© 堀越耕平／集英社・僕のヒーローアカデミア製作委員会
I don’t know if the anime planned it this way or if it’s just how the chips fell when they had to plan out how to adapt to this busy, continuous war, but this episode ended up rather serendipitous. Cut more or less in half, it features two battles against the two greatest threats in the story, led by the two heroes with the most to answer for. One features a kid desperately trying to prove he’s better than his worst mistakes. The other: a man who’s resigned himself to his past and threw himself into the pits of hell in the hopes of taking the devil out with him.
Even though he comes second, we should start with Bakugo. Frankly, the battle with Y’all For One has been pretty uneventful so far and easily the weakest of the battle fronts we’ve seen with any detail. A lot of that comes down to how janky Shigaraki’s big gross finger mutations are. The animation team is clearly trying their best to utilize those big CG sausages for some dynamic action. However, they’re too crunchy compared to the character animation and make any sequence featuring them feel cluttered with visual noise. It’s a cruel irony that Horikoshi is the rare artist who loves drawing hands, and his predilection has forced whole teams of artists to suffer for it.
More fundamentally, the battle struggles because everyone knows this is the preamble to Deku’s arrival. The villains know it, the audiences know it, and Bakugo especially knows it, even if he stubbornly refuses to acknowledge it. Furthermore, none of them really have a direct connection to either half of this villain outside of a broad and generic need to save the world from his wanton cruelty. The only personal animus between anyone on the battlefield is Bakugo’s resentment towards AFO for kidnapping him and trying to sway him to their side, and it’s that little scrap of beef fueling his big move this week.
As Y’all For One waxes philosophic about how his controlling the world would rid all that nasty individualism that causes so much strife in the world of Quirks, Bakugo knows firsthand how hollow those words are. It’s really gratifying to see the character who once abandoned his teammate for the sake of settling a lopsided grudge now leading the charge of a team, not just with his fellow combatants but with the countless people supporting them. That’s juuuuust enough to give his big blast some thematic impact to go along with the ballistics, even if it only manages to make Shigaraki look like The Phantom of the Opera. It doesn’t quite make up for the downsides, but it does bring some much-needed tension to this fight. This is no longer a question of whether the heroes here can defeat Shigaraki – it’s if they can survive long enough for Deku to arrive at all.
Survival is the name of the game against AFO too, but Endeavor doesn’t seem interested in playing. Endeavor’s quest to be the top hero has faded into the background as the Todoroki family’s story has developed, but in this fight against this generation-spanning villain, he’s found his final chance to become All Might’s successor – beaten, bloody, and desperately trying to stop AFO from hurting anyone else. It’s here we get our only real glimpse into Endeavor’s backstory, to a time before his obsession with supremacy had turned so thoroughly poisonous. I like that there are not really any excuses or explanations given for how Endeavor became the man he was. He was faced with tragedy, and like so many people in this world, he sought the strength to shield others from it, only to falter and be consumed by his worst impulses.
There is no easy absolution, no explanation that relieves him of his responsibility. There is simply the guilt and failure of a flawed human and the newfound will to burn it all for fuel in this last battle. Some past version of him might have reveled in the duty and recognition to truly be in All Might’s shoes, but now he’s only concerned with preserving a future for those who come after him. This is far from a conclusion for Enji Todoroki, the abusive father, but it’s a perfect culmination of Endeavor, the heroic persona.
It’s almost a pity that, just like Bakugo’s Big Boom, it doesn’t seal the deal. I say “almost” because the thought of finally seeing All For One in his prime is such a cool proposition that it totally outweighs undercutting Endeavor’s last stand. Endeavor tried to drag the devil back down to hell, but he smashed those fiery gates wide open.
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