Boku no Hero Academia 55 Review: False Conclusion

My Hero Academia, Chapter 55: Conclusion?

So last chapter, apparently that one last blow from Midoriya and Iida actually took out Stain and knocked him unconscious… for a little while, at least. He’s too cool (and the students too weak, relatively speaking) to be taken out so early and not by the actual big guns like Gran Tourino or Endeavor. Overall it’s been a pretty awesome cooldown chapter, and it’s actually a bit of a fake-out conclusion. It has all the markings of a normal cool-down chapter with the main threat, Stain, dealt with last chapter, and the rest of this chapter shows the mop-up of the lesser villains… except, y’know, that’s not quite the case, and it seems like we’re going to have this drag on a little bit longer.

We start off a couple minutes before the end of last chapter, with Endeavor and Gran Tourino (who recognizes Endeavor as ‘Todoroki’, which of course, is Endeavor’s family name) fighting the multiple-eyed Noumu… which has multiple quirks. It’s strong enough to withstand a low-burst flame from Endeavour – which, like any normal flame would do, will completely take out normal humans. It’s got some kind of bulking-jumping ability, and a quirk that lets his tongue grow out all gross-like like a net. Gran Tourino takes out the Noumu no problem by just zip-FAKOOM-ing the Noumu to the ground.

We finally get confirmation that Gran Tourino’s quirk is “Jet”, which allows him to propel air from the bottoms of his feet, but like Eraserhead there’s a bit of a funny restriction: he can only use air that he breathes himself, so it kind of ‘rattles his old bones’. Apparently Gran Tourino has less control, because, well, he completely fucked up the ground when he knocked down the Noumu.

Endeavor calls Gran Tourino a ‘Golden Ager’, another nice little meta-joke for this superhero comic-book inspired manga. Endeavor gets a bit of a flashback a bit to when his team arrived at the scene – where he shows that he’s a competent team leader and hero even if he’s a shitty father. And I do like that Todoroki (when I say Todoroki, I of course mean Todoroki Shouto, since both of them are technically Todoroki but y’know, I’m more used calling Shouto as Todoroki), while running off to back up Midoriya, does acknowledge that Endeavor is going to easily resolve of any problem. Which is nice. Maybe Endeavor can learn to not be such a colossal piece of human filth.

Endeavor tells Gran Tourino to head to the address Todoroki had told him before, delivering a badass boast that the only assistance required to take down the Big Noumu is only him, Endeavor.

Stain wasn’t completely taken out by that two-page-splash chapter-ending punch™ we saw last chapter, and Midoriya seems to have broken something on his arm. But Todoroki fucking burns Stain in the face while Iida kicks him in the gut. This seems to kind of knock Stain unconscious for a bit. Todoroki saves them all with an ice slide, and tie up Stain with some rope they found from a recycling trash can thing. Alongside the nameless Feather-Head Superhero who’s carrying Midoriya around, they come across Gran Tourino, who’s all pissed off that Midoriya went off on his own. Other lesser heroes sent by Endeavor show up too late to serve as backup, and they acknowledge that they don’t have useful quirks to fight against the Big Noumu.

Iida apologizes to Midoriya and Todoroki, they tell him to pull himself together, and they kind of note that the battle only really lasted around 5-10 minutes but felt a lifetime for them… but it’s not over! The Winged Noumu, minus half his face, suddenly swoop down and grab the paralyzed Midoriya away. Gran Tourino note that the height that the Noumu is flying is too far even for his quirk, but unexpectedly, Stain breaks free with a little knife hidden in his armband, gives the lady superhero guarding him a fucking gross lick through the face because some of the Noumu’s blood splashed there. That freezes the Winged Noumu, and allows Stain to fucking hop up and murder the shit out of the Noumu with a badass talk. “The phonies that have overrun society, and the criminals who so aimlessly sprinkle around their power…those are the targets of my purge. All of this for the sake… of a just world!”

Stain looks even more psychotic than ever in that last panel, and I’m honestly really, really curious about this dude’s backstory. Just what happened to him that he hates all these fake, phony "it's only a job" superheroes? Not only is it an interesting, unique twist on all the superhero theme, it's also pretty fresh to have this serial killer turn out to actually be a cool anti-villain monster thing. 

Looking forward to see what's going to come next.