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.
.png)
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.
.png)
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.
.png)
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!
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/79316610?pr=true
Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero
No comments:
Post a Comment