My Hero Academia Episode 71

My Hero Academia Episode 71

Suneater of the Big Three

It’s episodes like this that remind me why My Hero Academia simply isn’t as good as other battle shounen series like Naruto. This was Suneater’s big fight, and yet the fight itself wasn’t all that interesting to watch. It revealed some cool ways to use quirks, but the fight itself was pretty lackluster.

Even though I find some quirks to be visually stupid, such as Fat Gum’s, the variety of abilities in this series should mean that the fights are great. But the lack of choreography within those fights is why they don’t stand out very much.

For example, look at the “best” fight in My Hero Academia, All Might vs. All-for-One, and compare it to any of the top-tier fights from Naruto: Shippūden. What makes Naruto fights so good is how they seamlessly merge the abilities of the characters and the choreography of the fight.

My Hero Academia simply doesn’t do that. It’s all about showing off a character’s quirk in one, short burst.

It doesn’t really matter how cool and interesting character’s quirks are if we never actually get to see them in a real fight. Like, I’m sure Bubble Girl’s quirk is actually pretty crazy, but we’re probably not ever going to see her use it in a real, drawn out fight. Instead, we just got to see her blind someone with a soap bubble.

But hey, at least Kirishima (Red Riot) seems to be getting a lot of attention during this arc. I still don’t think we’ll get a well choreographed fight with him, but I do like seeing how he uses his quirk and hope to see more of him in the future (like next episode).

Larceny, Crystallize, and Food

Aside from Bubble Girl’s brief use of her quirk, the only new quirks we get to see are of three members of the Eight Bullets. These are Toya Setsuno (Larceny), Yu Hojo (Crystallize), and Soramitsu Tabe (Food). These three also work fairly well together, despite their quirks not exactly aligning.

Toya Setsuno (Larceny), Yu Hojo (Crystallize), and Soramitsu Tabe (Food) from the anime series My Hero Academia season 4
Toya Setsuno (Larceny), Yu Hojo (Crystallize), and Soramitsu Tabe (Food)

Setsuno’s Larceny is arguably the most dangerous of these three quirks despite it not being able to deal any damage on its own. It works exactly like Kazuma’s steal ability from KonoSuba. He can steal anything his opponent is holding by having it teleport into his own hand — guns, knives, even certain quirks.

Hojo’s Crystallize is a different take on a crystal ability than Diamond Jozu’s Sparkle-Sparkle Fruit from One Piece. While Hojo’s crystals can definitely be used for defense — as we see Suneater do — he mainly uses them for offense. He generally seems to use it to harden and sharpen his fists.

And then we have Tabe’s Food — which is a terrible name for a quirk. Why not name it something like “Ravenous” instead? It’s not like he can turn into or create food. He can simply eat anything. And while it’s stated that he’s the perfect counter to Suneater’s quirk, that’s not entirely true. His quirk is powerful in its own way, but it’s no better against Suneater than it is against someone like Deku.

He could just eat both of them.

It’s for this reason that I mentioned these quirks aren’t exactly aligned. Yes, they can be used together, but they don’t need to be. It’s not like Setsuno needs to steal the defenses from his opponent before Tabe can eat them.

Vast Hybrid: Chimera Kraken

The highlight of episode 71 was obviously Suneater using his quirk to its full extent — or at least I assume this is his maximum power for now. Of course, he’s still in school, so in the future his quirk will likely become even more powerful as he uses it more.

We already knew what Suneater’s quirk was, but until now his use of it seemed fairly limited. He could manifest parts of whatever he ate on his body. That can definitely be a powerful quirk, but his Vast Hybrid special move takes it to the next level, with this he can combine the things he ate.

So for his Chimera Kraken version of Vast Hybrid, he combines the hard shell of a crab with the dexterous tentacles of an octopus. It would have been cool to see him incorporate Hojo’s crystals into this as well, but unfortunately we didn’t get to see a crystal chimera kraken.

Suneater using his Vast Hybrid: Chimera Kraken ability from the anime series My Hero Academia season 4
Suneater using his Vast Hybrid: Chimera Kraken ability

However, the fact that we know Suneater can combine things he eats makes future battles with him all the more interesting. Remember how before the raid Fat Gum gave him swordfish to eat? We haven’t seen him incorporate swordfish into his body yet, so what will that be like when he does?

I assumed he would simply use it as a sword, but maybe he’ll combine it with Hojo’s crystals to strengthen it. Or maybe he’ll combine it with something else he ate that we haven’t seen yet.

Also, if he can eat Hojo’s crystals and use them, what other quirks does this work with? Could he eat one of Bubble Girl’s bubbles and then use them? What about non-tangible quirks? Could he eat a strand of Mirio’s hair and use his ability too?

Conclusion

What are your thoughts on My Hero Academia episode 71? Do you think Bubble Girl will ever get a time to shine? Which of the three enemy quirks do you think is the most powerful? And, what two things would you like to see Suneater combine with his quirk? Let me know in the comments.

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My review of the next episode is available here.

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