Mr. Compress takes center stage.
It’s been a bit since we covered My
Hero Academia so a quick refresher before the ‘last time,’ section: My
Hero Academia takes place on a version of Earth where the vast majority of
people have a power of some kind dubbed a quirk. These powers range from
basically pointless, like the ability to stretch ones fingers out, to world
breaking like Super strength. The need to protect people from super humans with
more power than sense lead to the development of Heroes, part law enforcement,
part brand spokesman, part WWE personalities. Our protagonist is Izuku
Midoriya, a young man born without a quirk. He was endlessly bullied for this,
but despite the mockery and torment he received he still wanted to be a hero.
He impressed the Superman of Japan, All Might, by throwing himself at a sludge
monster to try to save his childhood friend turned nemesis Katsuki Bakugo from
it. All Might, who was seriously injured in a battle five years ago with a
villain, revealed he could transfer his power into Izuku. Izuku took the chance
and enrolled in UA High, the most prestigious Hero High School in Japan. While
the power was initially too much for Izuku’s body to handle, he eventually was
able to harness it and shape along with his fighting style to become an amazing
fighter and hero in training. At the same time, a group called the League of
Villains formed, at it’s leader, a man known mostly by the moniker All-For-One
began setting up and pitting his student and adopted Tomura Shigaraki up
against the heroes in order to destroy the system. This all culminated in the
most recent plan, he transferred his ability, All-For-One, that lets him steal
and transfer powers, into Tomura along with some other enhancements to make the
ultimate Symbol of Chaos. Izuku, his classmates, and their various teachers and
other pro heroes are trying to capture Tomura Shigaraki, a task made all the
harder by his decay quirk being put into overdrive.
Alright, so last time on My Hero
Academia, we started to see the fallout of Dabi aka Toya Todoroki’s plan to
ruin his father. The long lost son, presumed dead, son of Enji Todoroki aka
Endeavour did his damnedest to murder his stunned father and his littlest
brother Shoto who kept fighting back. At the same time, the thought to be dead
hero Best Jeanist arrived and used his powers to entangle Shigaraki’s colossus
of a henchman Gigantomachia in threads. We learn that Bakugo has decided on the
hero’s name Dynamite, and he hopes to tell it to Best Jeanist. They’re also
joined by Mirio Togeta, aka Lemillion, class 1A’s upper classman who had just
gotten his powers restored by Eri, the girl who can basically rewind time.
Izuku and everyone do their best to hold Gigantomachia back, Endeavor even
snaps out of his panicked trance to deliver a powerful punch to the giant’s
chin, but the titan breaks free… only to pass out from the huge amount of
tranquilizers the other members of Class 1A fed to him an in-universe hour or
two ago. While the heroes cheered, one of the last League of Villain members
left standing, Mr. Compress, announces that he’ll show these philistines.
Enough recapping. Let’s get to it, shall we?
We open with Endeavors mega flame
punch and Gigantomachia dropping from the combination of exhaustion, damage and
tranquilizers being digested in his stomach. Which is good. Unfortunately, Mr.
Compress isn’t down and out yet. He yells at his boss, Tomura, for getting
knocked out, saying that none of their group has achieved their dreams yet.
Best Jeanist tightens the threads around Compress to try to knock him out.
Mr. Compress has a flashback to the
League of Villains attacking a cult that wears skull mask. These are the CRC,
the Creature Rejection Clan, a group that believes in the supremacy of
non-mutant Quirk havers. They basically hate guys like Spinner whose quirk
makes him look like a lizard. The League kills all the CRC members and starts
going through their stuff for things to fence. This is at a point where their
funds were basically gone and their gear was starting to wear out, like Toga’s
needles are breaking, and Mr. Compress’s prosthetic arm is getting creaky. They
could go to their black market contact Giran for more stuff, but again, they’re
broke.
Later, Spinner asks how long they
are expected to keep going like this, and Tomura tells him to shut up. Dabi
joins them and reveals that he’s been trying to recruit new members, but he
hasn’t brought anyone yet again. Spinner asks what their goal even is at this
point. He dives into his backstory about how h was originally from a small
village where he was ostracized for his lizard looks. He was inspired by the
hero killer, Stain’s words to try to destroy the current system so it can be
purified. After that he remodeled his look to be like Stain. Dabi calls him an
empty cosplayer, and Spinner agrees, and demands to know when they’ll actually
DO something.
In the present, Mr. Compress, who
is being choked by cables, gasps out the Spinner that he loved being in the
League of Villains. Spinner asks what he means, and Compress tells him that
Tomura is the key and that he’ll buy Spinner time to let them escape. He says
that he owes it to his bloodline. Compress uses his Quirk, shrinking anything
he touches down to a pale green marble, on his own body. He gouges a chunk of
meat out of his thigh, which gives him space to wriggle out of the cables and
shrink Spinner and Tomura down to marble size. He tries to flee, but Best
Jeanist uses his powers to constrict Compress in his own clothing. Compress
decides that he’d rather streak than be captured, and compresses his clothes
until he’s basically naked, taking chunks of flesh with it. He takes a moment
to grab Tomoyasu Chikazoku aka Skeptic, their tech support guy, as well. He
says that he’s a master of great escapes.
We learn that Mr. Compress is the
great-great grandson of Oji Harima, a peerless thief from back before Quirks
were rampant. He lived when the current system was just getting started. Harima
was a Robin Hood type, robbing from those he considered false heroes and
spreading the money around to those in need. Compress greatly respected his
ancestor, as well as his own father who told him justice runs in their veins.
Meanwhile, the Todoroki’s are
battling. Shoto does his best to fight his brother, but the elder Todoroki
overwhelms him with his fire blast. Once Shoto is out, however, Dabi decides to
let him off. He’s not interested in fighting his brother if their dad isn’t
awake to watch and suffer. He promises the ‘masterpiece’ that they’ll fight
again soon. Compress grabs and compresses him too. It’s at this point that
Compress lands on Gigantomachia and announces his relation to Oji Harima, the
master thief. He says that the heroes hadn’t even noticed him, really, up to
this point and claims that this was part of his design. He unmasks himself for
the first time and not going to lie I was expecting him to be much older. His
face makes him look like he’s not much older than the other members of the
League. Lemillion charges, saying that he won’t let them escape. Compress
reverts Tomura and Spinner, saying they’ll witness his greatest escape.
We cut to Endeavor’s sidekick
Burnin and her allies fighting through Nomu. One of her friends, Master
Driller, is eaten by a worm like Nomu saving her, and she announces she kill
these monsters.
Izuku regains consciousness,
someone in his head telling the “Ninth Wielder” that he can’t rest now. He
wakes up, eyes bleed, his right arm badly burned, and the rest of him not
looking much better. We learn that he was knocked out b Dabi’s blast earlier,
but he remembers seeing Endeavor charge Gigantomachia. He sees Shoto is alright
and breaths a sigh of relief but then he is hit with a massive headache. We’re
talking about a stress migraine powerful enough to double up. He says that he
felt like he’d felt these headache a few times during the fighting, and after
thinking about it a minute realizes that it sounds a lot like something he read
in the notes All Might gave him on the previous One-For-All wielders. It’s the
“Danger Sense” of the fourth wielder.
The pain is too intense for him, it’s like when he first got Black Whip,
the power is too much for him without training. He starts to pass out again.
Back with Compress, he announces
that this’ll be his big escape. Lemillion charges him and knocks him aside.
Compress is hurt by being brushed aside so easily. He gives us his plan, which
is basically to try to buy time for Spinner to wake up Tomura, so Tomura can
order Gigantomachia and the Nomu to get them out of here. He admits to himself
that he’s a bit player in this performance and the real stars are Tomura and
Spinner. He says the whole reason he’s leaving it up to Spinner is because he
is the most devoted of their crew, even going so far as to stash Skeptic and
Dabi’s marbles in Spinner’s cloak to help them escape too. He grabs Lemillion’s
cape to slow him down. Spinner tries to wake Tomura up by shaking him, but when
that doesn’t work, he remembers what Tomura said about how having his family’s
severed hands on him made him feel calm. Spinner grabs the burnt but still
intact hand of Tomura’s father and puts it on Tomura’s face.
Tomura wakes up and fires off an
energy wave so powerful it basically kicks up a dust storm around them. The
blast wave knocks around everyone in the vicinity. Izuku wakes up again, but
the pain is still intense. He realizes what that must mean.
We hear Tomura speak, but it’s with
All-For-One, Shigaraki’s voice layered over it. Shigaraki praises Tomura’s
allies for keeping him safe for so long. He says that the more Tomura embraces
the trauma of his past, the stronger his hold gets on the body. We see black
veins spread across Tomura’s body, and then in the gap between the thumb and
pointer finger of his hand-mask we see the destroyed face of Shigaraki
overlayed on Tomura’s head. He announces “Long live the King, Tomura.”
Back with the other heroes, the
Nomu stop fighting. Burnin’s team thinks for a second that the might be able to
destroy them all now, but the Nomu start rushing for Gigantomachia. We learn
from Shigaraki that the Radio Wave quirk he has is crucial for his plans as
that allows him to control the Nomu from a distance, but Tomura can’t use it as
well as he’s still ‘a hatchling.’ Best Jeanist tangles up the Nomu in threads,
but he’s hitting his limit at this point. Lemillion and Bakugo refuse to stay
down and prepare to charge. Spinner asks what the plan is and Shigaraki tells
him they’re falling back. Spinner is confused by this and asks if they’re
really abandoning Gigantomachia, Mr. Compress and Toga here. He puts his hand
on Tomura’s shoulder and asks what’s up. He tells Iguchi to hold his tongue.
This freaks Spinner out because I’m pretty sure he hadn’t given his real name.
Shigaraki tells him that Tomura has already lost this fight, to the heroes and
OFA’s wielder. He woke up too early from his metamorphosis, so his healing
powers weren’t up to snuff. He’s beaten, bruised, and unconscious, so Shigaraki
stepped in to get him out of this. Spinner says that they can’t leave their
allies behind, but Shigaraki tells him that they will. He says that Tomura is
going to have to pay for his failures.
The heroes do their best to keep
the Nomu from reaching Gigantomachia. Iida uses his recipro-bust to race to
Shigaraki, saying that he’ll stop the villain and then get Izuku and Bakugo
help. He and Shoto charge, but Shigaraki unleashes another huge blast wave to
knock them back. Lemillion tries to charge but gets stabbed with Shigaraki’s
tentacles and knocked out. The Nomu breaks out of Jeanist’s grasp, and he
throws up blood from overexerting himself. Izuku tries to get his body moving.
He remembers how Tomura fought Shigaraki’s attempt at taking him over in the
mindscape to try to motivate himself. He hurls himself at Shigaraki, channeling
Black Whip through his tongue to move him around. He charges Shigaraki. He
compliments Izuku, saying his tenacity is on par with All Might’s. He says
they’ll meet again once this new body is complete. Izuku tries to attack with
Black Whip but is knocked back. As he flies backward, he admits that he won’t
forgive Tomura for what he’s done but he can’t abandon him to being Shigaraki’s
meat puppet. When he saw him in the mindscape, Izuku says that he looked like
he wanted to be saved.
As he falls, we see the heroes
running to try to help their allies, and the number of heroes knocked out and
in extremely bad shape from the fighting. Basically, every hero we’ve seen up
to this point is down to one degree. Izuku, Bakugo, Shoto, Iida, Endeavor, Best
Jeanist, Mt. Lady, Kamui Woods, Fat Gum, Lemillion, Mirko, Ryukyu, Nejire, and
Hawks, to name a few, are all down. And it’s heavily implied by her abandoned
mask that Midnight is dead. As the somber music plays, Izuku passes out
again.
Well, that was a pretty dark place
to pickup from. It is funny to think this is over a hundred episodes and
literally hundreds of chapters later and we’re just now getting
backstories for some of the OG League members. Dabi, Mr. Compress, and Spinner
have been part of this story for far longer than guys like Lemillion, but up
until this point they were here mostly to enact Tomura’s evil schemes. I like
how they kind make that part of the plot, with the reveal that the reason Mr.
Compress wore a mask this whole time was to hide that he’s not just a master
escape artist but possibly one of the best in the world. Spinner’s backstory is
significantly simpler… but it does point out that you couldn’t ask for a more
earnest zealot for your cause than a hikikomori. That’s a Japanese term for
someone suffering from an intense form of social anxiety and withdrawal where
they functionally become hermits. Which definitely seems to describe Spinner
pre-Stain to a T. Mr. Compress’s trust in that zealotry speaks to how well he
knows this reptilian outcast me thinks. I also like to be reminded that while
certain members of the League like Dabi and Shigaraki himself are out for their
evil plan above all else, that guys like Spinner and Compress are more on the
Twice end of the spectrum. They aren’t good people by societal standards but
these guys care about each other in their weird way, and you kind of wish they
could have found this weird community without the crimes. Just saying. Seeing
the heroes fight and try to capture Tomura only to be beaten by the
overwhelming power they were trying to contain was a solid way to end this part
of the story. Really drives home how dangerous Tomura is going to be if he
develops his power even a little bit more when a badly beaten and burned Tomura
could hold off so many heroes with just a little help from his master. And it
was neat to get confirmation that Izuku’s powers are growing. Hopefully he can
get the hang of danger sense, because Spidey-sense that knocks you out is
probably the worst power any hero could have, ever. But we’ll see more soon,
I’m sure. Have a good night.
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/viewer-log-my-ep-146750242
Bluesky: @basicssuperhero.bsky.social
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