My Hero Academia Episode 112

Shigaraki vs. Re-Destro

My Hero Academia Season 5 Episode 112 is the last good episode of the season. For the season finale, we’re going back to UA, which means I’m suddenly going to care a lot less.

Anyway, this week we got the final part of the battle between Shigaraki and Re-Destro, with Shigaraki coming out on top. This was pretty expected based on how the Meta Liberation Army was introduced and how the League of Villains members were getting powerups within the arc.

The League of Villains (now known as the Paranormal Liberation Front) is the primary antagonist group of the series. So any time another antagonist group is introduced, you can be pretty certain that they’re only going to last for one arc. They’re arc antagonists, not the series antagonists.

During this fight, we see Shigaraki destroy the entire city — or at least a very large portion of it. This was the scene we got early on in the season. I believe it was shown at the very beginning, before the exhibition match arc with Class 1-B. But, maybe it was just shown before the Endeavor arc.

Either way, we now know that this destruction wasn’t caused by some new quirk that was implanted into Shigaraki by the doctor after his fight with Gigantomachia. This destruction was caused by the evolution of Shigaraki’s own quirk.

And, that brings into question what sort of power the doctor is going to give to Shigaraki. In my mind, this quirk evolution is enough for now; he’s much stronger than he was. Implanting a new quirk, perhaps even All-for-One, into Shigaraki seems like overkill at this point.

But, since he’s officially the successor to All-for-One, I think that’s where we’re heading.

Shigaraki’s Liberation

Much to my surprise, Shigaraki didn’t kill Re-Destro at the end of their fight. Considering Shigaraki’s flashback made it clear that he has an urge to kill anyone who slights him in any way, I figured that causing this whole war between their two groups would have been more than enough for Re-Destro to be killed.

But, as we’ve seen multiple times before, Shigaraki actually cares a lot about the wants and needs of his allies. After Shigaraki denied Overhaul’s invitation to join the Yakuza, Mr. Compress lamented that they could have been living well rather than struggling to survive.

So, rather than killing Re-Destro and making enemies out of the rest of the Liberation Army, Shigaraki opts to take him up on his offer. This doesn’t really benefit Shigaraki in any way since he has no real goals at this point. But, it does allow him to treat his allies.

As for why Re-Destro offers to have the Liberation Army follow Shigaraki, it all comes down to how Shigaraki used his quirk during their battle. Shigaraki was able to use the full extent of his quirk because he was liberated from everything holding him back.

In that moment, he no longer cared about winning the fight against Re-Destro, proving himself as All-for-One’s successor, or anything else. Instead, he was purely acting on his desire to use his quirk to cause as much destruction as possible.

And, although it’s a bit extreme and the original Destro probably wouldn’t have agreed with it, this is the ultimate form of liberation that the Meta Liberation Army is striving for. Shigaraki simply used his quirk to do whatever he wanted without considering anyone else.

At the end of the day, that’s what the Meta Liberation Army is all about.

The Paranormal Liberation Front

Once the League of Villains and the Meta Liberation Army are merged, they decide to go by a new name: The Paranormal Liberation Front. Honestly, I see this as a downgrade. It’s worse than either of the previous names — primarily due to its use of “paranormal.”

I know that paranormal technically makes sense within this context since quirks are just paranormal abilities. But when I hear paranormal, I just think of things like ghosts, and in the context of anime, Reigen from Mob Psycho 100.

Don’t get me wrong, Reigen is great. He’s one of the best characters in that show, if not the best character. However, I can’t say that Reigen is all that intimidating. So if the name of your villain organization makes me think of Reigen, I don’t think it’s a very effective name.

The other issue I have with the Paranormal Liberation Front is that I’m not sure if it’s really going to be any different from the League of Villains. The thousands of members probably aren’t going to ever actually matter. And the important Liberation Army members probably aren’t going to be all that involved going forward.

Aside from Re-Destro, who now worships Shigaraki, none of the other Liberation Army leaders seem to like the League of Villains members. I don’t really see them assimilating into a cohesive group. And that means we’re probably just going to focus on the former League members.

I’d like for Trumpet to become one of the core members since I think his quirk can be used to make future battles more interesting. But I fear that we’re just going to have the same core group as we’ve always had, just with a worse name from here on out.

Conclusion

What do you think of My Hero Academia Season 5 Episode 112? Do you like that the League of Villains and Meta Liberation Army have fused? And which League of Villains member who didn’t get a quirk upgrade would you have liked to see get one? Let me know in the comments.

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My review of Episode 113 is available now.