Boku no Hero Academia 144 Review: Kirishima, the Man of Steel

Boku no Hero Academia, Chapter 144: Red Riot, Part 1

As Fat Gum is about to lay the ever-loving smackdown on Rappa and Tengai, Tengai notes how Kirishima's "meaningless" display was all for a kamikaze attack, while the beat-down Kirishima starts flashing back, thinking to himself that he's scared. Again.

We then get a full-chapter flashback for Kirishima, which isn't something I expected to happen right now, although Kirishima has been getting an increasingly large amount of spotlight in recent arcs. He tries his best to defend bullies and stuff, going through a recited speech from Red Riot that "the quirk doesn't matter, all that matters is your heart". And, well, it's a society where the whole "normals can't be a hero" mentality reigns strong. Back then, Kirishima's hardening quirk is far, far more pathetic and low-scale than it is now, and he gets whacked in the face by a rock-controlling bully. It's Ashido's appearance that shuts down the bullies, and Ashido is a completely different student compared to Kirishima. Athletic, very sociable (she basically talks the bullies down and even make them breakdance), with a powerful quirk and an eye-catching appearance. 

And, well, Kirishima still tries his hardest to become a hero. Because he believes in Red Riot and he wants to compensate for his near-nonexistent quirk with his BURNING HEART. 

And then there's this incident, where this gigantic hooded figure with super-strength enough to crack a building starts looming around, asking for directions to the hero offices. The dude came out of nowhere, and I'm honestly not entirely sure if it's supposed to be a character we're supposed to know, or if he's a filler one-shot character or foreshadowing, but in any case he looks scary and while probably not malicious (just maybe not... thinking entirely straight?) is probably threatening, demanding the answers from a bunch of Kirishima's buddies. Ashido jumps in the way, makes up some random directions to drive him off before afterwards breaking down crying.

At which point Kirishima just goes through an insane bout of depression, coupled with the huge news of the original Midoriya/Bakugou/slime muk dude incident, and Kirishima just thinks to himself how not even his heart is good enough. He's just so disappointed with himself and the ideal of a man that his academic aspiration list -- previously only having a single word 'Yuuei', is scratched out. It's very sad, and I'm curious just how he managed to transform back into the hot-blooded Kirishima, or if the hot-blooded Kirishima is just a mask all along. Also how did he get his powers up so strong in such a short period of time? Is he using those quirk-enhancing drugs? I'm genuinely engrossed -- Kirishima's suddenly fifteen times more interesting than he was before .