Hawks isn’t wrong here – he’s doing what he has to do. There’s probably some genuine regret and affection in this for Hawks – he’s a good guy too, really – but mostly he’s doing it to try and assuage his own guilt over a great personal betrayal. Hawks tries to have it both ways here, to sweet talk Twice into giving himself up and promising to look out for him. One cannot imagine a crueler thing to do to Bubaigawara than what Hawks does to him – it basically reinforces every fear and every shred of despair he has about the world. But to succeed he has to win the trust and affection of a man even he admits is a “good person”, so he can betray him utterly. He got the bum end of the stick with this assignment generally speaking – incredibly difficult and dangerous one it is. He’s a man whose world was always being pulled out from under him, desperate for something or someone to anchor to. With Bubaigawara it’s about personal loyalty. And the fact is, he really has no aspirations towards any “noble” villain-ist causes at all. I’ve always found Twice’s insecurities and neuroses to be incredibly relatable. And I’ve loved Endou Daichi’s performance since the moment Bubaigawara showed up in the anime. Twice was a character I loved from the moment Horikoshi introduced him with that fantastic backstory sequence. The main hero (word choice not coincidental) of this episode however is undoubtedly Bubaigawara Jin. Given that, the decision to use a student on the front lines make sense, because there’s no one who could have blasted their way into the League’s inner sanctum the way Dark Shadow did. But for sheer, straight-on destructive force, it’s a weapon of mass destruction. It’s not as versatile as One For All (especially as Izuku masters more elements of it. Dark Shadow is truly a formidable quirk – it can credibly be argued the most formidable, and certainly in the top five or six – all the more so because he’s not fully in control of it. It’s always fascinating (and rare) to watch Tokoyomi at work in high-pressure situations. Heroes like Fatgum and Edgeshot are at the vanguard of this attack, which once more gives the appearance of having caught the villains completely off-guard. The action here is completely focused on the hideout villa (which means no Endeavor, either). After barely appearing last time the big three don’t show up at all this week, but they truly aren’t missed. One thing Horikoshi can do – as Togashi does in Hunter X Hunter – is carry a riveting narrative for extended stretches without his main characters. I think fans that still aren’t satisfied and probably never going to be at this point, with too much scar tissue from Season 5. Usually he does so by showing the dark side of the hero society, but in this arc it’s by strongly playing up the humanity of the villains. The way Horikoshi blurs the moral lines between the two sides has always been one of his great strengths. And most importantly the material itself is HeroAca at its most effective. While we can’t know the exact dynamic behind the scenes it feels like Nagasaki Kenji is back in the saddle – the visual style back to what it was in the first three seasons. For me, there’s no question at this point that Boku no Hero Academia is well and truly “back”.
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