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.
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| 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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Twitter: @basicsSuperhero
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