What They Say:
In the future, mankind is blessed with superhuman abilities called Quirks and in a response to the growing crime rate, superheroing becomes a viable profession. Izuku “Deku” Midoriya dreams of one day becoming a great hero like his idol All-Might, but he was born completely quirkless with no powers at all. However, when Deku ends up having a chance encounter with All-Might in the flesh, it changes his destiny forever.
The Review:
Content (warning as portions of this review may contain spoilers):
The Sports Festival arc finally comes to a close this week, and the show manages to pull one last trick out of it’s sleeve with the battle between Bakugo and Todoroki. While it’s not nearly to the extent of Todoroki’s match with Deku, it’s clear that both boys have something to prove to themselves here, and it makes for a pretty intense fight. However, much like that previous fight, the conclusion we actually end up wit isn’t one that leaves either of the boys particularly satisfied.
Before the match actually begins, Bakugo accidentally stumbles upon Todoroki and demands that he use both his powers in the match, since he wants to beat him at full strength. Todoroki meanwhile, is still shaken up by Deku’s words about his powers being his own, and this only serves to get Bakugo even more riled up, since he still feels a need to one-up Deku. When it comes time for the fight itself, it quickly turns into a flashy spectacle, and while it’s not quite to the extent of the one between Deku and Todoroki, it certainly ranks among some of the show’s best action sequences so far. Despite all that flair however, Todoroki still feels too confused about his feelings on his powers to make use of his flames, and while he briefly considers using them after Bakugo eggs him on, Todoroki hesitates on it, and that ends up costing him the match.
With Bakugo being well…Bakugo it practically goes without saying that he’s not too happy with that result and in this case, it’s not hard to see why. He came into the tournament looking to everyone that he’s indisputably the best in his class, so the knowledge that he may have won only because Todoroki held back is a real blow to his ego. One that’s likely even worse than his loss to Deku way back when since that one at least required Deku to use everything he had in order to win. It’ll be interesting to see how much this “victory” affects Bakugo in the future, but if his visceral reaction towards being forced to accept it is any indication, he probably won’t be recovering from this outcome anytime soon.
Todoroki on the other hand, sees this loss as proof that it’s finally time for him to start moving forward. While on some level he’s ready to move on with his life and start living for himself, his feelings towards his mother still complicate things as he ended up shutting her out of his life the same way he tried to shut out his fire powers in order to reject his father. He decides to go see her in order to come to terms with everything, and while we don’t actually see the two of them really speak, I think that ultimately makes the scene more effective. While a more heartfelt reunion would have been nice, just the simple image of Todoroki walking into the room is enough to demonstrate that he’s putting the past behind him, and I’m glad that both Hokoroshi and BONES opted to go subtlety in this case.
Aside from all that, the rest of this episode is mostly dedicated to building up the Hero Killer a bit more, but there’s not too much development on that end aside from Iida’s reaction to his brother’s injuries. On the other hand, the post-credits scenes of the kids going back to their daily lives after the tournament was a neat little touch, if mostly because it was kind of funny to see that Bakugo’s parents don’t think any higher of his whole shtick than we do. With that the Sports Festival arc has finally come to a close and I’m pretty relieved about that. While there were definitely a lot of highlights to this arc and I enjoyed it quite a bit overall, I don’t really think it needed to be stretched out to a full 12 episodes, and that strain really showed in it’s first half. I don’t really expect the next arc to be paced that much better in that respect but I’m a lot more excited for it, so with as much as this season’s managed to improve over the last few episodes, I’m hoping that it’ll get even stronger from here on.
In Summary:
The Sports Festival arc finally draws to a close this week, as we’re treated to the final match between Todoroki and Bakugo. While Bakugo feels that he has everything in the world to prove here, his eventual win ultimately feels hollow as Todoroki still feels too confused about his powers to use both during the fight. Todoroki fortunately manages to make some progress afterwards as he decides it’s finally time to face his mother again, and move on from his past so he can become the kind of hero he’s always wanted to. It’s a solid way to wrap up a slow, but mostly enjoyable story arc and while I had my share of issues with some of it, I’m glad that it was able to end on a high note.
Grade: B+
Streamed By: Funimation, VRV, Crunchyroll
