Last time on My Hero Academia,
both sides put the finishing touches on their battle plans. Dabi reminded Toga of
the vial of Twice’s blood he was able to recover, and that given her strong emotional
attachment to the unstable man she should be able to use his powers if she drank
it and copied him. He also burned down her old house, just cuz. AFO sent out
Spinner with orders to try to rally the Heteromorphs, people with non-human
appearances, to their cause. Spinner reluctantly goes along with this idea out
of his friendship with Tomura Shigaraki. AFO sent moles into UA’s evacuee population
with orders to stirrup trouble to get Izuku kicked out of UA again and thus
make him vulnerable. Nezu beats them to the punch, however, informing the
civilians of the looming danger and revealing Izuku and the rest of his class
are moving to a fortified bunker dubbed Troy for their battle preparations.
While there, Izuku has a moment to talk with Uraraka. Like Izuku, she has
conflicting feelings about fighting a LoV member, hers being Himeko Toga. The
two agree that while they can’t forgive either Shigaraki or Toga for
their crimes, they both understand them, and want to help them however they
can. Shoto also bonds with Iida, Kirishima and Bakugo over his own complicated
feelings towards his eldest brother Dabi. AFO reveals to us that he has a lie
detecting quirk he stole years ago from someone (possibly Tsukauchi’s ancestor)
and because of that he’s extremely confident when he sets up an ambush for
Izuku via the Aoyamas. Yuga Aoyama lures Izuku to a deserted parking lot. AFO
arrives and is incredibly smug with his final gambit. He as Izuku alone, and
thanks to Search he knows any hero capable of being a threat to him is miles away.
He isn’t even that put out when Aoyama turns on him, attempting to Naval Laser
the Demon king. He summons his league to him along with a bunch of Nomu. To
which Izuku and Aoyama activate their trap card, their own mass summoning of
heroes via Kurogiri gates. It’s about to be a brawl. Enough recapping. Let’s
get to it, shall we?
The episode opens with a flashback
to three days ago, when All Might, Nezu and Tsukauchi arrived at the 1A dorms.
All Might revealed to his students that he’s going to share the top-secret plan
of attack with them. He begins by saying there isn’t much hope of finding AFO
or the League in the time they have left. Kaminari says that’s what Bakugo’s
been saying for days, and Sato adds that it hits differently coming from All
Might. Mineta asks if they’re giving up, and Tsukauchi tells him they’re just
shifting tactics. They’ve realized that AFO is both too clever and yet also too
cowardly to make an appearance unless he feels like he’s in total control of
the situation. Bakugo summarizes that they need to massage the ‘walking Nutsack’s’
ego to get him to appear. They need to act scared to build AFO’s confidence.
They think he’s using Search to keep an eye on them, which they’re planning to
use to their advantage. The heroes hope that their movements lately coupled
with the movements they’ll make in the next few days will make AFO believe that
they’re moving erratically and making several key mistakes. They’re working on
Logistics, but they are planning on using Aoyama to set the trap. Izuku and
friends are happy to hear that Aoyama is helping in whatever way he is.
Hagakure and Ashido are the loudest in their joy, which adds credence to my
thought that they were pretty close to the faux Frenchman. Yaoyorozu asks the
big question; how do we trick him? All Might explains that they’ve learned that
AFO contacted the Aoyamas exclusively through calls, which leads them to
believe that he can detect lies through a person’s voice. So the trick is to
make someone speak without hinting at treachery. He says that they’ll use
Aizawa’s idea and use his power. All Might points to the door and calls
him in, Shinso. He’s sporting a new set of battle armor, a new voice modulator
and his own giant Aizawa scarf.
Tsu is confused by this, as she
worked with Shinso during their last competition with Class 1B and he expressly
told them that he can’t make someone speak with his Quirk. He says that he’s
been doing a lot of training since then and his power has developed. He is a
little bummed that he isn’t getting to make his entrance to the hero course in
April, but accepts there are more important things going on. Their belief is
that he’ll essentially use the Aoyamas as speakers, he’ll speak through them
and thus that should give him a degree of separation from AFO and thus get
around his lie detector sense. He says it’ll be hard as this is a newer skill
he’s been working on, but he thinks it’ll work. The conversation is briefly derailed
as everyone excitedly talks to Shinso about what he’s been up to, what class he
wants to be in and what he thinks his hero name will be. Just a friendly bunch
is class 1A. Nezu adds that Shinso has had intense private training with Aizawa,
but he doesn’t have a provisional license, but the Public Safety Commission is
making an exception because of the whole ‘avoiding all out civil war’ thing.
Tokoyami then asks how they’re going to get around gathering the troops all in
one place, since them being all together would be suspicious, and the teachers
say they’ll need another person for that.
We cut to Central hospital where
Aizawa, Class 1B homeroom teacher Vlad King, and Phantom Thief aka that dick Monoma
are looking in on Kurogiri. The teachers say that they won’t force him to do
anything he isn’t comfortable with, but ask him to use his power to copy Warp Gate
and be the heroes’ means of mass transport. Monoma says that he’ll do it
without breaking a sweat. Aizawa says that he’d hoped that he and Present Mic
could pull his friend Shirakumo’s mind from within Kurogiri, but they could
only draw him out for a second. He also adds that given his lost left eye and
his mounting exhaustion from all of this (gestures at the country that’s
literally and metaphorically on fire) his erasure is barely working at all. He knows
he’ll be of little use in the fight. Monoma says that he’d heard that the
heroes would have been massacred without him. He also adds that when he was
younger, folks would always tell him that with his power he’d never be a ‘real’
hero, just a side character. King hugs his student and tells him that this will
only work if all the parts are working in sync. We cut to the plan and see the
Aoyama’s making the call, with the reveal that Shinso was hidden but within line
of sight for both calls so keep his control up. He gave Aoyama the thumbs up.
King continues his speech, saying that Monoma was never an extra, and that he’ll
just need to step into the spotlight. In the present, Monoma cackles and screams,
“Look who is in the spotlight now!”
The battle begins. AFO seems to be
using a modified version of the strategy for the USJ attack, ie Throw just a
ton of expendable goons at the heroes, but with his elite League of Villain members
and High End Nomu as additional support. All Might tells everyone to fight
hard, to keep AFO from getting One For All. Tomura seems confused by something
and touches the ground. He tries to tell Dabi something, but Dabi spotted his
pops, so he’s got eyes only for Endeavor. His big fireblast is countered by Shoto’s
arrival, and then the rest of the 1A students leap out as well. Once everyone
is on stage, All Might activates system Troy. Its revealed that they set several
domes that snapped up and around the villains, breaking them up into separate groups.
Tsukauchi swears that while they failed before, they will succeed in finally
defeating AFO. They activate rocket boosters on the cages, and Monoma opens up
more warp gates. The plan is to scatter the villains through there and then
send heroes specifically chosen to fight each heavy hitter. Toga orders her
group to break her out immediately as well, because she saw Izuku. Dabi melts
his way free, saying that that cage couldn’t hold him for more than three
seconds. He sees Shoto leading his strike team, as he shouts, “That’s all we needed!
You’re going for a ride!” The heroes rush the pods and add their various strengths
to move the pods. The plan largely works, scattering the villains with the hero
groups chosen to face them. The one problem being a cord is shot from another warp
gate and wraps around Izuku’s arm, pulling him away from his group. Well, shit.
All Might doesn’t notice right away and thinks the plan is going perfectly. He
orders the heroes left back to see Aoyama clear and for Monoma to fall back to
Aizawa.
The first pod transports AFO to the
ruins of the Gunga Villa, the former headquarters of the short-lived Paranormal
Liberation Front. Endeavor leads this group along with Hawks, who immediately
slices AFO with his blades, but he barely seems to notice. Hawks apologizes that
the attack didn’t do as much as they’d hope, but Endeavor says that was a longshot
anyway. He tells AFO that they’ve figured out his sludge teleport. It’s an
inferior version of Kurogiri’s Warp Gate. Can it teleport large numbers of
people? Obviously. But, it’s range is significantly shorter, and much more
crucially, AFO can’t teleport himself with it. So they threw him as far as they
could through the genuine article to separate him from his best minions. AFO
compliments the plan, but asks if he’s really strong enough to face him. He
thinks that the heroes are pairing Izuku against Tomura, which is a risky move…
but he also thinks that isn’t the cruelest matchup. We jump to the All Might
statue where Toya “Dabi” Todoroki is facing off against Shoto “Shoto” Todoroki.
He scolds Endeavor for pitting his children against each other. We cut to UA,
which has been transformed into a floating fortress with shield barriers all
around it. Clearly they’re trying to limit the amount of damage that Shigaraki could
do with Decay with this trap. Bakugo leaps through a gate and warns Best
Jeanist that Izuku got nabbed.
Our protagonist comes out near an
island. He’s shocked that his danger sense didn’t trigger… but considering he’d
been caught and pulled by Himeko Toga, I’m not. She’s all about love after all.
Thankfully he’s not alone as he’s with Uraraka’s team.
At UA, Amajiki and Nejire are less
confident in their plan as Izuku was key to their strategy for beating
Shigaraki. Mirko, who is now sporting a massive metal prosthetic to replace her
destroyed left arm, is just excited to throw down with the greatest villain in
human history. Shigaraki drops to the ground. He makes a quick assessment and
realizes that he was transported alone. He isn’t worried, though, so long as he
stays out of his head he’ll be find. It’s at this point that I realized that he’d
tried to fire off a decay wave at the start of the fight, but his hand refused to
work as he wanted. Hence that weird ground touch before the Todorokis faced
off. It works much better the second time. He fires of a decay wave and
obliterates a line of ground. But it reveals a bunch of metallic boxes that
launch him into the sky and into an electromagnetic barrier that shocks him. He
drops and tries to dodge, only to be tangled by Jeanist’s threads, who throws
him into the ground and towards the barrier again. He explains that regardless
of the power he holds, so long as Shigaraki has a body with a nervous system,
an electric shock will stun him for a few seconds. Shigaraki breaks free and
realizes their plan to keep decay in check. The boxes are built to launch into
the sky when uncovered, and because they spring away from each other, that keeps
him from sending decay through multiples at once. He says that this plan is stupid
as they’ll run out of ground eventually. Jeanist isn’t worried about that. He
gestured at the ground behind him, and we see new blocks fill in the gaps. Jeanist
tells him that they’ve made UA his coffin in the sky. We jump beneath the
building to the factory floor where we see Cementoss and Power Loader working
with Mei Hatsume, the Support Course students, and Yaoyorozu to mass produce
more boxes.
Topside, Jeanist tells Shigaraki
that they analyzed the fights he had with Izuku, Endeavor and company, and his
fight against Star and Stripe to figure out this strategy. He says that a
sixteen-year-old girl, Hatsume, is the one that made it all possible. They
modified the multi-plate system that Nezu made as part of his mass evacuation
plan. And its revealed that this whole system is being powered by Kaminari and
several electric based heroes to keep them afloat and the barrier active. Jeanist
hurls threads at Shigaraki while the others fight him. Bakugo and Nejire blast
him at a distance, while Mirko rushes him and swings with her metal arm and
leg. Thoroughly pissed off, Tomura decides that he can finish this fight in one
blow and tries to fire a shockwave, only for Bakugo to mock him and ask if he
forgot how they nerfed him at Jaku. And then he realizes he can’t use his
quirk. We then see the masterstroke of this plan. Outside the barrier, atop the
power station, Aizawa is sitting with his Erasure after, and the whole time he’s
touching hands with Monoma. They also have Manual there to keep their eyes
moist. Aizawa adds that this strategy was built around having Izuku there to battle
Shigaraki, which isn’t ideal. And worse, the last time they fought him, he wasn’t
complete, so they don’t know his full capability anymore. A point proven when Shigaraki
creates a tentacle made of overlapping fingers to slam into Mirko and mess her
up bad. Her arm is shattered and blood scatters over the hand. Shigaraki says
that he can’t believe he thought Aizawa was cool and calls him a
disappointment.
After six seasons of villainous
sneak attacks and traps, it was nice to see the heroes outthink AFO once more.
This plan was brilliant. Using Shinso to bypass AFO’s lie detection was a fun
way to bring him back into the story after his latest absence. And it doesn’t
feel out of nowhere since there were multiple scenes over the last season or
two showing him going to extra training classes and working with Aizawa. He was
clearly working hard to get up to everyone’s level. I’m a little sad that this
is the second to last season, as I’d have liked to see him interact with the
rest of UA more. Monoma is a dick, he always will be, but I liked that little
bit of added context that perhaps the main reason he’s such a loud, self-aggrandizing
dick is because of his insecurities about his power not being ‘worthy’ of being
a real hero. If we’d gotten that like 3 seasons ago, I might have been easier
on the guy. Using his copying not only for mass transport but also to aid in suppressing
Shigaraki’s powers is just brilliant. The divide and conquer strategy is pretty
smart, as by this point the League of Villains is a well-oiled machine. Without
this plan, it would essentially be everyone trying to focus on the two AFO users
while elite forces like Dabi and Toga picked off the weaklings and added damage
to the heavy hitters. It’d have been a very one-sided fight. With the villains
divide and facing heroes with strategies to fight them, it’ll be a much closer
match. I’m sure we’ll see more of the traps as this final arc goes on, but Tomura’s
for sure is pretty damn close to perfect. Or at least it would have been a
month ago when he first emerged. That ‘completion’ thing really screwed the
plan here. He’s not touching the planet, so Decay is limited to the field they’re
standing on. The field is covered in these breakable, launchable blocks to keep
decay from spreading more than a few meters at a time. The ground is seeded
with the heavy fiber cables to let Jeanist whip Tomura from afar with relative
ease. They’ve got long range fighters like Bakugo and Nejire to keep him on the
ropes with the close-up fighter Mirko and a mid-ranged fighter Amajiki for
support. And they have Aizawa and Monoma’s team-up there to repress powers. If
they had the lynch pin of Izuku Deku Midoriya there like they were supposed to,
this might have been easy. But that wouldn’t be fun, of course he has to be
pulled away to increase the dramatic tension of this final season. And by
Himeko Toga, the one other villain that he can’t bring himself to hate for various
reasons. This is going to suck for him, I think. But more on that when I get
back to this season. See you then. Have a good night and stay safe!
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