English Dub Review: My Hero Academia “Deku vs. Kacchan, Part 2”

This is the big one.

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Bakugou has summoned Midoriya to the Beta testing ground to at long last put their rivalry to rest. He demands satisfaction; a duel to prove who really is the strongest among them. No restrictions, no rules.

Midoriya protests, but Bakugou, consumed, don’t care. He fires off explosion after explosion at Midoriya, who focuses on dodging. Bakugou, trying to pummel the young Midoriya, reflects on his past, and how since he got accepted into UA he’s been constantly falling behind Midoriya. His anger reaches a fever pitch until he demands with tears in his eyes that Midoriya fight back.

Midoriya senses how important this is for Bakugou, and resolves to take the fight seriously. The two go blow for blow, Bakugou screaming his head off at Midoriya for looking down on him, while Midoriya slowly builds up his own anger to match Bakugou’s fury.

The battle is close, with both of them in the top form, but in a final climactic explosion, Bakugou pins Midoriya to the ground with a downward aerial blast. The fight is won, and Bakugou is the victor.

Just in time to see their battle finish, All Might, mired in his own shame, tries to comfort Bakugou and explain why he choose to pass on his power to Midoriya. The three of them talk, and listen, and share their ambitions, and with their anger depleted, the right between Midoriya and Bakugou begins to heal. Bakugou agrees to keep Midoriya’s secret to himself if only to keep the peace in the world, and the two of them agree to live as rivals. True rivals, equal in ambition, seeking to best each other however they can.

Of course, this doesn’t make Aizawa any less furious at the two of them for getting into a fight after hours. Despite All Might’s attempts to calm Aizawa’s righteous fury, the two are placed on house arrest for three days, forced to clean the entire dorms from top to bottom.

Our Take:

When watching My Hero Academia, critiquing each of the episodes is not so much determining whether each episode is “Good” or “Bad.” Rather, the judgment of an episode is a battle of inches, comparing what factors and details make this episode more exceptional than another. But, occasionally, an episode comes along that knocks it right out of the park, with animation that explodes off the screen and story that soars above other episodes without reservation. This is one of those episodes.

Deku vs. Bakugou is a fight that’s been a long time in the making. 61 episodes in, and we’re only just now resolving the tension that’s been building, and building, and the building still, to reach this point where there’s nothing left for the two of them to do but duke it out and settle their score. Because of how long this fight has been built up to, their battle becomes that much more intense. Each kick, punch, and maneuver strikes the viewer as significant, with their power levels being so similar in intensity that it feels one solid hit could end the fight completely. Without a doubt, this is how a shounen fight should be done.

But it’s not enough to say that the episode is just a fun battle to watch because it elevates itself to so much more than that. This episode delivers perhaps the only moment of true weakness that Bakugou has ever shown thus far. As he confesses his feelings of remorse, his sense of failure, his belief that he was the one who ruined All Might, the one hero he looks up to above all else, it becomes clear that Bakugou carries a titanic burden just as Midoriya does. His voice cracks, his resolve breaks, and this once repulsive bully is revealed to have the heart of a hero, straining as any other under the weight of his pride. It’s enough to make a grown man cry, and in my case, it most certainly did.

Not every episode can be like this, of course. A climax of this magnitude can only come when all the pieces have been put into place; when the story has been aged and developed to the point the big finale can come into play. But these are the moments that anime fans live for. This is what makes a good anime into a great anime, and a great anime into a legend. Once again, My Hero Academia settles for nothing less than Plus Ultra.

Score
10/10