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We open with Twice being frustrated that his data on Toga is out of date.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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