My Hero Academia – Season 7 Episode 13 Recap & Review

A Chain of Events, Across the Ages

Episode 13 of My Hero Academia’ Season 7 begins with Deku’s smashing arrival at U.A., quite literally. In a brief flashback, we see Star and Stripe’s pilot brothers, who had been instructed to retreat from Japan, helping Deku reach U.A. using their aircraft.

However, upon reaching the battle zone, Deku witnesses the destruction around him and feels overwhelming guilt, unable to forgive himself. It’s Mirio who snaps him back to his senses, reminding him that this is exactly what Shigaraki wants—for Deku to lose his calm, making his movements predictable.

Deku manages to regain his composure and unleashes one of his most dangerous attacks, one that is new even to All for One. He uses the second One for All’s quirk, Gearshift, to launch the Ultimate Move: Seconds Transmission. With every successive punch, Deku’s speed increases. The move is so powerful that Mirio comments on how the sound of the punch arrives after it is seen.

The move even confuses All for One, who remembers Gearshift as an uninspiring quirk he once easily defeated. What’s changed is how all the quirks that make up One for All have evolved over time. Unlike before, when Gearshift could only change the speed of inanimate objects, it now has “the ability to work on objects cell by cell.”

Deku continues to attack All for One, knowing that Shigaraki is still alive somewhere inside him. All for One tries to divert Gearshift but fails, as Gearshift is a quirk that alters speed and is not bound by inertia.

With the power of all the predecessors of One for All, Deku launches a power-packed punch. Just when it seems like the end is near, the episode concludes with the lingering question: amidst the destruction that has ensued, has he All for One even lost?

The Episode Review

Episode 13 of My Hero Academia Season 7 marks an unmistakably grand comeback! This episode is high on action, animation, emotion, and everything in between. The scene where all the fallen heroes merge into Deku, as if finally preparing to defeat the villain they’ve been trying to overcome for decades, is particularly powerful. The emotional strength behind this moment, coupled with the fantastic animation, is nothing short of a victory in itself.

One of the charms of My Hero Academia, as I’ve mentioned in previous episodes, is that it doesn’t completely polarize the villains. The anime’s antagonists are anything but conventional evil personalities ready to be defeated by the hero.

They are complex and nuanced, and if you blink for a second, you might see no difference between the heroes and the villains. Both are fighting for what they believe is right. It’s true: if there hadn’t been heroes in the first place, there wouldn’t have been villains either.

The only difference that makes them heroes and villains is, “What are you using what you’ve been given for? Who are you using it for?” And this is precisely why we cheer for Deku throughout the series.

This episode truly is a “chain of events, across the ages,” and it will take all of this to defeat someone as relentless as All for One. With that, we come to the end of our ‘My Hero Academia’ Season 7, Episode 13 recap and review. We’ll see you in the next one!