The following contains spoilers for My Hero Academia Chapter 353, “Endeavor,” by Kohei Horikoshi, Caleb Cook and John Hunt, available now in English from Viz Media
My Hero Academia’s final battle is the biggest of the series. The remaining Heroes have been forced to resort to a divide-and-conquer strategy to take out the Paranormal Liberation Front’s most powerful villains. While it’s best to keep powerful villains like All For One and Shigaraki from being in the same place, there’s a simple way for everything to go awry. If any of the stronger villains manage to regroup, nobody will be able to stand up to them. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the latest chapter.
In Chapter 353, “Endeavor,” another key location in the war against the Front. In the ruins of Jaku Hospital, the Heroes are holding off the villains trying to get past them to their target. If the villains breach the Heroes’ defenses, they will continue onward to the detainment facility holding Gigantomachia.
If the villains succeed in freeing Machia, it will be disastrous. The last time this behemoth was free, it took the combined efforts of countless Heroes, students and Pros alike, just to subdue him. Even top-ranking Heroes like Endeavor and Best Jeanist had to get involved. Before he went down, Machia was able to plow through multiple cities and cause untold amounts of death and destruction. The aftermath was so bad that some Heroes quit the profession at the sight of it.
As the Heroes are now, there’s no telling whether they can stop Machia again. For one thing, the Heroes’ forces have been significantly reduced by the retirement of all the Pros. Even the key Heroes responsible for stopping Machia the last time are busy with their own fights across several battlefields. They simply don’t have the resources to deal with him again.
With that said, the Heroes at Jaku are going to do everything they can to keep the villains from freeing Machia. There were several dozen Heroes stationed outside the detainment facility expecting the Front to try and spring the behemoth. Some known Heroes include Mina Ashido, Minoru Mineta, Yui Kodai, Rei Yanagi, Jūzō Honenuki, and Mt. Lady. Eijiro Kirishima also arrived on the scene. With all these familiar faces on the battlefield, it’s easy to have faith in the Heroes’ side.
There also might be a personal stake involved in this fight. The villain in charge of this assault wasn’t just confident that the Front would be successful, but he offhandedly mentioned that the Heroes would be crushed “Just like that UA schoolteacher;” an image of the late Midnight was shown at this moment. It’s possible that this villain is personally responsible for her death.
If this villain really is the one who killed Midnight, that gives Mina all the more reason for being here. She was one of the students hit the hardest by Midnight’s death. Judging by her apparent reaction to the villain’s comment, she likely intends to take her mission very seriously.
Mina and Kirishima also have a heavy investment in keeping Machia down. Not only did the two of them have a chance encounter with him in middle school, but they also both played big roles in sedating him along with Midnight. This is their chance to make sure their efforts weren’t in vain and that Midnight didn’t die for nothing.
The stakes for this battle are quite high. If the Front wins and Machia goes free, he could wreak all kinds of havoc that even the Pro Heroes can’t handle, especially with how full everyone’s hands are. If the assault is stopped, however, then not only will this worst-case scenario be prevented, but Mina and the other students will finally get some much-needed closure. Both sides of this battle have a lot to gain and a lot to lose, so they’ll likely be giving it everything they’ve got to come out the winners.
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