Viewer Log: My Hero Academia ep 111

 The origin of evil is usually pain of some kind or another.

Last time on My Hero Academia, the fighting at Daike City intensified. The Meta Liberation Army tried to capture Twice to use him to make clones of Re-Destro to protect him. To pacify him, Skeptic had HIS clone puppets break his arms and attempt to break Toga’s neck. The breaking of arms actually helped Twice, though, as this is the first real damage he’s suffered since his “my clones tried to kill me and now I can’t be sure if I’m the original” and proves to himself that he IS the real one. Psychosis cured, Twice starts cloning himself, multiplying himself two at a time to turn himself into an army. Twice’s army starts overwhelming the Meta Liberation Army, MLA, and allowed the League of Villains to start getting wins. Twice goes to save Giran, making clones of himself and allies to fight Re-Destro. Re-Destro easily dispatches most of the clones and goes to kill Giran and Twice. The Shigaraki clone survived and warned Twice to hold onto something, as he saw the real Shigaraki approaching the building and knowing himself, Shigaraki is about 5 seconds from disintegrating the building. He does, and it looks like Shigaraki and Re-Destro are about to throw down. Enough recap. Let’s get to it.

 

Not her best day.

We open with Twice being frustrated that his data on Toga is out of date. Teenagers, man, they grow like weeds. He’s frantically trying to update his mental database for Toga so he can make a bunch of clones of her and give her a blood transfusion from said clones. They are able to make a clone and prepare to do the transfusion, Twice swearing that he won’t let her die.

 

Meanwhile, Spinner is running to try to kill Trumpet. He questions why someone with a support type ability is at the frontline of the battle and wants to prove to Trumpet what a stupid idea that is. Trumpet isn’t concerned and whips out his support item, the Sevens Loud, a helmet that amplifies his voice and thus amplifies his amplification power. The MLA members get a whole lot tougher to beat. Trumpet mocks Spinner for his weak ability. For a refresher, Spinner’s Quirk is called Gecko, and it both makes him look like a lizard and gives him all the abilities of a Gecko, the main one being the ability to cling to surfaces. He tells Spinner that his weak power won’t be much use in their new world order and plans to kill him. The tower falls, distracting Trumpet and Spinner tries to attack him, but he gets attacked instead by the MLA. Spinner hits the ground and Trumpet reiterates that he thinks the lizard man is weak. Spinner admits that he is weak and that he’s a follower. He doesn’t have grand plans or goals, but he was motivated first by Stain and then by Shigaraki and he’s going to see the future Shigaraki envisions. He points out that the MLA lackeys are just like him and swears he’ll keep fighting.

 

Dude's job must be hell if his stress Hulks him out
this much.

At the tower, Giran and Twice survived the fall. Re-Destro also survived and has basically hulked out. Shigaraki mocks Re-Destro, saying that he clearly thought he could watch from his high tower while the grunts did the dirty work, and that arrogance lead to said tower’s destruction. He demands to know what Re-Destro is thinking and Re-Destro attacks, saying that he’s furious. He claims that he’ll stop Shigaraki once and for all, starting with the hand that killed all his men. It’s at this point that we learn his Quirk is called “Stress” and that bottling up emotions increases his power and when he uses that well of power he increases in size. Re-Destro asks Shigaraki if he honestly would build anything or if he’s just a hollow man, a destroyer for destructions sake as he slowly crushes Shigaraki’s hands. Shigaraki, looking at some of the hands he wore that had fallen off in the fight, remembers one as being “Hana’s” hands. This triggers a memory where we all learn that the hands he wears are either literally, or facsimiles of , the hands of his entire family. AFO brought him these as a way to ensure that Shigaraki’s anger and hate never decreases.

 

We flash farther back to Shigaraki back when he was Tenko Shimura. His sister Hana came out and pulled him around to try to cheer him up. The memories are confusing Shigaraki and making him twist round and round. He claims the feeling of impotent rage he felt are causing these memories that he purged to resurface again. Re-Destro starts crushing his hand further, but Shigaraki is able to start disintegrating him a little, causing Re-Destro to throw him aside to save his hands. Re-Destro is a little freaked out to think Shigaraki was able to start destroying him without getting all five finger engaged. Shigaraki bounces a few times before landing, seeing the hands he wears and putting faces to their owners. He sees his mother, and he starts frantically scratching himself. Re-Destro mentions that powers enhancing during times of stress isn’t unheard of, as his own minion Geten only gained the ability to control the temperature of ice after Re-Destro burned himself in front off him. Shigaraki lunges at him, Re-Destro only barely dodging.

 

We learn via Re-Destro’s analysis that Shigaraki’s battles with Gigantomachia have had results, as the villain believes Shigaraki to be significantly stronger and faster than he’d been during the Kamino Ward incident. He claims to be almost impressed as he draws on more power and is completely covered in the black markings that started around his eyes. Re-Destro hits him with an energy ball of stress (Just go with it), knocking him back. As Shigaraki flies back, he remembers his kindly grandparents. Skeptic calls Re-Destro and warns him that… Gigantomachia is here. He drops his phone and notices that his finger was damaged. He is shocked to realize that Shigaraki touched him and began to hurt him in a fraction of a second. Shigaraki says that Re-Destro is right and that he doesn’t care about the future, he cares only for destruction.

 

The birth of society's greatest threat, an abused
little boy.

We flashback to young Tenko. He’s being punished by his father for “playing hero.” It turns out, Kotaro, son of Nana Shimura, is vehemently against heroes and punishes his son whenever it comes out. He is put outside and forced to deal with his allergies until he “apologizes” to his father. Kotaro rationalizes his abuse to himself, his wife and in-laws as trying to make Tenko “understand” his place in society. He’s five years old and seemingly quirkless, so he’ll be a second class citizen, so he needs to learn, seems to be his thought. Shigaraki explained that his father was a young businessman and had been extremely successful, building a house for his family and in-laws. Later, we learn that Tenko is suffering from an allergy that they just can’t find the cause of, hence the scratching. He also got in trouble because he’d been playing hero with some other kids who had been left out at school. So yeah, Kotaro, being a dick to his son for literally just being a good kid. His mother tries to comfort him by saying Kotaro is just worried about him but Kotaro isn’t buying it. Shigaraki as an adult claims his family were masking his father’s rejection of him with kindness.

 

Later, Hana showed young Tenko a “secret.” She got into their dad’s study and found a picture of him as a child with Nana and she realizes that the hero was their paternal grandma. She did it to encourage Tenko and says that she’ll support him if he becomes a hero. Later, Tenko is playing ball with the family dog when his power triggers just a little for the first time, partially disintegrating the ball. He’s kept from investigating this by his father coming to yell at him. He’d figured out, somehow, that someone had been in his study and was throwing all the blame on Tenko. Hana obviously could stand up for him, but, like a lot of children, was too afraid to lose her golden child status by revealing she was the one that went into the study first. Kotaro beats a young Tenko, saying heroes abandon the people they love to save strangers and he won’t have his son emulating her. Tenko begs his family to do something, anything besides watching but they don’t.

 

Yeah, I get why he'd repress this...

Later, Kotaro is in his office and is reading the letter Nana gave him on the day she left and just before she was presumably killed by All For One. She hopes that his life will be full of happiness and laughter. Kotaro muses that it’d have been better if she’d never loved him. His wife and in-laws come in and finally stand up to him, saying that they won’t stand for him raising a hand to Tenko again. Outside, Tenko is sobbing and talking to the dog, and saying he hates this whole family. He unfortunately triggers his ability for the first time and kills the dog. Hana comes out and tries to talk to him, she tries to apologize, but then sees the bloody smear of their now dead dog and tries to run. Tenko, freaking out, reaches to her and tries to get her to help him… and gets all his fingers on her. She disintegrates in front of him. His hair turns gray from the shock and he barfs right there. Shigaraki in the future claims he thought that someone “else” was doing it, that a villain was attacking them but he’s not sure now. Tenko destroys the ground beneath them. His mother rushes to try to grab and comfort him but is disintegrated too, as are his grandparents. Tenko tries to apologize to his father and reaches out to him. Kotaro freaks out and swings a rake at him telling him to stop. At this point, Tenko knew what he was doing and leapt at his father to kill him. He does so, also destroying the house, and Shigaraki in the future mentions that this was the first time the itching stopped.

 

The origin of Tomura Shigaraki is just… so damn sad. We have Kotaro, a man that felt abandoned by his hero mother and let his feelings and memories toward her sour through his entire adult life. He takes these feelings that are both more complex than, but can really be boiled down to “Why did you leave me, Mommy?” and turns them on his own son. It’s like 30% trying to keep him from being a hero, 70% punishing the boy for daring to make him think about his mother. The abuse he poured on Tenko manifested as a psychosomatic itching that couldn’t be sated. His wife and in-laws were, to me, obviously tore between their desire to protect Tenko… and the unfortunately self-serving desire to not want to piss of Kotaro too much as he’s the breadwinner. So, like countless abused spouses across time, they tried to just get Tenko to endure it. They aren’t the worst players in this, obviously that’s still Kotaro, but they’re not entirely blameless for their fate. It’s incredibly sad to know that they might have finally been moved to action and try to stop Kotaro literally minutes before their own deaths. Tragic, just tragic. The bit where Tomura lunged at his father intending to kill him was just unsettling. His face as he did it is just so disturbingly drawn. So… now we have Shigaraki, having just unlocked the memories he’s been repressing for most of his life, unlock those memories, and is now incredibly pissed off and more than likely able to access his powers to a greater degree than ever before. This is about to suck for Re-Destro is what I’m saying. But more on that next time. Have a good night, everyone. 

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Viewer Log: My Hero Academia ep 110

Am I me? The question that haunts Twice. 

Last time on My Hero Academia, the League of Villains began their attack on Daike City. Well, actually, they came to Deka City and were immediately assaulted by the citizens. It’s revealed that 90% of the city’s population are members of the Meta Liberation Army and have been training for the big Liberation War. The League members are split up, with Himiko Toga ending up fighting one of the MLA’s leaders, Chitose Kizuki aka Curious. Curious, being a reporter and head of the MLA’s propaganda wing, wants to interview Toga for, you guessed it, propaganda. We learn Toga’s life story, that possibly due to her power, she had a fixation on blood from a young age and tried to ingest it, like trying to eat an injured bird she liked. This freaked her parents out and they brow beat her to not drink blood. She was fine until her last year of middle school when she snapped, attacked a student she liked and drank his blood. Curious wants to use Toga’s story of repression to fit with societal norms in their big book of “why societal norms are bad.” Toga, not wanting to die, tries to run off and ingests his last bit of blood she stole from Uraraka. Impossibly, Toga uses Uraraka’s anti-gravity power to cause everyone to fly up before releasing it and killing all of them in the fall. The other League members meet their matches, but the one we’ll focus on is Twice being attacked by multiple clone puppets of himself after he found Toga. This triggers, like, all his trauma, so this won’t be fun for Twice. Enough recap. Let’s get to it.

 

Yeah, this would mess with me.

We open with Twice, his mask removed, pinned to the ground by the clones that he didn’t make. He’s basically having a full mental breakdown as he trying to figure out if he’s the real him or if one of the clones are. Back at the tower, the clones are being directed by their maker, Skeptic, via the MLA’s computer network. Giran tries to get them to not hurt Twice, as everyone likes Twice, but Re-Destro says not to bother. Skeptic thanks Giran, as the client information they stole from him has made this whole thing easy. Skeptic tells him they’ll kill Toga and bring Twice into their group, with Giran thinking that Twice won’t bounce back from that. I haven’t focused in on it too much, but Twice and Toga seem to be the closest of all the League members to each other. This is due to Twice being nice despite being evil and psychotic, and Toga being kind to him. I never got an age inappropriate romance vibe from them, but more like big age difference friendship.

 

Back in the yard, Twice is really freaking out trying to figure out what’s going on. He’s seeing guys with his face holding Toga, preparing to break her neck. He’s frantically trying to figure out if he’s going to kill Toga, if he is Twice, or if he’s a copy. It’s some real existential crazy he’s dealing with.

 

It’s at this point where we get a brief history of Jin Bubaigawara aka Twice. We learn that when Jin was 17, he was in a vehicle accident. He hit a dude with his motorcycle. Jin did nothing wrong, the guy jumped in front of him, and he’d been doing the speed limit, but for some reason was blamed for the whole thing and this was the start of his criminal record. Turns out the guy he hit was connected to a company that worked closely with his job, and he was fired because of the incident. We also learn that Jin’s parents were killed in a villain attack while he was in middle school and that he had no connection to any other family members. Feeling lonely, he started to make clones of himself to talk to, which escalated into him making a small criminal empire of… himself. Things were fine for a while, until the inevitable “Clones argue who is the original” fight, where all of Jin’s clones killed each other and he got a scar directly down the center of his forehead.

 

Later, Jin meets with Giran, but he wears a bag on his head. Why? Because he believes that if he’s not wrapped up he’ll start splitting again. This is also the first instance of Twice contradicting himself, saying that he’ll split up without the bag but then immediately saying in another voice that no, he’s fine. He explains to Giran how that if his clones get a certain amount of damage they turn to mush, basically if they break a bone or something similar, and that has him concerned. Remember, he’s not sure if he’s a clone. Giran reveals that Jin’s various robberies with his clones were so prolific, he’s on the nations most wanted list. He also speculates that Jin could probably take over the country with his power and the right equipment. Giran tells him that he should find some people who he can trust and that might help him.

 

He is Legion.

Twice in the present frees himself and runs to try to save Toga, but the clones grab him again. Skeptic orders them to break his arms, which they do. He tells Twice to stop resisting and this’ll all be over. Skeptic, stupidly, just proved to Twice that he’s the real one. He admits that he’d been avoiding any real injuries since the “incident” and laughs at himself for being so stupid to not see how he could have proven he’s the real one years ago. He vows to save Toga and makes an army of clones of himself to fight them.

 

We take a quick break to explain how Twice’s power works. He can make copies of things with a touch. He can make two things at once this way. His copies are weaker than the original, with the first copy being only slightly weaker and the second substantially weaker. He also needs information if he’s going to make a good copy, Height, weight, eye color, etc. We’re shown a quick scene where he tries to copy the Quirk Destroying bullets but fails because he doesn’t have enough data. He wants apologizes, mentally, to Shigaraki for always messing up, for being a burden and says that he’ll make up for it now. Twice starts pushing himself, making clones of himself. He’s overcoming his limit, it seems, by making two clones that immediately start making two more clones, multiplication at nauseum. He calls this the “March of Grief. Sad Man’s Parade.”

 

Re-Destro is impressed that Twice has overcome his trauma so quickly. He mentions to Skeptic that his plan has failed, which seems to royally piss off Skeptic. He claims he’s only failed once in his entire life, so this is all actually going to plan. Kay, Mr. Crazy. Giran tells Re-Destro that without being limited by his psychosis anymore, Twice will at minimum even out the numbers on the battlefield. Re-Destro says quality over quantity, and we shift over to the fight between elementalists.

 

It's raining men,

Dabi’s fire blasts is opponent’s, Geten, ice attack. Dabi’s feeling pretty confident as it’s looking like Geten has used up most of the ice in the area and isn’t generating any more of his own. Mr. Compress is asking for help, Dabi says no and if he wants help he can ask them. The army of Twices has arrived and starts overwhelming the MLA members. They’re only stopped by Geten summoning more ice. Turns out he can make more ice, as he can control temperature as well as manipulate ice. He basically burst a water main to refuel his supply. Geten talks about the future they’re planning, that in their new world the strength of one’s power will determine their place in society, so a strong Quirk is essential. He also notes that Dabi seems to be hitting his limit, as his skin looks ready to fall off. The fire he's creating is so hot it’s burning him too. That is so odd, since usually elementalists are immune to their own power. Well, whatever. Mr. Compress notes that Geten is the only MLA member that’s really standing out and that he’s exactly who they want to throw at Gigantomachia. Dr. Garaki decides to meddle and wakes Gigantomachia early and sends him to help the master’s successor.

 

Meanwhile, Shigaraki and Spinner are running for the tower. They see the tower, but it’s completely covered in guards. They’re joined by a Twice Brigade, who offers to help take care of the small fry while Shigaraki goes for the tower. He wants a lot of the lesser members around to fight Gigantomachia, but he wants to kill the boss now. Trumpet arrives in his campaign van and gives his people a rousing speech that literally powers up his men. Turns out his Quirk increases the power of those who hear his voice. Spinner wonders what he can do to ensure that Shigaraki isn’t tired out even more before Gigantomachia arrives.

 

A Twice, meanwhile, made it to the inner tower and faces off against Re-Destro. Twice starts cloning himself and making copies of Shigaraki, Dabi and Compress. Re-Destro destroys a Twice and tells Twice that he’ll kill Giran if he makes anymore clones. They try to charge him, but Re-Destro makes his arm swell to gigantic size, a black mask also forms on his face as he uses this power, and destroys them all. A Twice survived long enough to make another Twice and he tries to free Giran. Twice apologizes for failing, but Giran apologizes for his info being leaked. Re-Destro goes to kill them both, but the Shigaraki double arrives and throws him off.

 

Masking up!

Re-Destro starts powering up and tells him the story of OG Destro’s life. His mother gave birth to him around when Quirks were first starting to appear, she actually coined the term, and tried to get rights for her son. This didn’t go well, she was killed, and things were chaotic for a while longer. Heroes became a thing, and they dug up her appeals and started using her term for meta abilities when they decided Quirks were good. As Re-Destro is talking, he’s taking giant armed swipes at Shigaraki. He says that reforms just restricted power use even more so. Destro wanted to “free” people to use their power as they see fit. He reveals that he’s Destro’s direct descendant and that’s why he’ll be the one to make the new world order. Shigaraki tells Twice that he’ll need a cushion to protect Giran. Why? When he was knocked outside, he saw the real Shigaraki approaching and says that he’d disintegrate the tower were he down there. OG Shigaraki does and seems miffed when Re-Destro survived the fall. The two bosses are about to face off. Neat.

 

It was interesting to get more on Twice’s backstory. The idea that one bad interaction with a single person led to a domino effect that lead to his life of crime and later extreme psychosis feels like it was ripped right from the Joker’s play book. Bad days, man, they can snowball. And it’s damn terrifying to think of how much more dangerous he is now that he can effortlessly clone himself. He’s a one man army that can also make more specialized units ala cloning his friends and allies. Hell, if he really wanted to it looks like he could swarm all of Japan in a couple of hours. Utterly terrifying. The fight between Dabi and Geten looks cool, but all I can really comment on again is the oddity that Dabi’s flames burn him too. Such an odd thing to happen to a fire elementalist. Am I foreshadowing? You bet I am. Getting a little more history on how Quirks changed the world of My Hero Academia was also neat. The idea that the term Quirk came from Destro’s mother and that the world governments only started using it as a means of pacifying the masses, that’s just too real world to not be crazy. I kind of get the MLA’s point about wanting to be free to use powers… but let’s be real, you let everyone, everywhere use their superpowers however, where ever they want, you get the destruction of society. It’d take just one Magneto to fry all electronics and magnetic strips in an area to see that that is a terrible idea. Next time, we get Shigaraki’s backstory. Be ready, it’s a gut punch. Have a good night!

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Viewer Log: My Hero Academia ep 109

 Toga's got an image problem that Curious wants to exploit.

Last time on My Hero Academia, Tomura Shigaraki’s training arc began. He and his crew met with Dr. Kyudai Garaki, the scientist helping All For One. He was ordered to help Shigaraki, but Shigaraki needs to prove himself. How? By defeating Gigantomachia, AFO’s extremely loyal monster bodyguard. Gigantomachia is extremely large and powerful, and Shigaraki spends the next two months ramming his head into the wall that is fighting Gigantomachia. Their fighting is interrupted by a call from their Black-Market contact Giran. Giran, as it turns out, had been kidnapped by Re-Destro. Re-Destro is the heir of the OG Destro and leader of the Meta Liberation Army. They want to destroy the hero status quo and rule the new world order. To do this, they’ve been prepping for a massive revolution and have the forces and resources to do it. Re-Destro gives Shigaraki one hour to reach his city and either fall in to the Meta Liberation Army or die. Shigaraki figures he can kill two birds with one stone by luring Gigantomachia to the city and have him wreck the place, hopefully weaking him enough for Shigaraki to beat. Enough recapping. Let’s get to it.

 

The battle is about to begin.

This episode opens with Izuku narrating the origin of the Meta Liberation Movement. Basically, when Quirks started to become widespread, the official stances most all governments went with is to restrict power usage. In essence, they forced the general populace to limit how and when they use their powers. Remember in the first episode how Kamui Woods charged the giant dude with “illegal use of powers?” This was the start of that. Almost immediately there was push back by those who felt they should be able to use their powers how and when they want, regardless of consequences and the biggest proponent of this was Chikara Yotsubashi aka Destro, the man who would destroy the present. He formed the original Meta Liberation Army and tried to overthrow the government, but was defeated and arrested. He wrote a book about his theories and call for revolution before committing suicide in prison. Izuku ends his narration by saying that Destro had no idea that he had an illegitimate son that would attempt to fulfill his ambition, which lead down the line to Re-Destro. We then see Re-Destro joining his crew and being informed they found Giran, the League of Villains contact. He orders Giran captured and tells them his plan to end the League.

 

We join the League of Villains as they arrive in Daike City. Spinner says that the place is completely unremarkable. Mr. Compress makes note of the time and says they have a little under 2 hours before Gigantomachia wakes up and will chase Shigaraki down to wreck shop. He hopes they can last that long. Pro Hero, and Meta Liberation Army member, Slidin’ Go arrives and tells the group he’s to be their guide. They enter the city and find that it’s basically deserted except for the heroes that work for the Liberation Army. We meet Koku Hanabata aka Trumpet and Chitose Kizuki aka Curious, two members of the Meta Liberation Army’s leading cabal. Koku gives a signal and the League of Villains is charged by dozens of Meta Liberation Army minions. They’re told that Giran is being kept by their Grand Master in the tower. Toga is attacked by Curious, who is a reporter and says she wants to hear all about Toga’s story about how she went from school girl to coldblooded killer.

 

In the tower, Giran tries to convince Re-Destro to let him go by pointing out the flaws in his plan. 1. Using an old man as a Damsel in Distress is dumb, and 2. It’s all over if Shigaraki brings in Nomu. Re-Destro counters by saying that there are 3 reasons that won’t happen. 1. No Nomu have been seen since Kamino Ward, 2. Hood released a lot of Gray Nomu that didn’t seem to have a lot of power, which leads into 3. That Dabi specifically said he came to get Hood’s body, confirming that the Black Nomu are special and hard to replace. They have to ration the monsters, as he puts it.

 

Symbolism

In the fight, Spinner notes that even the civilian members of the Meta Liberation Army seem strong and that’s no fair. Curious explains that their grunts train everyday to be the best and that’s part of why the League of Villains piss them off. They have no great cause they follow, came later and yet they’re the ones who are famous. She tries to bait to Toga to giving her an interview, but Toga isn’t interested. She throws her knife at one of Curious’ goons and tries to stab her, but is thrown off by Curious’ guards. Toga gets thrown into a nearby building, touches the ground and sets off an explosion. We learn Curious’ quirk is Landmine, that she can turn objects she touches into bombs. They’re non-lethal but she can make a lot of them. More Meta Liberation Army try to charge her, but she puts on her mask and throws her syringes around to strike them. Her plan is obvious, steal a lot of blood, disappear in the chaos and turn into one of the people she drained to get away. Unfortunately, Curious saw this outcome and charged up her goons to explode, saying their army has plenty of people that will die for the cause. Toga gets blasted out the back door and makes a run for it. We get the details about Toga’s pass, oldest daughter of the Toga family, disappeared after her middle school graduation and all of her friends and family seemed shocked that she went full psycho. There’s this weird flash of Toga with a mask on her face with a smile drawn it that cracks when we get a shot off what looks like Izuku fighting something. We get a flashback to Re-Destro advising Curious to go for the emotional side of things, not just dry facts. Toga gets up, despite a lot of bleeding wounds to her face and body. She says that the Meta Liberation Army is trying to make a new world and for that she loves them, but she thinks her life as it is right now is normal. Remember, Toga stabs the things she loves.

 

Creepy as hell.

We get a flashback to News reports from when Toga apparently snapped, attacking a classmate and draining his blood. Everyone thought it was crazy and that the look of bliss on her face when draining blood from the classmate was disturbing. We also learn that she’d drained a bird as a child, so attacking the classmate wasn’t a ‘new’ thing. Curious empathizes with her and says that society forced her to repress herself to fit into the world. Toga goes to stab her, but Curious has a support item that lets her block the attack and blast her face. She promises that Toga will be written in their new “holy” book and that she wants Toga’s last words. Toga make a run for it, and takes out an emergency vile of blood. She drinks it and turns into Ochako Uraraka. She’d been saving the last bit of blood she stole during the Provisional License exam because Izuku trusts her and Toga thought she could use that. Curious notes that she knows that Toga can only copy the appearance of the people who’s blood she drinks and assumes Toga wanted to look cute before she died. She goes for the finishing blow and Toga throws up her arm to stop it. She admits she wanted to be trusted like Izuku trusts Uraraka, to be like Uraraka and somehow she activates Uraraka’s anti-gravity quirk. She uses it on Curious and her goons, causing them all to fly into the air. Curious is shocked to realize that Toga’s power grew stronger in the face of death. Toga says she wants to live her life as she chooses and to be more like the people she loves, and with half of her face still looking like Uraraka’s, she releases anti-gravity, killing everyone by dropping them from several feet up. Damn girl. She passes out a minute later. Toga drags herself into a garden shed and passes out inside it.

 

Shigaraki admits he’s tired and that it’s causing him to see things that aren’t there. He sees an office with a picture of a small child and Nana Shigure (All Might’s master) smiling. He sees bits of people, moments like a girl saying she’s rooting for him. Shigaraki leaps at them, disintegrating the lot of them. He throws up after. Spinner, having seen the whole thing, notes that Shigaraki seems to have killed several people without touching them. Dabi, using Shigaraki’s attack as permission, says he’s going to start letting loose. He’s immediately attacked by an Ice hero. This guy, Geten, eggs Dabi into attacking him. Dabi incinerates Geten’s ice. Geten then reveals that he can control all ice and summons a bunch from a nearby convenience store. He claims to have been training for years to get his abilities to this level and that Dabi’s fire won’t stop him. Mr. Compress is freaking out a little, and trying to figure out where everyone is. He’s with Dabi, Toga ran off on her own, Shigaraki and Spinner are on their own, but he'd lost track of Twice.

 

Yeah, this would cause a panic attack in me too.

Twice, meanwhile, had followed Toga’s blood trail to where she’d passed out. He argues with himself as he tries to treat her wounds. He vows to kill them all. He’s being watched by Tomoyasu Chikazoku aka Skeptic via cameras. He brings up Twice’s past, the whole bit about him ‘liberating’ his powers to live his best life but how he was nearly killed by his clones and that caused him to have a psychological break. To prey on this, he used his Quirk, Anthropomorph, to turn inanimate objects into clones of Twice and sent them to attack him. He wants to make Twice join the Liberation Army as a means of protecting Re-Destro. He vows to make him join as the credits roll.

 

This episode was an interesting look into the backstory of Himiko Toga. What did we know about her up until now? Only woman member of the League of Villains, she dresses like a school girl despite not being in school, is a serial killer that drains the blood of her victims, and can shapeshift into them. This is the first look into her life pre-League of Villains and… yeah, Curious has a point. While thee news report we’re shown suggests that this was an “out of nowhere” thing where Toga attacked a classmate and drank his blood, we’re shown that she’d had urges to drink the blood of things she likes since she was a child. She’d been forced to repress that part of her and seem normal her whole life until she finally broke. So, in a weird way, the Meta Liberation Army is at least a little right that Toga is a victim of the current system. She was forced to conform and suffered for it. It was quite shocking to see her pull out a vial of Uraraka’s blood and then end up using her powers! It’s eventually revealed that Toga needs to have a strong desire be like or have a strong empathetic connection to her victims to use their power, but any kind of ability theft or copying is scary. The bit where half her face gets exposed so we see half Toga’s face smiling with a sociopathic grin and half Uraraka’s was just unsettling.  The set up for what Twice is going to have to deal with next time is also extremely unsettling. For those who don’t remember, he had the classic cloning issue of all of his clones claiming to be the original, they all get into a huge fight and, while he’s the only one left in the end, he can’t make himself believe he’s the original anymore. He only feels stable when he’s wearing his mask and has since never cloned himself again. So seeing a bunch of dudes with his face and having them tear his mask off is like the most screwed up thing you could do to him. It’ll be interesting to see where it goes. But we’ll talk about that tomorrow. Have a good night!

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Viewer Log: My Hero Academia ep 108

A VILLAIN Training arc. How unusual. 

Last time on My Hero Academia, Aizawa and Present Mic got a blast from the past. They were brought to Tartarus Prison to interview Kurogiri. Gran Torino and Tsukauchi had discovered something truly horrific. Kurogiri is revealed to be an intelligent Nomu, like Hood, but they’d discovered that this Nomu had been made using the corpse of a dead friend of theirs. Oboro Shirakumo had been the third of their amigos, but had been killed in an accident during their Work Study. Aizawa and Present Mic try to talk to their old friend, but whatever was done to him to make him Kurogiri seemed to lock down all of his memories. They do finally breakthrough for a second, and Shirakumo pushes his way to the forefront of his own mind. He is only able to tell them to look at the hospital before he reverts and Kurogiri shuts down. This information is passed to Hawks, who says that that puts all the pieces together. The final shot is of the League’s evil scientist, Dr. Kyudai Garaki, watching over Tomura Shigaraki going through what looks like an incredibly painful medical procedure. Enough recap. Let’s get to it.

 

We start this arc by watching Tomura Shigaraki spewing blood from his body as whatever the medical procedure he’s going through advances. The pain he’s in looks excruciating. This seems to cause him to flashback to Kurogiri telling him the League of Villains has been weakened since losing All For One. He says that AFO left “formidable power” for him and that Shigaraki just needs to say the word for him to retrieve it.

 

We then officially jump back two months to the start of October. The League of Villains: Tomura Shigaraki (disintegrates anything he touches with all five fingers), Twice (Clones things), Dabi (Fire elementalist), Mr. Compress (can shrink objects to the size of marbles and restore them), Spinner (looks like a lizard), and Himiko Toga (can shapeshift into someone by drinking their blood) are facing off against a creature called Gigantomachia. He’s a hulking monster with skin that looks like it’s made at least partially from stone and around his neck is a radio. This creature was, fun fact, also the thing that scared the crap out of Ashido and Kirishima before they went to UA. Shigaraki claims he’s not impressed by this “formidable power,” this pisses of Gigantomachia and he seems creates whirlwinds with his movements. He’s super depressed at the thought AFO chose such a weakling to be his successor. Dr. Garaki contacts Shigaraki over the radio and gives him the info on Gigantomachia. He’s AFO’s biggest fan and former bodyguard. His giant body allowed him to take on multiple quirks without extensive Nomu modifications. In the final years before he was captured, AFO chose to hid Gigantomachia as part of his contingency plans to destroy All Might and the world of heroes. Gigantomachia charges and Dabi tries to incinerate it. This has no effect on the creature, but Garaki plays a recording of AFO’s voice to calm him down. Shigaraki takes off his glove mask and says Gigantomachia is more trouble than he’s worth.

Nothing good comes from people sized test tubes.

 

Garaki uses the black sludge barfing teleportation quirk that AFO used as his emergency escape for them in Kamino ward to bring the group to his lab. There are multiple containers around them where Nomu are being created, but Dabi notes they seem different than the ones from before. Garaki says they are, revealing them to be “High End” Nomu’s like Hood. Garaki introduces himself and he informs them that he’s only been giving the League of Villains the dregs of his work thus far. He made a deal with AFO to give Shigaraki aid but isn’t willing to let him have the good stuff like the High End Nomu until he proves himself.  Shigaraki remembers someone telling him to “stop it,” and he reveals that he doesn’t remember much from his past. He flashes back to when he met All For One, when he was still Tenko Shimura, and he adopted the boy. The villain that showed the boy kindness when the heroes failed him. Shigaraki is taken to his new home, introduced to Garaki and presented with his first gift… the severed hands of all his family that AFO reveals he killed! It’s the thought that counts? Shigaraki claims he doesn’t remember the whole thing but is getting bits and pieces now. AFO promises to give purpose to the frustration he felt. Shigaraki reveals he feels sick while wearing his hands but they also comfort him. He wants to destroy the world to relieve the disgust he feels. His speech gets Garaki on board, but he wants Shigaraki to prove his words with action. Toga asks if he’s going to destroy the things she likes, but Shigaraki says he’ll spare things his allies like. Garaki says that he’ll help Shigaraki, but he needs to prove he’s worthy by defeating Gigantomachia. Dabi says he’s not going to help, as he wants to court an ally (Hawks) and focus on that. Garaki gives them a new device to communicate with him, and then uses a small Nomu to teleport them back via ooze.

 

Shigaraki really thinks he can take this thing out...

They find Gigantomachia waiting and Shigaraki asks if he’s ready to submit to his future king. We jump to December where Shigaraki is still battling Gigantomachia and trying to get it to submit. His group try take him out by distracting him with a clone but it doesn’t stop. Toga and Spinner sum up the whole situation to us, that they’ve been fighting for months to get it under control with no progress, Gigantomachia rages for about 2 days straight before sleeping for three hours and then beginning anew. And, the creature can track Shigaraki wherever he goes, so he only gets 3 hours to sleep. The other villains swap in and out to give him backup since Gigantomachia doesn’t seem to care or notice about them. As they walk to rejoin the group, Spinner asks why Toga is still with the League, as she claims she was inspired by Stain but his influence is pretty much non-existent in the League at this point. Spinner, you’ll recall, thinks of himself as Stain’s great disciple. Toga says she’s there for “love” her love of Stain, and Izuku, and Uraraka, and that she’s overjoyed to “be” all these wonderful people. Spinner says she’s a free spirit as he puts his mask back on.

 

The destruction these two will wrought is impressive.

They find the group and, weirdly, Shigaraki is optimistic about finally beating Gigantomachia. Twice gets a call from Giran, their black-market contact. A dude with a distorted voice, noticeably not Giran, answers and tells them to watch the news. They hear about severed fingers being left at the sites of their big fights. It’s revealed their talking to Re-Destro, the leader of the Meta Liberation Army, and that the fingers being left are Giran’s. He reveals that they have Giran. He gives the League their party line, that the Meta Liberation Army is all about destroying the current order to make a new world order. Re-Destro reveals that his group has been prepping for their big revolution for years and that they’re currently watching the League of Villains via satellite. He tells Shigaraki that the leader of their Liberation has to be Destro’s successor, him, and that the League has grown too popular for that to happen. He gives them Deka City in the hour to free Giran, and then decide if he’ll join them or be captured. Twice is all for saving Giran, as he’s the one that brought Twice to the League. The other Villains are less interested, but Twice won’t drop it. Shigaraki takes off Twice’s mask to shut him up. They have two hours before Gigantomachia, and that Dabi is nearby. Shigaraki has a plan, to lure Gigantomachia to the city and have him destroy it for them, weakening Gigantomachia in the process and allowing Shigaraki to defeat him. The villains prepare to head out.

 

Training arc are fun, regardless if you’re following heroes or villains. We’re getting a little background on Tomura Shigaraki here and the picture is bleak even in this early stage. What do we know for sure? His family is all dead, his disintegration power killed them and reduced them all to severed hands. I know the whole story at this point, and I can tell you it only gets more depressing. We’ll get more of it as his arc goes on. Gigantomachia is an excellent trainer for Shigaraki, as the creature is big, powerful, and won’t sit still long enough to be disintegrated. That plus his devotion to OFA means that he’s coming at Shigaraki full force. Dr. Garaki is an interesting villain to add to the mix. Yes, I’m using his real name and not the alias. Why? … because I forgot he used an alias for a while. My bad. Anyway, he’s an interesting addition to the story as a sadistic monster that is willing to work on literally anyone in order to perfect his Nomu. And I’m not being metaphorical here. Remember, back during the Stain fight, where I mentioned that author Horikoshi revealed that the Nomu that grabbed Izuku at the end and tried to fly off with him used to be one of Bakugo’s henchmen when they were kids? That boy was named Tsubasa and he was Garaki’s grandson. Yeah. This coupled with Garaki being the doctor that told young Izuku that he’d never get a Quirk just opens up so many possible fan theories. And the introduction of Dr. Doofenshmirtz… I mean, Re-Destro and his group is a great challenge for Shigaraki to overcome. I won’t give too much away here, but they’ve been prepping to do the League of Villains “destroy the status quo” plan since before Shigaraki was born. So they’re VERY prepared. … no, I’m not the first person to point out that Re-Destro looks like a buff Dr. Doofenshmirtz from Phineas and Ferb. It’s just a very funny comparison. So yeah, a solid set up to the arc going forward. Next time, the raid on the city begins. Have a good night. 

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Villain Profile: MODOK

 Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing, and Comedy.

I had a long day, so let’s talk about something incredibly silly. The Mental Organism Designed Only for Killing, MODOK and his history. The grotesque floating head rides the line between being grotesque and terrifying, to being just too damn silly to be taken seriously. Sometimes he’s a homicidal maniac that’s barely able to contain himself. Other times, he’s the butt of every joke. But, who is the man behind the giant floating head? Let’s investigate it.

 

Yeah, he had no chance of being good.

MODOK began life as George Tarleton. George was a technician in the Advanced Idea Mechanics, aka AIM. AIM is a group of scientists and engineers that outfit the Marvel universe’s various evil organizations with weapons, vehicles and other tech. His father, Alvin Tarleton, founded the group in the main Marvel continuity. While not being the most stellar beekeeper in the hive, yes that’s a joke about their silly yellow hazmat suits, George was the one that finally cracked the Cosmic Cube (aka the Tesseract) that could grant the wielder phenomenal cosmic power. In order to better understand and optimize the Tesseract, George was selected to undergo a process to transform him into the ultimate super intelligence. He was put through a mutagenic prosses that basically turned him into a floating head with tiny arms and legs. The process massively increased his intellect and granted him psychic powers, so there were a few upsides. He was originally designated as the Mental Organism Designed only for Computing, MODOC with a C, upon his completion. MODOC spent some time studying the Tesseract and making improvements on it and its containment matrix, before deciding a being of his superior intellect really should be the one running things around here, killed his creators and put himself in charge of AIM, changing the C to K in his name after slaughtering them all.

 

As AIM is in the black market arms business, albeit the crazy, SciFi branch of it, he is mostly a mercenary villain. I use this term for bad guys that don’t have a specific hero that they fight against regularly, the Green Goblins or Red Skulls of comics, and instead fights any hero that they cross paths with. He’s gone up against the biggest names in Marvel, though, like Captain America, the Hulk, and Iron Man. He’ll also cross paths with, and get on the shit list of, other villains. MODOK has a habit of making big promises and reneging on them, or cheating his customers out of money for various reasons. He has had at least one major beef with Dr. Doom himself, when the King of Latveria was interested in getting his iron gloved hands on the Cosmic Cube. But, as far as I’m aware, there’s no one hero that he has a particular beef with. He hates them all equally as inferior intellects to himself. Oh yeah, he’s always going on and on about how damn smart he is and how all other minds pale in comparison to him. He has a love/hate relationship with AIM, in that he loves using the group for their resources, tech and disposable minions, but hates them for failing him repeatedly. The AIM scientists also have love/hate relationship with MODOK, as he’s a fantastic computer when they can make him work right, and a homicidal maniac with no regard for their lives when they can’t. AIM has killed him twice and used his mostly brain-dead body for projects before reviving him on multiple occasions. Basically, if there’s an evil group that needs a lot of complex math done, MODOK is usually on their speed dial. The current MODOK is in fact a clone of the original that dubbed itself MODOK superior upon its activation.

 

This was funnier than people gave
it credit for.

As George Tarleton, he was just an above average scientist and engineer. Sure, he could work on a super Sci-Fi level, but he was no Tony Stark. After being horribly mutated, though, he gained real power. At the cost of significant atrophy to his human body, MODOK gained the world’s largest brain, along with several psychic powers. MODOK’s ability to understand patterns, computation, and gather data gives him a mind that can predict strategies and tactics so well it boarders on precognition. He wears a headband that greatly increases his psychic powers, allowing him to fire telepathic blasts, shoot a deadly beam of energy and generate force fields to protect himself from anything up to a minor nuclear blast. His atrophied body and enormous skull require him to wear an exosuit and remain in his flying “Doomsday Chair” to get around. The Chair can hover and is equipped with a variety of weapons that MODOK can deploy with a mental command. Most adaptations I’ve seen of him have him favor buzzsaws that can extend from the back. When he’s in good with AIM, he also has access to their moderate sized army, intelligence network, and technology to use as he sees fit.  

 

MODOK is a moderately popular Marvel villain. He has appeared in a number of TV shows and most recently was one of the antagonists of Ant-Man in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Like I stated in the opening paragraph, his depictions range from the extremely threatening to down right stupid.

 

MODOK was one of several recurring villains in Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. This version is in charge of AIM, or at least of the various cells of the organization. He’s behind the technology of several villain groups, but most often allied with HYDRA. It was him and his team that transformed Simon Williams into the ionic energy being known as Wonder Man. Tony Stark had bought out his company and, while enraged, he’d sought out his brother Eric for help. Eric, aka the Grim Reaper, took him to MODOK. Brother of the year right there. It’s around this point that we learn that AIM is researching the Cosmic Cube for HYDRA. Well, sort of. They’re running the project, but no one believes it'll work and MODOK admits that it’s just a ploy to embezzle funds from HYDRA. That is… until they think it might work. MODOK tries to give the money they’d taken from HYDRA back, saying the project was a failure, but HYDRA doesn’t buy that. Everything comes to a head in “Hail, Hydra!” where AIM and HYDRA start an all out gang war in the middle of New York. AIM is rushing to finish the Cosmic Cube and HYDRA is rushing to steal it. Both groups are ultimately defeated, and the Cube deemed a failure as it didn’t grant villain Wolfgang von Strucker’s wish to conquer the world… but it’s implied that Cap’s touching it at the same time caused the Cube to burn out all it’s energy reviving Bucky Barnes. That’s the last we see of MODOK in the main light but he’s a background character in several episodes. This MODOK actually still goes by MODOC, but the C here stands for Conquest.

 

MODOK had a short-lived Hulu series named after him. This version of MODOK, played by Patton Oswalt, has a family and is trying to balance running AIM after a takeover by another evil corporation, Grumble, and being a dad/husband. His family consists of his wife Jodie, and children Melissa (looks like MODOK but in pink) and Lou (human but with a big head.) The series began with MODOK losing control of AIM to Grumble in an attempt to keep the group from going bankrupt, and with Jodie divorcing MODOK for not being a good spouse/parent. The majority of the shows plots revolve around either MODOK trying to get AIM back, or Jodie back and occasionally both at once. It never works out for him. I thought it was funny, but I guess it didn’t jive with general audiences since it only got the one season. But still, I’d say check it out for Gary alone. Gary is an AIM scientist whom is distinctive because ins the first episode, MODOK blew his arm off in a tantrum, so he’s the one armed AIM guy. He’s extremely chipper despite his severe injury and wants nothing more than to be MODOK’s BFF.

 

Of all the evil floating heads, I want
this one dead the most.

MODOK mad his big screen debut in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. This version is in fact Darren Cross from Ant-Man. Turns out, after Scott Lang shrunk himself down to slip through the atoms and sabotage his Yellowjacket suit, he shrunk down into the Quantum realm. There, he was discovered, deformed, by Kang the Conqueror. Kang outfitted Darren with his armor, hover chair, and weapons, dubbing him MODOK. He serves as Kang’s main attack dog for the movie. It’s revealed that he was the one that picked up Cassie Lang’s quantum realm probe and used it to track her and family down and drag them all into the Quantum Realm. He has an intense hatred for Scott Lang and is hell bent on killing him for most of the film. He’s also routinely beaten by Kang, who clearly sees his usefulness as a minion but could care less about his personality. Basically every character that meets him has the same reaction. They see his face, “Darren? What happened!” and yeah, he’s a joke for most of the movie too.

 

Oh, and he’s one of the newest cards in Marvel Snap. Play him and he’ll destroy your whole hand. It’s a particularly useful combination with guys like Morbius, who gets increased power with discards, and Apocalypse, who returns to your hand but with more power. What? I like Marvel Snap.

 

MODOK is one of the weirdest concepts for villain in Marvel history, and that’s saying something. An evil psychotic floating head with the mind of a supercomputer but the general personality of a man. He’s visually quite iconic, with his head that size of a truck, little arms and legs and floating gold body. And he’s just so… inconsistent with how he’s presented. About half the shows I’ve seen him in have him as a true threat, a being of incalculable power and one that is more than willing to slaughter thousands to get his goals. And the other half he’s an idiot. Like… legitimately stupid. He can make mechanical marvels, technology far beyond what most humans could dream, but falls for a lot of really simple reverse psychology tactics when they’re used against him. Sure, those are usually in comedies like MODOK¸ but few villains could fit into a comedy mold as easily as MODOK does. Having psychic powers would be neat, but I can’t say that its worth it in MODOK’s case. Being turned into a head to get a super brain is just… lame. Folks that are complaining that the Quantumania version is somehow uniquely bad for him being mostly the butt of jokes and occasionally being threaten really need to watch more Marvel. The dude has been far more comedic and stupid than he was the altered form of Darren Cross, all I’m saying. Have a good night!

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Viewer Log: My Hero Academia ep 107

 The dead have risen.

We’re going to do a few more episodes of My Hero Academia before hitting up Quantumania.

 

Last time on My Hero Academia, the past came back to attack the Todorokis. A villain from Endeavor’s past, the self-styled Ending, was released from prison and immediately set about a plan to get Endeavor to kill him. He’s got an obsession with being destroyed by Endeavor’s burning hatred or something. He kidnaps Natsuo Todoroki as part of this plan and took Trigger, a Quirk enhancing drug, to empower himself enough (he hopes) to force Endeavor to kill him. With Izuku, Shoto and Bakugo’s help, Natsuo is freed and Ending captured without killing him. Endeavor, knowing that Natsuo has (quiet frankly) legitimate issues with him despite this rescue, resolved to start his plan to atone for his sins. Namely, he’s building a house for his surviving children and wife to live in, away from him. He’s reached the point where he can admit that the only way he can truly help his family is by staying away to let them heal without him. Way to have some growth, Enji. Enough recap. Let’s get to it.

 

Shake those hips Iida.

         We open with Izuku and co returning to school after their winter break and Work Study with Endeavor ended. They only have three months left of the school year and are gearing up for their finals. Iida and Yaoyorozu, as class reps, greet everyone and let them know they’re headed to Ground Alpha to go over what they’ve learned. And that was before Aizawa even showed up. The students head out to the training ground while Aizawa is called to the staff room for some reason.

 

As the gals suit up, the others compliment Uraraka’s upgraded costume. They help her get some of the extra gear on and discover that she’s been carrying the All Might ornament that she’d gotten from Izuku’s Secret Santa present as a good luck charm. Ashido is extremely excited by this seeming confirmation of her ship, but Uraraka insists that it’s not like that and that she’s just keeping the ornament “safe” for now. Denial, thy name is Ochako Uraraka.

 

With the guys, Kaminari and the others are impressed upon learning that Izuku has gotten control of his new Blackwhip power. He says that he can only control it a little but it’s a strong power and he’s proud of it. This pisses off Bakugo… for some reason, and he hurls one of his explosion things from his mask at Izuku and tells him to shut it. This kid really needs anger management training.

 

They head out to the training ground, Izuku still out of it with the mask bit stuck in hiss head and are met by All Might. The former hero makes a pun about being the “symbol of sweets” as he makes them cotton candy,  but no one gets sit. They ask where Aizawa is and he tells them that Aizawa was called away on an urgent matter.

 

Bleak moments.

Aizawa and Present Mic, meanwhile, are racing in Mic’s car to Tartarus Prison. Both are looking extremely agitated by whatever news they got. Aizawa mentions that “he” wouldn’t have acted like he did at the USJ if “he” is who they think he is. Mic is in denial, saying that police got whatever information about this guy wrong.  They arrive at Tartarus and are brought to the lower level. Gran Torino and Detective Tsukauchi give them a re-briefing on Nomu. That they’re people that have been altered so their bodies can handle multiple quirks. The process leaves them as puppets, braindead in just about every sense of the word, only able to act on the orders of All For One and his allies. That’s what they thought, anyway. They’re brought in to see Kurogiri. They can get him to talk about trivial stuff, but if they bring up anything important about the League of Villains, Kurogiri shuts down like someone flipped an off switch. Tsukauchi explains that they’ve been examining Kurogiri. After a lot of analysis they were able to discovered what his original power was, the Quirk that had been enhanced and fundamentally altered by All For One. Their found that his base power is a close match to Oboro Shirakumo, a young man that apparently Aizawa and Present Mic were quite close to once, and who was declared dead years ago.

 

Nothing as sad as seeing a trio before they become
a duo.

We enter a flashback, where a young Aizawa, and Hizashi (Present Mic) were thick as thieves with Oboro. Oboro insisted on the three of them starting a hero agency together and seemed to be a really chipper fella. Hizashi was all for it, but Aizawa, being the buzz kill, said he need to think it over. We jump forward in time and learn from Aizawa that he was killed in a building collapse during their Work Study together.

 

In the present, Gran Torino explains that Kurogiri is a kind of Nomu. He’s a highly intelligent one, like the Hood, and that more than likely he was created using Oboro’s remains as the base. Present Mic, visibly shaken by this news, remembers that they were known as the Three Dumigos back in school and screams that this doesn’t make sense. Torino remembers a conversation with All For One, where he talked about attack UA made sense for him, since it potentially gave him access to a lot of highly tune Quirks to steal. To this day, I’m unsure if All For One can only do a direct transfer (take a Quirk in and then shift it to a new host) or if, like, once he has a Quirk he can reproduce it endlessly (take a Quirk in and give it to as many hosts as he wants). Torino thinks that he swapped out Oboro’s corpse and used it as a base for Kurogiri.

 

Aizawa, also unsettled, asks if they were really brought here in the hops their old connection with Oboro would trigger something and scoffs at the idea. Torino tells them that Miracles do happen and that intelligent Nomu seem to keep something of their original personality. He uses Hood for example, saying that the monster was hyper fixated on fighting strong opponents, and that matches the Man he used to be, a low level thug that loved MMA brawls. Aizawa points out that he fought Kurogiri and that he didn’t act like his friend, to which Tsukauchi says that might have been an experiment specifically to see if anything of who Kurogiri used to be would come out. They send the two in and ask them to reawaken Shirakumo in Kurogiri.

 

Looking at a nightmare and trying to see the friend
beneath.

They sit down opposite the drugged Kurogiri and Present Mic almost immediately gives up. Aizawa asks about Shirakumo’s family, and Tsukauchi admits they’ll bring them in next if this doesn’t work. Aizawa, clearly pissed at this, activates his power and vows to never let his parents see their son turned into something so disgusting. Kurogiri starts moaning as he wakes up. Present Mic notes that the black haze doesn’t disappear when under Aizawa’s gaze, meaning that it’s part of his body. Kurogiri asks what happened to Tomura Shigaraki. They admit that he hasn’t been captured, and when Present Mic asks why he cares, Kurogiri admits it’s his duty. This makes Aizawa visibly sick, as he remembered a time when Shirakumo adopted a stray kitten and looked after it, after Aizawa pointedly ignored it, and sees it as proof of Shirakumo’s nature hidden within the Thing he’d been made into.

 

Kurogiri doesn’t react to that statement and asks what they’re talking about. Aizawa remembers his friend, how he was always the one to jump head first into things. He was the firsts to befriend Aizawa, the first to drag him along on adventures and was the one that gave him his original goggles. Kurogiri still doesn’t react, saying this isn’t a church and he’s not a priest so he doesn’t get the confession. Aizawa, remembering the day Shirakumo’s body was recovered from the wreckage and mentioned that he’d jump headlong into things without regard for consequences. He tells Kurogiri that they’re teachers now and that he’s incredibly strict with his students. Torino mentions that he expels quite a few, but then Present Mic cuts in and says it’s only on paper.

 

This is where we get what feels like a massive retcon as we get a flashback to a previous years students talking about how they were “expelled” and how that it sucks even if they’re re-enrolled. With a meeting with Nezu, we learn that Aizawa asked specifically for the power to expel students from UA but then to immediately re-enroll them. He says it’s the “little death” that’ll help get them in the right mindset to avoid the big death. So, actually, Izuku had nothing to worry about in the first few episodes… and I guess no one told All Might the expulsion policy was just a scare tactic. Huh.

Some desires can overcome even death.

 

Aizawa in the present says he did it to keep students for throwing their lives away like he did for the sake of empty justice. But he still wants the students to be like him, to be heroes. As he talks, crying and showing Kurogiri his goggles, Kurogiri visibly starts to warp and distort. The police get readings of abnormal brainwave activity and they start asking Kurogiri about where the Nomu are being produce or where Shigaraki is. Aizawa demands to know where the monster who messed with his brain took him. Kurogiri starts warping even more disjointedly. He screams that he doesn’t know what they mean. His brainwaves flatten for a second and he returns to normal. He says that he’s Kurogiri and he is Shigaraki’s guardian and nothing they say makes sense to him… only for his brainwaves to go totally out of control and Shirakumo’s face to become visible through the black haze. They yell at Shirakumo, trying to encourage their friend to come back. He says it was in the hospital before returning to Kurogiri. The police thank them for this. Present Mic asks if his eyes are okay, and Aizawa says they’re just a little dry as he cries.

 

Later, Torino and Tsukauchi thank them for their help. Aizawa points out that Shirakumo seemed close to giving them more, but that he’s clearly short circuited after that little bit of info. Aizawa asks what the point is of making these monsters. Torino flashes back to when he asked All For One that very same thing, and he compares the process to making fine wine. To make it, you have to trample the grapes. Torino says that his sole concern is to ensure they’re no future victims. They drive off and Tsukauchi says that he’ll let the higher ups know.

 

Oh, this is bad.

The chairwoman of the Hero Public Safety Commission gets the news and thanks him for it. Hawks then gets a call about someone rampaging in a hospital and requesting backup but tells the caller to get someone else as he’s busy. He’s in some kind of meeting with Twice. He goes out to get them drinks, and when he’s alone process the information and say that with “hospital” all the pieces fell into place. We then cut to the Doctor, Dr. Kyudai Garaki, pontificating about his perfect experiment. The “ultimate being” that he and All For One have sought out. We then see Tomura Shigaraki being electrocute and pumped full of some chemical, screaming bloody murder as it happens. He congradulates Shigaraki, saying he’d done well. Oh… this can’t be good.

 

This was a very interesting look into Aizawa’s past. Sure, finding out that he and Present Mic had this third best friend that they were inseparable with who died horribly during their school days is a little… out of nowhere, but it does give some context into Aizawa’s harshness. Yeah, if my best friend died horribly while still in training I know I’d probably go a little crazy on wanting to protect my students as an educator. Thought, again, the expulsion thing feels like a massive retcon. Either All Might didn’t read the entire file about the “whole class” Aizawa expelled the previous year (which doesn’t seem like him) or Horikoshi made a retcon. I do like how both he and Present Mic reacted to learning who Kurogiri used to be. The sheer horror and terror on their faces as they learn that they’re talking with whatever is left of their late friend was amazingly animated here. The fact that All For One was literally able to steal powers from corpses and/or reanimate the dead to serve him is terrifying on a whole new level. And that’s without the My Villain Academia arc context. Oh, yeah, I should mention that. For reasons I never found out, the My Hero Academia anime decided to show events out of sequence here. In the manga’s run, we actually got Shigaraki’s training and his recruitment and reconfiguration of the Meta Liberation Army BEFORE Izuku went over his Work Study with Endeavor. So all those scenes that seemed odd, like Hawks living in a mountain city with a mysterious obvious villains and the League of Villains working with a new group, all that jazz made sense when the Manga did it, because we had been shown how they got to that point already. No idea why they decided to do Izuku’s stuff first… maybe they thought it played better? Personally, I’d liked knowing what was going on with Shigaraki rather than just see him being tortured as part of some plan to make him more powerful. All I’m saying. Next time, villain context! See you there.

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