We’re back this week with more of the assault on the Hassaikai hideout! This time, we get the classic League of Villains showing their heads in the Hassaikai’s plans, and a more macro look at what the heroes are doing to fight on every front. Read on!
1. The League revealed
The episode starts with the fallout from Fat Gum and Kirishima’s joint fight, showing again how impactful their joint moment was. The show pans out for a bit after this, cleverly showing the perspective of losses that the Hassaikai has endured, which gives not only Mimic reasons to act out a little bit more but for Overhaul to similarly add a new factor into the fold: the newly-friendly League of Villains.
I love the way that the narrative can have the literal same bad-guy team from the last few seasons show up once again in this current arc and re-introduce them in a way that they still feel fresh and exciting. The show not only keeps all its hero characters well-developed and interesting to follow but also its villains, which make the League such an intriguing and renewable antagonistic force.
2. A temporary ceasefire
We quickly skip back to the fight between Fat Gum and Rappa, in which we start to see my one nitpick with this episode. The pacing and non-linear nature of it can come off as quite confusing at times, as this episode chooses to balance at least three narrative lines at once rather than focusing in on one specifically like the last few episodes. Now that’s out of the way, the conversation that occurs between these two forces is interesting, to say the least. Rappa urges Fat Gum to go and get Kirishima healed so that they can go all out fighting once again, playing interestingly off that classic Goku personality of just wanting to keep your blood pumping. Fat Gum scoffs at him for this, but they eventually agree to a truce for Kirishima’s sake, with the promise of future fighting not guaranteed.
We learn two things here. The first, which I didn’t see coming for a long shot, is that the narrative almost humanizes Rappa. It’s revealed that he was an MMA fighter, and winning so easily so many times gained him his characteristic bloodlust. The second is that he works for Overhaul because… Overhaul is dang scary! He managed to outpace Rappa and kill-and-resurrect him all in the space of one action, up to five separate times.
3. Izuku steps up
Back with the main crew, we see Mimic start to get desperate with little time remaining on his power boost. The room shakes uncontrollably in which we see Mimic’s full potential start to show itself and really amp up my claustrophobia. Luckily for them, the annoying Lock Rock decides to finally use his ultra-convenient, ultra-specific powerset: to ‘lock’ non-living objects into space! But only for a bit! And not on super big or super ‘powerful’ objects! Thankfully, it seems Lock Rock’s conditions are mostly met, and Mimic is stopped temporarily.
Mimic still continues to attack from afar, however, but this time, our main dude Izuku steps in with a prompt Full Cowling to show this villain what for. We get a neat moment in this where Izuku recalls Ryukyu saying that the priority, as heroes, is to rescue Eri. Izuku keeps fighting on top of this because he doesn’t want his friends to have sacrificed themselves in vain either.
4. A game of bosses
To Izuku, and Eraser Head’s surprise, Lock Rock has been impersonated by the one and only Toga from the League of Villains! Again, I can’t overstate how much fun it is having these characters back. The show treats them like rockstars with each appearance in this episode and you can’t help but love that. Having Toga show up specifically is a big moment for Izuku as the two have a significant history together. Thankfully, with the support of Eraser Head, Toga is mostly fought off but remains at large.
We see a discourse between Tomura and Overhaul about the way they treat their subordinates, which is interesting since both have considerably different ideals. The former lead through respect and camaraderie, while the latter works primarily on establishing fear. It’s an interesting clash of concepts, but I can’t wait to see how they work alongside each other.
Continued below5. Oh yeah, the League of Villains are straight-up bullies
Nighteye also happens to stumble in on a room with Rappa (?) and Twice from the League, in which we get to see just how combat-capable he is. The Rappa present is revealed to be a Twice clone, but not before Nighteye demonstrates his terrifying reflexes and usage of chess-shaped weaponry, which I endlessly love. Interestingly enough, though, Twice is injured and has something of a mental breakdown, claiming that he’ll split in two before Toga wraps a cloth around the opening in his costume. It’s an interesting psychological exploration of the villain whilst revealing more character.
Speaking of, we get to see more exploration in a flashback as to why the League agreed to team up with the Hassaikai. Tomura chooses his words carefully when talking to his freedom-loving teammates, saying that if the Hassaikai were in power, they might choose to prevent the League from doing whatever they want. And so, we see that Tomura not only leads through honor and camaraderie but also careful manipulation.
That’s it for this week! We’ll check back in next week after the Christmas break to see what more conflicts can lead from this one!
