#endeavors redemption if it DOES exist

[clenastia]

theres this fanfic author

who writes AMAZING ff15 fanfics

...and also consistently does my #1 biggest ick in fanfic ever (changes a character's gender explicitly to write a ship without it being gay)

it was something i'd half-suspected for a while, just based off how they wrote said characters. you know, there's just that VIBE to "im only changing genders to avoid the gay" type stories and it was sort of hitting it but the author is good enough that i wasn't QUITE 100% certain.

and then they straight up unironically quoted the bible in one fic and asterisk censored curse words (even mild ones like damn) in another

and now im just like.

100% certain they're my least favorite type of religious UGH

[sapphic-agent]

I think the only reason for Izu to not see the corruption anymore even when he is a prime victim of it...it's bc of bk. Really. Hori went out of his way to make BK "it's not so bad" and did the same for us, AIZAWA and Endy.

Hori shut the victim's voice.

I can say with confidence here...all Izu's issues in writing and outside steem from BK's existence and how much Hori loves him.

Bc there no excuse for a person who was abused 12 years given or take to be so naive. Izu defending ua and Aizawa is baffling as Aizawa wanted to expell him day 1

Izu worshipping am is baffling as am doesn't deserve his adoration bc the man did the abre minium (and that is better than what Inko, his mom, did)

Izu liking A1 is baffling too since they are siding with the abuser.

MHA is a story where the abuser won.

Izu is silent

Shiga is put down bc he is the bad vicitm.

Yeah, the way MHA treats its victims as opposed to its abusers is... Mind boggling.

Touya's backstory retconned so much of the Todoroki lore and anyone can see it was an attempt to make Endeavor look more human. And in the process, Touya and Rei were demonized even more

Bakugou gets sympathy and admiration from everyone. Izuku gets made fun of and ignored. Even when someone does show concern for his well-being, it's either a) never talked about further or b) made into someone else's- Bakugou's- moment

Dabi's reveal ended up resulting in the rest of the Todorokis supporting Endeavor, not a word about Rei's pain or trauma. Nope, she's just there to help Endeavor's redemption

Hawks and Nagant were turned into child soldiers and forced to kill by the HPSC. Do they get autonomy or retribution? Never. Hawks continues to be their brainwashed soldier and Nagant fades into the distance. Even worse, Hawks is used to prop Endeavor's- another abuser- redemption

Eri escaped her abuser so she should be healing in peace, right? WRONG. She mutilates herself for the so-called heroes

Izuku loses OFA, only to comfort Bakugou who's devastated by this for whatever reason even though he was the one who made Izuku feel worthless for being quirkless in the first place

Kotaro is a grown man who purposely abused his children, right? But screw that, Nana is to blame even though she did what she did to protect him. And also, no one told him to abuse his kids

The only ones who are treated fully as abusers are AFO and Overhaul. But, well, we know what a disaster AFO was and how terribly Tomura towards the finish was written so it really didn't matter in the end, did it?

[arceus-insanity]

Something I never particularly liked about Endeavor's atonement, is that he never gave or gave up anything he actually wanted.

Like Endeavor was always willing to risk his life and limb as a hero, so any life-threatening risks or bodily harm he receives is just part of the job he was always willing to do from the beginning.

Him building a house for his remaining family members, only he won't be there?

Endeavor never cared whether he lived with his family or not, all that mattered to him was creating the strongest hero in Shoto.

So he never showed any want to be with his family until Shoto was already on his way to being a great hero.

It was barely an afterthought to him that was never followed through on.

The ending only makes all this worse, because it looks like he replaced each member of his family that he lost with heroes, the people he really wanted to be around...

Fuyumi = Burnin, onima = Natsuo, Hawks = Touya

Shoto on the path to heroic success.

And Rei there too, I guess for some reason???

Just wheeling him around...

Do you feel similarly or different about all this?

DING DING DING We have a winner!

Endeavor never has to sacrifice anything, he never chooses his family over his precious number one spot. He only even remembered they existed after he got his Precious.

And something I noticed is he is full of shit, and believes his own shit.

Like he thinks that 'oh I'll make a house for all my family members to live in' (Which we never see happen, so once again empty bullshit as always). But he never asks them what they want, it is incredibly bold to assume they would all want to live together, or even be able to with their careers, and if the kids want to start their own families. We also know Shoto likes traditional Japanese flooring, but what about the rest of them, and does Endeavor even know that?

One thing I've never seen anyone call out is his manipulative gaslighting speech to Natsuo after being rescued from Ending. He says that he didn't save Natsuo because he didn't want to make like Natsuo feel like he has to forgive him, only to without hesitation force him into a hug. So fucking much for respecting Natsuo's autonomy.

And this ain't the first time this lazy coward has froze when his kids are in immediate danger, we see him standing safely outside the flames with his fire resistance while Touya who's weak to fire burned on the peak. With Endeavor of course claiming 'he did everything he could'.

We also find out he harrassed Fuyumi into giving him Shoto's, his fucking masterpiece, number. Which he uses to text Shoto, in the middle of not just his workday, but fucking class hours! So much is wrong with this, this doesn't make him look good or show any atonement or redemption. What it does is make me think a lot less of both this excuse of a human being and his daughter (The start of her enabler arc). He's doubling down on past behaviour, quite stupidly I might add. And why the fuck did he need to get it from Fuyumi? Presumably, he's the one paying for the phone, he should just have the number from that!

Once again this man openly admits he only offered the work-study to Deku and Bakugou to manipulate Shoto. And constantly favors him when it comes to teaching. Understanding Deku's word vomit isn't difficult, even with him stupidly over-explaining it

What we don't see (or hear of) is him doing anything for or with Fuyumi, the only kid that wants anything to do with him (despite her character profile saying she resents him)

He is constantly given credit for shit he actively isn't doing!

But he and the narrative constantly throw him a pity party the second consequences are even hinted at. Not to mention he is also constantly rewarded for his (non-existent) efforts, Shoto chooses to work with him, Rei forgives him, Hawks, Burnin, Best Jeanist, etc are around to lick his boots clean and make sure he doesn't have to face any of those hinted at consequences. Boo fucking Hoo, the League (and specifically Dabi in this) deserved to win, and by the end, I was convinced that they would have been better for society

[linkspooky]

Dr. Venture vs. Enji Todoroki: How to Write Bad Dads

This is a post comparing two shows about two abusive dads who are the main characters instead of their children. My Hero Academia is a Shonen jump manga that takes inspiration from American comics and shonen manga. Whereas The Venture Bros is an adult swim cartoon that started out as a parody of Johnny Quest, and grew into a seven season long character study of former child star Rusty Venture.

The idea for this post came from the fact that I've noticed a common hot take from MHA fans that Endeavor's redemption arc is bad because it's wrong to make an abuser the main character.

I've always disagreed, and used The Venture Bros as an example of a show where making an abuser the main character works. Rusty is actually a well-liked character in the venture bros fandom. So my question is if these characters are both abusers why is one of them generally accepted and the other one so controversial?

Before we begin I want to say this is a story with fictional characters. Don't bring real life into the equation. We are doing literary criticism here and only talking about the events that happen in the story.

Anyway, My Hero Academia and The Venture Bros seem like the weirdest shows to compare but they are actually pretty similar. They are both comic book shows that are commentating on the comics they're inspired from.

What My Hero Academia is to Spiderman and Dragonball Z, Venture Bros is to Tom Swift Novels, the Hardy Boys, and old Hanna-Barbera Cartoons. They also make the decision to focus on the characters as people rather than heroes. They are telling the stories of real people that exist in a world overflowing with both heroes and villains.

1. Meet the Venture Brothers

If you've heard of the Venture Bros then you've probably heard of the premise that it's an adult parody of Johnny Quest. Johnny Quest for those of you who have a life and therefore haven't seen every old Hanna-Barbera Cartoon like I have is a show where eleven year old Johnny Quest travels around the world with his super scientist father Dr. Benton C. Quest and their bodyguard Race Bannon, going on adventures in Jungle Ruins or fighting villains.

In the Venture Bros the main character Dr. Thaddeus Venture is an emotionally abusive and neglectful father who constantly exposes his sons to danger in his trips around the world. Their bodyguard Brock Samson is a ultra violent and is basically a thirteen year old's idea of what a cool manly man is. The titular Venture Bros, Hank and Dean Venture are sheltered children who are constantly being chased around by men in costumes trying to kill them.

So the basic premise of the show lies in it's dark deconstruction of shows like Hardy Boys, Johnny Quest, these Tom Swift-esque stories where young boys go on adventures by showing the real dangers that children would be exposed to in that kind of life.

Between Johnny Quest, the Hardy Boys, and Tom Swift, what is up with these pie-eyed youths chasing pirates and international diamond thieves and stuff like that? They would get their throats cut the minute that stumbled upon a hideout. And that would be the gag. - ART AND MAKING OF THE VENTURE BROS.

The show does explore Hank and Dean's trauma, but despite the title of the show they are not the main characters. The protagonist is Doctor Thaddeus Venture who himself is other victim of the Boy Adventuring Lifestyle.

Dr. Venture: "Who was, for 43 years, the only son of Dr. Jonas Venture? Who, from the ages of 3 to 17 accompanied him on hundreds of adventures the chilling memories of which rouse him from sleep in a cold sweat to this day?"

Thaddeus used to travel around the world with his father the super scientist Dr. Jonas Venture who was a far more successful super scientist and hero. He's the former star of the "Rusty Venture Show" a cartoon based off of his travels with his father.

Jonas who continually neglected and gaslit him throughout his childhood to the point of not allowing him to go to therapy. He gaslit him so hard there's a scene where he literally pretends to be Rusty's therapist to tell his son to stop complaining.

Rusty: "So I don't know. Sometimes I wish I could just be a normal kid and go out and play with kids my own age and stuff. The only people I get to hang out with are grown ups. The only time I get to leave the compound is to go someplace creepy, like the Bermuda triangle, and then I get kidnapped, by grown ups. And I'm not even sure I want to be a super scientist when I grow up anyway, but I feel all this pressure because of my fa-It feels weird telling you this stuff." Jonas: "Remember Rusty, in here I'm your doctor not your father. Now let's get back to it shall we. You were telling me how you're ungrateful for all the opportunities your father's given you and you blame me for all your problems."

Rusty is both a washed up child star, and a faiilure to his father's legacy. He never formed an identity outside of being the star of the Rusty Venture show or the son of Jonas Venture. He drags his kids all around the world on crazy super science adventures because that's what he knows.

The central premise of the Venture Bros is that Rusty is basically stuck and cannot meaningfully grow up into an adult and his own person, despite the fact he is now a single father trying to raise two sons. The central theme is about three generations of one family, and what it says about the complicated nature of family itself,

As Rusty is both the victim and the perpetrator of the abuse it makes sense he is the main character the story centers around because he's the central link between Jonas and the Twins.

The themes can be summarized in one line said towards the end of the show:

BEN "Just a watch. Tells the time in two time zones. That fourth hand there? Little date window? Those are called complications. Complications make a watch special. More complications the more value. Read the engraving Jonas put on the back there. Elige Tua. It's Latin for Choose your family. Blood doesn't make a family, love does. Choose your family and remember that complications make it special."

In other words it's a seven season long show on how family is complicated.

2. Keeping up with the Todorokis

My Hero Academia is about a lot of things, but the central premise is that in a society where he quirk you were born with can determine a lot about your life, one boy without a quirk sets out to prove that anyone can be a hero.

If Complciations make it special is the central theme of Venture Bros, then the central theme of My Hero Academia is two sentences. "All People are not created equal" and "Anyone can become someone's hero" both said at different points in the story. The story itself is about Deku's attempts to overcome the first statement, that he was not born equal but he deserves to be a hero as much as anyone else because he represents the true spirit of heroes. That heroes don't just show up to beat the big bad, a hero saves people.

The story isn't just about Deku though. We're not even going to talk about Deku in this post, but rather the Tritagonist Todoroki Shoto.

Todrooki is introduced as a foil to Deku someone who is born with an extremely powerful quirk, but who's been groomed from childhood to be a hero.

Shoto's father Enji Todoroki is All Might's ultimate rival. In the world of MHA hers are highly commercialized and ranked by popularity and achievements and Enji has been number two his entire life. He decided to conceive of an heir that could surpass All Might instead.

He purchased a wife with an ice quirk for an arranged marriage to selectively breed for a child with a fire and ice quirk. When Shoto was born he raised Shoto up as a hero, forcing him through grueling training sessions from a young age, and beating his wife when she tried to intervene for Shoto's sake.

That's a lot and I didn't even cover all of it. After this reveal of Shoto's backstory, Enji seems like he's only going to be a one note abuser to give Shoto a tragic backstory to angst over.

However, later on in the show Enji ifinally becomes the number one hero only to realize how empty his lifelong dream has been. He feels remorse for the family he destroyed in pursuit of that dream and starts wanting to make ammends. After this , Enji basically becomes the second most important character of the "Todoroki Family" arc. . A lot of focus is put on Enji's attempts at atonement to the point where some accuse him of stealing the spotlight from his victims.

These two families have a lot in common. They are basically families who are not allowed to have normal lives because the patriarch of the family is a costumed hero. The hero is also someone who is generally well-respected and is considered extremely successful in their chosen career, but are terrible to their family members. They are a hero to the world and a villain to their own family.

If there is a central premise to the Todoroki Family outside of MHA's analysis of what exactly makes a hero, it's this:

Todoroki Shoto: "As a hero this endeavor guy is pretty darn amazing. But it's just like Nasu said. I'm not ready to forgive you... for abusing mom. So, heroics aside. What sort of dad are you going to be? That's what I want to find out?"

The challenge is if Endeavor can choose his family over being a hero.

You can se the parallels in Venture Bros, as Rusty's main struggle is to try to be a father to his twin sons and help them grow up while at the same time struggling in this dangerous worlds of super science. Rusty is a super scientist constantly getting chased around by guys in costumes, but he's also a normal father trying to raise two sons into adulthood with basically no idea what he's doing because he doesn't have a frame of reference for how fathers are supposed to act or what a normal childhood would even look like.

The comic book super scientist, and the comic book hero are expected to act like real fathers to their sons.

However, as I said above in Rusty's case it's pretty uncontroversial that he is the main character of his story, whereas Enji starts fights within the fandom very time he appears onscreen.

Why is this exactly?

It's not because it's offensive to have an abuser be the main character, but rather how these characters are written and how well they fit into their stories. As I said Rusty is naturally the main character of his story because he's the central link in the chain of abuse, but should Enji be the main character of the Todorokis? Does he fit as well as Rusty?

3. Who's your Daddy?

So as stated above Enji and Rusty simultaneously exist in worlds where heroes exist and yet they are also normal people who are expected to provide for their families and raise their kids. They both exist in what is basically the marvel universe, though in the case of Venture Bros it's the Marvel Universe fused with old Hanna-Barbera cartoons.

Because of this world some of the things both Enji and Rusty do are things that have no real life parallels. For example Rusty once created a machine using the soul of a dead orphan as a power supply. You can't do that in real life so I'm not going to use that as an example.

Both of these stories are drawing on real life parallels of parental abuse I'm going to be talking about those to tell what kind of neglectful parent each is.

Rusty raised Hank and Dean Venture as a single parent with the assistance of their body guard Brock Samson. They live on the Venture Compound and only leave when Rusty needs to take a trip around the world. Obviously, there's not many real life examples of parents taking their kids into egypt to fight mummies.

However, Rusty's main flaw as a parent is how much he shelters his children not allowing them to make their own choices. They are homeschooled until they are eighteen and almost never allowed to leave their home unsupervised. Rusty could be compared to a helicopter parent that feels the need to micromanage every aspect of their child's lives, sheltering them so much they're unprepared for the real world.

Rusty is a weird combination of controlling and neglectful, because while he doesn't let either of his childre go to public school aor interact with kids their own age, he constantly exposes them to danger. He is often disinterested in his kid's lives and puts most of the burden of protecting them and raising them on his bodyguard Brock, while he chases after whatever super-science project is occupying him at the moment. He's neglectful to dangerous extents too considering they're always getting cahsed around by crazy men in costumes.

Also, he lets them die a lot.

Hank and Dean have died several times over, only to be replaced by clones that Rusty grew in a lab with all the same memories. Once again there's no real life parallel to this, but it's interesting in the context of the show itself.

How do these children survive being chased by villains and constantly kidnapped? The answer is, they don't.

They die, and then Rusty just clones a new pair of boys. That in itself should make Rusty irredeemable but the show presents it in a more ambiguous light.

Dean: "You're telling me I'm a clone, that I'm not even Dean, that I'm some stupid science experiment." Ben: "No, no, no. You're Dean. There's no other Dean, you're it, flesh and blood. Look I was conceived in the back seat of a packard, you were conceived in a tank. So what?" Dean: "So I have no mommy? No nothing!?" Ben: "Dean, you have it all wrong. You have a mommy, and your dad is your dad. They made you by getting drunk and forgetting to wear a condem like everybody else, and your dad loved you so much that when you got a boo-boo, he kissed it and made it all better and made it go away." Dean: "You brought me back to life." Ben: "Yeah okay, well you and your brother had some pretty big boo boos. Have a kid one day, Dean. Hold it's lifeless body in your arms, and then tell me how wrong it is. Jonas, me, and yes your dad, saw it as nothing more than a fucking band-aid for a really big boo boo."

In the story itself it brings up the argument that if any parent was holding their dying child in their arms they'd want to bring them back somehow. That in the logic of the show it's the same as using magic to revive someone from the dead. At the same time it's not because Rusty's let his sons die multiple times and never changed his lifestyle because he can just keep replacing them with clones.

Super-science aside, it is kind of a metaphor for Rusty's parenting as a whole that his sons have been cloned and replaced so many times they're perpetually sixteen and never allowed to grow up. Rusty's so neglectful he's never taken an interest in raising them and this is the result, they literally do not grow up.

It's also probably relevant to mention that Rusty himself is a clone and died and was replaced multiple times much like his sons, and the technology for cloning Hank and Dean was invented by his father Jonas.

However, after season 3 the cloning lab gets destroyed, and the body guard Brock leaves the family. With the safety net removed Rusty actually starts taking a more active role in both of his child's lives. This is basically a mirror to Endeavor's moment of realization after getting number one hero that his entire family has grown up without him and they all resent him.

Season four onwards Hank and Dean develop into their own people outside of Rusty. He responds to them in different ways but he's actually parenting them this time instead of shoving them away like annoyances. Hank becomes rebellious and fights back against Rusty for a long time after Brock leaves because he no longer has a role model and Rusty's response is to always get strict and punish him.

Whereas when Dean rebels not only does Rusty tolerate it, he also spends a lot more time in Dean's life trying to push him into the direction of being a super-scientist like him, supporting his efforts to go to college, while basically ignoring Hank. It's a running gag in the show that Dean is obviously Rusty's favorite, but even when playing favorites Rusty by this point in the show has reasons for why he's making those parenting choices.

Rusty: "Dean believes in this crap! He should have been Rusty Venture, Boy adventurer. Hank got this life thrown at him. And he fights against it. Just like I did."

Rusty playing favorites comes from an attempt to overcorrect for both children. He rejects Hank because he believes Hank doesn't want to be a boy adventure and therefore pushing Hank away from his family and the Venture lifestyle is what he needs. Whereas, he believes that Dean embraces the super scientist lifestyle and he tries to mentor Dean into another scientist like himself therefore he gives Dean most of his attention because he thinks Dean needs that guidance from him.

Of course, Rusty is totally wrong about his sons. If anything Hank is the one who wants to be an adventurer whereas Dean just wants a normal life away from his crazy family but parents often misunderstand their children. He's not actively malicious, he's just misguided in what he thinks is best for each of his sons. He's not really even playing favorites in this case he's choosing to parent his sons differently based on what he thinks is best for each of them, it's just in this case father doesn't know best.

Rusty isn't a stagnant character, but also there's no big redemption arc for him the way there is Endeavor. Rusty never narrates about how he needs to atone for his past mistakes. The result is Rusty is a far more amoral character than Endeavor because he's not trying to atone but the narrative also isn't trying to spin Rusty in any way. It's just showing you Rusty as he is, and with all the bad things he does he's still capable of loving his sons.

The question isn't really "Is Rusty redeemable?" but "When is Rusty gonna grow up?"

Then there's Endeavor (everyone starts booing) who is simultaneously a much better, and far worse person than Rusty.

Enji is honestly more comparable to Jonas, an incredibly successful hero who built a career and an empire in heroics and fame and then tried to force his son into that same lifestyle.He's the exploration of that same idea a supposedly great man with skeletons in his closet. Enji technically has saved thousands of people (such as Hawks one of the other main characters). A person who is so good at playing the role of a hero no one would ever expect there are skeletons in his closet.

"Rusty's father was more successful than you could ever imagine. Jonas Venture Sr. was a manipulative narcissist admired by the world for his scientific accomplishements and his hyper-masculine James Bond meets Doc Savage public persona. He's a geniuine villain who was able to take everything he wanted from the world by seamlessly fitting into the role of everyone's hero." [Source]

Jonas is like showing everything nasty about using someone like James Bond as a male power fantasy. He treats women like objects, he thinks he's aboe good and evil, he's effortlessly charming and suave and uses that to get what he wants out of people. Enji similiarly is everything that is wrong with the ideals of hero society. A society that glorifies flashy, strong quirks that are the best for taking down villains. The only person who even seems to care that he's number two is Enji himself, beause Enji is otherwise rich and succesful, a pillar of the hero community, and allowed to get away with a lot because of his position and influence.

Enji is at least a better hero than Rusty, because Rusty is an incompetent mad scientist who does stuff like mutate college interns into four armed freaks and build death rays.

However, as a parent strip away his status as a hero and Enji is little more than a show parent, pushing his children into a life they don't want in an attempt to live vicariously through them. Once again, resembling Jonas more than he really does Rusty. As Jonas forced Rusty to be a boy adventurer, and then made a cartoon out of it to make money like any show parent.

It's also the idea that generation put that kids into films and it was a very horrible selfish thing to do, they were doing trying to live out their own lives through their kids. That didn't exist before that was something that boomers brought to the world. "Oh I can't be these fun new things I'll make you be it." I think Jonas was a pioneer of throwing his kid at the world. I think Jonas was something of a boy adventurer himself, and made his kid be it. But also put his kid on TV to cash in the residuals. Jackson Publick, DVD Commentary

As stated above Enji gave up on his ambition to be the number one hero and so he decided to create a son with the right quirk to surpass All Might. He then pressured a woman into an arranged marriage, basically purchasing her from her parents and conceived four children until he got his designer baby.

Chapters 301-302 the wrong way to put out a fire, detail the slow descent of the Todoroki Household from Enji entering an arranged marriage with bad intention to create an ideal child to be heir to his legacy, into a full on child abuser. Enji is written like a normal person falling into a cycle of abuse, he never intended to hurt his children at first. Abusers aren't evil monsters, they're just people. Most abusers don't even think of themselves as abusers.

In fact he's shown positively bonding with his first born son who seems eager to learn to use his fire based quirk. He even mentions that he was alright at the time with the idea of Toya being the one to succeed him and letting go of his quirk experiment.

Enji only had kids to carry on his legacy, and only bonded with Toya because Toya was eager to participate in the training and become his heir. However, to give Enji some backstory it's quite clear the death of Enji's own father at a young age left him with no idea on how a father should act.

At a young age Enji witnessed his father attempt to save an innocent girl only to end up a burnt up corpse, and probably at that point conflated strength with being a good father. If his father had been strong enough he would have survived and continued to be a father to young Enji. At that point it's almost understandable that Enji thinks in his mind that earning his keep as the patriarch of the family, and being a powerful hero who will come home alive is the same thing as being a good father.

So Enji conflates masculine ideals of strength and heroism with being a good father, all the while not actually showing up to parent his kids. When Toya seemed like he could live up to Enji's expectations and be strong as a successor everything seemed fine.

However, Toya turned out to be disabled at which point everything in the household began to spiral out of control. After learning Toya could not use his quirk without burning himself, Enji tossed Toya aside and left raising him entirely up to Rei and then pressured her to have more children until one with his ideal quirk would be born.

Toya did not like his father ignoring him and began acting out for his attention. The response of everyone in the household was to politely tell Toya to shut up, because Enji while not being a parent is the money maker and authority in the household no one can stand up to him. When Toya's acting up got too out of hand, Enji would even hit Rei instead of just personally dealing with his son.

At the same time Shoto was finally born and being given his perfect heir after four attempts, Enji eagerly began training him. When Shoto resisted him, Enji stepped up to threats of physical violence and long grueling training sessions to force him to learn. All the while Toya continued to mentally spiral.

One day after his flames turned blue Toya asked his father to meet with him on Sekoto Peak. However that day Enji didn't show up, and Toya lost control of his flames starting a massive forest fire that killed him. Rather than changing anything after his firstborn's death, he doubled down and pushed Shoto even harder.

While being a far worse person, as a parent Rusty is far less malicious. He neglects his kids similarly to Enji at first, but when the safety net is removed and he can't keep cloning them anymore he actually does start taking a personal interest in their lives. Maybe it's too little too late because it's the 14th version of Hank and Dean but he does hear the wake up call and change his ways as a parent.

Enji always doubles down on ignoring his sons in favor of heroics when given the chance to be a father.

Even post redemption arc Enji behaves in the same way. There is no point in the story so far where Enji actively chooses to help or be a parent to one of his sons, when he can choose to be a part of a big important battle instead. Let me break out the list:

In the Pro Hero Arc Shoto sets the challenge for Enji to show what he can be like as a father rather than a hero.

In the internship arc Enji trains Shoto up as a hero but not a father. When he brings the family home to dinner they're attacked by a villain and Enji stands and watches as his son Natsuo gets kidnapped y a villain because he felt like it would be too awkward if he saved Natsuo because then Natsuo might feel inclined to forgive him.

In the War Arc aftewards Toya is revealed to be alive the entire time, and when given the chance to see his dead son come back to life, Enji not only does nothing but he sits and watches as his oldest son tries to kill his youngest without trying to talk to or appeal to Toya.

After the war arc, Enji doesn't bother looking for Toya and goes back to his job as a hero hunting down AFO. He also makes a promise to Shoto that they'll search for Toya together, only to break that promise multiple times.

In the second war arc, when Enji is given a chance to face Toya face to face, he instead sends his other son Shoto to fight him, while Enji fights against the big bad instead as the number one hero.

When Toya is literally dying and about to burn himself alive in front of him, Enji who has chosen to run away from Toya too many times by this point picks the murder suicide option and chooses to try dying with his son in a heroic sacrifice.

Every single chance he is given to act like a father, he acts like a hero instead. Enji Todoroki never steps out of the role of the hero Endeavor. Internally he's changed, yeah. He's remorseful now and realzies what he's done wrong. However, externally he hasn't. He doesn't do anything different. He neglected his family for his job his entire life so his way of making it up to them is... to keep going to his job.

The problem isn't whether or not he deserves to be redeemed, but rather that there's no change in his actions. Endeavor at the beginning of the story would have shown up to fight AFO in the war arc too, because being the hero is what he does. It's the only thing he does. The story never asks him to be anything other than a hero.

Which is I think a fundamental difference in Rusty and Enji in how they're written. Rusty is a flawed parent, but he's still a parent.

He does favor Dean over Hank, but that favoritism takes the form of him giving Hank more chores when Hank acts out, but when it's time for Dean to rebel giving him space and letting him have his own separate room in the attic. It's Rusty letting Dean have access to the family checkbook so he'll have spending money at college, but cutting Hank off from the checkbook because they agreed if Hank didn't want to go to college he needed to find a job to support himself.

Rusty is parenting these children. He's parenting them very badly, but he's still their parent. Enji never wanted to be a parent to begin with, he wanted to be his kid's abusive gymnastics coach. He wanted a prodigy that he could push and push until they won gold at the Olympics.

If you ignore the fantasy elements then you're left with how these men are shown interacting with their kids in their day to day lives.

Rusty has absolutely no idea what he's doing, so even when he has good intentions he screws up. However, he is making an effort to guide these kids.

Enji was an intentional manipulator more in line with Jonas. He controlled everything in the household, and was actively trying to groom Shoto into someone who would obediently carry on his legacy. He made the choice to isolate Shoto from his siblings so he'd have more control over him. Rusty keeps Dean and Hank away from kids their own age and from having a normal life because he never had a normal life. He doesn't even know what a normal life looks like.

Enji for most of his life didn't want kids, he wanted heirs. He even purchased a woman so his heirs would turn out with the right genetics, and tossed aside the ones that were disabled or born with the wrong quirk.

Rusty made the decision to become a parent on his own. In the last twist in the series it's revealed Dean and Hank had no mother. They were conceived in a test tube, raised in an artificial womb by Rusty himself. He is both their father and their mother. Kids were a deliberate decision on his part. He wanted to have a family, probably because his own childhood was so deprived of any familial love.

Dean: Okay, so who is our mom? Rusty: Seriously, Dean haven't we had enough family history for one day? I don't even know who my mom is. All you need to know is that the person who gave birth to you. I promise they do.

Remember as stated above the central thesis statement of Venture Bros is "Elige Tua - Choose your family". Rusty chose to bring those kids into the world because he wanted to be a father, it's an active choice his character makes.

Whereas the central statement of Endeavor's arc is "So, heroics aside. What sort of dad are you going to be? That's what I want to find out?" but we never witness Enji doing anything outside of being a hero.

Even post-redemption the only time he ever spends with Shoto is when they're either doing quirk training or working as heroes together. Toya as a character presents this challenge to him, because he's Enji's son, but he's also a villain who's killed innocent people. If he's acting as a hero he has to put a stop to Toya, but a father is supposed to put the safety and well-being of their children above everything else.

We never see Enji make that choice to be Toya's father over a hero. Which is why in story he comes off as a worse father than someone like Rusty, because he never makes any attempt to emotionally bond with his children.

Rusty will sit Hank and Dean down and tell them stories from his childhood. He'll find common ground with his sons to bond over because they've both been subjected to the boy adventurer lifestyle.

Rusty: Dean what are you doing? Dean: Hyperventilating into my knees. That smell a little like spit up... because I spit up a little. Rusty: Dean, you just baby burped onto a speed suit. Not a super scientist alive that hasn't coughed a little acid onto his speed suit. Dean: Really? Rusty: Why do you think these things are like 95 percent polyester? You can clean off fear-vomit with a wet nap. Dean: I thought you were used to this. Rusty: Dean I remember when the action man would wake me up with a gun pointed at my head. He'd just hold it there and pull the trigger. I'd hear the click really loud because it was right against my forehead. Dean: So it echoed. Rusty: Right, it sounded like he snapped one of my teeth out. Click! Then he'd go, "Not day Rusty. Not Today." Dean: Golly, and you took it because you had to? Rusty: No Dean, I took it because I was Rusty Venture. Boy adventurer. I didn't ask for this life, Dean, but it's mine. Sure, I fall down in the Speed Suit but I get up and Wet-Nap my puke off.

We never get any moments like this with Endeavor and his kids.

He only goes so far as apologizing for his past abuse. Yes, maybe it's cathartic hearing an abuser apologize for what they've done but that's not the question the story was asking. It wasn't asking "Can Endeavor be forgiven?" It was asking "What sort of dad are you going to be?"

The narrative challenged him to learn to act like a father to his family, and he never did. He stayed in the role of hero from beginning to end. It might be cathartic for his victims to hear him say sorry, but it's not good for Endeavor as a character because he hasn't changed and we've learned nothing about him. We already knew he was sorry at the beginning of the arc. Endeavor is sorry and knows he's done something wrong has already been established, but by Endeavor stepping out of the role of hero and acting like a father we could have learned something new about him or his character but no he stays the same from beginning to end.

They're both awful people but at the end of the day Rusty is a father, and Enji is not.

Stories are kind of like essays your English teacher used to force you to read. You need to make a thesis statement in the story itself, and then have evidence to support that thesis statement. The theme of Venture Bros is choose your family, and family is complicated, and in support of that theme we have Rusty choosing to connect with his sons. Jonas is basically nothing more than Rusty's biological father. Rusty's chosen a different way to connect with his sons, and he is their dad, and they can bond about the complicated lifestyle of being a Venture together.

The actions Enji takes in his story don't line up with his thesis statement. The Todoroki Family subplot is supposed to be about how one family was messed up because Enji only chose to have a family to further his career as a hero, and choosing his career again and again made things worse. The thesis statement was that Enji needed to choose to be a dad, but he's never shown doing that in the story.

So Enji as a character seems like he doesn't fit in with his narrative. Which is what I said at the very beginning about Rusty and why he works as a main character. Rusty is the center, because he's had this horrible life inflicted on him by his father, and he's in the process of raising his sons but he still has a chance to choose to be better.

Enji could also work as the center of his story, he has a chance to choose his family over his work as a hero, but he's ultimately not the one who does that, it's Shoto. Which yes Shoto is the main character of the Todoroki plotline, but by the end Enji's gotten as much screen time as his son. If the plot was going to focus on Shoto and his choices to begin with then he should have been the central point. You spent a lot of in story time asking this question with Enji on whether or not he's going to be able to choose to be a father over a hero, and who Enji is outside of being a hero only to not give the audience any answeres.

This again has nothing to do with Enji the person and whether I think he's likable or not, because Enji's a fictional character. He's an idea. If writing is communication, then a writer is trying to communciate some idea with every character in their novel. We're asking what is the author trying to say with Enji, and do they do a good job of getting that message across?

4. What's the Big Idea?

So the above section was mainly about the personal arcs of each characters: How do both of them fail at fatherhood and do they learn to be better fathers over the course of their narratives?

However, these characters are part of a much bigger world. How a character interacts with both the world around them, and the extended cast of characters is another way a story relates it's theme.

Venture Bros and My Hero Academia both exist in comic book worlds. There are people running around in costumes calling themselves heroes and villains and fighting each other on the streets.

In My Hero Academia heroes are basically professional athletes who sell sports drinks and pose for ads and compete for rankings on a big board, and heroics for the most part has been reduced to a day job for people with particularly powerful quirks. Heroism is an entire industry that's for profit, and run by the shadowy hero council who has far more power over their society than they let onto. You could compare Endeavor being the top hero to him is like a combination of being the best pro athlete, and also the best salaryman ever.

Ironically, the worldbuilding of Venture Bros is pretty similar. In Venture Bros. the villains are all unionized. There is a super villain trade union. It's a secret organization known as the guild of calamitous intent, which makes villainy into a bureaucracy.

All villains in the world have to register with the guild. If you're a part of the guild you receive the protection that the guild offers, as long as you follow the guilds rules and regulations. There's lots of small rules, like you can't torture someone who's having a medical issue, and if you're fighting a good guy and they have a doctor's appointment you have to let them go.

They even rank heroes and villains by their threat levels called "EMA LEVELS (equally matched aggression) and then assign you a hero who's about your equal so you won't get killed by someone way stronger than you. The guild basically decides who you're allowed to fight as a villain and picks a hero for you. The act of being someone's arch villain is called "arching" you show up to harass them once a week like a Saturday morning cartoon villain, fight them, then do it again next week. You're not allowed to kill your hero and you're supposed to follow specific rules. The tradeoff is the heroes won't kill you either, because you have guild protection.

The Monarch: I don't know, just keep it cat and mouse not cat and missile. JJ:: So it's a game? We fake fight? That's ridiculous. The Monarch: No, it's like fencing, it's about the art of the fight. JJ: Well, I'm about to deliver my killing stroke. Then what? Dr. Girlfriend: Then the guild steps up their game. You throw a rock, they throw a knife. You throw a knife, they come to your house when you're sleeping and murder your family. The Monarch: Look Dr. Venture you call the guild and you get the damn rulebook, I'll be waiting.

The justification for why the guild exists is that in world if you didn't give the villains a system with a bunch of rules, then you'd have a bunch of crazy people in costumes running around causing havoc.

Brock: You wanna what? Shoot him? And all his men and his wife? You could steal his cattle, too. Maybe burn his village down? JJ: It's an antiquated system. I mean my father did this fake arch enemy nonsense in the sxities. Maybe my brother is good with this namby pamby guy in a costume chases you around nonsense, but I'm not. Brock: Hey no disrespect Jonas, but it isn't so easy. These guys like their system. It's what they do. You take that away and you're looking at a bunch of pissed off nut bags with ray guns, and giant -- i don't know, a giant octopus / tank with laser eyes.

The villains and the OSI (who are like the GI JOE) of this world have signed a very long and detailed treaty that keeps both sides in a cold world stalemate and lets them fight every week like how the good guys and bad guys fight constantly while maintaining a status quo where neither side wins.

In MHA heroics is a commodity. It's commercialized and sold to the public. Heroes are like professional athletes selling you sports drinks, it's a spectacle to the public, and it's even intentionally made to be that way by the Hero Commission who use heroes as a bright shining light to distract the public while they do shady things like assassinate antigovernmental protestors from behind the scenes. The entire of hero society in MHA is built on the spectacle of heroes.

In Venture Bros heroes and villains are a spectacle too. It's just a job to them. Heroes and villains both show up to work, get in their costumes, fight each other and then go home. In Season 6 of Venture Bros, a parody of the Avengers is actively charging people to provide their services as heroes in the city of New York and you have to sign up for a protection plan if you want to get saved. Then the local mob boss takes a cut of the protection money they're charging.

In both settings the ideas of heroes exist, comic books exist, but the heroes themselves are incredibly mundane, they're just people showing up to jobs and making money for the most part. The only difference really is that in MHA the villains are societal rejects and trauma victims, whereas in Venture Bros they've unionized. In Venture Bros the villains and heroes basically fake fight under strict rules. Even in MHA though the villains need to exist in order to give the heroes someone to fight in front of the public. "Villain" is an actual legal term for a certain kind of quirk criminals with more than three strikes who gets sent to a super max prison if they're caught.

Both of these works are making comic book heroes and villains seem a lot more mundane by deconstructing them with this layer of realism. By making the roles of "hero" and "villain" seem much more mundane, and therefore more human, it also asks us to look at the characters who call themselves heroes and villains as human beings.

The Venture Bros like many richer takes on superhero stories really likes to play with the concept of identity. It's the idea that Good and Evil, Heroes and Villains, are just roles we play. They're not something fundamental or innate they're constructed by the world around us. In the show the main villainous organization the GCI is really just a bureaucracy of larpers sustaining their violent rolelplaying through organized crime. Rich and powerful lunatics who built the world around a game they wanted to play. There's really nothing of substance keeping Rusty on the "Good Guy" side. The good guys are also a mix and match. Shield, GI JOE, FBI. Another exmaple of people who never grew up. Only these people are running things, playing out their childhood power fantasies. They're barely less insane and blood thirsty than the bad guys. So what's even the point of being a good guy in the first place? That's the world Rusty is caught between...[x]

MHA and Venture Bros are both works that feature societies that divide people into two distinct categories "hero" and "villain" and then go on to show that these two categories are not as black and white as they would like us to believe.

Venture Bros features Brock Samson, a character who is ostensibly on the side of the good guys who also highest body count of nameless henchman who we see him gleefully kill onscreen over and over again. There are members of the OSI who are just as trigger happy as the guild so what's the difference between them besides what they've decided to personally identify as? On one side you have the Larpers who are roleplaying villainy, and on the other you have the military soliders who think they're real life GI JOES.

In My Hero Academia you have heroes who are essentially state sponsored peace keepers who suppress anyone who disrupts the status quo with violence, and villains who are rejected from that status quo who eventually turn into violent terrorists. While yes heroes have the responsibility of protecting innocent civilians, most of what heroes do is fight villains, in fact heroes with quirks suited to rescuing people aren't nearly as famous as ones with flashy violent quirks like Endeavor.

You have two sides and one calls themselves villains and the others heroes, but they both use extreme violence as a way to accomplish their goals.

Rusty and Enji are two characters who are caught between these two categories which aren't as distinct and separate as we'd like to believe they are.

Enji is basically the first deconstruction of heroes in MHA. He's a hero who's not interested in saving people, but instead wants to be the strongest and does everything in pursuit of selfish glory.

He's simultaneously the hero with the single most resolved cases in history, but at the same time he's always number two to All Might because he's not "super" enough of a super hero. In a manga where Deku's natural desire to save others make him a candidate to b ahero even without a quirk, we have a character who's a hero for purely selfish reasons. One that only cares about having the strongest quirk because being the best is all that matters to Enji.

In many ways the way Enji treats his family is more like a villain than a hero. Main villain AFO himself comments at one point he wasn't able to manipulate Toya, because his father did too good of a job manipulating him already. In fact you can draw a parallel between his actions of manipulating and grooming Shoto to be his heir, to how AFO raised orphaned child Shigaraki Tomura as his successor.

This is a good use of Enji's character, because making it hard to label him as hero and villain makes us think about who he is as a person instead.

There's an entire episode of Venture Bros dedicated to a villain Mentor named Dr. Henry Killinger, showing up and basically mentoring Rusty Venture when he's at a low point. He gives Rusty money, workers, gets his business up and running again and at the very end reveals that he's setting Rusty up to be a villain to arch his brother as a hero. Rusty is tempted with the idea that he'd make a much more successful villain than he ever would be a hero (because as a hero he's kind of just a loser) but he still chooses to be a hero at the end of the story because he doesn't want to fight his brother.

At which point his mentor, all his hired men, all just walk off and he loses all the money he would have gained and he goes back to being a mediocre super-scientist.

"Doc has the whole thing laid out for him clear as day. This role is here for you. Waiting for you to claim it. You have your nemesis. You have your means. You have the ability and the pain. You can do this and you'd be good at it. And Rusty can look at all of that, everything he's been through and say, "Yeah... but I don't wanna be evil." [x]

Rusty walks away from the chance to be a villain, but he's not exactly a hero either. He runs illegal cloning farms, he does lots of unethical scientific stuff and he's not even remotely the hero his father was considered to be.

Because he doesn't fit well into the category of hero or villain, the show instead asks you to evaluate who Rusty is as a person. He's one of the few characters in the show that's capable of stepping out of those categories.

"That's the great thing about him. Sometimes being disillusioned just means you can see through the whole thing. Sure the whole super science villain game feels stupid. It's not going anywhere. No one's accomplishing anything. It's all violence and roleplay. But at the end of the day it's still real. And it still means something to us. Choosing to be a villain means choosing to be a bad guy. It means relinquishing the premise that you could ever do better, ever actually help anyone. And that's not who Rusty is. He's a scum-bag, but he's a grown up. Even in a show with brilliant characters, old pros, and actual supermen, Rusty is the adult. And adults don't put on rubber masks and terrorize people for fun because that would be fucking silly." - [x]

Rusty spent his entire childhood being terrorized by guys in costumes, so he's now the cynical straight man pointing out how ridiculous this all is. He's the one normal person among the crazies.

Rusty is just too incompetent to ever be like his father. Jonas Venture is scum bag, but he's also a well-respected scientist and a world wide hero. Everyone in the scientific community thinks that Rusty is a joke, and his friends just barely put up with him

Jonas gets away with it because he perfectly fit what society's idea of a hyper masculine strong hero was, and no one questioned it or how he treated his son, whereas because balding, impotent, pathetic Rusty falls so short of toxic masculinity's standards he doesn't get the same respect or leeway that Jonas did. Jonas Venture continually got away with murder, and Rusty can't get away with anything.

He's a pill-popping, middle aged man who ran his father's business empire into the ground who continually gets laughed out of any scientific conference he tries to attend.

He can't be a hero. He can't be his father. He fall short of toxic masculinity's standards. He falls short of everyone's standards. The only way in which he's better than Jonas is that he's a much better father to both of his sons. His greatest triumphs as a character come from bonding with Hank and Dean. Jonas for all his accomplishments wasn't capable of bonding with Rusty because he didn't really care about anyone but himself. Jonas Venture is someone who perfectly fit society's standards of toxic masculinity, but he wasn't a person outside of that.

"Jonas Sr realized this too, but to him, it was a joke. To him it meant being above everyone. Rusty can't be above everyone so he has to meet them at eye level. Part of the bitterness of growing up is realizing that we're all just chidlren who got old. No one knows what they're doing and when you come to terms with that you can look down on people or give them the respect everyone deserves. How you treat children says a lot about how you treat people which in turn says a lot about you." [x]

Now returning to Endeavor we run into the same problem that we did earlier. This whole post is comparing Rusty and Endeavor because they are the protagonists, but Endeavor is far more like Jonas. He's someone who sees through the hero system and only cares about climbing to the top out of his own self interest. He knows it's a game, but he wants to win at the game.

Enji even sort of looks like Jonas.

They're both extremely bulky men at peak levels of physical fitness. Meanwhile Rusty is a balding, short and out of shape middle aged man.

In story Jonas is still widley beloved by the public and is constantly praised, while no one but Rusty is aware of his faults, but there's a reason for that. Jonas is someone who is basically allowed to do anything he wants, because the patriarchy means all of society is built around letting men like Jonas succeed.

Jonas is also someone who literally uses his position as a hero to manipulate people into getting what he wants and glorify himself.

Jonas can casually destroy people's lives, all while still believing he's the good guy because in his world being good guy is just a role to play and he plays it well. One of the best three episodes of the series is the Morphic Trilogy, the opening to season 7 where some of Jonas's past crimes are revealed.

In the past he tricked a married man into making a sex tape with him, and then when that man Don Carraldo aka the Blue Morpho turned out to regret that, he used the tape to constantly blackmail him into doing his dirty work. Killing people in secret while Jonas Venture remained Squeaky clean. After years of being forced to act as a mercenary for Jonas, the Blue Morpho died in a plane crash. Jonas then revived his best friend as a cyborg. He got bored of his new cyborg within a few months and reassigned him to babysit his son Rusty. The cyborg glitched and started to strangle Rusty and then he snaps his friends neck, and throws the cyborg away in the garbage.

Jonas can just completely destroy a man's life because he can. Because everyone around him enables him and no one is going to stop him. Because this is how people in power act when they're given too much power. Because might does not make right.

He's the gold standard. He's the ideal. Who would question him?

Enji occupies a similar position in the story, where he fits the role of a hero so well that even when his family abuse is revealed to the public basically every character and their mom is tripping over themselves to defend him.

Jonas is constantly praised in story years after his death and every bad thing he's done is swept under the rug, but that's because number one Jonas was a manipulative monster, and number two it shows toxic masculinity is a false ideal. This is how Jonas who everyone thinks is the ideal man's man, really acts. This is what he gets away with it, because the thing society glorifies are toxic and bad.

When people bend over backwards to defend Endeavor what does it say exactly? Because we're supposed to believe that Enji's willing to work for redemption even if people don't forgive him. We're not supposed to think Enji is a manipulative monster intentionally twisting people around his finger like Jonas was.

There are some ways Enji is like Jonas, especially in his backstory. He did use his money and influence to buy a woman. Rei was definitely not going to get the option of divorcing him if she actually wanted to leave.

However, in the present time we don't see Enji doing the kind of manipulation that Jonas does, because really he doesn't have to. Hawks does it for him. There is a character in the narrative named Takami Keigo / Hawks who is a little boy that Enji indirectly saved as a child by putting his father in prison. Because of this he is obsessed with making Endeavor live up to the hero he imagined him to be when he was young, and does everything he can to prop Enji up behind the scenes and make him look like that hero to the public.

Hawks is a whole other can of worms, but in effect what this means is there is someone manipulating public opinion in favor of Endeavor so he'll be able to shine in spite of the numerous skeletons in his closet, it's just not Endeavor himself. Hawks also takes away a lot of the active decisions on Endeavor's part. When Endeavor chooses to ignore Toya in the latter part of the story, it's not Endeavor's choice, he's just following Hawks plan to fight AFO. When Endeavor makes a public apology, Hawks is the one who wrote it for him.

The result is that Endeavor comes off as less of a Jonas, after all Hawks is the one manipulating his public image. On the other hand, he's also less good of a character because he's not making choices anymore. It'd be better If Enji was trying to manipulate the public into forgiving him in the wake of his scandal, because that'd be an active choice on his part. When a character makes a choice it tells us something about who that character is.

Horikoshi doesn't want us to think that Enji is the kind of selfish monster that Jonas is, but then who is he supposed to be?

The entire point of this post is to compare Enji to Rusty, but Enji's far too successful to be Rusty. Rusty is a failure in basically everything he set out to do in life. He's the butt of the series jokes. He's the victim in as many ways as he's the perpetrator. He had a lot of money and then wasted it all. None of his inventions are succesful. The scientific community thinks he's a joke, or they don't even know who he is. Women won't even go near him. No one ever defends him. At no point in the story does someone stop and say "Hey, Hank I know your dad's an asshole but he's really good at science so that makes it okay."

Rusty's such a failure at being a hero that he's forced to be a person. He's as equally narcissticic and toxic as his father, he treats women like objects for sex and comfort like his father does, he just doesn't get away with it. You can't point to some heroic feat of his that justifies his toxic behavior because he doesn't have any.

The story however can't stop singing Enji's praises for what a good hero he is. He's never forced to step out of the role of hero and be a person like Rusty is, and because of that the message of his character becomes confused.

Are we supposed to think he's a manipulative narcissist like Jonas is? Are we supposed to think he's an incredibly flawed individual trying to figure out how to be a father late into his kid's lives like Rusty?

Rusty has a clear role in his story, and what the author wants to say with Enji is unclear.

Everyone praises Jonas to death and no one can see him for the terrible purpose he is, because that's the point. Venture Bros is about failure. It's about the death of the space ag optimisme. It's about how much the boomer generation sucked.

From the Radiant is the Baboon Heart Commentary. Question: Did Jonas only keep Rusty around for the press and his cloning tech or did he actually care about him? Answer: . The show has a villain called the monarch, but if you watch all the show the villain is Jonas Venture Sr. He is a bad dad. What you need to realize is that in this kind of baby boomers gen x millenials kind of thing we are of the generation that had bad parents. For the good and the bad of it. The good was we were all left alone by our parents, and we had a freedom in our thought that I don't think the millennials have. Because we made the millennials, and we were like You know what Our parents suck and we're gonna be great parents." And they helicoptered them and they gave playdates. [...] I did hate the boomers, they were awful fathers they were terrible people they did horrible things to our world, and at the time they were celebrated as good people. They were a bunch of hippies and they failed and they did everything wrong that they wanted to fix [...]. You and I are lost people we observed our generation. We are fully aware of it. We observed our parents generation. My actual father was a classic distant father, very bright had a lot of work to do, but I observed that generation and the way that toxic masculinity was set in stone. Just branded onto their tombstone. Toxic masculinity. Our generation grew up wanting to be adults, childhood was something that was not examined. When people were growing up we wanted to be grown ups, we wanted to wear suits, it was something you guys don't have. It was a very different way to grow up. So we wanted to be like this generation that immediately we looked at and went oh my god they're monsters. So Jonas Venture Sr. is a monster.

Jonas is a commentary on how much the boomer generation is glorified, and how much they suck if you look at them critically at all. It's written by authors who were observing basically three different generations of parenting, the way boomers parented, the ways Gen-Xers did in response to that and now the way millennials act as they reach adulthood. Rusty can't escape Jonas' shadow because Toxic Masculinity is set in stone.

The role of Jonas in the story is to serve as an antagonist to Rusty and be the cause of Rusty's struggles, and also his impetus to change because Rusty doesn't want to be like his father. Rusty and Jonas both exist as characters to show the author's observations on parenting through the generations, and yeah it's a very american idea of parenting and family but it's you know... a cartoon made in america.

What is Endeavor's role of the story? If he's a criticism of toxic masculinity he's not criticized enough, because the story spends just as much time glorifying him his obsession with strength and power as it does criticizing him. There's no scenes like this for Rusty to show off how cool he is, or how determined. The story wants you to believe that there's something redeeming in the fact that Enji is always struggling to be the greatest, even though his obsession with being number one is what caused him to abuse his family in the first place

It's criticizing and praising Enji's obsession with power in the same breath, because My Hero Academia can't fully deconstruct toxic masculinity the way that Venture Bros can. It keeps trying to find something redeemable in Endeavor's toxic pursuit of power, but that's the whole point. Toxic masculinity isn't redeemable, because toxic masculinity is toxic. There's nothing wrong with masculinity itself, or the values people traditionally consider masculine but the kind of hyper-aggressive pursuit of physical strength Endeavor chases after is toxic masculinity. In Endeavor's mind men are warriors, protectors and providers and nothing else, and he never learns to be anything else either.

MHA would never treat Endeavor the way Vbros treats Rusty, constantly humiliating him or making him the butt of jokes. It would never make Enji out to be weak or pathetic the way Rusty is.

The central concept of Endeavor is struggle. His chosen hero nae "Endeavor" means to try hard to achieve something. His entire character is based around the concept of struggle. His central struggle is that he's a normal guy trying to compete with a superhero like all might, and everything he does he struggles with even if that struggle is pointless.

However, in the actual narrative itself he doesn't struggle. He definitely doesn't struggle the way Rusty does. Rusty's a lazy, incompetent, and entitled man sitting on a pile of money he didn't earn who thinks he's entitled to more who fails at all he sets out to achieve. Rusty never gets what he wants, and even when he does get what he wants like when his brother leaves him a billion dollar corporation in his will, he bankrupts that company in two seasons. Struggle means that the world isn't going to give you what you want and you keep trying anyway.

Endeavor's never subjected to nearly the same amount of narrative punishment that Rusty is. He's still well-respected. People defend him. He fights in all the major battles of the series and gets victories. No one's disgusted when they hear that he's a wife beater. We are told that he struggles, that the central concept of his character is struggle, but the narrative keeps handing him wins and cool moments.

As I've said above several times, Enji's never really forced to step out of the role as hero because he's not a failure the way Rusty is.

My Hero Academia hits some of the same notes as Venture Bros. It's criticizing apanese hegemonic masculinity, specifically that of salaryman masculinity and the way men in japan completely put their careers over their families. Read about it here in this convenient power point presentation. Enji is essentially an incredibly successful salaryman who has completely disappeared from his kid's lives in order to earn money and success and believes that he's still entitled to be a father because he's performed adequately in his role as earner of the household.

The story does show how giving too much power to the patriarch of a household can cause a house to fall apart. It shows that traditional family roles aren't all they're cracked up to be. Enji is assigned the role of father but he doesn't live up to it. The very rigid and traditional Todoroki Household crumbles because basically everyone fails to live up to their roles. The father isn't present. The mother isn't a good caretaker. The first born is defective. The youngest is given all the responsibility of the first born. No one is able to live up to those roles because maybe those rigid set in stone roles shouldn't exist in the first place.

Once again though, that's all in the backstory. Enji never changes from the Pro Hero Arc to his last showdown with Toya. The story never tells us anything about who Enji is as a person. Therefore, it also never comments on Enji's role as the patriarch. What is Horikoshi using Enji to say about patriarchy besides... it exists?

The story shows you how destructive the idea of patriarchy that Enji represents can be in the backstory, but because Enji doesn't do much for 90 percent of the story it never says anything about how Enji can learn to be a father or if it's even possible for him to be a father this late in the game. Because Enji's story isn't about fatherhood ultimately, it's about him becoming a less selfish hero.

Which might just be a problem with the whole of MHA. Venture Bros is about who the characters are outside of their identity as heroes and villains, but MHA is ultimately more about the optimism of heroes and what it means to be a hero than these characters personal lives.

Rusty is never going to be as sucessful as his father. He's always going to be mediocre, ad even if he's sympathetic he's still a scum bag. However, Rusty has one thing his father doesn't have which are his two sons who he made a deliberate decision to get closer to. Unlike a serial user of people Jonas, Rusty has the ability to actually love and care for people and he chooses to make those connections.

Endeavor never chooses to be a father. He didn't choose to go to Toya's side. He was too busy being a hero and fighting the big bad. As a result of that we never learn anything about Enji as a character outside of being a hero because he never chose to be anything other than a hero.

He also never failed. As I said the narrative kept handing him wins. You'd think never choosing to see Toya would mean he can't save Toya in the end, but in the end of the story Toya's just fine. There are no consequences to his choices. He's revealed to be an abuser to the public but he gets to keep being a hero. Enji never really fails in some big way that forces him to rfelect and change on his actions, so he just keeps doing the same thing from beginning to end.

Which is why Enji doesn't work as a character compared to Rusty. He doesn't fail. He's supposed to be a flawed protagonist struggling against himself, but he never really loses. He's too much like Jonas and not enough like Rusty.

"I think Jonas was something of a boy adventurer himself, and made his kid be it. But also put his kid on TV to cash in the residuals. He was just a shitty parent. When he went to bed he was just, he was moral, and he was fighting the good fight. When he woke up he ignored his son and made his son do terrible things. He voted for nixon like a good american. He was a winner and our show is not about winners. Our show is about losers and people we love." Jackson Publick. n

[class1akids]

having a tough time reading fanfics that depict shoto as having all bad coping mechanisms when in canon he has some of the best out of all the characters after the sports festival

For me, it's a bit more complex than that. I feel like Shouto's coping mechanisms are not really depicted - we are just to assume that they exist.

After the SF, Shouto does a lot of reflection, goes to look at his dead as a hero - so he starts the compartmentalisation of his father into Endeavor, the competent hero and Enji, the shitty dad.

In Midterms / Forest /Kamino arcs, he's mostly treating Enji as non-existent. But then after Kamino (when Endeavor's change is kickstarted), the Licensing exam portrays Shouto distancing himself from his father and trying to bury his past as an obstacle for him to become a hero and he fails his exam over it.

We also see PTSD episodes mid-fights - so it's not precisely all good or healthy.

For me, the interesting part of Shouto's arc is how he keeps struggling and how his healing is non-linear. But as Endeavor's atonement arc progresses, Shouto's own coping mechanisms are depicted less and less in detail, especially the ugly or fragile parts. His pain or mental anguish gets less focus and is only shown in footnotes / or implied because Hori doesn't know how to write an honest redemption / atonement arc where the victims' pain doesn't get swept under the rug.

This is my main problem with how he writes both Endeavor and Bakugou - the more he buys into the hype of his own writing, the more insecure he becomes about it. So he started to spend more and more time on highlighting feelings of regret from the perpetrators' POV (also combining them with flashy fight moments - so it could be framed as e.g. Endeavor fought AFO FOR Touya, Bakugou died FOR Deku, etc), while the damage is simply not shown.

So people can say things like: why hold Endeavor accountable? - Shouto is clearly over it. But I could also bring up the example of Izuku, who had all this build-up to feelings of worthlessness that didn't get explored or properly resolved in the end, because than god forbid the impact of being bullied may need to be dragged up again rather than just showing the same hero card scene over and over.

So, I do appreciate fanfic that goes into these neglected areas. I want to see how Shouto goes from Ch 298 self -> Ch 327. I want to see how he copes with the fallout of the Dabi reveal. I want to see how he feels after the final war about Touya, how he grieves his brother's death, how he copes with his family falling apart, how he faces the public as a young pro hero, how things he buried may hit him later in life, how PTSD may come to the surface.

I think there is plenty that can be explored without undermining also the incredible emotional work Shouto has put into his own healing.

[bibibbon]

Izuku and Natuso anon

Wait, almost every family member heard the "forgiveness is kind" line? That's even worse than I remember because I reread and nobody responded to him, either positive or negative.

What's the point of such a line? It's certainly not helping "atonement, not redemption" Endeavor or his fans insisting the narrative is not encouraging his forgiveness. The MC is spouting BS platitudes so forced that everyone else in the room needs to pretend it wasn't said, so it doesn't point how easily it falls apart.

Yep basically the whole family except of Rei who was in the hospital heard that line and somehow no one, NOT EVEN NATSOU commented got to comment on anything and I just think that this is classic horikoshi robbing character of agency and autonomy just the characters dismiss enji. Heck it rubs me the wrong way that it's only bakugo who goes like "if you hate the guy so much then just don't forgive him".

The line doesn't help and does nothing good by existing all it does is make characters seem ooc and make it so that enji is going more for a redemption than a proper atonement (I seriously wish he didn't get redeemed or atoned) 😒😒

Also I believe that this is where horikoshi started using Izuku as a mouthepeice because early arcs izuku wouldn't say this type of bs. If izuku were allowed to take proper development he would get to introspect on his own experiences and actually hate enji

[autumnmobile12]

Hisashi Midoriya Does Not Exist

I’m officially calling it.

We’ve seen no photos or flashbacks of the man.

Inko is the only character to mention him and only does so once during a flashback from when Izuku was a toddler. Deku does not talk about his father, so either he doesn't remember him all that well or...seriously, not even a happy birthday, Happy New Year, congrats on getting into UA, etc call?

He hasn’t had any input about this hero career his son is taking on even though it's proven to be increasingly more dangerous as the situation unfolds.

He has not visited once during one of Deku’s many hospital stays, including the one where he was comatose and people weren’t sure if he was coming out of it or not.

Izuku straight up went missing for a time and Hisashi didn't return to be there for his wife, who was definitely freaking out over their missing son.

And now with Japan in total chaos, he did not returned home to be there for his family pre-Final War nor was there ever a point where he attempted to get them out of Japan for their own safety. This seems like it would have been a good time to mention a panicked father phone call. Japan closed its borders to contain said chaos. Was that not a concern for expatriates who have family back home?

So either he is the worst dad/husband in the series, a series that already has a pretty high bar as far as worst dads go, or he doesn't exist. I think Horikoshi forgot he said he was going to reveal him, and is it even worth revealing him at this point? We're coming up on the end of this ride unless there's a whole other lengthy post-finale arc we're getting in which we see the full step-by-step recovery process of society and what to do about the remaining LoV members, provided they even survive this. (Bit anti-climatic, but there's still a lot to wrap up, I guess.)

I understand if the guy just wasn't all that necessary to the story, but why not just have him be a character who passed away before the plot began? Widowed Inko and be done with it.

...

Still, if he doesn't exist, who's Deku's dad? Inko didn't do this herself.

Or maybe she did and all hail the real Freckled Jesus.

Sorry Marco. (<--That meme is so old, I'd half-forgotten about it.)

Anyway, the only information we really have on 'Hisashi Midoriya' is that he has a fire-type Quirk and he's allegedly working overseas.

So on to the insane theory that occasionally haunts my brain. It doesn't just live rent free here, it is a registered ghost that hangs out.

Due to the fire-based Quirk (yes, I know Hisashi is listed as having a 'fire-breathing' Quirk, but then we're just splitting hairs,) I personally think Horikoshi is lining up a shot that will nuke the Shouto/Deku ship by revealing Endeavor was Deku’s father all along for no other reason than to troll both the fandom and his own characters.

...

I also kinda just picture the rest of the Todoroki family, including satanic charcoal Dabi, with this reaction:

So much for that redemption arc.

The only thing I don't like about this is knowingly sleeping with a married man is not a good look for Inko's character.

Okay, that's not the only thing I don't like about it. I would be disturbed if this was the plot twist. Please don't.

[cyjammy]

Angel’s Early Struggle

Can we talk about Angel being bothered by Sir Pentious being praised by Charlie? Because I don't think that's been talked about enough if at all.

Angel up to this point and well past episode two puts up a front. His persona empowers him, gives him a shield against his abuser, critics and even himself. Angel's self-imposed egocentrism gives him the opportunity to gain attention whether that be positive or negative. He wants to play the part of a self-assured, overly-sexual porn star because he knows that's how he has to be.

All of this we know already after episode four.

This skepticism and refusal to change is a byproduct of his negative self-image caused by his circumstances. Valentino has ruined Angel up to this point. He allows Angel to continue his self-destructive tendencies and isolated him to the point where his only friend was Cherri Bomb - someone who also enables him. Valentino does this all for his own benefit. Angel is a toy to him - one that makes him money. To Valentino, his feelings are non-existent, what matters is what he can get out of him, how much use Angel is to him.

Whether that be through physicality or being an entertaining plaything, Valentino doesn't care.

When Angel uses his persona, that pleases the person he spends the most time around. Valentino considers him worthy of the little bit of praise he will give before taking it away at the first opportunity. The inconsistent treatment Angel receives from Valentino is traumatic in itself, couple that with sexual and physical abuse and Angel is barely hanging on. Nobody can remain sane from that without having some way to cope.

After all of that mistreatment that solidified Angel's thought process, his fears and insecurities, he finds someone else who gives him attention with zero strings attached through Charlie. Angel is obviously skeptical at first, considering the things Valentino did to him. He knows Hell is unforgiving, that he had already made a mistake trusting a ruthless overlord, so it was a no brainer that he wouldn't trust Charlie, at least not right away.

So Angel emulates Valentino's behavior, he uses Charlie for a free place to stay with minimal intentions of trying to be redeemed. At any opportunity where Charlie doesn't have Angel under watch, he took the chance to do drugs, start fights, and simply revert back to the way he was when he was on his own. Angel does show some kind of remorse, unlike Valentino, before reigning himself back in to pretend he doesn't care.

Even in the pilot you could see the beginnings of character development in Angel. Not everything was as it seemed.

At this point, Angel has no reason to stop this behavior. This is Angel's rationalization: It's Hell, nobody else is going to try Charlie's plan, redemption doesn't exist, why try?

In this endeavor, Angel can't be considered a failure or disappointment. There aren't grave actions for falling short in the Hotel like there would be if he failed Valentino. There is no threat of physical harm, verbal or emotional abuse and manipulation. He may get yelled at by Vaggie and Charlie, but he had just met them, he doesn't care about their opinions or feelings to the point that it would viscerally affect him.

However, Charlie did whittle him down by being genuine. She cares for the hotel’s patrons and her plan for redemption. Charlie stays consistent in a way that Valentino doesn’t.

After a long night of filming, Angel gets to return to the hotel. Charlie and Vaggie are there and Angel stays unbelieving of her plans for redemption. After Alastor joins, Angel also has Nifty and Husk.

He doesn’t have to stew in his misery within the same vicinity as his abuser. He gets to have a distraction and a support system no matter how dysfunctional they may seem.

When Sir Pentious joins the hotel as a spy for the Vees, Angel has to compete for attention where he never had to. Sir Pentious is the patron of Charlie’s dreams. He appeals to her notion of instant conversion by obediently following her orders no matter how nonsensical or small.

Angel continues to put up the same front since it hasn't stopped working for him before. Charlie starts a group activity, Sir Pentious succeeds, and Angel says it's stupid.

Charlie has them act out a scene, Angel is critical of it and Sir Pentious plays the part perfectly.

Charlie freely gives him praise.

Angel has never received praise from Charlie up to this point. At least, nothing direct. Charlie would placate him, use language that wasn't insulting, but those comments weren't compliments.

They were meant to redirect, produce a productive conversation and ultimately help Charlie achieve her goal. She never checked in on Angel's well-being. With everything going on, she was so concerned with her plan that she didn't focus on anything else.

Angel doesn't make an event out of it. He states that he's leaving and when the attention is off him he doesn't try to bring it back.

There is simply defeat.

Angel doesn't process these feelings well. He momentarily considers the hotel just as bad as any place in Hell. He considers returning to Valentino. At least in the studio he's the center of attention, he is good at what he does. There is no need to think of ways to be better or earn redemption, he can be a degenerate and a sleazeball all he wants.

While he is certainly being used at least he is of use. He has a purpose and he isn't disregarded because he doesn't measure up. Angel has his part and he plays it well.

So there is that choice to return back to the studio until he is snapped out of his stupor by remembering his reality. There were good moments with Valentino, but those would never outweigh the bad and the downright horrible. The voicemails Valentino left him highlighted that too well.

Angel had no choice but to stay.

But where did that leave him? He felt like a disappointment. Charlie wouldn't see someone as broken as him worthy for redemption. Sir Pentious had that role and he was better in that department. Angel firmly believed that he couldn't change.

Valentino's hold on him remained strong in the earlier months of his departure. Angel struggled with this mindset of self-destruction. He continued to ruin opportunities for himself, but it was so deeply ingrained in him he couldn't stop himself.

So, he goes to cope. He wants to drown his misery away.

And through that he discovers Sir Pentious's true intentions. He wasn't this perfect patron taking Charlie's attention. Angel's skepticism was justified. He didn't have to be perfect nor did he have to try because Sir Pentious was in the same boat as him.

He prioritized his interests over redemption.

And I wish we could have seen the change with a few more episodes because there is no way this distrust faded in a day.

Knowing that there were months of development in between these moments clears up a few things, but it wasn't on screen so we're left to speculate.

Now, instead of being spiteful, Angel is back to acting as he would with anyone in the Hotel. Sir Pentious has been brought down off his pedestal, he didn't have pure intentions, his dreams of becoming a powerful overlord were crushed and he was cluelessly following an untested path to redemption because he had nowhere else to go.

Angel's attitude persists until Loser, Baby. This is the second moment where he realizes that Hell is shit and nobody is better than anyone, especially if they ended up here. Husk is there for Anthony, a guy who isn't putting on a front and just made a few shit decisions.

As the months go on and Angel only has to interact with Valentino in a business capacity, he gains confidence. There's a system in place that's benefitting him, he has friends and a reason for being.

He even goes as far as to defend his new friends - his faux family - against the biggest threat to his wellbeing.

He has hope for the future and I love that all of it was revealed in Season 1. All you have to do is pay attention.

[astridthevalkyrie]

so idk how mha is gonna end but obviously the moral of the story we’re going for here is that everyone deserves to be saved and heroism is about saving people no matter what. that’s great! i’m guessing some or all of the league is going to survive and be put into some kind of rehabilitation center (toga and spinner seem the most likely to me for now but who knows). and i’m fine with that i like the overall message of it.

but how are they going to deal with the fallout from the league’s victims? i get the feeling that they’re not, or it’ll be a one-off like “some ppl were upset we didn’t jail or kill the villains but the heroes calmed them down” or something like that. i mean. whoever in the LOV it is would have to show remorse eventually, for one thing, for them to be any different than the corrupt hero system. but even then, all the families of whoever machia trampled on during the war arc, are they just gonna be cool with this? mind you I don’t think that anyone in the LOV should be killed or jailed rather than rehabilitated, but i wonder if the show is going to bring up that anyone who dabi or toga killed won’t get a second chance. they won’t get rehabilitated, they’re just gone. how are their families and friends going to deal with what society deems as an appropriate punishment for them?

i think this message also could’ve been conveyed better if we had more prominent “corrupt” heroes aside from endeavor and hawks. the top ten minus them and the irrelevant guy who retired after the war arc are all portrayed narratively as good people. iida’s brother is attacked by stain for no real reason at all aside from not being all might. all might’s heroism ends up being bad for society overall yeah, but so much of that is because of who toshinori is as a person rather than hero society (which does play a part but if toshinori just hadn’t pushed himself to be the best and number one savior for everyone there wasn’t necessarily any society forcing him to until after he’d already showed them he could do it).

PLUS the existence of afo offsets this message. everyone can be saved…..besides the real super evil people?? if, and I’m not saying they do, shigaraki and afo had the same kill count, is the lack of a sad childhood the only thing that makes afo beyond redemption? i mean he might not be gone gone if he’s still inside shigaraki’s mind or whatever, but that doesn’t change the fact that the heroes were trying to kill him too. narratively, why was all might in the right for killing him all those years ago when hawks was in the wrong for killing twice? because twice was kinder? because twice was neurodivergent??

mha also a little bit contradicts itself because. hero society is exposed post war arc. civilians have every right to be mad that their current number one is an abuser and that the heroes failed and couldn’t protect them. but theeeen, we have ochako’s speech in which she yells at scared civilians that “the heroes are the ones who are getting dirty!” which is like. yeah. they are. but during and post the war arc civilians also very much died. i feel for izuku but at first glance if someone promised you a safe haven from being attacked and then said oh never mind we’re actually going to bring the one guy shigaraki can absolutely track and hunt down here because he’s tired of fighting, getting upset with that is not totally unreasonable.

and I get that civilians are supposed to get mad at heroes for being corrupt, but not for failing, because heroes should never have been put up on such a high pedestal. they should be seen as humans who are as fallible as everyone else. that doesn’t change the fact the average innocent person would be rightfully scared, because it’s not just the heroes who are getting dirty. people are getting attacked. the heroes are not saving everyone. they shouldn’t have to and there’s no way they realistically can, but picking and choosing which aspects of hero society people are allowed to criticize feels…meh. if there’s gonna be fallout, fallout that endeavor and hawks if not the rest deserve, there should be proper fallout.

i don’t think the UA kids should be treated as full-fledged heroes because they’re not, but their age should not be the one thing that makes them better than the current heroes. they’re liable to the same mistakes and the same fallings. or they would be had they not all been portrayed from the beginning as one big happy hopeful crowd who just wanna save the day! there was opportunity to show who was in it for the right and wrong reasons and somehow ochako who has been so poorly written for several seasons actually had the most relevant arc (besides bakugo) about being in the hero business for the right reasons. ochako should have interned with hawks ochako should have interned with hawks ochako should have interned with there should’ve been more students in it for the glory, for the money, for the fame, but even monoma from class b and mineta are apparently true heroes! is being a high schooler all it takes??

anyway this is all jumbled and a mess but mha should’ve made hero society far more corrupt to justify its dismantling is my point. right now we’re getting a vibe of “the heroes are just as bad as the villains if they don’t save them too” and that’s just like. objectively not true. if hawks was supposed to be an assassin for hire for the hero commission, we should’ve seen him kill people aside from the guy who could’ve turned the tides of the war, at the very least actually kill best jeanist to finish his mission. if toga wanted to preach about how the heroes are just as bad because they killed jin, it falls flat when she’s on machia’s back stomping on people and then killing an old lady to talk to ochako. the heroes should try to save everyone including the villains because that’s what heroism is, but they are not equally as bad as the villains for trying to stop the villains.

the hero commission in general is just like afo, a vague villain we can blame so that we don’t have to blame the underlings. if people discriminate against animal quirks we should’ve seen it way earlier with shoji and tsu and tokoyami, maybe really expanded on it once mirko and hawks and even the dog cop were introduced. if sooo many heroes were in this for the wrong reasons, where are they? the current “failings” of the hero system are all might, endeavor, hawks, lady nagant and bakugo. everyone else is fine! there was a chance to show that someone like mount lady isn’t a real hero because she only cares about fame. there was a chance to show that aizawa is a good hero compared to others because he doesn’t try and seek glory. but these points are only halfway done and then kinda left there.

[roads-of-elysium]

Fangame: Lupin III: Roads of Elysium

This is a Fangame, meaning it is the fictional work of the creator. Fangames do not exist as real games, mods or extensions for already existing games Developer(s): Goldhawk Studios Producer(s): Goldenhawk Studios   Publisher(s): World Anvil co.   Artist(s) and Designer(s): John Hawkens   Writer(s): Earl Prime   Genre(s): Action role-playing ______________________________________________________________

Lupin III: Road’s of Elysium is a Fictional action-adventure fangame developed and published by Goldhawk Studios. The game is set in a fantasy-themed world parallel to Earth, where players must survive being stranded in the strange lands of Elysium, filled to the brim with roaming dinosaurs, fictional fantasy monsters, and other prehistoric animals, natural hazards, and potentially hostile human players. The player explores the world they live in, taking on quests, and fighting monsters, while being caught up in a geopolitical conflict between two kingdoms that threatens to spread a deadly infection known as the Esugrað Plague.   Inspired by open world survival games like Rockstars Red Dead Redemption series, as well as Bethesda’s Skyrim series, the game is presented through first- and third-person perspectives, and the player may freely roam in its interactive open world. Gameplay elements include shootouts, robberies, hunting, mount riding, interacting with non-player characters, and maintaining the character's honor rating through moral choices and deeds. A bounty system governs the response of law enforcement and bounty hunters to crimes committed by the player.

Story

A Japanese media franchise created by Monkey Punch, Lupin III is a series that follows the endeavors of master thief Lupin III and his Gang. Lupin III, the grandson of the fictional gentleman thief, Arsène Lupin, is considered the world's greatest thief, known for announcing his intentions to steal valuable objects by sending a calling card to their owners. Lupin and his gang are constantly chased by Interpol Inspector Zenigata, who has made it his life's work to arrest them, stating that he would never stop pursuing Lupin across the globe and to the ends of the earth.   Lupin is both the world’s greatest and most wanted gentleman thief. He can steal anything with fantastic ideas and fearless techniques. Though he sometimes steals for financial gain, he mostly does it for the thrill. Hence the beginning of our tale. The beginning of this story finds our protagonists in the midst of another one of Lupin's daring heists; Lupin, Jigen, Goemon and Fujiko have just stolen an ancient, and (allegedly) supernatural, and incredibly valuable artifact from a high-security museum vault. However, after the heist goes belly-up, Lupin and his gang along with Inspector Zenigata are accidentally transported to the planet known as Elysium. Elysium, as they soon find out, is an alternate-reality version of earth. However it is a strange planet where Dinosaurs roar, Dragons soar and seemingly multiple time-periods appear co-exist with one another . . and then there's that issue with the magic. . .   Separated upon landing on the planet in the continent of Ar'kael, the gang, now endowed with new powers, must maneuver their way through creatures, spellcasters, regency drama and geopolitics in a effort to find their way home. But when they get caught up in a plot involving government coupes and lunatic cultists, getting home might be easier said than done.

Voice Cast

Lupin III: Tony Oliver

Diasuke Jigen: Dan Worren

Goemon Ishikawa XIII: Lex Lang

Fujiko Mine: Toni Barry

Inspector Zenigata: Doug Erholtz

Gameplay

Lupin III: Road’s of Elysium, is a fantasy action role-playing game, playable from either a first or third-person perspective. The player may freely roam over the land of Elysium, an open world environment consisting of wilderness expanses, dungeons, caves, cities, towns, fortresses, and villages. Players may navigate the game world more quickly by riding horses or other mounts, paying for a ride from a city's stable, or utilizing a fast-travel system that allows them to move their character immediately to a previously discovered location. Outside of missions, players can freely roam the interactive world. They may engage in combat with enemies using melee attacks, firearms, bow and arrow, throwables, or dynamite, and can dual wield weapons. Non-player characters (NPCs) populate the world; the player may engage them in conversation (potentially leading to new quests or map locations), or engage them in lethal or nonlethal combat. As in previous games in the series, killing certain individuals can make some quests or items unobtainable. Certain NPCs essential to the narrative cannot be killed by the player, and will survive attacks of any magnitude.   Committing a crime like murder or theft accrues the player a bounty if the crime is witnessed, leading to confrontations with guards. Depending on some factors, including how serious the crime was, the player can choose to go to jail, pay the guard off, persuade the witness to forget about it, declare that one is a thane of a certain hold (which leads the guard to pardon the player), 'pacify' the guard or silence witnesses through killing them.   The world features different landscapes with occasional travelers, bandits, and wildlife, and urban settlements ranging from farmhouses to towns and cities. Hunting animals provides food, income, and materials for crafting items. The choice of weapon and shot placement affect the quality and value of meat and pelt, and the player can skin the animal or carry the carcass, which will rot over time, decrease its value, and attract predators.

CHARACTER CONTROL

RoE is a turn-based tactical RPG with heavy emphasis on free-roaming roleplay elements utilizing strong and diverse characters alongside a combat style that each player can pick and choose their main role to fit their own playstyle, while also choosing how much control they would like with the other party members. Different game modes further support how difficult and complex they can engage with the world and their foes or if they would prefer a more casual, story-based game. Outside of combat, the player may chose who they wish to control, while the rest of their party joins them. Depending on who you chose to engage with others, you may receive different opportunities and dialogue choices that could help or hinder your progress or even unlock special rewards! Other characters may get an opportunity to chime in or have opinions depending on who is at the helm while critical main story based dialogues and cutscenes feature the entire cast interacting together, sometimes changing based on the player's choices and decisions prior to each major checkpoint.   Inside combat, the player can chose which available party member they want to play at depending on their personal preference in play style. Do you want to play in melee or ranged? Do you prefer spells, raw might, or trickery? Each character has a unique specialization and can be selected as your main character in battle. From there each player can choose just how much control they want with the other characters. Do you like complete control? Pick each character's specific talents, skills, specializations, their gear, and control every move they make to create the perfect synergy as a tactical master in every situation. Do you want to just focus on yourself? Let the game handle suggestions for gears, talents, and skills for others characters to help you out or go completely hands off and let their AI support you while you master yourself!

Additional Content: DLC

The main two DLC, Hyakki Yagyo and The Dark Lost Veil and the Song of Sleep, are two large-scale major expansions, behaving more like two new games then normal DLC expansions, similar in matter to Fromsoftware DLC expansions for games like Bloodborne and Elden Ring.

Roads of Elysium: Hyakki Yagyo is set in the fictional area of Senko, a region inspired by a dark fantasy version of late Sengoku period Japan right on the cusp of entering its own Edo-Period but still thrown into madness by the constant warring going on. With inspirations pulled from various other East Asian cultures as well as a medieval Japanese/Far Eastern aesthetic, Senko is a region full of majesty and wonder as well as terror. Terror in the form of gods and demon's made real in the form of living-breathing Yokai (Youkai/Yokai/Yōkai)— demons and spirits believed to be responsible for natural phenomenon of all kinds.   This expansion centers around Goemon Ishikawa XIII, a renegade samurai and a thirteenth descendant of the historical figure and thief Ishikawa Goemon. In the Eastern Senko region of the continent, Goemon finds familiarity in the Edo-Japan style. However, in a world where the magical can be made reality, it isn't long before chaos erupts. Upon landing in Senko, Goemon is alerted about the pending signs of a Hyakki Yagyo, a mysterious phenomenon that once occurred some 60 years ago following a deadly storm. Armed with his faithful blade Zantetsuken, Goemon is tasked with protecting the surrounding villages and towns, an effort complicated by the emergence of numerous deadly and all too real yōkaithat are flourishing in the chaos. Roads of Elysium: The Dark Lost Veil and the Song of Sleep, introduces the area known as The Dark Veil of Doroan. This addition of the AU centers around Jigen Daisuke, a former Mafia hitman and world-renowned marksman. Taking place in the world of Elysium, this DLC introduced the continent of Gudeth, an area reminiscent of the continent of Ancient Europe on Earth. Here, Jigen learns just how much of a mirror of Earth this planet is, when familiarity strikes in the strangest of places. Seeing it as his second chance to fix a past mistake, Jigen tasks himself with keeping the ruler of the land safe while things start to unravel around them and the citizens of the desolate city start to go mad and missing.

[transhawks]

Honestly that's why I think endeavor is a character so divided in the fandom.

Some readers see an abusive parent getting redemption and they hate it because of their trauma while other readers see an abusive parent promising to be better without expecting forgiveness or it being a honeymoon phase and they love it because that's what they expect of this type of people.

As Haleigh said "his arc either sits with you or not and both are valid"

I've said this time and time again - half of the argument is whether abusive parents should be redeemed or not. I keep pointing this out, but stories where abused kids get to walk away and be happier for that choice are rare in media. Most media tends to want reconciliation, or makes the person much unhappier for that choice. Family trumps all, in all cultures. Even stories like Encanto which had a Matriarch confronted with her abuse of her grandchild and child still ended in reconciliation. In real life, most of us don't get that ending, or it's an ending that hurts. I'm personally constantly having to navigate my parents' abuse of me and the understanding that on my father's part, it's because he was heavily abused and is from a culture that didn't embrace psychology. That's not even taking into consideration the fact I'm queer or that I'm closeted as trans from them and will be until the one family member I'm holding out for passes on. I know my story will end awfully with no reconciliation, and damn do I wish that there were stories of people like me being happy. BUT - that's not everyone. Not everyone finds happiness in cutting their family off. Some people want that reconciliation, want their parents to apologize, still need that healed. And from arguments with people on that side, I just think both of us feel invalidated by the existence of the other, even if I'll argue the reconciliation people have media power on their side more than we do. But that does make the conversation so hard. I think I tend to clash with my own group (the cut them off) the most because they just...can't stand to see this narrative for the Todoroki family. I've seen people say that Horikoshi doesn't understand abuse (wrong), is an abuse apologist (I disagree), or just wants to pretend it doesn't matter when the core of his story surrounds so much of this and I think ultimately what we all need to get is the people arguing about how much they hate the Enjidemption or how it's going so far is that they needed something else.

Need. Like I said, the people who favor this position rarely see themselves in stories, rarely see representation of broken family dynamics where a person gets to walk off free and happy. It's why League Found Family is so popular among these types - what's better than walking off into the sunset with your friends? Two years ago I would have agreed. But that's not the story Horikoshi wants to tell and he's not wrong for it. Because ultimately the "reconciliation can happen" camp is as valid in existence as we are, the main difference is that you see the "cut them off camp" less. But it's hard to make that argument. People are too hurt by the idea that there's someone who can have that reconciliation. Meanwhile the Reconciliation camp feel like our side makes them feel guilty for wanting that connection in the first place.

I think it's just too fraught a conversation for most of us to have, especially if the people having it are not in therapy, are not medicated, or just not really coming to terms with what's happened to them. Heck, some of the people arguing over this are still being abused. It's just not a conversation we're able to have civilly, because abuse isn't civil.

[theloganator101]

Vent Ask anon is here again! Hello 👋

I have another vent for you in regard to Hori's writing. Something I've seen both you and @mikeellee speak about is how Hori loves his abuser characters. I've noticed this too and I hate it.

Two main examples of this for me stick out.

Bakuguo and Endeavor.

But I'll talk about some other (dis)honorable examples of this at the end.

First Bakugou Katsuki (kind of controversial to label him as an abuser) however with the severity of the bullying dealt to Izuku and the length of time he dealt it - that's abuse. And yet:

He is favoured by the narrative

Izuku is never allowed to think negatively of him or grow out of his mindset of "Kacchan is the best"

Bkg has characters that exists as a 'simp' for him in Izuku, Kaminari and Kirishima.

He has friends despite treating no one with respect, screaming at everyone and giving everyone degrading nicknames.

Said "best friend" Kirishima hates bullies and somehow can't see his "manly" best friend is one.

He is favored by the 'hardass' homeroom teacher since Aizawa is a favored mouthpiece of Hori

He is deemed a prodigy of 1A despite his only prior experience to UA being beating up others who couldn't fight back - which implies nothing good. How severe did he beat Izu and others up to get that good?

All Might thinks well of him despite Bakugou berating and beating up Izuku as well as berating the past OFA holders. (As soon as Bkg did that AM should have kicked him straight out of the OFA talks.)

The apology scene and the 1A vs Izuku scene were all there to act as a gotcha moment to the Anti-Bakugou fans and put him back in Izuku's story.

Yet why does Bakugou have to be in Izuku's story? He adds nothing. He contributes nothing. He is a parasite on Izuku's life. And Izuku is FAR more interesting as a character and would have been allowed to shine if he were allowed to be away from Bakugou - But Hori can't allow that!

Second Endeavor - I hate him. He began the story as an irredeemable trash father, the dark side of heroics yet Hori has now attempted D worthy "atonement" narrative.

He is favored by the narrative

He has a character that exists as a 'simp' for him in Hawks.

Rei is not allowed to think negatively of him despite how he ruined her mental state, physically and (implied SA'd her depending on the reading of the manga - why is Hori giving an implied rapist a redemption arc?)

Only realised his wrongdoings when he got the position he wanted in being the Number 1 hero and realised it was empty. (Fucking laughable, he didn't see it when Touya grew unstable, when Rei burnt Shoto or when Touya supposedly DIED. How am I meant to believe this guy deserves a redemption?)

No hero / hero in training outside the Todoroki's is allowed to say a bad word about him. Hawks acts now as his simp despite his abusive childhood and Jeanist is joining Hawks in helping support an abuser while giving off strong abuse apologist vibes... This leads me to my next point-

Endeavor remains the number 1 hero despite being outed as an Domestic Abuser... What the fuck? I thought being a hero is meant to be more than about power HORI? That was the message at the start of MHA! If it's just about power now - why not let All for One rule and be the number 1!

Then there's the issue with how the rest of the family, primarily Dabi and Rei are handled - Hori's retcons. Smacking Rei for not watching Touya and separating Shoto from his siblings to keep him away from 'dangerous' Touya who attempted to kill him as a baby. But there's also the instances with Fuyumi not understanding Touya and Natsuo telling Touya to tell Fuyumi about his problems because he needs to sleep. These instances exist solely to shift the blame off Endeavor for the established abusive behaviour he committed by showing the other family members had some fault for their circumstamces. That's it. There's no other reason to any of those instances being there.

Some fans claim that there is complexity in abusive situations which is why those scenes (in the above bullet point) are there and that does exist in real life but this is a Shonen Manga. Authorial intent needs to be considered. Subjects like this needs to be handled sensitively and while not leaving any room for doubt (especially when the audience/readers are young children/teens) who is at fault. The fact that Hori muddles the water like this (just take a look at any of the E stans takes on Rei or Touya) isn't good. AT ALL.

Shoto. Endeavor's "atonement" led to Shoto being shafted as a character and powerful in his own right so so bad. There's something so wrong about this. The victim should ALWAYS remain the focus of their story especially their recovery and telling of it.

There's also the fact that Endeavor's victims are so so much more interesting than him. Shoto is a main character and he's great - give me more of him. Give me more Rei, Dabi/Touya, Natsuo and Fuyumi, their mindsets would be so much more interesting to see than Endeavor's "change" the majority of which occurred in his own head.

Now for the quick fire dishonorable mentions.

Overhaul. A piece of trash truly, yet he appears in MHA once again as an willing 'accomplise' to Nagant and broken man. He is also asked if he would like to apologise to Eri by Izuku. Like no. This man deserves nothing, in fact he deserves Shiggy to decay the rest of him. He added nothing to the Nagant arc and there was no need for him to be there. Other than to be someone for Izuku to save which would have worked better being anyone else really.

All for One. Arguable, Hori at the very least doesn't try to shift the blame off of him. However he gets more focus than First and the rest of the OFA holders despite them being his biggest constant threat. AND despite Izuku (our narrator) being an OFA holder and seeing the other vestiges! Hori! Come on Hori! The opportunity to explore all the OFA holders was RIGHT THERE!

Shimura Kotaro - again arguable. However with the way the story treated his abuse to his family, the blame for his abuse seems to be shifted to Nana's abandonment of Kotaro for 'causing him to act that way.' Although he at least is such a minor character most fans seemed to think "wow fuck that guy" upon learning Shigaraki's backstory and moved on.

Your thoughts?

To give a proper response, I'll be talking about each of the characters you listed.

Bakugou: You're all right about this, at this point he literally has the narrative wrapped around his finger. He's the worst of what happens when you give a side character the screentime of a second major character but with no development. He serves no purpose to the plot and just serves to take away screentime to characters that could really use it to make them more important than they are now.

Endeavor: Yeah you pretty much hit the nails why this atonement doesn't work.

I would even like to add Fuyumi to this equation since she chose to forgive him so they could be a happy family. While I get what Hori's trying to convey and having multiple sides to this, but it just comes across as her invalidating Natsuo's feelings without trying to see it from his POV.

Hey Hori, your sexism is showing again by having the females in the family forgive your abuser with implications of r*pe.

And that isn't going into how Shoto is literally made into a plot device IN HIS OWN FUCKING ARC FOR ENDEAVOR'S ATONEMENT!!

Overhaul: Nothing much to say here.

AFO: Nothing here either.

Kotaro: Yeah this guy was a pos. And his family isn't any better by letting the abuse too. I will die defending Nana as she was only doing what she thought was best to protect her family and didn't have any say in the choices that led to her son being an abuser.

[sapphic-agent]

I really hope my ask won't be seen as mean, hope to word correctly....bc your last post about how Eri and Shig do share some common ground. I agree but it irks me how LoV stans use this to make shig sound not so bad.

Many fics and arts where "shig saved Eri" exists as Eri is an accessory for Shig and nothing else.

I do see the paralels here. I do wonder about the mother....did overhaul killed her?

It's very convenient for the heroes to label Eri's quirk as good ...bc if she had just decay...she would be label as having a bad quirk. Maybe the heroes wouldn't care much. (Makes me wonder where are the healing quirks or medical advancement in this world)

But while they have a similar backstory...how Izu would possible know? I sincerely ask here bc AM went radio silence regards Shig to Izu, same with Gran and the police did a really lousy investigation (I'm assuming is lousy bc we don't see what they did and whatever they did it was one time thing) and didn't share the infos with Izu.

Does Izu knows about the nomus?

Im even surprised he knows shig is TENKO...but of course, such reveal is underwealming as fuck and him and Nana don't take at all.

Izu is mistreated by the narrative and no one talks to him ever.

Not to harpy on your post bc I agree this could have been useful....but like how Izu would know anything about Shig? Unless Shig tells or Izu becames the best hacker ever...or reads mind...he can't know. Ever.

I've said this before, but the reason Izuku doesn't understand Shigaraki is because they haven't interacted enough prior to the Final War.

Their conversation at the mall was a good moment. It shows that a) Izuku has the capacity to resonate with a villain's intent AND disagree with their actions (Stain), b) Shigaraki at this point didn't have a goal or direction, and c) it IS possible for Izuku to understand why hero society is corrupt. It also highlights the differences between them, attempting to show them as complete opposites.

The mall scene was a great way to explain the dynamic between them. And it's something that should have been expanded on throughout the story.

Admittedly, I don't know how Shigaraki's backstory would come up. But I'm sure it wouldn't be a hard thing to do. Didn't All Might pull up Tenko Shimura's disappearance? Maybe Izuku figures it out on his own somehow. Idk.

But to me, it doesn't even specifically have to be Tenko's actual past. It could be an implied thing that Izuku learns from watching how people treat Eri. Hell, part of him already has a clue from his fight with Shinsou.

(One thing I actually hate about Izuku's character is his inability to acknowledge the corruption of society despite being a victim of it. He started off being able to do this with Stain, but for some reason that just went away. He studies under Endeavor, even defends him to Dabi and tells Todoroki he's ready to forgive him. Lady Nagant spelled it out for him and he just... Doesn't react. Doesn't even think about what she said. This is on Horikoshi's awful writing decisions, but it's the one criticism of Izuku that's 100% valid)

Eri shouldn't be used for Shigaraki's redemption. I honestly wouldn't want her around any of the LOV, that's putting her in danger to make another character look better. It's the same issue that I have with Aizawa making Bakugou watch her.

But I do think that Izuku's experiences with the people around him- which includes Eri- should give him a broader worldview. That's typically how development and growth work. If Izuku was going to reach out and try to save Shigaraki, it should have been with an understanding of how society failed Shigaraki.

Saving him also could have meant a lot of different things. Saving Shigaraki from AFO's influence/brainwashing wasn't a bad goal. Saving him from himself, though, is different. People have to want to change, you can't make them. You can give them support, but Izuku wasn't in a position to do so because he's, y'know, a sixteen year old who isn't even an official pro hero. Of course he wasn't equipped for this. Most actual pros wouldn't have been

[jiangwanyinscatmom]

What do you think of the trope “Shen Yuan and Shen Jiu are the same person”? I feel that sometimes people use it as “oh he’s redeemed” or something and I’m just kinda like😐 leave shen yuan alone. No one I know has read this before! I’ve got no stimulation😔 would it be weird to PM you stuff sometimes?

Ticobi! 🥰

I don't enjoy this trope in the slightest honestly, because while Shen Qingqui, Shen Yuan, took on the life of the Peak Lord, he never considered himself the earlier incarnation of Shen Jiu.

As if testing the waters, Yue Qingyuan said, “Xiao-Jiu…”

“Shixiong,” said Shen Qingqiu, “it’s Qingqiu.”

Even though it would be too difficult to tell Yue Qingyuan the truth, Shen Qingqiu still hoped he could demonstrate the difference in other ways.

Yue Qingyuan was stunned for a bit, then gave a small smile. “It’s Qingqiu. Qingqiu-shidi.”

Meaning, "I am not that child you failed to protect,and you are not the man that I centered my world on despising for letting me down. But I am your ally, you are my friend, there is nothing for either to feel sorry for, and we can start anew without debt, guilt, and hate we don't have".

Yue Qingyuan, I feel, is relieved that he is able to turn a leaf over in their lives that is happy finally. He can trust in himself that he can be at peace, and Shen Qinqqiu has found the one he wants to follow finally of his own will. There is nothing holding the other back and there is no veiled tension that can blow up. Shen Yuan knows he is not Shen Jiu, but he is Shen Qinqiu, the friend of Yue Qingyuan, not the protector of Shen Jiu, but the peak lord friend.

What are your plans for the future?” asked Yue Qingyuan.

"I have no plans for the time being,” said Shen Qingqiu. “First I’ll wait for Luo Binghe to return and see how he’s doing.”

Yue Qingyuan smiled. “You truly adore that disciple.”

Shen Qingqiu was searching for a way to answer when Yue Qingyuan said, “Shidi, Cang Qiong Mountain will forever be a place to which you can return whenever you tire of wandering the outside world.”

These words were said with utmost sincerity and solemnity.

Yue Qingyuan had always been this way. Whatever he promised, he would definitely deliver. And what he couldn’t deliver, he would endeavor to make up for, no matter the cost.

If Shen Yuan was really Shen Jiu of the past and really that person, this would not have had a kinder resolution. All relationships cannot be repaired despite how kind and accommodating Yue Qingyuan was. Shen Jiu didn't want that, and would never forgive what he saw as a betrayal because of his life circumstances. Shen Yuan, even gaining that past and living through those memories, does not feel jilted for anyone other than Yue Qingyuan and Luo Binghe.

The two Shen Jiu despised to his death despite any guilt, became the two most important for Shen Yuan. Shen Yuan's, Shen Qingqui's, redemption, is not tied to whoever Shen Jiu was. Shen Jiu no longer existed in order for a redemption of the story and villain to happen. Shen Jiu sadly, had to disappear for a change to reflect. There is no what if chance for Shen Jiu as he wasn't the one that wanted to change his reputation.

If only he really were Shen Jiu.

If only that person could really hear these words.

Because he is not Shen Jiu, who would not accept the peace between them and Yue Qingyuan's blessings that Shen Qingqiu had.

[haleigh-sloth]

I've been seeing a lot of posts popping up about how redemption for the league means sacrificing their ideals... and I'm incredibly curious about what those ideals are?? They never mention exactly *what* they are alongside it but also I don't particularly want to ask and actually post on twitter.

The "ideals" fandom at large tends to think they have are ideals that involve changing and challenging society.

They are challenging society for sure, but the story does not portray them as the good guys for doing this, and somehow this fact has been completely lost on people and they haven't put 2 and 2 together as to why the story won't throw the villains a bone. The bone being them winning and being acknowledged as "right" lol.

I've noticed recently people still like....cite Dabi's broadcast as peak characterization for him and that's wild to me. It's like they haven't noticed that the story kinda doesn't acknowledge his broadcast at all, and that he doesn't actually like have any desire to see anything he spouted lip service about come to fruition.

I get it, to an extent. But Touya's true motives were not to take down hero society, it was to hurt his dad. If his true motive was to shake up society for the greater good he wouldn't be targeting his family or letting them carelessly get caught up in the violence, he wouldn't be bringing violence upon cities of people who had fuck nothing to do with his situation.

If he actually gave half of a shit about the stuff he preached, he wouldn't have told them to criticize heroes (which is fair!) BUT THEN ALSO put them in a situation where HEROES are the ONLY PEOPLE keeping uninvolved civilians alive!!

Also he wouldn't be telling Shouto he's an ungrateful little shit for not capitalizing on being Endeavor's son lmao. He displayed his raw jealousy in their fight and everyone just *POOF* FORGOT THAT I GUESS.

That's just with Touya, I could go on and on. The others too though. You have Spinner with an army of people who honestly HAVE a really great cause to rally together and stand up for, and Spinner put himself in a situation where he literally told them "I don't care" when they were voicing their grievances out in the open. Toga straight up doesn't care. Tomura doesn't care about changing jack shit because he just wants to kill it all. And his "want" to destroy it all actually stems from an extremely distorted perception of himself and his existence, so even that is a false belief of his. Everything he yells about comes from an extremely twisted perception of literally just himself. He sees hero society for the shit it is, but he wants to destroy it all because of how he feels about himself, which has led him to being the enemy to literally everyone and nobody giving a shit about the valid points he has. Same goes for Touya. It's hard for them to look at his broadcast shitting on heroes and take it seriously as he is parading on Machia through multiple cities leaving civilians to rely on literally nobody else besides HEROES.

The only LOV members who have a non-distorted cause they actually want something done about is Spinner and Compress, but because they're in a little terrorist club they don't do shit about those things.

There are no real ideals that the lov like, legitimately care to do literally anything about.

The end of the PLF war did put the heroes in a negative light, which, mission accomplished, but only kind of. Just mostly the ones who were giving up and quitting the hero profession, not just the title and meaning held behind being a Hero Professional. In the end, the heroes were still the ones protecting civilians anyway and within the story the heroes are still THE positive force in their universe. Within the context of the story, that DID NOT change. The heroes are still good, full of hope. So um, really and truly the villains didn't accomplish much on that front.

It annoys me when people say there is no change to society. We're seeing it now in this final arc. Gentle and Nagant. That is change. Positive change. And surprise surprise, it wasn't because of the villains' terrorism, it was because of heroic influence from Izuku. That's the point. There is change happening, and it's happening because of positive forces.

There is a reason the story repeatedly puts the villains in situations where they are not the good guys. There's a reason the story makes them victims that need SAVING rather than victims that need a podium to stand on. People want them to have the podium, but they're not gonna get it. At the very least, they won't get it until they are saved by heroes.

[soul-dwelling]

Sorry to bug you with another MHA rant - but I think it's a point that isn't often brought up: The storys/Deku's "elitism" (maybe not the best word)

What I mean is the fact that Deku allways has to be "the best" and everything is framed through that lense in a way - maybe not in every moment, but in the ultimate analysis - like him only becoming a hero after getting the best quirk or how he only wanted to go to UA or only really idolised All Might - like I know Endeavor had a bad rep but wasnt he said to have solved the most crimes, ergo saved the most? Or shouldnt Izuku care about rescue heroes more if "rescuing" is what he actually cares for.

But the UA thing - it seemed to me like his dream wasn't even to become a hero, but his twisted romantisced perfect life version of a hero. Hence why he didnt try to apply to a mediocre school - I mean if UA lets quirkless do the exam, wouldnt there be any low to mid level school taking him, even if for PR reasons.

Yet other schools are so unimportant that they disapear basically as soon as they get mentioned.

But maybe my point is still debatable, and I admit one can find examples at the start that contradict it, like Deku basically jeopardising his chances of winning the sports festival to save Shoto.

Yet what matters is the end - and the way to it too - cause yeah, in the end, without a quirk, he didnt even try to be a hero, and didnt even try to get support equipment that literally wasnt some experimental futuristic uber powerfull suit, from the same makers thath gave non powered Allmight the ability to go toe to toe with the biggest villian of history. But that was already clear on the way during the end - like the fact Deku got seven quirks - obviously only made to show how he is special and strong on another level than anyone else

Yet why should he be? Especially with how popular Bakogou and Shoto where, why couldnt they just stay on a simmilar level and take on the main vilian 3 on 1. I mean even Naruto did that (even if Kaguay was bad for unrelated reasons) Especially with how the whole "saving Tenko" thing basically went nowhere, and could as well not have been introduced - might as well show AFO taking Tenko totally over to drive the point how evil potatoe man is way earlier and then focus the fight on guts and everyone working together - cliche, but doesnt bait the audience with some redemption and reform Hori obviously doesnt want to adress. But even speaking of Hori, i dunno, even his comments about "oh if Hero Academia didnt succeed, I would have quited being a mangaka" - like other magazines dont exist, like there aren't any other alternatives, like a story can be succesful without going for hundreds of chapter - seems to be the same attitude. But lets see if he actually does the Horror manga or if his health really declined as badly as many fear, in the later case, maybe he just got depressed, cause bad health sucks, I ain't gonna lie...

Long response below (about 14 pages, single-spaced)--and disorganized at that. 

I am going to again copy your question (in bold below) and respond to it in bits and pieces, as well as putting in headings to help outline my answer. 

I’m writing this as quickly as I can, so I apologize for rambling, awkward transitions, and going all over the case within a dash-filled sentence or a paragraph that is way too long. 

(Spoilers and whining as well about Fire Force.)

Izuku should be the best boy

Sorry to bug you with another MHA rant - but I think it's a point that isn't often brought up:

The storys/Deku's "elitism" (maybe not the best word)

What I mean is the fact that Deku allways has to be "the best" and everything is framed through that lense in a way - maybe not in every moment, but in the ultimate analysis - like him only becoming a hero after getting the best quirk 

I’ll get to more specifics about this first part of the submission in a moment. But first, a little rambling. 

My defense of Izuku as having to solve most problems in My Hero Academia: he is the protagonist, I have said he should be too good to be true (without ignoring how, if Izuku was a girl or a woman, the worst people online would make bullshit “Mary Sue” misogynistic arguments). We need to be cheering on Izuku: having his literal only so-called flaw be that he has no Quirk means that we side with him when we see how helpful he is, how smart he is, how heroic he is, and we take his side against even the best and most rational arguments by Bakugo, All Might, Recovery Girl, Gran Torino, Nighteye, Shigaraki, and All For One. 

That being said, that doesn’t mean you have him solve every last problem or else you undermine the manga’s message that collaboration is good. (Granted, Horikoshi undermined the value of collaboration repeatedly in his own story.) If you have Izuku solve everything, then Ochaco does not fix the poor counseling and health care system to address what potentially dangerous Quirks do, then Shoji and Koda don’t teach anti-bigotry practices, then the Todorokis don’t stop Dabi, and on and on. 

Now, to focus my answer a bit more: 

I talked about this elsewhere, but I think Izuku’s story would have improved had the manga made Izuku the best hero before he got the best Quirk. I know this lapses into “too good to be true” territory--but that’s the point, make him too good to be true: kid who knows more about Quirks than anyone else, kid who helps the elderly in his neighborhood, favorite “grown up” to the kids in his neighborhood, helpful neighborhood civic-minded community organizer. 

Maybe my recommendation is too clean and risks making Izuku without flaws. And it makes All Might too perfect as well: the plot can move forward only if All Might does something reckless, like handing over the Quirk to someone who even with a months-long workout regiment has zero time or instruction how to use One For All without almost getting himself and Ochaco killed during his entrance exam? But that means the problem is also that I don’t think Izuku and All Might ever clear the bar of early installment foolishness--similar to how the manga never convinced me that Bakugo could ever make up for telling Izuku to go kill himself. Maybe these are problems in the writing that will get corrected in the next adaptation, like that Hollywood adaptation, but as I also said, if you do correct these problems, I don’t know whether that takes out complexity in characterization and potential for character progression. 

Is it good that All Might was an idol?

or how he only wanted to go to UA or only really idolised All Might - 

I may push back a bit on whether Izuku only really idolized All Might, for two reasons. 

First, I wish the story had done more to toy with whether idolizing is a good thing. 

My Hero Academia ends without a useful thesis statement on the whole thing. All Might serving as the Symbol of Peace had its benefits and disadvantages, and the story never came across to me as defining whether he did more harm than good, although Stain’s final remarks to him get close to a summary statement. And Izuku idolizing All Might gave him inspiration and examples what to do, but he never quite made the base of One For All his own and kept struggling even to the end to figure out a way to use the base of One For All as his own, an opportunity thwarted as well when Izuku defeats All For One and Shigaraki with just punches and when so much of his fighting in the final arc was using a whole new set of Quirks comparatively recently introduced such that it is harder to really compare how Izuku uses One For All compared to how All Might uses One For All. 

Second, while “idolize” may not be accurate enough, Izuku’s joy and knowledge about pretty much all Pro Heroes is something integral to who he is. But yeah, I do wish we saw him pulling more from their examples. The manga barely gave attention outside of flashbacks as to how Izuku took inspiration from others to learn how to use his other Quirks, and even then he was pulling more from the examples of his classmates like Ochaco and Sero to use Float and Blackwhip. 

Izuku and Endeavor should have interacted more

like I know Endeavor had a bad rep but wasnt he said to have solved the most crimes, ergo saved the most? Or shouldnt Izuku care about rescue heroes more if "rescuing" is what he actually cares for.

I would have loved to have seen more interactions with Endeavor and Izuku, and I say that as someone who despises Endeavor and would rather never have him pop up in the manga again. 

Like, the anime gag of Izuku breaking the fourth wall to look at the audience with a question mark after Endeavor said something abstruse but profound and understanding Izuku’s link to All Might--that is something that shows Endeavor’s knowledge and wisdom while not ignoring he is an abusive sack of shit and that even Izuku is perplexed that this violent hothead may have something deeper going on. 

Izuku is our main character--while I do not want to overshadow how Shoto responds to his own father, it is weird not to have our main character have some one-on-one interactions with just him and Endeavor. We had that really good scene between the two at the Sports Festival--could we do something like that again, especially when it comes to how we contrast what heroics mean to each of them, how their regard for All Might could influence the other (such as Endeavor inadvertently making Izuku realize that All Might is human and hence makes mistakes, and Endeavor getting over himself and realizing that while he now knows the burden All Might carried he also needs to appreciate that All Might is a good guy and has done incredible good for Izuku as well as for Shoto).  

I also want to push back about Endeavor solving so many crimes--not that this is not true, it is true, you have that correct, the manga says so. 

I just get bothered how that detail feels like a retcon, even though technically it’s not. 

When we first meet Endeavor, we know he is the Number Two Hero, so it is not out of the ordinary to realize he got to that title not just by strength and superpowers but also by actual skill, whether in rescue, detective work, or number of people saved. 

You bring up rescue work, not necessarily about Endeavor but in general. I’ll talk more about rescue work in a moment. But rescue work never struck me as Endeavor’s forte, although some of that is the fault of writers other than Horikoshi: dude ended up killing someone in Vigilantes and not noticing--I do not think he is that good at rescue and saving people. (And this all becomes even more disturbing for me to try to make jokes about as I have the dawning realization that of course he sucks at rescuing people, he got Toya killed and couldn’t save his own dad.) 

I just wish that we did more with that detective work long before we’re just told, “He’s good at detective work.” He is able to decode Hawks’s message--great, why couldn’t we have gotten this hint earlier? If he had figured out that All Might somehow passed on his Quirk to Izuku, maybe that would have helped make him look smarter--he could have the same reaction Shoto has to emphasize this similar familial tick (“Izuku and All Might have a similar Quirk”) and unlike Shoto (“Are you his secret love child?”) could instead take the more accurate approach (“All Might somehow passed on his Quirk to Izuku--is that why his Pro Hero work has been slowing down?”). 

Rescue work and Izuku’s lacking skills

Let’s circle back to rescue work, and what it says about Izuku’s lacking skills. 

Remember in the License Exam arc, how Izuku did not realize he had to talk to the actors playing victims, because Aizawa either sucks at teaching or Izuku is just that bad at understanding the logistics of doing hero work? Either way, it shows that the story had more to offer--and just didn’t. 

Numerous complaints about this final arc and its last chapters have circulated so frequently that I can’t tell whether they are repeated so much as to be correct but cliche, or repeated so often that we accept them as truth and ignore the glaring flaws. In other words, I am bothered by the repeated complaint online that Izuku was never serious about hero work, that he had no plan before getting One For All, that he was not thinking enough about the logistics of what he was training to do. I’m not going to say whether that assessment of Izuku is correct or incorrect, as the complaint strikes me as something that is a flaw with the story itself, not the character. 

Izuku strikes me as someone who of course would think about a plan to be a hero, how to save people: he had a plan for delaying the Slime Monster to try to save Bakugo, it just wasn’t a good plan; he had numerous Pro Hero names thought up when he was a little kid; he had copious notes about how Quirks work and was still filling out new journals during the Sports Festival. 

But, yeah, I can’t ignore that Izuku did not have a plan in mind for the logistics for Pro Hero work--because he is inexperienced, he is a teenager, he has not yet worked as Pro Hero, of course he doesn’t know all the logistics, that’s why he is in school and that is ostensibly what the manga is supposed to be about, teaching Izuku how to do Pro Hero work and by extension showing us in the audience how this world works. This is not an insult to Izuku: he literally does not know these things, that’s great, we get to learn along with him, we don’t feel ignorant because even best boy / smartest boy Izuku didn’t know. 

But actually educating Izuku, and by extension us audience members, on Pro Hero logistics would require this “academia” manga to actually be about “academia,” and Horikoshi or his editors or the audience itself seem to have an aversion to learning shit. 

(This is also why I hate the excuse that we only get Year 1 of the Class A because otherwise it would be boring to keep having another Sports Festival arc, another School Festival arc, another graduation arc for each school year. Look, Horikoshi is exhausted, I appreciate he does not want to repeat those stories--but as for fans saying that stuff would be boring, bullshit, that’s a challenge, rise up to face it, give me that Sports Festival that shows how far those who lost the first year have come, show how far those who won the first year have fallen, give me new School Festival activities with new characters, make the graduation change each time especially depending on whether the world is doing well or has gotten worse since All Might retired.) 

So, the manga does not do the “academia” thing much--and then the manga never felt like it actually addressed how these logistics to Pro Hero regulations work. We get bread crumbs that don’t lead very far: we wait until the Nighteye arc to learn that there is the Hero Network, and it gets namedropped so that Ochaco and Tsuyu can ask about it and get answered by Ryukyu. 

The thing is, having the students be flat-out ignorant about some of these details would help build the world and help characterize these characters. I wrote in another post how we had this great opportunity to show that Izuku is so idealistic that he may be ignorant as to all the workings that go into an agency: insurance, staffing, merchandising, specialization. I wrote in that post how excellent it would be to bring back Tenya’s brother Tensei to talk about how in Vigilantes his agency was such a well-oiled machine because he had numerous sidekicks all focused on making up for skills he as a speedsters lacked, as a way to show that an agency has to be designed smartly--and that Izuku is someone who just hopes that things will work out and never struck me as an organizer. 

If Izuku really is that ignorant about organizing and is better suited as a cog in the machine, a teacher, or someone who is just good at designing plans and executing them but not leading a team, we could build on what the manga already showed us about who is good at that leadership. I mean, hell, we did an entire opening arc in the manga that Izuku is not a good class president, leave that to Iida and Momo. 

And we also saw during the School Festival that Mina, Momo, Jiro, and Iida are good at organizing the Class A activity--maybe those are skills they have that Izuku lacks. It would help to do more to justify Mina’s value to this story: she is a fan favorite, but there are only so many gags you can do about her academic skills being wanting before you need to emphasize that her people skills and leadership skills are why she is in this cast. And it would go a long way to clarify why Ochaco recruited Iida, Momo, and Jiro for her Quirk counseling initiative. See why I am getting annoyed with how this manga went? It already had the details there in the characters but never gave us those stories. And it’s going to be annoying should those stories ever happen because they were not part of the original manga, not in order of chapters to read in order to get to these logical conclusions, and will instead be some light novel or OVA or spinoff manga or film that you have to pay more money to get rather than just being part of the main manga that I’m already paying Viz to subscribe to. 

The manga failed to criticize its own romanticizing and show a changed world

But the UA thing - it seemed to me like his dream wasn't even to become a hero, but his twisted romantisced perfect life version of a hero. 

We really needed this manga to dig into its worldbuilding. 

There was a post my friend dchan87 reblogged from ilovereadingandstuff and thekingofwinterblog a bit ago, about how Amphibia did well at leaving enough holes for you to fill in, while My Hero Academia was trying to answer so many questions that it could not answer some of them at all, could not answer some of them sufficiently, or over-explained some of them and failed to satisfy enough of the audience. On a related note, I am loathe to say that Ohkubo did great with Soul Eater by leaving so many holes there for the audience to fill in the gaps, which the fans did expertly for 18 years…until Ohkubo fucked that up and gave bad answers in Fire Force, thereby cancelling out much better fan theories and compromising the intended message of both stories, but I’ve complained enough about Ohkubo’s bad writing for a decade. 

But to get back to my point: we needed that worldbuilding to either be like Amphibia or like Soul Eater--just enough, not too much to weigh down the story with “realism” that cancels out believability. We got so many hero schools that we don’t know why UA is so good and whether Izuku’s choice was just obsessing with the alumni (All Might but also Aizawa, Present Mic, Endeavor, and so on), or whether he was making a rational choice. 

However, as I am someone who went to grad school because I slightly idealized one of my professors having gone to that same school, and have some regrets about my educational choices: I mean, yeah, believable and realistic, so, can’t quite fault Izuku entirely for romanticizing. Izuku needs to have flaws so that we have a plot--I am fine with him romanticizing UA and the overall Pro Hero society. I just hate that nothing much comes of that once All For One shows how under-prepared the heroes were to stop Shigaraki’s transformation, how unprepared Japan and the world were for All For One’s threat, how little of Pro Hero society seems to have changed in Chapter 430, how little we see Izuku change his mind after Nagant, how it’s left to Ochaco and others to verbalize what needs to change but the story skips over just what exactly Ochaco, Shoji, and others do to change this world. 

Should Izuku have gone to UA?

Hence why he didnt try to apply to a mediocre school - I mean if UA lets quirkless do the exam, wouldnt there be any low to mid level school taking him, even if for PR reasons.

God, I would have loved it if we had had Inko take Izuku aside and bring up that UA may not be his best choice. I know we don’t want to step on Ochaco’s storyline, and money doesn’t really seem to be a concerned in this story despite the lipservice given to it, but imagine if Inko, practically a single parent, having to tell Izuku, “UA is too expensive, try a mid-level school.” We got close to that when she refused to send him back initially despite All Might’s encouragement, but that wasn’t money, it was because All Might and the teachers could not protect the kids from a fucking villain attack. 

Again, maybe I’m grabbing too much from my own life, but there are totally parents who will say, “Does it really have to be that school? Think about money, whether this education is worth it, location. Why not aim for this school instead?” 

Even All Might could have brought it up: “UA was right for me; I don’t think it will be right for you. Don’t chase the ring, focus on the plan that works for you.” But we already saw from Gran Torino that Izuku and All Might reinforce their worst qualities in each other of romanticizing, idealizing, and not trying something new. Again, do you want flawed characters who can progress, or do you want everyone to be perfect from the beginning? I’m not even asking you--I’m asking myself, because this is the trap I fall into when re-writing these stories, making everyone absolutely perfect instead of believable and having flaws that keep the plot going. 

The manga also sort of retconned a lot of the entrance exam details. The manga does show Izuku was able to go into the exam when he had a Quirk--although, yeah, wouldn’t he have to schedule this ahead of time even without being registered with the government as having a Quirk? Then the manga reveals that Support and General and Business Tracks at UA may not require a Quirk, so Izuku could have gone into any of them…but that would require he show technological aptitude, or take Shinso’s path, or have PR skills, and none of those quite work, especially as we need Shinso as the foil to Izuku for both of their storylines to persist. (Aside: Man, Shinso deserved a better wrap-up in this manga. What is his Pro Hero name?) 

Yet other schools are so unimportant that they disapear basically as soon as they get mentioned.

We needed more spinoff stories. I loved that all-girls school in the anime-only Momo arc during the license exam. I wanted more of the schools doing something in the final arc and especially getting closure: what happened to Inasa and Camie and the rest in Chapter 430? 

Is self-sacrifice heroic? 

But maybe my point is still debatable, and I admit one can find examples at the start that contradict it, like Deku basically jeopardising his chances of winning the sports festival to save Shoto.

The manga did well at explaining the stakes for the Sports Festival, and while important for the sake of characterization, it wasn’t life or death (until Izuku almost got himself killed by Shoto, which…yeah, these two characters have flaws, to put it nicely). 

Aizawa said it was about being scouted--and any of us can use logic to suppose that, first, they have three years of these festivals to make an impression, and second, there are other ways to make an impression, as Shinso shows. 

All Might said this was Izuku’s time to show he can be like him, a symbol to people and the inheritor of his legacy--and while that is too much to put on Izuku, especially (as online people have said on Reddit and elsewhere) All Might brings all of this up without also putting on the pressure or just being honest about the potential threat of another All For One or indeed the actual All For One returning. And even those stakes are not that pivotal: Izuku and All Might make it a big deal, and it is for the arc, but in the overall manga, even before the Sports Festival ends, we know it’s not as big a deal, it’s just Izuku’s entrance to the larger national and international audience, it won’t end his career. 

I guess my point is, yeah, I see how Izuku’s willingness to lose the Sports Festival butts up against his idealized image of a superhero--and even then, it is hard to discern how those two details contrast or potentially contradict because the story itself overly idealized and overly romanticized it. Think about it: it’s Recovery Girl who has to set Izuku and All Might straight, that this play-hero routine is going to get Izuku killed. The story wants us to see Izuku almost getting killed by Shoto as heroic and the correct thing--and keeps emphasizing that Izuku is going to get himself killed. 

I can’t quite wrap my head around all of these details to make a clear statement, beyond saying that My Hero Academia has always has a problem when it comes to whether self-sacrifice and death are ideals that heroes should aim for. We have shown over and over again that self-sacrifice in this story, or otherwise reckless actions, are not wholly good: Gentle ruined his career by inadvertently showboating or interfering and not paying attention; Ochaco may have redeemed Toga in her eyes but almost died and ended up with Toga dead; the Todoroki family got physical scars but no better ending and now have Dabi slowly dying; Izuku is scarred up, without a Quirk, debased by his teacher and now coworker Aizawa, and didn’t get Pro Hero society to put away the statues, get rid of the ads and marketing, and get some free time. 

I mean, I keep turning back to this point on this blog, but how the hell was Fire Force better at imparting the lesson, “Getting yourself killed is stupid, you still need to survive another day to keep rescuing people, figure out how to save others without getting yourself killed”? 

The mech suit ending doesn’t hold up and potentially undermines the intended moral 

Yet what matters is the end - and the way to it too - cause yeah, in the end, without a quirk, he didnt even try to be a hero, and didnt even try to get support equipment that literally wasnt some experimental futuristic uber powerfull suit, from the same makers thath gave non powered Allmight the ability to go toe to toe with the biggest villian of history.

I have read enough fans trying to make this work. I’m not entirely convinced by their ideas, but I’ll summarize a few of them. 

First, there are people pointing out that Izuku didn’t have the money to get that support equipment to keep doing Pro Hero work. I’m not convinced, but I appreciate people pointing out the limitations: maybe the global economy got so bad that even rich students like Momo, Shoto, and Tenya could only do so much; the manga volumes say All Might used all of his remaining money on his mech suit against All For One. 

Second, there are people pointing out that, while the All Might suit was proven to work, that was a quick job and that everyone wanted to get it correct, which required eight years of work with Mei and Melissa collaborating in completely different countries. (Sidebar: Just put Mei and Melissa in the same nation--for shipping or platonic or just mutual relationships with the main cast.) I’m less convinced by this explanation, as it is bizarre to wait eight years when you really need to get Izuku testing out that mech suit in a controlled environment instead of out in the field unless you are dealing with the kind of dire situation All Might was against All For One. It’s all the more bothersome because the manga already gave us this story--twice: in the main manga with Izuku almost getting his body torn apart testing Mei’s equipment, and in Team-Up Missions with now both Mei and Melissa almost killing Izuku with dueling support equipment for Crash Test Deku to try out. 

All of the “you can still be a hero with this expensive mech suit” argument also bothers me because the opening conceit of My Hero Academia--”in this fictional world, you need a superpower to be a superhero”--is already a ridiculously stupid question: of course you can, that is answered by Chapter 1, it’s been answered in comic books since Batman and Iron Man, the manga practically says yes, you can, because Quirks held by Mei and Ojiro give them very little advantage in combat (granted, Mei is not a fighter), and Knuckleduster in Vigilantes has no superpowers. It’s that Amphibia problem above: when you over-explain, you answer the question that was supposed to drive the story, so now that you answered it, you have no story, and everything after is over-explaining everything and potentially undermining the point you were trying to make (see also Fire Force over-explaining Soul Eater and hence ruining both stories). 

Izuku should have been the Hulk

But that was already clear on the way during the end - like the fact Deku got seven quirks - obviously only made to show how he is special and strong on another level than anyone else 

And Izuku having more Quirks could show how smart he is at using them all, or have been for a longer story to show this new challenge that affects him physically and emotionally as his confidence is shaken with the seemingly sisyphean failure of getting one Quirk correct only to fail again and again with the next (but I don’t think he even got a handle on the first Quirk to begin with). 

It’s another set of missed opportunities, especially, so that we don’t act like Izuku is special, if we get some more worldbuilding by showing what people like Shoto do with multiple Quirks, how that has been a mental struggle for him and hence allows Izuku and Shoto to both develop their relationship by trading notes on how to do it. 

Or, it can be an opportunity to show the danger Izuku faces that the Nomu face: what happens when you have more Quirks than your mind and body can handle? Then you can bring in Dr. Yoshida, Kurogiri, the science behind Nomu, and actually delve into how evil All For One and Garaki are, the hope Aizawa and Mic have at the potential of bringing back Shirakumo, and keep moving forward with the elements you already have to your story rather than disposing the Nomu as just raw muscle, plot devices, and empty characters. It opens up questions for Izuku: by getting all of these additional Quirks, could his mind get warped? Is Izuku becoming inhuman? The boy is already a bundle of nerves, anxiously talking to himself, muttering his way through all that he knows about Quirks--what happens when he has a momentary slip-up and over-reacts, mistaking an error anyone makes for one where he thinks he is losing his mind? That’d be relatable for readers, especially when dealing with forgetfulness due to anxiety or this godawful ongoing COVID pandemic world we’re in--and it’d be a silly notion for Izuku, of course he’s fine, it’s a fear that quickly would be corrected by everyone around him. But it sets up a contrast that is worth exploring: what happens when the smartest person risks losing himself due to too much physical power? This is literally Bruce Banner and the Hulk--and Horikoshi whiffed at even trying to get his comic book nerd on there. 

The Izuku/Bakugo/Shoto dynamic never worked for me

Yet why should he be? Especially with how popular Bakogou and Shoto where, why couldnt they just stay on a simmilar level and take on the main vilian 3 on 1. I mean even Naruto did that (even if Kaguay was bad for unrelated reasons)

This is a “me” problem, but I don’t like the chemistry of Izuku, Bakugo, and Shoto. Izuku is too meek, Shoto is so passive despite having a fiery temper when pushed, Bakugo is too violent and angry. This isn’t id-ego-supergo, this isn’t Kirk, Bones, and Spock, it isn’t Wonder Girl, Starfire, and Raven, it isn’t Batman, Booster Gold, and Ted Kord, it’s just a mess. Izuku and Shoto are both too passive to balance Bakugo, Shoto and Bakugo are too fiery for the meek Izuku to get to do much, Shoto and Bakugo have far better chemistry bouncing off of each other alone due to shared temper but different elements of releasing it (think Kirk and Spock). 

I have not sat through the entirety of the third and fourth films to see how they coordinate well in combat, but I also don’t like sitting through movies just for gorgeous animation and fight sequences--I want a good story that pushes character progression, even for the movie-only characters, and when the third and fourth movies are instead about the progression of Rody, Giulio, and Anna, I don’t care about Bakugo and Shoto, and Izuku is pretty much just the Matthew McConaughey chaos agent there to cause change, not to be changed. (I took that description of McConaughey from Patton Oswalt. And, disclaimer: fucking hell, Oswalt, stop stanning transphobes like Chapelle, Jesus.) 

I think I get your point about Izuku, Bakugo, and Shoto being better served for the story if they were more like a Naruto trio, as Naruto, Sakura, and either Sasuke or Sai. But I almost think the better option would be like One Piece, where it’s not that any of the three stay at the same level, but that their involvement in the plot and their power scaling depends on the arc, situation, setting, and opponent. Izuku, Bakugo, and Shoto don’t have to stay at similar level: it’d actually help similar to One Piece is any of them feel like the Sanji or the Nami or the Usopp or even the Zoro where they feel like they failed to keep up or failed at a task. Or, think Maka, Black Star, and Kid: Maka repeatedly felt like she was falling behind two gods, why not have Izuku thinking he’s falling behind, then, boom, he has new Quirks and risks falling even further behind rather than using these new powers to pass them by. 

There is that moment in the Sports Festival where it is Izuku slamming down the metal shielding to explode past Bakugo and Shoto: I wish that had been their dynamic for the rest of the series, the three in competition to get ahead of the others. I don’t think the manga ever topped the Sports Festival arc, and I think losing that potential dynamic between these three characters as shown in that explosion is one reason. Izuku had that drive; what happened to that drive after the Sports Festival? Shoto thankfully mellows out after Izuku sets him straight on his Quirk being his alone, not Endeavor’s, but now he lacks the same action-y forward momentum, more of his story being a mature introspective focus on how he mentally grapples with his father both being his greatest enemy and his best mentor at using the same Quirk they have, but as I said, while mature and introspective, it’s not something easy to visual in an illustrated manga that has to use images to tell its story. And Bakugo is just the worst. 

Kill off Shigaraki earlier

Especially with how the whole "saving Tenko" thing basically went nowhere, and could as well not have been introduced - might as well show AFO taking Tenko totally over to drive the point how evil potatoe man is way earlier and then focus the fight on guts and everyone working together - cliche, but doesnt bait the audience with some redemption and reform Hori obviously doesnt want to adress.

My friend has an idea about how to fix “saving Tenko.” We’ll get to that another time, when they are ready to share it. 

Tenko/Shigaraki coming to realize he was a hero to villains, then getting subsumed by All For One, should have been the end of his story. It’d be tragic, but the ending for him already was: if you’re going to kill him off, just do it once and be done with it. Typically a play works better with only one twist; to reverse that twist by having Shigaraki re-assert himself just to die again ruins the twist. 

This could have been salvaged with better visuals: Shigaraki and Izuku both ending All For One could have been visually dynamic, where now Shigaraki is where All Might stood alongside Izuku in the first film to deliver the final punch. Imagine if you staged that image where it is Izuku (in the real world) and Shigaraki (just imagined and hence only a vestige), with an image of All MIght in the same pose as Izuku, and an image of Nana in the same pose as Shigaraki, delivering the last attack on All For One. We are in the eyes of All For One, we are seeing what he sees--or maybe he’s imagining it, and it is freaking him out all the more, the legacy of Nana and All Might in Shigaraki and Izuku, finally ending him. 

But we didn’t get that image; we got something that looks more like Shigaraki and Izuku punching at each other. It’s not even Shigaraki doing that punch to send Decay or One For All back into Izuku. (I’m not saying I would want that ending, I hated that ending in the second film, but it would have justified the worse visuals we got instead of what I think is the better option I’m offering.)

To get back to what I was saying about reversing your twist: just do the one twist, All For One reasserting himself, our last image of Shigaraki is him dying in horrible fashion, his entire life has been suffering, he gets no final words with Izuku, nothing to say to Spinner. Make it hurt. Then you have to have Izuku, Spinner, and the rest making sense of this with each other, not with any direction by Shigaraki, so that they get to be their own characters, not just enacting Shigaraki’s will. It sucks to keep Shigaraki a permanent victim throughout the story, but maybe this story needed one character who is utterly destroyed and a victim--not a Star and Stripe who manages to offer one or two advantages to save the heroes, not Izuku still getting a full life after losing his Quirk, just someone who was groomed from the beginning and never had a chance, so that, when Scissors Boy is saved by Granny, that is our vicarious resolution and higher state, someone who unknowingly carries on the legacy of what Shigaraki could have been if he had been given a chance. 

Does that mean we keep the Force Ghost of Shigaraki there looking at Izuku in the final chapter? I don’t know--I don’t even like that artwork, Shigaraki looks off-model, the image does not convey that it is a spirit and just looks like bad layering of the art. 

Shueisha owes its mangaka more

But even speaking of Hori, i dunno, even his comments about "oh if Hero Academia didnt succeed,  I would have quited being a mangaka" - like other magazines dont exist, like there aren't any other alternatives, like a story can be succesful without going for hundreds of chapter - seems to be the same attitude. 

Horikoshi gets to live his own life: if he would have changed careers if this manga did not work out for him, that is his decision, I respect it, he should do what makes him happy but also should keep doing illustrations that fulfill him as a hobby, as work, or whatever he wants. I will not hold that against him, and I would not hold it against him that he had a mindset of, if this doesn’t work, I give up. 

I’m also less interested in criticizing Horikoshi’s mindset because of what you are pointing out. 

Yes, there are other magazines--and we see how difficult it is to get a pilot manga accepted by any, to get that one-shot to be successful, to get through the first year of publishing, and to attract an audience, advertisers, vendors, and anime producers. 

Yes, a story can be successful without going for hundreds of chapters--but try telling that to the worst people on the Internet. (The stupidest video I sat through this week, more obsessed with what didn’t work with a Hollywood company, than whether their films were any good.) 

Horikoshi could be satisfied with a good story that didn’t last for hundreds of chapters--but we see how enough dicks online are just the worst about good stories that ended before their time or before they were given a chance. Just to name a few from the Shueisha/Viz camp: Magu-chan, Candy Flurry, and Ginka and Gluna all deserved better. 

It’s the equivalent of so many YouTube videos and online essays lifting up some stories and denigrating others: “This manga is the best manga ever!” “This creator is the GOAT!” “This moment in animation changed everything!” Well, why not talk about the stuff that demonstrates good craftswork, is competent or even excellent, is not necessarily the first ever or the best ever but is something someone enjoys and digs into why it works? People do enjoy My Hero Academia without thinking it is the best (it is not), that Horikoshi is the GOAT (he is not)--but because the story has its really good points, that Horikoshi is really talented and one of the best (of many who are also some of the best), and it is fine to just be good enough or excellent, not perfect, not superior, not comparatively better, just really, really good. 

Sidebar: Oumagadoki Zoo had the same problems with ending

Also, just going to throw this out there: Oumagadoki Zoo had one of the worst endings I have read in a manga for some time, refusing to commit to its sad ending, leaving the door open to more stories that would have continued all that worked so well in the previous arcs and world being built but didn’t get the chance it deserved, so I kind of wonder whether Horikoshi has struggled with endings before due to publishing power dynamics outside of his control, or a refusal to commit to something going really bad and not dealing with the darkness that brings. 

Granted, though, Oumagadoki Zoo is more often lighthearted than horrifying, so I can’t blame him for canceling out the pseudo-deaths he introduced just a few pages earlier--at least readers were not traumatized by those pseudo-deaths and got the equivalent of Tinkerbell coming back to life by the readers just believing enough. 

We need to take care of our health. (And I don’t like horror stories.)

But lets see if he actually does the Horror manga or if his health really declined as badly as many fear, in the later case, maybe he just got depressed, cause bad health sucks, I ain't gonna lie…

My petulance: despite running a Soul Eater fan blog, despite what I teach and research, I am not a big fan of horror in visual content (I can read it, I don’t like watching it or seeing it). And I tend to prefer a good story over good visuals, so I don’t know whether a horror manga by Horikoshi will appeal to me. 

And yes, health problems are serious--not ignoring what I am going through with health problems and what people I know are going through as COVID persists, mental health problems persist, and aging, lack of accessibility, and physical health problems persist. And all of that is an indictment against me, as I am failing at being more sympathetic to Horikoshi when I am highly critical of how My Hero Academia wrapped up.