My Hero Academia Season 7

Episode 159

Well, that season finale just sort of happened didn't it? I have a lot of praise for this final arc of My Hero, but when it comes to integrating all of these events into episode blocks, you do sort of feel the awkwardness of where everything takes place. Climaxes sometimes feel more satisfying when they're at the end of an episode, but there have been numerous instances where the end of someone's story happens in the middle of an episode and we're just supposed to carry on to the next thing after the commercial break is over. That's what happens here, with us getting the emotional follow-up to last week's climax between Toga and Uraraka. If I hadn't already cried my eyes out last week, I definitely would've continued to cry here because it's still really well done.

Dabi ends his story surviving, so I was a little shocked to see Toga end her story with her death because, unlike Dabi, it feels like she actually had a chance at a happy ending, even if that happy ending was just her being locked up and visited every day by Uraraka giving her blood. She would've needed to pay for her crimes, but I feel like she would've been happy knowing that there are now people out there who are actually willing to accept her without needing to be the monster that everyone thought she was. If anything, her story probably would've made a good case for reshaping the future of how we deal with children like her. But that's the tragedy of the whole situation, right? Not everyone is allowed to get a happy ending, even after they're seemingly redeemed.

I think Uraraka's powerlessness during the situation really solidifies that. She doesn't want Toga to sacrifice her life so that she can live, as it was arguably antithetical to why she pushed so hard to help Toga in the first place. But this is a fitting end for Toga. Toga's love language is consuming the blood of other people and the higher her affection, the more she craves blood or craves the desire to be that person. However, here she's making her first real act as a hero by giving someone else her blood. Not only that, but she is taking on the form of the one hero who managed to reach out to her, becoming that hero so that she could save her life. If she had the opportunity to be treated right at a younger age, maybe she would've also learned that giving blood could be just as romantic and intimate as taking it.

It really is interesting how this scene between these two teenage girls is handled with such quiet maturity, and yet the second half of the episode revolves around two men in their fifties yelling loudly while beating the shit out of each other in the middle of a city. Yes, I know that All For One is technically no longer fifty years old, as the rewind drug is causing him to regress in age the more damage he takes, but let's not pretend that this guy wasn't an incredibly petty man before he started being affected by all the teenage angst. I mentioned before that All For One is a man who is not used to having control taken away from him, and yet now he is willing to throw away his seemingly perfect plan just to wipe that smug smile off of All Might's face.

All Might's iron man suit is awesome and I like how it symbolically highlights what he told Deku at the beginning of the series. Originally All Might discouraged Deku from being a hero because he was quirkless. But now All Might is wearing armor that allows somebody without a quirk to fight on the same level as a major supervillain, and the fact that he names all of the attachments to the supporting armor after his students is the cherry on top. All Might is literally being supported and physically held together by the very students that he taught. The symbolism doesn't get more on the nose than that.

The question is, though, what will all of this amount to? Night Ey's prophecy could still technically happen given the circumstances, and while All For One is definitely more erratic than he was before, he is still in an overpowered state. All Might doesn't want to lose any fight that he gets into as he has some degree of pride, but he also knows that at best, he's only going to buy a few minutes. This might be the beginning of the end for All Might and it would be very interesting if we begin our final season with the true death of the symbol of peace. We've taken care of most of the side stories and almost everyone's arc has effectively wrapped up. The only thing left is the relationship between the master and student who jump-started this whole series. Can they survive these challenges against some of the most dangerous men on the planet and, arguably more important than that, what will happen afterward when the dust finally settles?

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