Welcome to our recap of the final episode of My Hero Academia season four! It’s been a hell of a ride this time around folks, with supervillains from all ends of the spectrum and plenty of great character moments. This episode brings everything to a close with a new status quo involving the new number-one hero, Endeavor. And guys – it’s a hell of a season closer.
1. Tailing the Todorokis
The show opens with a family that we don’t often see come up in this show, yet they always play a major role: Shoto Todoroki’s family. We’ve touched on them briefly in past seasons, especially through dealing with Shoto’s personal drama in the Sports Academy arc, but it’s interesting to see them in the context of their father actively trying to step up to be a hero. The kids, Shoto’s siblings, are adamant as always that nothing has changed with their father, revealing that in trying to overtake All Might’s position, he would often beat his wife and harass his kids. That’s a pretty easy way to make a character irredeemable, yet the show has put Endeavor in such an interesting position that we almost need to root for him.
Interestingly enough, Endeavor’s wife is also on our side, being so insistent that her husband still has good in him, that he’s always tried to do the right thing under it all. It feels a little Stockholm Syndrome-y but in the heat of the moment, it works to rev the viewers up.
2. It can talk (It can siiiiing?)
Back over at the main fight, we see that not only has the Nomu High-End regenerated from Endeavor’s initial firey assault, but also shows itself to be able to talk and have a conscience of its own. This immediately establishes it as a threat, wasting no time in showing how deadly this villain is and not tip-toeing around the fact. It makes for some brilliantly fast-paced action as Endeavor is thrown back to his last fight with the Nomus, and considers how much deadlier this one is than them. This plot decision gives Endeavor no chance but to react and fight, and also gives the audience no moment but to stop and cheer for him as he valiantly accepts his responsibility as the new number-one.
Interestingly enough, Endeavor also decides that he will try to capture High-End alive considering its sentience, and so tries going easy at first. This ends up going chaotically wrong and destroying the top half of the skyscraper that he and Hawks were on, leading to some drastic measures needing to be made!
3. To be the best
We see more of Hawks in action at this point and his power set lines up with his ambitions: more support-friendly. Hawks interestingly is able to maneuver large amounts of his feathers independently, which he uses to rescue all the people who were stuck in the falling half of the building. He also reinforces this idea to the people he rescues, telling them to evacuate immediately because he’s not a power type and can’t protect them as well as he’d like. It’s an interesting personality vs. power comparison that makes the previously stuck up character seem more compelling. Meanwhile, Endeavor is worried as the High-End continues to sprout more powers, like the ability to generate lesser Nomus to terrorize the populace.
Deciding that maybe capture isn’t the highest priority at the moment, Endeavor decides to go all out to save everyone and uses one of his ultimate moves: Prominence Burn. It’s a high-stakes moment, and when High-End manages to cut off his head and throw it out of the line of fire, it only serves to make things more drastic.
4. Turn up the heat
This part of the episode is where we start to see the ramifications of the fight on the rest of the population. Endeavor is mocked by High-End, who takes out our number-one hero’s left eye and starts overwhelming him. We then cut to see shots of the fleeing civilians, all who are terrified that they don’t have a Symbol of Peace to protect them like All Might was. The show then moves even further out, to the class of 1-A watching, as well as the retired All Might in his own room, but most importantly: Shoto. He’s watching next to his class, but he feels completely isolated, and we can’t help but empathize with his conflicting feelings at seeing the man who was once a symbol of terror now act as humanity’s last hope.
In spite of being constantly beaten down, however, Endeavor continues to push the assault, now to the point of using his high-intensity flames to literally carry his body in a chase against High-End. The tension is super high and increasing in this moment, showing MHA’s keen ability to pull out a huge climax from almost nothing at the start of the episode.
5. The one who fought for us
As the rest of the population despair, one child recognizes that Endeavor’s flames are still burning, and that hope is not lost with this new symbol abound. MHA uses this idea of symbols as hope really well and having Endeavor bear such strong iconography helps to elevate him to number-one hero status. Hawks helps Endeavor in his pursuit, adding dozens of feathers to his back to propel him even faster along, and its a great little team-up moment. We eventually see our number-one hero pull a classic superhero stunt and propel High-End up close to the atmosphere, where they can really let loose. In a cathartic moment, Endeavor acknowledges how he always hated the phrase when he attended UA, but screams “PLUS ULTRA” as he lets out a full power Prominence Burn and destroys High-End.
The citizens all react well and start to recognize Endeavor as a fitting successor to All Might. Shoto also gets his own emotional moment, letting his left fist burn with fire as he can’t help but feel proud of his father’s achievement. There’s also a little stinger after the post-credits scene, where after everything we see Izuku dreaming and meeting with the original owner of One For All, his inherited quirk. But you’ll have to wait until next season for more on that, folks!
Thanks for joining us on a wild ride of a season, readers! Make sure to comment if you want to share love for this show or express your excitement for season five coming up!
