My Hero Academia 109 Review: Schoolyard Politics

Boku no Hero Acadmeia, Chapter 109: Rescue Maneuvers

The chapter's more of a buildup and a short introduction to phase two -- basically, a bunch of pro rescuers that had passed the test before are pretending to be the civilians in danger, and they're rigorous examiners. The short while we see Midoriya's group try and rescue them, the little kid immediately goes wild and scolds them for not ensuring his condition first, and to lead with "oh, that's terrible!" instead of being reassuring. As someone that's somewhat trained in search and rescue... yeah, this is how training for these kinds of things go. It's fun and nice to see Midoriya flip on that switch in his head that turns him from 'awkward finicky Midoriya' to 'future symbol of peace Midoriya' as he tries to emulate All Might's smile and acts commanding. All while this is going on, Uraraka is struggling with her own emotions, mostly due to seeing Midoriya hanging out with Sexy Naked Anime Msytique Whose Name Is Still Unrevealed (or SNAMWNISU for short), and there's a bit of a rather annoying-yet-realistic moment as she angsts about it for a page or two before flipping her own switch and going into hero mode.

What's more interesting, however, is the little inter-school politics that's going on while the students are waiting for the examination to start. We've got Sero, Kaminari and of course Mineta confronting Midoriya over hanging out with SNAMWINISU and her sultry look as she waves back doesn't help Midoriya's case (or Uraraka's mood) either. 

There's a bit where the students from Shiketsu, let by, uh, a dude whose body is 95% hair by mass, approaches Bakugou and apologizes for Shishikura, the Processed Meat dude, and his attitude. Hair dude talks about how he got carried away after meeting someone famous like Bakugou, apologizes, and says how they want to establish a good relationship with U.A. 

Todoroki confronts Inasa about what's going on with him, which is something we all have been wanting to know. Inasa apologizes, but he hates Endeavour, and he hates Endeavour's son. Inasa does note that Todoroki has gone through some character development (ha!) but his eyes are still the same as Endeavour's. This got Todoroki thinking a bit, and, yeah, after the few nice things that Endeavour has done in recent arcs, the author isn't quite ready to relinquish his jackass personality yet. We don't know much about what's happened between Inasa and Endeavour, but it's definitely interesting. 

That's all I have to say, really. It's a nice, slower-paced chapter that explores things at a nice pace, unlike poor Toriko that's just rushing from one scene to another at a breakneck pace.