Toga admits her love and Izuku runs for his life!
Last time on My Hero Academia
the final battle began. We’re given a prolonged flashback revealing how the
heroes used Shinso, the brainwashing kid, to hypnotize Aoyama and his parents
to trick All For One’s lie detecting sense. They sounded calm and collected
when they called, therefore, no lie. They lure AFO out by making him think
Aoyama was helping him capture Izuku Midoriya. Instead, Aoyama attacked AFO and
then they were able to rapidly deploy their heroes by using Kurogiri’s Quirk
through that dick Monoma’s copy Quirk. The heroes captured all the villains in
armored pods that they’d hidden under the rubble and shoved them through Monoma’s
portals to try to separate them. The goal is to break up the elite fighters of
the League of Villains, guys like Dabi, Toga, Tomura, and AFO and tackle them
with very specific fighters. The plan works 80-90% of the way but has the major
hiccup of Izuku not ending up where he needed to be. Our hero was nabbed at the
last second by one of Toga’s needles and pulled through the portal to her
location. This is extremely bad for the team fighting Tomura as Izuku was the lynchpin
of that fight. So Best Jeanist, Edgeshot, Bakugo, Nejire, Amajiki, and Mirko
are left to try to salvage the plan. They’ve got Tomura trapped in a floating
prison on the grounds of UA. They’ve got an entire work force comprised of
Yaoyorozu, Power Loader, Cementoss, Mei Hatsume, and the support course kids. They’d
basically broken up the ground into a grid that could launch and break up any
segment that Shigaraki touched, effectively neutralizing his Decay. They also
can make new segments so they can hopefully keep him at bay. And they
have Monoma and Aizawa outside the electrified barrier they set up (powered by
Kaminari and some other electric heroes). The Teacher and student are in
constant contact to overcome Monoma’s usual time limit, and have the water
manipulating hero Manual to moisturize their eyes to keep them from blinking.
Even without Izuku it looked like they’d had Shigaraki contained… right up
until his arm mutated into a collection of mutant fingers and exploded out from
him. Crap. Enough recapping. Let’s get to it, shall we?
We open with a flashback to when
All Might explaining the plan to divide and conquer the League of Villains to
his allies. They know that the Tomura and AFO can communicate via radio waves
and Vestiges, so they need to keep them at least 10 km (6.2 miles) to try to
reduce their ability to coordinate. They also know Dabi in particular would be
a massive headache in this plan. So, they settled on the scattering plan. We go
over basics of what we’d already seen, brainwashed Aoyama’s to lure AFO in, separate
in pods, scatter across Japan and hopefully take the villains out
systematically. Shigaraki is sent to UA to fight Izuku and his team, AFO is sent
to Gunga Villa to fight Endeavor, Hawks and their team, Dabi to Kamino Ward to
fight Shoto’s team, Toga to Okuto Island to fight Uraraka’s team, the remaining
captured villains will get sent to Takuba National Stadium, and any stragglers
that escape capture will face off against whomever is left, specifically Fat
Gum and Aoyama. They also will have people on hand to monitor Gigantomachia at
Jaku hospital and Kurogiri in Central hospital to make sure they don’t get
summoned by their master and have a surprise jailbreak.
We cut to Monoma cackling madly and
taunting Tomura for not being able to use his quirk while they stare at him. I
guess he taunts people when he’s nervous. Aizawa is frustrated that they’ve
lost contact with Midoriya as their whole plan was built around him fighting Tomura.
His frustration is cut off when Tomura whips out his giant tentacle of fingers,
slamming into Mirko, bloodying her and breaking her prosthetic arm. Tomura
complains about ever thinking that Aizawa was cool and calls him another disappointment
before whipping his finger tentacle at Bakugo, just barely missing him. The finger
tentacle nearly hits Jeanist, who dodges, and then slams into UA. Edgeshot asks
if they blinked, but Monoma says he hasn’t. Tomura claims that this isn’t a quirk,
that the fingers are just a natural part of his body’s growth now, like his
hair or nails. It’s a side effect of his body being forced to adapt to take on
so many additional quirks, he claims this is the result of the Quirk Singularity
that has been pitched a few times now. He scolds everyone for denying this ugly
truth he represents. Mirko lands and calls up a locker filled with backup arms.
She equips a new arm and leaps over to Bakugo, telling him to get his head in
the game. They start shouting at each other, and Jeanist says to pay attention,
damn it.
Monoma tells Aizawa that he’s using
Erasure like he was taught but it’s not stopping the fingers. Aizawa tells him
that he knows and to calm down. Mandalay (Wild, Wild Pussy Cats, telepathy) runs
up and says they’ve gotten in contact with Midoriya. Izuku through radio static
explains he’s at Okuto island and that they should use Monoma to teleport him
over. The pros all realize that that plan is impossible, as Monoma can’t copy
more than one quirk at a time, and in the 30ish seconds it’d take for him to
switch, get Izuku through, and switch back, Tomura could destroy the whole
coffin. If each separate finger can use Decay, even if his range hadn’t
increased, he’d be able to touch every inch and melt it. He tells Izuku to try
to find a way here on his own, they’ll hold out as long as they can. Jeanist
rallies his team and says they’ll beat Shigaraki even without One for All. The
heroes all agree, but Amajiki is still pessimistic about it.
At Okuto Island, Gang Orca is
leading his team against the League of Villains and their Nomu. One breaks its
body into shards and rains them down like shrapnel. They’re also dealing with
jailbreakers like Moonfish (dude who grows bladed teeth from the Training camp).
The wave that the Nomu created with his attack scattered everyone, separating Izuku
and Uraraka from the rest. Izuku tells Uraraka what happened and she tells him
to book it. Before Izuku can react, Toga rushes him with her blades drawn, saying
that he can’t leave because she loves him. Izuku is weirded out that she seemed
to bypass his Danger Sense again. Hikage manifests, saying that Danger Sense
only triggers when the person is a threat. He says he’s not sure how Toga has
lasted so long in this world, saying that she legitimately feels affection when
she hurts someone. This is right on the heels of Izuku asking what she wants
and Toga announcing that she wants him to be her boyfriend.
Present Mic comes in to do the
narration, saying that Izuku is the special of this series, and that he and OFA
are super important. And then tells us that while he’d fought Toga a few times
up to this point, this is the first time he’d heard her express her unusual “I
love you therefore I want to make you bleed” mentality. Realizing that Toga
essentially wants to cut him to show her affection scares the crap out of
Izuku, who turns bright red and asks where the heck this is coming from. Mic puts
it best, “He may be strong, but he’s still a damn nerd.” Toga admits that she’s
had a crush on him since seeing him at the training camp (which, remember, she
was attacking) and says that seeing him all bloody and broken made her heart
flutter. She says that he reminded her of her first crush, we get a flashback scene
to her literally drinking that kid’s blood, so that’s not a compliment. She,
smiling in the most aggressive way I’ve ever seen drawn, tells him to get over
to her so she can drink his blood and become him.
Izuku is still hung up on the ‘boyfriend’
line and asks if she’s really asking him to like to go on a date with her.
Uraraka starts shaking with frustration on hearing this and I’m like, “Guys,
focus, battle!” Toga explains that when she likes someone, she wants to become
them, it’s the only way to satisfy her feelings. Water sprays up, giving Toga a
chance to disappear in the wave. Izuku shouts at her that he gets where she’s
coming from, as he wants to be like All Might, but she’s not thinking right if
she wants to hurt people she wants to be like. This sets Toga off, as she accused
Izuku of being just like Uraraka, her parents, and everyone else that want her
to ‘be normal.’ She says that because he only values heroes, he won’t give her
the time of day. She dons her mask and draws a bunch of her syringe needles,
saying that she’ll make him bleed. Uraraka leaps in to help keep Toga off
Izuku, saying that they can talk about this. She says that she’d been thinking about
Toga a lot since their fight, but Toga claims she’s gotten over her fixation on
Uraraka after that fight. She doesn’t matter to Toga anymore. She throws
Uraraka off and says if the world rejects her, she’ll reject the world. She
stabs Uraraka’s shoulder, saying that she thought they’d understand each other
since they love the same person. Izuku somehow doesn’t hear this, as Tsu leaps
in and kicks Toga off Uraraka as Izuku Blackwhip’s Toga and pulls her off.
Izuku asks if she’s okay, and she says it was barely a scratch. Considering how
deep that knife looked like it went in, I’d say she’s lying, but it’s a reasonable
lie. She says they must get the knife away from her as it has her blood on it.
Tsu notes that they brought Toga to an island to isolate her as she’s such a
wild card… but is now worried about being stuck on an island with her. She
shouts at Izuku to get moving, as now is not the time to get lost on a conversation
about Romance. She and Uraraka know how to fight Toga, so they can handle this.
Uraraka agrees and Izuku leaps away. Toga gets up, saying that this is so
unfair that Izuku is reacting like this when she just confessed her love. As
she stands, her blades start flying around her. Izuku leaps away, using float
to stay airborne and his air shots to launch himself forward. He’s frustrated that
he’s not flying fast enough, and that there isn’t anything for him to use Blackwhip
on to slingshot himself forward. Kudo, the second wielder, manifests and tells
Izuku to slow down. He’ll wreck his gloves if he pushes them too hard. He asks
Izuku if he’s going to use Gear Shift to make up the difference. Izuku confirms
that he had been thinking about it, but Kudo scolds him for it. He says that OFA
mutated their abilities overtime and using Gear Shift like that would be dangerous.
He tells Izuku to calm down and have faith in his friends. They can survive for
a bit waiting for him to arrive.
Back with Uraraka and Tsu, they
prepare to fight. Tsu is glad that Izuku left, as she knows it’s hard for him
to just ignore Toga like this. And admits it’s also to keep Toga from revealing
that Uraraka loves Izuku to Izuku, the only person this would be news to. Oy,
teenagers. Toga is flustered by this, saying that she loves Izuku, Uraraka, and
even Tsu, so their rejections hurt her. She wants to live like she wants, how
she wants. She tells them to go off and die, but Uraraka says she won’t run as
she needs to be true to herself too.
We shift over to Kamino Ward where
things aren’t going great. Dabi has the whole place engulfed in flames, heroes
are on the ground dead or unconscious, and his Nomu are rampaging around. He reflects
on similar this is to when the Nomu attacked Hosu city during Stain’s big
spree. He claims that he started getting serious after seeing that. Iida is on
the edges of Dabi’s sea of flames, commenting that it’s too hot for him to
approach, it’ll ruin his engine. Dabi flies up from the All Might statue that
he’d been draped over, saying that he’s annoyed and was talking to himself. You
see, he’s depressed that Endeavor is ‘ignoring’ him again. He’s annoyed that he’s
been left to his littlest brother and his dad’s sidekicks. The sidekicks are planning
to support Shoto however they can, as they’re a group of fire specialists, either
being Fire quirk havers or having quirks that can combat fire, they’re probably
going to be super important in this fight. Shoto says that he’s not doing this
for their dad, that he wants to be the one to stop his brother once and for
all. Dabi laughs at this and says that even if he doesn’t want to do
their dad’s bidding, he still is, therefore he’s bad. We pull out, seeing that
a huge area is on fire. He says that he and his people are here to finally
break the broken system of hero society. We get flashes of each of the league
members as Dabi talks about this grand plan of theirs. I only bring it up
because Spinner especially does not look good, which I think might be a bit of
foreshadowing what’s going on with him. Shoto asks his brother why he didn’t
come home after surviving the fire. Dabi agrees to tell his baby brother one
more story, how he became Dabi, how his flames grew so much hotter, and how he
survived this hellish world. We see his skin start to flake away as he snarls
at Shoto as the episode ends.
Overall, this was a solid
escalation episode. 2/6ths of their plans started off reasonably well, with
Shigaraki contained and Toga too far away from him to interfere. Sure, Izuku
wasn’t nearby to fight, but Shigaraki was in the cage, that’s a win. But then things
had to start going haywire as Shigaraki showed off his latest mutation. The
finger tentacle is just… so gross to look at, I hate it so much. But it’s
a nice visual representation of this Quirk Doomsday Theory that the series has
talked about a few times now. This is basically the belief that over the generations,
Quirks will mutate and grow more powerful until they hit a point where the human
body simply can’t contain them anymore. Considering the dozens of Quirks Tomura
has incorporated into his body, makes me wonder how far out this theory would
be from actually being proven true. Because, like, if he’s having this severe
of a mutation when he’s got dozens, perhaps hundreds, of powers within his body,
that would suggest that this won’t really be a problem for a long while. But
maybe more potent quirks created farther along will make it more severe. Who knows?
I liked that Izuku has been temporarily benched by having him be in transit for
the next little bit. Genre tradition as well as Izuku’s personality would
insist that Izuku help out at whatever fight he’s closest to before moving onto
the main event. But Izuku has grown as a person and understands now that a single
Symbol of Peace isn’t a viable situation anymore and he has to delegate. I am
sure it helps that he’s delegating to Uraraka and Tsu, two classmates that the
knows can handle fights given how often he’s worked with them. And that they’re
fighting Toga, someone that Uraraka has been mentally prepped for battle for a
while. Toga’s love confession to Izuku was very uncomfortable and sad, considering
we the audience know that she’s completely sincere and that in her mind saying
she wants to become you is the highest form of flattery she can give. Of the remaining
League of Villain members, she’s one of the saddest, since her position here
could possibly have been avoided. Sure, it would have required a lot of therapy,
but with more understanding parents or a society less likely to treat her like
a freak because of her blood fixation, she might have had a more normal life. She
needed someone to help her and society failed her. And now she’s an unhinged
serial killer that’s planning on adding Tsu and Uraraka to her kill count. Not
good. Hopefully the ocean water dilutes the blood on the knife enough to make
it not useful for her power, or else she’s going to start dropping heroes like
that one Lady from Re-Destro’s group. And I liked the tease about Dabi’s
backstory for next time. I am curious as to how he survived that fire, and whether
it’ll retcon a few things or not. Guess we’ll wait and see. Have a good night
and stay safe out there.
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Bluesky: @basicssuperhero.bsky.social
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