#Himiko answers

[askthedespairkids]

Does anybody actually believe in Himiko’s magic

Of course everyone does! Because it's real magic!

The thing is, despite her scientific background...I think Iruma-san might actually believe Yumeno-san's magic is the real deal...maybe even Momota-kun as well sometimes...

[shinigxmi-muses]

Hmmmm. He feels at a loss after his school had been shut-down few month's prior at this point. Major security breech and less than savory encounters with criminal's within it's own walls was a reasonable concern. It... was an awful occurence but he'd never been registered as an actual professional hero since then... but vigilante work always had him getting into trouble constantly...

It's a soft hum as he wanders the streets at dusk past a narrow alleyway. Speaking of trouble, looks like someone was back there sitting against the walls. It... sounds like they're talking to somebody but he doesn't detect another person. Probably something to do with a quirk but... just in case...

"Uhhhh... mmm... you okay back there lady? Should I call the EMS or something?" People in back alleyways usually meant one of three things in his experience. Either somebody needs help, he walked into a recent crime scene, or he'll be the person needing help in a moment. A gamble most people would ignore for their own safety but... here he goes into a light jog torwards the blonde. Apparently self-preservation was not on top of the list of things to do today.

The voice- soft, girlish, but with an edge to it- quieted down. In this particular dark alley, her blonde hair was barely visible, but her bared knees and bright sweater made her easier to notice. That...and the uncanny glow of her eyes when she looked up; like an animal's eyes, reflecting in light.

Wide. Wary. Curious... (He was being nice. Why be nice? Didn't he know...?)

Well. She wouldn't tell him. Either he'd be a pest, or he just may end up being her next target. Either way, Toga, Himiko wouldn't lose.

Ah, right. He asked her a question. All concerned-like.

"I'm fine. Just fine, actually," she hums, straightening up. There's a splash of blood on her cardigan- yet another messy one that will require her to find a way to clean up- but it's okay. He was so nice, too... Her heart still flutters in excitement. (How dreamy! How sweet, to have some of his blood~! It'll be fun to get to be him, later.)

"Oh... I guess I'm a little messy, though. It's fine." She shrugs, completely uncaring for her situation. It'll get cleaned, eventually...

It's just a little "game" to see how this stranger reacts to her situation...! Could be nice to find someone else accepting of her unique way of showing affection. (LOV's been so understanding of it, but... Surely, there are other people who would understand her nature, too?)

[himikochan]

do you remember when the va books came out? were they rly popular when they did? I’m glad it’s 6 books in the series I’m reading it really slow but I really like first person pov’s a lot. is it rose’s pov throughout the whole series, do u remember 🖤

Hello hello!

So when the VA books came out I wasn’t active on that part of the internet yet. I do know they were some kind of bestseller and the books were translated into many languages at the time because of international interest!

Interestingly, I picked up my copy of the first book at a Marshall’s which is weird to think about

I only read the first 5 books when I first read them. I am waiting for my copy of the sixth to come in the mail- the ones I have read are all in Rose’s POV and they’re all enjoyable :) 💜💜💜

[marimeeko]

So what WAS THE POINT of Toga dying? Other than making Ochako sad?

Like truly I am not sure what the point of her death was. She could have EASILY lived.

They dragged Dabi's burnt body off the battlefield. Twice.

Edgeshot, said he would die from stretching himself so thin and using all of that energy to help Bakugou. He lived.

I love her, bless her, but Lady Nagant blew up from the inside?? TWICE? How did she live from an "insurance policy" devised by AFO himself, let alone twice??

And Himiko Toga dies because she gives some blood? They could have EASILY saved her life in time too? The math isn't mathing? In the end, what was it for, exactly?

She was the one villain who I thought might have turned it around. She would have faced prison, but I really thought that she was the most likely to get rehab and have that support system from Ochako as they continued to talk across the bars and Ochako would begin to understand her more. I thought there was a chance that they could have continued a relationship after the war. It wouldn't have been perfect, and toga would still have to answer for crimes committed, but, I felt optimistic that there would be at least a sort of balance or common ground they could reach. That she would actually take Ochakos offered hand.

What was the point when she dies from something so preventable?? We get one chapter of Ochako being sad, but what does it MEAN.

Idk this might just be rambling and I might think of it later BUT I am just kinda MEH on this ending with Toga being gone for real.

[epickiya722]

So let me get this straight... Uraraka offers her blood to Toga just to get her to smile and Toga turns around and gives her blood to save Uraraka's life...

I SWEAR THESE THREE CHAPTERS HAVE BEEN...

[lily-claw]

Guys imagine in the last chapter we see Midoriya Izuku being actually Toga Himiko...

[darkcircles4lyfe]

What are your thoughts on the recent chapter?

This is a pretty vague ask but I’m pretty sure I received it yesterday. If not… oops?

I’m actually so excited for the next—that is, the second to last—chapter as someone who was deeply affected by chapters 391-395 and who just loves Toga Himiko in general, so so much. I’ve really grown to love Ochako’s arc too and I’ve come to trust the process here. I didn’t know about everyone freaking out until after I read 428 officials yesterday, and I’m not worried like that. We’ve been in this type of cliffhanger situation multiple times before.

The news that the end of Himiko’s and Ochako’s fight wasn’t recorded hit me hard, just like it hits Ochako, because the world doesn’t get to know who Himiko really is. There’s nothing Ochako could say on her behalf that would compare to actual footage of her pain, anger, joy, love, sorrow, and sacrifice.

…which is to say, Himiko does not serve as a martyr, a tragic, cautionary example. I’ll remind you that that was what the PLF reporter wanted her to be, and she was controlling and patronizing. Let’s think about this as a choice Horikoshi is making, to discard the only ammunition he had to make Himiko into an example and have it be even remotely compelling and satisfying. Boom, gone. There’s no footage. Why?

On the other hand, this is actually an advantageous turn of events if it turns out Himiko survived, because more calculated actions can be taken to keep her safe. I’m starting to see this as a turning point not necessarily for society as a whole, but for the hero profession and its purpose, wherein under Hawks’ leadership the hero commission could become the exact opposite of what it was. It’s no accident that the first half of this chapter is devoted to showing how the next generation and the public were both ~so inspired~ by class A’s actions in a way that mimics the chain of inspiration that motivated class A to begin with. Only this time, Ochako and Izuku are deeply uncomfortable with it! They don’t want this chain reaction to keep going the same way forever. These people look at them and have no idea what they’re actually going through or what they’ve seen. Future heroes who don’t know the real story. That’s very upsetting. Now they are starting to see firsthand how a pattern of collective forgetting is perpetuated. It won’t change until someone like Himiko is actually saved. No bright future without a place for her in it.

I’m excited because this chapter directly confirms Ochako’s awkward, overly cheerful mask for what it is, as it finally starts to crumble. In hindsight, she’s probably done this a lot in the past as well. It casts her whole character in a new light. She and Himiko are so much alike in this way.

I still have high hopes for this storyline because of how much it resonates with me as a queer allegory. Of course, Himiko is also literally queer, but I mean the symbolic stuff about her quirk and her family’s rejection. As a trans person who spent a long time in the closet convincing everyone around me that I was a normal, happy girl, whose pain and rage only festered and grew stronger, who was perceived as selfish and destructive, who was determined to live for myself but still doubted if I had any future at all… I see Himiko’s story as so perfect, so real, that I can’t imagine it ending poorly. And it doesn’t have shit to do with canonizing that ship, either. I’m not worried.

[thekingofwinterblog]

Man I wish your MHA prediction came true, cause, no spoilers, but the truth is so bad😂

atleast its finallly over... never reading a series when it hasnt finished serialisation again😂

It's not even a BAD manga ending... i have seen BAD manga endings before, i know how they look like.

No, what MHA's final chapter is, is a NOTHING Ending. An ending where it is so, PAINFULLY obvious that the Mangaka or his editor did not want to piss anyone off, or take risks in general, that for a whole host of characters, there is NO closure, or even worse, it negates what came before.

so, its not like there is nothing good about the chapter, as i like shoji's big declaration, and the fact that japans society is changing to help people deal with the quirks withouth having to become heroes... but other than that, even the stuff i liked had major caveats.

But by far the biggest issue is that there are so many characters who got NO closure for their respective relationships, and it is stupidly obvious why, and who.

and since this question was prompted by Aizawa and his development, lets start with mic and Aizawa.

This picture right here encapsulates how Aizawa has changed. This is where he was always planned to end up. It is his natural end point compared to where he started off his story. Having turned into a much more caring man, who helped Aoyama rise above his flaws and change for the better rather than the brutal and spartan teacher he was at the start.

Or as his Ex Girlfriend would have put it has learned the value of "A household where the laughter never ends.".

However, the problem is we get no chapter, or even an ATTEMPT at giving him any form of closure where this change is encapsulated, the way we got with Endeavor, spinner, and Uraraka.

And thats a problem, because it wasnt ONLY hjis character who was tied to this hypotetical chapter for closure.

The closure of the ENTIRE idiot trio from the previous generation, alive and dead was dependent upon whatever Hori had planned for this hypotetical epilogue chapter before he or his editor chickened out, leaving Kurogiri's death in the climax with NO sense of aftermath behind it, coming and going, and frankly feeling like an aftertought rather than the sad ending to the tragic tale of the man who died too soon.

It also leaves Mic the single worst off, because while Aizawa at the very least had his character development to fall back on as a final point, even if he didnt get a closure chapter or moment, Mic gets NOTHING.

and that's a big problem, because as im going to go over in my big analysis of the man, Mic's entire deal is that while Aizawa developed in a terrible, negative reaction to his buddy's death, Mic's reaction was to stop developing at all.

His entire life after the tragedy is being a background character in everyone else's life, the DJ who always tries to make everyones day brighter, but has no actual ambitions, dreams or goals of his own.

thats why he clings so desperately to his memories of highschool, because unlike everyone else from that time, those memories are all he has. Even Aizawa managed to have a girlfriend at some point, an actual relationship, that though it crashed and burned had meaning. Mic doesnt even have that.

He is the ultimate sad clown, who pretends to himself that he hasnt wasted his life, by embracing a role as a literal supporting character, that his teachers suggested he would turn out to be.

In other words, his role in a chapter dealing with the epilogue of the trio, would certainly have been to finally, actually begin living his own life again.

but withouth that, there is nothing to suggest he managed to change. he will just continue to waste his life, thinking he'll never be able to create great new times for himself, rather than actually living his life and making new, best moments of his life.

i might be more annoyed about Aizawa not getting that final closure with Miss Joke, but there is no questions that Mic got an even worse deal with the narrative than Aizawa.

He remained a background character to the very end.

he's not the only one though.

You know who else never got closure? The Iida brothers.

We NEVER got to see how Tensei reacted to his brother not only taking up his mantle, but actually surpassing him and all his deeds during the climax.

Tenya's great ambition was to become a great hero to live up to his brother, and we didnt get to see any of his family members reaction to him actually achieving this dream.

As for other members of class 1-A...

Hey, quick question for anyone who read this story, Did you think Mina and Kirishima's character stories ended with these two, small, not given very much importance panels?

No?

Well fuck you, youre wrong! this is where both of their characters ends. their relationship, and their character arcs in general ended here, and they get no closure whatsoever.

and finally we move unto Izuku and the bigger problem with him and where he ended up.

Starting with him becoming a non powered hero, using tech.

Okay, not a BAD ending... But i feel like... maybe... there was a plan for something with that. Maybe... Maybe something that happened, and would have eased his character into using tech, rather than All Might just showing up with it after he's been a salary man for 3 years... Maybe something that was foreshadowed for years, and years.... Oh right.

Izuku losing his lower arms.

Like, looking back, it is painfully clear that Izuku was originally meant to lose his arms for good, before the editor(as he did with bakugo's death) put the kibash on that.

I like the idea... but there was a much better and more logical road to him becoming Iron Man with him having to use robotic hands in the epilogue. it would also be the logical outcome of all that foreshadowing, and was probably the original idea before it was deemed too gruesome.

However, thats a missed what if.

And if you have read the final chapter, you know it's not the BIG issue with this chapter. The SINGLE biggest problem with this ending, that is going to haunt it forever afterwards.

The complete sinking of Izuku x ochako by making it clear izuku has no regular contact with his former classmates, and ending the story withouth anything to suggest these two hooked up at all.

Now, im going to be very blunt, and very clear, before i tear this entire ship sinking to bits.

I didn't like Izuku x ochako.

At all.

I thought it was boring, too drawn out, and i didnt find much enjoyment as a ship from their interactions. in fact i would say i found izuku to have better chemistry with pretty much every other female character he ever interacted with.

Izuocha is the epitomy of a safe shonen battle couple. pure, boring vanilla.

I want to get that out of the way, before i really delve into why the way Hori just... torpedoed this ship because he didnt want to deal with the aftermath, was such a slap in the face.

Lets start with the most obvious problem.

It was all a waste of time.

every single moment of shiptease, and uraraka pining after izuku...

was one...

gigiantic...

Waste of fucking time.

I didnt like reading about this couple. But i cannot make the claim the story was not building up towards it.

it spent the vast majority of it's story building towards this couple, and in the last 3 chapters it devoted two of them to seemingly resolving this couple's story, and setting up for the next step... that never fucking came.

meaning that every little bit of ship tease these two had was a joke, a waste of time, it didnt mean anything in the grand scheme of things.

It was one of the most annoying parts of this manga to read through, and to my absolute fury and disguist i was fucking -vindicated.

It was an objective, waste of fucking time that could have been devoted to ANYTHING ELSE! It could have been devoted to another, better pairing, more character development for 1-A, Inko, the league of Villains, ANYTHING!

If the story was not going to end up with these two, there were plenty of ways to do that too, like having Uraraka's decision not to confess backfire as izuku moved on and hooked up with Mei, or melissa, or anyone else! or maybe just have izuku have moved past her an her ending up being friendzoned because she didnt make a move early enough! Or maybe have Uraraka realize she was gay after everything with Toga!

Again, ANYTHING ELSE would have been preferable.

instead, even at the very end, even when the following pages kills the pairing dead, Hori STILL tries to shipbait these two!

fuck off.

2. Making Urarak look shallow through the worst fucking timing in the world.

so, here is a question for you.

if you were going to ultimately choose not to go through with izuku x ochako, when would be the worst, possible timing to do it?

because i sure cant think of any point worse, than during a timeskip, where izuku's quirk ultimately went away, leaving him powerless and a common working man for 3 years afterwards.

Now this is obviously not meant to be the actual reason in universe for why this pairing didnt happen... but the implication is there...

And it wouldnt have been, if Hori had actually had Izuku turn her down in one of the previous chapters.

but because he decided to chicken out of any and all romance to not get any shipper blowback, through the safest way possible, it's there.

It's ugly, and it's cruel, and it's mostly implication... but it is there.

3. It makes Uraraka's entire character growth with Toga WASTED.

So Toga's part of her and Uraraka's storyline is obvious.

The girl who was looking for someone, anyone who would want to understand her finally found somebody who would, and she decided to give it all for that person.

in uraraka, she finally got what she could not get in the league, amongst her old friends, or anyone else.

No the problem is not with that side of their shared development.

The problem with this is that it completely wastes Uraraka's side of this equation.

The thing that Uraraka envied about Toga, was her ability to smile as she wanted, uncaring about how the world might think of her, something the shy uraraka deeply wished she could do too.

Ultimately, as presented in the final war arc, her develoment from this relationship was her finally learning to be honest, to embrace doing what she wanted to do.

She wanted to reach out a genuine hand in compassion to Toga despite EVERYTHING, and so she did. uncaring about what the world might have thought.

FInally she could be who she wanted to be. the girl who had been defined so long about keeping her love and more emberassing feelings under wrap no longer cared about being judged for them.

It's a very beautiful moment.

Man... It sure would SUCK if later uraraka completely backtracked, was never able to tell her crush her actual feelings, and instead it went absolutely nowhere, meaning she reverted back to the same person she had always been. that she never really grew past this flaw of herself she disliked.

That would really, really suck, and cheapen her entire character climax from the final war arc.

Man, that would suck.

It would suck even more, if the reason that happened, was due to the author not wanting to piss off the shippers that shipped the target of her affection with his former abuser and bully who tried to get him to kill himself.

This was a terrible way to end the series, not due to directly sucking, the way Attack on Titan, or bleach's endings did... but instead due to committing SO HARD to resolving NOTHING, that it flipped all the way around to being INFURIATING in how much it REFUSED to give ANY character who's final resolution would probably have involved shipping, that its pisses you off, because it means that everything that these characters were building towards had no resolution.

The only real exception was Iida, and in his case its just obviously clear that Hori just did not care to give him a climax. for everyone else though?

Hori's decision to not wanting to go through what Kishimoto went through after Naruto's final chapter might be understandable, but it also means that his already rocky final arc ended wastly lesser in quality than it could have.

[batterycows]

Is it me or,, are the bkdk apology and the Togachako fight lowkey the same confrontation

[moodyvoid]

Add your reasoning in the tags if you want! rb pls

[askthedespairkids]

If you yell "Hey, shortie!" in a crowded Future Foundation office, who's most likely to answer? (bet it's Yumeno...)

*They all turn and speak at the same time*

FK: "The fuck did you say-"

HY: "I'll place a curse of-"

JY: "Who the hell-"

RH: "...come again-"

[stillness-in-green]

do you have thoughts about the way MHA431 went?

Sure, I'll bite. Let's have a

Chapter Thoughts - Chapter 431: More

Some of this will be a rephrase/expansion on stuff I said in Part 3 of the fascism essay, particularly the section about how Heroes view the prospect of long-term peace, but it’s all worth saying here as well.

Hit the jump for some roughly ordered thoughts primarily about Ochaco’s counseling program, the romance stuff and how it’s facilitated, some stray character observations, and some Stillness-typical complaining about the handling of Villains.

O It was nice to see Ochaco’s program in more detail than the jaw-droppingly bad handwave it got in 430, but I still think it didn’t go anywhere near far enough.  To wit, what we see is a nice introduction to a program that could well be effective at finding some people with behavioral, familial, or quirk-based problems, but the depiction is badly lacking an illustration as to what will be done regarding people with problems that can’t be helped by a tiny bit of encouragement and support.  As it’s with Toga in mind that Ochaco undertook this whole project, it seems fair to ask: How would Toga have fared in it?

If it had been young Toga Himiko in the scene instead of Shy Mining Helmet Boy, Ochaco offering her a little anti-gravity boost would have gone exactly nowhere because no amount of manuevering would have changed Himiko’s basic inability to participate in the activity.  It would have clued Ochaco into Himiko having an issue, though, and perhaps that discovery could have led, with further interaction, to uncovering her feelings of repression and, critically, her problems at home.  Great!  That stuff absolutely needed to be uncovered!

But—then what?  When Ochaco’s program turns up Himiko, a girl with a problem so severe that no amount of welcoming class play is going to resolve it, what’s the next step?  Recommend counseling for her parents, too?  What if they’re resistant, resentful, or they outright refuse?  Do you then remove Himiko from the home?  Let’s switch the lens over to a different kid for a second: Shimura Kotarou.  As evinced by his massive unaddressed abandonment issues, the alternative child care system clearly did him no favors!  And he didn’t have a taboo quirk[1] to add on top of the perception of his being an “unwanted child”!

So if you haven’t improved the state of Japan’s alternative child care system—and there’s no specific evidence that anyone has[2]—have you done much but kicked the consequences down the road a few years or slightly changed the color of the problem at hand?  Would Himiko really fare so much better in a group home or orphanage?  Would the views of the people in charge be significantly different than those of Himiko’s previous counselor?  Or would they just be, as Tomura described his family doing to him, rejecting her kindly instead of cruelly?

1: And “taboo” is honestly putting it lightly.  Shinto beliefs about the spiritual pollution of spilled blood being what they are, Toga’s quirk would actually be profane to a devout adherent—if the reader is familiar with X-Men, think about the kind of nastiness that periodically gets thrown at Nightcrawler by particularly militant Christians.   There’s no indication that Toga’s parents are more devout than the average Japanese person, of course, but values embedded in the culture are going to be embedded in the culture all the same.

2: All we have in that direction is Uraraka enthusing that the program has a lot of support and does very thorough work, and noting that Hawks does negotiations with the Ministry of Education and other (non-specific) organizations, which we see him framing as “investing in young people.”  While this could be indicative of efforts being made somewhere, by someone, to improve the situation for children in alternative care, that read is undercut by Uraraka following up with the note that all this work has done a lot to improve “the quirk education environment.”  This falls far short of specific evidence for improvements to any given other aspect of child welfare.

While I’m sure we’re intended to read Ochaco’s program as one that will be meaningfully helpful to children like Toga—and I don’t even think that it categorically couldn’t be!—what we see directly on the page simply does not prove that case.  Encouraging a baseline kid with an emitter quirk and age-typical shyness does not prove that The Problem of Toga has been addressed.  So what was even the point of showing it to us?

What Himiko really needs—if you’ll pardon my MLA Stan coming out here for a bit—is a complete reevaluation of what quirks are and how people can use them.  She needs a world that’s willing to throw out its old ways of thinking, to update its “notion of normal” to something that will allow the Toga Himikos of the world to live without suppression.  For all the good I'm sure it will do, I don’t see Ochaco’s program doing that.

O It’s so hilariously telling that we got that whole shpiel about updating the Billboard Charts such that non-professional Heroes can be recognized for their efforts, only for the last chapter to give us jack shit on any non-Pro Heroes charting at all.  And like, I’m willing to be generous here: I always assumed that Hawks wasn’t talking about adding non-Pros to the charts verbatim, but rather creating a brand-new chart for the recognition of Civilian Heroes.  But we don’t get anything like that at all—and Deku being a teacher and public speaker gives us a perfect opportunity to indicate such a chart’s existence!  But then, maybe he can’t count because he does Hero work on the weekends, which leads me to my next point.

O Ochaco and Deku should both have just retired, and Shouto should be on sabbatical.  Seriously, if Horikoshi really had the courage of the convictions he was putting to paper, and if it were really true that the Villain emergence rate was down and Heroes were beginning to have more free time, then Ochaco and Deku should both have decided to prioritize the work they believe is more meaningful and helpful than Professional Heroics, and Shouto should feel free to take some time completely off for his self-exploration.  That none of this happens suggests that Horikoshi either didn’t believe or didn’t trust his audience to accept his idea that there are meaningful ways for these characters to be heroic without them also having to be Heroes.

O Ochaco musing about Toga still existing somewhere inside her, and especially all the junk about the dead bisexual teenager being used to encourage the exhaustingly hetero endgame, really just makes me want to read the actual ghost story where Toga is literally haunting Ochaco.  Toga still loves Ochaco-chan, of course, but her encouragement for Ochaco-chan and Deku to hook up is aimed solely at getting the two of them alone in a quiet, private room.  Once that happens, Ochaco’s eyes will go gold and slitted, the walls will start dripping blood, and Deku will find out quite quickly that not everyone is so willing to move on from him murdering Shigaraki Tomura of the League of Villains.

O I miss the Bakugou who was on-course for a big personal growth arc about learning to work in a team.  I feel like that Bakugou, alongside having had a way less tiresome endgame battle, might actually have been able to keep some sidekicks without being chiefly concerned about the level of their personal ambitions.  I don’t give a shit about his (or anyone else save one guy’s) chart position, but it’s exhausting that he had great development into being a proud but capable team player all the way up through the 1-A versus Deku fight, and then all of that gets flushed down the toilet to revert to him getting a badass solo fight against All For One and an epilogue that allows him no work partner options whatsoever outside of the main character.

O The comedy visuals of Deku’s dumb face being subsumed by Bakugou’s plush backseat make me want to die.  Someone please throw this main character away.

O I’m glad Mina reclaimed at least some aspect of her original Alien Queen aspirations with the “Ridley Hero” thing.  Good for her.

O On a worldbuilding note, my attention is caught by Shinsou being described as “not contending” for a chart position, though the kanji can also mean things like “out of contention” or “beyond the sphere of.”  I assume it’s just indicating that Shinsou is an underground Hero like his mentor Aizawa, but a) I feel like that runs a bit counter to his goal of proving that he can be a Hero even with a quirk like Brainwash, and b) isn’t it a bit sketchy if underground Heroes can just choose to exempt themselves from the most visible, public-facing form of Pro Hero evaluation?  Maybe the HPSC charts them for its own records and then removes them from public visibility, of course, or maybe the charts only go down to 200 or so and stop after that, with Shinsou, not seeking for attention, comfortable to be below that cut-off.  Not sure, but there are some interesting possibilities there, as well as some concerning ones.

O HOLY GOD, Monoma’s new look.  I like it very much.  He is also the only person I want to see on the charts at all.  Two hundred ranked entries of Monoma's daily work antics. I support him wholly and with only the most loving of faceitiousness.

O Extremely funny to me that all the people I saw on Twitter talking about this chapter confirming KamiJirou had to first ignore Jirou explicitly denying that there’s anything going on and second be very disingenuous indeed with the panel crop they used to wave around crowing about their ship. I don’t have a strong distaste for KamiJirou relative to my distaste for Kaminari himself, but my tolerance for him pretty much starts and ends with KamiJirouMomo as a poly arrangement, so I was pleased to see that left open here.

O If I dislike Toga’s image being used to encourage Ochaco to hook up with Deku (and I dislike it very much, particularly given the loathsome last words Deku spoke to Toga when she was alive, but at least I can see the sense it makes from a thematic and characterization perspective), I have only profanity for how much I hate Shigaraki’s image being used to encourage Deku in confessing to Ochaco.  Just take my entire folder full of negative reaction memes.  Jesus Christ.

I have said before, and will have more to say in the future, about Deku’s assorted failures as a protagonist and hero, but him deciding that the kind of adult he wants to be is a Hero high school teacher really is the ultimate indicator of just how little he cared about who Shigaraki was and what he wanted.  Ochaco is making a good faith effort to help the Toga Himikos of the future.  Deku, meanwhile, is shallowly paddling around in his Hero Worship wading pool, ignoring both the Shimura Tenkos and the Shigaraki Tomuras of the world—the people Hero Society outcasts, villainizes, and sweeps under the rug.

Shigaraki’s last behest—that Deku ensure the things Shigaraki fought to destroy remain destroyed—was wasted on Deku, who, once he got Spinner and Overhaul off his conscience, clearly could not give less of a shit about helping the people Shigaraki fought for.  To see that last behest come back in the context of Deku using it to bolster his goddamn love life is a fucking travesty, and I hope Ochaco dumps him inside of a year if Toga Himiko’s vengeful ghost doesn’t get him first.

O DON’T WORRY, GUYS; I’M SURE THE HEROES TOTALLY TRY TO BE MORE COMPASSIONATE AND UNDERSTANDING TOWARDS RANDOM, DOWN-ON-THEIR-LUCK VILLAINS NOW.  THINGS ARE SURE TO BE TOTALLY DIFFER—

Oh.  Oh, it’s not different at all, is it?

(Have I mentioned enough times yet how much I really, really dislike the street crime scenes where Our Heroes stand around and chitchat in the middle of a crime scene, having successfully dealt with the big bad villain whose actions they did not even attempt to de-escalate and whom they have immediately forgotten all about?)

O Wow, thanks for letting us know you don’t think impulse criminals aren’t wicked to the core, Iida.  That makes me feel real reassured about how you guys are handling Villains who premeditate! (It does not.)

O I’ve already said I disliked how Toga’s “image” is used here, but let me not shortchange the fact that it also sucks because it puts the last nail in the coffin of Uraraka having any agency over sharing her own feelings.  She has a lengthy arc about how she is—like Toga in the past—repressing her feelings for the one she loves; she gets through to Toga by frankly admitting to those feelings, as well as all the other things she was sitting on about Toga herself.  And then in the aftermath, she goes right back to repressing her feelings, now ones of paralyzing grief over Toga’s death. Deku witnesses those feelings not because she chooses to share them with him, but because he tracks her down mid-cry.  And now we find out for sure what Chapter 430 left unclear: that in eight years, Ochaco hasn’t said a word about her once-again repressed feelings for him.  Instead, just as she did when she was a teenager, she’s doubled down on putting those feelings away in the name of what she “should” be doing.

And here?  Does she finally take control of her own life, her own feelings, her own expression?  No.  At least, not until after Deku has been the one to confess first and Vision!Toga psychically shoves her forward to close the gap.  The only thing left for Ochaco to do, the only assertiveness asked of her, is to accept or rebuff Deku’s overture.  Good god, you’d think she was Eri, a helpless waif wrestling with indoctrination about how much she’s not allowed to want anything for her own sake, whose turning point in the narrative is finding the strength to reach back for the hand being extended towards her.

Coming from a long-term abuse victim, that’s a perfectly worthy character arc, even a deeply moving show of strength, but it’s wildly pathetic for BNHA’s most prominent female hero, the gal whose character arc was founded entirely on balancing her desire to help others with pursuing her own happiness.  Good lord, did Shonen Jump tell Horikoshi that boys don’t like it when girls are too forward or what?

[himikochan]

thank you for taking the time to answer my ask on the va books… I’m a few chapters in and I really like it so far! no pressure if you don’t want to continue your answer with a longer response❣️

This was sent to me a few days ago but got lost in my inbox!

The VA books are such a delight to read! I’m glad you’re getting the wonderful experience of reading them for the first time 💜💜💜

[irontragedyreview]

The biggest question of my life about this manga is what happened to Mr. Compress and Spinner, are they free? How many years were their sentences? Do they have life imprisonment? are they in Tartarus? What the hell happened to the remaining members of the LoV?

[mics-bootlicker]

Dunno why it's bizarre to some people that queer people see themselves in Toga, a girl who was rejected by society because of the way she loved

[dailytogachako]

Hi...if you don't mind, can I ask something from BNHA? What do you think are Toga and Uraraka’s greatest personality strengths and weaknesses? Why? What do you love about their dynamic? Since what moment that you start shipping them? Sorry if you've answered these questions before.....

Hellooo dnana!! I don't mind getting questions, so don't be shy!!!

one thing i've always loved about uraraka is her willingness to help others and also her empathy. she would never hesitate to help anyone, no matter who it was. i also really liked her backstory, and how she was fighting so that her parents wouldn't have to worry about money in the future. it's something admirable.

which is something funny cause to me, one of her weak points is precisely her empathy and your need to help others. she's always thinking about others, doing everything for the others and this becomes a problem when she ends up not thinking about herself. It is very noticeable how much she avoids talking about her feelings, this becomes more visible when toga dies and she goes to cry on the terrace alone, without asking anyone for help how to deal with all this pain.

her need to help others can end up becoming a bad thing when she realizes that she often cannot help others all the time, which ends up becoming frustrating for her and she blames herself for not being able to help even though she does everything she can. and when I say help others, I mean both ways: saving their lives or trying to help them in small things

Now, talking about toga: she's been one of my favorite characters for a long time, I liked how she expressed herself and how she didn't hate heroes at all (at the beginning of the anime). and I love how little by little we saw more of her backstory and understood why she acted that way, because until then many people considered her a "crazy psychopath yandere"

one great thing about toga is simply the fact that she loves, and that's it. I think it's beautiful how she loves everyone who has blood running through their veins, and as if it were her way of saying that everyone can be loved, including her. she's not afraid to express her love and to say that she loves someone (even if it is in her own way). also she was not afraid to try to be herself, even when her parents and old school friends told her she was weird and a demon. It may not have been the "right way", but she tried, she wanted a world where she and her friends from the league of villains could smile. and i think that's beautiful after all.

and her weak point is: not facing the past

toga avoids her past, avoids talking about what happened because it is something sad and scary. this becomes a mistake when we realize that not talking about what happened in the past can influence the present.

In the final arc, before she dies, she finally faces the demons of her past with ochako, and we realize that there is still a lot of stuff stored away, especially hurt. we finally managed to understand that she's not a bad person, she was just lost and wanted to find someone who understood her. and that she never wanted to hurt someone and steal their blood, she wanted to ask but knew that if she did, they would call her a demon.

I've been shipping them since 2019 (when I started MHA) and i just loved the hero x villain dynamic, it was something cool for me. as the story progressed, I started to like how toga seemed to genuinely like ochako (more than she apparently liked deku) and how uraraka seemed curious about toga, and that she wasn't really afraid of her (which later turned out to be canon)

this shipp is something sweet to me, how ochako sought to know about toga and how she didn't give up until the end. and how toga was so hurt but allowed herself to open up to ochako and talk about what happened. I'm sure if they had a chance... things would have been different.