Viewer Log: My Hero Academia ep 95

 Iida races forward. 

Last time on My Hero Academia, round 2’s battle intensified. Using the reality warping powers of Manga Fukidashi (he says words and sounds that manipulate the environment around him), Yaoyorozu was cut off from her team and forced into a brawl with the physically more powerful Kendo. She fought valiantly against Kendo’s huge hands but was at a stark disadvantage. She ultimately chose to sacrifice herself to lob a bang of provisions she created for her team and tried to take Kendo out with her by tangling them both in ropes. Aoyama was captured but using the Thermal vision goggles and anti-fungal spray that Yaoyorozu made, Tokoyami and Hagakure almost etched out a win, but Tokoyami was beaten by a lung fungus Komori released and Kendo was able to drag herself, Yaoyorozu and a damned Cannon and grabbed Hagakure in her huge hands. So its 1:1 on the 1A vs. 1B matches. Onto round 3. Let’s get to it.

 

Yayor-sad-u.

We open with Komori offering Tokoyami cough drops for his throat and advice to see Recovery Girl when he rejects it. Yaoyorozu is carried to Recovery Girl via the robot helpers, who have a pair of funny quotes. “Humans can’t get stronger without training? What inefficient beings.” “Why must we carry the injured? Rescue protocol needs reform.” Shinzo notes that the destruction of the training field was a lot more severe than in the first match. Aizawa warns him that this is just what hero training is like but does point out that they went a little overboard. Vlad King seems to agree and advises Kendo and Fukidashi to be more mindful of their surroundings and limit damage next time. Insurance premiums in a world of heroes must be through the roof already. The teachers agree to have their students take a bit of a break and to shift locations to another area following that match.

 

That dick Monoma is mean spiritedly mocking class 1A for the decisive victory his class took, which I mean, come on, bro, it can’t actually be fun to be such a colossal asshole, right? Kendo walks up and knocks him out again. Mineta says he’s a broken record that should be set on fire and it’s weird to find myself agreeing with the little purple bastard. The students mingle a little during their break. Uraraka notes that Izuku is taking a lot of notes and points out that he’s grown quite a bit too when he compliments everyone else’s growth. All Might comes up and gets Izuku’s attention. Mineta notes that Izuku spends a lot of time with All Might. Uraraka says that she thinks he’s getting a lot of extra help from All Might outside of class. Ashido good naturedly ribs her friend about having information on Izuku’s schedule due to her obvious to everyone except Izuku crush. Uraraka once again denies it and accidentally sends Ashido floating skyward when she does. She doesn’t mind too much though, as she starts spinning in the air and tells them to “Clock this breakdown.” It is fun to see a character constantly making lemonade from lemons.

 

Bakugo has a point...

All Might asks his protégé if he’s noticed anything strange since his vision last night. Izuku hasn’t. He’s planning on asking Gran Torino if he has any more knowledge on the subject. He warns Izuku to be careful in his match, just incase Shinzo somehow triggers a vision again like in the Sports Festival. Bakugo cuts in, pointing out to them that they’re being stupid with how obvious their secret meeting is. He asks if something happened, and Izuku spills the beans because he wants additional insight. Bakugo just tells him to master One For All and stop sucking, which is a very Bakugo thing to say. All Might muses about Izuku facing off against the one who triggered his visions again and asks the memory of his master for Guidance.

 

In the nurse office, Recovery girl looks in on Yaoyorozu. She’s recovering quickly. The break ends and the students prep for round three. Round three is Todoroki (Fire and Ice elemental), Ojiro (Big tail), Shoji (Tentacle arms he can grow additional sensory organs on) and Iida (superspeed) vs. Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu (Metal Shifter), Pony Tsunotori (Launchable horns), Sen Kaibara (can rotate any part of his body like a drill) and Juzo Honenuki (Softens any unliving material he touches).

 

It's a good group.

Izuku thinks that the team ended up extremely well balanced, as Todoroki has range, Ojiro and Iida have close combat skills and Shoji is a recon specialist. Minta thinks it’ll be an easy win given they have Todoroki, but Ashido is less confident. Tokoyami pulled Todoroki aside and says that he performed shamefully and wants Todoroki to make it up for him. Why? Because they both trained under the top two heroes, so they need to carry that legacy. Todoroki still, understandably, has a lot of baggage regarding his dad. He flashes back to training with Endeavor as a child where his father “trained” him. In a more psychotic rant than normal, Endeavor demanded that his young son stop acting weak, that he needed to be more like Toya. Toya, in case you forgot, is Shoto Todoroki’s eldest brother who died under here to for unrevealed circumstances. Endeavor praises his late son’s power, saying Toya had greater fire power than him, but was cursed with his mother’s weak constitution. He tells Todoroki to perfect a move that he’d been showing him. Iida pulls him out of his flashback and the team get ready for their fight. They note that Iida is extremely chipper right now, and he reveals it’s because his older brother Tensei is recovering nicely. In case you forgot, Tensei Iida was a pro hero codenamed Ingenium, but was attacked and severely wounded by the Hero Killer Stain during the sports festival. Iida says that he also gets having a hero legacy as a subtle hint to Todoroki that he knows what he’s going through. Subtle to the characters, anyway, who might not know what Todoroki is going through, not to us.

 

Tetsutetsu is annoyed with 1B’s situation for this match. Their team is combat focused without any scouts. Kind of a terrible place to be in when the other team has a recon expert like Shoji. Tetsutetsu starts smashing things to “level the playing field,” extremely ironic as he was also just whining about being stereotyped as a meathead brawler. Vlad, sighing, thinks that maybe he needs to just start shouting directly into Tetsutetsu’s face.

 

1A sees the rampaging from their position. Kaibara tells him to calm down as the other team has Todoroki, but Tetsutetsu isn’t listening. Honenuki is chill about it, which just annoys Kaibara further. Shoji deduces that Tetsutetsu is breaking things, and they decide to face 1B head on.

 

Meanwhile, we see a villain riding down the highway on a bunch of hand and feet-based rollers. He’s lead directly to Endeavor who makes the guy turn tail and run. He sees some kids and intends to grab a hostage, but Endeavor grabs him. He gets the villain to surrender. Endeavor gets complimented for leading the villain to the harbor. The kids thank Endeavor for what he did, despite being scared, and run off happily after thanking him. Endeavor’s sidekicks let him know another hero wants to team with him, to which Endeavor makes non-comital noises at. He’s much more focused on the fact he finally has Shoto’s contact information. … Bro… you pay for the phone, why did you need Fuyumi’s help to get it? He's been trying to get in contact with Shoto to tell him something important, but his youngest is ignoring his texts. He also remembers the training session where he told Shoto to stop pretending to be weak. He says he wants to teach Todoroki “that” technique, this time the right way, but his son is obviously ignoring him. His sidekicks, still watching, point out that Shoto is in class, implying that he might not be answering because of that. The other sidekick thinks the “SHOTO!” shouting is getting worse each day.

 

Ookie.

Shoto sneezes as they go for class 1B. That’s a Japanese superstition, if you sneeze, someone is gossiping about you. 1A split up and prepare. Tsunotori is yelling at Tetsutetsu for being an idiot, saying 1A won’t attack them if he’s making a racket like that, thinking it’s a trap. But Honenuki thinks that they will attack, and calls out their strategy, use Shoji to find them and then use Todoroki to ice blast them. Which he does, freezes Tetsutetsu in place. Iida and Ojiro are watching from a distance. Iida believes that with the ice as a coating over the ground, they should be able to work around Honenuki’s softening quirk, and he and Ojiro plan to take them all out in one go. He powers up a Recipro Burst and charges. Unfortunately, the ice turns to mush, as does most everything around them. Turns out, Honenuki has been training has allowed him to start effecting things other than the ground. Intermittent narrator Present Mic reveals that Honenuki was another of the students let into UA on recommendation, implying that he’s an impressively skilled student. Ojiro plans to fall back and try to counter later but gets stuck on a gooey pipe. Honenuki reveals he softened a bunch of random stuff around their area specifically to limit movement.

 

The students watching are impressed with Honenuki, as he either predicted the big ice attack well in advance or reacted super quickly.

 

Ojiro is facing off against Kaibara. Kaibara wears a sort of drill shaped finger coverings on his hands to make his spiraling punches have more oomph. He hits Ojiro’s tail and knocks him back. Iida tries to run to him but slips on a gooey pipe and sinks into softened ice. Honenuki lets him know the ground is softened too, and that he plans to leave Iida stuck in the muck since his power makes him so dangerous.

 

Izuku, watching, notes that 1B’s strategy of controlling the field effectively neutralizes their lack of scouts. Shinzo also points out that without ice, Todoroki is effectively working at half power, and that Dick Monoma thinks they’ve got another wash on their hands.

 

Todoroki notes that they’ve got him at a disadvantage by taking away his ice and dithers on whether he should leave Shoji on his own or not. The decision is taken from him as Tsunotori arrives and fires her horns at Shoji, knocking him back. She launches another two at Shoji to pin him, and then launches Tetsutetsu at them with another set. He tackles Todoroki. With his metal coating, he’s got a distinct advantage over Todoroki as he’s essentially heat and cold proof while shifted.

 

Kirishima is impressed his opposite number is doing what Aizawa told him to do after his match, force a one on one brawl, but Kaminari doubts he’s thinking that hard. He deduces that Honenuki is calling the shots.

 

Recipro Turbo looks so damn cool.

After getting a shot of all the fights in progress, Ojiro vs. Kaibara, Tsunotori vs. Shoji, and Todoroki vs. Tetsutetsu, we jump back to Iida and Honenuki. Honenuki is leaving Iida to be stuck in now solidified ice, his power lets him turn off his softening effect too, to help Tetsutetsu. He notes that Iida’s Recipro Burst has a time limit and points out that it’s kind of dumb to use that sort of technique early. Iida says that the time limit was from a long time ago. He breaks free of the ice, revealing that he’s improved from classic Recipro Burst to Recipro Turbo! He charges at Honenuki. As he does, he remembers seeing Tensei, who complimented Iida on getting his provisional license. He and mama Iida tell him of a way to improve his speed as a sort of “congrats.” He just has got to pull out the mufflers that grow from his calves. It hurts like hell, but his body regrows new mufflers with a higher capacity. Iida did just that, so now he can use his power continually at max speed for ten minutes. He announces that “For Ten minutes, nobody can stop me!” as he charges.

 

Okay, this is what I was more hoping for with the last match. 1A is on the defensive here, but it’s not so one sided that it feels like it’ll be a blow out if they lose. I liked the reveal that Honenuki is the one leading this team. He’s been a visually distinctive background character up to this point, he’s the student with exposed teeth in a somewhat rictus grin, but he hasn’t done much up until this point. Seeing how he seemed to work 1A into a corner single handedly was impressive as hell. It is also nice to see Iida’s growth. He was obviously sidelined for a while during the last arc, so it’s good to know he took the time off to improve. The bit where he breaks free of the ice is just a rockstar moment. Seeing Todoroki continue to process his relationship with his father is also interesting. The flashback was a nice touch to imply there’s a be-all-end-all fire skill that Todoroki is aware of but never got a handle on. And to further drive home that his brother’s death messed up Endeavor. Like, obviously he wasn’t “right” before, but vocally lamenting his son’s death and the wasted potential is even more so. Try to remember what he said about Toya having his and Shoto’s mother’s weak constitution. That’ll be important later. Shoji and Ojiro are… there, but obviously they don’t have such big emotional hurdles to get over like their two teammates, so there’s less to talk about. They’re in a tight spot, but things aren’t completely bleak now that Iida has unleashed the beast. I’m looking forward to this match’s conclusion. See you later. 

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