WARNING: The following contains spoilers for My Hero Academia Season 5, Episode 12, "The New Power and All For One," now streaming on Funimation, Hulu, and Crunchyroll.
My Hero Academia returns to its roots in Episode 12 of Season 5 with a good-old-fashioned street-level villain encounter. The brawl involves Class 1-A's most powerful students, Katsuki Bakugo and Shoto Todoroki, who receive their Provisional Hero Licenses a mere 30 minutes prior to their sudden encounter with a purse-snatching thief.
Bakugo and Todoroki had fallen behind their classmates when they failed the initial Provisional Hero Licensing Exam. However, going by the sheer performance of this performance, they are now fully caught up -- if not further ahead. The whole point of becoming a Pro Hero is to help people, and this encounter shows it doesn't always have to be a cataclysmic battle for a hero to shine.
When a new villain is riding a tidal wave around the city in order to steal people's belongings, Bakugo immediately takes command of the situation. He puts All Might on evacuation duty, already aware of the advice that the former #1 Hero was about to give. In an excellent display of teamwork, with each using the minimum force necessary, Todoroki freezes the massive amount of water and Bakugo immediately blows it away.
In typical My Hero Academia villain fashion, the criminal explains to the boys what he is doing and why, with Bakugo's only takeaway being that the thief should get a job. When he attempts to flee, Bakugo quickly disables all six of the henchmen -- but is surprised to see they are unconscious when he was trying to be gentle. The explosive teen then engages the villain in combat but interrupts his pursuit to go save All Might and a bystander from a falling lamppost.
When the villain lets his Carbon-controlling Quirk run wild, Todoroki steps up with his ultimate move, Flashfreeze Heatwave. A technique not seen since his Sports Festival match against Deku, this time Shoto exhibits much greater control over the move in order to limit its damage. In the mere seconds it took for Todoroki to defeat the villain, Bakugo collected all of the stolen belongings so they would not be destroyed.
In their hero debut, Bakugo and Todoroki apprehended every villain, prevented any casualties, recovered all the stolen property, and kept the city damage to a minimum. As hero work goes, this was absolute perfection. When even All Might was prepared to leave the cleanup to the pros, Shoto states he must first melt the ice that was enveloping a large chunk of the area. Bakugo's ability to work with others continues to improve as his combativeness was minimal during the encounter. He doesn't even express any unhappiness about saving people and property while Todoroki actually got to defeat the villain.
The two powerhouses of My Hero Academia's Class 1-A, Bakugo and Todoroki displayed incredible control over their destructive Quirks. With powers more suited to explosive battles, the aspiring heroes showed their versatility as well as their commitment to improving. The competitiveness that stemmed from their initial exam failures is gone, replaced by sound judgment and exceptional teamwork skills. Bakugo and Todoroki definitely earned that cake after their brilliant performance.
