Boku no Hero Academia 56 Review: Dog Puns

My Hero Academia, Chapter 56: The Conclusion

We get an awesome, awesome colour page with Iida and Stain all set-up like a superhero comic book cover and I [i]love[/i] it.

The first half of the chapter centers on Stain and him just raging around before fainting while standing up. Which would be redundant if not for the utterly [i]awesome[/i] art that just illustrates how freaking scary Stain is. We get him reiterating his ‘I will purge all phonies’ motivation, while everyone is just kind of surprised at what the fuck’s going on. Shigaraki is all like “I can’t even find the words, fucking goddamn” as he observes everything, getting pissed off that the Noumus die, and why it can’t go as he wanted it to.

Endeavor shows up, throws his weight around a bit to talk shit about these second-stringers who are just standing around doing nothing, and noticing Stain he goes straight into battle mode and is about to launch a stream of fire when Gran Tourino stops him. Pretty sure Gran Tourino did this for Midoriya’s benefit, since Midoriya is still, like, lying next to Stain. But then Stain just goes “ANOTHER PHONY” and holy god that expression, and that “someone must stain himself in his blood.”

Everyone, from Todoroki to Iida to even Gran Tourino and Endeavor himself, are all just, well, visibly flinching and reeling backwards from Stain’s proclamation. The next few pages had Stain just go all “THE WORD HERO MUST BE RESTORED! COME YOU PRETENDERS” while looking all crazy and awesome and holy shit. We even see Endeavor of all people – Mr. Bigshot himself – take a step backwards. And not even the more heroic Gran Tourino is immune to it.

But Stain lost consciousness, still looking scary crazy as ever. And we get a monologue from Midoriya how he later found out that Stain passed out because one of his broken ribs pierced his lungs… and observed that while Stain didn’t lick any of their blood, and was injured like hell, he was still the only one who stood his ground – not even Big Shots like Endeavor and Gran Tourino can claim that.

We get a brief glimpse of the three Noumus being cleaned up (one of them – the one Gran Tourino and Endeavor teamed up to fight – was captured alive) while Shigaraki and Black Mist beats a hasty retreat. Shigaraki is still visibly pissed.

The rest of the chapter is really just a lot of talking and a cooldown as Midoriya, Todoroki and Iida hang out in the hospital and Iida kind of apologizes to them. But Gran Tourino, Manual and this new character Police Chief Tsuragamae. Who has the head of a dog, and makes painful dog puns. He goes on a long tangent how technically the Yuuei kids have broken rules by using their power without authorization, and how they and their handlers – Endeavor, Gran Tourino and Manual – will face consequences. Which naturally pisses Todoroki off. Rightfully so. Because, well, it’s as much self-defense as anything because Stain is, y’know, the Hero Killer. And while Iida is acting stupidly and irresponsibly, he did save the hero “Native” (my one-time joke about Native American Man actually called his real name!).

Tsuragamae kind of then explains that he truly respects how they’ve been heroes, and how the incident will be “covered up” with Endeavor dealing the final blow to Stain that took it out. Nothing really much on this end of the chapter, really, just a lot of talking and a couple of worldbuilding on how the structure of the My Hero Academia world is, and I really do think it ran on for a fair bit longer than it did. And the dog puns, jeez, the fucking dog puns.

But still, a pretty decent chapter all around, if only for the insane Stain bits in the beginning because, well, Stain is awesome and I am extremely intrigued just what his backstory is.