My Hero Academia Episode 109

My Hero Academia Episode 109

Meta Ability: Landmine

My Hero Academia Season 5 Episode 109 was pretty good, especially compared to the majority of the 5th Season. But, that’s not to say it didn’t have its issues. For example, did you notice that Himiko’s birthday was stated at 9:19, and then the midroll card at 10:59 said her birthday is unknown?

At first, I considered that the midroll cards only include information known to the Hero’s Association. Just because investigative journalist Chitose Kizuki knows Himiko’s birthday doesn’t mean the heroes do. But, that doesn’t really make sense when you consider that her past isn’t a mystery. Her birthday is easily accessible information.

I think whoever’s in charge of adding those midroll cards to the anime just didn’t update it. They’ve probably been using that same card for Himiko since her introduction.

Chitose Kizuki (Curious) from the anime series My Hero Academia Season 5
Chitose Kizuki (Curious)

I’ll come back to Himiko in just a moment, but first let me complain about Chitose Kizuki, also known as Curious. She can just turn anything into a landmine, I guess? There’s not a good explanation of how this works. Did she set all those mines up beforehand and nobody managed to touch them?

Also, when you consider that she literally turns her subordinates into suicide bombers, the Liberation Army is kind of worse than the League of Villains. Sure, the League of Villains want destruction, but they’re not using suicide bombers. The Liberation Army is effectively a fanatical religious terrorist cell.

And, one other thing about Chitose: Why does she have blue skin, purple hair, and black and green eyes? Normally, character designs have at least something to do with their quirk. But I don’t see any connection between her appearance and quirk.

I guess it doesn’t matter, though, because she’s dead now anyway.

Himiko’s Normal Life

One of the reasons I liked this episode was that we got some background on Himiko. We already knew that she was obsessed with Stain and that she’s currently obsessed with Deku. But we didn’t know anything about her life before that, such as why she became a villain in the first place.

And, no, she didn’t become a villain to follow in Stain’s footsteps. She joined the League of Villains to do that. But she was already considered a villain, or criminal, before then. I guess you’re not a villain until you join an organization. Before that, you’re just a criminal.

So, what went wrong in Himiko’s past that caused her to turn out this way? It primarily has to do with the nature of her quirk — which could also point to why Stain turned out the way he did as well. Both of them have very similar quirks.

Himiko defeated by Curious from the anime series My Hero Academia Season 5
Himiko defeated by Curious

Because Himiko’s quirk has to do with blood, she became interested in it. Over time, she began to associate the things she liked with their blood. So if she thinks a bird is cute, she has an urge to taste its blood — and the same goes for people.

It wasn’t stated that she had a crush on the classmate she killed, but we can assume that was the case based on what we know about her in the present and what we were told about her past. She killed the boy she liked so that she could drink his blood.

As for why Himiko doesn’t join the Liberation Army, she likes their end goal, but she doesn’t like how they treat her. It’s as simple as that. The fact that they refer to her as unfortunate and insane just proves that they don’t view her use of her quirk as normal, even if they would allow it.

Upgraded Quirks

The best part of the episode came when Himiko and Shigaraki upgraded their quirks. We’ve known that you can improve your quirk through training. But I think this might be the first time we’ve seen that quirks can awaken new abilities through use.

For example, we previously could assume that Himiko could train with her quirk so that her transformations last longer. But what we saw this week is that Himiko’s transformation quirk can now replicate the quirks of those she transforms into.

She was able to escape and defeat the Liberation Army operatives who were after her specifically because she used Ochako’s quirk after transforming into her. If she hadn’t been able to do this, she would have died. So perhaps it’s less about training and more about being in a life or death situation that causes a quirk to upgrade.

Himiko using Ochako's quirk from the anime series My Hero Academia Season 5
Himiko using Ochako’s quirk

Something else we saw in relation to these quirk upgrades is that both Himiko and Shigaraki seemed to naturally know how to use their upgraded quirks. In Himiko’s case specifically, she used Ochako’s quirk as if it was natural and didn’t realize what she’d done until after the fact.

I’m guessing we’re about to see all, or most, of the League of Villains members have their quirks upgraded to make them more of actual threats. So far, I think Himiko’s quirk is a huge upgrade and I can’t wait to see how she uses it in the future.

Also, remember how Deku had that scare when Monoma copied his quirk because it could kill him? Well, won’t Himiko want to copy Deku’s quirk too? And since I don’t think her copying is the same as Monoma’s, she might actually succeed in using it. That would be a fitting way for Himiko to die.

Conclusion

What do you think of My Hero Academia Season 5 Episode 109? Was there any reason for Chitose to be blue? Does Himiko’s backstory change your opinion of her? And, what’s a quirk upgrade you think would be cool to see in the future? Let me know in the comments.

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My review of Episode 110 is available now.

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