Boku no Hero Academia 17 Review: Weird Villains

Boku no Hero Academia Chapter 17: Game Over

Another neat chapter that moves the whole fight along. We start off with Bakugo and the hardening kid, Eijirou, having taken out the group of weaker villains that had attacked them. They have a little conversation discussing the general state of matters, discussing about how Bakugo has kind of improved and isn't just acting like a little kid (except when he does). And I do like how from the start of their conversation there is this chameleon dude just crawling around moving closer and closer to them but he eventually gets taken out by an offhand attack from Bakugo. Anyway, the two of them are just going off and hunting down the Portal Guy, which we know in this chapter is apparently called Black Mist.

We then cut to Black Mist fighting Uraraka's group, with Black Mist going down after the running Iida. We see a bit of No. 13, unmoving with his hole on the back of his suit. Apparently Uraraka notes that Black Mist has an actual, physical body -- she sees those grooved armour pieces floating in the middle of the mist. Some other dude that can shoot out these tape-like things launches it at Black Mist's armour piece and they hold him back long enough for Iida to get through the door. Pretty awesome, Uraraka. Black Mist doesn't go after Iida (despite having teleporty powers) and just goes 'this is game over' and kind of collapses in on himself, teleporting to Handy McHands (Shigaraki Tomura, apparently) and the big black exposed-brain dude -- who may or may not be called Noumu..

Noumu is just brutalizing Eraser Head, who notes that the strength he is using is his base strength and he feels absolutely freaking helpless. Midoriya, Tsuyu and Mineta are just trembling in their boots. Black Mist arrives and greets Shigaraki, and he reforms sort of, showing part of his real body with the waiter's uniform we saw all the way back. Shigaraki kind of does this weird, crazy thing where he's all talking in game-like things, going all 'game over' and stuff. He also berates Black Mist for not being able to become a proper poral, and notes that they can't withstand so many pro heroes.

Mineta kind of celebrate a bit and use the moment to grope Tsuyu's boob, which gets his head dunked down into the water. However, Shigaraki suddenly moves so fast until he's near them, and moves his hand close to Tsuyu. We get a nice, chilling flashback of how he crushes Eraserhead's elbow, and, well, it is an awesomely arranged set of panels. But Shigaraki didn't manage to do it, since apparently Eraser Head managed to look at Shigaraki in time. Noumu slams Eraser Head to the ground again, and this causes a very panicked Midoriya to attack Shigaraki, despite knowing the gigantic gap of skill between them.

Midoriya notes how his arm isn't breaking and thinks for a moment that he had unlocked the ability to adjust his power output thing... which may or may not have happened, because Noumu absorbed the punch with his stomach, just standing there unaffected by Midoriya's punch. Shigaraki notes the similarities between Midoriya and All Might's quirks, and it seems to be that Noumu can cancel out All Might's quirk? Interesting. Noumu has grabbed onto Midoriya, Tsuyu had broken free from Shigaraki and is trying to help Midoriya with her tongue, Shigaraki is reaching for Tsuyu and Mineta...

And meanwhile, near where Uraraka and co. are, All Might blows in the doors and arrives and he looks fucking pissed. Midoriya's fight is apparently close enough to see All Might, and Shigaraki goes all 'we got a continue...' Overall it's a nice chapter, still interested on seeing just what will happen. Really into the tone and pacing and artwork of this manga.