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arkus-rhapsode · 5 years

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My Hero Academia Chapter 209 Review

Well now, we’ve entered the home stretch of this arc. Going in to this last fight, I myself have a few jitters. Will this chapter cure that? Lets find out.

So we open on team Bakugou at the end of their matches, finding out it only took five minutes. Wow, we know Vlad is the one announcing so that must just be a real salt in the wound for his class. Though, I think team Tokage is walking away with minimal injury and no robo medics showing them out, so I just that’s a win.

So we get the teacher advice and performance reviews and with what Vlad tells team Tokage, I feel as if I need to address this. So last week, I made my stance clear, I was fine with Bakugou winning. As Vlad is saying here, their strategy failed as it was built around a different Bakugu, and they ended up spreading themselves too thin. Now, I will say though, what the fourth round lacked, is any reflection from 1-b. Oh sure, there was Tokage in the sky panicking, but unlike the other matches, there really was a lack of seeing class 1-b react and try to roll with this, even if it would be futile.

I know, let sleeping dogs lie, but I honestly was getting miffed at the tone of last week being, either “Bakugou is so great, you under estimated him,” or “Bakugou is an ass, and Class 1-b shouldn’t have been hyped at all.” So I’d like to say that I’m taking a middle ground and just saying as a fight it was great for Bakugou in terms of character development, but ultimately as an actual clash, it was sorely one-sided.

Speaking of team Tokage, them at least are pretty good sports over their loss. Kaminari is also on the side to congratulate Bakugou and of course needing to remind the shippers of his and Jirou’s relationship. Also, I’m assuming what Sero is talking about is when he lifted up Bakugou with his tape.

We see All Might congratulate Bakugou and he of course decides to act like a serious tsundere and act like this is nothing. Even though we know how he feels about All Might and thus meaning, he’s likely a little giddy on the inside. Also props to the comedy with Deku, that Bakugou’s anger at this point is just reflex.

We get that relationship progression scene with Deku and Bakugou, and don’t get me wrong, from a character stand point this is good, but from an average reader stand point, it feels like I’m watching the scene from the training before the license exam. You know, the one where Bakugou wondered if Deku was still going to try and surpass him. Granted this version is in a different context as we know Bakugou is now the one playing catch up with Midoriya in terms of being a hero. I’m just pointing out that this slow progression relationship definitely feels like it’ll take a while longer.

We actually do get a page that’s mostly blank, and textless to obviously add emphasis of just how important this moment was and is allowing the audience to digest it. Now I’m not posting it mainly cause I don’t wanna take up more space than I need with these reviews. But I wanna definitely that this is very appreciated in terms of pacing, because you have series like One Piece that pack itself with so much content you actually need just to have a chapter long breather rather than just a short single page one. It just really makes me happy to see that MHA is at a point where it can do this well.

We cut to team Monoma who Tokage is apologizing to because with her loss there is no way they can win. To which I’m going to take this moment and say yeah, you can’t. Alright this is just a mini-rant I have, but I really hope this match doesn’t end with team Deku losing and the final score being 2-2. That would be such BS, as what this arc is basically built on is A vs B, someone has to win or else you basically wasted almost 20+ chapters on this arc and it was all pointless. Now some have said that if they tie, class 1-b will still be around and this will clearly show them as a force on their own, as this arc will have gotten their characterization out there so we don’t have to shove it into the moment.

The problem is though, that still doesn’t fix the arc of being pointless. Say what you will about the provisional license exam or the gentle arc, but at the end of the arc, there was a point to each of them that was established and fulfilled. The class got licensees and Eri was free of Overhaul’s influence. That’s what the arcs were about, that’s what we got. But if no one wins and no one loses, then this entire arc was a big waste of time. What is the point of a fight if there is no winner or loser? I think we give shit to the Grand Magic Games in FT a lot, but the point of the arc was to win and get the guild’s popularity back, which it followed through on, and Black Clovers tournament was really a selection for the royal knights, which means that if the main character lost, there was still a pay off to it.

Now, if you go by saying that this arc isn’t about the fight and is more about Deku and Shinsou meeting and discovering what’s up with those visions of All for One’s brother talking to him, then this arc should’ve been altered. Because that would mean that only now are we doing what matters for the arc. There is basically no way to end this ultimately satisfyingly, because if team Deku does win, that ends this arc at 3-1, which makes class 1-a look like a group of jackasses who steam rolled class 1-b. But I’l take that over its a tie, I don’t wanna feel like I just wasted 3 months on this for just this fight.

Anyway, Monoma gives an impassioned speech that really shows a layer of his character that isn’t shown. While he’s often made a joke by his irrational hatred, Monoma is very much a theatrical man. Now I don’t mean that he’s flamboyant like Aoyama, rather he’s just a guy who sees the world a stage and is gonna bask in it. We saw this really early in the sports fest and a little bit with what he chose their culture fest project to be.

We end this monologue with Yanagi basically asking monoma what the point of this is, which means I already like her cause we’re actually getting some more characterization than we did with team Tokage.

We also get Shoda here, putting the pieces of their strategy togethe, telling us that their powers are techincal based. Likely meaning they aren’t directly combat based, but they all have skills that give them a lot of options.

Yanagi also speculates on Midoriya, calling him “hateful,” to which Shoda points out that Yanagi kinda speaks her own langue. Which is a cool trait that at first might seem like overlap with Shiozaki. However, when Shiozaki would act melodramatic it was out of religious vindication, Yanagi just has her own way of talking.

…Wait… What’s that? …Ahh, I’m getting word that a female character actually mentioned Deku’s name, thus she has been admitted into the Dekubowl.

We start more speculation on Midoriya and I think it’s coming from Shoda, showing that he’s clearly the analytical member of the team. Shinsou says that they need to beat down Midoriya first.

Now look, I actually really enjoy this as the way everyone is speaking of Deku and actually take him as a serious threat. Now I now there are some who have said, “team Deku should lose so that he develops from this.” To which I say, fuck off. Deku isn’t like someone like Natsu who basically could bamf his way through everything up to his fight with Gildarts, so when he lost it was a big deal. But Deku, dude loses like crazy and grows form it. Aside from the physical damage, the kid in the first few arcs barely got a win on his own, most of it was done with teamwork, with im learning for now he had to be the strategist. He didn’t finish at the top of the sports festival by Bakugou, he needed help against Stain, the first fight I think he won on his own was against Muscular, and let me remind you that destroyed both of his arms.

So I its only after 200 chapters, Deku is only now actually being treated as I’d expect a shounen protag to be treated, a massive threat. For the longest time his big quality was he had the heart of a hero, but that always ended with a shattered body. So he wasn’t really that powerful. And only now is is signs of progress really starting to affect other characters especially outside of class. So if Deku loses here, I’m gonna think that this wasn’t a big, “learn from loss character development moment,” I’m thinking it be a set back for him. Still team Deku could still lose if Mina, Mineta, or Uraraka get captured and as a whole they fail. Now there is a potential for Deku to fail, but I’ll talk about that in a little bit.

Also Shinsou asks Monoma that if they combine their quirks then they could pin down Deku. Now the images behind Monoma imply that potentially, Monoma would use copy on One for All and will end up destroying his body. Now That seems to be the implication, however there is the possibility that Monoma could also copy Shinsou’s quirk and then surprise everyone by answering him. But come on, we wanna see Monoma with one for all.

The teachers actually comment on Shinsou and wonder if he’ll pull through in this fight like he did the first round.

We cut to team Deku with everyone trying to figure out what their going to do, and unlike team Bakugou, they seems pretty downtrodden and realize that they don’t exactly have the same all-aroundness that team Bakugou had. However, instead of team Bakugou where Bakugou was the center of the team who protected and attacked, Deku is instead opting as a decoy, leet them focus on him, and then pick them off.

We also need to point out, they are laying it on thick with Deku’s quirk having some issues. If what ultimately screws up Deku is his quirk crapping out on him, then that’ll kinda fee like some narrative manipulation, but at the same time, one for all is such a strange quirk in this world, I wouldn’t doubt it could just screw up against Deku’s will. So we might have some flags going up with potential failure.

I love how even Mineta realized that Deku’s had character development up to this point. Anyway the match begins, but this isn’t the end of the chapter, oh no.

All Might needs to be excused after a call from Gran Torino.

We cut to the cell of All for One himself. He reminds us that Giantomachia has appeared. And unlike the league, this guy is loyal directly to him.

Welp, All for One knows about One for All and likely that vestige stuff. I mean,it’s not too much of a surprise at it came from All for One’s brother. Anyway, pants to be darkened.

Post Chapter Follow up: So I’m going to say, there’s nothing wrong with this chapter at all. Its a pretty standard breather chapter, but my greatest fears are more of what is to come than what has been actually in the chapter. Now I can’t condemn a chapter for not doing something that it isn’t time for, but as you can see the anxiousness is cranked up going into this.

On the positives, my personal favorite thing about this chapter is the character interaction in team Monoma. It’s something we sorely lacked from team Tokage, but now it feels like this making up for that. We see More to Monoma as a character individually, as well as Yanagi and Shoda really showing of what they’re like as characters. Nothing from Yui yet, but she could be like Bondo and that’s the point. As for class 1-A, this group of characters are pretty used to bouncing of eachother, so it’s nothing new. That said, I do enjoy the interactions regardless.

The continuing relationship of Bakugou and Deku is great and I’m glad Horikoshi is committed to the long run with this relationship. Also I’m just happy that we got some good pacing built around it without it feeling inconvenient.

Also appearance from All for One, which already makes this even better and furthers the Giantmachia plot,.

Final Verdict: 7/10

Good breather chapter

Awesome character interactions

Foreshadowing of future events are getting set