My Hero Academia 232-234 Review: Quirk Politics

My Hero Academia, Chapter 232: Special Abilities & Quirks; Chapter 233: A Bright Future; Chapter 234: Perception Collapse

A trio of My Hero Academia chapters. At the time of writing, the Villain Alliance vs. Re-Destro arc is over, and it's pretty interesting to take stock of these three chapters that end up taking up the time between the Twice focus flashback arc, and the very Shigaraki-centric climax.

232 sort of picks up right where we left off, with Twice getting a better grasp of his powers as he faces off against Re-Destro. And Twice is always entertaining, even if him copying Shigaraki, Compress and Dabi ended up really not mattering as the clones get one-shotted by Re-Destro. I do like that Twice is easily shaken into panic by Re-Destro threatening to harm and kill Giran, while the copy-Dabi and copy-Compress end up moving on their own. Twice is all panicking about Giran being injured while his copies are destroyed, which is... yeah, it's pretty touching, and it's very interesting seeing a villain show so much empathy to his friend... particularly seeing how Re-Destro and Shigaraki acts in contrast.

We then get Re-Destro's backstory, which is... it's neat, I suppose, but we learn so little and so late, and Re-Destro himself honestly feels less like an actual character or a person and more like a generic antagonist with a backstory stapled on. Apparently, Destro's mother was the "Mother of Quirks", a lady whose child was abused and ended up saying that "this is my child's quirk"... and the poor woman was killed by quirk-hating racists. This was how the term 'quirk' was adopted as opposed to 'special ability', particularly when superheroes started entering the scene, but Re-Destro's points that the newly-enacted policies are a form of oppression is... definitely an interesting one. The original intention of Destro's mother wanting special powers to just be "a person's quirk" isn't exactly achieved. Ultimately, though, I really kinda wished that this was shown to us more than it was just parroted out and told. It's an interesting backstory, sure, but, again, the way it's delivered isn't the best from a narrative standpoint. What they show us and what they tell us doesn't really jive, y'know?

I'm not complaining too much, though. The base sentiments of the conflict between Re-Destro and Shigaraki is neat. 232 ends with Shigaraki just blowing up and disintegrating the tower. With Twice protecting Giran, it's the two main characters of each faction facing off against each other, and for all of Re-Destro's talks abut just how he wants to make it an equal place for everyone in the world, it's sort of not particularly interesting to read about a conflict when everyone on Shigaraki's side quite literally doesn't give two shits about the Liberation Front's backstory or motivations.

233 starts off with Twice helping Toga basically stabilize, and ends up fighting against Skeptic's minions, while Spinner ends up facing off against the Deternet Co.'s boss, Hanabata, who has a crowd-rallying quirk. And it's sort of Spinner's focus chapter in the entire arc... and I kinda feel that Spinner and Compress end up getting the rawest deal out of everyone else in the Alliance prior to this. Spinner has been foreshadowed to have some conflicting thoughts about his role as Stain's successor or whatever, and he gets talked down by Hanabata who rants about how Spinner's shitty lizard quirk won't let him accomplish anything. 

We get Spinner's backstory, where... he's sort of told that he's worthless and is sort of a shut-in in the past, and ends up being super-duper inspired by Stain... and I think throughout this arc he's sort of changed the focus of his obsession, of the 'future', from Stain to Shigaraki? He gets a badass speech where he rants about how "is it so wrong to be a standard low-class citizen who can't do anything without standing on the shoulders of others", but I really do feel like his character development ends up feeling pretty dang abrupt, and unless I forget something in the next couple of chapters, I'm positive that this is all we got for Spinner.

233's final scenes end up going back to the Shigaraki/Re-Destro fight, where Re-Destro continues to hulk up while Shigaraki continues to taunt him, and this is when we learn that Re-Destro's ability essentially is a more gradual version of the Hulk's superpowers. Instead of becoming an exploding rage-beast when he gets angry, Re-Destro sort of stockpiles 'stress' and accumulates that stress into raw power. He blows up part of Shigaraki's hands (and one of the creepy hands on Shigaraki's body), as the conflict continues into chapter 234.

And 234 continues with Re-Destro talking more and more about the quirk-politics thing, and for the first time, this is when it starts resonating with Shigaraki, I think, as Re-Destro rambles on and on about how he wants to hear Shigaraki's motivations. And we get a flashback of All For One showing Shigaraki a pile of hands, claiming that they are from members of his family, essentially telling and forcing Shigaraki to remember the members of his family that he's lost, and to never forget the pain he's been through... and Shigaraki ends up realizing that he's apparently been suppressing his power thanks to the emotions in his heart or some shit like that? Either way, he gains the ability to cause decay even without all five fingers touching something, decaying part of Re-Destro's arm with his maimed hand.

We get to see some great artwork of crazy, animalistic Shigaraki fighting against Re-Destro, who coats himself in this massive black stress goop, and it's... again, it's a bunch of neat action scenes, and the backstory that they tell us here and there are pretty neat, but I just don't feel like the present-day stuff and the backstory stuff play off each other as well as the previous conflicts shown in the Villain Alliance storyline. Oh, and Gigantomakhia shows up to basically break through the ranks of the Liberation army, while Shigaraki continues to flashback.

Overall... well, the next couple of chapters are definitely going to be interesting to talk about, and I definitely do feel like the next couple of Shigaraki-centric storylines are a far, far more interesting read, but these couple of chapters that I review really do end up feeling somewhat weakly integrated. The basic story isn't bad at all, and I enjoy learning about the backstories of some of the characters, but I dunno. Re-Destro's just kind of a villain that feels like he's just there, talking about his viewpoints and pontificating without much of a personality of his own. With Shigaraki spending so much of these chapters just alternating from a "I don't give a fuck" mood to "FUCK YOUU" mood, it's also not easy to get a solid read on ol' handyman as a character. Shigaraki, at least, is going to get a couple more interesting chapters down the line, but it's somewhat marred by the fact that Re-Destro just isn't that interesting of a villain.