Viewer Log: My Hero Academia ep 163

 Like so many villains, AFO's origin is sad and petty.

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Viewer Log: My Hero Academia ep 162

 Bakugo is shifting into Turbo. 

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Viewer Log: My Hero Academia ep 161

Stain and All Might try to finish this fight with AFO once and for all. 

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Viewer Log: My Hero Academia ep 160

 All Might's got a Hail Mary attack that might just work. 

Last time on My Hero Academia All Might busted out his new toy. His de facto niece and confidant Melissa Shield build him a battle suit and the Hercules System to allow All Might the chance to slug it out with AFO one last time. The suit has weapons and powerups all based on the Quirks of Class 1A and coupled with his years long obsession with AFO and how he fights, the retired hero was able to last more than thirty seconds against All For One. Which is something basically no one thought a Quirkless person could do. He’s doing his best to slowdown AFO in the hopes that Izuku can beat Tomura before AFO could reach him. It’s a stall, everyone knows it, and it’s only working because the connection AFO created between himself and Tomura is basically causing Tomura’s irrationally intense hatred of All Might to funnel back into AFO and make him sloppy. All Might notices that AFO is getting even younger as they fight and realizes that the more AFO uses Rewind to heal, the younger he gets. Which gives him a win condition when his previous one was just ‘survive as long as you can.’ Izuku senses All Might’s fight through the Toshinori Vestige in his mind and they agree to finish this once and for all. Oh, and Uraraka was bleeding out from the stomach wound that Toga gave her, but Toga drank her blood, sealed the wound and then gave her a blood transfusion in Uraraka’s form to save her life at the cost of Toga’s own. Enough recapping. Let’s get to it, shall we?

 

Most of this episode is in fact a recap of the previous episode. I think really the only thing they cut was the opening with Uraraka and Toga and some of the cutaways to the police station.

 

We begin with a recap of the fight thus far. We hit the big moments, All Might’s opening charge, the Red Riot shield, followed by the Black Whip/Chargebolt combo to keep AFO from regenerating. He vows to use everything that he was ever given to take AFO one and for all. Sugar Man enhanced Shoot-style kick, Tsukuyomi shield, followed by Pinky acid stab. Flashback to his vow to be the Symbol of Peace to Nana Shimura, and then to Izuku asking if he could be a hero without a Quirk, followed by Stain saying that All Might was a hero even without his power. All Might realizing that Rewind is de-aging AFO at a faster rate and that he now has a real win condition. He activates his Uravity and Ingenium thrusters, and begs his students to keep giving him their strength.

 

Now onto the new stuff.

 

He uses mechanical Tentacole tentacles that have Froppy’s suction to pick up speed and maneuver between buildings. He plans to keep running, but in a way that’ll keep AFO from getting bored and realizing he needs to rush to get Izuku. He activates Shoto and Tailman protocols and prepares his trap. He knows that he’s got the perfect artificial quirk to use against AFO in order to force him to rewind himself even further, but he needs time to build up energy and get into position. He sends off his Anima, a pair of robotic drones in shaped like birds. He gets cut off by AFO. AFO points out how odd it is that All Might laughed like a lunatic before trying to run. He claims to know what All Might is trying to do, and that’s he’s prepared for it. He claims it’ll be easy to kill All Might even in “Power Save” mode and that he’ll enjoy All Might’s screams. He touches the walls and creates a network of spikes to launch from the walls in a net. All Might rockets upward and tries to fly away. He’s cut off by a pair of tentacles with huge chomping mouths waiting above him. All Might flies off and dodges the chomping mouths. AFO mocks All Might, saying that he’s using technology to copy the quirks of much younger heroes. He mocks All Might’s attempts to try to stay relevant when everyone knows he’s just an old man with half his guts missing. He calls All Might pathetic and that he’s going to kill All Might on national television, indicating the camera recording all this.

 

AFO leaps through a wall, cutting All Might off and slamming him into the ground. He screams that the Light of Justice will be snuffed out. All Might flashes back to that mental image of him trying to keep the metaphorical embers of OFA burning despite bitter, freezing cold. He says that AFO still doesn’t understand him. He wraps AFO in a tentacle, rams another into his mouth and fires off a freezing ray that starts to freeze him solid. All Might says that the thing about light is, even if his flickers and dies, it’ll ignite other lights that will stand against him.

 

We cut to a Tartarus Jailbreaker, Kunieda. Kunieda creates huge purple flowers that parasitically drain the life out of his victims. Narrator Present Mic tells us that this is taking place about 300 meters from the All Might fight. Kunieda faced off against the heroes that stayed behind to fight the members of AFO’s army that weren’t dangerous enough to be included in the scattering plan. Kunieda unfortunately has overwhelmed the heroes, trapping them all in his purple plants. The only one still up is Aoyama, though he’s wrapped up too. The roots are rapidly digesting people through their roots. The roots digest all of Fat Gum’s fat, and the plant morphs into a something that looks like a cousin of Audrey 2 from Little Shop of Horrors. Fat Guy eggs Aoyama on and says he needs to take this guy out. Kunieda starts to gloat, saying that Aoyama can’t beat him, as Kunieda’s plants broke and stole Aoyama’s belt. Without it, he can’t aim properly and his power leaks out everywhere. We see that that is in fact the case, as Aoyama’s naval laser is bleeding out all over the place. Kunieda mocks Aoyama for having a Quirk so ill-suited for his body.

 

Aoyama flashes back to when his parents got him his original belt that helped him regulate his naval laser and how happy the Aoyama family was. Aoyama thanks Kunieda for reminding him what’s important, and how he needs to work harder than his peers in order to shine as bright as them. He starts firing of laser bursts, damaging the plants that entangle him. Kunieda mocks Aoyama for trying to grasp an impossible dream… but then you notice that it seems like the laser pulses are looping around Kunieda. Why? Well… there was one other hero that was still active, just waiting for an opportunity to use a combo attack with Aoyama. Hagakure reveals herself, using her ability to refract and intensify light to super charge naval laser and burn through the plants. She tells Aoyama that it took him long enough and calls him a hero. We see her face briefly as she uses her attack, and she’s got extremely wild hair. I somehow always assumed she kept it short.

 

Back at the AFO fight, All Might uses that as an example of someone picking up the torch of his light and continuing onward. We see the Anima birds fly towards a target. They lock into a huge cannon that had been floating just above the fight. It turns and locks on target, unleashing a huge blast of energy. All Might says that this attack has a name that will surely burn AFO and announces, “Can’t Stop TWINKLING!” as the plasma blast bombards AFO. The attack drives AFO into the ground and keeps on slamming into him. Hercules warns All Might that it can’t keep up this attack for long and that it already has suffered damage. All Might tells it to keep going for as long as possible. He shouts at AFO that he got this idea from Star’s fight with Tomura. He doesn’t have the power to create a sustained energy blast, so he had to improvise. He adds to the laser fire with soundwave vibration via his Earphone Jack attack. He vows to himself to keep this up until AFO is dead.

 

All Might spells out everything that just happened so we know every moment of this was a trap. When the laser had charged up, he released his Tentacole arms so he could fly away. His suit is treated with an Invisible Girl resin that gave him some protection from the laser blast so he could get close enough to use Earphone Jack. He knew that AFO would want to see him in pain, so he allowed himself to take a body blow to ensnare AFO. It cost him the use of his legs, but he thinks this might do it. Then AFO reveals he’s not out yet and fires his bladed tentacle out at All Might. He has to fall back and uses Creatie to reshape bits of his armor into bombs and tosses them at AFO. He begs his suit to finish off AFO now, while his joy still overshadows his pain.

 

We cut to a family in a foreign country watching the fight on TV. A boy asks his grandma who the skeletal man is. Grandma shrugs and says she doesn’t keep up with heroes. She says not to worry so much, as things happening in other countries won’t affect them. The boy agrees halfheartedly and turns back to the TV. The way he starts clenching his hands together makes it clear that he’s rooting for All Might.

 

Back at the fight, the Hercules cannon hits its limit and explodes. AFO drags himself out of the hole and tells All Might that he can’t go beyond using toys. He’s de-aged to a very young teenager, probably no older than Izuku and his friends. All Might tries to deck him, but he’s smacked aside by AFO and he hits the ground hard. AFO starts to gloat, saying that he’ll relish the pain in All Might’s eyes and when he’s done having fun, he’ll mess up All Might’s face just like All Might did to him all those years ago. His body is glowing as he makes a tentacle to attack All Might, but he freezes as some kind of pulse ripples through his body. He tries to take a step but realizes that he can’t move. From behind a ragged voice screams “Everyone bleeds the same color!” Stain has revealed himself, standing atop a jet board of some kind. He launches himself at AFO, licking up more blood to increase the paralysis and shouts at All Might to take AFO out. That’s a hell of a spot to finish.

 

Post credits, damn it Studio Bones, we go back to the Kunieda fight. Hagakure pins Kunieda and radios in that the villain is in custody. Aoyama frees himself and limps towards her. We see that her invisibility isn’t working right, it’s glitching out and we can vaguely see her still. Considering that she still goes around naked in fights, this is something of a problem for her modesty. She covers herself and tries to figure out what happened. She remembers that she became visible for a bit after refracting Aoyama’s attack when she caught him getting his orders from his parents and says that his Quirk might be evolving. Aoyama doesn’t care about that right now, as they need to kill the rest of the plants and free the others. They weren’t destroyed just because Kunieda is down and they’ll keep draining their allies. Aoyama says that they’ll need to do another refraction attack. Hagakure asks if his stomach can handle that and Aoyama tells her that he’ll be fine. He says that because this is his last day as a UA student, no one is going to stop him.

 

When we get down to it, after rehashing the start of the fight, this episode is mostly just covering All Might’s big final gambit to stop AFO and Aoyama’s big moment with Hagakure. And I’m 100% okay with that. Getting to see the level of tactical brilliance that All Might displayed here was great. His power set and general attitude make it seem like he just charges and uses his strength to carry him through whatever fight that he’s in. And while I think that is very much one of his main tactics, we have seen that All Might fights strategically when the need calls for it, and this was just another and the best example of that. He planned this final strike out extremely well, and it probably would have worked if AFO didn’t have Rewind active or some other regeneration Quirk keeping him going. And the fact that the center point of the attack was using Aoyama’s laser against him, (Chef’s kiss) perfect. Unfortunately, AFO’s power is just too great for him to overcome on his own, and I thought that this might be the end for him before Stain showed up. The hero killer was definitely a wild card to throw into this game, but I do completely believe that he’d leap in to help All Might, regardless of anything else going on. His paralysis quirk probably won’t tip the scales in their favor, but every minute that they buy for Izuku is a minute close to AFO de-aging to nothing, so it helps. Aoyama getting one final moment to shine along with Hagakure was sweet. As I said earlier, those two and Mina seemed to be extremely close, so getting off one last combo together was just a sweet way to cap off his story arc. I feel like making Hagakure visible while naked ruins it just a little bit, but Japan has got to Japan. After briefly seeing her earlier and now, fan art of Hagakure and her rainbow hair started popping up a lot on fandom spaces and I get why. If Horikoshi came up with this design early on, he’s an ass for keeping it to himself just to have an invisible girl running around naked joke. Like, come on, she’s got enough hair, she could have made a hair-based suit like Togeta uses so we could have seen her pretty face this whole time. It’s lame. But that’s my one nitpick. Hopefully Aoyama and Hagakure’s part in the story is done, so they can just free everyone else. Just because they’re clearly both exhausted like anyone else, and their offensive options are extremely limited right now. Next time, the Symbol of Peace and the Hero Killer team up to stop the Demon Lord. See you there. 

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Viewer Log: My Hero Academia ep 159

 All Might finds a way to have one last brawl with his oldest enemy. 

Last time on My Hero Academia, Uraraka did her best to confront Himiko Toga. The angry, embittered young woman hid herself among the Duplication of Twices and tried to kill everyone, but Uraraka found the real Toga and did her damnedest to just talk out their feelings with her. Toga tries to fight off Uraraka even after the other girl trapped her and all the Twice clones in her anti-gravity touch. She stabs Uraraka in the gut and says that they’ll never understand each other. We get flashbacks to Toga’s backstory, where we learn that she was told to repress her desire to drink blood and was called a monster by like the age of six, so like… there’s no way this girl had a chance of being normal. Uraraka keeps pushing despite her wound and finally breaks through to Toga, saying that Toga is beautiful when smiling her very vulpine smile. It’s at this point that Toga’s Twice transformation runs out and she says goodbye to him one more time as all her clones melt away to dust. Enough recapping. Let’s get to it, shall we?

 

We open on the last moments of last episode, with the two girls floating to the ground as Twice’s transformation runs out. Uraraka tells Toga that she can’t replace the League of Villains, but she’ll do her best to try. We pull out to see how everyone else had faired against the Duplication of Twices. Everyone seems to have survived, one broke down just as it reached a very injured Iida, and it looked like Endeavor tried to shield his family with his body from the squad that came up on him. Hawks had fought one off for a while, the clone attempted to run him through with a dagger as it broke down. Hawks tells this Toga that he has to admit that Twice was a nice guy, but that she already knew that.

 

Toga grabs her mask and her knife, saying that she only started using a knife to become the people that she loves, but that she ended up using it in anger. She looks around and sees that all the heroes that also got his with anti-gravity are floating down super gently to the ground. She realizes that despite her serious stomach wound, Uraraka is using all her strength to make sure that her Quirk releases slowly enough that no one drops from too far. Toga coughs up blood, reminding us that using a copied Quirk drains her more than just shapeshifting. Uraraka’s torso is coated with blood, she’s also got a ton on her face. She’s bleeding out but still trying to save everyone. Toga looks around and sees that no one else is near enough to help. She tells Uraraka that the League of Villains will tear the world apart and that the world they create will be a better fit for her… but she realizes that she can’t lose Uraraka.

 

Toga licks up some of Uraraka’s blood and shapeshifts into her. She’s exhausted from the fighting, though, so part of her face reverts almost immediately. She tells Uraraka that when she transforms using her Quirk, her blood transforms as well, so this should work. She uses her costume’s syringes to transfuse her shapeshifted blood into Uraraka and another needle to stitch up her stomach wound. She talks to Uraraka about what its like being a hero, saying that all she had to do is fight and capture villains, but she genuinely tried to help Toaga. She says that she thinks Uraraka is pretty weird, but she loves that about her. She realizes that Uraraka can’t let her go free and Toga can’t let herself be captured, so she had to come up with another solution. She thanked Uraraka for caring about her, and that she admires that Uraraka doesn’t run from the past like Toga does. She thinks that maybe if she’d met Uraraka sooner, maybe she’d have decided to give as much blood as she took. She hands Uraraka an All Might figure she’d be carrying as she lays beside Uraraka. Toga has a mental image of healing that bird she drank blood from as a child and watching it fly away. She cradles Uraraka to her as she thinks that she’s Himeko Toga and she lived and loved how she wanted.

 

We jump over to All Might who is holding his briefcase and waiting for AFO. He asks if this is what Nighteye saw in his vision. He flashes back to just after the fight where he’d thought he’d killed AFO once and for all, but was hurt in the process. Nighteye shrieked at him that if he kept going on this path, he’ll face off against a villain and die horribly. All Might sees the teenage version of AFO approaching and says its hard to believe this is the same man he fought. He thinks that if the prediction hasn’t changed, this is what Nighteye saw for him. … “BUT I AM STILL HERE!” He activates the briefcase. It and the hood of his car break down into some kind of nanotech that covers his body in an Iron Man like battle suit. He remembers Nana Shimura telling him that in a fight that the strongest one is the one with a smile on their face. That’s why he has to show his face. His mask peels open to show his huge grin as he announces the reveal of ARMORED ALL MIGHT!

 

All Might tells a drone that popped out of his car, Hercules, to record everything and transmit it to his allies. Hercules confirms that its already doing it. The cops watching marvel at All Might’s new suit, and La Brava remarks how crazy it is that All Might is going to face off against All For One. She hits button and starts streaming the video. Tsukauchi remembers when All Might left, All Might saying that he’s going out to help the others. He wonders if All Might has headed out to die. He tells La Brava to turn off the stream, as he knows that All Might is only going to be able to buy them a few minutes at most. He’s doing this to buy time for Izuku, but regardless of how many gadgets he’s brought to bear, a Quirkless human can’t face off against this power.

 

AFO recognizes All Might and looks like he’s equal parts furious and elated. He admits that of all the people he’s faced in his long life, All Might has been the biggest thorn in his side and yet also the one he loved toying with most. He sees that huge grin on All Might’s face and demands to know why he’s laughing when he knows he’s going to die. AFO charges a plasma beam and fires. I’ll point out that he pumped so much energy into that attack his own right arm was burned to a stump. All Might calls out “Red Riot!” to Hercules, and the plates floating behind him form a shield around his body. He survived the hit, but is warned that his shield is down by 66%. The next hit will destroy it, and All Might says that that is fine by him and keeps charging. AFO says that he’s familiar with All Might’s brazen style, but without OFA, he’s flying towards his death. All Might calls out “Black Whip,” and pierces AFO with black cables. He then calls out “Chargebolt,” and AFO gets zapped, which keeps his arm from regenerating. All Might reveals that he’d been studying AFO since he fought Nana Shimura and he also knows how AFO fights. He always opens big, with a huge, messy long ranged attack. It’s designed to weaken his opponent, to soften them up so he can rush in and steal their Quirk. A strategy that’s utterly useless against someone who is Quirkless!

 

At the station, La Brava teasingly asks Tsukauchi if he still thinks this’ll be a bloodbath. Tsukauchi starts crying, thinking to himself that he should have known All Might wouldn’t go quietly.

 

All Might says that he knew after their last brawl that he’d have to face AFO again and that he’d have to come at him with the best technology possible to bridge the gap in their power. He doesn’t say Melissa Shield’s name, but we quickly flash to her anxiously watching the fight as All Might says he traveled to the US where a Friend hooked him up with Hercules and this powered armor. He shouts at AFO that he should know by now that All Might never enters a fight thinking he could lose. He calls out “Cellophane” to bind him, “Sugar Man” to power up his foot by encasing it in more car parts, and “SHOOT STYLE! SMASH!” to hit AFO in the face with a high horsepower kick! As he beats on AFO he admits that this is a little shameless, a man in his fifties beating on a teenager. In his head, All Might says that he figured something out about AFO. In order to mold Tomura Shigaraki and try to steal OFA, he nurtured an intense hatred and anger in the boy that is now feeding back into AFO. The only reason they’re fighting right now is that Shigaraki’s anger is making AFO blind to reason. All Might loudly proclaims that he’ll get AFO so angry that he can’t focus on anyone else in the world!

 

AFO combines Springify, Brawn Boost, Air Cannon, Rivet Stab, Dark Ball and Impure Beam to make a huge blast that sends All Might through several buildings. All Might’s suit is damaged by the hit, but his suit’s Auto-Guard cape “Tsukoyomi” absorbed most of the blow. He points out that that string of Quirks was completely random, which makes him pretty sure that his taunts are working. Hercules tells him that his left arm and collarbone were also broken in the blast and All Might calls for maximum assistance. AFO floats over and tries to mock All Might back, saying that his ‘fancy body bag’ can only give out so much power. Once it’s broken, he’ll be useless. All Might remembers advising Izuku not to rely too much on an item as some heroes fall to pieces if they lose theirs. He flashes back to when he met Nana, where we see she saved him from fighting a gang using a mop handle. She asks if he really thought he’d win with just that.

 

All Might says that he and AFO think alike and charges, striking his face. AFO unleashes a huge blast of energy from his body, saying that he’s got more than enough time to ‘pick up some trash’ and then get back to hunting Izuku. All Might says what’s pathetic is AFO acting like he’s untouchable. He calls up another item, an injection of Pinky Acid that he rams into AFO’s side. Mina’s acid is potent, infecting his body in seconds. AFO shrieks in fury as All Might jeers at him.

 

He flashes back to begging Nana Shimura into taking him as her student. Young Toshinori reveals that his family was killed recently by villains, Nana isn’t impressed as something similar happened to her and she doesn’t want to help someone seek revenge. Toshinori impresses her by his resolve to become a symbol to unite people. He wants to be the Symbol of Peace, to devote himself to bringing everyone out of the darkness.

 

In the present, AFO flings All Might aside. At the police station, they see that AFO is getting closer to Izuku and UA, but he’s visibly diverted his path to fight All Might. Tsukauchi tears up watching his friend throw himself at this villain.

 

Hercules tells All Might that he’s got a lot of broken bones from that hit and his lungs were damaged. As AFO flies after him, her remembers meeting Izuku and thinking about how odd it was to think he used to be that young. He also remembers his meeting with Stain, as the hero killer refused to believe he was All Might as All Might smiled regardless of his power. The suit binds his injuries as he gets back up. He looks up to see AFO has de-aged even more and thinks that AFO doesn’t realize how much he’s been rewound. He doesn’t want to call attention to it and bring FO back to his sense. He realizes that AFO must have used his Quirks to purge the poison from his system. All Might finally realizes that AFO’s rewind is speeding up each time it heals him from wounds. So he just needs to keep piling on the damage to make him de-age to nothing. He starts laughing, driving AFO into a further rage. He calls out to Hercules for more backup. His car launches more parts, merging with his suit as he calls out to his thrusters, “Uravity and Ingenium,” and sets them to full throttle. He asks his students, Class A, to lend him his strength. We flash to the 1A students, all over who look like they’ve gotten rocked to one degree or another before settling on Kaminari. He’s watching from above as Izuku tangles with Tomura, creating a huge cyclone of power. The winds they’re kicking up are infused with his signature green energy making a sort of cyclone of lightning around them. Izuku senses through All Might’s vestige that he’s also fighting. All Might tells him that they’ll win this together!

 

After the credits we see an All Might card in the rain with the promise “To be concluded.” That’s a hell of a season finale.

 

One aspect that I really liked about this fight is that both parties know this is a stall. All Might knows that regardless of how powerful this suit Melissa built for him is, regardless of what techniques he uses against AFO, that at the end of the day he’s going to be a speedbump slowing the eldest Shigaraki down. Don’t give me that look, that even fits with what All Might says about him never thinking he’s going to lose a fight. His win is distracting AFO long enough that Izuku either doesn’t have to fight him at all or for the barest minimum amount of time before he de-ages to nothing. So, AFO can break all of his bones, disintegrate him into smoke or do any other number of horrible things to him, but at the end of the day, All Might will still ‘win’ in the sense that he wasted AFO’s time when every second mattered. And I like that AFO also knows that this is a stall, but he doesn’t care because he wants to beat All Might. This really highlights what an egotistical psycho AFO is, that even in this situation where every second matters, he’s still risking eating up some of his precious time if it means FINALLY wiping the smile off All Might’s face. All Might noticing that AFO’s getting younger at a faster rate based on his healing I think was the first moment where he thought he could potentially win this fight just by running out the clock. His Hercules system is able to pump out enough power to hurt AFO, that’s fact, so if he just keeps laying on the knicks, cuts and blasts, he could win. Death by a thousand cuts and all that. Naming his attacks and armaments after his students was a sweetheart thing to do. All Might clearly loves those kids a lot and is putting a lot of faith in these attacks and defenses based on their skills. I just wonder how he’ll represent something like Koda’s speaking to animals. All Might isn’t showing a Batman level of skill based on prep time, but I like that it’s clear that his boast about studying AFO as much as AFO studied him isn’t bluster. Predicting his opening move and then catching him in the electric cables was just brilliant. I don’t know how much of this fight is going to take up next season, but I hope its at least a couple episodes. And I’ll close on pointing out how sad but sweet a conclusion to Toga’s story this is. She’s a girl that got a raw deal, who’s power made her life hard but who’s family made it exponentially harder, she killed, she hurt people, and she loved with all her heart. She wasn’t a saint by any stretch, but she chose to go out selflessly helping someone she cared about, in her own dysfunctional way, and that’s commendable in its own way. I wish there had been a better ending for her, but having her blood be the thing that saved Uraraka after Uraraka’s blood saved her is a nice bit of symbolic symmetry. The final season is going to be lit. See you tomorrow for that. 

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