Some old faces return.
Last time on My Hero Academia
there was some good news and some bad news. The good news is that thanks to a
combination of Shoji’s words and the stubborn defiance of Central Hospital’s
medical staff, the civilian members of Spinner’s mob (which made the bulk of their
forces) backed down. Shoji made the right call and did tell the guy speaking on
behalf of the civilians that his feelings of anger and hate were valid, they just
need to find a better way to channel them in a way that can someday bring
societal change. Spinner makes it to Kurogiri but gets blasted by Present Mic’s
sonic boom. Mic weighs his options and ultimately decides to try to put down
Kurogiri once and for all. High School buddy reanimated corpse or no, he’s just
too dangerous as a Nomu to keep going. Unfortunately, Spinner is able to get up
and put Tomura’s hand-mask on Kurogiri, waking him up. Kurogiri works fast,
using his warp gates to quickly ferry Dabi and Toga to the battlefield with
Endeavor and Hawks. Toga had decided to use her vial of Twice’s blood to take
on his shape, meaning that for the next forty minutes the heroes will have to
deal with endless clones. So, the final battle is about to shift back into
gear. Enough recapping. Let’s get to it, shall we?
Gunga Villa has turned into a madhouse
as it’s now covered in Twice’s muddy clones. The clones are piled atop each
other in a weird matrix that reminds me of the One Reborn from the video game Bloodborne.
Just an unsettling image. Komori, the mushroom maker from Class 1B, is the
first to state what everyone is thinking, that there’s just too many clones and
they’re all hosed. One silver lining to the moment is that Uraraka and Tsu
slide through the warp gate just as it closes, Uraraka saying that she’s not
losing sight of Toga again now that she’s caught. We get a brief flashback to
show that after Uraraka’s wire attack failed, Tsu grabbed Uraraka with her frog
tongue and threw them both through the portal. Uraraka calls out to Toga again,
saying they have to talk. This gets either Toga or a clone to react,
letting Twice’s face melt off so she can look at Uraraka with her own eyes and
tell her to back off. We cut to that weather girl, Meryl, from last episode,
who talks about the butterfly effect and says that a single person has the power
to change the world.
The clones start to overwhelm the
heroes, as their numbers are insane, and Dabi’s flames are so intense that
Komori can’t do her crazy spore attack. Uraraka uses her anti-gravity powers on
Tsu so they can both float over the crowd. Tsu, being a negative nelly for
once, says that they’ll need to stop Toga AND Dabi in order to turn this
around. She does a little prayer for Shoto and Shoji too. They’re joined by
Tokoyami and Jiro. They assess the situation, lots of fires, lots of clones,
and no obvious solution to either. Well… crap.
Endeavor takes out a bunch of Twice
clones despite his injuries, which include losing an arm, before focusing on
his oldest. He noticed the X shape flames on Dabi’s chest are like Phosphor and
demands to know what Dabi has done to his little brother. Dabi is man enough to
admit that Shoto was too strong for him to kill, which ruined his perfect image
of presenting the youngest Todoroki to the patriarch in the rain. Since he can’t
have that, he’s decided to just burn the country that Endeavor has worked so
hard to protect to the ground. AFO watches from a distance and is smugly confident
in his ability to win. He knows that Kurogiri would have followed his
programming and gone to aid Tomura. He muses on how much more powerful Warp
Gate is to the sludge teleport he uses and wonders if he should’ve kept that Quirk.
He decides that he’s had enough fun around here and tries to fly off to aid
Tomura. Hawks zooms over and blocks him, knocking the reverse-aging villain
back. AFO tries to mock him, saying that he really should be on the ground and
facing off against Twice’s last wish. Hawks counters by saying that he’s in an
awfully big hurry and wonders if he’s not confident in Tomura. This strikes a
nerve for AFO, but he admits that Tomura isn’t complete yet, so he really does
need AFO’s back up. Hawks yells to Endeavor to focus on Toya, as the flames
will take out everyone out if they don’t. AFO calls Hawks cruel for that one
and asks if he’s really asking Endeavor to give up on his duty to beat AFO.
Hawks tells him to shut up, and points out that Endeavor isn’t abandoning
anything, as he already killed AFO once today. This really pisses off AFO who
mutters, “How pedantic.” Dabi rockets at his father, going in for the kill. Endeavor
looks at the burning ball of hate that is his oldest son and swears that this
time he will watch Toya.
Back at the flying Coffin, Kurogiri
throws Present Mic at Aizawa, Manual and Monoma. He also pulls in a bunch of Twice
clones. It looks like he isn’t playing any more. They do their best to hold
them off, but it’s three against like 15. To his credit, Monoma keeps his eyes
on Shigaraki until the moment that he’s forced to the ground and hits his head.
In the Coffin, Shigaraki’s body bursts as his mutation hits critical mass. It destroys
the electromagnetic barrier, and Skeptic is able to hack their system and
causes the Coffin to start to drop. Mandalay uses her telepathy to get everyone
up to speed on the situation. Izuku has his attention forced back to Tomura. He’s
basically back to normal, but he’s now got a billowing cape of shed skin around
his waist. Gross. He asks Izuku what he’d do with Tomura even ‘if’ he’s still
in his own head. He sarcastically asks if they’d have another chat at the mall
like they did all the way back in season 2. He announces that they both know
who he is, he’s Deku’s villain. Skeptic frantically hacks away, saying that he’s
got full control of the evacuation system and swears that no one here will survive.
Izuku realizes that he’s kind of
screwed. In the next few minutes, he has to find a way to get the Flying Coffin
to land as gently as possible or else everyone in the lower levels will die. He
also has to keep an eye on Tomura to make sure he doesn’t escape, and to do
that he also has to keep track of Kurogiri, the guy whose whole thing is rapid teleportation.
And to make matters worse, he’s having trouble breathing. Using the amped-up
version of Gear Shift seems to have messed with his lungs and he’s having trouble
taking in air. Kudo manifests beside Izuku and says that he can’t die just yet.
He gives Izuku some good news. Right now, All for One and One for All are
resonating in a way that’s letting them peer into each other’s mindscape. Within,
they see that the Shigaraki’s unity is falling apart. In the mindscape, AFO is
surrounded by purple goo and seems to be scrambling to try to get Tomura back
under his control. Kudo assesses that right now Shigaraki might not be able to
move at all. He tells Izuku to take a moment to catch his breath and then use
all the anger he’s feeling to push himself forward.
Things are looking dire… but then
Skeptic is hit with an unexpected curveball. In the form of a pink mini jester.
That’s right, Manami ‘La Brava’ Aiba, the tiny girl with a big heart and hacking
skills like no other has entered the battle. She says that he’s pretty
good, but he wouldn’t be able to hide from her for long, as she’s working for
Gentle Criminal’s sake. While the others at the HQ scramble to try to get info
on what’s happening at Gunga Villa, La Brava is having a grand old time. She
reveals that years ago when she was still a shut in, on a whim she hacked the
server at Skeptic’s company, Feel Good Inc, and replaced all their ads with a
pic of a kitty character she likes. This infuriates Skeptic, who remembers that
incident and the MILLIONS that La Brava cost him. Knowing that it really
pissed him off, she does it again. Skeptic uses his powers to make a few minions
to help him carry his equipment. He’s willing to sacrifice everything else so
long as he can get back into the UA Evac system, saying that he’ll just move
locations and start over. La Brava shifts her focus to trying to help Izuku. One
of the guards tells her that they need to make sure UA lands safely. She does
her best, but the big explosion knocked out a lot of critical parts so she’s scrambling.
One of the security guys says that he can’t believe they let their last line of
defense be this little criminal. Tsukauchi say that a crime is a crime… but maybe
not everyone who is a villain is a lost cause, thinking of Aoyama.
Tomura reiterates that he’s Izuku’s
villain. He says that Izuku refuses to accept that there is a fundamental difference
between them and its for that reason that they’re facing off. Mandalay rallies
the electric heroes to help her handle the… Duplication of Twices. Ethan and his
wingman wedge try to find a way to shoot at the Duplication, but Aizawa and
their other guys are mixed in there. They’re briefly distracted when they
notice something on the water below them. A gray-haired gentleman, crackling with
pink energy is trampolining on a bit of air. Oh, so Gentle is getting involved too.
Skeptic makes it out of the cave
but runs into Ms. Joke, UA Guidance Counselor Hound Dog, and their squad. Ms.
Joke asks if he really thought he’d get away from them. Hound Dog takes
off his mask and says that he can’t believe they’re putting their faith in
villains and hopes they’ll live up to their end of the bargain. Tsukauchi tells
Gentle that he’s up, and La Brava sends all her love to him. Gentle says that
he’ll do whatever it takes to help the boy.
We flash back a month, during the
big prison riots, to Mikuzu Prison. Muscular leads the break and tells the
villains to have fun on the streets. The criminals start to head for the broken
walls, but Gentle jumps in front of them and tries to talk the other criminals
down. His speech doesn’t sway them and they charge him. Gentle remembers Izuku’s
speech about wanting to show the world a bright future and the screen flashes.
When we cut back in, we see it’s dawn. The gorilla cop walks in, and says that with
seven prison breakouts that night, Mikuzu was the only one to not have a single
breakout. We see Gentle, looking exhausted but alive, sitting with the other
prisoners either tied up in air or in rubberized steel beams. Mr. Kong asks
what he wants. Gentle says that he wants two things, to see La Brava, and then
to help.
La Brava encourages Gentle over the
radio, saying that she used to think she’d be happy just being around Gentle. But,
she’s since learned that she’s happiest when he’s happy, so she wants that
above all. Gentle and La Brava agree that absence makes the heart grow fonder…
which is a big deal because La Brava’s quirk lets her power up the people that
she loves proportional to her feelings. And she has even bigger feelings
towards one Danjoro “Gentle Criminal” Tobita. He unleashes their super Gently
Superlover attack, which lets him slow the falling UA. He asks if Izuku is
still trying to fight to save someone’s smile. He thinks that all he’s ever
wanted to do was to try to help. Mandalay telepathically tells Izuku that they
seemed to have been caught by a trampoline made of air. Izuku is ecstatic to
hear the Gentle is helping, but Banjo manifests and tells him to pay attention.
Shigaraki has recovered, and he’s moving his hand toward the ground. Banjo reminds
Izuku that even if they’re floating, when Tomura’s hand touches the ground they’re
all dead. Izuku is still too exhausted to move, Tomura’s hand drops and he’s
inches from the ground… when a bullet rockets through the air and takes his
hand clean off. Tsukauchi gives a little speech about how villains are people
too and you have to give people the chance to do better. We cut to the nearby
hospital, were we see a bandaged but still mobile Lady Nagant standing with her
gun armed raised. I guess this is the rise of heroic villains.
Well, as far as episode’s go, this
was very much a good news/bad news situation. The villains have bounced back
extremely quickly and are going to be causing a lot of trouble just with the Duplication
of Twices. Endeavor has to live his nightmare
and fight Toya, more than likely to the death. Hawks is the only one standing between
AFO and AFO going after Tomura. Uraraka, Tsu, Jiro, and Tokoyami are more or
less powerless at this moment to do anything. That’s all bad. But they’ve
effectively removed the villains’ communications and hacking expert in one fell
swoop, Gentle saved basically everyone in the lower areas from a fiery death,
and Nagant has disarmed (teehee) Shigaraki at least for the moment. That’s all
very good. If you’d told me seventy episodes ago when they were first
introduced that I’d be happy to see Gentle Criminal and La Brava return, I’d have
laughed in your face. Two characters that I’d written off at the start of their
story as joke villains meant to waste time while we gear up for the next big
fight are back and are trying to show that they’ve had character growth as
well. The flashback to the prison was really well done to show that Gentle took
Izuku and Mr. Kong’s words to heart and is refusing to step back or stay still
anymore. Plus, it was really sweet to hear his priorities were to see the love
of his life and then help Izuku in that order. What? I like when two characters
that are supposedly in love act like it, so sue me. It was also nice to see
Izuku learn that Gentle was helping. Much like having Kota show up to talk with
him at the UA refugee camp, knowing that he has had a positive impact on
someone I think is going to help Izuku moving forward. Gives him a little more
oomph. And obviously Lady Nagant coming in clutch to save everyone by taking
off one of Shigaraki’s hands was dope. Remember, Shigaraki’s power is focused
through his fingers, so it’s not like he can just jam his stump on the ground
and cause it to melt. Sure, he’ll just regrow the hand now that he’s got access
to his powers again, but that’ll take time and every minute they buy help out
Izuku. Hopefully they can keep up this momentum. But we’ll have to wait and see.
Have a good night, and stay safe.
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/viewer-log-my-ep-159429566
Bluesky: @basicssuperhero.bsky.social
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