’My Hero Academia’ Season 7 Episode 10 review: “Wounded Hero, Burning Bright and True!!” is bloody mayhem

There is no real possible redemption for Endeavor. Endeavor has easily had one of the most engaging character-driven arcs throughout the course of My Hero Academia. But that doesn’t change the abuse he wielded in his past. His tragedy is that he realizes this and accepts his purgatorial fate. This comes to a head in My Hero Academia Season 7 Episode 10. Endeavor reckons with the lives he’s cost due to his selfish ineptitude as a father while ready and willing to lay his life on the line so that those he let down are still able to walk a heroic, untarnished path. 

Granted, that path is still laden with blood, as Endeavor physically wrecks himself in pursuit of All For One. Throughout the series, Endeavor experiences life-altering changes in his demeanor. The writing continues to pick at the scab that is his existence as we realize his own tragic origins and his understanding that he strayed from the path of the virtuous. He is not the hero he once hoped to be. In one of the best-written moments of the episode, he tells himself he’ll never try to satisfy his ego going forward by telling himself he did as well as he was good. Instead, each day will be an act of sacrifice as he tries to make up for all he’s harmed. 

We watch as he pushes himself to the mental and physical limit in his fight with All For One. The action is intensive and bruising. He arrives just in time to save Jiro, Tokoyami, and Hawks from a devastating fate. The animation revels in tendon-snapping mayhem. Endeavor’s arm quickly dislodging itself as he stays in the fight through a fist manifested by his flame. It’s probably the most powerful moment of his in the series. His fire spews from his eyes as he bodily launches All For One to a new location. 

All For One notes that the most dangerous hero (and villain) is wounded and cornered. Desperate. And that desperation leaks into every aspect of the fight between him and Endeavor. This isn’t necessarily a “cool” fight or one gifted with precise combat or action choreography. It’s bloody and brutal. It’s a last stand for a hero who knows he must go all out to counter the evil he’s facing. Despite the frenzied pace, the animation keeps its lines clean and cohesive. We track the momentum and movement of the fight until Endeavor’s last act, seemingly incinerating All For One against the blue skies behind them. 

Of course, All For One has a trick up his sleeve, but we don’t see it yet. Instead, the back half of the episode passes the torch to Bakugou and the team surrounding him. He, too, suffers a wound to his arm, with Shigagraki grabbing him. It displays his horrific strength even with Erasure in effect. The parallels are clear — that Bakugou could’ve gone the way of Endeavor. Instead, still in his youth, he’s been able to rally through the help around him, no different than Todoroki finding safe spaces with Class 1-A. 

Shigaraki seeks to feed on humanity’s festering regret and despair. But Bakugo argues that he’s already battled those negative, self-destructive emotions and come through the other side. The scene is intercut with flashbacks of pivotal moments between Bakugou and Midoriya, as their relationship grew from something tenuous to rivalry, aided by Bakugou’s apology in Season 6. It’s a poignant moment and the seeming throwaway moment where Bakugou refers to all his classmates by their names rather than nicknames or snarky asides. Bakugou has grown up and been humbled, ready, and willing to sacrifice himself to work as a team to stop the biggest bad of their time. 

Comparing Endeavor and Bakugou is somewhat lazy. No, the two were never the same, and their levels of abuse differed due to age and experience. However, to highlight the possibility of similarities, suggesting that Bakugou could’ve leaned into that style of hero, brash and impulsive, only to correct course, is emotionally poignant. And it’s a pivotal moment in Bakugou’s journey as a character. Shigaraki may only see him as a pawn in which to hurt Midoriya, but his capabilities and growth are tremendous. 

My Hero Academia Season 7 Episode 10 delivers chilling moments of dread even as our heroes rally. While it, once again, acts as something of a bridge, the significant moments land with necessary intensity and emotional gravitas. Endeavor and Bakugou are badly hurt, already fighting on fumes. And even still, the episode ends by reminding us that as powerful as the heroes are, the villains make for formidable, frightening foes.

My Hero Academia Season 7 Episode 10, “Wounded Hero, Burning Bright and True!!” is out now on Crunchyroll with new episodes each Saturday.

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Images courtesy of Studio Bones/Crunchyroll.