My Review Academia S5 E21: Become What I Love

Sorry I’m a day late on this one. I had just gotten back from camping yesterday and I forgot that a new episode had come out.

The battle between the League of Villains and the Metahuman Liberation Army begins. However, the odds immediately begin to tip away from our villains, as the new villains have an entire town to fight for them! When everyone ends up separated, each member of the League must fight for themselves to survive. Will they crack and shatter? Or will they go further beyond?

This episode starts off with a brief explanation of the MLA and their history. It’s not an especially memorable or important scene. It’s just a bit of history, which is acceptable, given that it’s giving us some new information. But why is Deku narrating it? Let Shigurake do it! This is the My Villain Academia arc, go all-in on it!

Not far into the episode, the battle itself begins. Unfortunately, it’s off to a rocky start. The animation in the opening explosion of the battle consists of rough and awkward motions or just colored manga panels.

Luckily, when the focus of the episode shifts over to Toga, it improves dramatically.

Which brings us to the highlight of the episode: Toga’s battle. The fight itself is very short; most of it is just Toga being bullied by a reporter with explosive powers, which is still cool. What makes it stand out is the reveal of her backstory and the final exchange. Watching Toga’s power evolve so that she can copy Quirks, then using Uraraka’s face and power to slaughter dozens of people is a genuinely horrifying image. Plus, the animation quality skyrockets. It’s a strong fight, I just wish it weren’t paced so quickly.

Also, her backstory is among the most horrifying in the entire series. Like, it is some freaky fucking shit, dude.

While Toga gets most of the focus, the rest of the League gets some time in the spotlight as well. Shigurake gets some more pieces of his own backstory as his power evolves, Dabi gets into a fight against an ice user, and Twice starts having a mental breakdown, which will be the central focus of the next episode. These are more promises for future episodes, not meant to satisfy our pallets just yet. But if they’re all as decent as Toga’s, it will be worth the wait.

Overall, this was a decent episode. The animation was very up and down, but it was mostly on the up side, and the narrative elements were strong, if rushed. I do think it was enjoyable. I just wish it had more time to explore the stuff they keep throwing at us.