Amajiki shows how a balanced diet can help you win fights.
Last time on My Hero Academia,
after a few days of investigating, the heroes tracked down Eri. Nighteye had a
lucky lead of seeing a Hassaikai member, whom I dubbed Mop-Top, buying a doll
and not having an obsessive knowledge about the doll, proving he’s not an adult
who likes a kid’s show. The heroes gathered and Izuku and Togeta resolved to
save the abused girl, Eri. The raid got screwed up almost immediately when an
enormous member of the Hassaikai, Katsukame, charged out and ended up in
wrestling match with Ryuku, the dragon hero. Izuku, Togeta and the rest of the
heroes rushed in to raid this metaphorical castle. Enough recap, let’s get to
it, shall we?
I kind of get his inferiority complex now, you know?
We open with a quick memory from
Amajiki. He remembers when he transferred into a new school in the third grade,
and how he was so painfully awkward and quite that he was sure no one would
want to be friends with him. That changed almost immediately when a chipper boy
named Mirio Togeta came up to him and the two bonded over a love of heroes.
Amajiki remembers thinking that Togeta was so warm and bright, even back then.
As he comes back into the moment, he sees Togeta leading the charge into the
Hassaikai base and wonders if he can shine as brightly as he does.
Ryuku and her crew are still
battling Katsukame, and the non-important heroes elect to stay out in the
courtyard and battle the grunts while Izuku, Togeta and the rest of the named
cast rush in to find the girl. Amajiki wonders if maybe the Shie Hassaikai were
tipped off to the raid, but the pros doubt it, as they think the Hassaikai
would have a more unified, cohesive counterattack if so. Nighteye sees an
alcove that he recognizes from viewing Mop-Top’s future. He quickly hits a
series of hidden buttons to open the secret passage. A trio of goons leap out
to try to stop them, but Centipeder and Bubble Girl disable them with little
trouble. They’ll hold them while the others continue onward.
They reach the bottom of the
stairs, but hit an immediate dead-end. Togeta puts his head through and sees that
the hall continues beyond the wall. It’s at this point we also learn that
Togeta’s costume is made of a fiber from his own hair, meaning that it passes
through objects with him much more easily than his gym clothes. Meaning that we
won’t have to risk seeing his butt at a dramatic moment. Upon hearing the scout
report from Togeta, Izuku and Kirishima rush forward and smash through the
wall.
We cut over to Overhaul’s
diminutive general manager Joi Irinaka aka Mimic. He takes an injection of a
power stimulating drug. You can tell because it uses the same syringe as the
blade guy from Kirishima’s episode. He slips out of his tiny costume and plague
mask, revealing he’s at least twice as tall outside of his costume as he was
within and then phases into the closest wall. The moment he’s inside, the walls,
floor and ceiling all began to churn and writhe, knocking the heroes about.
Amajiki notes that this might be Irinaka, as his power lets him slip into in
animate objects and manipulate them like they’re part of his own body. It
doesn’t seem likely to the pros, at first, because Mimic is supposed to only be
able to enter objects about the size of a refrigerator, but then they remember
the enhancement drugs. Eraser Head can’t turn off his power, though, as Mimic’s
main body isn’t it his line of sight.
This image is far scarier than the activities he
performs warrants.
We’re shown Overhaul and Kurono,
they have Eri with them and are making a break for it. Amajiki starts falling
into a depression spiral, “oh, we’ll never reach them, woe are we,” type stuff.
He’s broken out of it by Togeta telling him to not give up, and that so long as
the path forward remains, he can still reach it. He races ahead. Mimic isn’t
concerned with stopping him, though, as what can a single hero do? Famous
villainous overconfidence. To ensure that Togeta is alone, Mimic opens up a pit
beneath the heroes and drops them in lower. He keeps the cops on his level to
deal with.
They’re dropped into a room with
three members of the Shie Hassaikia’s Eight Bullets. One is a normal looking
dude with a simple mouth covering plague mask, another is wearing a scarecrow
mask, and the third is a bald fella in a medical mask. Fat Gum is ready to
fight, but Amajiki says he’ll battle them, as the pros should save their
strength for Overhaul. He remembers that Togeta once told him that he is only
so good because Amajiki believes in him, so he’s trusting in Togeta’s
confidence in him. One of the goons tries to do “something” but Eraser stops
him with his power. Amajiki quickly wraps the three up in his tentacle fingers,
slamming them around. He lists off their names and powers. The blonde in the
plague mask is Setsuno and his quirk is called Larceny. The guy in the
scarecrow mask is called Tabe and his quirk is Food. And the big guy in the
medical mask is Hojo, his quirk is Crystalize. He tosses them aside, gather’s their
weapons and crushes them in a crab claw. He tells the others he’ll handle
things, so they can go. Before leaving, Eraser stops Setsuno from using his
power again and gives Tabe a hard knock on the head. He tells Amajiki to handle
them fast and catch up. Amajiki tells Izuku to look after Togeta. Fat Gum
believes in Amajiki, claiming that his only weakness is his self-confidence, so
if he believes in himself, Fat Gum believes too.
Octopus tentacles, great for restraining enemies
and I'm told they're tasty.
Amajiki focus on making sure they
can’t get up for a while, slamming his tentacles repeatedly into the trio.
Setsuno does get up, though, and rushes him with a blade. Hojo covers his body
in crystalized armor. Amajiki tries to defend himself with a clam fist, but
Setsuno uses his Quirk to pull it out of his hand and into his. Larceny lets
him steal anything in his line of sight. He notes that because Amajiki can’t
kill them, he’s at a marked disadvantage. He goes on, giving Amajiki a speech
about how they’re all trash that Overhaul has lifted up, and even trash has
pride.
Amajiki remembers a class he had
back in the day. At the time, he couldn’t manifest more than a green shoot.
Togeta has a similar issue, being unable to pass more than his head through a
board. He doesn’t let it get him down, though, as he’ll get it next time or sometime
after. Amajiki is envious that his friend is so positive. Togeta repeats the
line Amajiki remembered earlier, about how he’s only so good because Amajiki
believes in him. He thinks that Amajiki has the better power, but he just needs
to get confidence in himself to see it. He tells Amajiki, and us, that he calls
Togeta “the sun” but if that’s true, then Amajiki is something more, a light
that can consume the sun. A Suneater. Now you know the origin of his name.
There are few powers cooler than the "I can mimic
lots of powers" type powers.
Back in the fight, Amajiki takes a
punch from Hojo, crushing the crystal fist in his hand. He manifested octopush
tentacles in his hand for strength and crab shell for protection, turning his
hand into a seafood gauntlet. Hojo manifests thicker crystals and throws him
off. Amajiki plans to use his full power, explaining that he’ll be using
multiple manifestations at once, picking and choosing the effects he wants.
Suneater’s ultimate move, Vast Hybrid: Chimera Kraken. Cool name. In execution,
he’s basically manifesting octopus tentacles covered in crab shell for
protection. He whips these armored tentacles around, and it looks like that’s
the ballgame, but then Tabe wakes up. The man in the scarecrow mask dives at
him, opens his jaws wide and takes a massive bite out of Amajiki’s tentacle.
Tabe’s Quirk, Food, gives him
powerful jaws, massive teeth, and a lightning-fast metabolism makes him the
perfect counter to Amajiki. Huh, I guess his digestive system must be 100%
efficient, or he’d be crapping his pants. Just saying. Amajiki realizes that
Eraser Head must have known about this, and it’s why he specifically targeted
Tabe to keep him out of the fight for as long as possible. Now that Tabe is up,
it’s three-on-one and they start overwhelming Amajiki. Hojo beats the crap out
of him, and Tabe and Setsuno keep him from using his powers effectively.
Amajiki manifests more tentacles with hyper concentrated octopus’ neurotoxin in
it to hopefully disable Tabe, but Setsuno steals the tentacles. Apparently, he
couldn’t take the larger tentacles, but now that he’s manifesting smaller ones,
Setsuno can take them.
For a group with a pretty kick ass name, one is
tangling outside, and 3 are unconscious. 4 to go.
They get Amajiki pinned up against
a wall under Hojo’s massive crystal covered arm. Amajiki points out that their
fight is kind of pointless as they’ll be arrested regardless of if they kill
him. The Eight Bullet members give him their annotated sob stories, Tabe was
“thrown away” by society, Setsuno’s lover left him with massive debts, and Hojo
had someone who he trusted try to sell his crystals only to beat the crap out
of him when his crystal was determined to be fake. They claim to have no lives,
anymore, beyond the life that Overhaul gave them, so they don’t care if they’re
arrested. Amajiki decides that if he can’t defeat the group, he’ll break their
teamwork. He manifests a chicken foot, grabs a bit of crystal with it and
throws it at Setsuno’s face. He has to see things for Larceny to work. Hojo
tries to take Amajiki out by slamming a crystal fist into him to take him out.
But, Amajiki is able to manifest crystal armor. He swallowed some of the crystals
when Hojo wasn’t looking. He supersizes his chicken foot, grabs all three Eight
Bullets members and slams them into a wall, knocking them out. He acknowledges
that they were more than teammates as the credits roll.
This was a solid fight episode. I
think that Amajiki’s power is really cool, and seeing how he can use it in
combat was interesting. Shows how the Japanese seafood diet is really useful. I
liked seeing the history of his relationship with Togeta and see why he seems
to idolize his friends. I’m a fan of seeing a two friends relationship that is
like the anti-Izuku/Bakugo relationship. One friend idolizes the other, and
rather than be a bully, the idol just tries to push his friend to do better.
The Eight Bullets as a concept is kinda cool. I read a translation of their
name a few years before this season came out, and I think it did have a better
name for the group. It called them the Eight Precepts of Death. But I could see
that getting to be a bit wordy. Probably why they shortened it to Bullets.
They’re a bit basic, I mean it’s a group of insanely loyal to a clearly abusive
boss, it’s not ground breaking, but insanely loyal goons make for kick ass
fights. Oh, and their backstories are incredibly basic. Debtor, social outcast,
and abuse victim, it’s a standard three pack of tragic backgrounds. Despite the
genericness of their backgrounds, I liked how Setsuno, Hojo and Tabe’s powers
complimented each other, with Setsuno disabling their opponent’s abilities and
gear while Hojo beats them and Tabe eating anything too big for Setsuno to
steal. They could probably overwhelm a less skilled opponent, but thankfully
Amajiki is DAMN good at hero work. Using manifest for Area-of-control effects
like when he whipped his tentacles around or more focused like with his
octo-crab fist to give him pseudo-superstrength were brilliant. Mimic using his
Quirk to break up the cops and the heroes was a fairly good way to trim the
pack down, and he’ll do so again next episode to force another hero/student
pair into a brawl with an Eight Bullets member. If you noted an inconsistency
involving the Hassaikai’s knowledge of the raid, that’ll be explained a bit
more later. Suffice to say, the Yakuza group is a bit more complicated than
everyone just doing what Overhaul says. But, we’ll get to that next time. Have
a good night, everybody.
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Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero
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