#bnha critical

[rottenhellion]

Ngl having President Hawks end the series going on about investing in young people is possibly THE most unintentionally creepy thing Hori could have had him do considering his story

[paesagex]

Don’t fall for MHA’s puppy eyes.

Sorry for the rant, I know this is just an illustration but it needed to be said.

With all due respect to dogs and corgies, adding Mon here is just an insult to our intelligence.

Whether his presence there is supposed to be “real” as some kind of ghost or is just a metaphor for a regained innocence, it doesn’t make the fact Shigaraki died with his abuser any less of a tragedy. In fact, I find it incredibly disrespectful to it.

Guess what, when you’re dead, you don’t get to heal.

Shigaraki will never smile like that again.

Shigaraki will never learn to love himself and the world around him.

Shigaraki will never see his friends again.

Shigaraki will never have happy memories of a life outside of Afo’s control.

“Tomura” will never stop “mourning” the death of his family and will never forgive himself, because that would take an effort that he can’t enact anymore.

And, finally, Shigaraki will never get to understand the extent of what he did, nor atone for it. All of this, because he’s dead.

Besides, Shigaraki apparently had to die because his evil deeds couldn’t be forgiven and Horikoshi didn’t want to risk being disrespectful to victims of terrorism, but somehow suggesting that he made it to heaven is better?

Please.

This isn’t cute. This is manipulative. This is slimy.

And I’m not talking only about how much of a slap in victim of abuse’s faces this is.

Think about how diseducative this shit is.

Portraying death and “saving your soul” as a solution to such an extent of suffering, what is that supposed to tell people who know nothing of trauma and abuse? What are they supposed to learn from this? Especially considering that MHA is a story aimed at teenagers!

Healing is work. Healing isn’t pretty. Healing requires you to be fucking alive. And Tomura will never get that.

So, in conclusion, I’m sorry but Mon is just a prop put there to give us a soppy distraction from how bullshit this story’s message is.

I think Horikoshi should commit to how the story went and stop sugarcoating the tragedy.

[azure-arsonist]

Someone’s sure upset at the MHA ending😭 calling it facist is wild, wasn’t Midoryia literally on the run from cops for an entire movie?

Please enlighten us on how that somehow makes the super powered fascist adjacent police state that is Hero SocietyTM less fascist

[thearomanticcactus]

Honestly, I always kinda thought that UA wasn't good at teaching the kids shit, but it's hard to tell because there's presumably a lot we don't see because it's just not that applicable.

But like, the final exams kinda prove it right? Like the reason they had Todoroki go against Aizawa was because he relies on his quirk too much, right? Why wasn't that something they already addressed in class? Kaminari and Mina are paired against Nezu because they're bad strategist, right (it's been a while and I'm really hoping the actual reasoning wasn't that they're "stupid" because that's an insane thing to say about their students)? Why haven't they taught them? Tbh I don't remember a lot of the reasons, so excuse me if I'm wrong about shit.

I think maybe some of them are understandable, but some are like "yeah, instead of teaching them this important thing we decided to throw them in a sink or swim situation." Like these are not good teaching methods??

And the battle trials are also the same thing, where instead of teaching these kids, they just say "have at it." And then do absolutely nothing when shit gets out of hand. (Which I hate to defend Bakugo in any way, shape, or form, and he's definitely at fault here too. But also, why didn't you at least try to teach them safety first??) But honestly I thought that's cause All Might's an idiot who has no idea how to teach. But maybe that's legitimately how UA is.

[kiitkattie]

another thing that pisses me off about the ending of mha is the utter waste of potential that midoriya's hero analysis had on the story

like fr that boy had years of analysis in notebooks but it was only mentioned before one for all and then never again like bitch wtf

[class1akids]

I think it comes off as rather tone-deaf and sickening to act like because Shouto has gotten some resemblance from his father(yes his abuser) as he has matured is him being possessed by his abuser! It's rather sickening you think that of Shouto and the adult design, because yes he's the son of an abuser and one of his victims and yes he's gained some of his features but that doesn't negate the fact that he is still his own person! he isn't possessed by his abuser, or anything like Enji just because of genetic appearance resemblance!

I still love Shouto no matter what, but I do hate the fact that Horikoshi did this to him on purpose.

He wrote an arc for Shouto about overcoming his DNA and becoming who he wants to be. Everyone is happy about Shouto being happy and smiley and thriving.

But if you going into the comments on him in fandom, 90% only talks about how he looks like Endeavor. They barely notice his smile or the Touya colored T on his chest, because Hori drastically changed the way he looks and he didn’t do this for a single other character from Class A.

He’s writing an ending where he says “hardly anyone calls him Endeavor’s son” but then dropped a drawing which made fandom talk about nothing else. It’s dissonant.

It makes me feel like Horikoshi intellectually knows Shouto’s story requires emancipation and freedom to become himself, but emotionally he’s too attached to Endeavor and is not treating Shouto as his own reference point. He doesn’t develop Shouto organically from his own younger design (like he does for every other character) but tries to force him into a design that looks now more like Endeavor using Endeavor’s younger design as a reference point.

And yes, kids resemble their parents. But there is nobody saying “oh Deku looks now even more than Inko” or “oh Bakugou has more Masaru looks now”. The resemblance is there like it always was but it didn’t lead to a sudden design change to the point of overwhelming their individual identity. They look like themselves.

While with Shouto, people look at him and their first reaction is “Endeavor”. I think that’s really sad because the narrative ending tells us that when you look at Shouto, your first reaction shouldn’t be “Endeavor” but rather “Oh, Shouto, 8 years from now, how lovely, amazing growth, he’s become such a smiling young man”.

And Hori’s one really strong point being character design, I know he did this Enji-fication on purpose and I don’t trust his intent and I don’t like that he doesn’t let Shouto be his own origo like he does for literally everyone else.

People whose faves didn’t get such drastic changes should stop criticising Shouto fans for being shocked and ask themselves how they would feel if the character they followed for a decade were redesigned out of the blue not with his own endings in mind but to be brutally and radically reshaped into the design of a character you hate.

Most Shouto fans hate Endeavor. So this was a move to alienate Shouto fans and gain no new fans for him. Of course, most Shouto fans will still love him, but some will leave because emotionally they can’t cope with this anymore (just one more way Horikoshi’s disregard for Shouto and his fans made apparent) and I guarantee you that zero new Shouto fans are added with this design.

This is not Shouto hate. This is utter distrust in Horikoshi and his motives when it comes to the Todofam.

[bakudekublogblog]

hori being like "i'm working on new manga btw" and i'm like ah i cant wait for the new manga that'll be like... jeremy who's dream is to be a movie star... and then he works toward that for 430 chapters... and then in the final chapter he's like "actually i'm really happy being a lawyer" out of nowhere. so stoked. that just. can't wait hori.

[bibibbon]

Disappointed that AFO didn't turn out to be Nana's husband/baby daddy 😔

"Obtaining OFA by any means necessary"

I am glad that didn't happen simply because I think Nana has already suffered so much, and as someone who dislikes how heavily involved AFO was in the creation to Tenko and the shimura family I don't feel like this would have been a satisfying plotline within Canon.

Honestly, I get lost with AFO as a character simply because hori tries to depict him as the big bad, whose a mastermind but fails to do so and overall just made him into a parasitic underwhelming villain.

I suppose I enjoyed that he was a bit of a one note simply because it held well with the good vs bad theme that he had with all might and that was eventually continued down with izuku and shigaraki but I feel like AFO should have had minimal direct plot interventions after the kamino arc and should have haunted the plot instead.

Nana barely gets anything in the series, and I find her story heartbreaking so I think taking away even her love does nothing more than make her even more tragic than she already is while not really benefiting AFO's character

Although this is just my biased view on things

[cherrycloy]

I'm genuinely so confused as to what hori wanted to achieve with the league of villains. why make them so painfully human, people that just want to feel okay for once, why make sure that we know that they are a family that the league is all they have and that they care about each other so fucking much, only to have them killed off by the so-called good guys that we're supposed to be rooting for

Like he undeniably put so much effort into making sure that we care about these guys being saved, what else were we supposed to feel except disappointment and disgust at that ending

[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.

[azure-arsonist]

Bitches with no reading comprehension will see the mha ending where a fascist adjacent government who repeatedly used covert assassins, government cover-ups, and CHILD SOLDIERS successfully kill/neutralize enemies of the state who were created by the systems own apathy or cruelty and then call it peak because idk deku got to punch the bad guy and Uraraka felt bad and invented counseling and everything's ok now guys because the former state asset is in charge and he's really actually a good guy and the civilians learned what the concept of mutual aid is.

[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.

[class1akids]

Isn’t it really sucky how the only two heroes who talked to Fuyumi, Natsuo, and Rei on screen about their situation is BJ (with his comment about Dabi and dirty laundry) and Hawks (whole can of worms of how his relationship with Enji is f’ed up)?

For me, it feels even worse that no adult talked to Shouto. Not Aizawa, not All Might, not any of the teachers at UA.

Rei, Fuyumi and Natsuo are all adults and have more freedom and agency. But Shouto is just a kid, still under Endeavor's parental authority.

But no matter how I look at it - the way Hori used the other pro heroes to glaze Endeavor was a terrible and insensitive writing choice and more and more people are now criticizing it, even in Japanese fandom.

[kurokoros]

going back and rereading the fight between Twice/Dabi and Hawks it's crazy to me that the rest of the story frames this moment as a good thing that should be repeated with the other villains and also Hawks ends up being president of the HPSC for reasons beyond me. like... those chapters didn't frame Hawks in a flattering light. the way he's drawn in shadow half the time isn't a heroic portrayal at all.

also the fact that Midoriya, Iida, and Shouto were able to (partly) restrain Stain without killing him and Midoriya and Mirio were able to fend off Overhaul without killing him, but actual pro hero Hawks couldn't just knock out Twice immediately instead of trying to talk him into surrendering was... a choice.