The first big domino of Fall 2025 has fallen, and they don’t get much bigger than Boku no Hero Academia. One of animanga’s biggest franchises ever, a true kaijuu massively popular around the world. Seven seasons and seven appearances on the LiA year-end top 10 list – it’s certainly been a big player in my anime life too. I’ve definitely done more episodic posts on BnHA than any series, and maybe more posts period. A year has passed since the end of the seventh season, the manga has ended, and the decks are cleared for the anime to go out in style. And do so it shall, having been spared the indignity of Shueisha whoring out much of its final arc to theatrical films.

I had originally intended not to resume the manga until the anime was over, so as to give the latter a clear deck. But I wanted to do a podcast episode dedicated to the manga ending, so that plan was altered. So for the first time since maybe S3 I’m entering a HeroAca season spoiled, but that’s fine – I’m anxious to see how Bones handles the final stretch of episodes. Some will complain that we got such a long recap at the start of this episode, no doubt, even with an adaptation that’s been way overfond of them. I hate recaps too, but this one I sort of get. It’s been a year, and there probably isn’t enough material left to fill an entire cour. It’s not an impossibility that we’re going to see more of them.

As such, the A-part of this premiere was dedicated mostly to the All For One-Armored All Might battle which closed Season 7. We saw a lot of stuff we saw then, but things finally started to expand past that save point. There’s definitely something poetic about Toshinori leaning on the quirks of his beloved 1-A students once his own is gone. But these are simulated quirks, and this is a quirk-driven world. All Toshinori can really do here is engage in a holding action, though that’s not to say he doesn’t at least have a plan to do some actual damage to All For One. It’s just a plan that’s very unlikely to work.

While AFO definitely experienced a serious seiyuu downgrade with his de-aging, I get it. And his age regression is the key to All Might’s strategy. All Might does know his opponent better than anyone – he realizes that his own reduced status will be impossible for AFO not to gloat over for at least a while. That’s why AFO doesn’t go for a head shot – he wants to see the look on his old enemy’s (though “friend” is a word that gets tossed around a lot by both of them here) face as he slowly grinds him down.

Toshinori employs every trick he can, including injecting him with Mina’s acid in a “Pinky” attack. Yuuga’s laser comes into play too, with Toshinori’s mechanical Hercules giving the last full measure of its devotion to focus it on All For One. But none of it is enough – the end of each skirmish is always the same. More shattered bones, more organ failure, more blood and less armor on Armored All Might. In the end it really does look like the end – until, that is, help arrives from a most unexpected source. The most fascinating villain and arguably character in Horikoshi Kouhei’s playbook.

There is action on other fronts here – mainly the aforementioned Aoyama-kun. He’s part of a group of heroes (including Fat Gum) that have been ensnared by the flowers of Kunieda (Tachibana Tatsumaru), one of the escaped prisoners known as the “Corpse Collector”. Things are looking grim here, too, until Yuuga too gets help from an unexpected source. And an even more unexpected sight – Hagakure Tooru, the Invisible Girl. This is only the second time we’ve seen her in fact – and surely Yuuga’s first, which she’s none too thrilled about.

As has been the norm of much of this arc, the theoretical main players in the series – Deku, Shigaraki, Bakugo – are away from the spotlight here. Deku vs. Shigaraki will have its moment on center stage – that’s inevitable and always has been. But the final arc is a process, and Horikoshi hasn’t rushed his way through it. With a story and cast as huge as Boku no Hero Academia, bringing everything to a conclusion is a delicate balance – satisfying everyone is impossible, much less the hyper-critical fans of this franchise. Viewers will decide for themselves if he was up to the task, just as manga readers did. But such judgments can only be made when all of Horikoshi’s cards have been played.

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