Deku vs. Class A

My Hero Academia Season 6 Episode 136 wasn’t as good as I hoped it would be. I expected a lot more from the fight between Deku and Class A. What we got wasn’t really a fight. It was the Class A students trying to stop Deku so they could talk to him.

What I wanted to see was the Class A students actually fight Deku to bring him back by force. Think about the fights between Naruto and Sasuke throughout the Naruto series. They served the same function — Naruto wanted to bring Sasuke back to the Leaf Village.

However, the major difference is that in Naruto, we actually got fights. The Naruto vs. Sasuke fights are some of the best in the entire series. So, why couldn’t we get something like that from My Hero Academia here? Is it because all the characters involved are heroes?

At first, I thought that the characters being heroes may be what stopped us from getting a real fight. Even though Deku and the students of Class A have opposing goals right now, they’re still all heroes. Heroes wouldn’t fight amongst themselves, right? Well, I’m not so sure about that.

Are you going to tell me you couldn’t see Bakugo beating some sense into Deku? To me, that seems exactly like the kind of thing he would do. And once he initiated that, I could see the other students joining in. It’s not that they’d want to beat up Deku. It’s just that this might be the only way they see to stop him.

Again, think of Naruto and Sasuke. Naruto (generally) never wanted to hurt Sasuke. But, he knew that Sasuke wouldn’t listen to reason. The only way to get through to him was for Naruto to use his fists.

Is Best Jeanist the Strongest Hero?

Who do you think the strongest hero is currently? As far as we know, Endeavor is still the #1 ranked hero. But, does that mean he’s the strongest? I don’t think he is — and it sounds like Hawks doesn’t think Endeavor is either.

There’s a good amount of evidence pointing toward Best Jeanist being the strongest. So, let’s go over this evidence by starting with something Hawks said in Episode 136. When Class A was failing to capture Deku, Hawks came over the radio to ask if Endeavor if he should send in Best Jeanist.

According to Hawks, Best Jeanist could “settle this quickly.” Now, I get that Hawks himself is injured. And I get that it’s raining so Endeavor might not be at his full power right now. But, what I’m interested in is their confidence that Best Jeanist could stop Deku’s One for All.

Okay, but what other evidence is there for Best Jeanist being the strongest hero? Allow me to take you back to the fight against the Paranormal Liberation Front and Shigaraki. As you may recall, things weren’t looking so hot for the heroes toward the end of that fight.

They weren’t able to capture or kill Shigaraki. And then Gigantomachia and Dabi showed up, to make things worse. But, who was it who showed up at the last moment to save the day like a true hero? It was Best Jeanist. If he hadn’t shown up when he did, the heroes likely would have lost.

Now, sure, Shigaraki and Dabi escaped. But, Best Jeanist was still able to capture Gigantomachia (with help from the students). And it’s unlikely that the villains would have had to flee if Best Jeanist hadn’t shown up. He single-handedly turned the tide of the battle.

Returning to U.A.

At the end of Episode 136, the students of Class A are able to convince Deku to return to U.A. with them. But, the U.A. Deku returns to looks far different than the one he left. A giant wall surrounds the school and nearby community.

When Deku sees the wall, Sero points out that the wall is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to U.A.’s defenses. And, I certainly hope that’s the case. The wall isn’t going to do much to stop an attack by All for One and his followers.

I believe Gigantomachia wasn’t freed from prison. So, that’s one positive. The wall won’t have to stand up against his brute force. However, there are countless ways to get passed a wall, no matter how large it is. All for One could do something as simple as fly over it.

Something else I want to point out is that it appears the ground has been reinforced. So, that seems to imply it would be a bit more difficult to attack by going under the wall. But, I have a feeling nobody’s trying to go under it. Going over seems far easier.

And, of course, I can’t talk about Deku’s return to U.A. without bringing up the civilian protests. In my Episode 135 review, I said that if the civilians learned Deku was All for One’s target, they’d turn on him. And, that’s exactly what we see happening now.

Not all the civilians seeking shelter at U.A. are against letting Deku in. But, a significant enough number of them are. And their argument makes sense. If U.A. lets Deku shelter there, as well, then that will make the school a target for All for One.

Conclusion

What do you think of My Hero Academia Season 6 Episode 136? Do you wish we got a real fight between Deku and Class A? Who do you think the strongest hero is? Did you notice Bakugo called Deku by his given name for the first time? And, should U.A. allow Deku in? Let me know in the comments.

If you enjoyed this review, remember to click the like button down below. Also, follow me on your social media of choice — links are in the footer.

Finally, I’d like to thank Roman and JasonHK for supporting DoubleSama.com at the Heika tier this month. To learn more about how you too can become a supporter of this blog, check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama.

My review of Episode 137 is available now.

Heroes and Civilians

The pro heroes have a problem at the start of My Hero Academia Season 6 Episode 135. Every day, more and more heroes are resigning. The latest hero to resign was Death Arms, who previously worked to root out all the spies among the hero ranks.

But, why did Death Arms retire now, when the world needs heroes the most? Because the civilian population doesn’t appreciate the work of heroes anymore. It doesn’t matter how many people the heroes save or how many villains they stop. It’s never enough to satisfy the people.

Now, these hero retirements are important for 2 reasons. First, as more heroes retire, that puts more pressure on the heroes who remain. And second, these retirements highlight the role public opinion plays in being a hero. When the public has a negative opinion of heroes, it makes it harder for them to do their jobs.

That second reason is why Endeavor doesn’t want to reveal the truth about Deku’s quirk to the public. Mt. Lady suggested they do so because it could force All for One’s hand. But, Endeavor realizes that releasing that information could actually backfire on the heroes.

If the civilian population finds out that Deku is All for One’s target, how will they react to that? There’s going to be a large portion of the population that thinks the heroes should give Deku up. If All for One gets his hands on Deku, then maybe he’ll call off the villains.

Also, consider that they might blame Deku for everything that’s happened. If not for Deku, would All for One have broken out of prison and released all the villains? Would the battle against the Paranormal Liberation Front have happened? Deku would become a scapegoat — and that would harm morale.

Becoming a Villain

We know why the heroes don’t want to reveal Deku’s secret. But, why isn’t All for One revealing it? Endeavor believes it’s for the same reason the heroes aren’t. If Deku’s secret comes out, the heroes would have to take him out of the public eye. They’d have to hide him.

Why wouldn’t All for One want the heroes to hide Deku, though? Is it because it would make it harder for him to get his hands on Deku? That could certainly be part of it. But, I don’t believe that’s the main reason.

To me, the reason is that Deku being in the public eye actually does more harm than good to the heroes. All for One is using a hero, Deku, to help shake the public’s faith in heroes. And if you think about it, he did the exact same thing with All Might in the past.

The fight between All Might and All for One ended with All for One’s defeat. But, he was actually the real winner. Why? Because the people of Japan witnessed the end of All Might. After this fight, All Might had to retire. And that led to an increase in crime.

Now, All for One is doing something similar with Deku. He’s using Deku to once again cast doubt on the heroes’ ability to protect the people. But, he’s going about it in a different way this time around. He’s making the civilians fear Deku.

Look at Deku’s appearance right now. He doesn’t look very heroic. And the fact that he has multiple quirks really isn’t helping. Because the public doesn’t know about Deku’s One for All, they fear his multiple quirks. They see someone using multiple quirks and assume they’re a Nomu or allied with All for One.

Friends to the Rescue

At the end of Episode 135, we see Deku’s classmates come to his rescue. They want to stop Deku from going after All for One on his own. But, for now, their plan isn’t to achieve this by joining him.

Deku’s classmates teaming up with him to defeat the big bad seems like the logical conclusion. I’m very confident that’s what’s going to happen in the end. But, right now, they want to bring him back to U.A. where he’ll be safe and sound.

We know that in the next episode, the students of Class 1-A are going to fight against Deku. He’s not listening to reason, so they’re going to have to use force to stop him. And, for what it’s worth, I think they’ll succeed. But, I also don’t believe U.A. is as safe as they think it is.

If U.A. is actually safe, we’re about to have a pretty boring next arc. Or, we just won’t be following Deku and the other students for a bit. My bet, however, is that U.A. won’t be safe. A villain or group of villains is going to attack and cause chaos.

But, who would attack U.A.? There are some obvious options, like All for One and the League of Villains. We could also see Dabi break off from the League and attack on his own. Or, it could be a villain we saw briefly in this episode: Stain.

I’m not completely convinced that Stain would attack U.A., though. We saw him stalking All Might (and Deku). So, it could be that we’ll see him go after All Might for some reason. But, he doesn’t seem like the kind of villain to attack U.A. outright.

Conclusion

What do you think of My Hero Academia Season 6 Episode 135? Should the heroes reveal the secret of Deku’s quirk? Do you agree that All for One’s plan is to use Deku against the heroes? And will Deku’s classmates be successful in bringing him back to U.A.? Let me know in the comments.

If you enjoyed this review, remember to click the like button down below. Also, follow me on your social media of choice — links are in the footer.

Finally, I’d like to thank Roman and JasonHK for supporting DoubleSama.com at the Heika tier this month. To learn more about how you too can become a supporter of this blog, check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama.

My review of Episode 136 is available now.

Lady Nagant the Anti-Hero

As I predicted last week, we got to learn about Lady Nagant’s backstory in My Hero Academia Season 6 Episode 134. However, I wasn’t predicting Lady Nagant’s arc to come to an end so soon. Her formal introduction was in Episode 133 and by the end of Episode 134 Deku defeated her.

Still, even though Lady Nagant wasn’t around for long, she’s pretty interesting. Originally, the implication was that she swapped from being a hero to a villain. But, it turns out that’s not exactly true. She did some bad things. However, I wouldn’t call her a villain.

Lady Nagant is more of an anti-hero than anything else. And this makes her closer to someone like Stain than most of the other villains of the series. Like Stain, she saw a problem with hero society and wanted to fix it her own way.

But, what sets Lady Nagant apart from someone like Stain is that she had a very narrow scope. Stain basically hated all pro heroes who weren’t All Might. He believed they were false heroes who got into that line of work for the wrong reasons. And as a result, he became a terrorist.

Lady Nagant’s hatred for hero society is much more limited. She doesn’t hate all pro heroes. Instead, she hates the system that forces some heroes to do the nation’s dirty work and covers it up. She hates that the government acts righteous, but is actually dealing in death.

Eventually, Lady Nagant chose to act on her beliefs. But, instead of taking her anger out on all heroes, she directed it at those she viewed as responsible. We know she killed the Hero Association commissioner, and it was said she killed some heroes. We never actually saw her kill other heroes, though.

Quirk: Fa Jin

So, we know One for All’s third user’s original quirk is a speed boost quirk. But, it doesn’t work in the way I assumed it would. Considering the third user’s appearance, I thought his quirk would work like Iida’s. That’s not the case.

To understand how this quirk works, we first need to look at its name: Fa Jin. I didn’t know what this meant. So, after I finished the episode, I looked it up. According to Wikipedia, it’s a Chinese martial arts term meaning explosive power.

That definition of Fa Jin makes sense considering how we saw Deku use this quirk. First, he built up a large amount of potential energy in his legs. Then, he released that energy to travel at a high rate of speed. This is different from his ability to launch himself with One for All.

While I’m glad we got to see the third user’s quirk in action, I was expecting to see the seconds, as well. The second user seems to have some sort of projectile quirk. I figured that would play a role in Deku’s fight against Lady Nagant considering her quirk. But, I guess not.

I also want to point out that we still don’t know the names of the second or third One for All users. Why do you think this is? Is it simply that their names aren’t important so Horikoshi never gave them names? Or, could their names be spoilers for later?

I’m not really sure what their names would spoil, though. Even if we recognized their last names, what would it change? If the third user’s last name was Midoriya and we learned he’s related to Deku, so what? I’m thinking Horikoshi just never bothered to name them.

The Replacement

Lady Nagant had a lot of potential to be a good antagonist. But, as I already mentioned, she only lasted 2 episodes before Deku defeated her. And the way in which he defeated her wasn’t very satisfying. Well, the “second” way he defeated her wasn’t. The fight itself was pretty good.

After Deku defeats Lady Nagant in combat, he defeats her for a second time with his words. He reveals that she never actually intended to kill Overhaul when she shot at him. And he reveals that she could have defeated him with her first shot if she wanted to.

It turns out that despite the bad things she’s done, Lady Nagant still has the heart of a hero. And, to me, that’s a pretty boring resolution. I’d rather see Deku (and Hawks) convince Lady Nagant that the system she fought against is changing. Seeing her already be good deep down kind of made the fight pointless.

I get that having Deku and Hawks turn Lady Nagant to their side could be boring to some people. It’s very similar to Naruto’s Talk-no-Jutsu, after all. But, I think it would have made sense in this situation. We already knew Lady Nagant committed crimes because she’s a hero.

So, it could have been interesting to see how she’d react to learning that the system is changing. The crimes she committed weren’t for nothing. She changed the direction of the hero system with her actions. That’s what I’d have rather seen.

And, of course, we could still have the episode end in the same way. The explosive trap laid by All for One could still go off. I’m not saying I think she should survive to team up with the heroes and take down All for One. Not much would change.

Conclusion

What do you think of My Hero Academia Season 6 Episode 134? Did you expect Lady Nagant to last longer than 2 episodes? Were you thinking Deku would use the second user’s quirk in this fight? And did you like how Lady Nagant’s story ended? Let me know in the comments.

If you enjoyed this review, remember to click the like button down below. Also, follow me on your social media of choice — links are in the footer.

Finally, I’d like to thank Roman and JasonHK for supporting DoubleSama.com at the Heika tier this month. To learn more about how you too can become a supporter of this blog, check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama.

My review of Episode 135 is available now.

Superpower Dark Ages

My Hero Academia Season 6 Episode 133 gives us a glimpse into the start of One for All. By start, I don’t mean how All for One made the quirk by forcing a power storage quirk into his brother. I mean how One for All’s legacy began.

If All for One’s brother never passed his quirk down, One for All as we know it wouldn’t exist today. And he never would have passed his quirk down if he wasn’t rescued by the (later) second and third users. They found him while hunting down All for One.

During that time, quirks were relatively new. Because of that, villains were running around pretty much uncontested. And, as you might have guessed, All for One was at the top of the villain world. He used a mind-control quirk to bend other villains and those with quirks to his will.

We don’t know exactly how One for All made its way from the first to the second and then to the third user. What were the circumstances surrounding the quirk getting passed on? I’m going to assume the second user got the quirk shortly after rescuing All for One’s brother.

All for One’s brother likely passed on his quirk to his saviors so they could fight his brother. But, what about the next transfer? What led to the quirk being passed from the second to the third user? They were both fighting together. So, did the second user suffer a mortal injury and pass on the quirk before he died?

It’s interesting to think about how this all might have played out. Based on the other users we know of, there was always a mentor passing the quirk down to a student. But, here, things were different.

The Final One for All Quirks

At this point, we still don’t know what the second One for All user’s quirk was. But, we can be pretty sure it has to do with projectiles. He wears what looks like a cannon mounted on his forearm in the flashback.

In the “present” (when Deku met with the past users in his mind), we see that he has 2 of these cannons — one on each arm. Still, we haven’t seen what it is he shoots. But, even with that piece of information missing, this quirk seems good.

Think about all the other quirks Deku has in his arsenal. None of them are particularly long-range quirks. Blackwhip can reach enemies and objects a bit farther from Deku. But, he doesn’t have a quirk that he can actually fight at a distance with yet.

The third user’s quirk appears to be a speed boost quirk, as I predicted in my Episode 131 review. We haven’t seen Deku use this quirk yet. But, when Deku’s about to attack Lady Nagant, the third user mentions accelerating. With this, Deku can either dodge her shots or close the gap between himself and her.

How can Deku use these 2 new quirks alongside the others, though? The second user’s quirk doesn’t seem like it pairs all that well with the others. Maybe it could be good when used in conjunction with the Smokescreen quirk. But, it’s not like it combines well with Deku’s physical strength, Blackwhip, or Float.

The speed boost quirk could be a bit better. Deku can set up a smokescreen to mask his movements and quickly close in on his opponent. Then, once he’s in range, he can hit them with a powerful punch. That seems pretty good, to me.

Hired Gun: Lady Nagant

Lady Nagant seems like a pretty good villain. Overhaul was a good villain. And Lady Nagant is dragging him around. So, she must be a good villain too, by association. Though, the reason she’s dragging him around is that she thinks she’ll be able to use him at some point.

So, aside from her wanting to use Overhaul, what makes Lady Nagant interesting? The big thing is that she’s a former hero. And, in fact, she’s more than just a former regular hero. She was a member of the Public Safety Commission with Hawks.

We also know that she got sentenced to Tartarus for killing one of her allies (another hero). Unfortunately, we don’t know who this hero was or why Lady Nagant killed them. But, I have a feeling that we’ll learn more about that as the arc progresses. She seems like she’s going to get a fair amount of backstory.

As for Lady Nagant’s quirk, I think it’s a pretty neat one. The name of her quirk is Rifle and it lets her use her right arm as a rifle. But, that’s not all she can do. She can also pull out her hair and twist it into a bullet to fire through her arm.

As Snipe explains in an interview, Lady Nagant’s hair works like 2-part epoxy. When she mixes the two colors of her hair together, it hardens into a projectile. She can even alter the shape of these projectiles to give them additional properties.

One of these properties is the ability for her projectiles to curve in the air. And since she can land shots from multiple kilometers away, this makes her the #1 marksman around. But, now there’s a new projectile quirk user in town, and his name is Deku.

Conclusion

What do you think of My Hero Academia Season 6 Episode 133? Do you want to see more of the age of the first few One for All users? Which of Deku’s various quirks do you think is the best? And, what are your thoughts on Lady Nagant? Let me know in the comments.

If you enjoyed this review, remember to click the like button down below. Also, follow me on your social media of choice — links are in the footer.

Finally, I’d like to thank Roman and JasonHK for supporting DoubleSama.com at the Heika tier this month. To learn more about how you too can become a supporter of this blog, check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama.

My review of Episode 134 is available now.

Grand and Turtle Neck

My Hero Academia Season 6 Episode 132 starts off following Yo Shindo and Tatami Nakagame. These are two third-year students from Ketsubutsu Academy High School. And their hero names are Grand and Turtle Neck, respectively. This also isn’t the first time we’ve met these characters.

Grand and Turtle Neck were originally introduced back during the provisional license exam. And since we didn’t get to see Turtle Neck use her quirk in Episode 132, we have to go back to that arc to see what it is. She can pull her head and limbs into her body like a turtle.

Now, if I’m being honest, that doesn’t seem like a very good quirk. As far as I know, her torso isn’t hard like a turtle’s shell. So, while this quirk can help her dodge certain attacks, I’m not sure what it can do beyond that.

Grand’s quirk is more practical. He can vibrate things. Alright, so that doesn’t sound like a great quirk either. But, he can vibrate things to an extreme extent. According to him, he can even vibrate an entire building so much that it collapses. So, we shouldn’t brush off his quirk as being bad.

When we catch up with Grand and Turtle Neck, they’re making their rounds as provisional heroes. Due to the current state of Japan, there aren’t enough pro heroes to go around. So, even students have to be out on patrol without a pro hero accompanying them.

Though, these provisional heroes aren’t supposed to be fighting dangerous villains. If there’s a random looter, sure, the students can capture them. But, for the most part, their job is to get civilians to evacuate to the hero schools. Unfortunately for Grand and Turtle Neck, they run into Muscular on their patrol.

En’s Quirk

In last week’s review, I made some vague guesses about the last 3 One-for-All quirks. Those were the quirks of the second, third, and sixth users. Well, we now know what the sixth user’s quirk was. En (the sixth user) had the Smokescreen quirk.

With this quirk, Deku can emit a smokescreen from his body (obviously). But, what’s interesting is that we see him using this quirk in 2 different ways. When fighting Muscular, he uses it to create an advantageous battlefield for himself. Muscular has no way of seeing through the smokescreen.

However, the same isn’t true for Deku. We see Deku use his Float quirk to get above the smokescreen so he can survey his surroundings. And then, he uses his Danger Sense quirk to determine where Muscular is coming from. From this, we can see that Deku is getting used to working with the various tools in his inventory.

The other way we see Deku use the Smokescreen quirk is to hide his identity. For some reason, he doesn’t want people to know who he is. This could be because the public has questions about his quirk. Remember, it came out that he’s the one Shigaraki is looking for.

But, I don’t think he’s worried about people seeing him and reporting his location to villains. In fact, that would probably work in Deku’s favor. He could then let the villains come to him instead of searching for them himself.

Also, keep in mind that Shigaraki can locate Deku whenever he wants. It’s not like he’s waiting to get tipped off about Deku’s whereabouts. He has a quirk that can find Deku. So, I’m not completely sure why Deku’s hiding his identity like this. But, hiding from the press could be the primary reason.

The Dream Team (and Deku)

Toward the end of episode 132, we see that Deku isn’t actually working alone. He teamed up with All Might, Endeavor, Hawks, and Best Jeanist. This is kind of a dream team of pro heroes. If we exclude Deku, we have the biggest 4 heroes around.

Okay, so All Might isn’t a pro hero anymore. But, he has a lot of experience. If you combine him and Deku, you have a decent enough hero. The other three members of this team are what really make it something special.

Endeavor, Hawks, and Best Jeanist are the current top 3 pro heroes. Under normal circumstances, you wouldn’t have these 3 all working together. For example, look at the era in which All Might was the #1 hero. All Might and Endeavor didn’t work together. They each did their own thing.

Of course, Hawks and Endeavor have been working together for a bit now. Despite being one of the top heroes, Hawks is pretty much Endeavor’s sidekick at this point. And he’s fine with that. He looks up to and wants to support Endeavor. Best Jeanist, however, is different.

Like Endeavor, Best Jeanist has his own hero agency full of sidekicks. But, Hawks was able to convince him to team up with them. From what we know about Best Jeanist, he’s not someone to decline working with rival heroes. That’s the kind of thing we’d expect from Endeavor in the past.

Now, I’m wondering how long this group is going to be working together. It doesn’t seem like this is going to be the final group that takes down Shigaraki. Obviously, other U.A. students will be part of that. So, Todoroki, Bakugo, and Tokoyami might end up replacing their mentors.

Conclusion

What do you think of My Hero Academia Season 6 Episode 132? Does Turtle Neck have the worst quirk of any known hero student? How do you feel about Deku’s new Smokescreen quirk? And how long do you think the pro hero dream team will last? Let me know in the comments.

If you enjoyed this review, remember to click the like button down below. Also, follow me on your social media of choice — links are in the footer.

Finally, I’d like to thank Roman and JasonHK for supporting DoubleSama.com at the Heika tier this month. To learn more about how you too can become a supporter of this blog, check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama.

My review of Episode 133 is available now.