Boku no Hero Academia 47 Review: Gran Tourino

Boku no Hero Academia, Chapter 47: To Wriggle

Bit of a slower chapter, both this one and the previous one. Midoriya basically got sent off to All Might's old teacher last chapter, this old geezer called Gran Tourino, and despite Midoriya being the geekiest of the geek regarding all things All Might he doesn't know anything about Gran Tourino. In true Shonen fashion, Gran Tourino is a wacky old geezer who is secretly super powerful, and since he's settling in into the 'wise old mentor' role, it really is hard not seeing him dying because all old teacher mentors, y'know, die. It's like a requirement in shonen manga, with Makarov from Fairy Tail being the only one exception I can think of.

The chapter starts off with All Might talking about the DNA composition of Noumu, and apparently he used to be human... but he's brain-dead now. And Noumu's body contains at least five separate DNA's, and his body contains multiple quirks. We've established with Todoroki that someone can have multiple quirks at once, but apparently Noumu has so many quirks, and in addition to the whole multiple DNA thing, All Might and this one generic-looking scientist fellow conclude that Noumu's powers is granted by someone whose quirk can grant quirks in other people.

Meanwhile, Midoriya is training with Gran Tourino, who lampshade the fact that All Might is a shitty teacher. Midoriya's costume is upgraded, apparently, and he's a bit apprehensive about punching an old dude but naturally Gran Tourino is awesome and all that. Gran Tourino puts Midoriya through a relatively formulaic training sequence, showing off just how awesome he is bouncing all around the room and being able to take down Midoriya even when he predicts where Gran Tourino will come in from. Tourino talks about how Midoriya's blind devotion to All Might has become restrictive shackles binding him down, and he needs to find his own path and stop thinking of All For One as this special gift entrusted to him and, y'know, just use it. Which is a nice little variation in the 'try as hard as you can until you can do it' shonen master training, too.

Iida's hanging out with this random hero with fins, and apparently he really wants to hunt down Stain, which was why he chose an internship near the city.

Stain himself, who looks delightfully creepy as all sorts of hell, meets up with Shigaraki Tomura (Handy McHand) and Blackmist. Shigaraki notes how Stain is like their great senpai, and wants to enlist him in taking out All Might and the Yuuei kids. Stain is pissed off, though, not having much interest in 'bloodlust without a cause' and how Shigaraki is just throwing a temper tantrum. Blackmist is talking to Shigaraki's mysterious teacher, who gives the same cryptic advice that Tourino did which is to let Shigaraki keep thinking on his own to simiulate his growth.

Which is what Midoriya is doing, trying to think out of the box and find his own personal application to All For One, so is Gran Tourino the television benefactor? I dunno, it seems way too obvious to be the case for me. The chapter ends with Midoriya contemplating how he should use All For One less rigidly and more flexibly, though we don't see what, exactly he comes up with.

Tourino is, of course, silently watching this and noting how great Midoriya's progression is and yadda yadda yadda. He also reveals All Might's real name, which is Toshinori.

Overall an enjoyable, if not particularly eventful, chapter. Really hope the training doesn't last too long, though.