My Hero Academia season 4 episode 13 recap: “Infinite 100%”
My Hero Academia finally reaches the explosive climax of the raid on Shie Hassaikai — and it was well worth waiting for.
The entire fourth season of My Hero Academia has been leading up to our heroes facing off with the villain Overhaul, and this week’s episode of the anime finally reaches the explosive climax of the raid on the Shie Hassaikai.
First, we flash back to the beginning of the raid where pro hero Ryukyu has just managed to get Rikiya of Shie Hassaikai’s Eight Bullets into restraints. She warns Uravity, Froppy, and the nearby police officers not to let Rikiya touch them, as his quirk can suck away their lifeforce. It turns out that already doped up on the power boost drug, he doesn’t need to touch his prey to suck out their lifeforce.
Uravity, Froppy, and the cops have had their strength stolen, and Rikiya escapes his restraints. Ryukyu grapples with Rikiya and Nejire Chan is attacking to little avail when Deku comes running onto the scene. Yes, the same Deku, who supposed to be in the middle of fighting Chisaki (Overhaul) down below. Fake Deku, who turns out to be Toga Himiko from the League of Villains, warns them of the plight of the heroes inside the building. Her objective is to distract the heroes while the League attempts to snatch Eri from right under Overhaul’s nose.
Amidst the confusion, Rikiya powers up even more and kicks a hole into the ground. Villain and heroes all go tumbling down to the lower floor where the real Deku faces off with Chisaki. Chisaki has taken hold of Eri, but Deku is determined to get her back. Something red floats up into the air. Chisaki dismisses it as a piece of trash, but Eri recognizes it.
During one of the previous episodes of My Hero Academia, Lemillion had wrapped her up in a piece of his cape and it had been laying there on the ground, discarded. Amidst of the violent battle, Eri realizes that despite getting hurt and exhausted, and despite some of them dying, these heroes are hellbent on saving her. The emotions packed into this scene are intense. The determination in Deku’s eyes tells Eri everything she needs to know. The heroes have no intention of giving up and leaving her in this awful place. She must go to them.
For the first time in her life, Eri uses her quirk deliberately. Airborne with Chisaki, she slips out of the villain’s arms and reaches for the red cape. Deku is still climbing upward using the falling debris to jump from rock to rock to get to her. He reaches out desperately, calling out to her until she finally summons the courage to leap. He catches her. He uses One for All full cowling at 100 percent and launches into the air. The force sends them both flying way up and above the compound.
Meanwhile, Nighteye warns the other heroes to go after Deku. In the future he saw, Deke escapes the building but gets caught and killed by Chisaki, who merges bodies with Rikiya. Uravity refuses to accept that future as the only possible outcome. She tries to go after Deku, but still weakened by Rikiya’s soul-sucking quirk, she falters.
Nighteye flashes back to Deku saying he will twist that fate. The wounded hero sends Froppy to look after Lemillion and entreaties Uravity and Ryukyu to get him to the surface. He needs to see it for himself, whether his pre-visions are immutable or not.
Deku is shocked that his bones aren’t all broken after he used One for All full cowling at 100 percent, but then Chisaki gloats that Eri’s true power is to “rewind” the body. He declares that she’s a cursed child who can undo changes to cells, a person’s genetic makeup, and even undo the evolutionary process. The power is potent, and she has no control over it whatsoever. Chisaki brags about being the one to refine her power by using her cells to make a drug that would revert a human body to state before the mutation that caused quirks to manifest.
We get a glimmer of Chisaki’s cruelty, how he repeatedly sliced into the child’s flesh with a scalpel and experimented on her body for the sake of his own goals.
Chisaki’s rage and frustration explodes and he flashes back to his last conversation with the bed-ridden boss of Shie Hassaikai. Desperate to repay the man for taking him in as a child, Chisaki did everything within his power to ensure the dominance and prosperity of Shie Hassaikai. Chisaki, though, was a man who tended to go to extremes.
When he presented his plan to use Eri, the boss’s actual granddaughter, as a guinea pig in his quest to reclaim Shie Hassaikai’s lost glory, the boss admonished Chisaki. He’d reminded Chisaki that Eri is a human being. He’d frankly told Chisaki that if he could not honor his wishes and stop the madness, Chisaki was no longer welcome in Shie Hassaikai. Instead of acquiescing, Chisaki turned on the boss, revealing that he’s the reason the boss has been bedridden and unconscious for such a long time.
Flashing back to the present, Chisaki roars about no one understanding or appreciating his vision. He simply refuses to see the wrongness of his actions.
Deku, realizing that the reason he didn’t take any damage after using full cowling at 100 percent was Eri using her ability to rewind the damage, is reminded of himself before he learned to control his quirk. He tells Eri that her quirk is a blessing and to keep using it to help him. Deku’s plan is to use One for All full cowling at 100 percent and keep getting injured so that Eri’s powers only heals the damage without further rewinding his body.
The animation of the scene is superb. Chisaki goes on a wild rampage, morphing into a huge, misshapen combo of himself and Rikiya. Still, Deku cannot be stopped. With Eri tied to his back by the red cape, he fights back fearlessly and cannot be overpowered. Deku deals a devastating blow, shattering Chisaki’s warped body, and then another, finally taking down the villain.
Meanwhile, Nighteye, who was brought to the surface by Uravity and Ryukyu looks on, stunned. He’d seen a future where Deku was brought down and murdered by Chisaki. This future unfolding before his eyes, this future where Deku clobbers Chisaki and manages to rescue Eri is not one that he had foreseen.
He begins to wonder, does this mean the grim future that the saw for All Might can be changed? That rounds out this week’s episode of My Hero Academia, leaving fans to wonder about All Might’s fate — and the fates of all the characters involved in the raid that’s taken up most of the fouth season.
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