Tuesday 21 July 2015

Boku no Hero Academia 51 Review: Noumus and Stain

Boku no Hero Academia, Chapter 51: Stop, Iida


Picking up straight from where we left off, we have Gran Tourino zipping around and fighting the white, lanky Noumu. Gran Tourino makes note that the Noumu doesn't make much distinction between superheroes and civilians and is just being all rampagy and rawr kill humans. Suddenly a blast of flame eats up the Noumu, which heralds the arrival of Endeavour... who's apparently hunting the Hero-Killer. And Endevaour reminds us that as big of a fuckwad father as he is, he is still a hero. Well, Endeavour, I guess I'm rooting for you and your weird flame beard now.

Meanwhile, Midoriya runs around trying to make sense of things regarding Iida and Noumu and whatnot in his head and is basically just catching up with us readers about what's going on with Iida. He comes across the other two Noumus just laying waste to other generic superheroes (lanky Noumu took out one last chapter) -- one of the Noumus has bat wings and the other is a horrific-looking thing whose face is just a lower jaw and a brain and it looks gross and awesome at the same time.

Midoriya sees the normal hero that Iida is interning with and confirms that Iida has ran off somewhere. Midoriya goes off to hunt Iida while these nameless superhero cannon fodder try and fail to hold back the Noumus. 

Shigaraki and Black Mist survey the destruction, and while Black Mist does a little lampshade that Shigaraki isn't entering the fray himself, Shigaraki retorts that he's injured. I like these two. Shigaraki gets a flashback when he talks with his benefactor, Mr. Mysterious TeeVee Man, and demands the six Noumus that are ready, and he wants to smash stuff he doesn't like. So I guess Shigaraki's not into the alliance at all.

Stain, meanwhile, is fighting Iida. Though "fighting" really implies some sort of resistance. Stain is just brutalizing the poor kid, stabbing his arm with spiked shoes and stabbing the other with his sword. Iida goes on a rant about how Stain has totally fucked his brother up despite his brother being a totally awesome and inspirational dude, but Stain just tells Iida to save the Native-American-themed superhero and tells Iida that if he wants to be a proper hero, he needs to save others, while being consumed by personal desire is the furthest thing away from being a hero.

Stain licks the blood off his blade, and Iida suddenly can't move -- so Stain does appear to need to either cut or lick the blood from his victims to disable their movement. Stain is all ready to kill Iida, but Midoriya suddenly zooms in, all ready from his speed training, all crackling with energy, and delivers a righteous SMASH into Stain's face.

I don't really see Midoriya really standing up against Stain for any long. Maybe Endeavour or Gran Tourino or one of the Noumus will need to interfere, but hand it to the kid -- he's got balls. Iida's being kind of all dumb thanks to his vendetta and I hope he outgrows it. Overall great stuff. 

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