Episodes 13 and 14 find that perfect line of a triumphant ending and crushing defeat. A thin line between shining hope and crushing despair. The mission is done, Eri is saved. At what price though?
Episode 13 focuses very much on this focal point of hope, as Eiri, seeing Mirio’s cape gets the confidence she needs to disobey Overhaul and struggle from his grip. The most impressive this about this episode though is learning the truth of her quirk and of the bullets that Overhaul made from her blood and cells. It doesn’t just erase quirks, because her quirk is not an erasure quirk. It’s a time-related quirk, that reverts the cells in the human body back to a time before quirk’s manifested in humans.
Eri’s quirk rewind is such an interesting concept.
Horrifying because she can’t control it and people have been erased from existence as a result of her quirk. Still neat, it’s noted in episode 14 by Aizawa that it only seems to work on people as well which will make teaching her how to control it difficult and dangerous.
Still, it’s vital in the fight against Overhaul, as she uses her quirk, Izuku releases the 100% power of One for All by rewinding all of the injuries before he can feel them. This honestly is a pretty cool concept and gives us a good idea of what kind of Power that Izuku will have by the end of the series.
The fight against Overhaul is on par with most of the other fights in this series. I can see why they might have had to save on the budget with the Mirio fight to bring us to the Izuku fight. I see a lot of people comparing the full-powered Izuku to a DBZ fight and I can see it in only the loosest sense. The vague green aura around him in the powered-up form is really the only comparison I could draw between the two. I mean, if you see it?
That’s cool, but I don’t.
The emotional hits of this episode come from Nighteye and Overhaul himself.
Nighteye sees that the future can in fact be changed, he saw it happen right in front of his own eyes. A future where Overhaul is defeated, Eri is saved and Izuku and Mirio live. It’s wonderful for him to see and realize that because it puts away the fear that his quirk can dictate what happens to someone in their future.
Overhauls’ emotional beats come from his backstory and the root of his goals that may have started out noble but twisted as time went on. In the end, he wanted to bring the Yakuza back to power. He wanted to do it for the man who adopted him, for the man who gave him a home.
However, he could not do it with honor and he could not uphold the code that the Yakuza lived by. In the end, he failed to bring them back to power and even if he had. There is no way it ever would have made his adoptive father happy.
He was so misguided that it’s a little sad. Not sad enough to draw empathy for the things he did or make me less thrilled when Shigaraki comes and absolutely destroys him in episode 14, but a little empathy is better then none I suppose.
The first part of episode 14? I adored, I loved the interaction of the League of Villains with Overhaul. Shigaraki had some amazing moments as he came back to the Shogi metaphor [which he still doesn’t really understand or care about] and speaks for me and half of the people I knew watching the series when he questioned why someone who hated quirks and was so obsessed with getting rid of them like Overhaul should have a quirk of his own.
This moment really let Shigaraki shine and I appreciated it deeply.
Then the second half happened, to paraphrase Bojack Horseman. “Sir Nighteye is Dead, and everything is worse now.” I haven’t felt emotionally alright since I finished the episode. I was crying my eyes out as the scene played out, at least, he died knowing that his quirk had not doomed his hero and his friend to death. At least he died with a smile, knowing that his pupil was safe and that the future he saw in which they all died was not the one that came to pass.
The power of thought, the power of will and the hard work that everyone put in to make that future came together to create a shining future beyond what his quirk could see.
I feel like, a lot of people’s mileage may vary with Nighteye. I saw a lot of people emotionally detached from the character death because it was too soon after his introduction. On the other hand, I found his fears and ideals something I could relate too in a way and his journey connected with me. The image of him dying there with the people who cared about him the most at his side, finally seeing and reconnecting with All Might was enough to bring me to tears and that’s before I give any credit to the voice actors for their amazing jobs.
The way the episode was framed, working the title of the episode into the last line of the episode and cutting to the credits after seeing the smile on Nighteye’s face was so heartbreaking.
I’ve been told the next arc is a light one, which is something I’m really going to need. We have hit a festival arc, a little downtime will be good after the last few episodes and after 14 in particular. Now excuse me, i need to go find some tissues and eat enough sugar to bring my mood back up.