BNHA 4×8 Review: Suneater of the Big Three

If you’ve been following my reviews for Boku no Hero Academia, you know two things about me: I love shipping and I love Aizawa.  So it goes without saying that I loved ‘Suneater of the Big Three.’

As the title suggests, this episode was primarily about Suneater, also know as Tamaki Amajiki.  We start off right away with an absolutely adorable flashback of Tamaki and Mirio’s budding friendship when they were children.  They’ve been together ever since, motivating each other and helping each other push towards the goal of becoming heroes.

Tamaki views Mirio as someone who is as bright as the sun, which means his hero name ‘Suneater’ is related to the strength he pulls from his friend.  He brings out the best in him.  And what’s ‘best’ in Tamaki is something that Fat Gum describes as being ‘the best’ of all of them. 

Tamaki is incredibly powerful, even if he’s also incredibly introverted.  All he needs is motivation and he can single-handedly take down three incredibly powerful villains.  He is arguably even more powerful than Mirio himself, despite the fact that Mirio tends to be the one to be in the spotlight in these situations.  That’s likely why they work so well together.  Mirio absorbs the attention that would throw Tamaki off, and they can both get their work done in the way that works for them.

Long live Miritama!  A mighty OTP in a sea of already incredibly mighty OTPs.

Tamaki is incredibly special to me.  In a show that has well over a hundred named characters, he’s right up there in the top three with Aizawa and Eri.  It’s a competitive list to be on, but he’s right there at the top.  His introversion and drive are both relatable qualities for me, and I can see the logic behind a lot of his actions.  The only character I can relate to more is my grumpy, scruffy, sarcastic, tired Aizawa Shouta.

Speaking of Aizawa, while he didn’t have a lot of scenes on his own this episode, he’s part of the crew that is driving this plot forward.  I think the only part of his plot this season is the inconsistency with his quick.  It was established early on that as soon as Aizawa blinks, his quirk stops working.  But somehow in this episode his quirk remains in effect for a while after he’s left the scene, which is a huge contradiction. 

It’s a change I will choose to ignore for the sake of consistency in my fanworks.  It just doesn’t make sense that he has to wear goggles and strain his eyes to keep his quirk activated if his quirk remains activated after blinking.  Thank goodness we have fan spaces where we can make our own decisions about stuff like this because the perfectionist in me is crawling up the walls with frustration.

The episode leaves off with Tamaki in fairly bad shape, but ultimately victorious.  Aizawa, Fat Gum, Midoriya, Kirishima, and the rest of the squad are still running to find their way through the maze of corridors while Mirio is zooming through walls (not naked, thankfully, and I’ll accept this inconsistency because, ugh, the nudity).  Next week can’t get here soon enough!

Author: Angel Wilson

Angel is the admin of The Geekiary and a geek culture commentator. They earned a BA in Film & Digital Media from UC Santa Cruz. They have contributed to various podcasts and webcasts including An Englishman in San Diego, Free to Be Radio, and Genre TV for All. They identify as queer.

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