This week, we got a special epilogue episode of My Hero Academia featuring the cast as adults. This was a fun romp with beloved characters, but the final twist in the end will be very controversial with fans. So without further ado, let’s recap the episode.
The episode begins with Ochako having dreams of Toga. The latter’s death is still greatly upsetting the former. Now adult Ochako is a Quirk counselor and helps children control their quirks. Other Quirk counselors include Togata, Tsuyu, and Nejire. They are now wearing slightly modified outfits now that they are adults. Togata uses his phasing powers and challenges the kids to try to hit him. Ochako helps a kid by floating him and doing a surprise attack. The kids laugh and the Quirk counselors are enjoying their time together.
In the next scene, Bakugo and Midoriya ride in a car to a fancy dinner. Midoriya is now a teacher who uses Iron Man armor because he lost his Quirk in the final battle. Bakugo is a pro-hero who ranked as high as number four before dropping dramatically in the rankings. Class 1-A has a reunion at a fancy dinner and we get to see their new costumes. Most of the costume changes are fairly minor, but now Momo is now wearing a much more modest and less revealing outfit now. We see everyone’s ranks (for those who are ranked), and even Mineta has a rank, albeit a low rank of 108. It turns out that superhero rankings are now based on things like philanthropy in addition to traditional superheroics. Well, this is a superhero cartoon and eventually we need our requisite superhero action scene. There’s a stolen car and our heroes need to go into action.
We get a slick yet brief action scene showing what our now adult heroes can do. Iida does a slick run and Todoroki freezes the stolen car in place. These bad guys are arrested within seconds. Todoroki pays for everyone’s meal at the reunion dinner, which must have been the equivalent of over $1,000 USD considering how many people came to the reunion. Sheesh, pro heroes must be paid pretty good.
Then we get the big climax everyone has been waiting for. It has been a while since Midoriya and Ochako have met. The ghost of Toga still haunts Ochako and the ghost pushes her to greet Midoriya again. We get this big climactic greeting and the two…shake hands. Yes, that’s our big climax. They shake hands. That’s it. They don’t kiss. They don’t even hug. They freaking shake hands. Everyone rooting for these two to pair up just threw stuff at their television sets in an act of intense rage. This is officially the worst episode of any anime ever made.
Okay, aside from enraging shippers, I had fun with this episode, even though I did despise the ending and would preferred it if they at least shared a hug, even if a kiss was asking for too much. My Hero Academia is still one of the greatest Shonen Jump anime of all time and one of the greatest superhero cartoons of all time. This ending is at least leaps and bounds less upsetting than Attack on Titan or other similar controversial anime endings. It was so cool getting to see our cast as full blown adults and getting into one more superhero adventure, even if it was a pretty low stakes one against minor car thieves. If Ochako and Midoriya did kiss, this would have been one of the greatest final episodes of any anime ever. If they just hugged, it still would have been legendary. Because all we got was a stupid handshake, I still have to deduct major points in an otherwise masterful show.
