Viewer Log: My Hero Academia ep 53

 Imagine if all tests involved brawls with other applicants. I'd definitely have studied harder.

Okay, so I settled on doing a couple episodes of My Hero Academia, hope no one minds.

 

Last time on My Hero Academia, most of the student body of UA High School started prepping for their provisional licenses and began working on developing special moves. The one main exception being Izuku Midoriya, whom was trying to figure out how to fight without putting so much strain on his hands. He made a visit to the Support Course homeroom to look at getting new gear to help with this goal. He was promptly blasted by a failed experiment by Mae Hatsume. After getting helped up by Iida and Uraraka, both of whom had gone to visit the Support Course separately, and Iida trying so gear that Hatsume insisted on, Izuku came upon a simple but brilliant idea. Hatsume told Iida if he wanted to put less strain on his legs, than he should use his arms. Izuku realized that the inverse must be true as well. As the episode closed, Izuku showed off his new gear and fighting style, Full Cowling Shoot Style, to protect All Might from some debris Bakugo accidentally blew towards him. Let’s get to it, shall we?

 

We open on a flashback to Izuku pitching his Shoot style to Hatsume and Powerloader, the Support Course homeroom teacher. The two gear heads hit the ground running on Izuku’s redesign, much to Izuku’s surprise but enjoyment. They discus how they’re going to modify the suit, compare it to Iida’s speedy knight look, and whether Izuku is going to metaphorically rebrand himself from a Strongman to some kind of Speedster. To that last one, Izuku thinks that because his power can enhance his whole body that he’ll stick with being a Strongman but focus on kicks instead of punches. For some reason, Uraraka looks… miffed during the conversation. How odd.

 

Good to see my boy has worked on

his confident smile.

We then pick up where we closed last time, Bakugo trying his new AP shot and accidentally sending some debris at All Might’s head. Izuku flies in and shows off his new Shoot Style. He shatters the rock before it could hit his mentor. We get a quick close up of his new, the suit has sturdier bracers to protect his hands, and the iron soled boots to up the damage of his kicks. He’s dubbed this new design as Costume Gama. Good to know Mama’s design is will always be #1. Kirishima (Hardens skin into armor) and Kaminari (electric powers) compliment Izuku’s new look and also show off the modifications of their new costumes. Kirishima remodeled his look entirely, and Kaminari added some sort of doodad to his wrist. Izuku takes their praise, and mentions that he’d been getting some pretty intense training from Iida about how to be a more kicking focused in his fighting style.

Everybody is rocking upgrades.

 

Aizawa, who’d watched all of this with his usual level of detachment, tells All Might to be careful, which triggers a depress feeling in All Might about losing his powers. I have trouble imagining how it would feel to go from being Superman at least part time to something worse than pre-spider bite Peter Parker. Bakugo watches all of this from above and looks furious. Shocking, I know.

 

Class B arrives, with Vlad King trying to get into the training room early. That colossal dick Monoma comes in and tries to freak Class A with the factoid that the Provisional License Exam has 50% fail rate. He rather gleefully points out that their whole class could fail. I feel the need to point out that the class that has battled actual superpowered criminals’ multiple times is probably better off than the literal B team. But that’s just me. Aizawa and King go into more detail about the exam. It’s held twice a year in June and September, and at three different locations. In order to make sure things are as balanced as possible, UA will send Class A and B to two different locations. I assume that either the higher grades at UA will either take the exam later in the year, or maybe that class is small enough that they can all go to the third location. Or this is a continuity error. But I digress. Monoma has a very obvious sigh of relief, but then goes on about how disappointed he is that they won’t face each other. The last detail we’re given about the test is that, while there’s no minimum schooling required to take the exam, most schools don’t send students to it until the second year. So yeah, our heroes will be going up against students a full year more experienced. Fun!

Oh yeah, totally Ochako, bubbles and pink
sparkles surround everyone when they look
at a platonic friend 

 

That evening, the Ladies of class 1A discuss their progress of their ultimate moves and how they feel about the exam. Both Yaoyorozu (creates non-living objects) and Tsu (Frog powers) seem excited. But the scene then has to fail the Bechdel Test because Uraraka is zoning out and Ashido (Generate Acid and has pink skin and horns) immediately asks if she’s thinking about a dude. Though I will give her props for rightly narrowing down the potential list to Iida or Izuku. Girl has a nose for ships it seem. Uraraka feverishly denies this, but turns bright pink and starts floating… so safe to say no one believes her. Yaoyorozu shuffles the group off to bed to spare her friend more embarrassment. While floating, Uraraka looks out the window and sees Izuku continuing to practice to perfect his new fighting style. She blushes but still is adamant that’s not it.

 

Ochako Uraraka, the ONLY person who thinks you two are platonic is Izuku. And that’s because he still has zero confidence in his game, and is a teenage boy, and therefore stupid about girls. Just ask him out. I know she can’t hear me, but I have a point, damn it.

 

We flashforward a week to the exam. All of the students gather outside their exam building. Everyone is excited but are clearly nervous. Aizawa gives the kids a bit of a pep talk, which surprisingly works to a degree. It at least encourages Kirishima to try to start a Plus Ultra chant, but a student from another school butts in and shouts it too. This guy is Inasa Yoarashi, a student from UA’s rival school Shiketsu High from the other side of Japan. It’s the LA to UA’s NYC, it seems. To apologize for acting on his impulse to shout Plus Ultra, Yoarashi bows so hard he slams his head into the ground and causes his scalp to bleed, before running off to join the rest of his class. Aizawa mentions Yoarashi had actually been accepted into UA, and had gotten the highest score on the test that the kids that got in on recommendation took. But he turned down the spot at the last minute and went to Shiketsu instead. Izuku is a bit freaked out at the idea of someone being better than Todoroki. Aizawa warns his students to keep an eye on him.

 

Oh man, do I ship them already? Yeah, I do...

Before Aizawa can give more advice, a seafoam green haired woman runs up to greet him. Well, technically she asks Eraser to marry her, but that’s a kind of greeting I suppose. Aizawa turns her down, he feels that as a wife she’s be “an actual Nightmare,” and she bursts out laughing.  This is Emi Fukukado aka Ms. Joke. She and Aizawa’s agencies were basically right next to each other back in the day, so they’re “friends” and she seems to love using him as the straight man in her jokes. FYI her power is called Outburst and when she uses it, it causes her opponents to burst out laughing. Izuku is, shockingly, a big fan. She’s the homeroom teacher of a class of second year students from Ketsubutsu Academy. Her students walk up and introduce themselves to class 1A. The “lead” student from this group is Yo Shindo, a kid that looks so much like Izuku, I’m 70% sure his mother’s maiden name is either Midoriya or whatever-the-heck Inko Midoriya’s maiden name is. He acts really nice and shakes their hands, but he speaks almost exclusively in backhand compliments and micro-aggressions. Lots of “You guys have had a tough year, I’m shocked you’re hear” kinds of stuff. Bakugo is the only one who seems to pick up on this and tells him to screw off. After the interaction, most of the AU kids feel like their celebrities among hero course students, but a look Ms. Joke gives them makes me think that MIGHT not be the case.

 

Okay, either he's a cousin or Hisashi Midoriya
has some 'splaining to do.

The students are brought into a large auditorium where we meet Yokumiru Mera, a representative of the Hero Public Safety Commission, proctor for this exam and a dude that could really use a nap. About half his lines of dialogue are about how he isn’t getting enough sleep because of this damn test, which makes me feel for him. Mr. Mera begins the orientation. He explains that this year has one of the largest turn outs for a HPL exam, with 1540 applicants. This turns out to not be a good thing, as they’re greatly decreasing the number of students that will be able to pass the exam and get their HPL. Turns out, Stain’s attacks on pro-heroes coupled with the League of Villain attacks and the retirement of All might made the HPSC realize something they’d been avoiding. Namely, that there are too many licensed heroes and that Stain might have a point that that there are far to many glory seekers than can be allowed. So instead of the estimated 770 available passing slots in this exam of previous years, they’re narrowing it to 100. That’s roughly a 6% passing rate. Damn. This obviously freaks everyone out, but Mera moves on to explaining the rules of the first test.

 

It’s basically a game of dodge ball, with some modifications. The students are all given three targets to put somewhere on their body and six balls. The point of the exam is to knock out two other applicants by hitting all of their targets. The kid that gets the third target gets the point for that knock out, and the first hundred students to reach that goal move onto the next part of the test. Feels like they’re giving the kids a very small margin for error here, giving them just enough balls to pass the test if they try to take out two people all on their own, but thems the breaks I guess. The exam room hall opens up revealing a massive stadium with multiple different terrains. There’s a desert area, city scape, large lake and so on, all within the stadium. How. Do. They. Afford. These. Things!

 

Aizawa is watching his kids from above in the stadium seating with Miss Joke sitting nearby. She mentions that it’s pretty unusual for Aizawa to still have a full class at this point, as she’s well aware of her “friend’s” habit of dropping any student that he thinks can’t hack it. He shrugs and implies that he’s got a good crop. Miss Joke implies that there’s a secret that Aizawa kept from his students about the test.

 

So year two must spend a lot of time on jumping, huh?

On the field, Izuku is feverishly going over the data that he’d gained about the exam and begins to come to a scary conclusion. He encourages his classmates to stay together and fight as a group, most agree, but Bakugo and Kirishima go off on their own, as does Todoroki. Izuku and Miss Joke in tandem explain the thing Aizawa kept from the students. Namely, that a big boon in this test would be knowing what your opponent’s powers are, that classmates might not want to target each other, and that the group that has the most about their powers known are the UA high students, who’s Sports Festival and in this year’s case other activities, mean their abilities are pretty much common knowledge. Or as Miss Joke puts more succinctly, it’s tradition for the other schools to mob rush UA. Aizawa claims to have faith in his students and that they shouldn’t need him spelling things like that out.

 

At that moment, Miss Joke’s class and several other students, led by Izuku’s possible cousin Shindo, are mobbing the gathered UA students. They throw a quite frankly impossible number of balls at the assembled students, hoping to knock out the majority of UA’s hopefuls in one rush. Damn you, Shindo! But, thankfully, UA’s Class 1A has a lot of range and crowd control abilities, so they’re able to hold off the initial assault. So, it’s Izuku and most of 1A vs. Ketsubutusu academy, and Kirishima and Bakugo, and Todoroki off to face whatever else the exam can throw at them. What a fun way to start a test.  

 

This was a solid info dump episode. We got to see some of Izuku’s new fighting style and his new gear, and got quite a bit of lore about how the Provisional License Exam was held and how it will be held in the future. I like how Mera explained why the changes were being made, and the idea that the Exam is going to focus more on getting the best students out of it to be heroes instead of packing the streets with, quiet frankly, too many heroes to be effective. Hero work in Japan definitely has felt like a “too many cooks spoil the kitchen” situation to be comfortable. Although, just giving the kids six balls to play this game with seems a bit bonkers. I also really enjoyed Miss Joke and her dynamic with Aizawa. It’s kind of hilarious that this quiet, gloomy guy seems to just draw more extrovertive and loud heroes to him. Think Present Mic and Miss Joke are friends, or that they’re threatened by each other? Either way, their interactions are fun, both in this episode and in the ones to come. I also like seeing Izuku step up and try to lead his classmates a little. The little guy has some talent at rallying the troops that want to be rallied, and I think that those that follow his lead will be grateful for it. And the mob attack by the other students makes a hell of a lot of sense to me. UA’s got the best rep, its students are in the spotlight a lot in a normal year, obviously there’d be a fair amount of resentment in the non-UA students. Though, I wonder how long alliances will last once the spots start filling up… Oh, and to reiterate, Uraraka is not sure how she feels about Izuku, and that is annoying. Both because we as the audience are well aware that she IS attracted to him, and that this gal deserves a better arc than “does she want to hook up with her opposite-gender best friend or not?”. Just sayin’. The Provisional License Exam is just beginning and I can’t wait to see what happens next. Have a good night everybody. 

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