It all comes down to one final punch!
Last time on My Hero Academia
Izuku finally broke through to Tenko. His intense empathy and the intense love
Nana had for her wayward grandson broke through the anger and abuse Tenko
suffered under Kotaro. This was a good news, bad new, and worse news situation.
Good news, Tenko had an emotional break though. The bad news, it cost Izuku his
hands as he grabbed Tenko and held on until Decay took his hands. And the worse
news, the shifting in Tomura/Tenko’s mind allowed AFO’s Vestige to reassert
control of him. Confident and smug, AFO revealed that he orchestrated Tomura’s
whole life. He met Kotaro Shimura and pretended to be his friend. He encouraged
Kotaro to have a second kid, to grow sterner and more authoritarian in his
parenting, stole Tomura’s original quirk, and years later gave him Decay. It
was a modified version of Overhaul, taken from a DNA sample of an orphan boy
that grew into Overhaul. Using his new control of Tomura’s mind and body, AFO reshaped
the body to better match his ideal He added a hand mask as well, for some
reason. Once complete, he went to take care of Izuku, who lay handless on the
ground. Izuku is saved by the timely arrival of Sero, Ojiro and Sato. They’d
been dropped off by Aizawa. In a flashback, we learn that Aizawa and Present
Mic broke through to Shirakumo withing Kurogiri and warped around getting back.
Eri, wanting to do something to help Izuku, broke off her horn and gave it to
Aizawa, assuring him that this would help. He used the horn on Izuku, which
caused his hands to regenerate. He’s joined by the half of Class 1A that was
still standing, and they all prepared to take AFO down once and for all. Enough
recapping. Let’s get to it, shall we?
Izuku sits up and marvels at seeing
all of his friends, fellow students, and the remaining heroes gathering around
him. They all agree that they can’t call themselves heroes and stand by while
Izuku fights alone. They let Mineta have the big line, the little pervert
announces that “we are here!”
All For One isn’t all that
impressed, since he’s surrounded by badly beaten children and B-list and below
heroes. He gives us a slight explanation as to why he still exists. He concedes
that he probably should have been destroyed when Izuku started hurling OFA
users at Tomura’s mind to break through the metaphorical leaden wall, but
sensing Yoichi’s disappearance saved him. Losing the object of his obsession
left an empty void in his chest that no amount of empathetic connection that
Izuku threw at it could overcome. I took this to mean that he’s basically a
Nobody from the Kingdom Hearts franchise, his heart is gone but his
body, his existence lingers. He says that he learned the lesson Izuku was
trying to teach, that tragedy makes one stronger. He activates his Quirks and
reformats his arms into a colossal mass of tentacles and spines. He asks if
Izuku agrees. Sero actually steps up to answer instead, saying that he doesn’t.
His life hasn’t had much tragedy or pain in it, but he keeps going because he
wants to keep pace with his friends. He charges Sero and says that he thinks
his friends agree that life is better without those tragedies! On cue, as he
shouts and runs, two more Warp Gates open and Endeavor and Shoto leap through
them and firebomb the SOB.
We flashback five minutes. Fuyumi
and Rei Todoroki are rushed off to get their burns treated. One of the heroes
escorting them says that Recovery Girl is pretty tapped out at this point, but
the elderly hero will try. Natsuo, who is also badly hurt but still standing,
tells his dad to hurry to the battle before he gets too tapped out to move as
well. Endeavor forces himself to his feet, and Shoto insists on coming along.
Sero grabs them both Todoroki’s in
his tape and whips them around, saying that no one should have to go through
pain like they have. That was his first thought upon hearing Shoto beat Dabi
earlier that day. Present Mic warps in as well and rallies the heroes to give
it their all. AFO further mutates his form, adding more tentacles and spines.
AFO is still confident, saying that these heroes are nothing, barely worth his
time. The heroes start attacking, but AFO quickly blocks or diverts their
attacks with his tentacles. Kendo of class 1B notes that it takes dozens of
heroes to stop even one of his attacks… so they all need to fight as a group!
Izuku gets up to try to join the
fight, but his legs give out. Aizawa reminds him that the horn only rewound him
a few minutes, so he’s essentially back to where he was at when he started
punching OFA into Shigaraki. He tells Aizawa that he’s lost the bulk of OFA,
and all of the previous wielder’s quirks, but still has their compounded
strength. For a little while yet, anyway. He knows that he can keep the ember
of the power going, just ike All Might did. Aizawa looks annoyed, but
unsurprised. He patches up Izuku’s wounds and gave him that shirt that the one
guy gave him to keep the boy warm. Aoyama takes his hand and says that they
need to rely on each other this time. We see everyone watching the scene cheer
Izuku on as Aoyama throws him forward. An explosion goes off behind Aoyama, but
he naval laser’s Izuku from behind to speed him forward, telling him to not
look back. Aizawa tries to call out to Shirakumo to get out of the way, but his
friend’s corpse is frozen.
The heroes are getting frustrated
by their inability to hurt AFO when Aizawa screams at them to make a path for
Izuku. AFO gloats that Omnifactor unleashed, the ability his original self
tried that turned him into a blob right before Bakugo killed him, isn’t about
giving into emotions and just blasting away, it’s about finesse and control. He
forms a dragon out of his tentacles and tries to blast Izuku, but Hagakure
leaps in and refracts the blast away from. Yaoyorozu and Kaminari combine their
powers to make an electromagnetic railgun and fire spikes at AFO. He blocks and
asks if they think they’re clever. He unleashes another blast that knocks everyone
back. Izuku winds up for a smash, but the others leap in the way to block AFO’s
attack. They tell him to reserve his strength for the finishing blow and to
consider them his defense. Tsu and Shoji hold Izuku between them and they race
forward. We get a shot of Tsu’s family back at Shiketsu, her parents and two
younger siblings, as they cheer on their froggy girl. Yes, they’re all degrees
of frog as well. The little girl from Shoji’s past also calls out that she
believes in him. Shoji and Tsu throw him forward.
Izuku lands and almost gets swiped,
but he’s saved by Ashido, Kirishima and Sato. They push the tentacles back,
while Present Mic and Jiro use their combined sonic booms to destroy
projectiles. The next wave of tentacles are handled by 1B and Mineta. He screams
at Izuku to kick his ass.
AFO is clearly getting frustrated
by this. The heroes he’s fighting are beneath him, they’re the carrion to his
buzzard, and yet he can’t seem to kill any of them. He remembers writing off
Izuku as worthless when he invaded Izuku’s mind palace and confronted Yoichi
and the other wielders a while back. He finally realizes that he was wrong in
that assessment, and that Izuku is motivating these people to fight past their
limits. Izuku is pushed forward by bouncing off a Gentle Criminal’s air trampolines.
Death Arms runs in and blocks more tentacles. AFO realizes that this is a power
that Izuku has that All Might didn’t. The ‘strength of weakness,’ the power to
keep getting back up over and over again regardless of how hopeless the
situation is. Iida super speeds in and hurls Izuku forward. AFO realizes that
so long as Izuku is alive, the heroes will just keep coming. He raises a hand
to prepare another blast but a bit of goo seems to block the port on his palm.
We cut over to All Might and Ethan
and Star’s old flight team. Ethan says that their plan was to fight to the
bitter end, either killing AFO or dying in the process. They even disabled
their ejector seats to try to stay in the fight until the last moment, but
since those worked, he assumed All Might had them repaired. All Might says that
the kids want absolute victory, so they need to have as few casualties as
possible. All Might thinks about how he met Izuku and how the boy threw himself
into harms way to save his ‘friend.’ He thinks that since that day, Izuku has
been a hero. We get a flash of all the movie protagonists, Melissa Shield,
Maharo and Kazuma, Guilio and Anna, and Rody Soul and his siblings all cheering
on their hero.
Iida, as he’s mid-throw of Izuku,
asks if he remembers their first day of school together. He says that he agrees
with ‘her.’ We jump to Uraraka getting airlifted to the hospital with Pixie-Bob
of the Wild, Wild Pussycats. She remembers telling Izuku that she likes the
name Deku and thinks its kind of cute. We flash to the White House where the
president orders all American heroes to Japan. His aide asks if that’s a good
idea, as AFO will retaliate if he wins, to which the president says ‘who cares,
just do it!’ Izuku says that he can hear everyone cheering him on and we get a
flash of all the spectators and heroes shouting you’ve got this! All Might
comes in to say that since that first day, Izuku has always been the greatest
hero he’s ever known. Inko gets the last word in, running up and shouting for
her son to do his best. Izuku charges through AFO’s slashing tentacles and hits
him square in the chest with a full power smash.
AFO stunned by this turn of events.
His body is starting to breakdown, as he realizes Super Regeneration just isn’t
going to work on this decaying body of his. He makes excuses, saying that these
insignificant beings gathered their meager power together and just temporarily
overwhelmed him. He realizes that when Izuku transferred OFA into this body, it
did damage not only to Shigaraki’s mind but his body as well. Remember from
like the second episode? An unprepared body would be broken by the feedback of
the power itself. Izuku gloats that after two years and the compounding of the
Quirk transfer, OFA is even more powerful than it was when All Might last used
it on AFO. He tells the villain to taste the power of all nine wielders. The
rainbow power punch of the Nine Wielders shatters AFO’s body, disintegrating
his body into ash. Or so it appeared.
AFO refuses to die, pulling his
shattered bits together. He says he won’t die without having accomplished his
goal. He seems to have been driven insane by Izuku’s last hit, as he mutters
about taking one of the heroes fighting him, any one of them, and making them
his new vessel. Claws form from his broken body and start streaking towards his
targets. Izuku charges him again, not willing to let him have his way.
Shirakumo apologizes to Aizawa and
Present Mic, saying that he has to act. He must protect Tomura Shigaraki, that
is his purpose. He warps from their side and forms in the way of Izuku’s
attack. Not to protect AFO, not really, but to beg his ‘master’ to give Tomura
Shigaraki back. He remembers Spinner and his connection to Tomura, saying that
Tomura’s ‘friend’ is waiting for him. But before he could unintentionally stop
Izuku’s last attack, Bakugo flies in and shatters Kurogiri’s form. Present Mic
screams that Bakugo was sent to the ER and asks if he explosion flew all the
way back here. Bakugo boasts that he did, but admits that Shoto helped him with
an ice ski jump. As he drops, he tells Izuku to not even dare let Izuku surpass
him. Izuku says that he’ll never forgive AFO, but he understands him, their
quirks resonate after all. There’s a flash between Izuku winding up the final
strike, AFO trying to protect himself, and to that moment that started
everything. We see from AFO’s perspective when Yoichi ran away. His inner
monologue was asking, nay, demanding that Yoichi look at him, to remember that
Yoichi belonged to him! Izuku exclaims that AFO is no Demon Lord, he’s just a
sad, lonely man! And Izuku strikes.
AFO has a flash of when he and
Yoichi were boys reading comics together. We enter the mindscape where an ember
of Yoichi forms to AFO. He says that Izuku modified their plan and their Quirk
ever so slightly to allow the brothers to speak one more time. AFO rushes to
his brother and tries to keep the ember alight. He begs Yoichi to stay with
him, to just show him his face one more time. He claims to love Yoichi, saying
that he’s nothing without Yoichi, and they need to stay together. Yoichi warns
AFO that he wasn’t the only being that the ‘knight’ Izuku awakened. Behind him,
the other OFA wielders and Tomura form. There’s an amazing shot of Izuku in meatspace
and the other wielders, Tomura in the lead, striking both versions of AFO and
Izuku and Tomura’s fists meeting in the middle. This forms a connection to
Izuku, letting him talk to Izuku one more time. He thought he was consumed by
AFO when he stole back control, but he realized that his grandmother did
something to protect him. He says that Izuku was right about him, in the end,
he was nothing more than a crying child. Izuku says that he can’t forgive him,
but he had to try to break the chain of misery that consumed him. He asks Izuku
to tell Spinner, if he’s still alive, that Tomura Shigaraki fought to destroy
until the bitter end. Izuku agrees to do that. We pull out and see Izuku doing
his finishing uppercut as the sun breaks through the cloudy sky.
I don’t have too much to say about
this episode as at the end of the day, it was just everyone getting a chance to
shout, “you can do it!” and then doing one small thing to give Izuku the
opening to strike AFO. It was nice that Horikoshi gave everyone still in the
fight a chance to do this, from Mineta to All Might to the movie protagonists,
everyone got a shoutout. I also liked that he included a few supporting
characters for people other than Izuku, namely the kid Shoji saved and the rest
of the Asui family. The Asuis never featured in the main series, but there was
a short story included in one of the manga chapters that introduced readers to
them. They are pretty much what they appear to be, frog people. The story
itself was about how Tsu got over some internalized Quirk based racism for her
to actually befriend a girl who’s Quirk gave her a snakelike head and face, so
her natural enemy in terms of zoomorphic quirks. I just like it when stories
acknowledge that characters have people outside the main cast in their lives,
even the side characters. Izuku getting to build up for his one mega punch was
great. The whole story was building to this moment of Izuku finally stopping
AFO, and I like that ultimately, it was a team effort. He, Izuku Midoriya, 9th
Wielder of OFA and Tomura Shigaraki, AFO’s second wielder and greatest victim
together defeated the evil that had so badly infected the world. Letting the
Shigaraki’s have a sort of goodbye was a nice touch, as it highlighted Izuku’s
point that AFO really is just a pathetic, lonely person. I do believe he
believed that keeping Yoichi trapped in a cage, near him but beneath him at all
times was his way of showing love. AFO is the personification of greed, and he
could let anything go, not even the brother that tried so desperately to escape
him. It’s a sad but extremely human motivation for the so called Demon Lord. I liked that Izuku and Tomura got a goodbye
too. They were never friends, and even in these last moments they had to talk
about how different they were… but I like that Tomura’s last thought in this
life was about Spinner, the only one of his teammates and friends that might
get out of this alive. It’s a bittersweet goodbye for him too. So… ya, the
fighting is done. We just need a few more episodes to tie off some lose ends.
See you then. Have a good night and stay safe.
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Bluesky: @basicssuperhero.bsky.social
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