My Hero Academia FINAL SEASON

Episode 169

There's always going to be a multitude of different opinions after a tragic event happens. Doesn't matter where you live or how old you are, there's always going to be people looking for someone to blame and there's always going to be people asking “why?” Showcasing the various different opinions from the citizens of Japan while Spinner emotionally breaks down in front of Deku is a perfect reflection of the different feelings people are walking away from this situation with. Nowhere will you find a greater dichotomy. The citizens of Japan are rightfully pissed off. Some of them lost their homes and important people in their lives, some people can never go back to the way things were before. Maybe some people empathize with Shigaraki now that more of his backstory is getting revealed to the public but others will never stop seeing him as more than just a punk throwing a tantrum that was originally underestimated. Regardless of what you might think about Shigaraki and the League, the important thing is that he is being remembered.

It's hard to say if Shigaraki knew Spinner would be one of the only people left alive after everything that had happened or if his message really was always intended for him regardless. I lean more towards the latter because from the little bit that I saw, Spinner and Shigaraki were more friends compared to the rest of the League who all had their own agendas. To Spinner, Shigaraki was a friend who he shared a dream with. Doesn't matter if one group of people were heroes or other group villains, at the end of the day they wanted the same thing, a better life for themselves and people like them. The irony is that there are some people who will never stop seeing the League as just a bunch of villains just like how Spinner will never see Deku as anything less than a murderer, which he beautifully never denies. History and the way that things play out are always malleable, but I think Spinner is wrong when he says that people will eventually forget how things were. They can't, even if they're not remembered the way that he wants them to but that's better than being forgotten.

I like how that desire to be remembered brings My Hero Academia's comic book inspirations full circle in the form of Spinner wanting to write a story of Shigaraki and Daku suggesting that it should be written in the form of a comic book. There are so many layers to that narratively and in a meta sense. We do live in an overly saturated comic book media landscape but the origins of comics have always been about inspiring people, telling fictionalized stories based on the real tragic events that happened in our everyday lives. I mean, that's how Superman was written. Yes, All For One was also inspired by comic books to become the demon king, and there is a good chance that those very same comics could inspire another Shigaraki, but comic books also inspired the very idea of heroes and villains in the first place. If it wasn't for comic books, we wouldn't have the story that we have today. I like that My Hero Academia leaves things open in a way that leans towards hope but ultimately leaves it up to individual people to make their own interpretations about what they take away from the media, whether it's the characters or the people reading this story.

I like how it's implied Deku resolved himself to the fact that he might've had to kill Shigaraki, even if his ultimate goal was to save him. But the same couldn't be said for Uraraka. Everybody is angry, scared, or lost in the wake of destruction, but Deku and Uraraka feel guilty. They want to just look forward and focus on the positives like how they had throughout most of the series, but they just can't anymore because they'll forever have to live with the reality that there was a chance things could have turned out differently. If Uraraka had just realized what Toga was saying or was seeking earlier than yeah, there is a very good possibility that she could still be alive. Maybe Toga would've had an opportunity to tell her story or be remembered by more people because remember, their final battle was one of the few that didn't get broadcasted everybody. Unlike Spinner and Dabi whose stories will continue to be shared, Uraraka is the only one that has to carry on Toga's story.

I love the fact that the show kind of explicitly says that despite all the reconstruction, and despite all of the support, this was ultimately a failure. Deku and Uraraka are trying and assuring each other BECAUSE this was a failure. The villains were defeated, but it wasn't about defeating them, it was about trying to save them and barely anybody was actually saved. Everybody else is so detached from the villains and what made them who they were, but Deku and a good chunk of Class A have to carry on the guilt of that intimate knowledge, the guilt of knowing that things could've been better if things were different. However, just because they failed today doesn't mean that they'll fail next time. Our heroes hug each other as they lament their failure and all we can do is make strides to create a future where such a tragedy never happens again.

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My Hero Academia FINAL SEASON is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.