So here we are at the end of My Hero Academia’s Final Arc. Due to a lot of the side plots being covered in the previous chunk of episodes this review isn’t going to be super long, especially the pre-spoiler bit, but hey-ho! Let’s take a look at the finale of one of the bigger hits for Shonen Jump in some time.
We pick up right from where we left off as All Might is fighting his nemesis All For One in an Iron Man-eqse suit (where all of his moves are named after his students, which is nice…) but despite best efforts and a few near-wins All For One just keeps de-aging himself and coming back. Eventually he’s about to kill the hero in horrifying and gory fashion (just as Night Eye had predicted a fair few arcs back!) but he’s saved by the successfully revived Bakugo, who now has such control over his powers that he can push All For One back and eventually even force him to de-age to the point of a baby, who then vanishes for good. We do get a flashback to young All For One and his weakened brother, including the idea that All For One, somewhere, somehow deep down does care for him… sort of.
All Might and All For One share a loving embrace…
This leads to Deku being free to concentrate on his battle with Shigaraki, where he plans to transfer his One For All powers into his foe so he can “access the scar on his heart” and possibly redeem the villain. It doesn’t go well to start, in fact giving Shigaraki some of the various One For All abilities is quite an issue, but eventually Deku and the last visage of the power Nana (Shigaraki’s grandmother) get to see his backstory, being abused by his father, accidentally dusting his beloved pet and loved ones, and so on. Deku stops Shigaraki’s hands and talks to the child but it seemingly fails as All For One somehow re-emerges within Shigaraki’s subconscious and fully takes control of his body before expelling Deku. As if that wasn’t bad enough Deku in real life has now lost both his arms! Luckily, in a moment lifted right from Avengers: Endgame, a bunch of portals appear behind him and a whole bunch of Deku’s friends, allies and other heroes emerge, including Eraserhead with one of young Eri’s horns, allowing him to rewind Deku’s body to before his lost his arms. Much like All Might at the start of the series, Deku may have transferred One For All but he still has sparks of it left in him to use and so everyone prepares to take down All For One for good… again.
It’s a fun, flashy finale that hits all the right notes and as usual was spectacularly animated when it needed to be.
Overall Thoughts:
Shigaraki having the (last) time of his life…
The final ten episodes of My Hero Academia do a good job wrapping up the final battle and gives a satisfying epilogue to boot. The animation, voice work and soundtrack are all still on-point too, so it was a very fun end to a great Shonen series.
As All For One comes to terms with the idea that his little brother has truly vanished for good and goes full-on Akira with his transformations everyone pitches in to get Deku close enough to land a decisive blow, which he eventually does as everyone across the world watches on. Deku, Shigaraki and the embers of the original One For All user / All For One’s brother meet in the mental realm one last time, All For One is scared to be alone, more so than the idea he’s about to die, and Shigaraki, now sort-of-redeemed tells Deku to pass a message on to Spinner, the only person he felt any connection to. All For One fades away, as does Shigaraki due to it being his body and all, and the day is won…
Deku pulls off the “dramatic last stand look” with perfection.
We then get a couple of episodes of Epilogue. The crippled Endeavour, Shoto and other Todoroki members meet with Toya, who is somehow alive but so barely alive he’s being kept going by machines and can only talk for a few minutes each day before his unavoidable death happens soon (yikes!) but Endeavour promises to visit every day until then as part of his atonement. Bakugo is heartbroken upon hearing Deku’s lost his powers as he wanted to be a hero with his friend forever and keep competing with each other (a sweet moment, honestly) and Uraraka and Deku bond over both having failed in saving the lives of the villains they wanted to redeem, and clearly make one step closer to being a couple. We then get some graduations and all that jazz, plus more teachers and other characters getting “what they did next” moments until we skip forward a few years.
Everyone a few years older! … Well, everyone apart from a certain someone Bakugo is offering a hand to…
Our main cast are now fully fledged heroes, apart from Deku, who is now a teacher in UA due to having no powers. He inspires a kid just like he was back at the start of the series and then meets All Might, who gifts him a set of armour like he wore to fight All For One that will give him powers not unlike he had when had One For All, and with all his friends waiting, he leaps into action, a hero once more…
Hogan Reviews 