My Hero Academia Episode 72

My Hero Academia Episode 72

Red Riot

This arc of My Hero Academia is actually starting to get good now that we’re getting to see more of the side characters in action. Deku isn’t exactly the most exciting character around — in fact, he’s one of my least favorite. But there are all these side characters with interesting quirks who we’ve largely ignored up to this point.

Last episode we got to see Suneater in action, and this episode was all about Red Riot and Fat Gum. At the very beginning of the episode, however, I thought we were going to get some more Suneater content. After all, he never used the swordfish Fat Gum gave to him.

Unfortunately, I’m not sure if we’ll ever get to see him use that. From what we saw at the beginning of this episode, he seems like he’s out for the rest of the raid. But either way, I’m not too mad about that because this episode was good even without Suneater being a part of it.

Red Riot from the anime series My Hero Academia season 4
Red Riot

Red Riot and Fat Gum go up against two members of Shie Hassaikai who specialize in offense and defense. One of them has a quirk which allows him to punch things really hard, and the other has a near impenetrable barrier. A spear and a shield, as one of them refers to the pair.

And since Red Riot and Fat Gum are both “shields,” they don’t really stand a chance. Even when the barrier quirk isn’t being used, the punching quirk is strong enough to whittle away the heroes’ defenses.

In theory this would set up a pretty boring fight, but it gets turned around. Rather than focusing on the fight, we get to focus on Red Riot’s backstory — and see Fat Gum’s secret weapon.

Crimson Riot

When Kirishima was younger, he hated his quirk because it didn’t seem very good. This is something that most heroes probably go through as children when they’re comparing their current strength to the pro heroes they see in the news. But, there was one hero who caught young Kirishima’s eye: Crimson Riot.

When Crimson Riot was first shown, I thought perhaps he was supposed to be Kirishima’s father. But apparently that isn’t the case. He was simply a pro hero who Kirishima looked up to because he had a similar quirk and seemingly wasn’t afraid of charging into danger head first.

Because of this, Kirishima dyes his own hair red to match Crimson Riot, and eventually steals his hero name by choosing Red Riot.

I wonder if pro hero names are protected by some sort of trademark or copyright. You’d think Red Riot would be too similar to Crimson Riot, especially considering their appearances and quirks.

In this flashback we also see that Mina went to the same middle school as Kirishima (that was probably stated in like season 1). And not only does Kirishima compare himself to pro heroes, but he compared himself to Mina as well.

It was only once he realized that Mina, and even the pro hero Crimson Riot, are actually scared of facing villains that he realized it was okay for him to be that way too. It’s normal to be scared of villains, but what’s even scarier is not saving someone when you know you could have.

And before moving on, I just want to mention that because Mina was highlighted in this flashback, I’m not sure we’ll get one of her on her own. I’d like to get a flashback like this for every U.A. Class 1-A member, but that probably won’t happen.

Fat Gum’s Spear

While Red Riot’s backstory was interesting, the climax of the episode came from Fat Gum when he unleashed his secret weapon. Don’t get me wrong, I still don’t really like Fat Gum’s character design all that much, but I can finally admit that he’s actually a cool character.

And I’ll also say that Kouhei Horikoshi (the original creator of My Hero Academia) is pretty good at what he does. If he can get me invested in a character who looks the way Fat Gum does, then he’s clearly doing something right. The stuff he’s made before this series doesn’t look that good, but I’m interested to see what he comes up with next.

Anyway, back to Fat Gum, previously all we knew about him was that his quirk allows him to absorb anything into his body fat. That’s not exactly the most powerful quirk around, but he knows how to use it extremely well which is what makes him so strong.

Fat Gum from the anime series My Hero Academia season 4
Fat Gum

But now it was revealed that he also used to excel in martial arts. So he’s not only good at taking hits, but he can theoretically dish out some damage of his own. And his quirk actually ties into this in a pretty unique way.

When Fat Gum gets hit with attacks, his fat doesn’t simply absorb the force of the attack. With each hit, he burns off some of his fat and the energy created from burning that fat is used to bulk up his muscles. Basically every time he gets hit he’s powering up his own counterattack — exactly like the move Bide from Pokémon.

And once all of his fat is burned off and he’s left with just muscle, he can unleash a devastating punch which was able to break through the barrier quirk.

Conclusion

What are your thoughts on My Hero Academia episode 72? Did you like Red Riot’s backstory? Are you someone who prefers action over story? Do you think we’ll see Suneater fighting again this arc? And, what are your thoughts on Fat Gum now that we’ve seen his special move? Let me know in the comments.

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My review of the next episode is available here.

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