"My Hero" is the fourth episode of My Hero Academia's third season, and the 42nd episode overall.
As she and Tiger face off against Magne and Spinner, Mandalay informs the camp that villains have attacked and instructs the students to return to the base. Midoriya breaks away from the other students to rescue Kota, who is being cornered by Muscular away from the camp. Meanwhile, Aizawa and Vlad King protect the students at the camp from clones of the villain Dabi, and the students who were participating in the fear challenge try to hold out against the villains attacking them — Mustard, who creates poison gas that knocks many unconscious, and Moonfish, who attacks Shoji and finds himself against Todoroki and Bakugo. Kendo and Tetsutetsu set out to defeat Mustard.
Kota recognizes Muscular as the villain who killed his parents. Midoriya rescues him in time and fights the villain, although Muscular easily overpowers him. Kota uses his Quirk against Muscular, which inspires Midoriya to summon One for All at 1,000,000% and knock Muscular out.
Tropes present in this episode:
- An Arm and a Leg: Moonfish severs Shoji's hand. He gets better, since it was a duplicate organ anyway.
- Big Damn Heroes: Midoriya arrives at just the right time to get Kota away from Muscular's punch.
- Call-Back: Midoriya can't call for help like he did during the fight against Stain because his phone is broken.
- Contrived Coincidence: The villain who runs into Kota in his hiding place just so happens to be the same one who murdered his parents. Muscular even lampshades the absurdity of running into the kid of the Pros who took his eye, calling it fate at work.
- Conveniently Timed Attack from Behind: Downplayed in that the "attack" is little more than a splash of water, but it distracts Muscular just long enough for Midoriya to rally his strength.
- Deliberate Injury Gambit: Midoriya shoves his left arm, which was already broken from a previous attack, through once of Muscular's muscle fibers so that he can fire a point blank 100% Smash right in the villain's face. Unfortunately it doesn't work.
- Heroic Second Wind: Midoriya is seemingly overwhelmed by Muscular's onslaught, but the thought of saving Kota (and Kota caring enough for his well-being to try to intervene) motivates him to become even stronger than before and defeat his foe.
- Internal Reveal: Midoriya learns from Muscular that the latter's group is after Bakugo.
- Just Toying with Them: Midoriya realizes that Muscular's first attacks are just easy punches for him — once Muscular decides that Midoriya is an interesting opponent, he goes all out with punches Midoriya can't counter (at least at first).
- No-Sell: Midoriya quickly runs into the fight of his life against Muscular who, thanks to his Muscle Augmentation Quirk, is able to match Midoriya in terms of raw power. His normal use of Full Cowling barely puts a dent in the villain and even hitting him with a 100% Smash gets blocked once he wraps himself in fibers. It's only when Midoriya "goes beyond" that he is finally able to lay the villain out.
- Party Scattering: The reason protecting the forty students at summer camp is so difficult in this episode — the students are all scattered around the camp. Some are with Mandalay and Tiger at the waiting area and others are with Aizawa and Vlad King in the camp classroom, but most are scattered around the fear challenge route. Of these, Yaoyorozu and Awase are off rescuing the 1-B students, Kendo and Tetsutetsu break away to find Mustard, Aoyama is supposed to be protecting Jiro and Hagakure, and the 1-A students who were moving in pairs through the route (Todoroki and Bakugo, Shoji and Tokoyami, and Uraraka and Asui) have to protect themselves.
- Punched Across the Room: A punch using One For All at 1,000,000%note blows the super-strong Muscular into the cliffside, knocking him out.
- Rebuilt Pedestal: Kota's view of heroes, and by extension his parents, is restored after seeing Midoriya go through great lengths to save him.
- Self-Harm: This time, Midoriya double-breaks both his arms, with his right arm being used in an unprecedented level of strength of One for All.
- Title Drop: Kota calling Midoriya, battered but victorious, "my hero". Counts as a partial title drop for the series name in general.
- You Killed My Father: Muscular is revealed to be the villain who killed Kota's parents.
