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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