Friday 2 December 2016

Boku no Hero Academia 118 Review: Reason to Fight

Boku no Hero Academia, Chapter 118: Meaningless Fight


A relatively short chapter. We get a bit with Eraserhead being informed by a camera robot about the two students wreaking havoc in the facility, fighting without supervision and all that. Eraserhead gets his way barred by an unknown person (who may or may not be All Might), but it's a nice bit of storytelling that shows that, hey, U.A. isn't incompetent to allow this to go unseen right under their noses, especially not after the whole crisis about what's basically a terrorist attack on the students of the school.

The fight basically goes on for the rest of the chapter, mostly with Bakugou attacking and roaring and screaming and telling Midoriya to fight back, and Midoriya not wanting to fight back going all 'no one's saying that your aspirations are wrong!'. Last chapter I talked about how the reasoning for this fight is going to make it or break it, and right now I'm leaning more towards 'make it'. We get a couple of panels that worried me initially, about how Bakugou is angry that Midoriya is 'chosen', sort of, by All Might, and a flashback to the 'a level 1 and level 50 character don't level up at the same rate' speech, but later Bakugou's monologues end up becoming bigger and bigger 'WHY'. I honestly thought it was going to be a Sasuke-style 'why can't I catch up with you?' jealousy-triggered motivation, which would be annoying.

There's then a series of flashbacks, more of Midoriya being a loser as a kid that tagged along with Bakugou's group, but their one point of similarity back then being, well, they both idolize All Might. Midoriya eventually fights back in the present time, kicking Bakugou in the face, before going to try and help him. Bakugou goes into a long, long tirade, screaming about how Midoriya is a shitstain and he doesn't understand why Midoriya has grown and be recognized by All Might and going so far that it's Bakugou that's chasing after Midoriya and all that... before we really get the reason as to Bakugou's anger. "Why did I become the reason for All Might's end?"

Bakugou goes on a brief rant about how he was weak, and even though he tried to be strong he very nearly spilled All Might's secret, and Midoriya knows that, well, he has to fight, if only to let Bakugou work out through his issues. And, well, he's starting to fight seriously.

It's well-written. I don't fully agree with Midoriya allowing Bakugou to indulge in his bloodlust, but at the same time violence might be the only thing that can calm someone as crazy-angry as Bakugou down right now. Nice chapter.

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