Viewer Log: My Hero Academia ep 131

 Izuku learns from his predecessors. 

Last time on My Hero Academia, we learned a bit more about the history of Toya Todoroki aka Dabi and his family. In flashbacks from Enji and Rei’s perspective we saw how the Todoroki family began as basically a business arrangement that began to deteriorate upon the parents learning that their oldest inherited an unfortunate mix of their powers. He got an upgraded form of his father’s fire but the cold resistance of his mother, meaning using his powers cause him to burn himself repeatedly. Desperate for a successor to surpass All Might and a way to tell his stubborn son to give up his dream of being that successor, Enji insisted on having two more children with his wife; Natsuo, who turned out to be another failure, and Shoto his prize. Rather than deter their son, this just made him more desperate to get daddy’s favor back. Enraged at Toya’s disobedience and his belief that Rei was failing to look after the boy as is her duty, Enji began physically abusing her which unfortunately led to her psychological break where she burned Shoto’s face. Shortly after she was committed to the mental hospital, Toya was seemingly killed in a forest fire after his powers raged out of control. Enji admits he failed his son completely and utterly for his obsession, and Rei takes some of the blame, as she was too afraid of her own child to try to save him. The Todoroki family resolves to work together this one time to try to save their long-lost son and brother from himself. Hawks and Best Jeanist arrive to offer their support as well and ask if Endeavor knows anything about One-For-All. Endeavor admits to hearing that from Izuku at one point and that his Work Study student was certain Shigaraki was going to come after him. In Izuku’s room, we see All Might sitting with him and the retired hero saying that he can ‘feel’ Izuku speaking with the previous wielders of One-For-All in the mindscape. Enough recapping. Let’s get to it, shall we?

 

The episode begins with Izuku wondering what happened to everyone after the fighting. He’s pulled deeper into his mindscape, and we hear the fifth wielder, Daigoro Banjo saying that they need to have a talk before he wakes up. Izuku opens his eyes to see eight thrones before him, sixth of them occupied. There are seven physical people in the room, two of them are standing and facing a wall, and the eight is the indistinct spiritual essence of All Might. The first wielder, Shigaraki the younger, tells Izuku that he knows the timing isn’t ideal, but they do need to talk. Izuku has no mouth in this form, his body being mostly black energy. The other wielders talk about fate, with Banjo insisting it’s bad luck this all happened. Izuku marvels at seeing his predecessors in his dreams again.

 

Shigaraki the Younger tells Izuku that before they could only speak to him briefly through the cracks in his consciousness, but that isn’t needed anymore. He says that about four months ago, when Izuku first manifested Black Whip, One-For-All’s power grew dramatically and a side effect of that was 1. Izuku manifesting previous wielders powers, and 2. The vestiges of the previous wielders grew enough so that they could speak to each other within his mindscape. They gained even more independence after Shigaraki the elder pulled Shigaraki the Younger and Nana Shimura into Izuku’s battle with Shigaraki in the mindscape. Banjo assures him that while they’re in his head the vestiges will give him plenty of space. Izuku tries to say something but is lacking a mouth. He’s able to focus and ask the previous wielders what they want. Banjo is impressed with almost being able to understand him. We’re introduced to Hikage Shinomori, the fourth wielder and the owner of Danger Sense, who offers to explain. He says that in the battle, Izuku tapped into his power unintentionally, and how it was weird that Hikage didn’t sense Izuku was on the cusp of using his power before. Banjo explains that Hikage was a bit of weirdo and had decided to live in seclusion for most of his life like a hermit. Hikage insisted that his era was the weird and he was the only normal person. They do a slapstick routine where Banjo tries to touch Hikage but he’s able to dodge away thanks to Danger Sense. As he does that, he asks Izuku if he knows how and when he died. Izuku mutters that the notes said he died at age 40. Izuku remembered that the notes had that bit scribbled out for some reason. Hikage says that they recently discovered that he died of old age.

 

Obviously, that’s a weird way for a forty-year-old to go out. Hikage explains that he and Banjo only recently found out how they died. They say that Yagi’s Vestige, All Might, only just told them how it happened. Hikage says that with this they theorize that a normal person can’t use the power for very long. Hikage explained the he was the second longest wielder of One-For-All, All Might held it the longest, and for the 18 years he had it he spent his days rigorously training his body to build up the power as best he could. He did it to hide from All-For-One, he knew that he wouldn’t be a match for the elder Shigaraki, so he built up the physical power of the quirk to prepare it for the next user. Things got weird toward the end of his life, where he started getting weird cracks all over his body. He has a very prominent one going from his hairline over his left eye to his chin. He thought he might have contracted a disease, but All Might disproved that idea. He found Hikagi’s medical records, and they now have a new theory that housing multiple Quirks in one body drastically shortens one’s lifespan. Izuku mutters to them that that doesn’t make sense as All Might held an even more compounded version of the power, for longer, and he’s still alive. Shigaraki the Younger says that’s correct and why they needed to talk to him.

 

Shigaraki the Younger says that they’ve had trouble puzzling this out as most of the wielders didn’t have the power for very long. Most of them died shortly after receiving it, typically in battle, so they just don’t have a big sample size for why All Might is different. They asked what the intrinsic difference between Hikagi and Yagi were. Izuku gets it immediately, that All Might (and himself) were Quirkless. Shigaraki the younger nods, he says they received the information from the living All Might through his Vestige. They have a hypothesis, one that was largely confirmed by seeing Shigaraki the elder merging with Tomura in the mindscape, that a bit of each of the previous wielders is permanently etched into One-For-All. He likens it to an glass, when someone with a Quirk gets One-For-All, their glass is already partially full of their own Quirk, so the glass overflows or breaks. A Quirkless person who gets One-For-All essentially has an empty cup, so they can take the power and use it indefinitely. That’s why All Might could use his power for over 40 years. Shigaraki the younger says that it’s ironic that the true potential of this Quirk that’s passed from person to person can only reach its full potential in a Quirkless person.

 

Izuku realizes that now, since the power has evolved and multiple Quirks are manifesting through it, that he won’t be able to pass it on to another ‘normal’ person. Shigaraki says that he could give it to another quirkless person, but those are pretty rare these days. He says that this was only something they could have figured out with work, and if they’d been able to speak to another previous wielder, maybe they could have prevented some of the deaths. Banjo spells it out for Izuku, he for all intents and purposes is the last wielder of One-For-All. Nana then pipes in and asks if he can kill Tomura Shigaraki.

 

Izuku is baffled by this question. She clarifies that this isn’t a request, but her attempt to gauge his resolve. They felt Izuku’s emotions and know that when he saw Tomura wrestling for control of his body that Izuku thought he wanted help. Banjo says that they saw that, and the other wielders thought Tomura had the opposite mindset. That despite the pain and anguish he felt that he wanted the power more. Shigaraki the younger thinks that his brother’s plan was to possess Tomura completely, and through him absorb One-For-All from Izuku. Banjo says that he and his immediate successor En Tayutai, faced All-For-One one on one. They managed to keep the power from All-For-One, saying that the only way to steal it is to come at it with a passion that surpasses its incredible power. He thinks that Shigaraki the elder is trying to use Tomura’s hatred s a booster to help him steal One-For-All. Shigaraki the younger says that they think that One-For-All exists to destroy All-For-One. They thought that All Might had succeeded years ago, but Shigaraki the elder is tenacious. Nana tells Izuku that she knows it’s unfair to put this burden on Izuku after telling him that he can’t give up the power, but they need him to do this. Nana says that she abandoned her son, Tomura’s father, to fight All For One, and this is the result. She knows it’s disgraceful to ask a teenager to pick up this burden from her, but she also knows that if Shigaraki the elder completes his goal, there will be no stopping him. She tells Izuku that some people are beyond redemption, and that Tomura is one of them. She asks Izuku if he has the resolve to kill him despite that look.

 

Izuku says that he ‘felt’ that Tomura wanted help. He says that he felt a lost child crying out for help in Tomura. He says that he has fought a lot of people over the last year, that he was forced to because they won’t back down. He says that for most of them, he never found out why they became villains, so he couldn’t help them navigate their anger or hatred to try to stop them. He’s not sure if that knowledge would have stopped them, but maybe it could have. He says that Tomura Shigaraki caused a lot of pain, that he hurt people that Izuku cares about… but he truly believes that One-For-All is a power that saves people, not hurts them. He learned it from All Might, this cultivated power is meant to inspire people to be better. As Izuku speaks he becomes more solid in the mindscape, and his words cause All Might’s vestige to start crying. Izuku knows that he might have to fight Tomura but he doesn’t want to go into it trying to kill him. Izuku comes fully into the mindscape and transforms into his childhood self as he proclaims that he wants to save that little kid. Tomura the Younger says that that resolve is why they’ll follow Izuku’s lead. Nana admits that this is a test, and she apologizes for putting him through it. Nana asks Izuku to tell Gran Torino that she says hello. She believes they made a mistake, but she and Gran Torino were still blessed with wonderful students. Shigaraki turns back to the two Wielders facing the wall and says that they’ll have to help soon instead of ignoring them.

 

Outside the mindscape, All Might is sensing what is going on through his Vestige. He’s not getting a lot of details, mostly impressions. He knows that Izuku is being told the previous wielders stories and that he’s impressed them with his resolve. He’s interrupted by Hawks and Jeanist coming in. Hawks asks if Izuku will recover. All Might says that he will wake up soon and asks what he really wants. Hawks admits to having heard about One-For-All through other heroes, and that it was clear as the fighting went on that Shigaraki was specifically targeting Izuku, a mere student. He wants the full picture, because from now on, they aren’t just fighting villains but public sentiment. All Might agrees to tell them everything in private.

 

Uraraka takes over narration, saying that it’s now three days since the incident. She thinks that despite reports, not everyone blames heroes for what is going on. She thinks that most people want to believe in these folks that protect them. We come in during Endeavor’s press conference, where he admits that Dabi is his son and apologizes to the nation for what he’s done. He gives a full account of his family’s ugly history. Some people think this’ll be the end of Endeavor, and some think he shouldn’t admit to anything. Hawks admits to his history as well, as well as owning killing Twice. One of the reporters admits to her mother being hurt in the incident and asks if their ‘apology’ really means anything. Endeavor asks if standing up here crying about it would help her mother, and the reporter says no, but they could do something about the villains, be heroes. They agree that that is what they should do, Endeavor saying that that is how he’ll try to atone for his own sins. Jeanist asks for people’s understanding as they’ve got fewer heroes in the field now than ever. He says that they’ve figured out a temporary solution. The hero schools like UA have been designated as Emergency shelters and they encourage anyone who feels unsafe to go to them until the crisis has ended. He says that UA parents are already moving in and we’re shown Izuku and Bakugo’s mothers bringing stuff into the building. One reporter asks if they really are expected to leave their homes for an indefinite period. Endeavor slams his hands on the desk, saying that they’re trying to help people, and tells them to ‘just watch him,’ for now. This seems to calm some, and anger others. Dabi, who’s watching from the lair, thinks his father hasn’t had enough pain yet. Uraraka says that when asked about All-For-One, Endeavor pretended to be unaware of it to shield Izuku.

 

At class 1A’s dorm, all the students received a letter from Izuku. He explained everything to them, about All-For-One, One-For-All, and how the villains are after him. We see Uraraka’s version of the letter, where he explains himself and why he’s leaving UA to protect them. He thanks them and says goodbye. Uraraka calls him an idiot, and wonders if a hero is someone that walks the most dangerous path, than who is going to go after them when they’re in pain. She says that in April, Deku left their hero academy. We cut to a few weeks later, where Izuku is decked out in a tattered, aggressive version of his costume. He sees an explosion and says that it looks like a huge villain. Text appears on screen and says that the final act has begun.

 

Izuku ‘Deku’ Midoriya has entered his vigilante era.

 

Well, that was an emotional rollercoaster. It was interesting to finally see more of the previous One-For-All wielders. Seeing these men and woman that cultivated this power and used it to try to stop the great evil that is All-For-One really puts this whole struggle into a different perspective. Instead of the struggle between All Might and All-For-One, a personal grudge match between two individuals, it’s now a generational battle against a demon lord. Which I think would make All-For-One giggle. I know that that has been the story the whole time but seeing the people that fought the battle drives that point home more than All Might just saying it. The reveal that One-For-All shortens a Quirk-haver’s lifespan is a kick in the teeth. While it’s a twist, it does fit with the lore that we’ve been given. It’s a pretty classic, great power requires great sacrifice limit on the ability. Yes, One-For-All enhances a wielder’s physical strength as well as making their quirk more potent, but that much power in one person isn’t good for the body. It’s a point that has been with us since Horikoshi started going into the Nomu. Those modified corpses all have to go through extensive modifications to handle multiple Quirks, so it stands to reason that every time you add more abilities to a person it puts greater strain on the body. My going theory is that a person can handle one, maybe two additional Quirks without much harm, but anything beyond three total Quirks is where the stress starts building up. I’ll explain more in a few more posts. Izuku resolving to at least try to save Tomura despite the seeming objections of his predecessors. He has enough pragmatism to know that in all likelihood Tomura will reject help, but he’s still optimistic enough to try. The fact that Izuku has always wanted to save people first and foremost is something I’ve always liked about him. Fighting has always been a means to an end for him, not an end in itself. He’ll do everything he can to save even someone that the rest of the world has given up on as irredeemable. I like that Izuku took the time to write notes to each of his friends. The notes all look like they were torn out of his precious notebook, showing how much his friends mean to him if he sacrificed those pages. Is Izuku running from his friends, whom are all heroes-in-training with skills comparable to or surpassing his own, the dumbest version of ‘hero distances himself from his loved ones in order to protect them” trope? Yes, yes, it is. But I do get him not wanting them to risk their lives for him, because that’s just that kind of guy. His vigilante suit looks sick. And that’s all I have to say about that. Happy New Year, all!

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Viewer Log: My Hero Academia ep 130

 The tragic fall of the House of Todoroki

Last time on My Hero Academia, we learned a bit about Hawks. The number 2 hero of Japan was born Keigo Takami, the son of a small time criminal and a mentally ill woman that harbored him. His father was abusive and his mother neglectful, and his only real treasure was an Endeavor toy his mother bought him once to get him to stop crying. Eventually his father was arrested, by Endeavor, and then Keigo impressed some agents for the Public Safety Commission when he used his quirk to save a bunch of people after a massive car accident. He was taken in by the PSC and trained to use his quirk from about the age of seven or eight to turn him into an extremely efficient hero. In the present, a recovering Hawks and Best Jeanist go to his mother’s house to confirm that she was the one that gave Dabi his real name and family history. She skipped town but left him a note apologizing for it and telling him she’s proud. We see more fallout from the shaken confidence in the system, with random civilians using support items to try to defend themselves from villains running rampant… and causing metric tons of collateral damage. Some heroes are flat out quitting and disappearing in disgrace. And finally there’s Endeavor, who is dealing with a ton of emotions he’s not equipped to handle, like the return of a son he thought long dead. His sobbing at the situation is interrupted by the arrival of his other children, and most shockingly of all his wife Rei. She tells him that they need to discuss Toya. Enough recapping. Let’s get to it, shall we?

 

We open in a Japanese villa twenty something years ago when Enji Todoroki first met Rei Himura at a marriage meeting. It’s like a job interview but you’re interviewing for a spouse. Rei’s father tells Enji that he’s very pleased such an up-and-coming hero is interested in marrying his daughter. The Himura family is one of those old families that feel like they need to pontificate about how old and awesome they are. As Mr. Himura talks about the family, Enji zones out a little and thinks about Rei. He describes her as cold as ice itself. He says from the outside looking in, there’s would seem like a run of the mill arranged marriage, but he admits to himself that he’s going after this daughter of the Himura family for her ice powers. He’s sure that combining his flames and her ice would make a child more powerful than All Might. It’s weird to think that Enji decided on this course of action at like 22. Dude had barely been a hero for four years but already decided ‘nah, All Might’s unbeatable, I’ll just make the next Number 1 hero.” Weird. He adds to us that while the Himura’s were prestigious, the family hit on hard times. He’s sure Mr. Himura only agreed to Enji’s offer due to wanting the prestige of being associated with a Hero. And his money. He admits that she had the option to refuse but didn’t. As they left her family home, they stopped and Rei stared at these blue flowers, he asks if she likes them and she nods. These are the same flowers that he sent to her hospital room for going on 15 years. He said that there was a strength to her even then, but a brittleness too.

 

In the present, Enji greets his wife and asks in shock if she’s okay. She asks him how she could possibly be okay. She says that she’s also suffering because Enji isn’t the only one that overlooked their son.

 

We cut to the mansion that the League of Villains is currently hiding out. Dabi marvels at the new burns he received fighting his family, saying that he can’t even feel them. He’s sure his father is still alive, and he’s looking forward to his father trying to spin the situation. He believes his father is going to break spectacularly when he does. He lists off his family, Enji, Rei, Fuyumi, Natsuo, and Shoto, and says that when they get to hell, they should wave at him. He starts crying blood as he says it, though, so I’m not sure if his heart is totally into it.

 

We flashback to the Todoroki household probably 20 years ago, where a young Toya Todoroki is yelling at his dad for going back on his promise to do quirk training with him. Toya at the time had mostly red hair with small streaks of white in it. Enji yells at his son that he told him that this time off was for Toya’s own good and that he has to go. Turns out it was to go a meeting with their doctor. Enji and Rei are told their son inherited a more powerful version of Enji’s flame quirk, but his body took after the Himura side of the family. So he can create huge fireblasts, but his body can’t handle it as it’s designed to handle subzero. The doctor sort of chides them for their attempt at a ‘designer’ baby and that they should encourage Toya to not use his quirk at all for fear of burns. Enji barely hears this as he’s infuriated that his son couldn’t follow his dreams.

 

We return to the house where Toya and Fuyumi are watching TV together. It’s some time after the doctor visit, as Toya’s hair has shifted to be more like his younger brother Shoto’s, being half white, half red. They’re watching a report about All Might being awesome and Toya asks Fuyumi what she thinks about their dad saying he can’t train his quirk anymore. He says that he knows his body better than anyone and that he can handle the burns. Fuyumi tells him that she agrees with their dad, and she’s worried he’ll hurt himself. Toya says that he should have known a girl wouldn’t get it and storms off, with Fuyumi saying that’s not true, she’s just worried. As Toya stomps off he swears he’ll be better than All Might and blames his father for putting this fire in him.

 

Rei and Enji have an argument. This next segment is more implied than spelled out, but I’ll remove the nuance. Enji thinks the only way he can save Dabi from himself is to drill it into the boy’s head that he isn’t the one to surpass All Might. And to do that… he’ll need to see his replacement. Rei thinks that going so far as to have another child just to get Toya to stop is too cruel, that they’ll take away his hope, but Enji can’t think of any way else to do it. Toya is stubborn like him, so they need to make it clear that Toya isn’t the “one.” So Natsuo is born, and Toya looks horrified. But a few years later, when it’s clear Natsuo doesn’t have the right powers for Enji either… he looks at Rei with a ferocity that is quite frankly disturbing, and she looks resigned. Then Shoto is born. Enji looks like all his dreams will finally be fulfilled by this child. Rei looks like she’s hopeful the worst part is over, and Toya, whose hair is now fully white except for a crown of red around it, looks horrified.

                                                                                                                                                             

We cut to Toya training in the woods by himself. He’s still certain that he’ll be the one to beat All Might. He’s growing stronger every time he goes out to train. With tears in his eyes he begs his father to just keep his eyes on Toya. We return to the house and Enji is furious at Toya for coming home burnt again. He begs his son to figure out something else, to find a new dream, play with his younger siblings or kids at school, he just needs to do anything else. Toya then says that the kids all want to be pro heroes. He says that they don’t understand him like Enji does, that he’s the only one that gets that being the best is what is important. I think this is the first moment we see Dabi, in his little boy that is burning himself just to get his dad’s attention. Rei, who is watching this with little Fuyumi, Natsuo and holding Shoto, uses her powers to try to put him out before he hurts himself. Toya begs his father to keep his eyes on him as he ignites his right arm and lunges at his mother, clearly going for baby Shoto. We don’t see what happened, but given we get a close up of Enji’s burnt arm, we can assume he got in the way in time. He tells Rei that Shoto isn’t allowed near the other children anymore. He says that he can’t watch their children all the time as he has work, but that’s why they have help. He orders Rei to never let Toya out of her sight. She tells him that Toya just wants his attention. Enji says that he only knows the world of heroes and that there’s nothing there for Toya. Rei accuses him of running away, and Enji glares at his wife in a way that spells trouble.

 

Jump forward a few more years, and Fuyumi (12) and Natsuo (8) encourage their big brother to play with them. We see at 13 that Toya is on the shrimpy side. His hair Is wholly white now. The three older kids play with a ball in their yard while a nanny watches over them. Four-year-old Shoto watches his siblings play and desperately wants to be with them, but Enji drags him away, saying that they aren’t part of the world that he’s preparing the boy for. Toya somehow hears this and glares up at them. That night, Toya tries to keep Natsuo up with his theory that they really should blame their dad for all this. This is correct, but Toya is fixating on this to a degree that is unhealthy. Natsuo, who is half asleep already, says that Toya has told him this a million times already and asks why he doesn’t bother Fuyumi with this stuff. This makes Toya extremely distraught, as he takes “I’m bored with this conversation we keep having” as “I don’t like you and I don’t want to talk to you anymore.” He also says that the women of their family are useless, so I guess Enji somehow taught his oldest some misogyny at some point.

 

Later, Rei tries to stop Toya from going to the mountain to train again, encouraging him to go do something with his classmates or something, but Toya won’t stand for it. He says he’s special and that he has to focus. Rei asks if he really wants to be a hero, because from where she standing it looks like what he really wants is to please Enji. She begs him to try to find something else that he’s passionate about, to do anything else that doesn’t hurt him… but Toya clearly tuned her out. He asks if this is from one of her self-help books or something. He says that he knows his grandparents sold her and that she didn’t get a say in how her life turned out, but he refuses to accept a life like that. He’s going to decide what he does. This verbal slap to the face clearly horrifies Rei. He also adds that he knows she didn’t have a choice, but she still gave birth to him, so his problem is her fault too.

 

Dabi narrates that, while he was still small for his age, when he hit puberty, his power grew more intense and that’s when his red fire shifted to blue. At the time, Toya was excited by this, as he figured out that his emotions make his flames more intense. He’s sure his dad will be so surprised when he sees this. He angrily tells himself to stop crying when he gets excited. Later he tells Enji that he has to go to the mountain on his next day off so he can show Enji something cool. Enji is horrified by this, lifts his shirt and sees his burns on his chest and realizes that Toya had been hiding the burns under his clothes. Toya doesn’t see that his father is furious, starts pulling on his white hair and saying that when Enji sees what he can do he’ll have to accept that he isn’t a failure. Enji, enraged, goes to Rei and slaps her, screaming at her for not doing the one thing he told her to do. A scared Shoto tells Enji not to hurt his mommy, but Enji screams at the boy that this doesn’t concern him, and Fuyumi and Natsuo cower. Rei admits that she didn’t have a choice, really, in their marriage but she thought if she just put a smile on her face things would work out. She looks up at her husband with huge tears in her eyes and says she tried her best but he wouldn’t listen. Enji screams that Toya is her problem, not his. Rei is terrified by the furious blue gaze he looks at her with, asking herself what he sees when he looks at her with those eyes. She also associates that rage with the look in Toya’s eyes, and in Shoto’s one blue eye. We jump to when, one night, when Shoto came to ask his mommy what was wrong while brewing tea… she burned his face to try to destroy his eye.

 

Future Rei says that she was already in the mental hospital when she heard about Toya’s death. The loss of her oldest broke what little remained of her mind, and she remained in that state for years. We see Toya sitting alone on the mountain, crying to himself and telling himself not to cry. In the hospital, Rei says that Enji didn’t go to the peak like Toya asked him. Enji says he didn’t, as he was worried if he did Toya would start a fire that they couldn’t put out. That’s what he told himself anyway, current Enji is able to admit that he didn’t know what to say to Toya or how to be his father at that time, so he tried to run from the responsibility. Rei says that they both failed him in that sense. We see that it was his sorrow that ignited the flame that cause the inferno that supposedly killed Toya. The fire grew too rapidly for him to control and the flames engulfed him. Dabi marvels at the memory of that first wildfire, asking his father what he expected, as all Enji taught him was how to burn everything. We see that the wildfire grew big, fast, and consumed the mountain, and a distraught Endeavor tried to rush to his son.

 

Future Enji truly wishes that he could have just let everything go that day, as he stood in the burnt forest, thinking that he killed his son. But all he knew was hero work, so Toya’s death ultimately fueled the obsession to make Shoto the perfect successor. Rei admits that the more domineering that Enji became the harder it was to look at him, as she just kept seeing his hate in her children’s eyes. Fuyumi adds, that while she knew that her family wasn’t doing well, she kept just putting on a brave face and tried to stick it out even though it wasn’t healthy for them. Natsuo blames his father for doing this to them but admits that if he’d been able to knock some sense into Toya, he wouldn’t have become Dabi. And he might have had a relationship with Shoto. Rei says that his heart might be broken, but they’ll help him hold it together so he can face Toya. She says that Shoto is the one that suffered most of the people here, but he’s grown, he’s made friends, and that he’s the real hero here. Shoto is able to speak for a few moments, saying that before coming in there, he was sure that Endeavor was broken and that he would have to face him alone. But now he thinks they can face Dabi together, once his dad stops crying.

 

Hawks and Best Jeanist come in and ask if they could help. Rei bows to the two and apologizes for her son’s actions. Hawks says that’s not necessary and Jeanist helps her to her feet, saying that they didn’t mean to eavesdrop. He thinks if they can pool their knowledge about Toya and Dabi, they might be able to formulate a plan to stop him. Hawks says that while he watched a lot of videos of Endeavor, he had no idea that he’d screwed up this badly with his kids. He asks if Endeavor caused the burn on Shoto’s face as well, but Rei owns that mistake. Hawks says to himself that he never faced his parents, he abandoned them, but Shoto stood his ground. He compliments the boy for that. Hawks tells Endeavor that the world is falling apart, that Tomura Shigarki, Dabi, Himeko Toga, Spinner, Skeptic, 132 PLF members and 7 near-High End Nomu are still out there and need to be stopped. That’s on top of the seven prison breaks, the PSC is without a leader, and heroes are resigning left and right. Things are looking bad. Hawks says that the Japanese government has reached out to other nations in the hopes they’ll send emergency rescue teams to help, but it’s a slow process. Hawks agrees with Rei that Endeavor has to keep fighting. He also says that he and Jeanist have his back. They agree to a team up of the Top 3 heroes of Japan, and Endeavor agrees. Natsuo says that the family will help too, just until Toya is stopped.

 

Hawks begins with saying that Endeavor needs to hold a press conference to try to get a handle on the things Dabi told the public. But before that, he asks what he knows about One-For-All and All-For-One. Fuyumi chimes in to say some reporters asked them about that when they came in. Endeavor remembers that Izuku Midoriya said that he was sure that Shigaraki was after him during the raid.

 

Outside, Sato and Mineta, with an assist from Tsu, grab Bakugo and force him back to his room. The whole way back he’s screaming at Deku to wake up because how DARE he makes Bakugo worry like this. Uraraka and Iida, Izuku’s normal friends, watch in shock. Jiro joins them and says that the others were cleared to go home. She asks about Izuku, and Uraraka says that he’s recovering but still out, so she’s very worried. As Bakugo is being forced away, he passes Jeanist and Hawks, the former asking if his former Work Study Student is alright. He also uses his full hero name: Great Explosion Murder God Dynamite.” Hawks says that he wants a word with Izuku Midoriay, and Iida says that All Might said to give them privacy. Hawks now realizes that whatever One-For-All is, All Might is connected to it. In Izuku’s room, All Might says that he can feel his vestige of One-For-All in Izuku’s mind. He thinks that Izuku is speaking with the other wielders in his mind. And that’s where we end. Damn.

 

I’ve been thinking about how I wanted to word this for a bit, let’s see if I landed on it right. I appreciate that Horikoshi, My Hero Academia’s author, chose to write the Todoroki family as more complicated than it first seemed. I believe I said something like this at the start of Endeavor’s character arc, that it would have been easy to keep him as a hate sink and leave it at that. He also could have chosen to lay the blame for Dabi’s creation solely at Endeavor’s feet, but he chose the more nuanced story. Don’t get me wrong, Endeavor was an abusive POS and 90% of what happened falls on his shoulders, but I appreciate that Rei is the sort of character that’s willing to say, “I screwed up too.” It’s at worst like a 95% Enji’s fault, 3% Rei’s fault for being too scared of her own son to try to get him to stop, and 2% the siblings’ fault for not realizing how much Toya was hurting up to that point. Fault is probably the wrong word. The Todoroki family is willing to admit that they contributed to losing Toya might be better phrasing. And I’ll say I like how the POV of Enji and Rei inform the family in a way that Shoto couldn’t, given how young he was for most of it. We see a family that probably wasn’t ever the most affectionate, but was still functional in the early years, slowly crumble as ambition and obsession ate away at the foundations. A man that had a professional relationship with his wife, from what we can see, and at least one child that adored him devolve into a monster. How a monster started out as just a little boy that wanted his father to treat him like he did when his dad thought he was perfect. And how that hatred must have festered for years. It was a very true to life sort of fall for the house of Todoroki. Not to say there aren’t people like the Tamaki’s broken from the start, but I feel like a family slowly breaking down as their relationship withers is a situation more of us can understand is what I’m saying. I like that the family is resolved to support each other at least until they’ve stopped Dabi. And finally, I like the tease about what Izuku’s been doing while he’s been out. We’re going to see the previous OFA users at the end of the year, what fun. Have a good night!

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Bluesky: @basicssuperhero.bsky.social

Viewer Log: My Hero Academia ep 129

Families are... complicated. 

Last time on My Hero Academia, we had a prison break. Shigaraki, acting both through Tomura’s body and his original body in the prison, orchestrated a mass breakout of Tartarus, the maximum-security prison for the most dangerous Quirks. The chaos saw the escape of a few old villain faces, including Stain, Muscular, Moonfish, and Overhaul. There was also a new face in a woman we’ll come to know as Lady Nagant. After the big breakout, Shigaraki caused breakouts in several smaller prisons to sew chaos. After, Spinner demands to know what their goal is and why he should give his loyalty to this new guy possessing his boss’s body. Shigaraki told him not to worry as the end game is to make him the Demon king of the world. We move to Central Hospital where class 1A is being treated. The students made it out with injuries of varying severity. Bakugo is mostly recovered, Shoto is largely fine but was badly burned by his brother and is having trouble talking, and Izuku has been in a coma since being brought in. Shoto’s family are gathering at the hospital as his father, Endeavor is in surgery at the hospital. The episode ends with Bakugo swearing to kill Izuku if he dies. Enough recapping. Let’s get to it, shall we?

 

The story picks up with Bakugo fighting Sato and Mineta as he fights his way to Izuku, to I guess try to threaten him into waking up.

 

After that we cut to a young Hawks watching All Might’s debut video like Izuku used to. He then saw Endeavor using his power to defeat an Elephant Quirk user. He tells us that while he grew up watching heroes like everyone else did, they never felt ‘real’ to him, more like beings from another world, or from dreams. We follow Hawks to his home, a rundown shack at the edge of town where he and his mother are violently abused by his alcoholic father. His father yells at his boy, Kego, for going into town and threatening the boy’s life if he, at the time just Keigo Takami, ratted the elder Takami out. Turns out he’s on the run for some crimes. Keigo says that his wings felt tingly, so he went into the city but came right back after it stopped. Future Hawks explains that his father was on the run for murdering someone over a very small amount of money, his mother let him hide at her place and he was born a short time after. We see that the elder Takami has the same feathers as his boy but they grow from his arms and not from wings on his back. Takami is the sort of person that blames all his misfortune on other people, so he whines out loud that he’d be free as a bird if he didn’t have to look after Keigo. While not looking away from their busted TV with her natural eyes, Tomei Takami looks at her husband with her free-floating eyes and begs him not to leave. Hawks calls his parents “broke souls” and that from a young age he knew to keep his head down and try not to end up like them. There’s a really sad image of this five- or six-year-old Keigo sitting quietly away from his parents in their house full of trash while clutching his Endeavor doll.

 

Sometime later Keigo comes home to his mother telling him his father was arrested. She looks at him with all four of her eyes and says that Takami stole a car to try to get away from the hero, but he was caught by Endeavor. This elevated Endeavor to a real, physical hero in Keigo’s eyes. Tomei took Keigo away from their home for fear of getting arrested for harboring a fugitive. While removing his abusive father from his life was a net gain for Keigo Takami, he unfortunately still had his mother. Tomei seems to suffer from a crippling level of anxiety and paranoia, leaving her unable to do things like, say, hold down a job, or raise a child. Keigo tried to get her to go to the police or someone that could help them, but Tomei was sure everyone was out to get them. She tells him to do what he had to help them survive and asks why he was even born if he can’t help them. Keigo knew that with his feathers he could steal wallets with relative ease, but he still wanted to be a good person. Eventually some government types tracked them down and gave Tomei a sweet deal, turn over her son to them, they’ll train him to be a hero and see that she’s financially compensated for the rest of her life.

 

After, the government types tell him that he’ll be giving up his name of Keigo from that day onward. He’ll be put through an elite training program to make him into a real hero. While looking at his Endeavor doll, he asks if he’ll get to be a real hero, like him, this man that saved his life.

 

Hawks wakes up from his recollection as someone says his name. He’s covered in bandages and has some sort of mask on to help him breathe. The other man, Best Jeanist, is relieved he woke up. Using an app on his phone to do text-to-speak, Hawks apologizes for getting to sleep while Jeanist is forced to do all the driving. Jeanist tells him not to worry about it. He compliments the doctors that stitched Hawks up, and saying that without them they wouldn’t have been able to pull off their gambit to use Jeanist’s murder to get Hawks in with the League of Villains. We’re told that the doctors basically put Jeanist into a very nearly death like coma, which was what they needed to fool Dabi and Dr. Garaki. He’d spent most of the last few weeks or months in a Nomu tank, preserving his body for if and when Garaki decided to start modifying him into a Nomu. Hawks snuck in and revived him in time for him to save the day. Jeanist suddenly makes a sharp U-turn and says he spotted some loose ends that need tending. They run into a villain known as Glutton God and his gang attacking a shopping district, saying that this whole area is his territory now. Jeanist takes them out with his car’s grappling hooks. After, he asks if the police are on the way, but the locals say that they aren’t. The cops have their hands full capturing the escaped convicts and unfortunately their heroes all turned tail and ran after starting to get scrutinized by the public. Jeanist hears someone in the crowd saying “they’re cowards, who needs them.” Jeanist spies a lot of angry people in the crowd when he offers to send some of his own sidekicks to the area to help.

 

They get back in the car and Jeanist takes Hawks to his mom’s house. The place is lavish but empty. Jeanist asks if she skipped town. Hawks finds a note from his mother, who apologizes, saying that some scary men came in and demanded information on Hawks and his father. She says that she’s so incredibly sorry for doing that, which is why she left, but tells her son that she’s very proud of him. Hawks isn’t too visibly broken up by this, saying that he cut ties with his mother when he gave up his name. But he does feel bad that he didn’t help her like he should have. Hawks says with the PSC out of commission for now, he’s got no one tying him down. He takes off his mask and speaks that last line with a raspy voice.

 

Hawks has a flashback to when his mother took him shopping one day to get him to stop crying. She tells him to not tell his father. They grabbed the Endeavor doll, his mother saying that “he’s alright, right? All Might is too expensive.” In the present, Hawks tells Jeanist that you see a person’s real self when they’re backed into a corner. It’s why he thinks Twice was a good man at heart. He backed the wrong horse in the race, but in the end all he really wanted to do was help people. As Hawks says this, we see what he did to get the PSC’s attention all those years ago… he used his feathers to help people out of a massive car accident. Hawks tells Jeanist that even if Dabi was totally honest about the Todoroki family, things are different now. Hawks’ vows to help Endeavor however he can.

 

Hawks and Jeanist drive around looking for metaphorical fires to put out. Hawks tells us that urban areas were hit hardest, and that it was the combination of freed criminals and Nomu that make everyone so scared. He says that ever since the original Nomu made an appearance at UA, rumors about those things had circulated. He thinks that that should have been the first sign that things were going to get bad. People fixated on these abominations running around and with heroes constantly failing, things just got worse. A villain with some kind of waterpower, the Cider House Gang, attacked a store, but the owners all jump them with Support gear, saying that they don’t need heroes anymore. The Laundry Hero: Wash rushes to help but is too slow and sees explosions rock the area. He makes it to the scene and sees everyone was killed in the fighting. Hawks says that this was clearly part of Re-Destro’s plan, people lost faith in Heroes, so they buy up a bunch of support equipment that they don’t know how to use and fights just get bloodier. Wash gets attacked by angry civilians, demanding what took him so long to get there. Wash takes the criticism, though, and uses his powers to disinfect wounds and carry people to the hospital.

 

Making matters worse are the heroes quitting.  Hawks says that a lot of the quitters were the moderately successful types, guys who did good work but couldn’t handle the pressure, or old timers that had been coasting on their reputation for far too long. Guys like the number 9 hero, Yoroi Musha, announced his retirement after the raid. Many followed his example. Hawks says that they took peace for granted, and they have to ask themselves what it means to be a hero. We see Stain breaking into a building and getting his equipment back.

 

Hawks says that the outrage of these events, all the anger, frustration and pain was focused ended up focused on a single, broken man. We cut to Endeavor who is told by his doctor that the students are recovering, and that the doctor personally is rooting for him. Endeavor thinks that he can breathe, but his head is foggy from the anesthesia. Endeavor leans back in his hospital bed, saying that he knew this was Toya’s plan. That his oldest planned on him surviving and suffering from his indecision and inability to react to him. Endeavor realizes that this was just like when Natsuo nearly died in front of him, and he froze. Jeanist stepped up and debunked some of what Dabi said in his video, but Endeavor does own that he was a monster to his son and thus made him a monster as well. Endeavor remembers his son screaming at him while tearing at his white hair. Endeavor says that whatever he used to be, Endeavor is dead, and that he can’t fight his own son. He looks over to see his other three children watching him cry. Endeavor apologizes to his children, saying that he’s held down by his regret and guilt, and that there’s nothing that he can do. Endeavor is shocked to hear his wife say that they all know regret and guilt. He asks what she’s doing here, and she says they need to talk about their family, and about Toya.

 

I think it’s funny that this episode is titled “The Hellish Todoroki Family,” when its much more about the hellish Takami family. The fact this young man ended up becoming a hero is probably a minor miracle in and of itself with the parents he was dealing with. An all-around abusive father and a mentally unwell mother is like 35% of all villain origin stories. It really speaks to how terrible Hawks’ home life was that he considered his father’s arrest to be Endeavor ‘saving’ him. Imagine being that young and knowing that your dad is probably the biggest threat to your existence. Traumatic as hell. The show didn’t make it seem like he had the best time while training to be a hero, but it was a step up from having to take care of his mother, I’m sure. I like that they include his mother’s goodbye note, as it’d be easy to just have her go into the wind, but the fact she stopped for a minute to say goodbye at least suggests she was being honest about being proud of him. I liked seeing how the hero system is starting to crack under the strain. The escalation is very believable. People lose faith in heroes as it becomes clear that they’re not equipped to handle this crisis, they do their best to arm and defend themselves and end up causing more damage because they don’t know what they’re doing, which leads to more lost faith in heroes that aren’t able to handle the increasing crises. This part is clearly from the Re-Destro part of the Paranormal Liberation Front, as buying their products to inflate their stock feels like an evil corporate thing to do. Hopefully they’ll be able to start righting this ship once a certain green-haired hero wakes up. I’m looking forward to them digging into the Todoroki family next time. Their situation is… complicated, but it’ll be nice to get everything about the Toya situation out in the open. But more on that next time. See you then. 

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/viewer-log-my-ep-146968397

Bluesky: @basicssuperhero.bsky.social

Viewer Log: My Hero Academia ep 128

 Who doesn't love a good prison break? Besides the guards. 

Last time on My Hero Academia, we had a prison break. Shigaraki, acting both through Tomura’s body and his original body in the prison, orchestrated a mass breakout of Tartarus, the maximum-security prison for the most dangerous Quirks. The chaos saw the escape of a few old villain faces, including Stain, Muscular, Moonfish, and Overhaul. There was also a new face in a woman we’ll come to know as Lady Nagant. After the big breakout, Shigaraki caused breakouts in several smaller prisons to sew chaos. After, Spinner demands to know what their goal is and why he should give his loyalty to this new guy possessing his boss’s body. Shigaraki told him not to worry as the end game is to make him the Demon king of the world. We move to Central Hospital where class 1A is being treated. The students made it out with injuries of varying severity. Bakugo is mostly recovered, Shoto is largely fine but was badly burned by his brother and is having trouble talking, and Izuku has been in a coma since being brought in. Shoto’s family are gathering at the hospital as his father, Endeavor is in surgery at the hospital. The episode ends with Bakugo swearing to kill Izuku if he dies. Enough recapping. Let’s get to it, shall we?

 

The story picks up with Bakugo fighting Sato and Mineta as he fights his way to Izuku, to I guess try to threaten him into waking up.

 

After that we cut to a young Hawks watching All Might’s debut video like Izuku used to. He then saw Endeavor using his power to defeat an Elephant Quirk user. He tells us that while he grew up watching heroes like everyone else did, they never felt ‘real’ to him, more like beings from another world, or from dreams. We follow Hawks to his home, a rundown shack at the edge of town where he and his mother are violently abused by his alcoholic father. His father yells at his boy, Kego, for going into town and threatening the boy’s life if he, at the time just Keigo Takami, ratted the elder Takami out. Turns out he’s on the run for some crimes. Keigo says that his wings felt tingly, so he went into the city but came right back after it stopped. Future Hawks explains that his father was on the run for murdering someone over a very small amount of money, his mother let him hide at her place and he was born a short time after. We see that the elder Takami has the same feathers as his boy but they grow from his arms and not from wings on his back. Takami is the sort of person that blames all his misfortune on other people, so he whines out loud that he’d be free as a bird if he didn’t have to look after Keigo. While not looking away from their busted TV with her natural eyes, Tomei Takami looks at her husband with her free-floating eyes and begs him not to leave. Hawks calls his parents “broke souls” and that from a young age he knew to keep his head down and try not to end up like them. There’s a really sad image of this five- or six-year-old Keigo sitting quietly away from his parents in their house full of trash while clutching his Endeavor doll.

 

Sometime later Keigo comes home to his mother telling him his father was arrested. She looks at him with all four of her eyes and says that Takami stole a car to try to get away from the hero, but he was caught by Endeavor. This elevated Endeavor to a real, physical hero in Keigo’s eyes. Tomei took Keigo away from their home for fear of getting arrested for harboring a fugitive. While removing his abusive father from his life was a net gain for Keigo Takami, he unfortunately still had his mother. Tomei seems to suffer from a crippling level of anxiety and paranoia, leaving her unable to do things like, say, hold down a job, or raise a child. Keigo tried to get her to go to the police or someone that could help them, but Tomei was sure everyone was out to get them. She tells him to do what he had to help them survive and asks why he was even born if he can’t help them. Keigo knew that with his feathers he could steal wallets with relative ease, but he still wanted to be a good person. Eventually some government types tracked them down and gave Tomei a sweet deal, turn over her son to them, they’ll train him to be a hero and see that she’s financially compensated for the rest of her life.

 

After, the government types tell him that he’ll be giving up his name of Keigo from that day onward. He’ll be put through an elite training program to make him into a real hero. While looking at his Endeavor doll, he asks if he’ll get to be a real hero, like him, this man that saved his life.

 

Hawks wakes up from his recollection as someone says his name. He’s covered in bandages and has some sort of mask on to help him breathe. The other man, Best Jeanist, is relieved he woke up. Using an app on his phone to do text-to-speak, Hawks apologizes for getting to sleep while Jeanist is forced to do all the driving. Jeanist tells him not to worry about it. He compliments the doctors that stitched Hawks up, and saying that without them they wouldn’t have been able to pull off their gambit to use Jeanist’s murder to get Hawks in with the League of Villains. We’re told that the doctors basically put Jeanist into a very nearly death like coma, which was what they needed to fool Dabi and Dr. Garaki. He’d spent most of the last few weeks or months in a Nomu tank, preserving his body for if and when Garaki decided to start modifying him into a Nomu. Hawks snuck in and revived him in time for him to save the day. Jeanist suddenly makes a sharp U-turn and says he spotted some loose ends that need tending. They run into a villain known as Glutton God and his gang attacking a shopping district, saying that this whole area is his territory now. Jeanist takes them out with his car’s grappling hooks. After, he asks if the police are on the way, but the locals say that they aren’t. The cops have their hands full capturing the escaped convicts and unfortunately their heroes all turned tail and ran after starting to get scrutinized by the public. Jeanist hears someone in the crowd saying “they’re cowards, who needs them.” Jeanist spies a lot of angry people in the crowd when he offers to send some of his own sidekicks to the area to help.

 

They get back in the car and Jeanist takes Hawks to his mom’s house. The place is lavish but empty. Jeanist asks if she skipped town. Hawks finds a note from his mother, who apologizes, saying that some scary men came in and demanded information on Hawks and his father. She says that she’s so incredibly sorry for doing that, which is why she left, but tells her son that she’s very proud of him. Hawks isn’t too visibly broken up by this, saying that he cut ties with his mother when he gave up his name. But he does feel bad that he didn’t help her like he should have. Hawks says with the PSC out of commission for now, he’s got no one tying him down. He takes off his mask and speaks that last line with a raspy voice.

 

Hawks has a flashback to when his mother took him shopping one day to get him to stop crying. She tells him to not tell his father. They grabbed the Endeavor doll, his mother saying that “he’s alright, right? All Might is too expensive.” In the present, Hawks tells Jeanist that you see a person’s real self when they’re backed into a corner. It’s why he thinks Twice was a good man at heart. He backed the wrong horse in the race, but in the end all he really wanted to do was help people. As Hawks says this, we see what he did to get the PSC’s attention all those years ago… he used his feathers to help people out of a massive car accident. Hawks tells Jeanist that even if Dabi was totally honest about the Todoroki family, things are different now. Hawks’ vows to help Endeavor however he can.

 

Hawks and Jeanist drive around looking for metaphorical fires to put out. Hawks tells us that urban areas were hit hardest, and that it was the combination of freed criminals and Nomu that make everyone so scared. He says that ever since the original Nomu made an appearance at UA, rumors about those things had circulated. He thinks that that should have been the first sign that things were going to get bad. People fixated on these abominations running around and with heroes constantly failing, things just got worse. A villain with some kind of waterpower, the Cider House Gang, attacked a store, but the owners all jump them with Support gear, saying that they don’t need heroes anymore. The Laundry Hero: Wash rushes to help but is too slow and sees explosions rock the area. He makes it to the scene and sees everyone was killed in the fighting. Hawks says that this was clearly part of Re-Destro’s plan, people lost faith in Heroes, so they buy up a bunch of support equipment that they don’t know how to use and fights just get bloodier. Wash gets attacked by angry civilians, demanding what took him so long to get there. Wash takes the criticism, though, and uses his powers to disinfect wounds and carry people to the hospital.

 

Making matters worse are the heroes quitting.  Hawks says that a lot of the quitters were the moderately successful types, guys who did good work but couldn’t handle the pressure, or old timers that had been coasting on their reputation for far too long. Guys like the number 9 hero, Yoroi Musha, announced his retirement after the raid. Many followed his example. Hawks says that they took peace for granted, and they have to ask themselves what it means to be a hero. We see Stain breaking into a building and getting his equipment back.

 

Hawks says that the outrage of these events, all the anger, frustration and pain was focused ended up focused on a single, broken man. We cut to Endeavor who is told by his doctor that the students are recovering, and that the doctor personally is rooting for him. Endeavor thinks that he can breathe, but his head is foggy from the anesthesia. Endeavor leans back in his hospital bed, saying that he knew this was Toya’s plan. That his oldest planned on him surviving and suffering from his indecision and inability to react to him. Endeavor realizes that this was just like when Natsuo nearly died in front of him, and he froze. Jeanist stepped up and debunked some of what Dabi said in his video, but Endeavor does own that he was a monster to his son and thus made him a monster as well. Endeavor remembers his son screaming at him while tearing at his white hair. Endeavor says that whatever he used to be, Endeavor is dead, and that he can’t fight his own son. He looks over to see his other three children watching him cry. Endeavor apologizes to his children, saying that he’s held down by his regret and guilt, and that there’s nothing that he can do. Endeavor is shocked to hear his wife say that they all know regret and guilt. He asks what she’s doing here, and she says they need to talk about their family, and about Toya.

 

I think it’s funny that this episode is titled “The Hellish Todoroki Family,” when its much more about the hellish Takami family. The fact this young man ended up becoming a hero is probably a minor miracle in and of itself with the parents he was dealing with. An all-around abusive father and a mentally unwell mother is like 35% of all villain origin stories. It really speaks to how terrible Hawks’ home life was that he considered his father’s arrest to be Endeavor ‘saving’ him. Imagine being that young and knowing that your dad is probably the biggest threat to your existence. Traumatic as hell. The show didn’t make it seem like he had the best time while training to be a hero, but it was a step up from having to take care of his mother, I’m sure. I like that they include his mother’s goodbye note, as it’d be easy to just have her go into the wind, but the fact she stopped for a minute to say goodbye at least suggests she was being honest about being proud of him. I liked seeing how the hero system is starting to crack under the strain. The escalation is very believable. People lose faith in heroes as it becomes clear that they’re not equipped to handle this crisis, they do their best to arm and defend themselves and end up causing more damage because they don’t know what they’re doing, which leads to more lost faith in heroes that aren’t able to handle the increasing crises. This part is clearly from the Re-Destro part of the Paranormal Liberation Front, as buying their products to inflate their stock feels like an evil corporate thing to do. Hopefully they’ll be able to start righting this ship once a certain green-haired hero wakes up. I’m looking forward to them digging into the Todoroki family next time. Their situation is… complicated, but it’ll be nice to get everything about the Toya situation out in the open. But more on that next time. See you then. 

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/viewer-log-my-ep-146888028

Bluesky: @basicssuperhero.bsky.social

Viewer Log: My Hero Academia ep 127

 The butcher's bill on this one is high.

Last time on My Hero Academia, Mr. Compress decided to talk about himself. The masked stage magician of the League of Villains revealed himself to be the Great-Great Grandson of Oji Harima, a legendary Robin Hood-style thief from the early years of the hero system. He brings this guy up to explain why he’s a master escape artist and to show off just a little. Compress uses his compression quirk on himself, removing bits of his flesh to allow himself to escape the bonds Best Jeanist put him in. He gathered up all the allies that he could in compressed spheres and slowed down Mirio Togeta long enough for Spinner to wake up Tomura Shigaraki’s body. I specify his body because it turns out the one piloting his body is the elder Shigaraki, All-For-One. Using the powers implanted in his student to summon the Nomu to him and used them as a distraction to allow his and Spinner’s escape. Izuku tried to stop him, but he was incapacitated by the intense pain caused by his new Danger Sense. It’s a Spidey-Sense that should just warn him of danger but the pulse it gives him keeps knocking him out. He is able to stay awake long enough to confront All-For-One, using Black Whip channeled through his tongue to move. All-For-One knocks Izuku back and tells him they’ll meet again when Tomura is complete. As the heroes gather their wounded and dead, Izuku passes out again from his own injuries. Enough recapping. Let’s get to it, shall we?

 

We open the scene on the destruction of Jaku city where the battle took place. Lots of death, destruction, and it was so bad someone stuck a “I AM NOT HERE” sign on All Might’s statue. Future Narrator Izuku let us know that he didn’t know how bad the total damage was until sometime later. We learn that just before the big attack, the chief of the public safety commission reached out to the head of a certain company to begin a project to develop support items. The company was unfortunately Detnerat Company and the official brough in was Rikiya Yotsubashi aka Re-Destro. His assistant says that it’s weird they’re being brought in when the Safety Commission hasn’t been their biggest fans. He says that it’s because the PSC can’t ignore their products anymore and admits he’s going to introduce malware and spies into whatever products they give the PSC, which will give them lots of data. Like the identity of the PSC’s spy (Hawks). They’re both excited about bringing about the future the original Destro dreamed of. He then cryptically states that “the Other Me” is ecstatic.

 

Re-Destro meets with the PSC chair and her entourage, including Yokumiru Mera, the guy that ran Izuku’s Hero License Test. She starts speaking to him like this is going to be a simple business meeting… right up until her squad pulls out guns and heroes start busting in. We don’t see the fighting, but when we come back into the scene, the building is destroyed, Re-Destro’s assistant and the Chairwoman of the PSC are dead, and it’s revealed this Re-Destroy was a body double Twice created. As the copy melts he admits he was impressed at them using his company’s desire for expansion to lure him into a trap. He tells them that this is the beginning of the end and melts to goo.

 

Future Narrator Izuku goes on to explain that with the chaos in the PSC headquarters, no one was able to get in contact with the heroes to warn them, and the raid began. He summarizes the events of the raid. Heroes tried to grab Dr. Garaki, but he escaped thanks to a double, Garaki activated a bunch of High End Nomu and activated Tomura Shigaraki. Shigaraki’s enhanced Decay allowed him to destroy Jaku city from a distance. Izuku was outside helping to evacuate but he sensed his opposite’s presence. While that was going on, Edgeshot lead a raid on the Paranormal Liberation Front’s villa about 80 kilometers from Jaku City. Kaminari got his big moment of absorbing a big lightning attack and the raid began. Izuku mentions how Hawks was on a secret mission with the goal of removing Twice from the battlefield. He killed Twice, but was badly injured by Dabi. He was barely saved by Tokoyami who flew him to safety. The fight escalated with Gigantomachia and the PLF’s heavy hitters joining. Gigantomachia got drugged by class 1A which ultimately stopped him.

 

Izuku gets to Endeavor’s fight with Tomura Shigaraki and how he called in everyone that could fight without touching the ground. He mentions how Tomura’s enhancements made him impossibly strong even when his quirks were being actively suppressed by Aizawa. Endeavor tried to incinerate Tomura, but he survived the attack. Dabi revealed his status as Endeavor’s oldest son to the world and dealt a massive blow to public confidence in heroes. Best Jeanist and Lemillion helped when Gigantomachia arrived, but ultimately Shigaraki escaped with seven Nomu.

 

Future Narrator Izuku reveals that the professional heroes at the scene denied that any students got involved with the fighting. This was obviously to protect the students and the hero system from any additional scrutiny after how badly the operation went. He says that the denial that work study students helped was the only mention of Izuku and his friends fighting. He reminds us of what was really going on, how All-For-One attempted to take full control of Tomura Shigaraki’s body and steal One-For-All from Izuku. Izuku remembered how the first wielder of One-For-All, Shigaraki the younger, manifested in the mental plane along with All Might’s Master, Nana Shimura, to help fight Shigaraki the elder off. He also mentions how it looked like Tomura Shigaraki had wanted to be saved.

 

We see Izuku get loaded into an ambulance as Future Narrator Izuku talks about Garaki getting arrested for murder and other crimes. They captured Gigantomachia and took him away with a pair of helicopters. Mr. Compress, real name, Atsuhiro Sako, survived the fighting and was arrested. And they captured any of the Nomu that couldn’t escape with Shigaraki. They harvested equipment from the hidden lab in the hopes that would help them figure out what was done in the lab. Re-Destro and Geten, the PLF’s Ice user, were captured by Edgeshot and Cementoss. They also captured Koku Hanabata aka Trumpet, as well as over 16,900 members of the PLF. He reveals that along with the big raids there were dozens of smaller raids that focused on smaller bases around the country. They arrested dozens of more PLF members as well as double agent heroes.

 

Future Narrator Izuku states that’s all that was in the official report and that he has nothing more to add to it. And while the raid was largely successful, he admits that the aftereffects of it were devastating. We see a group trying to find and capture Himiko Toga but shifted priorities to helping civilians. We see a pair of kids almost crushed by rubble but are saved last minute by Uraraka and Tsu. Uraraka sends Tsu to drop the kids off while she rushes around to help people. She proves herself to be invaluable in this situation as her anti-gravity powers help her clear rubble extremely quickly. Koda, who can speak to animals, is also extremely helpful thanks to being able to talk with pigeons to get aerial views of the city. We see that resources are stretched to their absolute limit as doctors are forced to prioritize saving people they can treat. In an extremely low, as Uraraka saves another civilian, an unnamed hero just… quits. He admits that he can’t keep doing this, as it’s just too much.

 

Class 1A finds Midnight’s body. Kirishima, Sato, Ashido and Yaoyorozu beg her to get up, but she’s been dead for hours at this point. Tokage of 1B joins them and informs them that another hero friend of theirs, Majestic, is also dead. We see Mineta holding back tears with the rest of his class as he says this feels like a nightmare. We learn from Garaki’s deposition that Tomura Shigaraki straight up died when his pod was broken into. Izuku postulates that Tomura came back to life, not from the mild electric shock that he received while in a puddle of fluid, but by his ‘dreams and desires.’ Not gonna lie, Izuku, ol buddy, but that’s a bit of a reach.

 

We see that the public has started to turn on Endeavor specifically but heroes more generally. Some are still hopeful, like the kids that Bakugo and Shoto tutored to get their hero licenses approved, but they’re in the minority. We see Shigaraki both in his cell at Tartarus Prison as well as the possessed Tomura talking about how the plan didn’t go off perfectly, but it went extremely well. He says that people naively expect tomorrow to be brighter, but he’s not going to give them time to recover. We see a tired Dabi crouched by his side and Spinner looking absolutely horrified. Shigaraki orders his Nomu to free his real body. And that’s where we end.

 

I don’t have much to say about this episode as it was largely just summarizing the last arc. Overall, Future Narrator Izuku paints a very bleak picture of the raid and the wider world. While he doesn’t say that Jaku city was one of the biggest and destructive events of the modern era, it’s heavily implied to be the case. It’s so bad that even though the capture tons of villains, including high ranking members of the new PLF, Gigantomachia, and dozens of Nomu, Izuku clearly thinks they failed. I liked that the episode did its best to capture the duality of the situation. Parts are hopeful, like when we see Uraraka working tirelessly to try and most often succeed in saving people, or seeing guys like Compress and Gigantomachia captured. Others are totally bleak like the hero that just quit from how overwhelming this all is, or Izuku’s classmates finding their dead teacher. This as never going to end cleanly, but it’s clear that the heroes took as many losses as wins. I can tell you that Endeavor is taking a big hit from all this, Dabi planned his attack on his father extremely well, the backlash is intense. And then we see Shigaraki planning to keep up the momentum by freeing his original body from Tartarus. The part I liked most from this scene was Spinner, who had a look on his face that can only be described as “what the hell have I gotten myself into?” All-For-One’s master plan is just starting to get into motion, and no one is ready for what comes next. See you next time. 

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Bluesky: @basicssuperhero.bsky.social

Viewer Log: My Hero Academia ep 126

 Mr. Compress takes center stage. 

It’s been a bit since we covered My Hero Academia so a quick refresher before the ‘last time,’ section: My Hero Academia takes place on a version of Earth where the vast majority of people have a power of some kind dubbed a quirk. These powers range from basically pointless, like the ability to stretch ones fingers out, to world breaking like Super strength. The need to protect people from super humans with more power than sense lead to the development of Heroes, part law enforcement, part brand spokesman, part WWE personalities. Our protagonist is Izuku Midoriya, a young man born without a quirk. He was endlessly bullied for this, but despite the mockery and torment he received he still wanted to be a hero. He impressed the Superman of Japan, All Might, by throwing himself at a sludge monster to try to save his childhood friend turned nemesis Katsuki Bakugo from it. All Might, who was seriously injured in a battle five years ago with a villain, revealed he could transfer his power into Izuku. Izuku took the chance and enrolled in UA High, the most prestigious Hero High School in Japan. While the power was initially too much for Izuku’s body to handle, he eventually was able to harness it and shape along with his fighting style to become an amazing fighter and hero in training. At the same time, a group called the League of Villains formed, at it’s leader, a man known mostly by the moniker All-For-One began setting up and pitting his student and adopted Tomura Shigaraki up against the heroes in order to destroy the system. This all culminated in the most recent plan, he transferred his ability, All-For-One, that lets him steal and transfer powers, into Tomura along with some other enhancements to make the ultimate Symbol of Chaos. Izuku, his classmates, and their various teachers and other pro heroes are trying to capture Tomura Shigaraki, a task made all the harder by his decay quirk being put into overdrive.

 

Alright, so last time on My Hero Academia, we started to see the fallout of Dabi aka Toya Todoroki’s plan to ruin his father. The long lost son, presumed dead, son of Enji Todoroki aka Endeavour did his damnedest to murder his stunned father and his littlest brother Shoto who kept fighting back. At the same time, the thought to be dead hero Best Jeanist arrived and used his powers to entangle Shigaraki’s colossus of a henchman Gigantomachia in threads. We learn that Bakugo has decided on the hero’s name Dynamite, and he hopes to tell it to Best Jeanist. They’re also joined by Mirio Togeta, aka Lemillion, class 1A’s upper classman who had just gotten his powers restored by Eri, the girl who can basically rewind time. Izuku and everyone do their best to hold Gigantomachia back, Endeavor even snaps out of his panicked trance to deliver a powerful punch to the giant’s chin, but the titan breaks free… only to pass out from the huge amount of tranquilizers the other members of Class 1A fed to him an in-universe hour or two ago. While the heroes cheered, one of the last League of Villain members left standing, Mr. Compress, announces that he’ll show these philistines. Enough recapping. Let’s get to it, shall we?

 

We open with Endeavors mega flame punch and Gigantomachia dropping from the combination of exhaustion, damage and tranquilizers being digested in his stomach. Which is good. Unfortunately, Mr. Compress isn’t down and out yet. He yells at his boss, Tomura, for getting knocked out, saying that none of their group has achieved their dreams yet. Best Jeanist tightens the threads around Compress to try to knock him out.

 

Mr. Compress has a flashback to the League of Villains attacking a cult that wears skull mask. These are the CRC, the Creature Rejection Clan, a group that believes in the supremacy of non-mutant Quirk havers. They basically hate guys like Spinner whose quirk makes him look like a lizard. The League kills all the CRC members and starts going through their stuff for things to fence. This is at a point where their funds were basically gone and their gear was starting to wear out, like Toga’s needles are breaking, and Mr. Compress’s prosthetic arm is getting creaky. They could go to their black market contact Giran for more stuff, but again, they’re broke.

 

Later, Spinner asks how long they are expected to keep going like this, and Tomura tells him to shut up. Dabi joins them and reveals that he’s been trying to recruit new members, but he hasn’t brought anyone yet again. Spinner asks what their goal even is at this point. He dives into his backstory about how h was originally from a small village where he was ostracized for his lizard looks. He was inspired by the hero killer, Stain’s words to try to destroy the current system so it can be purified. After that he remodeled his look to be like Stain. Dabi calls him an empty cosplayer, and Spinner agrees, and demands to know when they’ll actually DO something.

 

In the present, Mr. Compress, who is being choked by cables, gasps out the Spinner that he loved being in the League of Villains. Spinner asks what he means, and Compress tells him that Tomura is the key and that he’ll buy Spinner time to let them escape. He says that he owes it to his bloodline. Compress uses his Quirk, shrinking anything he touches down to a pale green marble, on his own body. He gouges a chunk of meat out of his thigh, which gives him space to wriggle out of the cables and shrink Spinner and Tomura down to marble size. He tries to flee, but Best Jeanist uses his powers to constrict Compress in his own clothing. Compress decides that he’d rather streak than be captured, and compresses his clothes until he’s basically naked, taking chunks of flesh with it. He takes a moment to grab Tomoyasu Chikazoku aka Skeptic, their tech support guy, as well. He says that he’s a master of great escapes.

 

We learn that Mr. Compress is the great-great grandson of Oji Harima, a peerless thief from back before Quirks were rampant. He lived when the current system was just getting started. Harima was a Robin Hood type, robbing from those he considered false heroes and spreading the money around to those in need. Compress greatly respected his ancestor, as well as his own father who told him justice runs in their veins.

 

Meanwhile, the Todoroki’s are battling. Shoto does his best to fight his brother, but the elder Todoroki overwhelms him with his fire blast. Once Shoto is out, however, Dabi decides to let him off. He’s not interested in fighting his brother if their dad isn’t awake to watch and suffer. He promises the ‘masterpiece’ that they’ll fight again soon. Compress grabs and compresses him too. It’s at this point that Compress lands on Gigantomachia and announces his relation to Oji Harima, the master thief. He says that the heroes hadn’t even noticed him, really, up to this point and claims that this was part of his design. He unmasks himself for the first time and not going to lie I was expecting him to be much older. His face makes him look like he’s not much older than the other members of the League. Lemillion charges, saying that he won’t let them escape. Compress reverts Tomura and Spinner, saying they’ll witness his greatest escape.

 

We cut to Endeavor’s sidekick Burnin and her allies fighting through Nomu. One of her friends, Master Driller, is eaten by a worm like Nomu saving her, and she announces she kill these monsters.

 

Izuku regains consciousness, someone in his head telling the “Ninth Wielder” that he can’t rest now. He wakes up, eyes bleed, his right arm badly burned, and the rest of him not looking much better. We learn that he was knocked out b Dabi’s blast earlier, but he remembers seeing Endeavor charge Gigantomachia. He sees Shoto is alright and breaths a sigh of relief but then he is hit with a massive headache. We’re talking about a stress migraine powerful enough to double up. He says that he felt like he’d felt these headache a few times during the fighting, and after thinking about it a minute realizes that it sounds a lot like something he read in the notes All Might gave him on the previous One-For-All wielders. It’s the “Danger Sense” of the fourth wielder.  The pain is too intense for him, it’s like when he first got Black Whip, the power is too much for him without training. He starts to pass out again.

 

Back with Compress, he announces that this’ll be his big escape. Lemillion charges him and knocks him aside. Compress is hurt by being brushed aside so easily. He gives us his plan, which is basically to try to buy time for Spinner to wake up Tomura, so Tomura can order Gigantomachia and the Nomu to get them out of here. He admits to himself that he’s a bit player in this performance and the real stars are Tomura and Spinner. He says the whole reason he’s leaving it up to Spinner is because he is the most devoted of their crew, even going so far as to stash Skeptic and Dabi’s marbles in Spinner’s cloak to help them escape too. He grabs Lemillion’s cape to slow him down. Spinner tries to wake Tomura up by shaking him, but when that doesn’t work, he remembers what Tomura said about how having his family’s severed hands on him made him feel calm. Spinner grabs the burnt but still intact hand of Tomura’s father and puts it on Tomura’s face.

 

Tomura wakes up and fires off an energy wave so powerful it basically kicks up a dust storm around them. The blast wave knocks around everyone in the vicinity. Izuku wakes up again, but the pain is still intense. He realizes what that must mean.

 

We hear Tomura speak, but it’s with All-For-One, Shigaraki’s voice layered over it. Shigaraki praises Tomura’s allies for keeping him safe for so long. He says that the more Tomura embraces the trauma of his past, the stronger his hold gets on the body. We see black veins spread across Tomura’s body, and then in the gap between the thumb and pointer finger of his hand-mask we see the destroyed face of Shigaraki overlayed on Tomura’s head. He announces “Long live the King, Tomura.”

 

Back with the other heroes, the Nomu stop fighting. Burnin’s team thinks for a second that the might be able to destroy them all now, but the Nomu start rushing for Gigantomachia. We learn from Shigaraki that the Radio Wave quirk he has is crucial for his plans as that allows him to control the Nomu from a distance, but Tomura can’t use it as well as he’s still ‘a hatchling.’ Best Jeanist tangles up the Nomu in threads, but he’s hitting his limit at this point. Lemillion and Bakugo refuse to stay down and prepare to charge. Spinner asks what the plan is and Shigaraki tells him they’re falling back. Spinner is confused by this and asks if they’re really abandoning Gigantomachia, Mr. Compress and Toga here. He puts his hand on Tomura’s shoulder and asks what’s up. He tells Iguchi to hold his tongue. This freaks Spinner out because I’m pretty sure he hadn’t given his real name. Shigaraki tells him that Tomura has already lost this fight, to the heroes and OFA’s wielder. He woke up too early from his metamorphosis, so his healing powers weren’t up to snuff. He’s beaten, bruised, and unconscious, so Shigaraki stepped in to get him out of this. Spinner says that they can’t leave their allies behind, but Shigaraki tells him that they will. He says that Tomura is going to have to pay for his failures.

 

The heroes do their best to keep the Nomu from reaching Gigantomachia. Iida uses his recipro-bust to race to Shigaraki, saying that he’ll stop the villain and then get Izuku and Bakugo help. He and Shoto charge, but Shigaraki unleashes another huge blast wave to knock them back. Lemillion tries to charge but gets stabbed with Shigaraki’s tentacles and knocked out. The Nomu breaks out of Jeanist’s grasp, and he throws up blood from overexerting himself. Izuku tries to get his body moving. He remembers how Tomura fought Shigaraki’s attempt at taking him over in the mindscape to try to motivate himself. He hurls himself at Shigaraki, channeling Black Whip through his tongue to move him around. He charges Shigaraki. He compliments Izuku, saying his tenacity is on par with All Might’s. He says they’ll meet again once this new body is complete. Izuku tries to attack with Black Whip but is knocked back. As he flies backward, he admits that he won’t forgive Tomura for what he’s done but he can’t abandon him to being Shigaraki’s meat puppet. When he saw him in the mindscape, Izuku says that he looked like he wanted to be saved.

 

As he falls, we see the heroes running to try to help their allies, and the number of heroes knocked out and in extremely bad shape from the fighting. Basically, every hero we’ve seen up to this point is down to one degree. Izuku, Bakugo, Shoto, Iida, Endeavor, Best Jeanist, Mt. Lady, Kamui Woods, Fat Gum, Lemillion, Mirko, Ryukyu, Nejire, and Hawks, to name a few, are all down. And it’s heavily implied by her abandoned mask that Midnight is dead. As the somber music plays, Izuku passes out again. 

 

Well, that was a pretty dark place to pickup from. It is funny to think this is over a hundred episodes and literally hundreds of chapters later and we’re just now getting backstories for some of the OG League members. Dabi, Mr. Compress, and Spinner have been part of this story for far longer than guys like Lemillion, but up until this point they were here mostly to enact Tomura’s evil schemes. I like how they kind make that part of the plot, with the reveal that the reason Mr. Compress wore a mask this whole time was to hide that he’s not just a master escape artist but possibly one of the best in the world. Spinner’s backstory is significantly simpler… but it does point out that you couldn’t ask for a more earnest zealot for your cause than a hikikomori. That’s a Japanese term for someone suffering from an intense form of social anxiety and withdrawal where they functionally become hermits. Which definitely seems to describe Spinner pre-Stain to a T. Mr. Compress’s trust in that zealotry speaks to how well he knows this reptilian outcast me thinks. I also like to be reminded that while certain members of the League like Dabi and Shigaraki himself are out for their evil plan above all else, that guys like Spinner and Compress are more on the Twice end of the spectrum. They aren’t good people by societal standards but these guys care about each other in their weird way, and you kind of wish they could have found this weird community without the crimes. Just saying. Seeing the heroes fight and try to capture Tomura only to be beaten by the overwhelming power they were trying to contain was a solid way to end this part of the story. Really drives home how dangerous Tomura is going to be if he develops his power even a little bit more when a badly beaten and burned Tomura could hold off so many heroes with just a little help from his master. And it was neat to get confirmation that Izuku’s powers are growing. Hopefully he can get the hang of danger sense, because Spidey-sense that knocks you out is probably the worst power any hero could have, ever. But we’ll see more soon, I’m sure. Have a good night. 

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Bluesky: @basicssuperhero.bsky.social