Illegals continues to cruise right along, doing what it does. A part of that is providing backfill for the main story, fleshing out the parts of the skeleton that Horikoshi for reasons of time or editorial limitations didn’t. And it does so much more anonymously than it really should, given its status as a spinoff of one if the 21st Century’s most popular animanga franchises. In that respect the anime is very much following in the manga’s footsteps, delivering the goods without much acclaim.
I always enjoy the peeks into Kouichi’s school life, especially as infrequently as we get them. He’s still persona non grata around campus after his unfortunate social faux pas, but a senior (Seto Asami) takes an interest in him. She tells him she’s looking for a “useful boy” in Naruhata to help him with her research. In return, the girl, Tsukauchi Makoto, offers to help Kouichi with the sort of academic intel a freshman would normally get from sempai in their club or friend group (neither of which he has). As it turns out Makoto has reasons to seek out this particular useful boy, but he doesn’t know that.
Makoto’s fascinating description of the birth of official herodom – in Rhode Island of all places – plays like something Horikoshi would have written if he’d ever gotten around to it. In effect, it was less about organizing heroes (who started out as vigilantes) and more about state regulation of quirk users. And in the process, classifying those who remained outside the system as villains. Of the 189 quirk users under consideration in the initial batch, only 7 were confirmed as heroes. The rest became villains officially, the endgame of all this. Government now had an official definition of villainy, which it could the wield as a blunt instrument against quirk users not under its thumb.
Makoto also tells Kouichi that the decision essentially came down to a popularity contest. And in that sense, not much has really changed. Speaking of popularity, Pop has been hiding in the closer eavesdropping on this conversation. She’s less interested in the nuts and bolts of it than the fact that a pretty older woman is having alone time with Kouichi, and she turns saltier than a jamón ibérico for the next several days. Makoto and Kouichi arrange a meeting for the following Saturday, which has Kouichi scrambling for a plan to hide his secret identity.
Tsukauchi is a name well-known to HeroAca fans of course, and indeed Makoto is the younger sister of Tsukauchi Naomasa, detective and All Might friend. The two of them have a feisty but seemingly close relationship, as the latter tries to keep his sister at arm’s length from his work. Her interviews on the streets of Naruhata (with Kouichi filming) reveal a public that considers The Cruller helpful but kind off creeper, and seems mostly concerned with Pop’s ass. When Makoto gets her purse stolen by a villain with a soccer quirk, Kouichi manages to get it back without blowing his cover, thanks to the help of the 30 year-old middle schoolers.
Makoto’s endgame is finally revealed here, as she shakes Kouichi’s hand and accuses him of being The Cruller. In doing so she employs “Polygraph“, a truth-in-advertising quirk if ever there was one. But Kouichi has a loophole – he can flat-out deny being The Cruller and come out clean as a whistle. Tsukauchi-san is the bulldog type however, so this surely isn’t over.
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