My Hero Academia Stuns With Season 4 Deaths

My Hero Academia finally kicked off season 4 for real this week, with episode 402, “Overhaul”. True to its name, the episode introduced a new villain to the anime, a Yakuza boss named Overhaul, who meets with the League of Villains to try to form a partnership. Needless to say, things to not go as cordially or well as either party may have hoped. Tomura Shigaraki thinks that Overhaul is coming audition to the League of Villains, while Overhaul is there to recruit the League of Villains for his Yakuza group. A violent villain-on-villain fight breaks out in the League’s hideout, and it results in some pretty shockingly gruesome deaths!

WARNING: My Hero Academia episode 402 SPOILERS Follow!

As it turns out, Overhaul and Shigaraki have similarly-themed powers, in that one touch from either villain has devastatingly fatal results for those who are touched. While Shigaraki’s quirk causes a person to crumble and disintegrate, Overhaul’s quirk has a much… messier result. As we find out to our horror, Overhaul can literally make a person’s body explode in a shower of blood, guts, and gore.

So, as stated, the meeting between Shigaraki and Overhaul melts down into a full-on brawl. It starts with Magne coming at Overhaul for disrespecting The League of Villains, only to meet her end viciously and suddenly as the Yakuza hits Magne with a quirk-canceling dart, and Overhaul dismantles Magne’s entire torso and head in a spray of gore. That death sets the League off, and the rest of the team attacks. However, its revealed that Overhaul hasn’t come alone, he’s brought the rest of his Shie Hassaikai Yakuza group along with him! That just makes the battle even more intense, and when Shigaraki comes at Overhaul looking to give him a taste of his own medicine, the Yakuza boss proves his authority by having one of his soldiers jump in front of the fatal blow.

After that, cooler heads prevail. Overhaul deems The League to be too emotional to listen to his proposal, and leaves them a quirk-canceling dart as possible motivation for the team-up. As Overhaul sees it, each side has lost one person, and that’s enough loss of resources for one day. The League isn’t ready to back down, until Shigaraki yanks their leash. One For All’s successor knows that some smarter moves are needed to take down Overhaul, and won’t let his emotions get the better of him.

There’s going to be a rematch between Shie Hassaikai and the League of Villains at some point, for sure, and it’s definitely going to be even bloodier than this opening salvo.

My Hero Academia was created by Kohei Horikoshi and has been running in Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump since July 2014. The story follows Izuku Midoriya, who lives in a world where everyone has powers, even though he was born without them. Dreaming to become a superhero anyway, he’s eventually scouted by the world’s best hero All Might and enrolls in a school for professional heroes. The series has been licensed by Viz Media for an English language release since 2015. My Hero Academia will also be launching its second big movie, Heroes Rising, in Japan this December.