Why are the action-light episodes always the ones with the most impressive animation?
Backup arrives for both our heroes and villains as Gigantomachia finally reaches Shigurake. Upon emerging, Dabi has a shocking truth to reveal to both Endeavor and the rest of the world. Meanwhile, Uraraka confronts Himiko Toga.
Let’s address the elephant in the room: the Dabi reveal. The twist itself is incredibly underwhelming. Anyone whose been watching My Hero up to this point should’ve been able to see it coming from a mile away. It’s hardly shocking.
Does that make it a bad twist? Not necessarily. While it doesn’t stun the audience, it does have major ramifications for the characters and the world. The consequences of this reveal are set to be a major blow to a society that we’ve seen gradually falling apart over the course of the last few seasons. In that regard, the twist is a strong success!
I would get into why, but that would go into manga spoilers. So let’s talk about voice acting instead.
Hiro Shimino’s voice performance as Dabi really took the whole scene to the next level. He manages to capture pain, sorrow, delight, and pure insanity all at once in his lines. Man completely stole the show!
So much so that you might not even notice just how goofy it is that Dabi is literally dancing on Gigantomachia’s back.
Animation-wise, this episode was surprisingly strong. It was simple; there were only two action shots in the whole thing. But those action shots looked pretty damn good!
Plus, the animators took some really basic shots and made them visually interesting by adding little animation flares. Rather than simply staring at a still shot of a shocked endeavor, we get a slow rotation around the character, a difficult shot to pull of in 2D animation. Plus, all of Dabi’s dance moves are animated rather beautifully.
Even if, again, they are incredibly goofy.
Alright, it’s time to talk about the stuff that wasn’t so good. Because as good as the episode is as we’ve covered it so far, it’s still got some pretty major glaring issues. Namely in the B plot.
The biggest letdown of this episode is everything with Uraraka and Toga. This is the first time the two have gone toe-to-toe in ages, and their reunion has been built up pretty strongly throughout the seasons. And what we get basically plays out like this.
Toga: I like to kill people.
Uraraka: That’s bad!
Toga: I killed people with your Quirk once!
Uraraka: That’s bad!
Toga: Do you have a crush on Izuku?
Uraraka: Yes, but that’s not important.
Toga: I think it is.
Uraraka: I’m going to throw boxes at you now.
Toga: Okay, bye.
Tsu: I’m also here! Oh, it’s over. Nevermind.
Wow. Such a deep and interesting interaction between these two characters. Everything has changed between them!
The second biggest letdown is in this episode’s second main twist. That being that a character we thought was dead isn’t actually dead. Yay. Love it when stories do that.
Was his hero moment cool? That, I can’t deny. But he should’ve stayed dead.
As a whole, this was one of the stronger episodes this season. Its B plot was really weak, but the A plot was some of the best stuff this season! The animation, the writing, it all works to make one of the best scenes season six has to offer!
Even if, again, and I can’t emphasise this enough, Dabi actually dancing is just ridiculous.
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