Bet you never thought a whale would be such a good fighter on land.
Last time on My Hero Academia, we
took a small break from the climactic Provisional License Exam to promote My Hero
Academia: Two Heroes. Basically, Izuku and his usual gaggle of teammates
(Bakugo, Uraraka, Todoroki, Iida and Tsu) were put into a simulation to see how
they’d handle stopping a criminal, played by All Might. Though things get
infinitely more complicated when they find the Villain was “killed.” They did
some “detective work” (ie, made massive leaps in logic), and determined that he
committed suicide to protect one of the civilians, played by Midnight, whom he
was involved with. She called the cops to try to get him arrested and change
his life, things went belly up, you know the story. They got zero points for
the exercise, though, as they didn’t tie up All Might, whom ran off as he’d
only been playing dead and escaped. The episode ended with All Might reading an
email from his former partner’s daughter, Melissa, inviting him to I Island for
an expo and to see her dad. All Might grabbed Izuku and they set off, thus segueing
into the movie. Shameless self-promotion?
Yes, but it was a fun ride. But now, let’s get back to the real action, our UA
students battling for their Provisional Hero License. (PHL) Let’s get to it, shall
we?
We open with a flashback to three
weeks ago, when the Public Safety Commission was redesigning the PHLE.
Basically, the changes to the test were done as a reaction to the retirement of
All Might. The higher ups in Law Enforcement and Hero work figured that losing
All Might was a big blow to the public image of Heroes, as he was famously
charismatic, where as Endeavor is… less so. They determined that while getting
a new All Might would be nice, that they’ll focus on honing young heroes to
work together seamlessly in chaotic situations. Their shifting hero training
from training individuals to training hero teams, it seems. Not a bad plan.
We then return to the last few
minutes of episode 57 where Gang Orca just busted in and his team are charging
towards Izuku and the relief station the students set up. Mera, watching from
the observation area, lets us know that Gang Orca is the tenth ranked hero
nationally, was part of Endeavor and Best Jeanists team during the Raid the
Hideout mission in Kamino ward, and is all around kind of terrifying. He also reveals
that the point system for this test is deductive. Students start with 100
points, and get points taken away by HUC and evaluators from the Public Safety
Commission. If a student drops below 50 points they are automatically cut from
the test. Mera hopes that the students have the patience to make smart
decisions here. Oh, and Aizawa points out that Gang Orca’s involvement would
make this test hard for actual pro heroes. Not good!
Just as Gang Orca’s goons start
rushing the relief station, Yo Shinto pushes passed Izuku, telling him and the
others to grab civilians and evacuate them. He then uses his vibration power to
shatter the ground, knocking the goons about. He gets to celebrate for about 2
seconds before Gang Orca rushes him and hits him with a hypersonic blast that
knocks him out. Gang Orca’s power is called Orcinus (which is the scientific
name for Orcas), and gives him all of the abilities of an Orca that he can use by
land or by sea. This translates to super human strength, endurance, supremely
fast swimming speed, and the aforementioned hypersonic blast he can release to
stun his targets. Neat. It also gives him a massive whale face… which is less
so, but you take the good with the bad. Orca tosses Shinto to the side and
starts walking toward Izuku but is stunned at the last moment by Todoroki’s ice
wave. Tokoyami, Ashido and Ojiro run up to help Izuku. Ojiro explaining their
part of Class 1A had been close by searching for civilians and they’d run ahead
to help evacuate the aid station.
Todoroki, you fool! Orca's hunt in arctic waters!
Yoarashi flies in to help, but he
and Todoroki lock eyes and start glaring at each other. The tension could be
cut with a knife, but the evaluators don’t seem to notice. Actually, they
compliment the strategy as they see it, the majority of heroes-in-training
prioritizing pulling out civilians, while they leave two guys who specialize in
big Area-of-Effect attacks to hold off the goons. In principle, it’s a good
idea… in execution… well, you’ll see. They both attack Gang Orca, only to find
that Yoarashi’s wind put out Todoroki’s flames, and his flames cause the air to
rise, blunting the force that hit Orca. They start yelling at each other for getting
in the way, which really pisses off Gang Orca and his crew. Both kids get hit
with a round from the goons Cement cannons, but are still up. Todoroki makes an
ice wall to defend them.
We get a quick flashback of
Yoarashi’s past. Apparently, he was originally a big fan of Endeavor. He’d
tried to get an Autograph from him, but was knocked aside, Endeavor telling him
he was in the way. He claims that the cold hate he saw in Endeavor’s eyes made
him mistrust the hero from then on. We jump forward a bit to when he met
Todoroki just before their entrance test, where he saw that same cold hate in
his eyes.
To which I must say… Focus, you numbskulls!
Todoroki tries to act fine, but his
metaphorical hatred for his father (visualized as a flame that literally turns
into his flaming hair, beard and mask) is growing hotter. They try to attack again
at once, and cancel their powers out, deflecting them to either side this time.
Todoroki’s fire hurdles toward a downed Shinto, but Izuku leaps in and pulls
the kid out of the way at the last moment. Way to go, Jade Rabbit! Er, I mean,
Deku. He yells, “Damn it, what are you two doing?” as he does so.
We get another flashback to Yoarashi’s
past. He talks about how he likes pretty much everything, even bugs, and dived
headlong into hero stuff when he figured out what their whole deal was. He couldn’t
understand Endeavor’s cold hate, but tried to not let it bother him. We jump
ahead to the practical test for the recommendation kids at UA. Todoroki and
Yoarashi were in the same group for their test, a 3km obstacle course race.
They run it fast, with Todoroki briefly pulling ahead with his ice slide, but
Yoarashi winning by a nose, spurred on by his desire to get to know Todoroki
and hopefully be friends with him. Weird priorities, but whatever. He tries to
congratulate Todoroki, but does so by bringing up his dad. Todoroki blows him
off and tells him “You’re in (his) way.” Should never push the Enji Todoroki
button around Shoto. It’s at this exact moment in the present that Todoroki
remembers Yoarashi, and is somewhat ashamed that he let his daddy issues block
this guy from his mind in its entirety. Before he can contemplate more, Gang
Orca rushes them, disabling Yoarashi with a hypersonic blast and choking
Todoroki before stun blasting him too. Both
young men are rightly pissed that they did this to themselves.
Back over with Izuku, Shinto gets
up and vibrates the ground, shattering it once again and knocking the goons
around some more. He explains that his power gave him a certain resistance to Gang
Orca’s attack, and that he’d been playing possum, hoping to get a shot in when
he was distracted. Obviously, he’s
pissed he didn’t get the chance to do so because of Yoarashi and Todoroki’s
tiff, but he keeps attacking.
Todoroki is pissed that he let this
situation happen. He can’t move, but is able to use his powers and hopes
Yoarashi is both also pissed, able to use his powers, and able to figure out
Todoroki’s plan with just visual cues. He creates a bunch of fire, and Yoarashi
generates a wind gust in a loop. In seconds, they have Gang Orca trapped in a
flaming vortex. Mentally, Gang Orca points out this tactic won’t make up for
their earlier screw ups, but is still impressive in its own right, and he
admires their persistence. Todoroki is also able to show off his increased versatility,
creating an ice wall on his right to protect him from cement shots. Apparently,
he’s still slowed when he switches or tries to use his powers simultaneously,
but that’s hardly an issue when you’re on the ground. While they hold Orca in
place, Izuku and some of the other students start attacking the goons. Tsu even
shows off that her froggy abilities have increased to the point where she can
camouflage herself. Neat.
In the box, Mera notes that they
only need to save three more people to complete the test. Woo!
They hold Gang Orca for a few minutes,
his men pointing out that he might be in trouble as his Orca skin is susceptible
to drying out, but he’s able to keep himself hydrated by dousing his skin in
bottled water… kay. He frees himself with another hypersonic blast, but Izuku lunges
at him, kicking the man-whale in his armored arm. And that’s when the buzzer
goes off, the test completed. Anticlimactic? A bit, but thems the breaks with
tests. They rarely end with a full climactic battle. Turns out the last civilians
were saved by the three stooges, Bakugo, Kaminari and Kirishima. Hooray.
So the Stooges kinda saved the day. Weird.
His sidekicks rejoin Gang Orca, apologizing
for not being as effective as they should be. They ask if Gang Orca’s restraints
slowed him down too much for him to be effective as well. He says no, the kids
just had a few solid strategies to slow him down. He thinks that if the test
had gone on, he’d have taken them all down. Which, given he’s #10 nationally,
is a fairly safe bet.
The kids gather at a large screen.
Mera explains about the point deduction system, and that they were being
evaluated how well they operated in a crisis scenario. The names will be put up
in alphabetical order. We cut to the credits as Izuku nervously looks for his
own name.
Spoiler, while not everyone passes,
Izuku Midoriya isn’t in that group. Hooray!
Overall, I loved this episode. The
fight with Gang Orca was reasonably well done, showing off a wide variety of powers
that were required to just slow the Strongman type hero down. I liked how they
revealed the origin behind Yoarashi’s grudge against Todoroki, and that it wasn’t
just hate transference from the hate-sink Enji Todoroki. Todoroki had been rude
and cold in the beginning, and that attitude came back to bite him in the ass
on this one. I also liked that while their powers canceled each other out when
they were fighting each other, they have great synergy when they work together.
It’s a good balance. Izuku didn’t have much to do in this one, as it was mostly
about the Todoroki v. Yoarashi grudge match, but I liked how he was the one
that kind of snapped them out of their funk and that he got the final hit on
Gang Orca. Sure, the #10 hero probably would have still mopped the floor with
him in a one-on-one fight, but seeing him dent the assumedly sturdy metal of
Orca’s restraints was impressive. Oh, and the background info about why and how
they were changing up the PHLE was neat. The idea that they’re working towards
having a smaller number of well trained, synergized heroes to be a stopgap until
another All Might hero (cough, Izuku, cough) can step up to fill the void is a
solid plan. Yeah, Endeavor is tough but he’s got the people skills of a
charging Rhino. I’d say the only thing I was disappointed by was that we didn’t
get to see more of the Stooges as they save the last of the HUC actors. Such
comedic potential glossed over. But what are you going to do? Next time, we’ll
see who passed and an important reveal. See you then, have a goodnight everybody!
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/43274173
Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero
No comments:
Post a Comment