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Five Thoughts On My Hero Academia‘s “Lemillion”

By | December 29th, 2019
Posted in Television | % Comments

Welcome back to the holiday coverage of our favorite superhero anime, My Hero Academia! This week, the big bad takes some more active steps and our favorite Kitty Pryde-esque hero Mirio proves his worth. Let’s dive right in.

1. Overhaul steps in
Just before the opening credits roll, we get a little flashback that shows more of what Overhaul has been up to in regards to producing his anti-quirk weapon. It’s a sinister exchange between him and his loyal bud Chrono, but it also shows us how precious each of these bullets is due to the huge amount of time and labor that has gone into producing only five of them thus far. This also sets up a neat moment at the end of the episode, but I’ll touch on that later. For now, we see that this flashback has taken place just post All Might’s final battle because the two have resolved to go more public to speed up production.

After the intro, the narrative moves forward to show the moment where Twice and Toga were recruited into the ranks. They try to play elusive, but we see Nemoto, who has the quirk of forcing all hidden truths from people, compel them to reveal their powersets. The Hassaikai are built up to be more and more dangerous with each episode!

2. League Infiltration
Remember how in the last episode we saw Toga and Twice riling up Mimic to some avail? That totally comes to fruition here and it’s a wild sequence. We see in the flashback that the two League members witnessed how much of a short temper Mimic has, so it all comes to a boil here, with Mimic using a last-ditch attempt to trap everyone, shooting concrete and debris in every direction. They essentially tell the camera that its those who are the most insecure about their loyalty and strength that are the easiest to take down. Weirdly, I get some strong Jessie and James from Team Rocket vibes from these guys, they have great chemistry together.

Toga and Twice reveal that in this, they were essentially working undercover to create chaos in the ranks of the Hassaikai, and reveal themselves to Izuku to make him even more uncomfortable. I love how consistent those guys are in working for their own agenda.

3. Bye-bye Mimic
Mimic’s bloodcurdling screams from being angered manage to echo through the halls all the way down to the heroes who are also trapped in his onslaught. The shout catches the attention of Izuku, who realizes that he can use it to track down where Mimic’s power is stemming from. We finally see Izuku make a calculated and rational move as he smashes through a section of the wall to find Mimic ingrained into the architecture before being exposed and losing control of his quirk. Good work, Izuku, that’s progress!

The heroes, with help from one of Nighteye’s flying chess pieces, manage to catch Mimic before hitting the ground. Nighteye ‘cleverly’ deducts that they’ve been used by the League to break free. It’s a bit of a slower and more obvious reveal, but it doesn’t hinder the episode.

4. You can be my hero, Lemillion
The narrative suddenly jumps over to where Mirio had run ahead, now finally caught up with Overhaul, Chrono and Eri. The Hassaikai promptly inform our boy that he’s no hero, and since he’s just a kid, he won’t save Eri. On top of that, we literally have a drunk yakuza supervillain disrupt Mirio’s ‘equilibrium’ causing him to *checks notes* also become drunk. I’m mostly kidding: he just suffers from the negative side effects without any of the fun.

Mirio stands staunched to rescue Eri regardless of these effects, however. Holding his own against Overhaul’s cronies who fail to break his unwavering spirit, Mirio rescues Eri and vows to make her smile again, before finding out in a shocking reveal that Eri is not actually Overhaul’s daughter!

5. Protection at all costs
The episode winds up to a climax with Mirio and Overhaul facing off over the fate of Eri. The show goes all out in animation, showing Overhaul’s devastating matter manipulation power as he launches spiked pillars of concrete to trap and attempt to impale Mirio. Leading on from that, Mirio calls out Overhaul by his civilian name, Chisaki, in which we get a short flash into Overhaul’s backstory. Interestingly, it’s revealed that he was taken in by the former Hassaikai boss, who tried to make him more humane and suppress his more monstrous urges.

In an effort to help his boss, Chrono shoots one of the quirk-killing bullets (you can tell this is a last-ditch effort because it was revealed as to how hard they are to make!) at Eri, knowing Mirio will jump in to save her. He’s tragically hit, yet the show does here what it does best: show that it’s not the quirk that makes the hero. Mirio continues to fight Overhaul even without his phasing powers, risking his bodied getting beaten up and bloodied before the episode ends with Izuku finally showing up. It’s a tragic but inspiring end to an episode and shows another character coming full circle.

That’s it for this week’s climactic battle! Tune back in next year, as we see how this new confrontation pans out! Izuku vs. Overhaul!


//TAGS | my hero academia

Rowan Grover

Rowan is from Sydney, Australia! Rowan writes about comics and reads the heck out of them, too. Talk to them on Twitter at @rowan_grover. You might just spur an insightful rant on what they're currently reading, but most likely, you'll just be interrupting a heated and intimate eating session.

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