Viewer Log: My Hero Academia ep 98

 Izuku and co step up to the plate.

Last time on My Hero Academia , Team Bakugo entered the field. While their opponents put up a valiant effort, they made the miscalculation of assuming Bakugo would be a totally solo act. While Bakugo did do most of the heavy lifting, his team consisting of Sero, Sato and Jiro backed him up beautifully. They got a flawless victory in under five minutes. Izuku and his team are up next. They’re facing off against the class 1B team augmented by Shinzo. They’re in for a hell of a fight. Let’s get to it.

 

Go. Away. Monoma. No one likes you.

The match is Izuku Midoriya (One-For-All based super strength), Ochako Uraraka (make things float with a five-finger touch), Mina Ashido (shoots acid), and Minoru Mineta (rapidly grows super sticky balls from his head) vs. Neito Monoma (copy’s quirks with a touch for a limited time), Nirengeki Shoda (if he can strike a target he can make the point of contact experience a second, stronger impact), Reiko Yanagi (essentially telekinesis), and Yui Kodai (alter the size of non-living objects) with Hitoshi Shinzo (Brainwash people if they answer him). On with the show.

 

We open at the Tartarus high security prison where All For One (AFO) is being held. He sets off a motion sensor by fidgeting, making it clear they haven’t lessened security on him. The guards watching him are worried about what will happen if any off his followers attempt to free him and want the court system to get on with sentencing him. Seemingly sensing their conversation, he cordially apologizes for causing them trouble. He claims that the “memories” are causing his body to throb with pain. He apparently saw/is seeing the same vision that Izuku did the night before, and he states that he can hear his little brother’s voice.

 

At the actual Match, All Might gets a call from Gran Torino. His mentor wanted to talk to him about the vision that Izuku had. He’d remembered a conversation that he’d had with Nana, All Might’s predecessor, shortly after she inherited the power. She told him about the start of same dream that Izuku had had. Shadowy figures appearing before her in the dreamscape. The difference was that the original OFA wielder had said that “the time had not yet come,” and that’s the last she saw of it. All Might thanks him for the update and returns to the match.

 

Izuku leaps ahead of his team to scout for his team. He’s resolved to not get brainwashed, as his team would be seriously boned if they lost their only combat member.

 

At the same time, 1B has broken into two groups, Monoma, and Shinzo in one, and the other three in the other. Monoma seems to be trying to bond with over the fact that their powers were initially labeled as “not suitable” for hero work, but Shinzo seems to only be half listening. Monoma compliments him for brainwashing Izuku, and goes on about how guys like them need to embrace the “darker” side to be taken seriously as heroes.

 

The students watching note that Izuku’s team matchup is like Bakugo’s, but Sero and Jiro point out that they’re missing a scouting specialist, so they’ll have to move more cautiously.

 

Izuku travels out ahead and tries to lure 1B to him. He’s attacked by a flying barrel. He assumes at first Yanagi using her “poltergeist” quirk (it’s pretty much literally telekinesis but with a purple glow) but finds it’s actually Monoma with her power. He starts verbally abusing Izuku, laying out that his team’s plan is actually to go after his teammates as that would have been the strategy to beat Bakugo last time. His taunts and verbal jabs are attempts to get Izuku to react, but our green haired protagonist reasons that Monoma possibly copied Shinzo’s quirk too, so that’d be stupid. Izuku, just hit him with air bullets! Which he does try. Monoma dodges and launches debris at Izuku with poltergeist again.

 

Meanwhile, Uraraka, Mineta and Ashido are setting up a defensive perimeter. Using a long rope Mineta brought with, covered in his sticky balls, they set up a sort of alarm system. The rope starts shaking and debris comes at them. Ashido leaps out in front and melts in. We cut over to Shoda, who has 1A up on a targeting screen. We learn that Yanagi’s power has a weight limitation of an average person, so she’s not going to be dropping a building on anyone. They work around this by using Kodai’s power, which lets her manipulate the size of objects. She shrinks the objects down, allowing Yanagi to manipulate heavier objects than normal, and then releases her effect to return them to normal, to rain heavy debris on them. I should point out that making something smaller doesn’t really reduce it’s mass, it just compacts it, but we’re just going to move on. Uraraka leaps around, touching objects to make them lighter, but then Shoda uses his power to make the objects drop and hit twice as hard. They prepare for another assault.

 

Oh, no that's no good. 

Izuku is still fighting with Monoma. That dick starts bad mouthing Bakugo, trying to get Izuku to react by targeting his frenemy, and blaming Bakugo for the end of All Might. Something… pulses in Izuku. Suddenly, black energy highlighted in green erupt from Izuku’s hands. As All Might watches, he imagines hearing Nana saying “The time has not yet come,” and realizing that some 40 years later, it actually has. The energy pulses off Izuku, but he can’t seem to control it. The energy attacks Monoma, who dodges by riding on some nuts and bolts he’s manipulating telekinetically. Izuku’s pulled into the side of a building by his tentacles, crashing hard. Shinzo is told to go for it, but Izuku tells him to run as he can’t control his new power. The whips get even bigger, exploding out from Izuku and attacking everyone. And throwing Izuku around like he’s the end of a mace. All Might tells the teachers to stop the match.

 

An earnest desire to battle pulls Izuku out. ...
plus brainwashing.

Izuku tries to force the power to work for him, but the energy is raging around him. Uraraka leaps at him, grabs onto him and tells him to calm down. Uraraka has a flashback to her childhood and remembers how her parents always looked tired. She remembered the first time she saw a live hero brawl, she was more impressed by how her parents and the spectators reacted than the fight itself. The happy looks are what mattered to her, and what got her to want to be a hero. She remembers all the times Izuku leapt into danger and asked “who protects the heroes when they’re hurting most.” She holds onto him tight and asks Shinzo to use his power on Izuku to stop him. He lets us know that this rematch with Izuku was something he’d been looking forward to, and how badly he wanted to show Izuku how he improved. He takes off his mask and calls out to Izuku in his real voice “Midoriya, Stop playing around and fight me!” Izuku says “OKAY!” and the whips retract into his body.

 

Izuku is going to develop a thing about muscelly
men yelling at him. 

Izuku returns to the dreamscape, this time with more of his arms manifesting. A man appears before him, the fifth wielder of OFA. He yells at Izuku and tells him to start thinking more. He can’t use his power casually anymore. Izuku realizes that this is some kind of manifestation of his predecessors, not a ghost, not a memory, but somehow a bit of the old users is living within the quirk. 5^th’s time starts running out and he begins to fade. He tells Izuku that this new Quirk was his. He explains that each of the previous users added a bit of their own physical power as well as a bit of their own Quirks into the core that is One For All. For some reason, it’s beginning to grow and this is allowing Izuku to tap into his predecessors quirks. 5^th explains that because he was dead set on capturing Monoma, and that determination seemed to awaken the best quirk for the job, Blackwhip. He warns that because his power mixed with One For All, Izuku’s version of Blackwhip is going to be significantly stronger than 5^th’s. He warns Izuku that using OFA in anger will make the power react violently, so he has to keep his cool. He warns Izuku that he’ll start manifesting six more quirks as he keeps training. He tells Izuku that they’re with him, and that he’ll be the one to complete OFA.

 

Izuku to save the day.

In the waking world, Uraraka, concerned for her not-boyfriend boy friend, slaps him to wake him up. He does, finding the two of them floating. He’s worried he’ll hurt them, but she tells him Shinzo used Brainwashing to stop him. He’s concerned that he hurt her, but as he goes to cup her face and probably earn more romance points, that DICK Monoma shows up again and attacks. Izuku is shoved over and drops down a section. Uraraka tries to use her martial arts, but he dodges away with some poltergeist debris. He announces the fight isn’t over, and now all 1B are now attacking him. Thankfully, Ashido and Mineta (can’t believe I said that) arrive and it becomes an all-out brawl. Izuku remembering 5^th’s advice to control his heart, vows not to hurt anyone again. Shinzo goes to attack Uraraka with his scarf, but Izuku blocks him. The homeroom teachers and All Might arrive, but Aizawa says they’re going to see how this plays out. Neat, the match continues.

 

I’ll start by complementing the 1B students. Sure, it’s super convenient that Shoda’s targeting tech and damage enhancement ability, Kodai’s size manipulation, and Yanagi’s form of telekinesis work so well together, but the effect is impressive enough that I’m wiling to look passed it. Also, shout out for Shoda’s tech having a Saiyan style scouter. They’re powers combined were a good way to keep Uraraka and the others down while Izuku faced off against Monoma. That dick’s dick personality was great for poking at Izuku emotions and get him to react big enough to trigger his next stage of power. Oh, and that explosion of power was amazing. I think it’s telling that the first of Izuku’s enhanced power set he unlocked was a means of capturing people at a distance. The 5^th seems like an intense dude, I hope we’ll see him again sometime. This next brawl is going to be intense, me thinks. I also liked getting that little bit of insight into Uraraka’s mindset. She wants to be a big pro to help her parent’s financially, but also to bring joy to people. Good girl, Ochako Uraraka. Next time, the battle continues. Have a good night!

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