1001 Ways To Say Shoto vs Touya. My Hero Academia Chapter 352 BREAKDOWN

………………..There’s a lot that I want to say about this chapter. I actually had to change the whole opening because it was a little “overly negative.” And I felt that that was a little mean for such a….. “Fine” chapter. The action and art were all on point- even if I didn’t really like what the fight boiled down to. But then that ties into what I would have thought would happen with how Aoyama’s role in all of this was set up. But that’s just “per the course” right now. Look; I’m trying. Let’s just get into this; My Hero Academia Chapter 352: “Ultimate Moves.”

REVIEW

As with every cool chapter cliffhanger now; we open this week’s chapter with a flashback- back to the Heights Alliance Dormitory. The boys are getting ready to hop in the shower and get ready to move to Troy. Izuku asks Shoto if he’s ready to face Dabi, to which Prince Charming says that he’s “Already made up his mind.” “Father may be annoyed that he can’t keep his promise” he continues, “but…….. we’ll let that be his punishment.“

As Dabi is a product of the Todoroki’s Checkered history; Endeavor has to deal with the fact that he can’t make it right, and Shoto has to stand in his place if he’s to become a hero. Which is the main reason why he developed his new technique: A cold flame on his chest. I’ll let the sad little prince tell you about it:

I can elevate my Flashfire Move by using my right and left sides at the same time. My heart is central to making Hot and Cold manifest. I can cycle Heated and Chilled blood throughout to create stability inside my body- via a “Cold Fire” of sorts.

My old man sought out ice that could stifle that inner heat, while I’m going in the Opposite Direction……………..

Poor Little Shoto Todoroki

As he says this; he begins to think in his mind: “All So That I Can Be The One To Affirm The Reason I was Born Into That Family.” We then jump back to the present, where Shoto unveils a new attack: “Icebound Crash– Coldflame’s Pale Blade.” He uses the cold flames to knock Dabi away, but the Monster rebounds. He realizes that Shoto’s now able to withstand his “Flash Fire,” so he starts to melt the ground beneath him to knock him off balance. The ground goes completely volcanic, as streams of flames burst up. Endeavor’s sidekicks uses themselves to guard Shoto, who starts building up his next attack.

Shoto thanks them despite what Burnin’ says. He says that it’s the only thing that comes to his mind when he really thinks about it. His family history made his existence “lonely;” he felt like everyone was ahead of him in terms of……….. “Friendship,” I guess? But realizes that they were all waiting for him- ready to accept him no matter his lineage. He finally felt safe. Which is how he started to come up with his Ultimate Move.

As he starts to build up for the Final Attack; he thinks back to what Mt Lady told them in chapter 241:

Your Ultimate Move symbolizes You! It’s through those moves that people learn what you’re capable of. Then, you can prepare for Impromtu Team Ups and combos, and warn people of villains and crimes. This way; everyone trusts you enough to put their lives in your hands.

Shouting out the names of your Ultimate Moves isn’t just for “show-” There’s plenty of meaning behind it!

Yu Takeyama- Mt Lady

He displays his ultimate technique: The “Great Glacial Aegir.” He gets in Dabi’s face, and blasts him with a wave of Frozen flames- freezing the city around him and stopping Dabi’s rampage. Thus; My Hero Academia Chapter 352 comes to a Chilling END!! See what I did there?

Analysis

What is it that I could say about this chapter? It’s “Too The Point,” I guess. I could harp on the “Friendship” aspect of the victory, but that just seems like beating a dead horse. Though I will say is that I would have preferred it if this fight had a little less to do with 1A and more with the Todoroki’s. Like; the beginning of the chapter told us that he’s effectively doing the opposite of what he was bread to do: Combining Fire and ice rather than using 1 to stabilize the other. Which is PRETTY FRE@KIN’ COOL. Kind of like Ultimate Big Chill from Ben 10: Ultimate Alien(I REMEMBER WATCHING THAT SHOW I’m Old!); it starts as a fire and becomes ice after the intial attack.

I proposed the idea in the review for chapter 336 that he would be able to do something like “Ice Beam” from Pokemon, and……… it wasn’t SO far off. A “Blast of ice” as expected. And it makes sense that Shoto would try something like this; it’s really practical. Imagine a few years later when he gets good enough to manifest constructs. That would be cool to see!!

As for how it would have tied into the Todoroki’s more than into “Friendship;” he’s going against what he was “made” for- he’s defining his own identity rather than being a “Puppet” like Dabi says- he’s actually going against his “programming.” The message could have been “I accepted that the Fire is my own power, but I was still doing what I was ‘Manufactured’ to do. But just because I was supposed to do that- doesn’t mean I have to.” It’s something that could tie back to “Friendship” in that it would connect to what Deku said during the Sports Festival- that it was his power. A narrative element from the early beginnings of the series coming back into play for the finale to bring the character arc full circle- like any Good Ending.

One of the aspects of the Paranormal Liberation War arc that I really liked was how everyone’s efforts built up- all the fights against Tomura/ All For Destruction piled on for the next person to capitalize on. Same thing with Gigantomachia; the Gunga Villa teams efforts helped the Jaku City team take down an Otherwise Unstoppable Force Of Nature. And this would be like that in that All Might giving Izuku One For All gave him the chance to “save” the people who go on to be important in this battle. His “Saving” Shoto let him him defeat Dabi, and “Save” Endeavor, whose about to stop All For One. It all starts to come together.

The art in this chapter was as Great as ever; the kind of thing you’d expect from a clash of Fire and Ice. It’s these kinds of moments where I wish the series were fairing better- that it took it’s time a bit more, and had Shoto testing it out on in another battle against a Villain like Dabi before going up against the Real Deal. Can you imagine how cool it would be for him to go up against a Nomu with a copy of Dabi’s quirk, or another Villain that has a similar Fire Quirk. Something to show us the flaws, you know.

But…………. This wasn’t bad. I like the concept of a Flame that creates Ice, so seeing it here and how it might work is pretty epic. And it’s not like I despised the chapter; it was pretty cool watching Dabi become more and more of a monster. The imagery even helps prove the theory proposed in the last review: That’s succumbing to the “Quirk Singularity” like All For Destruction and No 6 from Vigilantes(Coincidentally; the final chapter of the prequel will be out in a few weeks. You can still catch up to the series before then- it’s only 125 chapters, and the final chapter comes out on the 28th!).

……………………………….There’s not much to say about this chapter, huh? Shoto’s come up with a cool Ultimate move, but……. not that much. And they STILL haven’t told us how Dabi’s survived this long!! Now I hope we continue this fight going into next chapter! But we’re getting to the halfway mark of the year. Horikoshi said that it would end at some point- or else he’ll have the same Jump Festa message again THIS year. But this fight clearly isn’t over, and we haven’t wrapped things up with Best Girl Himiko chan. And that’s not even to say what’s going on with All For Destruction. I don’t know how he plans to wrap up all these battles, but if he intends to end the story this year- it’s gotta be quick. Though not so quick that we rush the story and forget entire details and the emotion attached to each of these subplots. Please don’t do that, Sensei…….

I’m about to end this post, but I want you guys to think about something: If you’re still on the fence about Dabi giving in to Singularity, think about No 6 and Tomura. Tomura’s “Decay” had the kick back of destroying his body the longer he used it. If he didn’t stop at some point- he would die. And they were able to counter this with that OP “Hyper Regeneration” quirk, but Star basically took care of that one. So his body compensated by making “more flesh-” he has more “body” to expend on using “Decay” without getting dusted himself.

6, on the other hand, had many quirks. But the one’s that he seemed to use the most were “Overclock,” “Self Detonation,” “Bombify,” and “Regeneration” to compensate for all the damage he did to his body with the last 2. “Self Detonation” and “Bombify” are self explanatory, but “Overclock” has several drawbacks. Due to it depriving its user of oxygen, it has a necessary cool-down period between uses, and can only be used for a few seconds at most. If the user is intensely focused on something, the user experiences a sort of “brain drain”, which reduces the amount of time they can actively use the Quirk. If the user remains too focused while using their Quirk, they can also risk depriving their brain of oxygen, sealing off access to the Quirk. And it’s implied by the quirk’s Former user that extensive physical injury, not just on the head, would be enough to seal access to the Quirk.

Many of his quirks had some physical backlash- just like Touya and Tomura. We saw how Tomura’s body compensated for his specific Quirk. No 6’s body compensated by getting rid of the body; he turned into pure energy because a physical form couldn’t take what he was doing to himself. Sound familiar? A body with an owner that doesn’t give a rat’s tiny @$$ what happens to it? The overwhelming desire to be “seen?” Ring any bells?

Conclusion

I just wanted to put that out there; I just feel like he’s giving into Singularity. But I’m open to other ideas! Let me know your own thoughts in the comments! And let me know what you guys think of the chapter. Was I too hard on it? Did you find any other sequences particularly interesting? I’d love to know!! Until the next post, everyone- Have a Magically Wonderful Day. By~~~~~e!!!!!!