#mha160

[thequietmanno1]

Thelreads, MHA 160, Replies part 4

1)So, we got to see Compress getting fitted for his new robo-arm back during Twice and Toga’s flashback of how he was sending them into the Hassaki to tear them a new one- Giran was fitting him for it in the background there, though it was clearly supposed to be a surprise, since the panels are structured in a such a way to hide Compress’s left arm in this and prior chapters, and Clonepress was missing it because he has taken from Compress’s measurements before he got the arm fitted. The question is, can Compress still use his quirk through the robo-hand, or will that require some training on his behalf? 

In any case it’ll be a useful tool for a magician that specialises in misdirection, able to hide all sorts of handy devices, like say, a storage area to hide his compressed marbles in so he’s got a hidden stock of marbles literally up his sleeve.

2)I swear Overhaul is either is shock or serious drugs right now because he barely reacted to losing his left arm beyond a look of surprise and subdued shock- or perhaps it’s because he’s ‘used’ to losing his arms? He mentioned that’s it’s quite painful for him to Overhaul them back together, so perhaps he experiences similar pain whenever he fixes himself back together? Might explain his surprising tolerance for punishment if so, but Overhaul doesn’t really seem too upset by being mutilated by the league-it’s not until he’s losing his right arm, and thus his ability to fix himself back to normal, that he really starts to panic and allows the dam to crack behind the composed face he’s keeping up to not allow the league the satisfaction of enjoying killing him- when he realises that they don’t want him dead, just powerless and alone for the rest of his life, it begins to sink in how utterly screwed he is going forward, especially scene most of that fate was of his own making

3)“oh SHIT, never mind using the bullet, he’ll just rip off both his arm and leave him basically quirkless as well. And oh boy, even Shigaraki called Overhaul on his hypocritical bullshit about how quirks are the problem, while using his own quirk to go against them.”-See, this scene is the main reason I’m pretty certain Overhaul eventually wanted to get rid of his own quirk, because if that’s indeed the case, Shigaraki just granted his desire in the most ironic manner possible- taking away the benefits of his quirk, but still technically leaving Overhaul with the ‘disease’ for the rest of his life, and no way to profit from it or cure himself.

Using the bullet would not only waste the valuable resource, it would actually grant Overhaul a measure of ‘relief’ going forward, because at least at the end of it, he succeeded in curing himself of his own sickness, and so Shigaraki just go’s “’Snicker snak!’- there you go! Quirkless, and with way less time and effort you put in to reach the same result!”. 

 So to sum up, Overhaul’s now doomed to spend the rest of his life tormented by his self-image of himself as an ‘infected’ individual, tortured by his Germophobia and delusions about the world, alone and bereft from any allies  or friends he may have had, abandoned and discarded by the only person in the world that he looked up to and wanted the approval of (if the boss was conscious enough to do so, I can totally see that being the first thing out of his mouth) handicapped through lacking his limbs and powers in a super powered society (remember how rough Deku had it in a middle school environment?) And Overhaul’s a member of the criminal side of society, with presumably plenty of rival gangs he’s made enemies of throughout the years in defence of the Hassaki, whom will now be looking for payback since he’s no longer a threat to them, and once the remnants of the grunt forces of the Hassaki learn of his new condition, they’ll be fighting amongst themselves to get first crack at killing him.

 Not to mention the Precepts will have lost faith in him for failing to deliver on his promises and for how he demonstrated how little they mattered to him through Rikiya and Nemoto’s ‘contributions’ to his fight- he’s utterly screwed going forward with no hope of rescue- and I say good riddance.

4)“Shigaraki just gave Overhaul a little taste of what he did to Mirio AND Eri at the same time.’-Don’t forget Nighteye, whom he de-limbed as well and cut his future as a heroic mentor to Izuku short in the same move- Nighteye’s not gonna be teaching anybody whilst he’s missing most of his insides, so he’ll be down and out for a while- Overhaul probably lost roughly the same ‘pound of flesh’ he took from Nighteye here.

5)“Oh, but about that you still care, don’t ya?”-And that’s the last remnants of Overhaul’s pride rising to the surface here- despite everything he lost, the bullets and their effects were still ‘his’ creations, weapons he toiled hard day and night into creating from scratch, no matter the sacrifices, and if the league hadn’t interrupted the convoy here, they’ve have been remembered as Overhaul’s weapons in the police report. However, now that the league literally stolen them from right under his nose and made their intent to utilise them for themselves clear, Overhaul’s having to face the fact that his legacy, everything he worked for, has been stolen and will eb corrupted so that the public will only remember the League as the creators of the bullets going forward, not Overhaul- he’s lost his last claim to fame, and realising he’s got absolutely nothing to show for everything he’s been through proved to be the last straw for him, hence the mental breakdown. 

It’s an excellent way to bookend the arc for the league as well, scene their side of the story started with Overhaul confronting them over their lack of an actual plan to take down society compared to his own methodical and carefully rationalised goals, ending up with him violently proving to the league that the Hassaki were the superior criminals. So what do they do? 

They identify and take advantage of Overhaul’s character flaws, infiltrate the Hasskai and sabotage it from within, manipulate a brawl between Overhaul and the heroes to end in the heroes’ victory over Overhaul at little risk to themselves, then ambush Overhaul and steal his plans and his weapons right in front of him, taking everything he’s been working for and adopting his plans for their own use going forward, ensuring that there’s nothing left for Overhaul to be remembered for, and proving that being the better criminal doesn’t mean being the smartest criminal, but sometimes, just the better thief- it also fits since they’re still warming up to the fact that they’ve got to figure out a way to destabilise society on their own without help from the adults this time since AFO got captured, so when someone comes along with a better, more concrete idea, the league just steal it and market it as their own- problem solved!

6)“Oh, what a beautiful symphony… those screams of terror and frustration… Wonderful… The right soundtrack for the Evil boy band to make their exit, with Mr. Compress dabing on your pain, just to rub it in.”-I think the best part of that is that we don’t actually get to see Overhaul screaming- we get to imagine whatever twisted expression of anguish, rage, despair and fear we want to on his face, and it’s glorious- possibly the only way Shigaraki could possibly have been more ‘screw you’ to Overhaul was if he took his face hand off, curled every finger but the middle one in, then held it up behind him with one hand whist he walked away, juggling the bullets with the other and whistled a jaunty, cheerful tune like ‘Steamboat Willie’ or something

7)“I can’t wait to see this scene animated.”-you’re pretty lucky to have timed this so well L- the anime’s just starting on this right as you finish it, but you’re probably gonna have to avoid the second half until the next arc’s done, since that’s likely to include spoiler openings and such

8)“So, All Might will still die if they at Overhaul’s hands, if they can’t “break the curse”, at least from my point of view.” Heh-about All Might dying at Overhaul’s Hands… gonna be difficult to do that now eh?

@thelreads

[thequietmanno1]

Thelreads, MHA 160, Replies part 3

1)“No really, is this chapter going to be “The Fast and The furious”? Because that’s pretty much the plot of all “The Fast and The furious”, minus the quirk but compensating it with testosterone and a general lacking of knowledge about the laws of physics.”-The planning session of their impromptu heist/highwayman hold-up probably consisted entirely of Spinenr and Tomura swapping the Fast and the Furious stunts/action scenes whilst they got the truck ready and Dabi just standing to the side wondering when they were going to get round to telling the actual ‘plan’ of the attack, and getting annoyed when they both gave him a look and said simultaneously that they just did. Dabi doesn’t strike me as a movie buff, so whereas he’s more aware of intellectual pursuits involving game metaphors and strategies, Tomura and Spinner are probably unrivalled at film trivia at game night.

2)“Well, it makes more sense for them to be on front, waiting for an ambush to happen, but I keep imagining if overhaul somehow got free and just fucked out of there without anyone noticing, because the heroes are on the front line, because those cops on the back wouldn’t be able to do shit against him.”-I’m presuming in addition to his extremely sturdy restraining bed, Overhaul is possibly doped to the gills with as much sedatives and muscle relaxant as the police could stuff in him to help restrain him in case he started to regain control of himself again- not to mention to copious amounts of morphine he must be needing after his beat down by Super Saiyan Deku- even if Eri somewhat rewound him there he’s still acting like he got the living hell punched out of him and is feeling the aftereffects, so he’s not completely fixed up. 

Plus, we don’t actually know what those iron maiden restraints and such they use to hold criminals down actually do to help suppress them- the police were confident enough in their usage to use them on top-tier villains like OG Nomu and AFO, so they must do ‘something’ to prevent them breaking free on their own, and it looks like Overhaul’s got a makeshift version of that pinning him to the bed. Plus, in order to ensure safe medical treatment could be delivered without getting in the way, there might not have been space enough for a hero to ride shotgun and keep watch over Overhaul and the others, but maybe they had a policeman with a semi-skilled quirk watching over him as well? We don’t see what happened to the rest of the ambulance workers then Shigaraki drags Overhaul’s bed out, so maybe there was some kind of backup in the van, but we just didn’t see Tomura dusting them.

3)“he would hit that break pedal so hard it would hit the pavement below them, just so he could drift better and get a speed boost.”-And then Spinner pulled of a pretty awesome 180 drifting sequence with a semi-truck to pull it to a stopjustahead of the crashing ambulance- not bad for a self-taught gamer.

4)“Even though I expected the silica on the sand to turn into glass your attacks were really inefficient against him. But that at least will slow him down a little.”-I’m not sure of the exact temperatures, but I think sand has a pretty high melting point to get turned into glass- possibly more than Dabi’s flames can reach easily, if only just, so he can’t quite melt him, but he can blast his sand apart with the concussive force of his flames and provide a smokescreen for Compress to finish the job.

5)“Your flames were a inconvenience last time, and this one was a little more than an obstacle to him, you didn’t even hurt him.”-Compress didn’t just compress snatch into that marble, he compressed Dabi’s flames as well- you can see them swirling inside it there, and Since Snatch couldn’t turn his legs into sand, he was trapped inside an enclosed space with no way to prevent his lower half from becoming horribly burned and inflicting mortal injures, not to mention the possibility of the flames burning all the oxygen so he’d suffocate inside the marble- but either way he’s dead with no way to dodge the fire. But at least he got to smell some of his favourite barbeque before he went  :})

6)“The heroes are morally obliged to lock him up and give him basic human rights, but the villains care not for that sort of crap.”-getting to watch both the League and the Heroes’ separate stories with Overhaul unfolding at the same time from two different angles was very much like getting to see both the ‘good’ and ‘evil’ paths in a moral choice video game getting played out at the same time for the same mission. And whilst the heroes got some Catharsis from beating him the Paragon way, there ain’t no better means of payback than some good o’l fashioned Renegade.

7)“Part of him probably want to die right now, but Shigaraki has other plans on store…”-Yeah, at this point Overhaul’s almost completely lost all hope and motivation- he knows the Hassaki are done, and he’ll never gain the boss’s approval now, having utterly failed so miserably, but he’s still somewhat determined to out with as much grace and dignity as he can muster- he may even be looking forward to it, because it means an escape from the reality he’s being forced to confront right now- which is why the league make certain to rob him of everything else but his life and leave him with an even bleaker future than he had before- there no chance of a comeback if he’s lost his greatest assets in one move, and worse, now the league get to benefit from the fruits of his labours- it’s very karmic, especially since you could see the initial meeting that ended with mange’s death being a kind of cruel mercy on Overhaul’s behalf.

 I don’t know how Shigaraki’s decay would fare up against Overhaul’s healing hands ability, but with the erasure bullets, the precept’s backup and the element of surprise on his side, Overhaul could have certainly wiped the league out, or at least killed more members than he did before he decided to stop in favour of still using them. Tomura’s just returning the favour with interest.

@thelreads

[thequietmanno1]

Thelreads, MHA 160, Replies part 2

1)“Oh fuck I forgot that they are still after Eri. Well, maybe they’ll be satisfied with the bullets. Maybe. Hopefully.”-Meh- I very much see them going after Eri as a half-hearted attempt on their end for the moment-given what they pulled to take out a hero transport and the Shi Hassaki from within, I believe they could have done a lot more damage/put more effort in then sending off a single Mr Clonepress into a melee and scarpering whist he tried to grab Eri in the confusion. 

At this point, Eri’s more trouble that she’s worth to kidnap, even though she is the source of the Erasure, as mentioned the league are currently bereft of funding, medical/technical equipment and none of them are smart enough to understand and replicate Overhaul’s ‘mining’ process from Eri, especially since they make a point of getting rid of his Wonder Quirk for good here. Taking Eri would fire up Deku to come after them, and I don’t think the league are keen to tangle with him after seeing him Punt Handyhaul like a Hail Mary, given they don’t know the circumstances behind his sudden powered, plus since Overhaul’s already succeeded in finishing the weapon, it’s more pragmatic, not to mention personally satisfying, to take the completed weapon and figure out how it works- possibly enough to replicate it if they get lucky, and can then utilise it for their own ends. Getting to rub in Overhaul’s face that they’re stealing his plans, ideas and dreams for themselves was also too good an opportunity to miss.

2)“But the way he phrased that, like Shigaraki isn’t the leader of the league of villains but just some asshole that wandered in the shot while he was talking.”-The fan translation had it as “Shigaraki Tomura! From the league of villians!” like Toura was some kind of personal attack dog that they unleash onto the front lines whenever the league wants to get serious, and given how he treats himself as a human football in this chase-fight, that’s not an inaccurate impression either

3)“Yeah Dabi, don’t be such a dick to Lizzy the Lizard, he trained a lot in Mario kart to achieve this level of proficiency on the wheel.”-Wrong Kind of driving game L, but I relate like Hell to Spinner here- I legit learned how to drive safely as a kid playing GTA games my friends lent me, because whenever I went outside the road or tried to take a shortcut, I’d hit a civilian or damage too much property and get the police after me, which would then escalate as I tried to lose them with some more crazy driving and got more starts added to me, eventually ending up at 6 stars as I desperately tried to lose them  by taking more snap decisions that just kept escalating my wanted level. One timed driving/escort mission ended abruptly when I rear-ended a police car, and in the following chase halfway across the city I ended up in my character’s underpants fighting off the National Guard with a half-loaded revolver and a sex toy I’d accidentally picked up when I was looking for more weapons/med kits to recover with. Experiences like that served me well in passing my driving licence exam.

4)“It’s interesting to see that you’re actually questioning the stuff that the league does, even if I know that you’ll probably still hang around the cool kids, regardless of if the break a few windows. “-Spinner’s an interesting supporting character amongst the league- unlike the rest he doesn’t stand out much on his own, but he’s got more well-rounded talents that allow him to support the others no matter what they’re doing- Compress, the only one possibly old enough to drive, is missing a limb, and the other’s likely haven’t done much self-training to drive (especially Shigaraki, who could use Kurogiri’s warps to move wherever he wished) so his ability to drive, and pull off some legitimately impressive driving stunts despite being mostly self-taught, indicates he’s got a great deal of natural talent and skills outside his quirk, but when compared to actual superpowers, these talents don’t mean much.

 On the other hand, no matter what trouble the league gets into, Spinner seems to have a knack for focusing on the bigger picture and helping his teammates keep their head in the game, supporting them to the fullest either  as the team muscle, or the getaway driver, despite it not actually being his unique power- in fact, the fact he’s so versatile and skilled despite it not being related to his quirk indicates he’s extremely driven to improve himself and be of help to the others, despite his weaknesses. 

As for his role, I find that Spinner tends to be both the moral heart of the group when Twice isn’t getting worked up, as well as the only other one in the team focused upon the leagues goals besides Tomura. The hero society has a lot of issues and defects in it, and Spinner joined up precisely to fix those issues, not just to join with like-minded individuals, but to actually make a difference- perhaps his own relative weakness compared to the rest makes him more aware of what the others could be using their powers to achieve, and constantly drives him to keep the league on track to achieve that goal, even if he’s not exactly sure of the path to get there himself. 

The others joined up for their own reasons and personality defects, yet Spinner is the only one that constantly thinks in terms of the bigger picture, even if he’s working from a misguided understanding of the league born from Stain’s association from them, and whilst I sometimes get the impression that he’ll end up splitting from the league if they end up going too far away from their stated goal of reforming hero society, so far Tomura does seem to actually appreciate him and his input- he probably isn’t being entirely dishonest when he calls the cops in their way sacrifices towards the league’s goals, and wasn’t just placating Spinner to get him to do what he wanted, and whilst it’s true their immediate focus right now was payback on Overhaul, the fact that Tomura made sure to take the bullets first before getting down to brass tacks, plus Toga’s phone call, indicates they were indeed the main reason for the attack, and there’s no denying that the league have gained a powerful and unique resource that could greatly benefit them down the line if they’re able to properly utilise it. 

Spinner speaks his mind to Tomura, and constantly debating their intentions as reformers of society, keeping Tomura focused on his overall goal of destroying society as well as keeping him aware when he might be going too far with his nihilistic tendencies, so in a way, whilst he’s not a standout member of the league, Spinner severs as a support for all of them on a physical and ideological level, doing whatever he can to the best of his ability- in many ways he’s similar to Twice- a guy that could have been a hero, if the cards had fallen the right way for him.

5)“And Dabi is the first to shot it seems.”-Well, of the three of them Dabi’s fire is the best long-range weapon they’ve got- Compress’s marbles probably require precise timing to be best utilised and he’s got limited ammo, so letting Dabi go full flamethrower out the back of the truck is a good opening move, especially since it blinds the police cars as well.

@thelreads

[thequietmanno1]

Thelreads, MHA 160, Replies part 1

1)“Horikoshi, you are forgiven for some of the stuff you did recently, but don’t push your luck, got it?”-How’s the rest of Horikoshi’s sins doing? I personally feel like this moment redeemed a lot of them- so cathartic

2)“Well, maybe “living” isn’t the right word here, he he…”-nope, turns out you were right on the money- Overhaul can’t suffer if he’s dead, so the league just do everything else they can think of to screw his life up in the few brief minutes of one-to-one chat room they buy themselves here- and it’s a pretty impressive amount, when you realise they utterly broke Overhaul to the point of suffering a mental breakdown as the full weight of his utter loss came crashing down on his head, and worse, that it was all his own fault- the league wouldn’t have been his enemy of he’d cooperated more, the Hassaki might have been more united if he’d worked alongside the lower members instead of using them like game pieces, and the heroes wouldn’t have utterly destroy the Hassaki if he hadn’t brutalised and abused a young girl in his risky gambit to bring them to the top.

 Overhaul bet big, and had a few good cards in his hand that looked like a straight flush, but then it turned out Miro and Deku together were an unexpected pair of Jokers that utterly ruined his setup, and now the league has pickpocketed his winning cards and permanently crippled his hands so he can’t gamble no more. It’s harder to find a more accurate way to sum his situation up than ‘You’re done’, and now he’s got the rest of his life to watch the victors on both sides reap the rewards on opposite sides of the betting table and mope about how he could’ve been a contender if he’d only been more of a team player. The ‘what if’ is gonna be almost as torturous to him as what he did to Eri.

3)“Oh my stars, just when I thought that Team Twoga’s participation on the FUN was over, they gave a last “fuck you” by tipping the rest of the league about where Overhaul would be, just so they can do their thing…”-So to further the opposites theme between Shigaraki and Tomura, the last act of Shigaraki’s ‘plan’ here is basically a reversal of how Overhaul used his own Minions throughout the arc. He made the decisions and used them to cover his own escape, using them as a distraction or a human shield to protect himself, because he was the boss- the ‘Brains’ of their operation, and they were the dumb, easily-replaceable “Muscle’ but Shigaraki totally reversed that here- since Twoga were completely cut off from contacting the rest of the league, they took independent action from within to completely scupper Overhaul’s operations using the timely intervention of the heroes raid, choosing for themselves how best to trip up their yakuza ‘allies’ and drawing the heroes to Overhaul’s location when it would be most inconvienient for him, with no-one realising something was up until it was too late, and now they’ve stolen a phone and directed the rest of the league awaiting the call on the situation and most likely interception point for them to take out the hero convoy and have a chat with Overhaul- they’re acting as the ‘Brains’ for the league here, despite being the normal mooks in any other criminal organisation, whereas Tomura regulates himself to the role of the ‘Brawn’.

He even does the risky move of attacking close range and leaping the gaps between the cars despite being the leader and Compress and Dabi having better long-range attacks than him, because he’s got the best kind of quirk for it, despite the risks, and it shows he values himself less than he does his fellow league members, who’ve already been hurt because he was lax in his leadership role with Overhaul before, so now he takes on the most risky part himself because he doesn’t want them to get hurt more In his plans to get payback with interest on Overhaul.

4)Ok, so the fan translation had Toga saying that she should be sorry about asking Compress to ‘give them a hand’ to get Overhaul given Jin’s deterioration and her needing to nursemaid him for a bit, and Compress good-naturedly replying “As long as you only need one”, showing he’s adjusted somewhat to his handicap- enough at least to make jokes about it amongst friends at least.

5)“Meanwhile, and I just realized, Twice is torn about going back and helping taking down Overhaul and running and hiding like they were supposed to do. Part of him is still out for blood, and I can’t say I blame him.”-I didn’t actually pick up on that, but I guess a side effect of Twice’s condition is that any mental stability he finds only lasts as long as the currant task he’s focused his attention on needs resolving- now he’s no longer trying to find ways to indirectly take Overhaul down, his Id and his Ego are warring over the decision to leave Overhaul to the rest of the league as opposed to letting Twice get his Own kicks in, exacerbated by his powers- pity Twice still cant clone himself, or a version of him could have tagged along to get payback, after a fashion. It’s also perhaps more exaggerated by the fact that Twice had to strip out of his costume to slip away into the crowds, meaning his mental buffers are again under attack by his own constantly active powers/mental issues

@thelreads