My Hero Academia Episode 69

An Unpleasant Talk

My Hero Academia episode 69 (season 4 episode 6) threw a lot of information at us. That was basically the entire episode. Sometimes this is good, and sometimes it’s bad. Information dumps are pretty tricky to do right, and some people would say they should never be done at all.

I’m not one of those people, but I do think that information dumps need to be done in a way that doesn’t break the immersion of the story. With that in mind, I’d say this one was pretty good.

We were told a lot of information, but it was done in a way that was informing other characters as well, not just the viewers. Too many times information is shoved at the viewers without considering the fact that all the characters already know it. That’s an example of a bad information dump.

However, there still was one problem with the information we were given in this episode, and that’s the fact that we kind of already knew a lot of it. It wasn’t necessarily redundant information, but it had already been heavily implied.

I had already mentioned that Eri’s blood is used to make quirk-affecting drugs after episode 66. So for this information to be confirmed now is a bit late. Rather than telling us this was the case, since it was already implied, it would have been better to show us a confirmation of this.

But, there still was some new information, such as how exactly Overhaul’s quirk works. The only problem with that is that we don’t know how the heroes figured it out. Last we knew, the heroes had no idea what his quirk was, which made him all the more dangerous.

Overhaul

I previously speculated that Overhaul’s quirk rapidly sped up, or overhauled, the atoms/molecules/cells/etc. of whatever he touched. This would explain how he’s able to make humans explode just by touching them. He would increase their cell division so much that their body would rupture.

However, his quirk doesn’t actually work like that, which is nice because that would have been fairly similar to Tomura’s quirk. Instead, Overhaul’s quirk works much more like Crazy Diamond’s ability from JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure Part 4: Diamond is Unbreakable.

He’s able to disassemble and reassemble anything he touches. And we can assume that the reassembling part doesn’t necessarily mean he’s reassembling what was disassembled in the same way. For example, he could disassemble a table and reassemble it into a chair as long as it used the same materials.

So when he makes humans explode, he’s only taking advantage of the disassemble half of his quirk. This does make me wonder, though, whether a reassembled human would come back to life. I’d imagine the answer is no, but maybe we’ll see this happen later on.

However, what really makes Overhaul’s quirk interesting are the variable ways he uses it. Sure, he can use it offensively to kill his enemies, but that doesn’t seem to be his main use for it. Rather, he mostly appears to use his quirk as if he were a chemist. He breaks down molecules and reassembles them to form new compounds with different properties.

This is exactly how he creates the quirk-affecting drugs out of Eri’s blood. If it was as simple as extracting her blood and then injecting it as is, his quirk wouldn’t be as important. So he must be altering the composition of her blood in some way.

Eri’s Blood

Here’s where the more speculative content comes in. We still don’t actually know what Eri’s quirk is or how it works, but we do know it’s connected to the drugs Overhaul is manufacturing. So let’s discuss some more possible forms her quirk could take.

First, it’s very possible that her quirk is restricted to her blood. This would mean that it has no real effect on Eri herself. You could think of her quirk as being like Karin’s ability from Naruto: Shippūden. Karin’s blood has restorative properties which heals anyone who drinks it.

Eri’s ability could work in this same way, but her blood would power up the quirks of anyone who injects it. This would then mean that only the quirk suppression drug is the result of Overhaul using his quirk on Eri’s blood. And this would explain why we haven’t yet seen Eri use her quirk.

But there is precedent for her using a quirk of some sort, which throws the above speculation into question. If she doesn’t have a quirk that she can actively use, then how did she escape from Shie Hasakai in the first place? It should have been impossible.

So this leads me to believe that my initial prediction isn’t quite right. Eri is likely able to manifest her quirk in some way, but she simply doesn’t because she’s too afraid of Overhaul. After all, even if her quirk is extremely overpowered, she’s still just a kid who gets scared.

And if I had to venture a guess as to what her quirk is, I’d say it turns Eri into some kind of berserker. This fits her demon appearance, explains how she escaped, and it explains why her blood powers up other quirks.

Conclusion

Did you think episode 69 of My Hero Academia did a good job with its information dump? I know it wasn’t the most exciting episode, but I wouldn’t call it a bad one. Also, what are some ways you’d like to see Overhaul use his quirk? And what do you think Eri’s quirk really is? Let me know in the comments.

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My review of the next episode is available here.