My Hero Academia Season 7

Episode 157

Repenting for past sins by sacrificing yourself is a pretty old and classic trope. My Hero has been setting that up as a potential outlet for Endeavor's character arc for a while, and I was never a big fan of that being a reality. Maybe it's because a lot of what Endeavor has done is surprisingly grounded, despite the superhero inspired setting? Considering how well done the framing of Endeavor's character has been, I had reason to hope that it would resolve in an equally grounded and complex way. I like how the episode sets up that self-sacrifice looks like it's going to be the answer, but then My Hero comes in and shows that resolving this story cannot and should not be as simple as that. This episode seems to mark the end of Dabi's story, and it's just as messy as I hoped it would be.

Turns out, Todoroki wasn't able to fully put Dabi down and now he's going for the nuclear option, which is fitting. Dabi has reached a point of self-destruction where he doesn't care who he takes out, he just wants his family to know that he's the one who does it. Dabi barely even sees himself as a person anymore, just an extension of the trauma and mistakes of Endeavor. The irony is that Endeavor wanted to be well-known as a great hero like All Might, while Dabi wants Endeavor to be remembered as the monster that he was. But that's how Dabi is on the surface, because when you literally strip away the shell of this man (or I guess burn away the shell to be more accurate), what you really have deep down is a lost child throwing a tantrum. Dabi is cool and dangerous, but he never really had a chance to mature or grow beyond the lost child that was abandoned in those mountains. There is a lot of truth to the fact that he wants to be noticed as Endeavor's greatest mistake, but he also wants to be noticed as that child who never had a chance to grow up with his family. The fact that his speech sort of regresses throughout the episode to that of a child yelling for his siblings is evidence of that.

So it makes sense that if there is gonna be any stopping Dabi, it has to be a family effort. While I do think the responsibility and blame is primarily on Endeavor's shoulders, I can see why the rest of the family feels a sense of guilt and responsibility for how Dabi turned out. They also felt his loss and felt the guilt of knowing that maybe there was a chance that they could've found him and prevented all of this. I wish the show spent a little bit more time going into how the rest of the Todoroki family feels personally responsible. We get so much of Endeavor's monologues about the situation that it would've been nice to get some internal monologues from everybody else. Definitely a missed opportunity, but I like the symbolism that it takes a whole family embracing Dabi to finally put him down. He arguably was defeated by exactly what he secretly wanted.

Shoutout to Iida coming in clutch at the end there to get Shoto to exactly where he needed to be. Again, I like how My Hero mixes the practical situations with the emotional payoffs. It makes sense that Iida would be one of the only people able to get Shoto to Dabi with his speed, but this helps round out Iida's character arc as well. Shoto was one of the people who stopped Iida from doing something dangerous in the name of revenge for his brother. Now Iida is returning the favor in helping Shoto stop his brother from getting revenge. The fact that Stain was watching over them before they took off was a nice touch.

I think the final results invoke the emotions that I think Horikoshi wanted with this setup. I feel bad for Dabi because at the end of the day, he was just lost both practically and emotionally. Also, while I don't like Endeavor as a person by any means, that scene where he crawls up to Dabi and says that he'll listen to all of his cursing and hatred made me feel for the character the most that I ever have in this entire series. I chalk that up to the voice actor putting on a spectacular performance. But now it looks like we finally have one plot there resolved; next week let's see if we can wrap up another.

Rating: