Izuku vs. Shigaraki, round 1, FIGHT!
Last time on My Hero Academia
the villains had their The Empire Strikes Back moment. Dabi recovered,
having saved himself from Shoto’s final blow by copying his Phosphor technique
and is once again on the hunt for his father. Meanwhile, All For One used his
Hail Mary play, injecting himself with an artificial version of Eri’s Rewind quirk.
The drug has restored him to his physical peak, even regrowing his eyes, but
the downside is he’s going to keep getting younger until he ceases to be. The
hero Edgeshot used his ability to reduce himself to tiny threads in a last-ditch
effort to seal Bakugo’s wounds and restart his heart. Mirko and the Big Three try
to buy him time. Mirko gets her other arm ripped off in the fighting, but that
barely slowed her down as she rained kicks down on the villain. Shigaraki’s
mind seems to be fracturing bit by bit as the Tenko Shimura in him is growing
stronger. The constant attacks cause Shigaraki to mutate his form again,
gaining armored plates in the form of hands all over his body. He quickly
dispatches Mirko, Amajiki, and Nejire, and dubs Mirio as not worth his time.
Mandalay tells them telepathically she’s going to power down the shield and she
needs them to buy two seconds. Mirio, freaking out a bit by all this, decides
to fall back on Sir Nighteye’s advice and tries to use one of his strengths. So,
he gets in front of Shigaraki and effectively moons him, saying, “brought a
peach for ya!” The sheer insanity of the moment stuns Shigaraki just long
enough for Izuku to slingshot himself into the field. And the League of Villain’s
member Skeptic seems to be doing something to the UA shelter with his hacking,
which can’t possibly be good. Enough recapping. Let’s get to it, shall we?
After Izuku gives a quick summary
of the situation (Villains scattered, villains rallying, he’s racing to get to
the Coffin in the Sky) we learn how he covered the distance so quickly. The US Air
Force guys flew their bombers to pick him up. Ethan the fighter pilot scolds
Izuku for making them pick him up. He tells Izuku that he has orders to return home,
but his squad is technically committing treason to help him to honor Star and
Stripes’ wishes. He tells Izuku to go and beat the worst villain in history. Izuku
slingshot his way to Coffin and kicks Shigaraki square in the face. He hits
hard enough to disintegrate some of Shigaraki’s armor. With Izuku inside they
get the barrier back up and Shigaraki gets a good shock for his trouble when he
hits it. Shigaraki notes that Izuku seems stronger than before and wonders if
the energy he saw sparking around him was the same as Lee’s, the second wielder.
Izuku asks if everyone is okay… but stops when he sees everyone except Mirio is
extremely injured… or dead. He freezes up when he sees it. Shigaraki starts to
gloat, condescendingly asking him to tell the others why he’s late. He tells
Izuku to avoid taking responsibility like everyone else does. Izuku’s power
starts to go out of control, he unleashes a smokescreen, causes Blackwhip to erupt
all around his body, and Fa Jinn energy builds up as well. Shigaraki gets off
the ground and is clearly feeling smug. He thinks to himself how lucky he is,
as when Izuku gets mad, he gets predicable, and so he’s confident that he’ll be
able to severe Izuku’s spine when he tries to attack. Mirio grabs his friend
and tells him that it’s not as bad as it looks, everyone but Bakugo is still
breathing and Edgeshot is still working to save him. Everyone is okay (relatively
speaking), so he just needs to calm down and focus. Shigaraki says that Mirio
is just trying to help him avoid reality. Mirio says that heroes are supposed
to fight and chase the ideal future, who else will make it reality? Izuku
remembers All Might and Ethan encouraging him, and Banjo telling him to keep control
of his heart. This lets Izuku refocus and he prepares to fight. He asks AFO if
Shigaraki is still inside that body.
We are shown a brief glimpse into
Shigaraki’s Mindscape as he explains that he is both AFO and Tomura, two
consciousnesses merged into one. We’re shown the visual of AFO’s body as a
small Tenko Shimura tries to get out of him like a chest burster, ya know, to
symbolically imply that there’s more inner turmoil here than he’s letting on. AFO
claims that his is the dominant personality because he’s older… and totally not
because he engineered this whole plot to steal Tomura’s body. He warns Izuku to
not think for a moment that a happy ending is possible. Mirio doesn’t believe the
fusion story, and he tells Izuku about how he reacted to being told he doesn’t
have any friends. He thought that after that, every hit caused Shigaraki to
react, to show weakness. Nana Shimura briefly manifests and tells Izuku that
her grandson is still in there. She knows this by looking at Shigaraki’s mutant
left hand, which has human heads on the tips of the fingers, and she recognizes
one of them as Tomura’s father, her son. Shigaraki leaps and the force of it
causes the Coffin to list to the side. He tells Izuku that he’s coming for his brother.
Izuku tanks the hit and says that he better not think he’s getting a happy
ending either.
He strikes Shigaraki with a
combination of Blackwhip and Fa Jinn, which hurts but doesn’t do much. Then we
see that attack was just to put some distance between them for Izuku’s actual
big attack. Kudo manifests and tells Izuku that he has five minutes to finish
this or its all over. Izuku uses Gear Shift and goes into second. He moves at
blinding speed and strikes Shigaraki in the gut, then hits him twice more as he
shifts into third and then top gear. He
hits Shigaraki so hard with that last one that he breaks the sound barrier. Shigaraki
is noticeably panicking at this moment as he realizes that Izuku is using Gear Shift,
and that it’s more potent than it was the last time he saw it. Kudo says that
his Quirk has shifted over the years and its allowing Izuku to battle at 120%
his full power. He Detroit Smashes Shigaraki into the ground. Both Shigaraki brothers
manifest with that hit, OFA telling AFO that they need to finish this.
AFO has a flashback to when he
killed Kudo. We see that AFO slaughtered at least a dozen members of Kudo’s
militia before grabbing the man by the throat and holding him aloft. He figured
out Kudo’s Quirk could change the speed of things, but it only worked on small
objects. Kudo, to show his defiance, tried to strike AFO in the back of the
head with a knife he’d touched, but it doesn’t work. He dubs Kudo as worthless,
beneath his notice. He’s confused as to why in the present that he sees Kudo alongside
his little brother as Izuku piledrives him into the ground. Izuku’s power is
great enough to even impress Aizawa. Kudo explains that his power, like the others,
grew more powerful over the ages as OFA has been passed on. It’s grown potent
enough to affect things on a cellular level. He claims when Izuku uses it on
himself it causes him to have a punch that, and I quote, can “break the laws of
reality itself.” Izuku Detroit Smashes Shigaraki with a Quintuple force. Shigaraki
realized that the hit wasn’t as strong the last one and that it’s probably because
Izuku didn’t use Fa Jinn to charge up. Still, he’s confident now that he can
figure out Izuku’s trajectory and tries to counter his next hit. Unfortunately
for him, Izuku’s Gear Shift doesn’t have to follow the laws of Physics, so he
is able to downshift mid flight and escape his attack. Shigaraki tries to hit
him anyway and Izuku unleashes a smoke screen. Izuku tangles him Blackwhip and
pulls him upward. He uses all his Quirks together to position Shigaraki just
right and then unleash a full power strike. Kudo tells Izuku to remember that
meta abilities aren’t the most important thing, the real power is in the hero
that uses them. Izuku and Shigaraki clash with their super powered punches. They’re
stuck in limbo for a second before Izuku bursts through, and shatters through
Shigaraki’s defenses. The first wielder manifests and says that it feels like
his OFA and his brother’s AFO are resonating. He thinks that Mirio is right and
that something is off here, and that all that’s happening is breaking the
balance between AFO and Tomura. Kudo tells Izuku that he has to finish off
Shigaraki, now, like he swore he’d do when he spoke with Nana. Shigaraki is
infuriated by all of this. He’s the quintessential sore loser, blaming everyone
around him for what’s happening. The heroes are cheating by blocking his quirks
while Izuku uses all of his combined. They cheated when they split the two
Shigarakis up and trapped him in a cage. Shigaraki swears he’s not done yet. It’s
at this moment that we learn that Shigaraki the Younger is named Yoichi as AFO
gloats. He claims that he’s not done yet, he thinks victory is still well
within his reach. We’re shown the battlefields, Dabi’s fire is engulfing Kamino,
a storm is forming over the island, Gunga villa is smoking, and then we see a hulked-out
Spinner standing over some carnage. Damn. That’s a hell of a spot to stop at.
I hoped that the Shigaraki vs. Deku
brawl would be memorable and it did not disappoint. The fight itself was phenomenal.
I love how they worked in each of his powers into the fight at one point and
that even someone like Shigaraki, who theoretically should have been the most
prepared to fight someone with the perfected One For All was overwhelmed by it.
I think it gives us a little insight into AFO’s mindset. He was overconfident for
the entire series because he assumed that no matter how strong OFA’s quirks
grew they’d never match him. The ones he met with their original wielders were
weak, so they could never grow strong enough to challenge him. And Izuku
obliterates that assumption by spamming his gear shift and moving at, like,
quantum speed. And that final hi was so good a part of me is bummed that we
have another season and a half to go. That would have been a perfect ending
hit. I also enjoyed the build up to the fight, with Izuku briefly losing
control of his power and how Mirio talked him back down. Izuku and Mirio have
had a connection basically since they met, and I like that Horikoshi never
forgot that Mirio is Izuku’s older brother for all intents and purposes. He
knew what Izuku needed to hear, and how important it was that he heard it. If
Izuku had rampaged, like he almost did, I don’t doubt that the one sidedness of
this fight would have been in Shigaraki’s favor unless maybe Izuku gear shifted
right away and became to fast to hit. I also appreciate that Mirio also
detected and is letting Izuku know his suspicions that AFO and Shigaraki aren’t
fully integrated. I’ve seen other series insist on only the protagonist having
the awareness or insight to notice when something funky is up with the big bad.
But Mirio is also extremely intelligent and insightful despite being a bit of a
goof, so he would notice things being as off with Shigaraki as they are. I can’t
wait to see how the situation is going to get worse. See you next time. Have a
good night and stay safe.
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Bluesky: @basicssuperhero.bsky.social
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