C&C - My Hero Academia - "The Hellish Todoroki Family" [8/28]

[Kitschensyngk]

The empty seat at the table.

I assume this will be resolved in a later episode? Given they chose that moment to roll the credits.

Perhaps as early as next week?

 

[shany94a]

The Todorokis make the Smith family on Rick and Morty look almost normal. Almost.

 

[Yojimbo]

I do appreciate they're taking a slow burn with Endeavor's sub-plot and not pretending it's going to be solved right away. But I wonder how much longer Endeavor will keep his past sins with his family a secret or go public and come clean. If this stuff gets leaked to the public before he admits to it, that could really further shatter criticisms of the hero community and only help Shigaraki and the League's cause. And I do wonder if Endeavor and Rei will ever reunite face to face again.

lol, they kept talking and ignored Bakugo.

Follow me! Yes, sir! What the!

lmao, I don't think Bakugo would be a fan of Food Wars. Or family drama shows. But he did kinda compliment Fuyumi's cooking when he took the tray away...

Toya again. Like I thought before, unless they're going to debut him as a brand new character turned villain, I don't think there's any existing character we've met who could be Toya other than Dabi. Now that they showed a child photo, they both have blue eyes and pretty much the same hair style and a fire quirk. I think it's pretty much a lock they're the same person.

 

[Gold Guy]

I do appreciate they're taking a slow burn with Endeavor's sub-plot and not pretending it's going to be solved right away.

This. It would have been so easy to have a quick and easy resolution where the power of love and friendship/family (AKA, the usual Shonen staples) heals all the emotional wounds. But the author, to his credit, seems to be in it for the long haul with this sub-plot. It's not the kind of story that should be resolves so neat and easy.

 

[PicardMan]

The season so far has basically been the calm before the storm (both in-universe and out; the author admitted to needing a tonal break after how dark the Yakuza arc got).

I don't mean to keep hyping up the next arc, but it'll really set the tone for the story going forward.

I know that the anime's choice to swap the big hyped arc and the Endeavor Agency arc was quite controversial because it delayed the storm by quite a bit. The length of time between the end of the Overhaul arc and the beginning of the hypesauce arc just got dragged into a full season. At least this arc's emotional drama seems to be better received than the joint training arc. My Anime List seems really split on how the anime handles the big fights in the hyped arc as some say the animation is great and others say it's Studio Deen level bad. I know that it's hard to measure up to Demon Slayer and Jujutsu Kaisen's fights, but MHA seasons 1-4 had some pretty good action scenes.

 

[Light Lucario]

I thought that this episode was pretty good. It was nice to see how much effort Midoriya's group was putting into training every day. Even when they were exhausted, they still tried to push through it and move faster than Endeavor.

Fuyumi inviting everyone for dinner, while a nice gesture, was still a recipe for disaster. Bakugo's reaction to why they were there and then telling Todoroki to march up there to tell his sister that they aren't friends were all really funny moments. I don't know when his angry attitude became hilarious, but Bakugo being so angry when people consider him a friend is just funny, especially when everyone ignores him. Midoriya being worried about how Fuyumi felt about his match against Todoroki during the Sports Festival was also quite fitting.

Even though they were able to enjoy the food, the tension between Endeavior and Natsuo was pretty noticeably intense. I really liked how they showed different reactions to an abusive parent with all of Endeavor's kids. Fuyumi wanted everyone to be together so that they could be a real family. Natsuo was pretty closed off to the idea of giving Endeavor another chance after everything he did. Despite being arguably the most affected by his father's abuse out of the three of them, Todoroki was unsure how to feel about him. He leads more towards how Natsuo feels than how Fuyumi feels, but he still didn't really know what his feelings were. These are all valid and understandable reactions to an abusive person trying to make amends, especially a parent. Some people want to make their family feel whole again, while others can't be comfortable with giving them a chance.

While Endeavor's desire to connect with his children may be genuine, he still might be trying too hard, especially when his children have to process their own feelings on their own time about how they feel about him. Personally I still have mixed feelings on this subplot. I also appreciate that they aren't resolving this so quickly and easily. That's one of the reasons why I liked the different reactions to Endeavor's efforts to change since that helps to make it feel more realistic too. But with that flashback of Endeavor pushing Rei down after she was trying to protect Todoroki, along with just everything else he did, it also reminds me that he was an abusive monster towards his own family. It doesn't want me to see him get a happy resolution with them at the same time, which I assume is at least part of the intent of redeeming Endeavor.

I also forgot that Bakugo overheard his conversation between Midoriya and Todoroki back in the Sports Festival, so he'd be at least familiar with their complicated relationship. He was a bit blunt, but at least he still complimented the food. Midoriya saying that Todoroki was ready to move ahead with his father was nice. He still made it clear that it was ultimately up to how Todoroki felt and that it was fine if he couldn't forgive him, but waiting for something so that he could move forward with his father felt like a reasonable observation and fits with how unsure Todoroki felt about him.

They mentioned Toya before earlier in the season and I forgot that he was shown in that flashback with the other siblings back in season two as well. The fact that they haven't explained how he died is a pretty big red flag, so I assume that they'll come back to that later. The villain coming out of jail and noticing Endeavor on the news was a pretty creepy way to end the episode. Overall, it was a pretty good episode.