Previously on BnHA: Dabi fought a dude who could control ice. For like three pages. Then we cut to my boy Twice, who had located an unconscious Toga (who as you recall had her blood blown up a couple chapters back, so yeah) and was understandably freaking out about how to get her some help. To make a long and somewhat confusing story short, you know that long-haired guy who hacked Giran’s phone? Turns out he has the power to create human puppets or some shit, and he created a bunch of Twice duplicates and sent them to capture the real Twice (who you might also recall has some traumatic history involving clones of himself). Seems they want to use Twice’s quirk to create a backup clone of Re-Destro, just in case history repeats himself and he ends up kicking the bucket like his great-great granddad. Wouldn’t that be sad. Re-Destro getting murdered. Wouldn’t that just be a darn shame. Anyways so let’s see where this leads.
Today on BnHA: The Villain Flashback Arc continues with today’s installment featuring, you guessed it, more villain flashbacks! We learn more about our little buddy Twice who was apparently orphaned as a young teen and subsequently found himself alone in a cold and uncaring world. Honestly you guys, after reading this I’m amazed that he’s still as nice of a guy as he is. Anyway, so he used his quirk to clone himself because he was lonely, and the clones and him engaged in a petty crime spree or two, and then somehow or other it all led to the whole murderfest that fucked up his head so badly. Back in the present, a struggling Jin tries to escape and help Toga, so Skeptic orders his puppets to break Jin’s arms. They do so, but this has a curious side-effect that Skeptic may not have been expecting. Namely, that having that much damage dealt to him makes Twice realize that he definitely is not one of his clones, and is in fact the real deal. This appears to at least temporarily cure his split personality woes, and the chapter ends with him creating about a dozen duplicates to go fuck up the Liberation Army’s day. Hell yes.
(All comments are my unspoiled reactions from my initial readthrough of the chapter. I did a quick edit for grammar and clarity immediately afterward, but aside from that there are no changes.)
hey guys, sorry I’ve been inactive all week; I’ve been sick and haven’t really had much energy. I still am sick, but I appear to have reached the stage of exhaustion where I’m all “eh, fuck it, yeah sure whatever” where it’s ironically easy to motivate myself to do stuff because I have no willpower to resist, lol
so anyway. we’re apparently not missing a beat, picking up right where we left off last week with Twice’s mask being pulled off by one of the gorilla puppets
wow and they’re just like. flinging him aside
DON’T FLING MY BOY NO!! AND GET AWAY FROM TOGA
AHHHH
shit, how creepy is that? are they cold because they’re just ~puppets~ and not actually real, living people? what a disturbing touch
now we’re cutting back to Skeptic, who’s giving the puppets orders and addressing them as various letters of the alphabet. how can he tell them the fuck apart
meanwhile Giran’s asking what they’re doing to his pal. ;_; Giran you continue to be the best
and Re-Destro’s forcibly directing his attention elsewhere, but he’s also answering his question, strangely enough
that’s a lot of detail to be giving the guy when you could have just smacked him and told him to shut up. these villains are so confusing
but I guess they’re just telling him all this to taunt him more, because now Skeptic is bragging that he learned about Jin’s psychological disorder from Giran’s client data
hey btw I don’t think I’ve said this yet, but fuck this guy so hard for taking advantage of Twice’s trauma and using it against him. what a shocker, the Meta Liberation Army of dickheads pulls another dickhead move. these guys are so classy
oh my fucking god you guys Giran is getting hotter with each fucking chapter though fffffffff
if you’d told me a month ago that this dude would be nipping at Aizawa and All Might’s heels for the title of BnHA’s most eligible bachelor I would have called you a liar and a thief, yet here we are. good lord
that said, I appreciate that he’s thinking about how hard it’ll be on poor Twice, but they also just said they’d kill Toga as well, so I imagine that part of it would be pretty hard on her too. just saying
SDLFKSDLFHK SPEAKING OF
FUCK ME YOU GUYS I ALMOST LEAPED TO MY FUCKING FEET, WHAT THE FUCK. DON’T TELL ME THEY’RE GOING TO SNAP HER NECK. HOLY SHIT
SOMEONE BETTER SAVE HER OR I’M GOING TO FLY OUT TO JAPAN AND GIVE HORIKOSHI MY STUPID COLD. THAT’LL SHOW THAT BASTARD. HAVE SOME BRONCHITIS YOU PIECE OF SHIT
AND TWICE IS WATCHING ALL PANICKED AND SCREAMING THAT HE’S GOING TO KILL HER
AT FIRST I WAS CONFUSED AND WAS LIKE, DOES HE BLAME HIMSELF FOR GETTING HER IN THIS SITUATION? BUT THEN I REMEMBERED THE CLONES AND THAT YEAH IT’S LITERALLY HIM KILLING HER THOUGH OMGGGGG
AHHH HE’S SO CONFUSED THIS IS SO CONFUSING
I’M TOO SICK TO DEAL WITH TWICE’S EXISTENTIAL CRISIS YOU GUYS, IT’S REALLY FREAKING ME OUT, HELP. THE FUCKING PANELS ARE ALL WOBBLY-LINED AND THEY KEEP ZOOMING IN ON HIS FACE AND SHOWING HIM ALL BUG-EYED SCREAMING “WHO AM I” OVER AND OVER AGAIN OH GOD
OH SHIT!?!?
ACTUAL TWICE FLASHBACKS OH SHIT?! I was not expecting this oh snap. I am so into this
anyway, so he’s thinking -- with surprising coherence -- that because of his rough appearance, people were always afraid of him growing up
but also, what was that part about him not having a family? so he was an orphan then?? Horikoshi you are aware that I already love Twice and am emotionally attached to him, yes? but like if you want to hit me with even more feels and fuck me up some more then be my guest I suppose?
anyway so whoever he’s talking to here says Jin, who is apparently sixteen here, evidently hit some dude with his motorcycle by accident. oh shit
and baby!Jin says the guy jumped out in front of him and he was obeying the speed limit and everything
and the man he’s talking to seems vaguely sympathetic but says that regardless, it’s usually the victim who ends up winning these cases, and that Jin may end up with a criminal record. “but don’t let it get to you.” oh, sure. yeah, let’s just look on the bright side here
he says that no matter how many times you stumble in life, you can always start over
well shit is it any wonder this kid ended up going the villain route and making a bunch of clones of himself to live his best life? I mean jeez, he had absolutely no one on his side and was slapped with a criminal record when he was only sixteen. that shit is rough
oh fuck me and it just keeps getting worse
well that’s nice. so make that homeless with a criminal record, then. jesus christ he was still just a kid
so apparently his parents died in a villain attack when he was in middle school, and he had no relatives. I guess the state didn’t give a fuck either, damn
I find it extraordinarily easy to empathize with, actually! that’s one of the things that makes you such a great character!
so I guess he originally ended up making a clone of himself just because he was lonely. okay wow. not only does Twice continue to be the most likable villain in the series, he’s working his way up there as one of the most likable and relatably human characters, period
look at this shit! he’s just a guy who had a run of bad luck and tried his best to cope with it in whatever ways he could. there’s nothing villainous about him, he was just someone whom nobody wanted. he had his entire future stolen out from under him in the blink of an eye and had nowhere else to turn. he just wanted some friends for fuck’s sake
and so then he and his merry band committed a bunch of petty crimes. but they just needed some cash so they could live! like, all he wanted to do was just chill out and be happy. I got your back Twice. it’s not your fault
and then the flashback just kind of cuts to him tied to the chair in the aftermath of the clone hunger games. so I guess that’s all the backstory we’re getting as far as that goes. ngl I would have really liked to see just a bit more of the lead-up to that specific event. he’s such a nice guy that it’s a bit hard to picture him just suddenly going “RAWR I’M GONNA MURDER ALL Y’ALL.” but what I’m thinking is that all of the tragedy in his past contributed to him forming his violent alter ego personality, and that one of the clones must have just snapped one day and the rest is history
anyway so now we’re cutting to his first meeting with my new boyfriend Giran
ah okay, so he’s scared because if he actually is one of the clones then just a tiny bit of damage would be enough to finally do him in
btw Giran, possibly the one good thing Re-Destro and his buds did was getting rid of that scarf and sunglasses though bud. if you decide to change up your look after all of this, I’m not going to complain. there’s a reason I thought you were just some douchebag this whole time. obviously I shouldn’t have been so quick to judge you, I realize that now of course
but seriously Giran who wears sunglasses at night indoors. I mean, idk, maybe you get migraines or something. but if not I’m just saying
regardless, questionable fashion choices aside, Giran is actually a super nice guy, a mensch if you will, and he is now casually changing Twice’s entire life in the span of a few sentences. awww
how the fuck were you planning on smoking that cigarette while wearing a paper bag over your face. ??
also, Giran on this page kinda reminds me of Sanji, if Sanji was, like, a beatnik about to throw down on open mic poetry night
anyway so that’s the end of our happy flashback, and now we’re back in the present with Twice resuming his freakout!
but in spite of his mental struggles, he’s shaking the puppet clones off and trying to dash toward Toga again omg!
up in his little tower Skeptic seems fairly surprised
in related news, fuck this guy so much. also he’s using one of his puppets as a chair, which is one of the creepiest touches Horikoshi has put in this manga to date. but also they mentioned last week that Skeptic makes the puppets out of any human-sized materials that happen to be lying around, so I kind of wonder if maybe this dude originally was a chair. the mysteries of BnHA
moving on though, yeah, Twice and Toga really do have a strong bond though, don’t they? their chemistry is as beautiful as it is strange
oh shit but they really did hit him though
FUCK YOU F AND G
FFFFF SON OF A BITCH
DLASFKJLKJ PLEASE DON’T YOU FUCKING PSYCHOPATH, I CAN’T WAIT FOR YOU TO FUCKING DIE YOU ASSHOLE!!!
motherfucker! and we just established that he’s afraid that a broken bone will be enough to kill him if it turns out he really is a clone!
-- holy shit, but. on the other hand, if it doesn’t kill him though, that just might be enough to cure him of that particular fear once and for all. oh shit, unexpected plot twist
though in this particular situation it probably won’t make much of a difference how sane he is if he’s still got two broken arms though fuuuuuuuck
anyway... gotta click to the next page... even though I really don’t want to, sob
aaaaaaaand they’ve broken them. well shit. at least it wasn’t graphic. he’s just hunching forward and screaming and his arms are facing the wrong way, fuck
and now Skeptic is all “your legs are next,” and uh, can Twice actually hear him, though?? like, what? did I miss something here? is he piping his voice in through the shed’s convenient sound system or something?
anyway he’s telling Twice not to struggle anymore, and Twice is muttering to himself all darkly about how much that hurt
and apparently Toga’s regained consciousness now!!
wow Skeptic, okay sure, go ahead and keep talking about how you’re about to kill Toga in front of his eyes. just keep on digging yourself deeper. it’s like he doesn’t realize there’s only one page left in the chapter and things are just about reaching a tipping point and our heroes (?! I mean they are, though, for this arc at any rate) have had just about enough of his bullshit
lol I can’t take the tension omg
please do something badass please do something badass please d --
oh snap
Twiiiiiiice ;_; so it’s like I thought. they unexpectedly cured you of your identity crisis angst
anyway I guess this chapter is a longer one than usual because it’s page 15 now and we’re still going! so I will now resume my “please do something badass” chant. c’mon Twice. kick some assssssss
YESSSSSSSSSSSSSS
THIS TIME I REALLY DID LEAP OUT OF MY CHAIR OMG. BOIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
LMAO ARE ALL OF THEIR ARMS BROKEN TOO. FUCK IT, IT DOESN’T MATTER. DEKU HAS SPENT APPROXIMATELY HALF THE MANGA WITH BROKEN ARMS AND IT’S NEVER STOPPED HIM*
*forest angst aside. and anyways that all worked out in the end, so
“wounded heroes are the most dangerous.” well fuck. given that we’ve just seen an exhausted and delirious Shigaraki eradicate an entire wave of people, and a bloodied and wounded Toga straight up murder one of the Army’s leaders, I think it’s safe to say we can apply this statement to villains too. and I for one can’t wait how dangerous a wounded -- but now sane -- Twice can be. motherfucker how I am loving this glorious arc
