Viewer Log: My Hero Academia ep 116

 Villains aren't always bad people. 

Last time on My Hero Academia, Mirko was unleashed. Japan’s No. 5 pro hero nearly stopped Garaki single handedly, but one of Garaki’s lesser Nomu delayed her just a second long enough for Garaki to activate his High End Nomu. The five Nomu came online, knocked Mirko aside and one of them started battling Crust, the No. 6 hero. Mirko recovers and proves that she’s bonkers in the best way. She singlehandedly takes on the four High Ends, hitting two of them hard enough to send them reeling and ultimately ripping one’s head off, killing it. All it cost her was her left arm, as the Nomu she decapitated used a physical warping power to crush it. She isn’t deterred though and promises to either take out the other Nomu and getting Garaki or die trying. Garaki, meanwhile is considering activating Shigaraki early, despite his development is only at 71%. At the same time, Edgeshot and his team started the raid on the Paranormal Liberation Front’s villa. Denki Kaminari is one of the four students brough along in the first wave to help with crowd control and is freaking out just a little bit. Midnight, wanting to help her student process this, advices him to not think about saving the world but saving just what is important to him. It is heavily implied that the important “thing” he’s trying to protect is in fact a person, and that person is Kyoka Jiro. The desire to protect her is enough to motivate him to run up and take a lightning bolt attack from a PLF lieutenant, giving him a solid hero moment. Enough recap. Let’s get to it.

 

We open at the central command center, confirming that Edgeshot’s team has begun the attack and that their other teams are sealing off alternate exits to force them all to exit through the main building. We jump to Re-Destro and Trumpet in the lower levels of the Villa preparing for their big meeting when a minion runs in and warns them that the heroes are attacking. Re-Destro goes from a creepily calm demeanor to his stress energy covering his face in less than a second.

 

Outside, Kaminari is still draining electricity. The lieutenant tries to increase his discharge in an attempt to overwhelm Kaminari, but Edgeshot attacks, striking him and a bunch of his lesser minions. He used his Quirk to make a tiny hole in each of their lungs to disorientate them, he warns them not to move too much to speed up the healing. Midnight rushes in, hitting a bunch of minions with her sleep pheromone. Kamui Woods runs in next, capturing folks in his Lacquer Chain Prison. Komori and Honenuki use their unique skills to capture a ton of PLF members in the ground and cover them with Mushrooms to disable them. The pros start rushing in, Gang Orca telling the two to stay back and let them handle the rest.

 

That's a lot of Twices.

Meanwhile, Hawks has Twice captured and surrounded by his feathers. Hawks reveals to Twice, and Skeptic listening in, that he’s the spy and that he planned all this to keep Twice from the fight to stop him from doubling things. Twice has a major freakout about all of this, flashing back to how Magna was killed and Mr. Compress being hurt, and realizing that he’s the reason why their plans keep getting screwed up. He brought in the Shia Hassaikai in to meet with Shigaraki, which lead to Magna’s death and Compress losing his arm, and he backed Hawks the whole way through. Twice admits that he felt he had to trust Hawks as not trusting him made him feel like he was giving into his dark thoughts again. Hawks offers to help Twice, to help him rebuild a his life because he believes deep down that Twice is a good person. Twice, though, isn’t interested in talking any more. He gets up and starts making clones of himself to protect himself from Hawks’ feathers. He says that he doesn’t give a damn abut himself any more and is only interested in protecting his friends happiness.

 

Outside, Tokoyami is pulled aside to help Fat Gum and Amajiki to seal off one of the last few exits from the underground compound. Amajiki uses his Quirk to take on aspects of the food he eats to disable a bunch of PLF members and he and Fat Gum hold the upper level, sending Tokoyami into the Dark. I assume you remember that Dark Shadow revels in the dark. Tokoyami summons a massive version of Dark shadow and has him start smashing things up. He tunnels downward, but unfortunately hits Re-Destro’s escape attempt. Re-Destro transforms, allowing himself to take Dark Shadow’s attack. He gets thrown back into their big assembly area and Dark Shadow is able to collapse the rest of the tunnel. Dark Shadow tells Tokoyami that the saw a huge monster in there as well, but Fat Gum says that he shouldn’t be a problem as Shigaraki isn’t their to give Gigantomachia orders. Fat Gum also reveals that Hawks was the spy out here. Fat Gum then has Tokoyami hop into his body and ferry’s him out of the area. Tokoyami remembers Hawks’s advice to train up his short range abilities and says that he hopes Hawks gets to see how far he’d come.

 

Dabi is going full sadist.

Hawks, at that moment, is fighting Twice. Twice made a wall of himself to try to fight Hawks. While Twice has the numbers advantage by a stupid degree, the fact his clones get weaker with each doubling means that Hawks can take them out with minimal effort. Hawks says that he won’t let his emotions get in the way of his mission. He admits to actually liking Twice, but Twice claims that he doesn’t get to talk like they’re friends. He tries to make copies of the League members, but Hawks takes them out easily as well. Hawks admits that he specializes in taking foes out quickly because nothing is more dangerous than a foe that keeps getting back up. Twice rushes him, but Hawks slices him across the chest with a feather sword. Twice, crying, says that he calls himself a hero but those on Hawks side drop their morals easily. He says that while he’s screwed up before, Toga and the others stayed with him. Its because of that that he’s willing to give up everything to make sure his friends are happy. Hawks says he’ll be sure to let them know that… right before Dabi arrives and nearly fries them. Dabi knocks Hawks off Twice and tells Twice that he didn’t screw up, that it’s the heroes who are at fault. He goes to incinerate Hawks, but he dodges, pulling Twice out of the range of the attack too. Hawks chastises Dabi for using an attack that would have killed Twice, too, but Dabi says it wouldn’t have killed him and that Hawks impulse to protect Twice makes him predictable. Hawks asks why Dabi doesn’t seem surprised by his betrayal. Dabi says he never trusted him, and thanks him for doing some despicable things to earn the Leagues trust. Twice gets up, grabbing Toga’s hankerchief to staunch his bleeding, wraps Hawks up in cloning goo and tells Dabi to roast he bird. Dabi unleashes an attack, telling Twice to go wild and push the advantage back to their side. Twice stumbles through, high fiving Dabi as he did, but Hawks circled around despite his burnt wings and tries to get Twice again. Dabi screams “Keigo Takami” as he attacks Hawks again, which freaks him out because… how could Dabi know his real name?

 

Bye Twice, I'm surprised how sad this makes me.

Twice vows to protect his friends and attempts to clone himself again, but Hawks flies out and charges him. Toga and Mr. Compress get captured but the hero that grabbed them gets stabbed by Twice. Mr. Compress thanks him and tells him to get to doubling. Twice reveals that he’s a clone and that he’s falling apart. He asks for forgiveness for “ruining” their plans again. He stumbles over to Toga and gives her back her handkerchief as he melts back into goo. As the real Twice bleeds out, he muses that while his life has had a lot of falls, he did have people that cared about him, which made his life worth living. His last thoughts are a hope that Hawks dies and admitting that he was happy with his life with them.

 

I think that Twice is a great example of how to write a sympathetic villain. His arc has shown how he was constantly down on his luck and kept falling into worse and worse situations until he ended up with the League of Villains. The bad guys took him in, respected him and made him feel like he mattered. So obviously, when Hawks threatened them, even when he offered to try to help Twice live a better life, he attacked. Now, an argument could be made that Dabi and Shigaraki only kept Twice around because of how useful his cloning power is, but I think Spinner, Toga and Mr. Compress did value him as an actual friend and colleague. You understand his motivations, and why he wants to protect those who value him even when he doesn’t really value himself. And you can understand why Hawks needed to get Twice off the gameboard. A villain that can make a battalion in seconds is not someone that the heroes can have running around. It still hurt to see Hawks has to kill Twice to take him off the field. I like that his final moments were to save Toga, as those two had a connection for most of their run together. Given their age difference, I’d like to think it was something akin to a father-daughter bond than anything else. She’s 17, he’s 30 something, I don’t WANT there to be a romantic element to these two. No thanks. And I liked that Tokoyami got a chance to shine alone with the others. Seeing Dark Shadow wrestle with Re-Destro was a bit surprising. Thank goodness he got out in time. So yeah, the raid has had a major casualty in Twice being taken out. But Hawks is injured and at Dabi’s mercy, whom may know things that no living person should about Hawks. How very interesting. We’ll see where this goes, next time. 

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