The “Paranormal Liberation Arc” (which must sound so weird to those who don’t follow the series…) is where the you-know-what really hits the fan and sets the series on course for its grand finale. You know the heroes journey, things must get really bad in order for their re-rise to be entertaining to follow, and it’s safe to say that at the end of this arc the Japanese super hero community is due for quite the re-rise… Let’s take a look!
The arc wastes no time in going straight into the action as a brief flashback to No. 2 hero Hawks undercover in the enemy camp getting some vital information out of villain Twice leads to the Superhero community banding together to attack the Paranormal Liberation Front on two sites: their HQ in the Gunga Mountain Villa and their secret lab under Jaku General Hospital, with all the named and plenty of unnamed heroes taking part including the students, though unsurprisingly they’re in the reserve / rear of the two battlefronts. That’s literally it, by the end of Episode 114 pro hero Mirko is breaking into the lab and chasing down the creator of the Nomus Garaki while both buildings become warzones as mass hero v villain fights breakout.
Mirko gets some spotlight time! … For an episode or two… and then probably never again. Oh well!
There’s a lot to cover but in the first few episodes one of the main stories is the aforementioned Twice, whose child-like naivety has once again been taken advantage of this time by Hawks, who then has to stop him from using his multiplying quirk to help the villains, eventually having to go as far as to straight up kill him. This angers fellow League of Villains member Dabi who then burns Hawks’ wings to a crisp and very nearly kills him too, if it wasn’t for the timely intervention of student Tokoyami, who swoops in and saves his mentor. Young League member Toga is particularly upset at her friend’s death, it was a great way to show these villains as actual people who has bonded together, even if their goals are unforgivable. Meanwhile over at the lab major heroes like Endeavour and Eraser Head are taking down a large number of Nomus on the way to Mirko, who manages to chase Garaki to the lab where Shigaraki is being upgraded and attempts to destroy the glass tube he’s in but is stopped by a group of intelligent “High-End” Nomus. The rest of the heroes arrive in time though and Mic comes in handy for the first time ever and shatters the tube with his sonic voice, stopping Shigaraki’s upgrade in its tracks and seemingly killing him.
It all seems to be going well… until a random electric jolt sparks Shigaraki back to life, which in turn brings the skyscraper-sized Gigantomachia to attention at the Villa, allowing Shigaraki to instruct him to bring himself and the other League of Villains members to Jaku city, starting a rampage that levels several cities and forests despite a good chunk of heroes’ best efforts to stop it (including the infrequently featured student Yaoyorozu using her quirk to create a bunch of anaesthetics) This is where things get really bad as Shigaraki is revealed to have been implanted with the All For One quirk of his master of the same name and has several stolen quirks already “pre-installed” so to speak, and is searching for Midoriya so he can absorb the One For All quirk as well. It all leads to an all-out battle against Shigaraki complete with serious injuries all round and even a death or two.
Dabi happily burning things as usual… but why is he so happy? Watch the show or read the spoilers down below!
The arc overall certainly keeps your attention, that’s for sure and sets up a rather more grim setting for the finale few arcs of the series. We also get to see Hawks’ backstory of coming from a broken home with a criminal as a father and seeing Endeavour as someone who could help him, explaining how he’s been so supportive of the new No.1 despite him clearly being a bit of a dick (and a former complete bastard!) so that was nice, especially as Hawks has been part of the cast for a lot shorter of a time than most of the major heroes featured.
Overall Thoughts:
Endeavour at the end of the war. Why does he look so despondent as well as beat up? Watch the show or read the spoilers down below! (Seriously, I should’ve done more screenshots from the first half of this arc…)
The “Paranormal Liberation Arc” is all-out action from bell to bell, with a couple of interesting flashbacks added in the post-war part for good measure. While an arc in-of-itself it also sees the end of one overall saga and leads the way into the final bunch of arcs so both as a big finale and a story setting things to come it works brilliantly. Well worth watching, as long as you’ve followed the series up to now… it’s not very jump-on friendly at this point!
As mentioned everyone starts attacking Shigaraki, from Endeavour to Eraser Head, Gran Torino and of course our lead trio of Deku, Bakugo and Shoto, and as Gigantomachia arrives even the weirdest and most amusing top hero of all returns in Best Jeanist, and young Mirio even makes an appearance in the fight, his quirk having been restored via Eri’s Rewind quirk as hinted in previous arcs. As Shigaraki begins to get overtaken by All For One himself… somehow, he manages to fight back and retain control of his body, for a little bit. He/they try to steal One For All but Deku is saved by previous owners of the quirk, including the original owner/One For All’s brother, and Shigaraki’s birth mother.
All For One reaches out for his goal!
Meanwhile Best Jeanist is managing to hold Gigantomachia in place but the League of Villains are making things harder, especially Dabi who releases a tell-all video to the general public revealing he is Endeavour’s thought-dead son Toya, also taking great pleasure in revealing this in person to his Dad and younger brother Shoto. It was a great moment but I’ll admit I put 2 and 2 together a good while ago when it was revealed Shoto had a brother he lost and Dabi had a flame quirk and no background information… Still, like I said, it was a good moment regardless. In the end One For All manages to control the Nomus to grab Shigaraki’s broken body and declares that once its repaired he will come back, meanwhile the rest of the League manage to escape thanks to the actions of Mr. Compress, who finally did something… just in general, he finally did something.
In the aftermath Eraser Head is missing a leg and an eye, Gran Torino is near death and Bakugo even got impaled saving Deku, his once (friendly even if he refused to admit it at the time) rival, plus many more infrequently featured / not really featured until this point heroes are straight up dead, and to make matters worse the sheer scale of destruction from Gigantomachia’s rampage and the revelation that the No.1 hero left his son to burn in a forest and didn’t care about him (a slight exaggeration of the truth…) leads to a widespread distrust in heroes, people refusing their help and buying anti-villain items to protect themselves. Then things manage to get worse still as several heroes quit the business all together while All For One arranges the Nomus to storm multiple prisons and cause a whole bunch of villain breakouts, including his own escape.
I feel like I kind of glossed over Bakugo both doing something heroic AND saving Deku’s life for the first time, but hey-ho…
The last few episodes see a good look at Endeavour’s family and what happened to Toya (pretty much as he said honestly, Endeavour wanted a perfect blend of his and his wife’s powers and was disappointed Toya was only fire, and bad at it too. In order to impress him Toya went to the forest and tried to create a big move and incinerated himself, the only difference is Endeavour was sad about it… for a bit) and Deku meets most of the previous wielders of One For All in a mental landscape and not only adds spidey sense to his list of Spiderman powers but sets his sights on saving Shigaraki from One For All’s clutches despite all the evil he’s done without his direct influence. To do that he writes letters to all his fellow UA students revealing the truth about One For All and that he was leaving the school because being there would mean endangering everyone because he’s the one One For All and Shigaraki are after. To be continued, and all that…
Hogan Reviews 