#bnha critical

[rewrittenmha]

I know I've been slacking with the Training Camps. I'm sorry but I have another dilemma.

I've contemplated scrapping the Togachako dynamic. I don't 100% hate it, but I feel like it's part of what kept Uraraka in the background love interest role. The fact that they bonded over Izuku felt really surface level, even if some of their later scenes are actually fairly well done.

I've briefly talked on my main about how Monoma is actually a lot more similar to Toga. Them being treated differently for their quirks, them attaching themselves to the people who accepted them (the LOV for Toga and 1B for Monoma). They're also obsessive (Monoma is a little more low-key about it). I feel like that's a dynamic that could really be explored.

(This would also make Monoma a central character)

It's also been mentioned (not by me but others) how Uraraka's villain could've been Twice because of their similarities living poor. There's a real chance for exploration here.

But that's all even if I decide to keep the heroes and their villains thing. Because to me, it kind of presents the LOV as obstacles that need to be overcome and even dehumanizes them to some degree. I don't completely hate it, but it definitely wasn't my favorite part in the Final War.

[bibibbon]

The way MHA was writ - with it's lacklustre theme payoffs (Quirk Singularity was touted as this big thing that became a big NOTHING) and severe mishandling of the entire Enji situation (the guy is a rapist and abuser and should have faced consequences for that!!) FOR STARTERS, I decided to pick up MHA Vigilantes instead. And so far, I'm liking it a hell of a lot more than I did the mainline. What are your thoughts on Vigilantes? (SO HYPED for anime adaption btw)

I personally enjoyed Vigilantes a lot more than MHA.

I think that even though vigilantes is a much more smaller story than MHA it was able to handle its themes, fights and character development leagues better than MHA every could so it takes the cup for me.

Also, I am incredibly biased, and vigilantes has so much content of characters I love like present mic content, all Might and naomasa together, midnight content and chizome aka Stain.

On top of that, I really like tensei and koichi's friendship, and I wish we got some of that in the main manga. I take any tensei content with open arms, and it was a shame that we never got more of him, especially in relation to his brother Tenya.

I do think that the main reason why vigilantes tend to be better in messaging and handling its themes is because it's already operating from a very grey area. By having a vigilante as your main character, the manga is able to clearly explore the darker aspects of the criminal life that isn't so tied down to the one big bad aka AFO and it's also able to show us the duality of heroes how they can be both good and bad. I also love the unwavering characterisation of enji being horrible and staying horrible! If I remember correctly, he almost kills koichi because he is a vigilante and views vigilantes no better than villains

[tardigradetheking]

It really was stupid that they refused to consider a mole after

A. The villains had the employee scedule at the USJ

B. They knew where thw training camp was

the dark deku arc is where he should have failed the most! what’s the point of it if not to show where he went wrong?

The author can't help himself. Deku has to be really cool, even at his lowest point. One of the reasons I like MHA is because when you ask "what if?" it creates some excellent answers. A textbook story beat for when the hero leaves his friends behind to keep them safe is just for the bad guy to target his friends. AFO is notorious for going after people's loved ones. Attacking Deku a lot himself is a good strategy, but doing both is great. Imagine if the final war arc happened mid Dark Deku arc when AFO pulls the trigger on invading UA with the League by having Aoyama sabotage all of the security and the anti League measures they had in place. The heroes get caught entirely with their pants down, not even having seriously entertained the idea of there being a spy in the first place. Deku shows up to find the place is getting wrecked and realizes that "Hey, maybe wandering off from the place that counted on me as its greatest defender wasn't a good idea!" Izuku sees then that the "assassins" were never meant to actually take him down: just distract him from the invasion that would take out his allies and support base which he foolishly abandoned. He only knew this was happening because UA happened to be in the range of his danger sense. Or you could go further. What if it wasn't? What if AFO, like the genius the story pretends he is, watched Deku during the Dark Hero Arc and he plotted? How Far exactly is Danger Sense's range? What does it detect? How likely is Deku to follow it if he's already preoccupied? How sensitive is it? Here's a ham fisted experiment. Say you had some boys kidnap a civilian and tie them up on the ground, then they sit and wait and watch. If Deku shows up, they'll blast on him with guns + their long range quirks. For every 15 minutes Deku doesn't show up, they fire a non lethal attack into the civilian to cause them pain. They'll kill the civilian after an hour and repeat this process with another captured civilian. Can Danger Sense detect the fact that this is a trap? Does the threat of loss of life of the civilian send Deku rushing in to help? AFO doesn't know the rules of Danger Sense like we do, but with tactics like these, he'd learn them. And Deku doesn't exactly have the luxury of NOT showing up to save people. AFO doesn't care about any of the pawns he sends at Deku and each provides an extra data point to figure out how his abilities work. The most basic application of this knowledge? Leading Deku further and further away from UA and into another city where he believes AFO to be hiding.

Imagine a universe where the Dark Deku arc ends with an angry group of UA kids finding him. He tells them to go away and back to safety because he left to keep them safe. He remarks about how there's only 10 of them there, so clearly not everyone was committed to bringing him back. Only for them to explain that actually, everyone else is dead. UA has fallen, turned to dust by Tomura's power. The people here are all that's left of Japan's defenses. The only pro heroes left are people who either quit before or weren't at UA when it got dusted. Izuku is absolutely gutted inside. Funnily enough, Aoyama is also with them. The guy helped destroy UA and he's still working for AFO. He joins the underground guerilla force Deku forms with Gentle Criminal and Nagant and acts as a mole even there. The reveal of Aoyama being the traitor comes when AFO enters their base with his goons and nomu and reveals who his little "Friend" was.

Do you remember when Ojiro asked Aoyama what he'd have done if he wasn't discovered, but Aoyama wasn't forced to answer that? The answer in this universe, is continue to spy and put his life and his family's life first.

The hero victory in the final war arc was a miracle that entirely hinged on Aoyama getting all the villains into one spot, Shinso being able to fool AFO and Monoma having Kurogiri's power. Remove one of those elements and it all collapses. It's fun to think about, MHA universes where the heroes don't get as much plot armor.

[embers-of-the-league]

Okay, so here's where we're at apparently

Tomura is dead

Toga is dead (or, let's just call it as it is, she committed suicide) - this is despite the fact that if she died other characters (read: heroes) should have died as well, but didn't (Bakugo and Edgeshot for example)

Dabi is presumably still in the hospital (since we didn't see a funeral), unable to move or do anything on his own

Spinner wrote his book, but where he is and how he's actually doing is unknown - presumably he still has to deal with multiple quirks that aren't his own and are tearing at his body

Compress is alive but where he currently is is unknown - he read Spinner's book (and that's it)

Kurogiri exploded?? And nobody has bothered to mention anything about him since

Twice has been dead for a while, but his murderer is not only free of charge but also the head of the HPSC (which still exists btw)

Other things:

The hero ranking system still exists

Seemingly no real changes have been made which would help victims like the LOV before they felt like they had to turn to villainy to be heard/seen/understood

Deku gets to be a hero again by the power of ~technology~ - kinda making the whole deal about him losing his quirk feel pointless

Not from this chapter, but I still feel like it's very important to point out that it's heavily implied that Rei is just gonna take care of Enji (her abuser) now and probably for the rest of time

The few good things:

Ochako bringing more focus on mental health

That was it, I have nothing else

[nagitosstolenhand]

i don't like the growing opinion that people are being 'too hard' on deku for his failing to save shigaraki.

i've seen quite a few people complaining that a lot of the bnha-critical crowd are being too mean to deku for getting tomura killed, arguing that it isn't really his fault, and that hes a 16 year old child soldier who's been failed by almost every adult in his life, why should we be putting all of this on his shoulders? hes just a kid after all?

and the truth is, they're right. deku IS a 16 year old boy whos had the fate of the world thrust on his shoulders. but the story itself just plainly refuses to acknowledge this.

the narrative doesn't acknowledge how fucked up having a school that trains literal children how to be combo cop-celebrities is. it only tentatively acknowledges the fact that a universe having combo cop-celebrities is fucked up, and even then the only people who ever point this out are antagonists, who are portrayed and treated in-universe as untrustworthy. the narrative doesn't care how fucked up dekus circumstances are. the narrative treats deku like hes a fucking messiah here to touch the hearts of the evil depressed villains with his magical empathetic heart of gold before they get blown up or just sent to fucking superhell for daring to challenge the status quote.

deku isn't a person. he's barely even a fucking character at this point. he's a plot device, and a mouth piece for the objectively shitty themes bnha is trying to spout. the themes that tell you that if you're mistreated by society and want to do something about it, you're a villain. that disrupting the status quote and refusing to repent to some random teenage boy spouting empty platitudes at you means you deserve to get sent to fucking superhell. the themes that portray people fighting for civil change as mass murdering supervillains. the themes that look the audience dead in the eye and can call deku the greatest hero to ever live.

deku, who barely spared a second thought to lady nagant telling him the truth about the hero commission. who spouts meaningless platitudes about heroism and morality at nagant, and aoyama, and toga and shigaraki, when even the thought that he should question the world around him comes up. who's constantly talked about as this truly kind, empathetic person, but hasn't spared an empathetic thought to literally anyone who is classified as a villain. who listened to every authority figure around him except the ones who asked him to question his worldview. who saw la bravas tears, shigarakis various breakdowns, himikos plead for understanding, chisakis catatonic state, lady nagants truth, and barley batted a fucking eye. deku, who killed tomura shigaraki.

people don't criticize deku for failing shigaraki because they just hate deku. people criticize deku because of what he represents. because hes a mouthpiece for the atrocious morals and themes of this ideologically rotten manga. because any character he had was chopped up to bits in favor of the incomplete husk we have now. people criticize deku because hes the main character of my hero academia. theres nothing more damning then that.

[writerswho]

Aizawa is a terrible teacher. I love Aizawa, but I love the fanon version of Aizawa. Even when he's a bad teacher in the fanfics, he's still better than the canon. But what made me realise what a crap teacher Aizawa is was Kalego. After watching Iruma-kun and starting to read the manga, I realised that Kalego, the uptight, grumpy, tired and kind of sadistic teacher who gives his students extra work just because he can, is everything Aizawa tries to be, but isn't. Because Kalego cares about his students in a way canon!Aizawa would never. Like, yeah, Aizawa would die for his students, but that is not due to the fact that his a good teacher. It is because he is a hero and that is what heroes do. While Kalego would also die protecting his students and even kill for them, he also pays attention to their needs as students. Half of the 1-A need help with their regular grades and the other half need help finding ways to use their quirks without hurting themselves. We all joke about Midoriya and his bone juice, but why does nobody think about giving that kid some extra help? Why didn't his homeroom teacher try to find a way for him to use his quirk without blowing himself? Or a way for Kamimari to use his quirk without frying his brain? Aizawa ignores de most basic things about his students' needs, like finding ways for them to use their quirks without damaging their bodies and health. Or the way Midoriya is around Bakugou, who tried to attack him on the first day and almost killed him on the second day. Kalego-sensei, on the other hand, took his time to make a personal notebook for each of his students and worried about finding ways to utilise their strengths regardless of how seemingly meaningless or nonsensical they may be and so many other things. Kalego-sensei cares about his class, about their growth and their future and is trying to find the best alternative for them. Everyone talks about what a bad teacher All Might is, but All Might is a rookie teacher with less than a year on the job (and nobody knows if he has a teacher's licence or not) while Aizawa is believed to be one of the oldest people on Nedzu's payroll. I am comparing Aizawa to Kalego because when I first saw Kallego, I thought he was the demon version of Aizawa. I now realise that if Aizawa were a third of the teacher that Kalego is, maybe these child soldiers would have a chance. When Iruma tried to do everything by himself/messed up, Kalego scolded him, obviously, but he made it clear that if Iruma had another problem, he could ask for help. Because Kalego is his teacher, and he's there to help him in any way he needs. But when Midoriya messed up/did everything by himself, well, they just yelled at him and made him feel guilty, and think that the solution isn't to ask for help or trust the adults next time, but to find a way not to get caught. Aizawa should spend a few days with Kalego and learn to be a real professional and a teacher who does what's best for the students.

[teapetal44]

TW: ABUSE, CHILD ABUSE

“He wants to air this dirty laundry to the world does he…? Dabi, you fiend…you’ve been waiting for this moment…when they couldn’t prevent mass destruction…and faith in heroes is wavering.” - chapter 292

I truly, wholeheartedly, believe that MHA as a story upholds the myth of the perfect victim. I do not want to discuss if Horikoshi did that on purpose, or subconsciously because of inner bias – I find no meaning in doing so. For me the execution of an idea, in the grand scheme of the narrative, holds more value than the intention of the author. I’ve also had my fair share of people infantilizing Asian authors in the anime community for their poor writing decisions for one lifetime. It’s patronizing to both the author and the people reading it. Whether or not Horikoshi intended for his themes of abuse to paint the picture they did does not matter, because that’s how it reads as.

MHA puts victims of abuse in narrow boxes and softly dictates what’s an acceptable reaction to said abuse. Victims are continuously walking a tightrope between being deserving of compassion and sympathy and being unredeemable monsters who are too far gone and are only good for martyrdom after being put down.  

Eri fits the clean cut depiction of abuse victims that media usually gears towards. She is untouched by the cruelty around her - she preserves her innocence and kindness. She isn't assertive, but rather meek and passive. She doesn't fight back with force. And when offered help, she is receptive to it. That is not to say that Eri's depiction doesn't have a place in fiction, or that her portrayal can't be representative of the experiences of some - as we all deal with trauma and the inhumanity people throw at us differently. We see the same thing in the portrayal of Fuyumi, who shares many of the qualities discussed above. The same thing applies to her - i personally love the idea of all the siblings having different reaction to their childhood trauma and abuse. It shows that victims are not some type of monolith.

But the narrative treats the "forgiving" or "receptive to help/support" victims of abuse with more grace and with much more kindness. if you are willing to forgive, or the very least be quietly tolerant, the story grants you a happy ending. Forgiveness isn't a bad thing, it is an individual choice - but an abuse victim shouldn't have to do it for them to have a happy ending.

In a vacuum Eri and Fuyumi's character arcs and depictions of abuse are good but it becomes a problem when that's the only experience and type of victim we ever hold in high value or recognize as valid and deserving of compassion. Which the story reinforces.

Touya and Tenko's backstories aren't pretty nor comfortable or easy to sit through. Their responses to abuse aren't either. Reactive abuse is very much real.

[solitairedeere]

i was never as optimistic about the ending of bnha as some villain stans were, but i never thought it'd end so badly it left me wondering why horikoshi ever bothered to humanize the villains or make them complex characters at all.

like-- i expected that at least 1-2 of the 3 villains who were heavily foreshadowed and outlined by the narrative as people to be saved would be, you know, actually saved. i didn't think that was a high bar. i've been let down before in fandoms where everyone was certain a character would live and then they didn't, so i tried to keep my hopes low. AND YET.

what happened to tomura was upsetting, but i wasn't that shocked after how disinterested the manga has seemed to be in him for like, the past 100 or so chapters. a bit surprised, because you'd think if anyone would succeed in the 'saving' mission it would be the MC, but whatever. dabi, well, they've spent a lot of time showing the way his quirk destroys his body even before this arc, so that also sucked but at least it didn't feel completely out of left field.

........but they're not even letting toga live???

i just-- what have we even been doing here? when zero out of the 3 characters that were marked out for saving were actually saved, you have to acknowledge that something has gone seriously fucking wrong with the storytelling. not even just from the perspective of a villain fan but from the perspective of someone who likes stories to be thematically consistent or satisfying in any way.

you can set up an expectation of these characters being saved and then subvert that and turn it into a tragedy- if done well that could even be worthwhile and interesting. but you can't turn it into a tragedy and then just... keep trucking along with the happy ending messaging and act like anything in the manga has been resolved and that the characters have somehow successfully completed their heroic origin stories.

like, maybe i shouldn't have expected this much from a shounen- at the end of the day it is still a shounen so i didn't expect to feel that it truly satisfactorily wrapped up all the themes it brought up around societal ills. but i expected it to at least resolve those things in a shounen-y way where they punch the problems and help these specific people and then you can feel good assuming that the state of things will continue to improve in the post-canon world of the manga.

instead we got... uh, none of that. the story refused to answer a single one of the larger questions it's been outlining for the past 400+ chapters. in the end, it was all flash and no substance, which again could've been fine, if it weren't for the way the story seemed to spend significant chunks of time trying to delude you into thinking it had substance.

truly makes me wonder what horikoshi thought he was doing the entire time. can it really all be blamed on burnout? the most that can be said for this ending is that it is, well, an ending. fuck dude, it is that.

and that's just... such a sad way to end a project that took up 10 years of your life.

[haine-kleine]

ignoring canon so hard because if I start thinking about Touya ending up as a plot device, a simple prop for Enji's character arc and getting no future beyond being the highlight of his abuser's change of heart, I will set myself on fire

[gece-misin-nesin]

The fact that Horikoshi had ALL the opportunity to have a "power of friendship" moment with the League coming together and breaking Tomura out of the possession/mind control and going on to band together against AFO but instead chose to kill them off or imprison them without any closure is my villain origin story

[tardigradetheking]

I actually feel sick to my stomach about what happened to dabi. I'm not being hyperbolic. I was never abused but the fact that Dabi's abuser gets to visit him even though everyone knows what that man did is sick. Endeavor gets to stare at him through a pain of glass like dabi is a goddamn monkey in a zoo and dabi is too weak to even object.

[sanjipussyindulgence]

i havent caught up with bnha in a while but after hearing about the ending... i think we can all safely agree its the naruto of this generation. they both got too distracted writing an accidental gay love story for the ages to fix the fucked up corrupt society that uses child soldiers.

[commander-revan]

Can't believe Toga became the exact martyr that Curious was going to turn her into.

[redphlox]

Bnha 429: The moral of the story is that you have to be a good victim. When someone reaches out their hand to help you, you need to stifle your anger and actually take it and whatever else you can get. You need to make your rage and mental illness and feelings of injustice palatable for others for you to be worthy of saving. Be a pleasant, agreeable victim.

[blank468]

How appropriate.

[arceus-insanity]

So When Did Things Start Going Down Hill

I don't mean everything is shit after this, but things looking back started getting (steadily) worse starting with. Check bottom for more indept view on each option

A) at first I wasn't going to include this one as it happened before most of what I considered shit started happening, but with how much it blatantly favours this lazy-ass child abuser, how could I not include it. And of course, it shows so much evidence that he hasn't changed at all, like only even offering to teach Midoriya and Bakugo to manipulate his favourite victim Shoto

B) when it first happened I was devastated but expected this to lead to greater change to the hero system and society. But no, just a meaningless footnote to the heroes epic battle

C) literally no one questions how a top hero was just so eager to kill someone, or buy a wife, breed her, abuse & neglect his kids to the point one of them was believed dead. Only citizens whining about how Dabi is bad for them

D) here's this apparently big shot hero from the States we've never heard of before and immediately dies. If they wanted to keep Shigaraki from having too many powers they could of just chalked it up to the heroes interupting the process

E) the Todoroki family all blames themselves, this isn't to go into the complexity of abusive households, but to absolve Endeavor's responsibility and guilt. Despite the fact that as the one who created and was in control of this situation, he should be held accountable for theirs as well. The only backlash for his shit is framed as ohh poor Endeavor, he didn't mean for the child he threw away to create consequences, and now people are being mean to them

F) what was the point of this arc? Deku barely asks a villain three questions before giving up. He learns the HPSC had Lady Nagant acting as a secret assassin against any undesireables for them, covered up her arrest and got a replacement assassin (Hawks who has at least one confirmed extra jurdical murder under his belt). Witnesses an innocent woman get attacked for her appearance and was turned away from multiple shelters for said appearance. Deku: Hero Society is the Best, Nothing needs to change, because not every single apple in this basket is rotten to the core! Looking back he just looks worse for this

G) so this child, who due to his parents mistake was blackmailed under great threat & risk, into giving information to the blackmailer, deserves to be chained up and forced to take further risk by the heroes. Remember Endeavor never faces any consequences, nor does Hawks, but this child, Yuga, gets treated like this.

H) once again what was the point? How does Edgeshot know he can do this? How does he know how to do this? Why is he a top hero who has never interacted with Bakugo before this, sacrifices his appearing to be unharmed self, for a random hero student in the middle of a war? Oh and Edgeshot is revealed to be alive at the end of the manga, because Heroes have no consequences and live in magical fairytail land. Again what was the fucking point!

I) This was originally going to be two points, Oh poor Endeavor, victim blaming part 2 and the hospital battle. But I ran out of options and Endeavor doesn't need another personal option. So we got the whole Todofam blaming Dabi/Touya this time, and Endeavor being a whiney responsibility dodging coward again. Then we see the heroes knew that the villains were going to go after Kurogiri, kept him in a hospital. We see that the people aren't going after doctors or patients just trying to get to Kurogiri, get demonized for it. We have victim blamer/ pick-me Tentacole say that their kids will be attacked for this (already happening), and that it's up to them/ him to inspire the violent quirkests to not constantly attack, assualt, and otherwise discriminate against them, no need for the quirkists to be given any responsibility or consequences for their own actions. Oh and Spinner has major brain damage because how else was Tentacole supposed to win this arguement. Bonus points for Hawks calling for Toga to be murdered, doubling right back down on his previous murder

J) in this already overcrowded 3rd act lets make sure all these background characters get a scene! And despite the fact it took years for Deku to get a powersuit in the epilogue, All Might just randomly gets one, no build up or anything. AFO's backstory is left in the past so no one has to consider anything

K) I had hope going into this, but at every turn they kept on making it worse. Deku only tries punching and attacking, rather than make any attempts to actually talk unlike what Shigaraki has been doing since his introduction. Is randomly able to enter Shigaraki's head, doesn't have to see just how fucked Hero Society is as it gets cut short by moral scapegoat AFO coming in and revealing he orcastrated everything! Oh and he flat out kills Shigaraki. Living up to his name and not his goal. Deku that could my ass

Sorry if this comes off as super negative but I've been wondering this for a while, and well I'm pissed at the ending. Here's some people I want to hear the opinions of:

@moodyvoid @nagitosstolenhand @codenamesazanka @shortstrawberryshake @darkonekrisrewrite @nothingofinterest @itsnothingofinterest @villainsandvictimsalliance

Feel free to @ more people