C&C - My Hero Academia - "Revival Party" [9/25]

[Nobodyman]

Opening Theme: "Merry-Go-Round" by Man with a Mission
Ending Theme: "Uso ja nai" by Soshi Sakiyama

Previously on My Hero Academia: Two months earlier, Gigantomachia appears before the League of Villains, declaring Shigaraki unworthy of being All For One's successor. During the attack, the League is teleported to the lab of All For One's assistant Dr. Ujiko. Dr. Ujiko intends to help Shigaraki in his goal of destroying everything that irritates him. Before Shigaraki can be granted power, he must defeat Gigantomachia. The League returns to Gigantomachia while Dr. Ujiko asks Dabi to help him test out a High-End Nomu. A month and a half later, the League of Villains have made no progress in defeating Gigantomachia, but Shigaraki's strength and skill has been increasing. Intending to talk to Giran, Twice is alarmed to find out that the League's broker has been captured and tortured by Re-Destro, leader of the Meta Liberation Army. Re-Destro invites the League of Villains to Deika City to face an ultimatum. Shigaraki accepts, smiling at the prospect of Gigantomachia crushing his challenger's forces.

Tonight: The League of Villains waits for Gigantomachia to wake up as they clash with the Meta Liberation Army.

 

[Kitschensyngk]

Last time: GI-GANNNN-TOOOOOOOOOOOOmachia.

Well, this was entirely different from how X-Men started.

"Detnerat"?

 

[Nobodyman]

Previously on MHA: Holy villain-centered story arcs, Batman!

Detnerat. That's "Talented" spelled backwards in Japan-speak.

His quirk is Gecko. And no, he doesn't sell car insurance.

 

[Kitschensyngk]

Previously on MHA: Holy villain-centered story arcs, Batman!

Thanks for the disturbing screen cap up there.

Nowhere is the dreamer or the misfit so alone.

Now there's a face that screams "Heart and Minds Party."

 

[Nobodyman]

Thanks for the disturbing screen cap up there.

Trust me dude, man up or you're not gonna make it through this arc.

Oh my gosh, it's Ann Coulter. And she's blue.

So many casualties. Are we in Hunter x Hunter all of a sudden?

Aaaaand there's your nightmare fuel for tonight.

 

[Kitschensyngk]

Like Mystique and Marjorie Taylor Greene had a baby.

A vampire who makes exploding blood. That's new.

She can't answer your questions if she's blown to bits.

 

[Nobodyman]

Toga backstory.

Sorry sweetie, but we have a strict policy against drinking the blood of other students.

That's probably when they should have taken her to a therapist. Or a mental hospital.

 

[Kitschensyngk]

They always say "she was just a sweet young girl."

Did you always suck on dead birds as a child?

So the Liberation Army's goal is to suck people's blood?

And thank you for the image of people ganging up on Uraraka.

 

[Nobodyman]

Ugh. Please don't take Ochaco's form.

And now she can copy powers as well as appearances.

SPLAT!

"The things we hate should be destroyed."
Sure, if you're a Republican.

 

[Kitschensyngk]

She can copy powers now. That's disturbing.

So tired he's having corrupted flashbacks.

 

[Nobodyman]

Fire vs. Ice. The age-old conflict.

It's a human Ralts.

 

[Kitschensyngk]

Some say this battle will end in fire. Some say in ice.

Bet that power comes in handy during hot summer months.

And schizophrenic Deadpool is concerned.

"Jin Bubaigawara. Twice."
Okay...Jin Bubaigawara, Jin Bubaigawara.

 

[animePWNS]

Where are the subtitles for the names?

 

[Yojimbo]

This Koku is a politician. Hearts and Minds party? I'm guessing he's got a silver tongue, quirk or no quirk. lol.

Ho ho, the whole of Deika City are members of the MLA.

Tomura remembered Nana. Whoa. He disintegrated a bunch of people without touching them?

So she was always insane. It's always disturbing to see quirks related to blood. Stain. Toga. But the frightening thing about Toga now is like Monoma, she also can copy quirks. And has a dark use for Float. Yeesh. Though I'd guess she has the same limitation or something similar and can't replicate something like One For All. But then again, she has Izuku's blood... nah.

I'm guessing Twice will have his "level up" moment next week and clone himself a bunch for the first time in a long time.

The ice guy is rad. He can also summon any water in the town but sounds like he can't generate ice like Todoroki. So in a battle of attrition, he would likely lose against Dabi. Still... Always wondered if Todoroki eventually may also be able to summon water to augment his ice.

 

[PicardMan]

Toonami finally gets to air the hyped arc and its a cool premise of villains similar to X-Men villains like the Brotherhood of Mutants or the Mutant Liberation Front. I knew about the poopstorm the execution of the arc, and I got to see it for myself. There were lots of stiff still frames, but the animation wasn't quite the Seven Deadly Sin season 3 abomination some fans portray it as, although the animation has downgraded a ton. One major controversy was the storyboard for the signature scene of the episode where Toga uses Uraraka's gravity powers to make everyone fall from a great height had a much more fluidly animated storyboard than the finished product and the guy who created said storyboard wanted his name off the credits because they didn't use his storyboard. The action scenes are still well written despite the animation downgrade. Weird how the joint training arc had much more fluid animation than this despite the lack of stakes. Supposedly, the reason why that arc took up twice as many episodes as MVA despite covering the same number of manga chapters is because Japan is said to have the reverse opinion that the joint training arc is the great arc and MVA is the crappy arc. I have found no proof of this but judging by the first episode, it seems like the animators put far more work the joint training arc. Of course, maybe the A team of animators got taken off the main series to work on the movie. But as for the action animation, last night's Black Clover totally spanked this MHA episode. I guess the days of MHA being acclaimed for its action sequences are over? The plot and characters are still good and I'd still vote MHA as the best of the currently airing Toonami shows despite the downgrade of its visuals, but it's still disappointing in a year full of Toonami disappointments (Promised Neverland season 2, Fena).

 

[Yojimbo]

Toonami finally gets to air the hyped arc and its a cool premise of villains similar to X-Men villains like the Brotherhood of Mutants or the Mutant Liberation Front. I knew about the poopstorm the execution of the arc, and I got to see it for myself. There were lots of stiff still frames, but the animation wasn't quite the Seven Deadly Sin season 3 abomination some fans portray it as, although the animation has downgraded a ton. One major controversy was the storyboard for the signature scene of the episode where Toga uses Uraraka's gravity powers to make everyone fall from a great height had a much more fluidly animated storyboard than the finished product and the guy who created said storyboard wanted his name off the credits because they didn't use his storyboard. The action scenes are still well written despite the animation downgrade. Weird how the joint training arc had much more fluid animation than this despite the lack of stakes. Supposedly, the reason why that arc took up twice as many episodes as MVA despite covering the same number of manga chapters is because Japan is said to have the reverse opinion that the joint training arc is the great arc and MVA is the crappy arc. I have found no proof of this but judging by the first episode, it seems like the animators put far more work the joint training arc. Of course, maybe the A team of animators got taken off the main series to work on the movie. But as for the action animation, last night's Black Clover totally spanked this MHA episode. I guess the days of MHA being acclaimed for its action sequences are over? The plot and characters are still good and I'd still vote MHA as the best of the currently airing Toonami shows despite the downgrade of its visuals, but it's still disappointing in a year full of Toonami disappointments (Promised Neverland season 2, Fena).

Is it a fact a B team did the animation on this arc whereas an A team did the joint training where the heroes are in? lol. I don't exactly who's the best of the best in the crew or know the best place to look up info but imdb lists the same board artist Takashi Kawabata for this episode and "Our Brawl" but the two episodes have different directors. Masatoyo Takada directed this episode but Ikurô Satô did "Our Brawl".

Hmm, it would explain it if the A team got plucked for the next movie as you say.

Maybe when Midoriya shows up again, the animation will pick up.

Is there an unanimous reason for the cold reception to the MVA arc? Like the fans preferred not to have an arc from the LoV's POV and/or making them sympathetic?

 

[PicardMan]

Is there an unanimous reason for the cold reception to the MVA arc? Like the fans preferred not to have an arc from the LoV's POV and/or making them sympathetic?

What I hear is that just the concept of a villain based arc was controversial in Japan. There's supposedly a cultural taboo against rooting for the bad guys and that's what's said to made this arc unpopular in Japan. It's apparently not just the lower animation quality that miffed American fans, but also the number of scenes cut from the manga. Toga's flashback was apparently also condensed heavily. It does seem like the adaptation is intentionally glossing over humanizing the villains by cutting down on the flashback scenes. As I said before, the American fanbase expected the adaptation to go the opposite route, with MVA getting 10 episodes and Joint Training getting five because the former had a lot more meat the story, but we all know the opposite happened. I think the heroes will be back in action for the epic hyped arc that starts season 6. A lot of people are hoping for the A list animators to be available for that arc. At the very least, MHA can still recover and have a great season 6 unlike Promised Neverland's disaster season. Thankfully, even if season 5 did a lot to anger fans, it still has far more redeeming qualities than Promised Neverland season 2. The Endeavor Agency arc was a pretty strong arc and the fight against Ending had actual animation.

 

[Light Lucario]

I thought that this episode was pretty good. It was interesting to see a bit as to how society first reacted to Quirks and how the Meta Liberation Army was created. As cool as having superpowers are, the world suddenly developing them would throw everyone in a panic and cause a lot more harm than good. The idea that Quirks are natural and shouldn't be restricted by society or the government almost sounds reasonable when people are born with these natural abilities. But at the same time, groups like the Meta Liberation Army are why they do need to keep Quirks in check. They're so huge that they have a city full of citizens willing to sacrifice themselves for their cause, they can and will endanger innocent people and they ultimately just want power for themselves.

At first, I wasn't sure if the first Meta Liberation Army happened in the not too distant past. They kept saying that Destro had a son and focused in on Re-Destro, but I think that he's just Destro's descendant. It would make more sense for that to happen much further back in the past since Quirks are so normalized in the present. I don't think that there could be multiple hero schools and that many former wielders of One For All if Re-Destro was his son.

The action was pretty good. Towa was struggling against Curious since she and her group already had a plan in mind for her Quirk. Curious kept trying to dig into Towa's past, finding the kind of headlines to make her interview stand out and despite Towa's protests, I think that she did pick up a bit of truth. Towa loved drinking blood from an early age, felt that she had to put on a mask to hide her true feelings and broke out of it once she couldn't hold it back any further. However, Towa didn't see herself as this victim of society's expectations. She was able to be herself, love whatever she wanted to and continue being with her allies. That's really all that mattered to Towa and she didn't see it as not being normal. Although, if that flashback is anythig to go on, Towa's parents really should have actually gotten her some help or done something other than scolding her. She was a little girl, but drinking the blood of a dead bird sounds like a huge red flag that should be looked further into.

It was also rather interesting that Curious was upset that the League of Villains was more famous despite how the Meta Liberation Army was there first. Even with all of their big talk about their cause and having so many allies themselves, this confrontation really came down to their egos. If they really cared about their cause, they wouldn't care about not being the main villain group or getting all of the media attention. They would just keep doing whatever they wanted to do to fulfill their own ambitions, but they didn't want to be second fiddle to a small group of villains who seemingly have no grand ideals.

Towa transforming into Uraruka was a bit of a surprise, but that was the only blood she could drink and transform. Towa was in such a shock that she didn't even realize that she also copied Uraruka's power too. I assume that she can only copy their powers for a limited time, if not have the same weaknesses as the original Quirk user just to not make her overpowered. Seeing Towa kill a bunch of people with half of Uraraka's face and her Quirk was unsettling. Uraraka mainly uses her power for defense or on objects rather than people, so it was a really creepy reminder that she could easily murder people with that power if she wasn't a good person.

The brief look into Dabi's fight against that ice user was pretty cool. Shiguarki also seemed to have increased his strength since he killed people without touching all of them too. Twice being confronted with clones of himself was a pretty intense moment for him. Overall, it was a pretty good episode.