My Hero Academia’s sixth season comes to an end with a more laser-focused arc putting the spotlight mainly on our lead protagonist Deku and how the wider world (of Japan) has lost all faith in heroes. It’s a classic heroes journey story but done very well, so let’s take a look.
After running away for UA High School and all his friends Deku is now acting the dark and brooding hero as he goes from city to city stopping some of the villains who broke out of jail while dodging angry mobs of civilians who are using hero accessories to try and protect themselves because “the heroes won’t”, all while being watched over by All Might, Endeavour and Hawks. After taking down his old foe Muscular and saving a woman with an obvious physical Quirk from being attacked by regular humans (very X-Men!) Deku encounters a woman called Lady Nagant, an ex-hero who went rogue after the realisation that her role with the Hero Commission was nothing more than a hired assassin, getting her to kill potentially dangerous people before they even did anything. Nagant had been hired by All For One to capture Deku and bring the boy to him but despite her ability to use her rifle-arm and own hair to bend bullets around the place and using the former lead antagonist Overhaul as a decoy she’s defeated, blurting out the location she was supposed to drop Deku off moments before she’s exploded by a failsafe put in her body by All For One.
Lady Nagant appears, with both a rifle for an arm and the ability to control bullets with her hair, now that’s a handy double-pack! (and that’s not counting the ability to walk on air All For One gave her either!)
To make matters worse the location she managed to tell them leads to nothing but a video of All For One mocking Deku and All Might before the place explodes, mentally snapping our hero even further into dedicating his all to taking him down before he can hurt anyone else. During this time I have to mention that Deku has began using and communicating with all the past users of One For All, adding several new abilities to his arsenal, including a smoke screen and a motion-based strength enhancing… thing. Eventually though he reaches his mental and physical limit and is about to be beaten by a villain called Dictator but he’s saved by all his classmates, who have arrived to take him home…
I’ll get to the rest in the spoilers but it’s a really good arc and not only does it focus well on Deku but also All Might, who really begins to struggle at how powerless he’d become and that his promise to keep our protagonist safe from harm he made to his mother has become harder and harder. Two very different “heroes journeys” told at once!
Overall Thoughts:
A showdown nobody was expecting!
The “Dark Hero Arc” is a short one but is still an extremely important story for the overall narrative and puts all our heroes in the right frame of mind for the up-coming climactic battle. It has some great moments and the usual top-class animation, so really I can’t fault these seven episodes. They did exactly what they needed to do with no added filler. Can’t ask much more than that! Roll on Season 7!
Deku still refuses to go back to the UA because he’s the one All For One is after and therefore he’d be putting everyone in danger so his own classmates all team up and sort-of fight him to bring him round to the idea that he shouldn’t shoulder everything alone and that the UA School President has agreed that having him there in the barrier-protected school would be best as he’s still their best weapon against the villains and so he needs to stay healthy. As Deku tries to run away everyone joins up and sends Iida of all people across the sky to tackle him to the floor and show he’s not completely superior to them, convincing Midoriya at last, so… hooray for Iida actually doing something, if nothing else. They arrive at UA but the civilians taking shelter there don’t want Midoriya on site for the very reason Deku said, but Ochaco makes a big speech that convinces them otherwise.
I call this screenshot: “Iida actually does something”.
Throw in Bakugo actually apologising to his old rival for bullying him all the time and several boxes have been ticked now as we head into the final few arcs. Overhaul isn’t the only former antagonist who appears in this short arc either though as All Might ends up re-motivated when he encounters Hero Killer Stain of all people, who gives him important information and begs him to become his old self again because All Might is the only person heroic enough to kill him. We then end with Deku and All Might getting back on the same page and news that America’s #1 hero, a woman called Star and Stripe, is on her way to Japan in order to help in the upcoming fight…
Hogan Reviews 