It’s weird, before watching this episode, I was really curious as to how much time had passed exactly since Midoriya had acquired One for All. Luckily for me, episode 87 opens by answering exactly that question for me. It’s November, and so in these past four seasons of anime, only 7 months have passed since Deku inherited All Might’s power.
I’d kind of considered the kid a slow starter, especially since his mentor seemed to have mastered the power of one for all right from the get go. But considering how little time the kid has had to get used to this life changing power, he’s making some pretty impressive progress. He’s gone from blubbering mess to almost singlehandedly taking down a crime boss within the space of a year.
This episode begins by telling us that that school has basically adopted Eri. Erm, is that okay? For a business to take custody of a child? I mean, I know they need Eraser’s powers to stop her from going out of control again, but who is actually taking responsibility for raising and caring for her?
I know she’s doing a lot better now, but raising a child by committee seems kinda sketchy to me. Oh well, I’m sure it’ll be fine.
Also, the Wild wild Pussycats are back, here to establish the Japanese Hero Billboarding Rankings, the totally objective and not at all a popularity contest ranking of the best heroes in the country. I’m being sarcastic, but the fact that Endeavour is number 1 now shows there is more to this than pure charisma. Oh spoilers I guess.
This is the first ranking announcement since All Might’s retirement, so a lot of the heroes are taking this a lot more seriously than they normally would. It was brought up before, but losing their symbol of peace is putting a whole lot more pressure on the top ranking heroes to full his shoes and keep crime as low as it has been for the last few decades.
The rankings are a cool little tool to not only reestablish the positions of familiar heroes, but to introduce some new faces who I’m sure are going to become important players in the future of the story. And everyone loves a ranked list, so let’s go through it:
10: Dragon Hero, Ryukyu
9: Equipped Hero: Yoroi Musha
8: Laundry Hero: Wash, (haha, what?)
7: Kamui Woods, Mt. Lady doesn’t seem happy about it, despite only coming onto the scene herself less than a year before, she’s in the top 25 which is pretty good going to be honest. But it’s already been established that her motivations for being a hero aren’t exactly pure and selfless.
6: Shield Hero: Crust, I like this guy, but that might just be because he’s just an adult Kirishima personality-wise.
5: Rabbit Hero: Mirko, I recognise this lady, mostly because twitter has shown an unrestrained thirst for her these past few weeks. So I’ll expect more of her in the future.
4: Ninja Hero: Edgeshot
3: Fiber Hero: Best Jeanist, Who we’re apparently told is the number 1 hero in terms of pure popularity right now. From what I’ve seen him, he seems like the most heroic and straight laced hero of the top ten maybe outside of Kamui Woods. No pun intended.
2: Wing Hero: Hawks
1: Flame Hero: Endeavor
Before the show can end, we get Hawks making a show of himself. This guy is the rising star of the heroes by the looks of it, still very young and very cocksure and rebellious, given that he throws shade at Endeavor in front of the whole world. Shade the hellfire hero seems to take very well, publicly at least anyway.
After the fact Endeavor, blows up at him pretty literally. Hawks tries to blow it all off as trying to motivate the number 1 hero into being the new symbol of peace the country needs. It’s interesting, All Might himself told Endeavor that there was no need for him to try and emulate him, and just be his own best self he could be.
Yet, there is still some expectation from the rest of the hero community, based on what Hawks is saying anyway, that there needs to be an All Might-like figure at the top of the rankings to both intimidate the villains and inspire the rest of the nation with their exploits. While Endeavor might have the intimidation aspect of the job down, being inspirational is something he is majorly struggling with.
Something that, surprisingly, seems to genuinely bother him.
Shown later on when him and Hawks are taking a stroll around the latter’s territory and a young fan gets upset at Endeavor for trying to actually be approachable. It’s funny, the kid is such a hardcore fan that he knows unapproacahability is one of the hellfire hero’s major traits and wigs out when Endeavor tries to reach out to him. It’s fun.
But it also shows some more development for Endeavor, who is seemingly trying to become a better hero. Not for the pure rankings anymore, but less selfish reasons… Maybe?
On the other hand, Hawks seems to help people absentmindedly with his bundles of feather that he can seemingly control at will. And people love him for it. When they get some privacy, Hawks reminds Endeavor of the Nomu’s that All For One created and how they’ve started popping up again.
Endeavor it annoyed that Hawks seems to be throwing work in his direction rather than looking into it himself, while Hawks himself states he wants Endeavor to become a more reliable number one hero and is merely throwing him a bone. It’s really hard to tell if Hawks really wants what’s best for Japan, or if he’s just fobbing work off onto another hero because he’s lazy. In all honestly, I think it’s a bit of both.
Then a Nomu shows up.
It’s weird, despite all this talk about Endeavor being unable to match up against All Might, seeing him squaring off against this Nomu, I have faith in his ability to defeat this foe. The guy might be an asshole, but when it comes to his combat ability, I have similar faith in him as I did All Might to deal with the problem.
I love a good redemption story, and this slow turnaround for Endeavor has come as a surprise to me during this season of My Hero. I’m sure no amount of about facing will make up for the horrible things Endeavor has done to his own family leading up to now, but I’d love to see his continued attempts to change himself slowly throughout the story going forward.
Next week is the last episode of the season, I think, and I feel like the final chunk of the season has been much stronger showing than the first half for me. I might write a series review after it’s all done, so I won’t go any deeper and let this review just stew until next week when season 4 comes to a close.
A Richard Wood Text Adventure 