My Hero Academia Season 6

Episode 126

“You barely noticed me? That was all part of the trick! For when it mattered – for that time – you need to keep an ace up your sleeve!”

Such are the words Mr. Compress, the most anonymous member of the League, utters as he takes the spotlight for the first time in six years. I honestly can't decide whether that's a clever move on the character's part – keeping everything about himself close to the chest until the last second to get a jump on the heroes – or if it's just the show's cheeky way of excusing how it left all of his character development for the 11th hour. Maybe it's both. Regardless, that's the justification our masked magician delivers as he's (literally) spilling his guts in a desperate bid to help Shigaraki and the others escape.

It's a wild little twist to append to the end of this conflict, but what's most interesting to me is the insight Compress' short backstory gives us. Viewers with steel trap memories might remember Oji Harima being briefly mentioned back in season five, along with AFO and Destro, as one of the first supervillains in MHA's world. At the time he was little more than background garnish, but through Compress we're informed that his aim as a master thief was to rob Heroes he saw as corrupt and spread their ill-gotten wealth back to the common folk. It's unclear how accurate that perspective is, considering it's what he told the grandson he raised in his image, but along with a flashback reminding us of Spinner's own desire to overthrow the oppression he faced, it once more focuses on the grounded, human reasons why so many of the characters became “villains” in the first place. Like Toga and Twice before them, these characters joined the League in part because it offered a chance at achieving the sort of change they couldn't accomplish on their own. And in his first and last stand, Mr. Compress offers up that dream to his comrades to achieve in his absence.

Which makes it deeply, cruelly ironic that the way Shigaraki and co. escape is by putting the series' most amoral monster back in the driver's seat. Sure, Shigaraki himself didn't have much to say about concrete societal reform, but AFO definitely isn't interested in any of that. So while him taking control is what allows them to escape to fight another day, it's all but certainly doomed any hope of Compress or Spinner seeing their own dreams unfold. Really, the only one to come out of this whole thing largely unscathed is Dabi (Metaphorically speaking, at least. Physically he is very, very scathed.). He at least delivered some serious body blows to his enemy, advanced his agenda on an enormous scale, and nothing about AFO's ascendancy really threatens that. So in the end, the only thing that really “won” in this war was pure, personal vengeance.

That's a pretty demoralizing result for this arc, all told. The heroes have gotten wrecked and only scraped by thanks to a tactical retreat by the bad guys. Society itself has just witnessed disaster on a scale unheard of, on top of seeing one of their most celebrated icons dragged through the mud of his own making. There are doubtlessly thousands dead, countless more injured, and untold ruined lives in the wake. It's the lowest point of the story in every respect, and even the faint glimmer of hope hidden among the wreckage is more of a hazy idea; that Deku wants to “rescue” Shigaraki from his manipulative mentor.

In the grand, in-universe scheme of things it seems almost paltry, but that single impulse is perhaps the one path left for any hope of a happy ending. Our protagonist doesn't want to defeat his arch-nemesis, nor get revenge. He says himself that it's not about forgiveness or redemption either. All he knows is that he saw somebody hurting, and his first instinct was to offer help. It's not much, but just as Deku's attempt to save Bakugo at the start of this story spurred All Might into action, it may be just the light heroes need to get out of their darkest moment.

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My Hero Academia is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.