Last time on My Hero Academia, All
Might faced off one last time against All For One (AFO). The two titans battled
for supremacy, with AFO’s mix bag of stolen powers making more than a match for
All Might in his weakening condition. After receiving a little back up from the
other heroes on the Raid teams, All Might was able to recover and muster up his
strength. He and All For One collided one last time, with the end result being
All Might’s UNITED STATES OF SMASH was able to put the dark mastermind behind Tomura
Shigaraki down once and for all. But during the battle All Might was horrified
to learn that Tomura Shigaraki was in fact the grandson of his late Master, Nana
Shigure. All Might, his power expended once and for all, said good bye to One
for All and used his last hero appearance on TV to tell Izuku “Now, It’s your
turn.” Damn, that’s a lot to process. Let’s get to it, shall we?
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| No matter how old you get, (surrogate) Dad can still spank you if you do something stupid. |
We open with a group of officials
the police force going over what they’d gained from the raid on the League of
Villain’s base of operations. They captured the Noumu, but have found these
newer versions just as unresponsive to questions as the original Beak version.
And the facility that was manufacturing the Noumu was completely obliterated
when AFO attacked, so no new info there. They are still investigating the Villain
Bar, but aren’t getting much new info. This, coupled with the majority of the
League of Villains’ escape and All Might’s quite public retirement makes all of
them rather nervous. Some though, have decided to use this experience as a
learning opportunity and vow to reorganize how the Hero System in Japan works. They
also decide to make capturing Shigaraki priority one.
Next, we jump over to All Might, or
maybe I should say Toshinori, recovering in a hospital bed. He’s attended by
Gran Torino, who looks just as bad as he, and detective Tsukauchi. They’re all
surprised to hear the information about Shigaraki’s lineage, with Tsukauchi
asking the obvious question of how Nana Shigure’s friend and student could have
no idea that she had a grandson. Torino explained that Nana put her only son
into foster care after her husband’s death, believing the kid would have a
better life away from his superhero mother, and that she specifically asked
them to never try to find her son. Damn, that’s a lot to ask of friends.
Anyway, Torino tells All Might that he and Tsukauchi will continue to look into
Shigaraki, and tells his former student to focus on training the next
generation of heroes. And also, to not start changing his mind about how to
handle Shigaraki now that he knows the boy’s lineage. Even if his granny was a
hero, the kid has done a lot of evil, so has to be held accountable for it.
Catching up with Izuku, we learn he
and his crew dropped off Bakugo with the police after things cooled down. And,
much to Izuku’s shock, Bakugo was silent the whole time. That’s ominous. The
kids then break off, each of them returning home. We’re shown Todoroki
returning to his family home first. The youngest Todoroki is met by his sister,
Fuyumi, whom lets her him know that their father has been… upset since returning
home. Shoto Todoroki goes in to have a look at Enji Todoroki, whom has
incinerated his home gym and is sitting, fuming in the dark. He’s apparently
quite upset to be given the title of #1 hero rather than having wresting it
from All Might himself. Be careful what you wish for, am I right?
Izuku makes it home and almost
immediately passes out on his bed. A few hours later he gets a call from All
Might, whom he rushes out to meet. They meet at the beach Izuku cleaned. They
run to greet each other, with All Might decking the hero-in-training called Deku
for going against his word. He explains that he won’t be around to protect Izuku
from his occasional reckless actions now that his power is all but entirely
gone. He can still bulk up, but not for more than a few seconds at a time. He
switches over to praising Izuku for saving Bakugo. The two hug it out, with All
Might vowing to double down on training Izuku now that he’s going to be doing
that full time, and the two have a good cry as well.
The next day, the homeroom teachers
Aizawa and King along with All Might have a meeting with Mr. Nezu. The little
weasel-dog let’s All Might know that he’ll be kept on as a teacher at UA,
despite some people’s misgivings that he’s the cause of all of UA’s current trouble.
And that they’ll be spending the day talking with UA parents. Why? Because Mr.
Nezu has decided to restructure UA as a Dorm campus. Well, so long as they’re
not charging extra for it, I think they won’t have to do any convincing of the
Uraraka household. What? Money is tight with their family.
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| All Might: So, we're just going to ignore this? Mr. B: If you try to stop them, they'll just scream at you. Best to just let them get it out of their system. |
King goes to speak with his student’s
families alone, while All Might and Aizawa tackle the 1A students. They start
with the Jiro household. While Mr. Jiro puts on a stern face and makes it seem
like he’s not sure about leaving his daughter in UA’s hands anymore, Kyoka Jiro
herself reveals her dad was moved by All Might’s performance and had already
decided to keep her at UA no matter what. Show of hands, who wasn’t surprised
to find out that Mr. Jiro was apparently some kind of rock star?
The two then move onto what they assume
will be their most difficult conversation of the day… the Bakugo house. To
their immense shock, the Bakugo’s are both 100% okay with their son continuing at
UA. They feel that their son has grown a lot there and that they have confidence
in the school’s ability to continue to look after him. And both were impressed
with Aizawa’s speech the night before, basically saying that their son had too
much heart for the League of Villains to break easily. Mrs. Bakugo basically says
its his own damn fault for getting kidnapped. FYI, Katsuki definitely got his
personality from his mother. As the two educators depart, Bakugo runs out to
ask All Might a question. He wants to know what Deku is to him. All Might gives
him the standard speech about Izuku being one of his precious students, but
Bakugo is clearly not buy that as the whole truth. But he lets it go, for now.
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| I'd like to think that, where ever he is, Mr. Midoriya is also making this face. He has no idea why, but sense's his wife and son's nerves and reacts accordingly |
The two teachers decide to split
the list from this point on, and All Might goes to the Midoriyas. Both mother
and son are incredibly nervous to have All Might in their house, but they get
onto the meeting rather quickly. And to literally everyone’s shock, Mrs.
Midoriya says she doesn’t want Izuku going to UA any more. She sites her son’s
numerous injuries, the ones so bad he’s at risk for losing the use of his arms,
the several attacks on the school, and her son’s hero worship of All Might as
to why she no longer feels comfortable with him attending. She claims she was
proud as a citizen to see All Might battling AFO, but terrified as a mother
because she knew that Izuku would be eager to follow in All Might’s footsteps.
The thought of her son following the trail of blood terrifies her. Izuku tries
to defend All Might and the school, taking responsibility for his actions in
saving Bakugo, but that seems to make it worse as Mrs. Midoriya notes that by
his own logic he didn’t learn from his past mistakes at the school. Izuku
storms off… but comes back in a moment later with Kota’s letter. He explains
that he wants to be a hero no matter what, that he’ll just go to another school
if his mom doesn’t like UA any more, because he knows what it’s like to be a
hero now and won’t give it up. Way to go Kota, your ball punching antics helped
Izuku after all. All Might is able to bulk up, and he drops to his hands and
knees before the Midoriyas. He begs that Mrs. Midoriya allow Izuku to attend
UA, as he wants to do everything in his power to shape his successor. Yeah,
while All Might and Izuku haven’t mentioned One For All to her, he does tell
Mrs. Midoriya that he thinks Izuku will be the next Symbol of Peace. He vows to
lay down his life to protect Izuku next time. This seems to shake Mrs. Midoriya
and causes her to drop to her knees. Clearly moved, she asks that All Might not
do that. If he’s willing to train Izuku, to live for him and not die for him,
then she’ll allow Izuku to return to UA. Once she gets Izuku to also promise to
be careful, she agrees.
After the credits roll, (damn it,
Studio Bones), we’re shown All For One being brought into prison. While being
captured certainly wasn’t part of his original plan, he’s actually happy for
it, and believes that this will help prepare Shigaraki for what’s to come next,
and screw Izuku in the long run. He believes that it’s a mentor’s duty to
disappear at a certain point to help their charges grow and take charge. In
that regard, he robbed All Might of the ability to do that, while giving that
end to Shigaraki. He believes his student will rise to the occasion. That’s
pretty ominous too.
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| I wonder if seeing my worlds version of Superman bow his head and profess his belief that my child would succeed him would increase or decrease my anxiety on the subject? Totally increase. |
Not a lot happened this episode, in
terms of earth-shattering revelations or brawls, but we did get to see the
ramifications of the retirement of All Might. The Symbol of Peace’s retirement
is effecting everyone, from the police, to his students, to his rivals, and how
they’re taking it seems to be a mixed bag. Most of the students that we’re
shown are taking it well. All Might is done as a hero, but he’ll still be
training them so things won’t change too much on that front. Or so it seemed
with the Jiros, Bakugos and Midoriyas. The police are clearly terrified at the
thought of the uptick in crime, and seem to be prepping for some major changes
in a hurry. I liked that Endeavor finally got what he wanted and is furious
about it. He’s finally the #1 hero, if only unofficially at this point, but he
didn’t get it because he beat All Might but because All Might can’t do it anymore.
So, he’s not the best, he didn’t get sweet victory, he got the metaphorical
gold medal because the real winner can’t compete anymore. That’s galling to him
in every sense imaginable. I wonder if he’d say abusing his children and wife,
and being a bastard for years is worth it now? Yeah, probably not. When I first
got to this point in the story, I was shocked to see Mrs. Midoriya be the one
to object to seeing her son at UA. Don’t get me wrong, I saw all the signs that
she was putting on a brave face and was constantly on the verge of a heart attack,
but for her to be the one to stand up and express her feelings was kind of out
of left field. I totally was expecting her to bottle up her emotions for a
while longer before expressing her concern to Izuku in private. That’s kind of
the character I was led to believe that Inko Midoriya was. Someone who would worry,
and worry, and worry but not do anything about it until said worry just about killed
her. I’m glad she did finally speak up, as the course of action I was expecting
this to take probably would have irreparably damaged her relationship with
Izuku. Or at least it would have in real life, and any “well it’s a story”
reconciliation between the two would have felt forced. Just saying. Also, loved
the little bit we got of the Bakugos. I get the sense that Masura has spend the
vast majority of his married life apologizing for his explosive wife, and the
vast majority of fatherhood apologizing for his explosive son. It was entertaining
as hell to see Bakugo snap at his parents, while at the same time making little
attempt to stop his mother from forcing him to bow his head in respect or slap
him upside it for being an idiot. Families are funny that way. All For One’s
creepy declaration that this will make Shigaraki stronger made me nervous when
I first heard it, and given now that I’m rewatching the series, I can tell you
that AFO is pretty spot on in his assessment. Next time, we’ll see how the
students adjust to dorm life. It’s more intense than it sounds.
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