My Hero Academia Season 7 ‒ Episode 143

MHA really, really loves “the calm before the storm” episodes. That’s been both a help and a hindrance over the years, allowing the show to do a lot of important setup before the fights start so we clearly understand the emotional and thematic stakes, but also front-loading every arc with a lot of slow and occasionally tedious wheel spinning. The good news for anyone tired of this pattern is that “Let You Down” is most certainly the final setup episode in this whole story. The better news is that it’s probably the best one the show has ever delivered.

On paper, getting these ducks in a row is pretty simple. We reiterate where all our characters are with their various story arcs, establish the stakes for the world at large, and end with both sides making grand entrances for the final battle. The strength of the episode lies in the details and how effectively it weaves the story’s many frayed threads together.

Deku and Uraraka’s cliff-side chat is the key to all that, as the pair contemplate what they want to happen with this oncoming war. Obviously, they want to win and stop the villains from spreading harm to the rest of the world, but what about after that? Uraraka insists there’s something wrong with her even to be asking that question. She’s witnessed the damage that Toga and her compatriots have wrought upon so many innocent people, yet she still can’t shut off the part of her heart that aches at the other girl’s tears. Deku knows that Shigaraki is a walking disaster, but he’s witnessed the frail humanity within him all the same. So what the hell can they do with all that? Is returning to the way things were, by force, the correct answer? The only answer? Is it even an answer when “the way things were” gave rise to this conflict in the first place? Neither character can articulate those questions, but something inside their own morality compels them to keep searching for a new solution.

Meanwhile, our remaining villains are actively rejecting hard and complicated questions or else trying their damnedest to bury the humanity our heroes see in them. Spinner finds himself being made the leader of hero society’s disgruntled and marginalized heteromorph population, taking up the revolutionary role that Stain inadvertently created. In many ways, he’s becoming exactly what he wanted to be when he joined the league, but now he’s barely self-aware enough to realize he’s not fit for it. He may have a sympathetic motivation to rebel against the status quo. Still, Spinner’s also a lonely teenager who’s followed the momentum of others through this whole show, and hasn’t thought through what he would do with so much power and influence, let alone what kind of world he wants to build if they win. So he defaults back to following others again, zeroing in on his desire to help his friend and ignoring all the complicated baggage of what he’s choosing to become.

Toga and Dabi, by comparison, are already well set on their respective courses, yet even as they steel themselves for this last conflict, you can see their human vulnerabilities peaking through the cracks. On the eve of destruction, Toga can’t help revisiting her origins, creeping through the vandalized and abandoned home she fled from, reminiscing about the literally bloody dreams that marked her as aberrant. She never says it, but you can tell she came here to reaffirm the choices she’s already made, pushing down her uncertain feelings away and embracing vengeance for Twice as her driving force. Dabi is fully dedicated to that path already, and I think that common ground is what makes him immolate Toga’s old home. He insists this isn’t a kindness and that it’s merely more destruction he can lay at his father’s feet, but I suspect a part of him simply wants a companion as he walks into hell. It’s a short sequence that leaves much unsaid, but it’s all the better for that brevity.

None of this is exactly new information, but here, it serves to crystallize who these characters are and what they’re each hoping for from this battle. We know what’s at stake not just for the world but for these individual characters and that the answers to their questions can’t be resolved through fighting alone. That wealth of character writing makes this episode not just rewarding for long-time viewers, but critically important for what’s to come.

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