seems to believe them.

Ah!!! You monsters, what did they do to Aizawa's hair?

Back at the Villain Bar, Shigaraki is relishing all the hate being slung at the hero system. He preaches more of Stain’s rhetoric about a pure hero system, that they’ll destroy the corrupt system and replace it with something purer, where heroes won’t do the work for money. Thus, completely removing the incentive for people with powers to regularly risk their lives. I roll my eyes at the Stain Logic. Because he believes that this is a real sales pitch, he orders Dabi to free Bakugo so they can chat. Dabi foists the task onto Twice. While Twice gets the cuffs off, Compress brags that they’ve got some kind of plan in the works. He doesn’t get much more into it, as Bakugo breaks free and attacks them. He’s “done listening to all (their) endless talking,” and blows the hand off Shigaraki’s face. Bakugo flashes back to seeing an All Might video when he was a kid. Then, as now, he loved All Might because he was a mighty hero that always won no matter what, and he’ll do his damnedest to emulate that no matter what. Bakugo is a bit of an ass but the kid is convicted. Shigaraki doesn’t seem to notice, he’s fixated on “father” lying on the ground. Yes, he means the hand. And there is murder in his eyes.This is probably not going to end well.

This is a pretty solid build up episode. We see the sort of situation Izuku is currently in. His body is healed, but it’s not in fighting shape by any stretch of the imagination. He’s got to do something dangerous, and his mother is already worried sick in the most literal use of that phrase that I’ve ever seen. Most of his friends can’t or won’t support this plan because they know how insane it is. But, he still does it because Bakugo is his friend (more or less) and he knows that a hero’s job is almost by definition meddling in other people’s affairs. His choices will carry ramifications, both in his personal life and as a student at UA. I also liked seeing Iida’s conflict. We’ve got someone that’s a natural rule follower, battling with a desire to help someone and try to wrestle with the morality of breaking a rule to do so. Which was further exacerbated by his memories of what happened the last time he broke rules to get something done, and seeing what can happen to even someone prepared when they go out to do hero work. It was a good internal conflict for him to have, and I liked the compromise he came up with himself to do it. I also liked the background tension building here. We’re seeing people act more openly hostile to the hero world. As Dabi stated during the previous arc, their attack made the cracks all the wider and people are seeing just how fragile the hero system is. If they can’t even protect their own recruits, how can they hope to protect anyone? And then there’s Bakugo, being Bakugo, and doing stuff that might put a homicidal maniac into a murderous rage. At least the kid is consistent. Next time, the raid begins. Have a good night everybody.

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Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero

Viewer Log: My Hero Academia ep 45

Who knew a magician is what would make this fight so difficult, instead of the blade covered monster, fire elementalist, lizard man, psychotic schoolgirl and muscular woman with a magnet?

Last time on My Hero Academia, things started shifting in the hero’s favor. The heroes and students have defeated Magne, Spinner, Moonfish, Muscular, and Mustard, half of the villains attacking force. Weird how many M’s ended up on the bad guy’s team. Izuku and his class also help a rampaging Tokoyami reclaim control of his Dark Shadow. So, things are looking up. To start with, anyway. Things take a turn when Uraraka and Tsu battled Toga Himiko, the deranged school girl that is literally after blood. Uraraka is able to pin her, but she pushes Uraraka’s Izuku button long enough to stab her with an electric syringe and harvest some of her blood. Izuku and his group arrive, scaring Toga off… but unfortunately causing Toga’s deranged mind to lock onto the bleeding Izuku. It’s after that that Bakugo and Tokoyami end up getting nabbed by a new villain, Mr. Compress, said villain then shows off his ninja leaping skills to escape, and Spinner and Magne escape thanks to Kurogiri stepping in. Izuku, Shoji and Todoroki get launched by Uraraka and Tsu, and the crew collide with Mr. Compress as he was about to rejoin his team. So… it’s two mostly intact students and a very nearly broken Izuku vs. at minimum seven, possibly eight villains with virtually no damage. This’ll go well, I’m sure.

Aizawa, master of the Serious Face.

We open with what has been going on with the students back at the main camp. Most of them, specifically Kirishima, are lobbying to be let out to help the others. Vlad King, the class 1B’s homeroom teacher refuses to let them out. They’re suddenly interrupted by the arrival of another Dabi clone. King within seconds grabs, slams and pins the faux-Dabi to the wall. He uses his Quirk that manipulates his blood to more or less freeze faux-Dabi in place. Faux-Dabi starts gloating, telling the pro hero that this attack is the beginning of t he end for the public image of heroes and UA high. He starts burning, probably to try and take Vlad out in the blast, but is stopped by Aizawa running in, disabling his power and then beating the copy into goo. He’d come back to drop off Kota. King wants to go back out with Aizawa, but Aizawa believes that would be a terrible idea. He’s figured out that the group attacking isn’t particularly large, and that they’re probably sending these clones of one of their strongest combatants to keep the pro heroes off balance. Kirishima and the others ask to be let back out again, but he refuses before leaving.

Don't underestimate the pickpocketing skills of a man with
six arms.

Now we jump back to where the last episode left off. Dabi unleashes a massive fire blast at the students, Compress using his power to shrink himself down and dodge the attack. The students leap in different directions and the VAS go after a target. Twice goes after Todoroki, attacking the elementalist with a razor-sharp tape measure he’s got in his wrist. Toga goes after Izuku, claiming that he’ll look cuter with more blood on his face. I’ve mentioned she has issues, right? Shoji is able to drive her off and protect the barely conscious Izuku.

I've heard of sleight of hand, but this is ridiculous. 

Mr. Compress restores himself and walks over to his commander, patting himself on the back for completing the mission… only to discover the marbles are missing from his pocket. Shoji reveals he took the liberty of liberating them during the crash. You go octo-man. The kids try to beat a hasty retreat, but get blocked by Chainsaw the Noumu and Kurogiri arriving. They were also almost blasted by Dabi again, but Compress stopped him. So, I guess roasting children is too much for him. I’ll make a note of that. Kurogiri orders the VAS to leave via his portals. Dabi protests, claiming he’s not leaving without Bakugo, but Compress waves him on. Turns out… he was just letting the kids enjoy the feeling of victory for a moment. No, turns out the marbles Shoji grabbed were just ice chunks from a Todoroki attack that he compressed as well and made a show of putting into his pocket so they’d target it. Being a showman at heart, Mr. Compress reveals that the marbles they wanted had been in his mouth the whole time. He takes a bow as he steps back through the portal, Izuku and company looking on in horror, and then he gets hit in the face with an energy blast. Turns out Aoyama was hiding in the bushes, saw an opening, and let loose a naval laser. The marbles flew from Compress’s mouth, and the boys rush to grab them. Izuku drops early due to his many, many, many injuries. Shoji nabs one, but Todoroki just barely misses grabbing the other as Dabi yanks it out of the air. He mockingly says “Isn’t that a tragedy?” to Todoroki as he claims his prize. He has Compress release his power to confirm they indeed have Bakugo. Izuku tries to struggle to the portal, but fails, and hears Bakugo bark “Stay Back!” as he gets pulled through. Was Bakugo being stubborn, or concerned that his obviously extremely injured will get himself killed if he struggled even a little more? Knowing him… it was probably 60% the former, 40% the latter.  

Call me crazy, but it seems like Dabi takes a certain amount of
glee in defeating Todoroki specifically. Wonder why that is...

The kids are quickly gathered up, the Pussycat’s learn that Ragdoll is MIA, and emergency services are called in. Final of forty students ends up being: 15 knocked out by poison gas, 11 physical injuries, one missing, and 13 with only mental scarring. Not a great ratio. The Pussycats are also at half capacity, with Pixie-Bob in intensive care due to her injuries and with Ragdoll confirmed to be kidnapped. On the plus side, Muscular, Mustard and Moonfish were all captured. So, there were a few victories, all be it small ones.

 Over the next few days, the school is swarmed by reporters demanding answers, are smeared throughout the media for being the victims of a terrorist attack (just saying), and the staff at UA begins pondering the validity of the idea that there is a mole in their school. As only the students, Pussycats, and a few teachers were supposed to know where the kids were going, I can’t say that isn’t a legit concern. Mr. Nezu says that the incident has given them an excuse to implement something he’s been planning on for some time. Their meeting is interrupted by All Might getting a call. He steps out to talk to Det. Tsukauchi. He’d been interviewing Aizawa and King about what happened and they have a lead. The police department had been looking into an abandoned building that they believed to be the secret villain bar and had tracked a young man with a “Patchwork face” to its location before the lead went cold. The description of Dabi makes them certain that that building is the place. Tsukauchi tells All Might they’re going to gather as many heroes as possible and raid the place, and asks if he wants in. All Might, in a controlled fury, bulks up and says that he’ll announce “I am here!” as he charges in.

I actually feel sorry for the guys that get in All Might's way
for this one.

Meanwhile, Shigaraki and his new League are celebrating their successful mission and relishing the trouble they stirred up for the heroes. They have Bakugo watching in chains. Why does everyone seem to have those ready for him? Okay, thinking about it, it makes way more sense that the villains have this set up for their kidnappie over the school that had no idea that Bakugo would flip out upon winning an event.

Izuku spends two solid days recovering. He was basically being held together with spit, tape and prayers by the time he was brought in. He was unconscious the entire time, his brain being so addled he suffered from a few seizures, but thankfully Recovery Girl was brought in intime to heal him. He wakes up just in time for his classmates to visit. Well, fifteen of them, as Jiro, Hagakure (invisible girl), and Yaoyorozu are also still recovering. Tokoyami begs for forgiveness for being captured and not helping, but everyone has moved passed that. Izuku, having been reminded about the missing Bakugo by his class, starts crying and verbally kicking himself for failing his frenemy. Kirishima offers Izuku an alternative. He tells the group that he and Todoroki visited the day before and had eavesdropped on Yaoyorozu getting interviewed by Tsukauchi and All Might. Guys… why didn’t you close the door? Anything that happens after this is on All Might’s casualness, just saying. Anyway, they here about the tracker Yaoyorozu made and had adhered to Chainsaw the Noumu, and that she made a device to detect it. Basically, Kirishima wants them to convince Yaoyorozu to make another one and that they as a group go save Bakugo. Iida, remembering how much trouble his actions caused during the Stain incident, immediately rejects the idea and tries to talk Kirishima out of it, as do several other members. The red-haired shifter isn’t having any of it, as he’s also figuratively kicking himself for failing Bakugo and not being able to help. The episode ends with Kirishima telling Izuku that they can still save Bakugo, but ends without a resolution.

I wonder if his arms or his pride hurts more...
Arms, definitely arms this time,

Okay, so that sucked. Not in a stylistic or storytelling way, that would just be my response were I Hisashi Midoriya getting a frantic phone call from Inko Midoriya explaining what had happened to our son during the training camp. That probably wouldn’t be the right thing to say… but I can never read a room. Oh, and yes, he is alive, he is still married to Mrs. Midoriya, he’s just away at work so much that his name is a pun on a phrase that means “It’s been a long time.” Joking aside, this is easily the worst defeat that Izuku has suffered thus far, and given his track record that’s saying something. He drove himself to the breaking point, risking his entire body and future career trying to help everyone and stop the League, only to lose his frenemy at the last possible moment. I’m not saying that’s worse than the broken bones or seizures, but in this world the shame will ultimately stick with him longer. The fight with the League was pretty well done too. I did like how things played out, with Mr. Compress using simple slight of hand tricks to trick the students, to Aoyama’s surprised attack, to saving Tokoyami but losing Bakugo. It’s a nice cause/effect chain. I also liked how it was Kirishima to come up with the, let’s be honest, hairbrained scheme to save Bakugo. He was kept from helping during the entire fight, and while he was more or less safe at the camp, his friends were beaten to a pulp and the kid he was trying his damnedest to be BFF’s with got grabbed. That’s not going to sit well with him, and he’s been characterized as someone that wouldn’t sit still because of it. That’s why I like this series, the minor characters have great development, even if their plans are stupid. Everyone knows it’s probably a bad idea, that it’ll be dangerous and that actual heroes are on the case, but at the end of the day their friend was taken and they want to do something about it. Sure, their meddling in something that they should probably stay out of, but they wouldn’t be heroes in training if they could stay out of things. Bakugo’s kidnapping is going to have a lot of ramifications, both on a micro and macro level to the world of My Hero Academia. But we’ll get to that in a couple of days. Have a goodnight everybody.  

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Viewer Log: My Hero Academia ep 44

A blood draining schoolgirl and a masked magician prove to be two of the most effective members of this new group. That might be the weirdest sentence I've ever written.

Last time on My Hero Academia, Izuku started running. He quickly tracked down Aizawa, who survived Dabi’s attack but lost him, and later Mandalay and let the pro heroes know that the League of Villains Vanguard Action Squadron (VAS) are her to get Bakugo. Bakugo, meanwhile, is dealing with an escaped serial killer with teeth that can extend into blades called Moonfish along with Todoroki. Class 1B students Tetsutetsu and Kendo defeated Mustard, the VAS member that was creating the poison fog. Izuku finally linked up with Shoji, the six-armed hero-in-training. Well, thanks to Moonfish, he’s only got five arms, and Tokoyami’s Dark Shadow is currently rampaging. Not a great situation for our gravely injured hero to stumble in on. Let’s see how he handles thing, shall we?

I think Tokoyami was underselling just how strong Dark Shadow
is at night. And how little control he really has.

We open with the last few seconds of the previous episode, Shoji saving Izuku from Dark Shadow’s claws, and explaining why their friend’s power is trying to kill them. Basically, Shoji got hurt, plus the dark of night caused Dark Shadow to switch to instant kill mode. He also explains to Izuku that his injuries aren’t as bad as they look, as it was one of his extra arms which regenerate rapidly. Dark Shadow is currently trying to rip to pieces anything they see or hear. Shoji believes that if they could lead Dark Shadow to some light, Tokoyami could hopefully reassert control over his power. Shoji also knows that Izuku is focusing on saving Bakugo, and offers to distract Dark Shadow is he needs to keep going. Given the choice between saving two people that he considerers friends, no I don’t know why Bakugo is still considered one, Izuku comes up with an alternative solution.

We cut over to Bakugo and Todoroki vs. Moonfish. Todoroki is mostly using his ice waves to keep the mad serial killer at bay, actively stopping Bakugo from setting off explosions, as the bright lights they generate would ruin their nightvision and make them both less effective against him. Moonfish is incredibly agile on his teeth blades and keeps almost slicing hunks of flesh from the boys. Their salvation comes in the form of a furiously screaming shadow. Okay, now I’ll explain Izuku’s plan. Knowing that Bakugo and Todoroki were partnered together and just behind Shoji, Izuku had Shoji just look for a huge glacier. Then, they used Shoji’s dupli-arms to make a bunch of noise to draw Dark Shadow after them. Dark Shadow charged after them, beat the piss out of Moonfish, and then slams the villain to the ground again when he tries to get back up again. It’s only after that that Bakugo called the go ahead for him and Todoroki to unleash the light to repress Dark Shadow. After getting his head back on straight, Tokoyami apologized profusely for losing control. Shoji gives him some words of encouragement, and Izuku insists that they fall back to the camp, cutting through the forest to save time. Bakugo tries to scream that he’ll be fine on his own, but they ignore him and force him to follow.

In most cases, knife beats person. Just not when said person is
Ochako Uraraka.

We then jump back a few minutes to catch up with how Uraraka and Tsu are handling this cluster jam of a night. They crossed paths with Himiko Toga, the VAS sole female member. The crazed school girl knows their names and general abilities, and is super creepy. She’s out to steal their blood, using some kind of electric syringe device to drain their blood. Which is super ghoulish, not going to lie. Tsu throws Uraraka out of the way of Toga’s thrown syringe, tries to dodge herself but gets her pinned to a tree by her hair. Toga hears Uraraka call her Tsu, and squeals about how cute that name is and how she’ll start calling Tsu it. You know, because their friends. In her mind, anyway. Yeah, she’s really unstable. Uraraka charges her, keeping Toga from harvesting Tsu’s blood. She’s able to use so knife fighting moves she picked up from her internship with the hero Gunhead to disarm Toga and pin her to the ground. Despite being pinned, Toga seems pretty chill about the whole thing, and is still SUPER creepy. She calls Uraraka a delightful girl, and claims their the same because she can smell that Uraraka has a crush. … Now, it’s been a while since I’ve been a teenager or had a crush on someone… so is that a crazy girl being crazy thing or did I not notice something growing up? Does love smell like flowers? Tasty food? Fear sweat? Probably that last one for Izuku and Uraraka… Whatever. Toga starts making a really disturbing speech about how her twisted mind processes feelings of affection, how she started off with a desire to emulate the boy she has her eye on and become them. That’s not too weird but the bloody image of Stain she thinks about while talking makes it clear this girl is off her rocker. I’m not sure if there is a medical term for Toga associating affection with causing physical pain, but there probably should be one. She’s disturbing. Although, unintentionally pushing Uraraka’s Deku button might have just been a ploy to distract Uraraka long enough to stab her with a syringe.  She drains a bit of blood from Uraraka before Izuku and co charge in. Realizing seven and a half (sorry Izuku, you’re not doing much as is) on one aren’t great odds, Toga makes a break for it. As she runs off, she locks eyes on Izuku’s bloody, bruise and beaten face, turns bright red and runs faster. That’s… probably… not good.

If I had said at the start of this arc that a masked magician
would appear and spirit off with two students, you'd have
called me nuts, wouldn't you have?

Only after the psychotic school girl has left their midst does the group notice Bakugo seems to have vanished. That’s when one of the last VAS members makes his appearance. A stage magician in a top hat and porcelain mask, Mr. Compress takes center stage. He claims that the League of Villains will give Bakugo a grander stage to show off his talents. He reveals a pair of greenish spheres in his hands, and reveals he nabbed Tokoyami too, deciding after seeing his initial rampage that he’s also League material. Todoroki tries to hit him with an Ice Wave, but he dodges, claiming escapology and sleight of hand tactics are his forte, and he’s not one to fight head on. He radios into the rest of the group as he runs from the students, telling them he has Bakugo and that they should meet at the rendezvous point.

Dabi and Twice begin falling back, the field commander Dabi noting the gas is gone, meaning Mustard was taken out. We’re shown naval laser shooting Aoyama is hiding with an unconscious Jiro and Hagakure just out of their sight. He hears some of their conversation as they walk off, but is almost caught when Dabi looks back. He’s saved accidently by Twice, who reminds Dabi that he should probably call off the Noumu they brought with them, the VAS’s tenth and final member on this mission. Said Noumu was programmed to follow Dabi’s commands and to not stop unless ordered.

The fact that this monstrocity was on Harass Student Duty
I think says a lot about this group's strenght.

We’re shown the Noumu, dubbed Chainsaw, chasing after Yaoyorozu and a class 1B student, Yosetsu Awase. This Noumu is also shown to have Ragdoll’s bloody headgear in its hands, indicating it was the one that took her out. It almost catches them before getting the signal to retreat. Yaoyorozu, thinking fast, produces a small tracker and tells Awase to use his power to stick it on Chainsaw. He rather bravely walks up to the beast and uses his Quirk, Weld, to basically fuse the damn thing into Chainsaw’s flesh.

Meanwhile, Tiger got Magne wrapped up in a twisty rubber arm grapple, and Mandalay has Spinner pinned and is working on cuffing him. Their unfortunately thwarted by Kurogiri portalling in and sucking them through his warp gate. Yeah, he’s the villain’s ride home.

The kids are chasing after Mr. Compress, who is leaping through the trees like he’s a Naruto style ninja. Izuku comes up with a plan. Namely, they’ll use Uraraka to make the group of them lighter, and then have Tsu throw them all with her impossibly long tongue to go after and hopefully catch Mr. Compress. I don’t really understand why Uraraka doesn’t come along, but whatever. Izuku is shown to be super high on endorphins at this point, both because he’s still ignoring his various injuries, and because he doesn’t note or react to Uraraka taking off her clothes. Ha, sorry, I made that sound way more suggestive than it was. She just took off her outer most shirt, had a tank underneath, to rip up and make a pair of makeshift bandages for his arms. The boys are launched into the air a few seconds later.

With the villains, Toga meets up with Dabi and Twice. The field commander is disappointed that Toga only got a single person’s blood, she was tasked with getting at least three peoples, but the school girl doesn’t seem to care. She’s way too high on happiness about meeting a boy she thinks she fancies. Considering she last locked eyes on a very injured Izuku, I reiterate my “Not good” comment. Mr. Compress then crashes to the ground with Izuku and his team atop him. This is probably going to get messy… next time.

Oo, this was a tense episode. I’ll start by saying that Izuku’s plan to use Tokoyami’s rampaging Dark Shadow to take out Moonfish was brilliant. It’s killing two birds with one stone, stopping the rampage and taking out a villain that was giving two of UA’s heaviest hitters a run for their money. The fight with Toga is interesting. On the one hand, I am sick to death of female characters whose motivation and interests seem to begin and end with their potential love interest. It’s a boring cliché, and I hope to live to see the day were the majority of women in fiction have their love lives reduced to 3^rd or 4^th on their priority list. That all said, given that Toga expresses her feelings of affection with causing people to bleed and die is kind of interesting. I’m sure that there is a specific psychological term for it, but in Japanese I believe she’d be known as a Yangire. Japan has developed a number of different terms for different personality types common in fiction, usually they are portmanteau using Japanese words. In this case, a yangire is a combination of yanderu, meaning to be sick, and gire, meaning to cut, slice or snap. Basically, it’s an otherwise normal seeming person that has some kind of psychological break that turns them into a violent psychopath. Spoiler alert, that’s Toga. Though, I can’t imagine it’s too much of a spoiler, somethings would have to have messed you up to think friendship involves stabbing. She’s a fairly sad character once we dive more into her, but I’ll get into that later on. I love Mr. Compress. Love his design, love his stage magician antics, and I love how he utilizes his power. As his name suggests, his ability is to shrink things down (compress) into green-white spheres that he can easily pocket. The fact that he was fast enough and stealthy enough to sneak up on Bakugo and Tokoyami is a testament to his skills, even if he’s not combat-compatible. We’ve just about reached the end of the summer camp arc, let’s see if Izuku can somehow save his classmates before the villains amscray. Have a good night everybody. 

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Viewer Log: My Hero Academia ep 43

Villains start pulling out all the stops to capture an explosive individual.

How’s everybody doing? I’m sure you’re stir crazy but you’re surviving, so that’s a win in any book. Let’s lose ourselves in anime for a while, shall we?

Last time on My Hero Academia, Izuku got his bell rung by a powerful villain called Muscular. The two Strongman type fighters duked it out in a battle of fists. While Izuku put in a valiant effort, Muscular’s defensive powers and immense strength almost finished him. Thankfully, Kota used his water manipulating power to distract Muscular long enough for Izuku to unleash One For All (OFA) 1,000,000 percent (figurative not literal) to defeat him. While that was going on, the Wild, Wild Pussycats were being attacked by two more of the League of Villains Vanguard Action Squadron, I’m going to shorten it to VAS after this, Spinner and Magne. The two villains had taken out Pixie-Bob of the Pussycats, sending Tiger into a muscular, murderous rage. The rest of the students ended up being hunted by the rest of the VAS, as the villains are targeting students… well… one student in particular. Care to guess? Everyone who guessed Bakugo gets a thumbs up. Let’s get to it, shall we?  

Izuku Midoriya dreams of the day where he can win a fight without
breaking 15 bones and getting a concussion. But it is not this day.

We open with a quick recap of Izuku first almost losing to, and then ultimately defeating Muscular with Kota’s aid. At this point, judging from Izuku’s arm, he’s got more splinters than solid bone left in it. That’s very bad, but far from the worse thing happening here.

We cut over to Shigaraki and Kurogiri relaxing at the villain bar. The shadow man asks if Shigaraki shouldn’t be with his VAS, but Shigaraki has decided to shift strategies for this attack. He explains that he’d been playing the “game” as he put it like an RPG, gathering a team, getting them gear and then throwing them at the meat grinder of a boss at lv. 1 in the hopes of winning with numbers. That didn’t work out, so now he’s treating it like a real combat simulation. He’s sent his pieces out to disable and capture as many of his opponents as possible. But before the big attack, he’s sent them on this errand to create cracks in the hero world. He’s weirdly confident in his new crew, if I’m being honest, and heavily implies that they’re going to try and recruit someone they feel is also being “repressed,” meaning Bakugo.

Back with Izuku, Kota tries to convince the young hero to sit down before he collapses, but Izuku refuses. He knows he has to get info to Mandalay and the other teachers, both the power of Muscular (and the implied power of the VAS as a whole) and that the VAS is targeting Bakugo. He’s fairly confident Muscular is down for the count, but worries that the others will be overwhelmed if the other villains are at his level. He also wants to take Kota towards the fire so he can use his water manipulation powers to put it out. He picks up Kota and leaps across the mountain, while stating in his head that he has a bad feeling about this.

Well, this image would haunt my nightmares forever, were I Aizawa.

We then cut back to the main campus of the training camp, and back five minutes to when Aizawa ran outside and was seemingly napalmed by Dabi. Turns out, he was able to leap up and out of Dabi’s way thanks to his scarf/reflexes, and then disabled Dabi’s power. The two fight for a moment before Aizawa gets him wrapped in the scarf and pinned to the ground. He tries to interrogate Dabi, breaking his arm in the first few seconds to imply how serious he’s being. A massive explosion and Iida’s group making to the main building distracts him enough to let Dabi slip out. He tangles him up in the scarf again, but Dabi breaks apart into goo, asking Aizawa if he’s “Worried about your students?” as he falls to pieces. Well, with a creepy exit line like that, how could he not? Aizawa tells the students to get inside as he runs off.

I'm 90% certain you'll fall in love with this nutjob by the end of
the next season.

We cut back over to Dabi and are introduced to Twice. He’s a bit bonkers, often speaking in contradictory statements and in a general “Deadpool” style. He’ll do stuff like do somebody a favor, and then when they try to thank him, he’ll say, “It was nothing,” and “PRAISE ME!” in rapid succession. So yeah, he’s unstable. Get it? Got it? Good. It was his power that made that Dabi look alike, and Dabi orders up another to keep the heroes distracted. I’ll note that Twice’s copies are about as strong as the original, but not nearly as durable. Odds are the Dabi copy was within a few seconds of falling apart from the broken arm, if future examples of his cloning are any indicator.

Izuku meets up with Aizawa as they both run through the forest. He quickly explains what he’d learned, where he’s going, and leaves Kota in Aizawa’s care. His teacher calls him back. Aizawa notes Izuku’s extensive wounds and figuring the kid is running on very few fumes at this point, but also knows that there’s very little he can do to stop Izuku from running. He gives Izuku another message to pass onto Mandalay.

Speaking of, Mandalay and Tiger are holding their own against Spinner and Magne, but the two villains are tough. Apparently, despite not having a physically based power, Magne hits with about the same force as Tiger, which shocks me just a little. Spinner goes into cleave Mandalay in half, but Izuku zooms in and shatters Spinners hodgepodge sword into pieces with a kick. He relays that he saved Kota, and that Mandalay needs to contact everyone via telepathy. She is instructed to tell them that Aizawa has used his status as a pro-hero to authorize the students into using their powers to defend themselves.

Not sure Izuku needed a One For All empowered kick to break
that sword. It was held together with belts!

We jump back to Aizawa, who is kicking himself metaphorically for not telling Izuku to fall back immediately after relaying his message. Kota, who’s scared and feeling like dirt for damaging the Midoriya family jewels, asks if Izuku is going to be okay and if he’ll get the chance to apologize. Aizawa tells him that Izuku will, as that kid is not one to give up.

Mandalay tries to tell Izuku to fall back, but he charges onward to find Bakugo. He tells her to tell “Kaa-chan” via telepathy that he’s a target and that he should stay low. Magne, recognizing Izuku, tries to take him out, but she’s stopped by Spinner. Why? Because while Shigaraki has Izuku on his “Kill on Sight” list, Izuku was named a hero by Stain, so Spinner won’t allow him to be hurt. Okay, so while Spinner dresses like a wannabe, it seems like he’s holding hard to Stain’s credo. Tiger and Mandalay use this distraction to knock out their respective opponent. This is why you don’t fight with your allies while enemies are still conscious, fools.

What a shock, telling Bakugo to stay low just puts him into a frenzy where he’s at. He and Todoroki are battling Moonfish, an escaped death row inmate. The black leather clad psychopath uses blades generated from his teeth to lift himself into the air, dodge around and slice his opponents. He seems to be fixated on cutting meat, as he puts it. Bakugo somehow knows without proof that it’s Izuku’s fault that he was told to defend himself but then to run and hide in such rapid succession. His clairvoyance is scary sometimes.

We then cut over to the class 1B students Tetsutetsu and Kendo. Tetsutetsu is just kind of running around in circles without a real plan, before Kendo stops him and explains something that she noticed. Namely, that Mandalay didn’t mention the fog in her report, and that the fog doesn’t seem to be spreading beyond a given area. She deduces something is creating the fog and spinning it around in a given area like a super slow hurricane. Tetsutetsu, catching on, figures out that that means someone is making the fog with their Quirk, and that taking him out will stop it.

Wow, that's a spooky image. Too bad Mustard really isn't.

We’re then shown Mustard, think the deadly gas not the condiment, a kid in a WW2 era gasmask and a school uniform of all things. He’s manipulating the fog and senses the two coming in it. He easily dodges around Tetsutetsu as the steel-shifter attacks, pulling out a six-shooter revolver and starts taking potshots at him. His first shot destroys Tetsutetsu’s gas mask, and the follow ups seem to weaken his armor. That or the inability to breath does. He takes a shot at Kendo too, having sensed her approach and figured out their pincer attack. The kid starts ranting about how he hates UA and how the school’s students are treated as elite, I think someone has an inferiority complex, and shooting Tetsutetsu repeatedly. Kendo takes a swing at Mustard, and even hits the little gremlin by using her Quirk to expand her fist. He mocks her for her weak power, before she schools him. Kendo expands both her fists and uses the supersized hands to whip the fog around them up. This is actually a very well-timed distraction, as it gives Tetsutetsu time to get up, and keeps Mustard from sensing his movements, as the gas is being shifted around too much for him to feel it. Tetsutetsu knocks him out with a punch, shattering his gas mask for good measure. Go team!

So, if you’re keeping score, that’s Muscular, Mustard, Spinner and Magne of the VAS taken out and/or restrained, with Dabi, Toga, Twice, Moonfish and two others still at large. The VAS had ten members, if I hadn’t made that clear yet. That’s half the attack group down, so it’s progress.

Izuku, unaware of this, is running towards when he believes Bakugo and Todoroki would be at. He’s rushed by something, tries to dodge, but his broken arms make him too slow. Thankfully, he’s saved by Shoji, the dude with six tentacle arms. Well, five right now. He was hit earlier in the fight, and explains that is what caused this issue. Driven into a fury by seeing his friend attack, and the darkness of the night, caused Tokoyami’s quirk to go into overdrive. They’ve got a very angry, very powerful Dark Shadow standing between them and Bakugo. Not good, but I think Izuku has handled worse odds before… I just remembered most of his limbs are broken, so maybe not.

Okay, so this episode is mostly a buildup episode. It’s mostly Izuku forcing himself to keep running through the pain, and seeing how the other VAS members measure up. Obviously, Mustard isn’t quite up to the same level overall as Muscular or Dabi. I mean, his ability is useful, but on his own he was fairly easily schooled by two heroes-in-training without much real-world combat experience. Spinner and Magne are obviously much more impressive, but they were taken out like punks. It was interesting to see that they have a few different types of followers in the new League of Villains. You’ve got guys like Spinner, Dabi, and Toga that were drawn in by the apparent connection between Stain and the League, and others that are there for other reasons, like Magne. Sure, that division in ideals got them captured fairly easily but it was still interesting to see. With about half their group taken out, we’re about to see how their heaviest hitters act on the mission. Oh, and obviously Izuku is going to have a hell of a time stopping Tokoyami’s Dark Shadow from rampaging and slicing everyone to pieces. Fun times. Have a good night. 

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