REVIEW: ‘My Hero Academia’ Episode 145 — “Inflation”

As the battles begin, Shigaraki (Kôki Uchiyama) reveals a shocking new ability. Immune to Erasure, this revelation makes the need for Midoriya (Daiki Yamashita) to get to UA and help with the fight all the more paramount. But he has a more immediate problem to confront in My Hero Academia Episode 145 (Boku no hîrô akademia) “Inflation.”

This week’s episode opens with a jump back in time to the planning session led by All Might (Kenta Miyake) and Hawks (Yûichi Nakamura, Jujutsu Kaisen 0), which we saw part of a few episodes ago. While fans are likely eager to get to the fights, this moment is extremely helpful as it lays out who was sent where and the reasoning behind the choices made. Along with the teleportation locations, it also mentions the current holding area for Gigantomachia. As the heroes expect All For One to make a play at releasing the titanic villain, they have shored up the defenses there as well.

While My Hero Academia Episode 145 opening is necessary, it does foreshadow a problem the episode will struggle with a bit. It has too much exposition. While some moments are useful, other moments are wholly unnecessary. That the episode takes the time to talk about the resorts and aquarium that are present at one battle site is nothing but a waste of time. There is plenty of ground to cover without squandering time giving the audience useless details.

Returning to the present, the episode takes viewers to the sky coffin UA, where Shigaraki is unleashing his newest power. Countless hands of varying sizes cascade from his arm, stretching out to strike his opponents. The visual design of this ability is terrifying and grotesque. If his Decay quirk were active, he’d be able to instantly affect everything within the structure of UA.

Answering the heroes’ shock at this new ability, as well as the fact that he is using it while Erasure is on him, Shigaraki explains that this isn’t a quirk but rather his body’s way of adapting to the increased quirk density in his body. He claims that this new evolution of his body is proof of the superhuman singularity theory.

This claim is deeply flawed, as nothing about Shigaraki’s quirks is natural at this point. Trying to use his situation as proof of where quirks will inevitably take humanity is simply a shallow justification of his views. If the heroes weren’t so busy trying not to die, I’m sure one of them would happily point it out to him.

This new, melee-centric attack forces Mirko (Sayaka Kinoshita, Birdie Wing: Golf Girl’s Story) to swap out her prosthetics to allow her to avoid the weight of Shigaraki’s attack. Another nice touch of preplanning, the fact that the alternates were laid out for her shows that the heroes were ready in case Shigaraki was able to counter a physical assault. This makes Mirko a more sensible choice to be in the fight against Shigaraki than she initially seemed.

My Hero Academia Episode 145 also uses Mirko’s moment of rearming to deliver a little levity to the unfolding crisis. As she prepares to return to the fray with her new gear, she has a momentary verbal clash with Bakugo (Nobuhiko Okamoto, Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End). This moment highlights how similar the two personalities are comically. Bakugo goes so far as to challenge Mirko to a fight right then and there. Luckily, Best Jeanist (Hikaru Midorikawa) can redirect the two aggressive characters to more useful pursuits.

Outside the UA coffin, Aizawa (Jun’ichi Suwabe) receives a call from Midoriya. Aizawa learns that Deku has been taken to Toga’s battle site, and he asks for a teleportation back to UA. While Aizawa wants to provide his student with his request, doing so would require dropping Erasure off of Shigaraki. The consequences of which would be catastrophic. So Aizawa informs him that he must make his way back on his own.

My Hero Academia Episode 145 uses this exchange to shift scenes, going to the island battle where we find Midoriya, Uraraka (Ayane Sakura, Spy x Family: Code White), and Asui (Aoi Yûki) confronting Toga (Misato Fukuen). Toga uses the moment with Midoriya to profess her feelings for him, eliciting a shocked reaction from the young hero. Not only is Midoriya completely blindsided by this confession, but it is clear to him and any other sane person that this is neither the time nor the place for such things.

As Midoriya and Toga confront each other, we learn that Danger Sense can’t track Toga’s movements. This is because her violence is not born out of aggression but of her attraction to him. This makes Toga a deadly opponent for Midoriya, especially as explosions and projectiles obscure the battlefield, making the fleet-footed Toga hard to keep up with.

Midoriya’s attempts to reason with Toga are cut short as Uraraka and Tsui step in to handle the situation. Deku is needed to fight Shigaraki and can’t spend his time debating the nature of love with Toga. While this moment feels abrupt, it’s only because it goes against what shonen anime has conditioned us to expect. Long-winded, impractical philosophical debates amidst the chaos of a fight are the norm in this style of storytelling. But cutting it short here is for the best. There is too much going on, and Midoriya doesn’t have the time.

As Midorya speeds away utilizing several of One For All‘s abilities, he has a quick chat with one of the former holders concerning the use of One For All. This moment hints at tactics that will surely come into play later in the fight. It also once more reiterates to Midoriya that he can’t be rash here and throw everything he has at the unfolding problem at the first moment. Thought and strategy are needed. Midoriya can’t just try to solve everything in a single punch.

My Hero Academia Episode 145 ends with a trip to Camino Ward, where Todoroki (Yûki Kaji, Mashle: Magic and Muscles) prepares to lead the confrontation against his estranged brother Dabi (Hiro Shimono). Amidst the hellish blue light of dancing flames, we see Dabi taunting his younger sibling.

The visuals in this moment are the best of the episode. Not only is there lighting used to tremendous effect, but small details on Dabi are striking here. A close-up shot of his face shows how his lips are deteriorating from the heat he outputs. The physical self-destruction that we see in Dabi is the perfect visual representation of what is going on inside him.

As the final moments of the episode play out, we see Dabi tell Todorki that he’ll explain why he never told his family he was alive and how he got to where the show met up with him.

Hero Academia Episode 145 delivers some great action and tense character moments. While some unnecessary exposition can slow the proceedings sometimes, the episode manages to balance everything better than many other series would.

Hero Academia Episode 145 is streaming on Crunchyroll.