Boku no Hero Academia Manga – 335

There’s a killer on the road.

There’s no way to start this review pretending there’s no elephant in the room: so, Hagakure The Traitor (?). I add the parentheses because there’s still a chance that Hagakure is not actually the traitor but is listening in to the actual traitor (Aoyoama, is that you?). But regardless of who it ends up being, we’ve finally confirmed their existence–which, canonically speaking, had only been a suspicion of us readers. If you’ve been keeping up with my impressions, you know I was expecting for the unusual route of Deku being the unwilling traitor through the vestige phenomena that happens with AFO & OFA. But you know what? I’m super happy if it ends up being either Hagakure or Aoyama. We barely know anything about these characters and anything that we learn will only further increase plot and emotional strength of the story. Not all reveals need to be shocking or unpredictable to be good and enjoyable. One of my favorite shows was completely ruined because the writers chose these instead of the careful foreshadowing and nuanced storytelling the original writer did with his work and it sucked balls, deep. I don’t think this would’ve been the case with Deku The Traitor, but it would have if Horikoshi had chosen someone like Karimari or Sero, characters never before put in a suspicious position or someone like Thirteen or Ectoplasm, characters we also barely know anything about and would’ve been able to justify their off-panel actions, but in the end were not really emotionally connected to the main cast to cause an overall significant impact.
Poor Shoji even says “It’s safe to assume the list goes on…” In regards to the enemies they’ll be facing and oh boy, you have no idea. This one’s gonna hit the kids hard. Traitor Hagakure (or Aoyama) adds a new depth to the story and opens up interesting possibilities too. How has AFO been communicating with this person all this time? If it were by any conventional means (such as mechanical devices) it would’ve probably been picked up by now, wouldn’t it? Could their case be similar to Kurogiri’s? If so, a character like Hagakure would make more sense, since we actually have no idea what she looks like or even if invisibility is her only quirk.

Girl, you gotta love your man.

And if it turns out that invisibility is her main quirk and she really is just a normal girl and AFO has given her some sort of weird telepathic quirk through which they can communicate, what does he hold over her head? What kind of deal do they have? And a bigger question: after this entire one year living together as a member of class 1A of UA Hero training program, are her loyalties completely in check? Has a part of her heart maybe been swayed by her new friendships? And what if it turns out to be Aoyama? Then what about his real motivations and current stance? Whatever it is that awaits us next week, I’m sure it will be a great read.
Now, this wouldn’t be my review if any presence of Kacchan went unnoticed and godammit have I missed my favorite pomeranian gremlin! I love how after so much character development he’s still the literal freaking Grinch whenever Deku (or anyone else) acknowledges that he’s acting “nice”–only for him to then shift into this suave smooth AF grin and then say he only wants to test out his new moves. I’m deceased–I love this boy so much.

By the way, what the heck was up with Todoroki’s huge arm? Are Endeavor’s genes finally kicking in 100% strength? Lol.