My Hero Academia Chapter 377 Review – “The Chain Thus Far”

Ending the first week 2023 with a new chapter of My Hero Academia. Kohei Horikoshi ended 2022 with the villains turning the entire tide of the war thanks Kurogiri entering the game to help Tomura Shigaraki. Now we are beginning the new year for My Hero Academia with things looking like they will only get progressively worse for all the heroes and whole world. With such a game changing shift can our heroes turn the tide back to their side? Let’s find out with My Hero Academia Chapter 377.

CREATIVE TEAM

Writer & Artist: Kohei Horikoshi

SYNOPSIS

At the U.A. Airborne Fortress Present Mic appears behind Eraser Head from one of Kurogiri’s warp gates. Himiko Toga’s Sad Man’s Parade appear out of the Kurogiri warp gate and immediately gang up on Eraser Head, Phantom Thief, and Manual.

With that Tomura Shigaraki-All For One are no longer limited by Eraser Head’s Erasure Quirk. The release of power out of Shigaraki causes a massive explosive the rocks U.A. This allows Skeptic to finish hacking and gaining control of U.A. High School’s floating fortress system.

As Shigaraki regains control of his body from All For One, Deku is struggling from the blowback of using the power-up he received from the second One For All User’s Gearshift Quirk. While recovering Deku is told by the Second One For All User that there is still a silver lining in the current situation as All For One and Shigaraki are struggling with all the personalities that reside within the All For One Quirk.

Over at the villains lair, La Brava reveals herself by telling Skeptic she found his location through her hacking skills thanks to be motivated by doing everything for Gentle’s sake. End of chapter.

REVIEW

Kohei Horikoshi starts off 2023 with what felt more like a transition chapter. That is not necessarily a bad thing. Similar to chapter 374 and 375 of the series, My Hero Academia Chapter 377 is about showing how the chaos is bringing all the battlefield more together after each one was on their own.

Its not an easy situation that Horikoshi has created for himself with The Final War arc as all the characters were separated all across Japan up until these recent chapters. Because of that Horikoshi is putting a lot of time into showing how Kurogiri is the true game changer of this entire story. Kurogiri powers has opened the door to bring together all these separate battles to be closer tied together than before.

But with that we do see Horikoshi putting more time to show how all the events in the separate battlefields where All For One and Tomura Shigaraki are being fought are happening at the same time. This isn’t an easy thing to do since Horikoshi doesn’t normally show more than one major battle per chapter. That story structure that Horikoshi follows does lead to the timing of these multiple battles not aligning as well as they should.

Tomura Shigaraki regaining control of his body from All For One in My Hero Academia Chapter 377 is an example of that. Because Shigaraki returning to control himself was shown to be a big moment in both how Horikoshi drew and wrote the villain. But even as that happens you do feel there is the miss opportunity of All For One reacting to losing control of his successor. Especially considering how All For One tried to escape in the previous chapter to reach Shigaraki there should’ve been at least one panel with All For One’s reaction to losing control. It’s a small detail that would’ve elevated what was shown as a major turning point.

At the same time, Horikoshi does a good job showing that just because Shigaraki is back in control of his body it does not erase the problems he has with the All For One Quirk. Horikoshi made sure to have the fact that Shigaraki’s body never reached 100% of its alteration process with integrating the All For One Quirk is his biggest kryptonite. Establishing that early on has made it so when we do get moments like in My Hero Academia Chapter 377 where Shigaraki doesn’t just go on a full rampage make sense. Its not just about buying Deku time for both he and Shigaraki to resume their fight.

All that said what the strength of My Hero Academia Chapter 377 is how the chaos that Kurogiri created continues. Because it wasn’t just abut freeing Shigaraki from Erase Head’s Erasure Quirk but also bringing down the floating fortress that U.A. High School became. We once again see Skeptic be an ace in the hole for All For One’s plans.

Its in seeing how overconfident that Skeptic was that Horikoshi made the return of La Brava an even bigger moment. It was certainly a surprise to see La Brava return as she along with Gentle while important to continuing Izuku Midoriya’s character arc did seem more like filler villains. To Horikoshi’s credit he remembered how he established that La Brava was a hacker so that when the heroes needed a counter to Skeptic there already was one. This is a great use of long-term planning as La Brava’s return was a nice surprise.

FINAL THOUGHTS

My Hero Academia Chapter 377 continues to set the stage for how Kurogiri completely changed things in this war to favor the villains. This time around we see what that means with the full return of Tomura Shigaraki. Though by hitting similar story beats of the last half-dozen chapters Horikoshi does need to pick up the pacing. That includes finding a better balance between how the two major battles the heroes are having with Shigaraki and All For One are showcased.

Story Rating: 5 Night Girls out of 10

Art Rating: 7 Night Girls out of 10

Overall Rating: 6 Night Girls out of 10