‘My Hero Academia’ Season 7 Episode 14 review: An MVP gets the spotlight in “Together With Shoji”

Everything might get worse before it gets better, but My Hero Academia Season 7 Episode 14 rallies the troops again in the face of immeasurable odds. 

Since the early days of the series, Shoji has been one of those supporting characters who continually demonstrate their worth. While watching, I often dub him an unironic MVP. One must look no further than the training camp arc where Shoji carries with him a severely injured Midoriya after trying to help a rampaging Dark Shadow. In “Together with Shoji,” Shoji gets his due through a significant and poignant flashback. Facing off against Spinner, we learn about the young hero’s origin as he ascends into the figure he aspires to be. 

There’s plenty to praise in Episode 14. The series highlights the ominous and imposing atmosphere of war as the streets crowd with protesters trying to release Kurogiri. The smoke from the flames threatens to engulf the heroes as Present Mic, Shoji, and Koda face down an army of heteromorphs from the Paranormal Liberation Front, led by a rampaging Spinner. Directed by Shōji Ikeno, the episode plays with visual depth as a means to capture the wide-scale chaos taking place. 

The artistry has been one of the finer points of Season 7, and it’s still present in Episode 14. The animation plays with form and style, shifting between past and present. The animation team pains Shoji’s devastating backstory with watercolor strokes, somber and melancholic in their grays and blues. It’s the perfect setting as he reveals to his friends a past of trauma and abuse. This aesthetic contrasts the present day, where the direction flows more like a classic kaiju film. This is especially true in the fight between Shoji and Spinner. A particular highlight is almost innocuous in design but impactful in execution. We watch a vantage point shot from the interior of an abandoned building, observing the two fight just outside the windows. It gives them a larger-than-life scale.

However, the animation wouldn’t have landed as well without the tremendous writing that serves Shoji’s tale. If anything, it’s so good that it’s hard not to wish to have had more of it earlier. There’s only so much time in any given story, and despite the roster of strong supporting players, at the end of the day, this is Midoriyia’s story. But there’s such a natural intrigue in the plight of these people with heteromorph quirks and their hardships. 

We’ve seen pieces of these struggles throughout the series, but you have to dig for them. It’s what makes Shoji’s story all the more heartbreaking as he shares that even fellow heteromorphs like Koda or Tokoyami might be naive to the prejudice he faced by virtue of growing up in a city. Shoji’s upbringing is riddled with abuse and violence at the hands of those whose small-minded beliefs curdled into something radical. One of the most touching moments of his backstory is when he saves a little girl from drowning. However, even that is tarnished once we realize he was hurt in the aftermath because of it. 

There’s so much depth and layers to this story of what it means to be born with a quirk but an undesirable one that it could be its own other series. Because of this, there’s much to pack into the story in just one episode, but the impact is undeniable. This is especially true with Shoji fighting against Spinner, the latter too, who is a victim of society. While Dabi, Toga, and Shigaraki all have tragic origins, Spinner ultimately cuts the most heartbreaking figure. 

All of it culminates in a rousing moment of heroism for Shoji and even Koda, who admires Shoji’s strength and perseverance. Shoji aims to rally the protesters, speaking to shared trauma and past hurt. Between seeing him without his mask for the first time and the empathy he shares for those he fights, Shoji solidifies himself as one of the most interesting heroes in Class 1-A and the series as well. 

“Don’t let them take advantage of your scars” is one of the best lines of the series. It speaks to Shoji’s individual story, the tough path, and the series as a whole, whose foundation is compassion. The day is far from over, of course, and not everyone is safe. Spinner’s cognitive abilities are lessening due to the abundance of quirks, making him an unpredictable foe. The creature design for Spinner as he activates his scale mail is grotesque in visualization and implication. But the magic comes in the form of Koda activating the full extent of his quirk due to Shoji’s influence. It once again speaks to the inherent thematic core of My Hero Academia. The idea that one step, one action, or one word can cause a world of difference for someone else. That someone can be a hero no matter their origin. 

My Hero Academia Season 7 Episode 14, “Together With Shoji” is out now on Crunchyroll with new episodes each Saturday.

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Images courtesy of Studio Bones/Crunchyroll.