Old foes, but new, Dark Deku.
Last
time on My Hero Academia, Izuku met his predecessors. In the Mindscape
of One-For-All, he met the previous users in the form of their vestiges, the
mental imprints that each of them left within the power. There’s obviously
Shigaraki the Younger (One), Daigoro Banjo (Five and Blackwhip), Nana Shimura
(Seven and Float), and the incomplete Vestige of All Might (Eight) there were
also Hikage Shinomori (Four and Danger Sense), En Tayutai (Six), and the Second
and Third wielders that are actively ignoring everyone else. The vestiges help
Izuku learn a fairly disturbing side effect of One-For-All, that the Quirk
drastically cuts the lifespan of whomever is wielding it. This took a while to
figure out as like the first seven all died extremely young before they past it
on. It took them ages to figure this out as most were killed fighting Shigaraki
the Elder aka All-For-One. The only one to hold onto the power for more than a
decade or two has been All Might, leading to everyone to conclude the only
person who can safely take on the power is someone who is Quirkless. And since
Izuku is one of the few people on earth with that designation, they are on
something of a time crunch to defeat Shigaraki the elder once and for all. Nana
asks Izuku if he’ll be able to do the hard thing and kill her Grandson, Tomura
Shigaraki. Izuku says that he will if he has to, but he believes that Tomura
can still be saved and wants to be saved even if he can’t admit it.
Outside the mindscape, All Might is approached by Hawks and Jeanist whom ask
him for the full picture of what’s going on, to which the former hero agrees.
Later, Endeavor holds a press conference confirming that Dabi is in fact his
son, and gives the press his side of the ugly history that is his family. He
swears that he will keep fighting to stop Dabi and atone for his sins however
he can. Dabi, who watches the press conference and sees his father shout “just
watch me” thinks he hasn’t suffered enough pain yet. And we learn that upon
waking up, Izuku ran away. He gave all of his classmates letters explaining his
powers, his ties to the Shigaraki’s and All-For-One, and that he’s leaving to
protect them from this monster who can take their lives or steal powers. Izuku
‘Deku’ Midoriya has entered his vigilante era. Enough recapping. Let’s get to
it, shall we?
We open with Izuku’s classmates all
reacting to his goodbye letter. No one seems happy to hear that their friend has
run off to try to protect them from AFO, a villain that is going to try to steal
his true quirk. Remember, Izuku was operating under the lie this whole time to
his fellow students that his quirk was “Superpower,” just a pretty standard strongman
strength quirk. He tells them that meeting everyone and being with them has
made him happier than he could ever describe and he ends with a simple goodbye.
Uraraka calls him an idiot. She takes over narration duty and says that Japan
has been devastated by the destruction caused by the League of Villains, Paranormal
Liberation Front, and the random psychos they freed from the super max prisons.
She says that in the wake of all of that, Japan has become lawless. A solid
example of how bad things have gotten are the wrecked buildings, but a bigger
gut punch is seeing All Might’s statue with the sign “I AM NOT HERE” put over
it.
Dark Deku, what the fandom calls
him during this era, sees an explosion in the distance and thinks it’s a huge
villain. We cut to Ketsubutsu Academy seniors Yo Shindo, the kid with seismic
vibration powers that looks like he could be Izuku’s half-brother, and Tatami
Nakagame, a girl with the much dumber power of being able to retract any part
of her body into herself like a turtle. The two get a call to help evacuate an
area that is being menaced by a huge villain. Both aren’t stoked about trying
to get a bunch of stubborn folks to evacuate the area, but Yo thinks he’ll be
able to get them to leave by channeling Ms. Jokes energy. They reach the
building and try to get the civilians to come with them to their academy to
hideout. The civilians aren’t moving and tell them to get lost. Yo says that
the thinks they probably can handle normal crooks, but they won’t stand a chance
against some of these escapees. They refuse to listen, in no small part because
the local pro heroes are quitting in droves. They’re kicked out and they head
out. They get a call from one of their classmates, Makabe, who tells them to
run, NOW.
A villain comes crashing it. It’s
Muscular! He’s one of the original villains from the League that attacked the
UA training camp. He faced off against Izuku, was defeated and captured. He
reattaches his muscle fibers to his body to hulk out. Yo tells Tatami to get Ms.
Joke and other back up, while he handles Muscular. Tatami runs in and tries to
hold the civilians back, but they shove her aside and go to fight Muscular.
Muscular pins Yo in seconds,
mocking the hero student’s lack of strength. I’d say that this is just a poor
type match up, a mid to long ranged fighter like Yo vs. someone like Muscular
who is a short range type that excels in closing distance is just not a good
situation for him. Muscular mocks him, asking where the other heroes are,
quoting an adage about how in their world if you see one hero there are ten
more nearby. He spies Tatami and the civilians in their building, and Y uses
his distraction to try to vibrate his muscles into oblivion. Muscular is
confident that his layers of muscles will protect him. Yo unleashes his full
power to try to shake Muscular’s brain right out of his head. Unfortunately, Muscular
covers his head to protect himself. He goes to finish Yo, but a smokey purple
bullet slams into him and knocks him back. Muscular is super excited to see him
again, as he wants to have a real fight with Izuku. He claims this isn’t
about revenge, he just got hooked on the rush of a real fight that Izuku showed
him last time and no one else has given it to him. He molds a bit of rubble
into a prosthetic eye that he sticks into his empty socket… I guess to fully
mimic their original fight? Weird.
Muscular rips the build clear off
its foundation to try to throw Izuku off, but he leaps away and fires off a
smokescreen to cover their tracks. He returns Yo to Tatami and tells her to fall
back and abandon the building as its no longer safe. As he runs off, he draws
out the Vestige of En Tayutai and asks his opinion on how Izuku is using his
quirk. En tells him he’s putting out too much smoke, and he exceeded the
controllable limit. He warns Izuku to not overuse his power and accidentally
give his opponent an advantage. He says to pull back and remember that none of
their powers are ultimate moves on their own. Izuku fires off a Smokescreen and
floats into the air. Muscular launches at Izuku, but he senses him with Danger
Sense and dodges. He uses Black Whip to throw him aside and wrap him up. Izuku
demands to know where AFO and the League are. Muscular isn’t interested in that,
saying that he was just told to run wild. He wants to live life to the fullest,
and to Muscular, that means having as many bare-knuckle brawls as possible. He
wants Izuku to stop trying to empathize with him and fight him full force
already! He really should be introduced to Rappa from the Shia Hassaikai. Muscular
breaks free with his strength. Izuku tries to find an emotional in with Muscular,
thinking that maybe if he understood his enemies better, maybe he could reason
with him. This is obviously the practice round for that when he tries to talk
to Tomura when they face off again. Unfortunately, Muscular isn’t willing to
let him play shrink, so they just have to brawl.
Muscular tries to charge, but his
muscles start break and pull back. Izuku says that there are gaps in Muscular’s
muscles and they pull back into his body when he overuses them. Izuku theorizes
that Yo’s tremor did more damage to Muscular than he thought and that his body
is starting to collapse. Izuku charges and hits Muscular with 45% OFA Detroit
Smash. The hit was more than enough to knock Muscular back.
Two more Ketsubutsu students,
Itejiro Toteki and Shikkui Makabe run in to try to find their classmates. They see
Izuku rocketing up into the sky, dragging Muscular after him encased in Black
Whip. Tatami sees Izuku fly off and says that she didn’t even get a chance to
say thanks. The civilians run out and offer a stretcher, saying that after all
the students just did to protect them, the least they can do is help Yo and
hear them out. Yo remembers Izuku from the licensing exam and notes that he fights
like a different person now.
We jump to the Daina Police station.
Izuku lands, kicking up a smokescreen to protect himself as he drops off
Muscular. He tells the guards to get an iron maiden and restrain him before
leaping away. Izuku meets up with All Might. All Might asks if Izuku is okay.
He says he is, revealing he’s using compression gauntlets to reduce the muscle
strain on his arms and legs. He thanks All Might for ordering them from the US
before trade was limited. All Might gets a call from Hawks. Izuku gets a danger
sense ping and leaps away. Hawks is impressed with Izuku’s decision to try to
isolate himself and prepare for the villains attack. Hawks says that he knows
this is hard on All Might, but he’s glad the former hero is there to support
Izuku.
We flashback to Izuku in the
hospital with his mother and All Might. The Doctor notes that Izuku used to
hurt himself when using his power like this before, but Izuku has gotten stronger
since then, so while he’s fighting at a higher level the damage is about
consistent with when he was fighting with 5% power. This is Horikoshi
handwaving away why Izuku’s arms haven’t gotten worse when that was once such a
huge threat to Izuku he switched to kicking, me thinks. The doctor tells him to
be careful. Inko asks to know what is going on. All Might explains to her what
has happened. She’s obviously terrified at bad people hunting her son. All Might
says that he should be safe at the school, but Izuku says he’s not going back.
He is electing to fun off, to try to protect everyone from the League. Inko,
sensibly, tells her son that he’s in the hospital because he couldn’t
beat them by himself and to not throw his life away trying. He says he’ll get
stronger. Inko admits that she’s loved watching him grow into a hero over the
last year, but hearing this is breaking her heart. Izuku says that when he was
a kid, she thanked him for ‘saving’ her and smiling when he played pretend and
that made him smile. He promises to come home safe when this is over, but he
has to fight now. All Might remembers his promise to protect Izuku some months
back to convince Inko to let him return to UA. All Might says that Izuku might
not want his help, but he is going to give it regardless.
All Might tells Jeanist, Hawks and
Endeavor about Izuku dropping out of UA and electing to be their bait for the
League of Villians. Jeanist says that that’ll work to their advantage and they’ll
organize their strategy around it. Izuku meets with Gran Torino and lets him
know everything. Torino isn’t shocked to hear Nana’s vestige is apologizing for
their choices, and admits he should have killed AFO years ago. He tells Izuku
to do what he has to do to stop Shigaraki, warning that sometimes the only way
to stop someone is to kill them. He gives Izuku his scarf and his blessing.
Izuku heads out to meet his allies and start their plan to stop the League once
and for all.
Well, that’s sad. Izuku’s decision
seems logical to him in the moment, but I think its clear even in his first fight
with Muscular that he’s already hitting a wall mentally if not physically.
Isolating yourself is hard, as I think anyone who has lived through the 2020
COVID Pandemic can attest to, and it’s harder when you’re putting yourself
through the strain of fighting constantly. I like the use of Muscular here. The
villain is still incredibly powerful, putting kids with more experience and
training than Izuku through the ringer in no time flat. But Izuku has also
grown tremendously since they faced off. While Muscular was Izuku’s boss fight during
the Training Arc, he’s now just an average Tuesday for Izuku. Remember, when
they fought during the camp, Izuku had to hit him with 100% OFA to take him
down. This time he didn’t even crack 50% to do it. We also got to see Izuku’s
battle IQ has grown quite a bit, as he was able to figure out Muscular’s state
in just a few seconds, and was able to use Smokescreen and Danger Sense to hold
him off extremely well. I appreciate that they at least brought Inko into the
discussion here. While the story might forget about her a good chunk of the
time, it’s important to remember Izuku is only like 16 at this point. His mama
needs to be involved to some degree. Izuku is going hard after Shigaraki and
the League, which is admirable, but its clear even in this early stage that he’s
pushing himself harder than he should. Which definitely makes sense for his
character, but is hard to watch. So Izuku has taken down an old foe, let’s see
how he handles a new one. Lady Nagant has arrived. See you next time, and be
safe.
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/viewer-log-my-ep-151429269
Bluesky: @basicssuperhero.bsky.social
No comments:
Post a Comment