My Hero Academia Season 6

Episode 122

This week, there's a pretty poignant bit of dialogue from Mineta of all goddamn characters. That little purple slimeball has never exactly been a beloved part of the cast, because even if you didn't hate his out-of-date wacky pervert shtick, he's always been the most cynical and cowardly of the kids. But at this moment, his quaking anxiety feels pretty warranted. This long battle has been tumbling downhill for weeks for our heroes, and the ending may see our protagonists careening off a cliff with no chance of recovery.

First and most horrifically, there's Gigantomachia, who, despite getting a sampling of Yaoyorozu's Patented Night Time Sleeping Formula, managed to completely break through an army of superheroes, leaving a wake of bodies behind him and promising untold annihilation of anything standing between him and Shigaraki. It's by far the biggest failure of the good guys in this whole show, and despite not getting a ton of focus this episode, hearing the news rattle off well over a dozen cities sitting in his path was chilling. This fight can no longer be contained, and countless innocent lives will be snuffed out as a consequence. I said before that letting the kids get involved represented a failure on the Pros' part, but that pales in comparison to this. Gran Torino said it himself – if the heroes cannot protect people here, what was the point of this superhero-centered world they've constructed? There's an inevitable reckoning with how MHA's society works coming now, and even if the remaining fighters can eke out a W in the end, it feels like there's no coming back from this.

That's a mighty big “if,” too, considering Shigaraki eliminated the source of his biggest debuff. Though Aizawa at least gets a hell of an exit, not only cutting off his own leg to escape the effects of the Quirk DELETER but quite literally staring death in the face as it tries to claw his face off. The man went down fighting, and his students kept him from being killed, but with Erasure out of the way, there's nobody left standing that can stop Shigaraki from single-handedly wiping out the rest of the opposition. Though I suppose Deku isn't “standing” anymore. He's floating.

I'll admit, it's a convenient time for Deku to activate another of his dormant OFA powers, but it's hard to get too upset with that when it arrives at just the right moment to keep hope alive. As Shigaraki is about to finally enact his grand destruction, what better power to thwart him than that of his grandmother, the woman who inspired him to become a hero as a kid before tragedy tore that all to shreds? Besides, this sudden power-up doesn't suddenly turn the tides – it keeps the world's chances of survival hanging by an ever-winnowing thread. Deku has always been willing to sacrifice everything for others – we've seen it countless times – yet for quite a while, he's been capable of winning without turning his body into an unsettling purple mess. But that's no longer an option, and a non-stop, all-out assault is the only stalling tactic left in his arsenal. It's both badass and tragic, watching the boy whale on the big bad with everything he's got left and knowing that “what he's got left” is a critically finite resource.

And finally, there's Bakugo. I've made it no secret that I think Explodo McAngryface is the best character in MHA, because he is. Through this show, we've seen Bakugo grow from a relentless bully to a blowhard rival to something possibly resembling a decent human, incrementally developing as a person to mirror Deku's ever-evolving ability as a fighter. He's gone from a loathsome monster who'd casually tell Deku to jump off a roof to somebody actually capable of caring about other people – even if he keeps insisting he doesn't. Now, in this crucial moment, watching the kid he once bullied throw himself into the gaping maw of destruction, he acts in a way nobody would have predicted when we first met him. With everything on the line, he doesn't act in the name of victory or ego. It's an instinctive, instant act of self-sacrifice, putting someone else's life before his own. This is where Katsuki Bakugo becomes a hero.

It's a hell of a cliffhanger to leave off on, and it has to signal we're reaching the climax of this battle. After last week's frustrating moves, this episode positively sings, centering life or death action and the story's longest-running character drama in pitch-perfect sync.

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My Hero Academia is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.