My Hero Academia Season 3 Episode 4 Recap – My Hero

Vanguard Squad

Midoriya remembers Mandalay’s story about Kota’s parents who died in action while defending civilians. Everyone praised his parent’s sacrifice, but for the small child, he lost everything.

Kota now huddles alone in his secret hideout, remembering his aunt’s words that someone will someday show him that heroes are great.

Five minutes before the attack, Aizawa ferries the failed students for their cram lessons indoors. They enter their classroom and find Monoma there, who’s keen on taunting them for failing just like him.

Vlad and Aizawa start to plan their next lesson when a message comes from Mandalay’s telepathy, reporting the villain’s attack and telling everyone to retreat indoors and avoid conflict. Aizawa runs outside to find the forest burning when Dabi suddenly blasts him with blue flames.

Two villains are holding Pixie-bob hostage, calling themselves the Vanguard squad of the League of Villains. One of them is a Stain follower, who recognizes Iida from the Hosu incident. His name is Spinner, and he wields a big sword composed of multiple blades held together.

Tiger swears at them for daring to hurt Pixie-bob as the two engage in a fight. Mandalay tells Iida to retreat with the other students and to avoid engaging the villains. Midoriya asks to go someplace else.

Fight and Rescue

Tetsutetsu finds Kendo and a few others to rescue their unconscious friends. Yaoyorozu created a few gas masks earlier to make it safe for them to move around the poison gas. Tetsutetsu volunteers to fight, reasoning that the experience of a crisis was what made class A stand out from them.

Mandalay calls out to Kota using telepathy and tells him to escape, but there’s a masked villain who found him first. Kota tries to escape but the enemy reveals his power-up quirk. The boy remembers him as the one who killed his parents.

Midoriya saves Kota before the villain could land a strike. He arrived just in time but it caused his phone to break. He has no choice but to defend Kota from the enemy.

Todoroki and Bakugo meet a villain at the midway point who’s standing on top of a severed hand. Bakugo feels the urge to fight.

Mandalay and Tiger clash against Spinner and Magne, a villain with the quirk of magnetism. They worry that Ragdoll isn’t responding to them. There’s must be something that happened at the midway point.

The villain Muscular recognizes Midoriya and goes for an attack. He reveals his plan to capture Bakugo. Muscular puts Midoriya on the backfoot by improving his power and speed by generating muscle fibers.

All Out Fight

Kota throws the villain a rock and reminds him of what he did to his parents. He asks if they were tortured just like what he’s doing to Midoriya. Muscular remembers Water Hose as the one who damaged his other eye. Muscular responds that he simple wanted to kill that day.

Enraged by this, Midoriya clashes with Muscular and fights with 100% of One For All. The blast throws Kota away, but Midoriya manages to save him with his teeth. Midoriya’s right hand is now broken, but Muscular manages to survive.

Kota opts to use his real eye for the battle and resumes the fight. He seems to be even stronger and faster than before. Midoriya ponders all of his options but ends up with the conclusion that he has to win. He tells Kota to run away during their next clash.

Muscular goes in again and Midoriya faces him with a 100% Detroit Smash. Muscular complains that it’s weaker than before, but Midoriya is determined to keep pushing. He gets buried to the ground and Kota fights back with his water quirk.

This leads Midoriya to power up and call in the spirit of One For All to go 1,000,000% on his Detroit Smash. Kota sees this and remembers Mandalay’s words as Muscular crumbles to the ground.

Our Thoughts

Absolute epic win from Midoriya but I think this injury-fighting method is getting too repetitive and has to have some serious repercussions before things get stale. 4.2/5