Boku no Hero Academia 61 Review: #TeamEctoplasm

Boku no Hero Academia, Chapter 61: The Worst Wonder Duo

It's just more setup and some explanation of the previous chapter's bombshell that the student's end of term test involves them fighting the teachers. We get a short flashback to a teacher meating about the test, and Eraserhead actually picks out the specific team-ups and the teachers assigned to them. The matchups are also relatively well thought-out to wring out their weaknesses: Ashido and Kaminari's greatest weakness is that they're both very simple. The overall-great Todoroki relies too much on his brute force (dude can shoot fire and ice, can you blame him?) is paired with the overall-great Yayaorozu who lacks in split-second judgement; and having them not rely on their quirks since they're fighting Eraserhead is ideal to force them to grow. Midoriya and Bakugou? They just don't work together period.

Eraserhead also realizes that All Might is actually taken a liking to Midoriya, something I honestly forget that not all the teachers know about.

Also, the test is also a test of 'fight or flee', since unlike the fights we've seen before where the stakes are 'fight or have these other people be killed by the villains', so the victory conditions for most of the battles are either putting the handcuffs on the teacher, or for them to escape the battlefield... because the gap between power is going to be considerably high. It's sorta-kinda like the Natsu-vs-Gildarts "fight" in Tenrou Island in Fairy Tail, where you sometimes have to accept that there's no way you can overpower a certain enemy. All Might also wears four super-compressor-weights (made by Hatsume, and it's nice to see the non-heroics kids get references) to limit himself because every single manga needs to have these Dragon Ball things thrown in somewhere.

We get to know the names of the teachers that we don't already do, and there's a cool little montage of every teacher explaining the rules to their respective kids. The matchup is like this:

• Principal vs. Ashido and Kaminari, the wonder idiots
• No. 13 (yay!) vs. Aoyama and Uraraka
• Present Mic (who apparently speaks in Japanese-phonetic English) vs. Kyouka and Jiro
• Ectoplasm (villain-looking skull-face dude) vs. Tokoyami and Asui
• Midnight vs. Mineta (of course) and Sero
• Snipe (dreadlock-hair fireman hat dude) vs. Shouji (who hasn't done anything lately) and Hagakure
• Cementoss vs. Kirishima and Satou (what does this dude do again)
• Power Loader (who has an awesome insane beast transformer mask) vs. Iida and Ojiro

Ectoplasm is awesome, by the way. From his creepy-cool black skull mask design to his powers of him materializing three copies of himself from the ground... Asui and Tokoyami does this cool 'launch/pull each other to safety' thing that's pretty well-done. We also have Eraserhead perching all cool-like on top of an electric pole pulling off his bandages and shit. We see Yayaorozu and Todoroki a bit, with Eraserhead's assessment of Yayaorozu being kinda not-so-good on split-second decisions, as Todoroki immediately takes charge, telling her to keep making small things so they would know the moment Eraserhead looks at them.

But Ectoplasm, though! Ectoplasm is fucking awesome. The fact that he's a hero makes him even more awesome. And I do like how he looks creepy without them trying too hard and making him gruesome-looking, a problem common in some 'edgy' Western superheroes.

But we cut away from the utterly awesome Ectoplasm to Recovery Girl acting as the overseer, and reflecting about teamwork and how heroes need to be able to work together with almost anyone. Bakugou and Midoriya, of course, are really not. Bakugou keeps being a gigantic raging tool, because he just wants to bring the fight to All Might and KILL FIGHT FIGHT while Midoriya is using his brain. So Bakugou actually whacks Midoriya in the head, that douchehole. Of course, their agreement (Bakugou: "YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP" Midoriya: "Freaking listen to me idiot") gets interrupted by All Might punching and, er, fucking destroying the entire street by the sheer force of his suppressed punch.

Overall, though? Pretty great chapter. Great to see some of these matchups, great to see short displays of their powers, and Bakugou's a tool and All Might is awesome and Ectoplasm may be my favourite minor character now.