#but societal issues take time to fix and I'd like to hope it's going in a better direction

[ame-to-ame]

public transit... *collapses to the floor*

[thyandrawrites]

maybe horis point is some VERY optimistic view in bnha world that the next generation is more understanding and less violent. like idk maybe shouto and shouji could have ended up violent in their ways but because their classmates werent evil shitheads and they made friends they managed to not be swallowed up by the worlds ugliness. (im saying this with a "this is a battle shonen/fictional story" mentality and logic. irl the only way to change anything is through protests/violence/wars)

Mmh, well, I don't disagree about the limitations of a battle shounen manga. I'm well aware of them. However, I think the problem in bnha is that the writing often doesn't follow up on its own set ups.

Let me try to clarify this. It's true that Horikoshi doesn't seem interested in writing any actual change on a societal scale. I probably went into this expecting it to be a story about something else, and that's on me. I can't fault Hori for not writing what I hoped to read.

However, while the overarching point might not be fixing social issues, Horikoshi did set up the hero kids as people who want to break from the mold. Bnha is largely a story about mentors and mentees, but take Deku for example: his mentor, Gran Torino, was certain Shigaraki was long past the point of saving, and admonished Toshinori against sympathizing with him. Yet, despite the fact that Deku normally thinks his mentors hung the moon, he still goes against their judgment with his resolve to save Shigaraki.

So the set up is that Deku will eventually see past their hero/villain labels and acknowledge Shigaraki's humanity.

Problem is, the story is nearly wrapping up, but we're still lacking a proper follow up. It just stays a resolve, but there's no action that supports this.

The hero trio is supposed to be headed towards rescuing their villain foils, but any common ground they have with them always takes the backseat. Every time there's an opportunity for them to act and do better than their mentors, the kids revert to being angry and perpetrating the mindset of the previous generation. This is shown most clearly with Shouto, who unconsciously repeats his parents' calls for Touya to "just stop" (and in the process, keeps scapegoating him as a bad victim who keeps inconveniencing others instead of just moving on).

If anything, I'd say that the problem is exactly this: positing one side, the good guys, as the "good victims", and the villains as the "bad" ones. It drives attention away from the fact that they've both suffered unjustly, and postpones indefinitely any attempt for a dialogue.

Now, bnha probably will never go as far as dismantling the perpetrators that caused that suffering on both sides of the current conflict. Think of how his solution to the corruption of the Hpsc was killing Madam President and replacing her. But I think it would be nice if the story could finally move away from that good vs bad, black vs white thinking and show us the heroes' growth instead of dangling in front of our eyes like a carrot on a string. The point is for kids to be more understanding? Then show them acting like it. If you cannot make them empathize with the villains yet because that's too fast, at least show them actually listening to what the villains are saying. Ffs, Touya is Shouto's brother but Shouto didn't listen to a single word Touya said.

Does this make sense? I Don't know. I think I'm gonna drop the subject for now tho, since talking about this in circles doesn't help getting rid of my frustration