Viewer Log: My Hero Academia ep 96

 Iida's a silver rocket in this one. 

Last time on My Hero Academia, round started with a bang. It was the team of Shoto Todoroki (Fire and Ice elemental), Mashirao Ojiro (Big Tail), Tenya Iida (superspeed), and Mezo Shoji (tentacle arms that can grow sense organs) 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). Team 1A tried to attack aggressively, with Todoroki trying to freeze everything, but were caught off-guard by Honenuki’s softening the environment and the aggressive tactics of Tetsutetsu, Tsunotori and Kaibara. Iida was trapped in softened ground. Honenuki gloated just a little bit about having the powerful team of 1A on the defensive. Iida, realizing that this would be a pretty good situation to burst out his new skill, busted out his new upgraded Recipro Burst, Recipro Turbo. He claims that for the next ten minutes, he’s unstoppable. Let’s see how well this boast pans out, shall we?

 

High speed ice skating.

Iida rockets free of his ice prison thanks to his improved Recipro. It looks like a side effect of using the enhanced Recipro is that the pipes coming out of his muffler legs extend to an almost comical degree. He moves so fast that he admits that he can’t completely control it, but he proves to be damn near impossible to track and he hits like a freight train. After some stupidly beautifully animated attacks, Honenuki, realizing he’s screwed if he fights, softens the ground, and tries to escape. He swims through the ground, he admits that leaving Iida out to his own devices is a risk, but rationalizes that it’s a better play to try to take one of the other 1A students out first and then double up against Iida than struggle alone. Iida quickly deduces Honenuki’s plan.

 

Izuku with his trio of teammates are impressed with Iida’s speed increase. Well, he, Uraraka and Mineta are but Ashido points out they really should be focusing on Ojiro.

 

Ojiro is in a pitched fight with Kaibara. The 1B student can rotate any part of his body like a drill, so he’s laying on the damage to Ojiro and his big tail. Kaibara almost gets Ojiro, but Iida rushes in, grabs Kaibara, explains the situation and then rushes off again to capture Kaibara. The dude tries to rotate free of Iida, and when that doesn’t work, tries to attack Iida’s pride at interrupting a one-on-one fight. But Iida isn’t effected, he knows that this is how his brother would have acted so he’s at peace with his decision. So that’s one down, bit anti-climactic really.

 

Incineration time.

Tetsutetsu is brawling with Todoroki, using his steel fists to break through the ice that he keeps trying to throw up. Realizing that that isn’t working, he swaps to a fire attack, which while only slowing Tetsutetsu, forces Pony back, allowing Shoji to free himself and move. Tetsutetsu shows off that he’s pretty much immune to the heat as well, revealing that he trained in an oven to get him used to extreme heat. He gut punches Todoroki, making him remember his dad used to beat him to show off his flames. Oh, Tetsutetsu, this isn’t good for you. Todoroki raises up the heat to an absurd level, rapidly melting his ice, melting the steel around them, and shattering cameras. I feel like heat that intense would kill people pretty easily, but we’re going to ignore that. The heat is too much even for Tetsutetsu, but he is still able to keep moving, and he believes that he just needs to endure the heat long enough for it to be too much for Todoroki to keep outputting. He gets in close and starts kicking. He gives a speech about overcoming limits. That just pisses Todoroki off more, and he turns up the heat.

 

Rodeo time. Get it? Cuz her name is Pony.

Meanwhile Pony is trying to get distance, essentially skating on her flying horns for speed, when Shoji catches up to her. They face off, Pony launching horns Shoji, and Shoji using his many, many arms to catch them. She almost gets him with a behind the back attack, but he had an eye grown there to watch for that tactic and catches it. Ojiro then joins the fight, grabbing her horns, which keeps her from firing more. Before they can catch her, though, Honenuki arrives, liquifying the ground. He catches them in the mud and goes for Pony. But then Ojiro shows off his own training and uses his big ass tail to swirl the ground around and launch him and everyone else back. Honenuki is stunned when he hits a wall, but Shoji grabbed a wall just in time. Pony, though is able to launch a few more horns and stabs Ojiro’s tail. She uses all four to launch her and Ojiro back and into the cage. I guess methods don’t matter so long as he’s into their cage.

 

Todoroki is slowing down, but so is Tetsutetsu. He hears his father’s voice telling him to go beyond his limit. He focuses on a superheated punch that would take Tetsutetsu down, but at the last second Honenuki arrives, liquifies the ground and stops him. Good thing too, as Tetsutetsu drops back to human form. Todoroki gets hit by some rubble, knocking him down. Honenuki goes to harden the ground again, but Iida shoots around and kicks him in the head, shattering his helmet and probably giving him a concussion. He grabs Todoroki. Tetsutetsu says he won’t let him get away. Iida is clearly tempted to try to take out one or both of theses guys right now, but remembers Stain’s taunt and his brothers advice and elects to rescuing his teammate before fighting “villains.” Honenuki tries to hang onto consciousness, he knows their boned if he gets knocked out, so he quickly softens a tower and has Tetsutetsu punch it, knocking it over and hitting Iida. Iida was able to throw Todoroki clear, though. All four are unconscious, but it’s anyone’s game until they’re put into the jail. Iida tries to get up, but the weight is too much for him. He laments being too slow to escape.

 

Vlad keeps up with the biased commentary.

 

So many knock outs so little time.

Pony is still up, being chased by Shoji. She grabs Todoroki, and then uses two other horns to grab her teammates. She runs, knowing she’s definitely screwed if her teammates get captured or Todoroki wakes up. She knows that if she leaves her teammates behind, Shoji will capture them, giving his team the win overall, but if she doesn’t lose them, she’ll be too slow, and Shoji will grab her. Shoji goes for a grab, but she flies up out of his reach. She elects to staying up in the sky, planning to run out the clock on the exercises clock. The twenty minute time limit is hit and the match is declared a draw.

 

Everyone is kind of disappointed with the match, but Shishida does point out that evading and waiting for backup is a valid tactic. Round 3’s evaluations are put on hold while everyone recovers, and the round 4 contestants are told to get ready.

 

Far too many of these classes end in the infirmary.

Todoroki wakes up in the infirmary with Iida. Tetsutetsu, walking by, compliments Todoroki on his fire attack and says they should fight again soon. He also informs Todoroki about the draw. Iida is depressed at not being fast enough, and at not anticipating Honenuki’s tactics. Todoroki admits that he felt that he made the biggest mistake. He relies so much on that big ice attack that 1B was able to anticipate it and counter it with ease. Had he used fire, he probably could have taken them out in one attack. He takes the blame for their draw. Iida refuses to let him take the blame, as he wants to live up the Ingenium name and be a real hero. Honenuki, who’d been there the whole time behind a privacy curtain, admits to also needing to improve and hopes they’ll compete against him again. To which both agree. Recovery Girl sends them off.

 

That dick Monoma gloats about how the record is all tied up, and how soon class 1B will show its superiority. And I feel the need to point out again, this guy is a massive dick. He’s extremely confident in his class winning the next match. Why? Because while 1A has Bakugo in it, 1B has Tokage. Setsuna Tokage is one of the students that got in on a recommendation, like Todoroki and Yaoyorozu, and thus is implied to be extremely smart and powerful.

 

We hear that Bakugo’s team objecting to whatever his plan is for the round, but he’s extremely confident. He thinks to Deku to just watch him. The episode ends with match four getting told to start.

 

The next round, FYI, is between Katsuki Bakugo (Explosive hands), Kyoka Jiro (extendable earphone jack earlobes), Hanta Sero (Tape elbows), and Rikido Sato (super strength base on sugar intake) vs. Setsuna Tokage (can break her body into multiple, manipulatable pieces), Kojiro Bando (releases glue from his face), Togaru Kamakiri (can grow blades out of his body), and Yosetsu Awase (can weld things together with a touch). Should be an interesting match.

 

While the whole draw thing is kind of a letdown, I give this episode props for choosing an outcome that I wasn’t expecting when I first saw it. I think it did a good job showing off class 1B’s strengths, and the improvements that 1A has had since the last time most of them showed off. Honenuki has been a background character for most of the shows run, being incredibly noticeable with his skull like face, but it was cool to see how intelligent he was. The dude practically ran this match single handedly. Without Iida’s increased speed, 1B would probably have come out on top. I’m not even that resentful he was able to stop Iida as the scene was as impactful as the tower landing on Iida’s spine. Todoroki has really grown since his early appearances where showing off his fire power was entirely off the table in fights to being able to use it combatively. Without Honenuki he easily could have hurt Tetsutetsu. Ojiro and Shoji only got to show off a little, comparatively, but the strength of Ojiro’s tail was impressive, and Shoji’s speed at growing limbs has grown exponentially. So yeah, the ending was a bit of a letdown, but, again, the twist was at least interesting, so I won’t whine too much. Next, we’ll see Bakugo get to strut. Should be fun. 

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