#horikoshi WHOM?

[alena-draws]

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Iida is a character whom I didn't think I'd come to like so much over the course of the series. At first I thought he was your typical megane-super stiff guy, but Horikoshi made him into a really great character who's such a good friend to the main cast!

[makeste]

Plus One For All

so guys. can we talk about how there’s somebody chilling out inside of Katsuki’s mind who’s not supposed to be there.

hello there Mister All Might Vestige sir. you should not exist, just FYI. you’re not some Nighteye-type plot hallucination. because if you were, you would not be appearing here as Cloud Might, a version of yourself whom Katsuki has never met and has no frame of reference for. ergo he did not imagine you. ergo you are, in fact, real.

which means Katsuki has One For All.

because that’s the only way he could have a Vestige -- which is indisputably what this is -- inside of him. he has OFA. so. where did he get it. how does he have it. and why is it only making its presence known now.

let’s discuss.

okay so I’m going to try and lay this all out as clearly as possible while also attempting to be as succinct as I can. but knowing me, I’m probably going to wind up sacrificing the latter in pursuit of the former. I’ll do my best though. here goes.

1. Heroes Rising is canon.

which is a fact we’ve recently been reminded of not once, but twice -- first with the appearance of Katsuma and Mahoro in chapter 405, and then in chapter 406 with the “Bakugou no Kacchan” callback. the timing of this almost certainly isn’t coincidental. Horikoshi wants this to be fresh in our minds.

mind you, it is extremely unusual for movies, even technically!canon ones, to actually be relevant to the plot. but BnHA may be one of the few exceptions. we’ve already seen movie 1 impact the series both with Star & Stripe’s backstory, and with Deku’s new gauntlets. so there’s precedent, and it’s something I am paying very close attention to.

2. Deku giving OFA to Bakugou is canon.

just in case anyone here hasn’t yet seen or been spoiled for Heroes Rising, that is in fact what happens in that film! so yeah, that certainly seems like an extremely relevant detail right about now.

3. we never found out why and how Deku got OFA back at the end of the movie.

okay so I was looking for a clip to link before we discuss this next part, but I unfortunately couldn’t find one that hadn’t been edited to avoid copyright issues, so you’ll just have to make do with this.

skip ahead to about 7:10 for the relevant part. for the purposes of this theory, we’re just going to ignore everything All Might says here, because tbh he has no fucking clue what’s actually going on and is just guessing wildly lol. however, I do want you to take note of one thing which will be important later. and that’s the fact that, when OFA “returns” to Deku’s body, it’s only his body which starts glowing, and notably not Kacchan’s. the latter just keeps lying there unglowingly. nothing to indicate any kind of transfer is actually happening between him and Deku, in other words.

moving on.

4. OFA and AFO are probably the same quirk.

as summarized here and here. which is relevant because if they are the same quirk, or close to it, then OFA can most likely do anything AFO can do. so file that away for later.

5. AFO was able to split his quirk and give it to Tomura while still keeping a piece of it for himself.

what’s more, he was able to do the same with Garaki/Ujiko’s quirk, and presumably other quirks as well. while it’s possible that this quirk duplication has nothing to do with AFO and is simply something Garaki was able to figure out using ~*~Science~*~, I think it’s more likely that the two of them used AFO’s quirk in some way to accomplish this feat. particularly since Tomura not only received AFO, but a bunch of its stored up quirkdata as well, such as the information stored in Ragdoll’s stolen Search quirk.

6. OFA responds to Deku’s feelings and desires.

or at least this is the case according to Banjou in chapter 213. recall this interesting conversation on how Deku first activated Blackwhip.

he was thinking that he wanted to capture Monoma, and so OFA obediently activated his “capture Monoma” quirk. despite him being unaware he even had said quirk. it responded to his need, even though he wasn’t consciously trying to activate anything.

now then, let’s revisit that scene in Heroes Rising one more time.

7. during the climax of Heroes Rising, Deku was NOT thinking, “I need to give OFA to Kacchan.”

here’s the scene one more time for reference. this time you’re gonna want to skip to about 3:57.

here’s where we are going to get extremely technical, because this scene right here is the key to everything. Deku’s lines in this scene are, and I quote: “a way we can protect [everyone]... there’s just one way...!” but he very notably does not specify exactly what that “one way” is.

until we get to this scene a minute or so later, which spells it out for us very clearly.

two One For Alls. as in, “with two One For Alls, we could win this battle and save everyone.”

that’s what he was thinking at the moment of the “transfer.” NOT, “give OFA to Kacchan.” but, “we need two One For Alls.”

which, I think, may have made all the difference.

8. OFA created a copy of itself to share with Kacchan, so that both of them could have OFA and use the two OFAs to defeat Nine.

let’s recap. OFA is AFO. AFO can clone itself. so it stands to reason that OFA can presumably clone itself as well. and that’s exactly what Deku wanted to do. make a second One For All.

he didn’t know that he could do that. but as previously established in the Blackwhip incident, OFA is more than capable of making its own executive decisions in key moments just like this in order to help him out.

which would mean that what we saw at the end of Heroes Rising was not OFA being transferred from Bakugou back over to Deku. it was actually just Deku’s OFA briefly self-activating (possibly in response to his delirious apology to All Might -- kind of a “no worries bro, you’ve still got your quirk actually, so go back to sleep and stop stressing over it” type of thing). and Kacchan’s OFA doing... absolutely nothing. it didn’t actually transfer back into Deku. it didn’t actually go anywhere.

let me repeat that: it didn’t actually go anywhere.

in other words, Kacchan still has OFA. and has had it ever since Heroes Rising. he just didn’t realize it. and neither did anybody else.

9. Kacchan’s OFA went dormant once Nine was defeated.

okay, so. remember all of this exposition from chapter 304?

basically, if someone who already has a quirk receives OFA, using it will slowly destroy their body until it kills them. the Vestiges learned this from All Might while he was researching the past generations of OFA in chapter 241, incidentally. Heroes Rising takes place right around this same time (immediately following MVA if I recall). so by the time the film’s climax rolled around, the Vestiges would have known that giving OFA to Kacchan could have devastating consequences down the line if they did not take action immediately after the fight.

so they did.

once Nine was defeated, the Vestiges shut the whole thing down. the crisis was averted, and they no longer had need of a second OFA. they have this boy who is way too similar to Deku in terms of his willingness to put himself in harm’s way in order to achieve his goals. and they absolutely do not want any harm befalling this boy. more on that momentarily.

so they go dark. and they even seal his memory so that he’s no longer aware of even having the quirk. they are essentially in sleep mode. and if circumstances hadn’t eventually become desperate enough to force their hand, they might have remained inactive for the rest of Katsuki’s life.

now, you might be wondering to yourself, “why is OFA willing to go to such unusual lengths in order to protect Katsuki?” and well, the answer to that is pretty simple.

10. Kacchan does not have the same version of OFA as Deku.

Deku is ninth gen. Katsuki, however, is tenth gen. which means that his version of OFA has one additional Vestige. a Vestige whose presence immediately explains why OFA is so goddamn determined to protect him at all costs.

:’)

long story short, while Deku’s version of OFA has proven itself all too willing to enable him in his increasingly suicidal mission, Katsuki’s version of OFA is very much a different story, on account of it being under the management of what I’m guessing is the most willful Vestige ever to exist. and said management being just the slightest bit unhinged when it comes to Katsuki’s safety in particular. seriously, you can’t tell me this is not exactly how a Deku!Vestige would behave. “oh hell no. no OFA for you!! and no memories either, because you can’t be trusted, goddammit. we never should have done this. what the hell were we thinking. if anything happens to him I will kill everyone in this room and then myself.”

so yeah. dormant.

right up until they literally couldn’t afford to be anymore.

11. OFA can self-activate in moments of crisis to protect its user.

Sports Festival. chapter 33. Deku vs. Shinsou.

aw yeah. it’s all coming together.

12. OFA reactivated itself in order to save Katsuki’s life.

I would now like to briefly draw your attention to this scene from chapter 405, in which Edgeshot explains how Katsuki was finally saved. please note my man is very clear that he did not restart Katsuki’s heart himself. he was basically just performing quirk CPR up until Katsuki’s own quirk returned him to life apropros of nothing.

“what brought you back... was the power you’ve honed.”

except... that should have been impossible. because Katsuki was dead. meaning he should not have been able to activate his quirk on his own, on account of the whole “being dead” thing.

however, if he by chance had a quirk with just enough of a mind of its own to activate in critical situations in order to help its user. situations like being forced under mind control. or, perhaps, being stabbed through the heart. well then. that would certainly go a long way towards explaining all of this.

and oh hey, when exactly was it that we saw this guy, again?

oh? it happened at the exact moment when his heart was stabbed through? you don’t say. well that certainly is interesting.

in summary:

Deku cloned his quirk in Heroes Rising and gave Kacchan a copy of OFA. owing to the hyperprotective Deku!Vestige inside Kacchan’s copy of OFA, it shut itself down once Nine was defeated, and all of Katsuki’s memories of having OFA were deliberately wiped, or sealed away. OFA itself remained inactive until TomurAFO stabbed Katsuki through the heart, at which point OFA was forced to reactivate itself to save his life. which it did, by forcibly restarting his heart.

that’s it. no idea how close to the money any of this is, but I think it would explain most of the lingering mysteries and questions about what exactly is going on with Katsuki. and I’ll throw in one last observation as well -- Katsuki has a nine in his name (BaKUgou), but not a ten. which I know sort of contradicts what I was saying earlier about him being the tenth gen, lol. but he both is and isn’t. if Deku split his quirk, Kacchan would in theory receive everything that’s currently in Deku’s quirk right now, and that includes Deku’s own power that he’s been adding to the mix. so he’d still have the Deku!Vestige. but he’s also still ninth gen, because he and Deku are sharing that distinction now. or at least I think the argument could be made at any rate.

so yeah. I’ve been obsessing over all of this for the past few days lol. what do you guys think?

[weebsinstash]

You can totally correct me if I'm wrong but I'm kinda sitting here thinking like

Did anyone actually ever... have a conversation with Bakugou about how he treated Midoriya. Did anyone ever actually like learn more details about how Izuku was abused and called Bakugou out. Did anyone ever actually comfort Izuku for being bullied even one time

Was it ever addressed in any sort of way that Bakugou's competitive and aggressive behavior was a direct result of how his mom is. Did anyone ever side-eye his mom for being physically and verbally abusive. Was it ever discussed that her behavior was inappropriate and is actually abuse and that she's greatly responsible for the antisocial behaviors her son has.

Were any of Todoroki's classmates ever depicted as like, mildly upset at finding out their classmate is abused. Were any of them horrified to learn his birth was literally eugenics. Did anyone ever display any sympathy for him besides Izuku. Did any of his classmates hold anger or resentment for Endeavor or did they think it was ok he kept being a Hero. Was there ever any consequences for Endeavor. Did he ever even like, go to jail, or, lose his job, or was the only consequence that Dabi, the other abused eugenics child who was so traumatized by it all he started basically burning himself to death, lost his life

Did Tomura literally just die without getting to say good bye to any of his friends, who were also victims and most of whom also died. Did he ever get to learn it was AFO who made him kill his family and that it wasnt his fault. Did he ever get any closure for literally anything at all.

Did anyone from the Hero Association ever actually like, get in trouble for the whole "we've been adopting kids to turn into weapons of the state including making people like Lady Nagant assassinate people" thing. Is Hero Society fundamentally being changed at all after all these huge enormous reveals.

I'm just kind of sitting here wondering why, in a conversation about heroes and ethics and being morally righteous, Horikoshi also sort of quietly normalized or, at least didn't deeply discuss some things that were actually pretty important and directly related to conversations the story was already trying to have. I think though it might also be in part to certain Japanese cultural practices where they believe certain personal and family matters should be kept private, but it's just sort of like. Golly gee there's sure a lot of normalizing and accepting of abuse in this supposedly heroic power fantasy manga! I kind of find it hard to believe there's not a single single person in class 1A who doesn't like Bakugou and that everyone is just best friends! Maybe I'm just a hateful bitch but I'd be glaring at Endeavor every single time he entered my line of sight and I'd be outspoken on how he should quit his fucking job and go to prison! Maybe it's just weird I think more students would be dropping out to get jobs that are heroic but isnt actual costume wearing vigilanteism after finding out that the people who are their bosses are corrupt pieces of shit who basically control society from the shadows! Maybe it's just me!

[haine-kleine]

when I attempt to analyze Todoroki Touya's character, I get a distinct feeling Horikoshi's spreadsheet for him before chapter 290 looked like this:

'DABI IS TODOROKI TOUYA (hint at him being Todoroki Touya as much as possible) (make something up for his backstory later)

that's not how you write a secret evil relative subplots. the goal shouldn't be making the reveal as dramatic as possible. especially in the corruption 'break the cutie' type of stories. to make the readers feel for this character, you shouldn't be dedicating your time to teasing them with the possibility of the reveal, you need to also tell the actual damn story.

and Horikoshi just. forgot to do that.

to make the reveal hold any weight and not just serve as a delayed gratification clickbait after years of teasing the readers, you have to establish who the character actually was before they became the villain. if you don't do this, the reveal alone won't do anything to make the audience sympathize with the character, because by that point it will be too late to sway the established opinion with an angsty backstory alone.

Arcane tells a very similar story of the family conflict, but to have the audience be interested in the sisters reunion, to have them feel bad for Jinx despite the horrible acts she commits, you have to first see Powder, the troubled unfortunate and insecure child who loved her sister. only once we are emotionally attached to that innocent and unfairly suffering character, we will start questioning her motives and our emotions once the corruption starts.

if you show the before as a sympathetic character, the after becomes painful not only to the in-universe characters affected by what their once close person had become. if you show the after and hold off the before until after the characters have already reacted to the identity revealing event, your audience will react with 'cool motive, still murder', because they never developed any emotional attachment to said character, no matter how much you make them cry in the flashbacks.

loose reimagining of the family arc under the cut.

and it was so stupid to skip this step because Horikoshi didn't even have to do much. the first point of view we have on the Todoroki family history is Shouto, the youngest sibling who had been isolated from the rest for most of his life. he didn't know much about his siblings, but let him know something! especially with how closely his and Touya's stories are paralleled by design, he should know about Touya the most out of anyone, and Touya is the sibling he should be most curious about.

think about it from Enji and Shouto's pov. Touya was the heir Endeavor created for fulfilling his dream, and after Fuyumi he wasn't planning on having more kids. it was Touya's incompatibility with his own quirk, the eugenics experimentation failure, that is the only reason Natsuo and Shouto even exist. and Shouto is the chosen heir, perfectly fulfilling all conditions demanded by Enji. so he trains him like he wanted to train Touya, but that's not all of it. while Shouto is genetically fit to be a perfect replacement for the role Enji had prepared for Touya, his father had never emotionally connected with him the way he did with Touya. and he made sure Shouto was aware of that, because he talked to Shouto about Touya.

Shouto, who had been miserable because of his father for most of his life, knows that Touya was the older brother who should have been in his place, and he escaped that place. he stopped his training and left the dojo to live a normal life, together with his siblings. and Shouto wanted to have that life more than anything. he begged his father to let him join his siblings, he wistfully observed them through the windows, he imagined what his siblings are like, he asked his mother about them. and the entire time, the sibling he knew the most about was Touya, his eldest brother whom he had to replace as father's training dummy.

there's so much space for depth in there! you can do so much by briefly sharing the intensity of Shouto's complicated feelings, by giving a bare glimpse of his rumination about his siblings. just don't lump them all together into a faceless blob of happy children that unhappy little Shouto wanted to join, because their history is so much deeper than that.

inserting the flashback of Enji talking to Shouto about Touya during the Sports Festival arc would have been the best way to set up the intrigue. just a bare glimpse of Enji using Touya as the example little Shouto was failing to follow, cut to Shouto observing his three siblings through the window.

and that would be enough to connect the initial story threads of the Todoroki family and nudge the readers in the right direction. Iida also has an older brother who is a hero. with that example in mind Shouto not mentioning Touya at all would be suspicious enough to have people start questioning the mysterious older brother's identity, because surely, if the number one hero, who trained Shouto to be the most proficient hero in his class trained his older brother as well he would be a licenced hero already?

then, the lack of said brother's presence in the story starts to become glaring. the simple mention for Enji having trained Touya and telling Shouto how good his brother was with his quirk, separates him from the faceless group of Shouto's civilian siblings who are out there doing their boring civilian stuff and not necessarily needed to be in this story about kids becoming heroes. Touya being dead is a reveal put away for later, but to drive up the intrigue, he needs to be a ghost haunting the narrative. make it inconsistent and confusing, make characters talk about him and omit saying anything outright.

then you can use Natsuo as a red herring by not introducing the siblings by names when they visit Rei together. he's Shouto's older brother, he is weirdly hostile to Endeavor, he lives away from the family. well, this checks out. but wasn't this weirdly anticlimactic?.. also didn't he say he doesn't do well in hot temperatures?

later, during the Todoroki family dinner arc introduce Natsuo by name and confuse the readers even more, because the new brother turned out to not be Touya whom we have been anticipating to meet since Shouto had first talked about his family. make Shouto, who is still adjusting to being able to interact with his siblings, start asking about their childhood. he wants to express that happiness he feels about being together with them, so he wonders out loud if Touya also felt this happy when father allowed him to play with Fuyumi and Natsuo more. his brother and sister's faces turn weirdly grim at that remark. Fuyumi offers some stories from their childhood, trying to lighten the mood. that's the readers first proper glimpse at Touya in the flashbacks. Fuyumi talks about him always being on his computer, how impossible it was to drag him outside to play. Natsuo reminisces how the slightest stretch of intense activity was enough to have him fall to the ground and refuse to get up. Fuyumi talks about the time Touya and herself made 8 years old Natsuo carry both of them. Natsuo proudly reports that he didn't even break his back. the atmosphere in the room is light and comfortable, Shouto listening to their stories with undivided attention, his eyes glistening. after a moment of idle silence, Natsuo glances at him. he tells Shouto how usually it's hard to read his face, because he is so unexpressive. but he remembers when Shouto was little he was a total crybaby, just like Touya was.

with the picture of Touya the child painted and the question about adult Touya up in the air, Enji can join the dinner. Natsuo storms off and Shouto follows him and Enji, not understanding what caused his chill older brother to act like this. Fuyumi attempts to hold him back, to no avail. she doesn't want Shouto to hear what Natsuo has to say to their father. she also is no longer sure that keeping him in the dark is the correct decision. she sighs, 'mother, what should I do?'. she is too young for this.

insert Midoriya into the family dinner if you want your dramatic storytelling, and have him timidly ask Fuyumi why did their older brother not join them for dinner. cut to Shouto hiding behind the door, listening to Natsuo's shouts about Enji abandoning him and Fuyumi, stealing their mom and Shouto from them, ruining Shouto's childhood. 'but you know what you will never be forgiven for, not even in hell?' Natsuo asks, tears streaming down his face. cut to-

'Touya is dead', Fuyumi tells Midoriya, his pleasant smile frozen on his face, eyes growing wide.

cut back to Shouto, hyperventilating behind the palms covering his face. he doesn't even notice sliding down the wall. he barely registers the heavy footsteps of Enji going back in his direction and he can't be bothered to care about his eavesdropping being discovered. his mind is still echoing Natsuo's words on repeat.

'you can play hero all you want, but you know what you really are is a murderer'.

boom. hook, line and sinker. no need to have the characters spell out who thinks what, the '[Natsuo thinks that] Enji killed Touya' was so stupidly unnecessary it turned a mystery drama thriller Todoroki subplot into a Law and Order episode. let the characters speak their minds and reach their own conclusions! when they learn something horrible, don't send the good and righteous character rushing to correct their assumption. let Shouto be actually curious about what happened to the members of his family, let him learn their different perspectives! dont make the Todoroki Touya reveal into a singular event, an award for the readers who have been arguing about it for years. turn it into something that holds weight for the actual characters inside the story, a mystery, an investigation with the reveal being at the finishing line the characters themselves need to reach, not an inescapable event that will happen despite the characters' actions.

letting Dabi interact with the non-Enji Todorokis wouldn't have ruined the mystery, it would have given much more depth the all the characters, defined the actual drama they are going through, given them more individuality by allowing them to have different opinions on the situation instead of joining them into a Frankenstein mindless blob of 'family' taking their collective 'responsibility'.

make Dabi and Shouto's first meeting an uncomfortably long moment of staring, Dabi looking at Shouto with sad condescension, Shouto being visibly confused by the villain's loaded expression. make this about the characters themselves, and not about the readers being smart enough to connect the only villain with a flame quirk to the only family of flame quirk users.

let Natsuo and Dabi meet, make Dabi kill Hood for attacking his brother because his father was too late. make Natsuo question the villain's identity together with the readers, make him and Shouto join their efforts to unfold the mystery of what had happened to their older brother.

the question should never have been 'is Dabi Touya Todoroki?' asked by the author to his readers. it should have been 'what does Dabi being Touya Todoroki mean to the characters associated with him?'. and it should have been answered by the characters themselves.

[akariss]

Mha chapter 410 spoilers ‼️

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Bakugou being the one to defeat AFO is such a great move when we take into account that he blamed himself for All Might’s reign coming to an end when in reality, that was AFO’s doing. Bakugou being able to defeat the heavy weight that he carried on his shoulders for so long is just incredible to me

Now, Midoriya being the one who will eventually defeat Shigaraki is also a fantastic move from Horikoshi’s side. Two formidable successors to two powerful individuals, both whom were respected and feared, albeit for different reasons,,, it just feels right that he’s the one who will defeat Shigaraki, the threat who has been looming over him since the beginning of the series, especially now when the two of them are paralleling their respective masters

Bakugou and Midoriya defeating their own corresponding villains, both of these which tormented their every move after a certain point in their lives, is just going to be so rewarding and well done. Horikoshi knew how to choose each of their fights and I’m glad for that fact every single day. I love peak

[stillness-in-green]

Chapter 423 Thoughts: Further Reading

I'm going to try to clear out some inbox/message/AO3 comment backlog in the next week, but in the meantime, having gotten my own post up on the chapter, I also want to share some posts from others that are in a similar vein as my own thoughts, or that I otherwise find worthwhile.

From @codenamesazanka: 

Nal has been doing a lot of post-writing and ask-answering since the leaks first dropped, and it’s all on-point, but there are a few posts I want to specifically link to:

Firstly, this post on how the U.A. kids in general and Deku specifically have, despite fans’ expectations, long been underprepared to truly acknowledge and address the structural problems of the system they’re upholding, as well as how Deku bears that out in the Edgy Deku arc.

Secondly, this post is on how the warning signs for this ending have been there all along offers a good concise rundown of some key places where, if Deku had ever cared about Shigaraki Tomura as a person (rather than just the Crying Child as a metaphorical construct), we should have seen him acting differently than he did. 

Thirdly and fourthly, these two posts talk about the Japanese BNHA fandom’s response to the chapter.  I think it’s interesting and worthwhile to consider the target audience/native culture’s response to a work when possible—there’s a lot you can learn about a story and its author’s intentions by knowing how the story’s audience is receiving it!  It can tell you about the audience the story is written for, what the values infusing the story are understood to be, whether those values align with the values of the audience, whether the author is trying to be populist or challenging, and so forth.

The culture gap between Horikoshi and his Western/U.S.ian audience can result in a lot of crossed wires, and checking how the Japanese BNHA fandom is reacting to the story can clarify some of that confusion.  It is, of course, up to the individual to decide how much to mitigate one’s own response to the story in light of that culture gap; I don’t think any creator is owed unquestioning carte blanche just because they’re from a culture with different popular values.  I certainly wouldn’t want someone in Japan watching, for example, Top Gun: Maverick and concluding that it’s beyond criticism because the fetishization of military hardware is just American culture!  Having at least some grasp on the author’s personal context is thus helpful in balancing open-mindedness and critical thinking when analyzing/critiquing a work.

(So, just to be clear, I understand the cultural context of Deku "saving Shigaraki's heart" being considered a worthwhile victory even in the absence of saving his *checks notes* life. I just disagree in the strongest possible terms.)

For good measure, have another post about the disparity between how destructive Deku’s focus on the Crying Child is to any chance Hero Society has to improve in the future.     

From @itsnothingofinterest: 

This reblog of an older post discussing the increasing power of quirks over the generations and how that problem would logically intersect with the precedents Deku sets here.  Bleak stuff!      

From @class1akids: 

First, this post runs through some of the fans’ desperate attempts to second-guess Shigaraki dying here but explains the various ways each would be in some fashion unsatisfying, because there’s no solution that doesn’t ruin some key aspect of the story.

Second, this very short post raises a very good point—one I hadn’t considered!—about how Shouto may not have talked as much to Dabi as Ochaco did to Toga, but Shouto’s always valued actions over words, and his actions indicate loud and clear how much he wanted to save Dabi.  And in ways that thematically tie into his arc about how he perceives and defines his quirk, no less!  It’s not about Chapter 423, as such, but it’s a very instructional contrast between Deku and Shouto, the latter of whom was actually trying to both stop and save the Villain he was fighting, the former of whom…was not.     

From @linkspooky: 

Spooky’s got a pair of posts contrasting BNHA with Yu-Gi-Oh GX, both of which are very long and very worth reading.  I don’t know if they were always intended to be companion posts—the first one was posted last month, and the second less than 48 hours after the leaks landed—but they function well in that capacity now.

The Supreme King Judai vs. Dark Deku: How To Do a Dark Deconstruction of your Shonen Hero! is an arc comparison post between the titular arcs and discusses in detail the way GX’s Judai and BNHA’s Deku are put through the paces of a dark hero arc, and why Judai’s works and Deku’s doesn’t.  What it boils down is that GX is willing to let Judai make the bad decisions his prior characterization always foreshadowed that he would make, leading him to fail, horribly, in consequential, lasting ways that paint him as being very much in the wrong.  BNHA, conversely, has the characterization foreshadowing but is unwilling to the point of open terror of letting Deku fail or be wrong in ways that will actually do lasting damage to him, his friends, or his relationships.  This is the same core problem the overarching series faces, and thus, while not about Chapter 423 itself, this piece is an excellent preface for the next one.

Shigaraki Vs. Yubel: How To Save Your Villain deals with the total collapse of BNHA as a story due to the way it fails to recognize Deku killing Shigaraki as a failure of its main character’s personal arc.  In comparison to GX’s resolution of Judai and Yubel’s relationship, It describes the story BNHA seemed to be promising us it would tell in its endgame, then discusses how that story is fundamentally broken by its actual depiction of Deku’s actions wrt Shigaraki and the other Villains Deku faces.  I particularly enjoy the breakdown of why the language of “forgiveness” thrown around by Deku and Ochaco is so wrong-headed and off-base.

A handful of pithy witticisms and bleak humor:

At least we’ll always have Spinaraki.

Imagine the story we’d have gotten if Deku had walked out into the hallway and thrown it into the nearest trashcan.

This would have been a lot less work than the concert, admit it.

[cherryblossombombs]

I have an issue with the "the giga cover is likely fujobait" because I can't help but think:

if it was truly fujobait, why now?

Why try to get their attention if MHA is now in the 100M club? The series now so popular, hori/jump doesn't need queer shippers to increase its popularity.

Why try to get fujos and queer fans, if it's already popular in that group? Wasn't it apparently shown that MHA is more popular with women and LGBTQ+ fans?

Why try to get that audience when hori had the chance to do that back in 2016-2018 when Kr//bk was the popular gay ship? Wasn't there an interview where someone pretty much asked hori if he's for kr//bk, but instead of playing along, hori made it about bkdk (the ship that no one took seriously at the time) and said he saw the hand hold more about bkdk angst. Kr//bk was a popular ship, it had bones making official art of them. The smash parody manga had moments of it. Two heroes was their movie [I believe hori didn't really help in that movie. However, notice how in the second movie, (he was a part of that one), focused on bkdk (again, the ship no one took seriously)]. Hori had the ability to use that ship as bait, but he seemed to be the only one out of everyone else to not go for it. Instead he kept pushing for the ship that was thought to be too toxic to even become a platonic ship.

If horikoshi did not want bkdk to seen as romantic, why isn't he stopping jump for implying it? You really can't say that he has no ability to, the guy went to bones and told them the ending. Now, notice how bones suddenly stopped making iz//ch moments and added a bkdk moment in the recap episodes (something that they would never do 2 seasons prior). The assistant (whom hori is friends with) is a loud speaker of dkbk lol. Hori follows him on twitter, there's no way that hori hasn't seen his dkbk art once. Same for katsuki's JP VA (who is also a friend of Hori).

Why try to bait the audience when the manga is ending?

Idk, maybe there's a chance he is actually queerbaiting and make iz//ch canon, but again, after everything?

After the togachako arc? He had made ochako confess her crush on midoriya, only for seconds later to not only brush it off as unimportant (unimportant in the sense of it was more of way to relate to toga and speak with her, it wasn't really used as a "canon izu//ocha" moment), she tells toga that she could have ochako's blood for the rest of her life (and we know that's toga's love language of returning/accepting her feelings) and she told toga that she had the cutest smile in the whole world. Like, didn't hori say that toga was made for ochako's character? I feel like it wouldn't make sense for hori to do all of this, then have ochako end up with midoriya, it would feel like a middle finger to toga tbh.

After chapters 285, 322, 362, 367, 403, and 404? The apology? The "you're the closest one to midoriya izuku, therefore I need to kill you in order to make him go crazy". The heart shaped black whip after seeing bakugou's dying body? The "their feelings became one" double spread? this bullet point could be spread to about 2-3 document pages, but I'm just going to summarize for this post lol. But overall, these chapters (and a few more), show me (imo) that it the "fujobait" claim isn't really strong to use against bkdk.

Again, maybe this is queerbait, because I know that there are times where other media/anime have done simliar and still had the MC in a heterosexual relationship, and leave everyone dumbfounded lol. Once again, all I say to this is "let's see what happens."

P.S. Isn't this the same author who said that he thought that naruto was going to end at 698 (the implied SNS ending) lol? Idk if it's true, that's just something I've heard.

[x-kiwi-03]

I was wondering if you have any thoughts about the difference between Overhaul's story being handled compared to how Endeavor's was? I feel like Endeavor was given a better hand than Overhaul. Both in fandom spaces and in the story. I've been thinking about it and I wonder what circumstances could get Endeavor the same ending as Overhaul and vice versa. It almost makes me want to make an au to explore this.

First of all, Horikoshi likes Endeavor and he obviously doesn't like Kai. His writing is hypocritical when you comparing Kai to similar characters like Endeavor and Tomura, characters that Horikoshi actually likes.

To be fair, Endeavor has shown remorse and regret for the right people. He's put in a lot of effort and sacrifice to better his family's circumstances.

Kai has shown only remorse and regret for losing his family. He's desperate for Pops' forgiveness so he won't be thrown away (again?). Kai's making no effort to right his wrongs to the real reason he should feel guilty, Eri.

But here's the thing, Endeavor is a lot older and has had more time to figure out HOW and WHY and to whom he should feel guilty. Endeavor is also in a whole lot healthier situation to get through these feelings, to figure them out and find a way through it all.

Kai got his arms chopped off and immediately thrown in solitary for almost a year. He lost his family, freedom, and dignity in less than a day. His situation not healthy to say the least.

It's very obvious that Kai is very emotional, which is surprising given his villian arc was written as this cold and heartless capo. Solitary is what I think did most of his mental destruction. The only person he cared about would naturally be the only thing on his mind while he was all alone. He doesn't blame Eri for everything, he blames himself. He knows he's the one that messed up. Eri is still only a quirk in his eyes. How could you blame your product for losing everything and more?

Anyway, back on topic, Kai needs guidance and Endeavor was able to get through it himself, miraculously.

Also, Endeavor has been able to talk to his victims directly. Kai has had no contact to Eri, if not been separated from her more. I will forever stand by the belief that anybody else's opinions on Kai do not matter other than Eri's. Just like how Endeavor's family were the only people who's opinions mattered regarding what he did.

One thing to really remember is that Kai was a villain and Endeavor was a Hero. Kai has done no good to make up for his wrongs. And he's never, and probably will never be able to, do anything to help his case.

It's tragedy vs redemption.

Definitely make an au! I'd love to see what you'd do with it!

[isleofair]

Thank you so much for the tag, @applescabs!!! 🥰💚

Are you named after anyone? After, of all things, a 15th century noblewoman (whom I always thought was a saint, but actually wasn't, I just found out!) My mom saw an amazing statue of her on a trip and loved it, and her name, so much that she named me after her.

When was the last time you cried? I teared up a little yesterday when I got my friend's wedding invitation in the mail. The last time I properly cried was... huh. I think a couple of weeks ago, watching TV. That's a fair amount of time for me to go without crying, so go me!

Do you have kids? No, and I don't want any.

Do you use sarcasm a lot? A bit less than I used to, and not a lot in general. Only when I think it will be funny, or when I need to make an underhanded comment about something that ticked me off but I can't do much about.

What sports do you play? None. I am a very inactive person, sadly. I hope I can at least start going on more walks as the season keeps warming up.

What’s the first thing you notice about people? If they seem friendly or not.

What’s your eye colour? A very, very dark brown.

Scary movies or happy endings? Happy endings all the way. I can't handle scary stuff very well at all. 🫣

Any special talents? I'm fairly good at languages (I learned them easily in school and I usually have a decent shot at figuring out what a word might mean if it's in a language that has at least some relation to the ones I know/have studied). Sadly, the only one I'm still fluent in (besides Italian, of course) is English, because it's the only one I use regularly.

Where were you born? Italy, smack dab in the middle of the top part of the boot, lol

What are your hobbies? Writing fic, reading fic, scrolling Tumblr, playing video games (mostly just Pokémon), playing D&D, and very occasionally drawing or weaving bracelets or assembling jigsaw puzzles.

Do you have any pets? My two cats, Sasha and Misha 🥹🥹 They're tabby-and-white twins, they're almost 5 years old, and they're the ones I come home to. 💚💚

How tall are you? 164cm, although sometimes when I'm in a hurry I just say 1.65m 😅

Favourite subject in school? All the sciences and Math, though I also liked English when I started having it as a subject.

Dream job? Writing a single novel, or a trilogy or something like that, that becomes inexplicably popular, gets a movie deal, and gives me enough residuals to potentially live comfortably while bumming around on my couch writing fanfic for the rest of my life.

I am tagging (but only if they want to answer, zero pressure, as usual!) @nicoroni, @imaginatorofthings, @zimithrus1, @thekuraning, @saltedpin, @horikoshi-secret-ao3-account, @damedanedameyodamenanoyo, and anyone else who sees this and wants to play! 💖💖💖

[transhawks]

Recently me and my best friend discussed how shitty BnHA ending is and since we both also followed Naruto, my friend said this :

"Why do anyone ever think that Hawks became president is a good ending? Like, imagine Kakashi, we all know Kakashi. We've shown how he loathed being a ruler of anything and he was just wanna relax. Now imagine if Kakashi was being made Hokage, BUT he didn't have a chat with and about his father whom practically abandoned him, didn't face the student whom he adored yet tried to kill, AND he didn't have closure over the fact that his idol figure is practically the worst human alive. Can you imagine how miserable Kakashi would be? Well, that was Hawks should be! Like heck, masked-faced Kakashi showed more emotion about Obito's reveal than Hawk's over Endeavor! This is ridiculous"

Then I remember that you know Naruto too and wanna share this with you. Our burn out prodigy child soldier truly deserve better and we've actually have a case when it can be better. Although I can say Kishimoto is an excellent writer but somehow Horikoshi is WORSE.

Argh

this very good! See, it's not so much Keigo being pres that bothers me - in one, sad way, I see this as an answer, not a good one, to one of his eternal struggles of being in control of himself. I thought the answer was breaking away/freedom, but Horikoshi went and said "well, you can't be controlled/taken advantage of if you're the one doing all that", and yeah, it makes sense that Keigo essentially answering his lack of agency by becoming the one who holds the reins was an option...

But I don't think it was the "best" way for him to end up. Especially as you mentioned, that he did not do the work to get there. He had SOME, but...and this is a huge issue with the entirety of BNHA and one day when I have the strength I'll write out my feelings, but... no one earned their development, me thinks. Or some characters like Bakugou and Shouto did, but so much of the work that we needed to see was off-screened or just not...adressed. It's why Deku, Ochako, Keigo, and Enji feel so damn hollow as character narratives. The work wasn't done.

Honestly, I never thought BNHA could disappoint me more than Naruto, and I'm still broken-hearted it did, and likely due to author burnout more than anything. It still feels ...unreal, in all honesty.

[lesser-mook]

All For One pondering the shonen curse ala plot armor (my hero academia chp 385)  *My Academia Hero Notes*

*has a city busting cannon in his goddamn arm* REPEAT-use btw- not a one time expense, and all these NPC characters (most of whom DO NOT possess endurance or regen quirks btw) survive anyway.

At least a town-city busting feat, and ALL of them survived. Come on, after Jiro did that "you made my friends cry" shit, yeah Final Arc fell flat on her goddamn face. Between that, Ochako's Love Therapy Session, Rei somehow surviving Toya with no combat training, Deku's Ultimate Talk-No Jutsu Flashback--SMASH!! Shit's a joke.

And it's ironic that All For One is at the center of this L, because My Hero started regressing the moment he was removed from the board after Kamino Arc.

That's when the bullshit really started. That Lasertag dodgeball bullshit with the Exam. They immediately supplanted him with Nine (Dollar Tree AFO) then Chisaki, then that stupid as fuck Festival. Then that meaningless as fuck Joint Training Arc, just dry as fuck one after the other. After All For One was gone, the tension, the stakes just dropped.

It's not like he was running shit overseas or anything, or ran the goddamn prison, or he had a clone & the AFO they confiscated was a Perfected-Nomu which would've made more sense. This is a man who is older than 100 years old, a lot of people forget that. Man this shit was dropped hard, so mishandled.

Between Horikoshi's lack of experience, and Shonen Jump breathing down his neck-- Coulda been worse but My Hero really should've been this Generations Justice League Unlimited x Avatar The Last Airbender x Teen Titans 2003

It tried to be all of them in it's own way (Because if you notice, Horikoshi is a fanboy of Western Media), and failed to emulate a single one of them in the ways that mattered.

And the issues began & (from what i'm seeing CHP418++) will end with AFO.

So unfortunate.

pov: *loses quirk

re: *here's your quirk back

pov: *side character explodes with a blast radius that covers several blocks, we just met this woman so her death means less than nothing

re: *she survives anyway, because My Hero Academia

pov: *yer dead

re: *I'm a medic btw

OP: Oh shit?

pov: *rabbit b*tch, irrelevant to the plot, annoying, ironically gets more action shit to do solo than the 1A girls we actually know, so whomp to that (Ochako breaks shonen female lead curse) bullshit.

re: *rabbit-idiot survives, SOMEHOW survives a Nomu that can bend fucking SPACE-- what's her power? She Jump Good, & kicky. That's it. vs a power that commands a fundamental force of reality.

#Consequences (lack thereof, when it matters)

4-21-24

[makeste]

I think there’s some speculation that AFO made sure Yoichi got actual clothes and that was the discrepancy between their clothing choices. It could also be a reference to AFO’s current clothing choices

okay first of all you have the best user avatar I have ever seen on tumblr dot com, just wanted you to know that.

anyway, re: AFO, I agree he was almost certainly the one who found clothes for Yoichi. although I don't necessarily think it's some kind of self-sacrificial thing, like "I don't care if I'm out here dressed in a trash bag as long as my baby bro has something decent to wear 🥺", lol. I count five different guys in the panel right before Yoichi throws the beer can, all of whom are wearing perfectly stealable clothes. AFO's whole thing is that he does whatever he wants and takes whatever he wants. so if he wants clothes, he's getting clothes. I think it's more likely that he just didn't care about that for whatever reason. maybe he stole some quirks that kept his body from feeling cold, or thickened the soles of his feet to prevent damage, or whatnot.

but as far as Yoichi goes, it's almost akin to buying a decent case and a screen protector to make sure your cell phone doesn't get damaged. Yoichi is AFO's favorite possession, but he's weak and frail and vulnerable to the elements. so yeah, sure, get the lil dude some clothes. because you gotta make sure he doesn't up and die on you, because he's not allowed to do that, because he is yours.

like it's just so fascinating to me how he's constantly on the cusp of almost genuinely caring about his brother, but his own selfishness keeps holding him back. Yoichi is incredibly important to him, because he was his only companion during what must have been an incredibly lonely period in both their lives. Yoichi knows him better than anyone. Yoichi reads to him. Yoichi believes in him. so of course AFO is attached to him and wants him around. and he protects him and takes care of him. but it's because Yoichi can give him something that he can't get anywhere else. it's a selfish love. and that's where the whole thing ultimately falls apart. when Yoichi stopped listening to him, AFO locked him up and tried to force his obedience. and it's very strongly implied -- guess we'll see for sure in two weeks -- that when even that failed, AFO decided that if he couldn't have him, no one would.

anyway so yeah. tl;dr I'm not sure why AFO was so opposed to wearing pants for so long, but for what it's worth he did make sure Yoichi never went without. just not necessarily out of the goodness of his heart. I love their relationship though, and Horikoshi has me 100% invested in seeing how this will all ultimately play out.

[bibibbon]

And toga and twice obey after toga put a knife in his neck and Shig says "it's for your sake" like a pretty boy.

And....

I'm sorry I think this is so dumb.

Overhaul openly disrespect him. Killed his party member. And he let Toga and twice work for him...ok doing what?

Even if canon tells us what they did...it's still a dumb move on Shig's part. He could have said no.

"it's part of his revenge plan"

One we don't think it even exist.

Hi @mikeellee 👋

Agreed! It doesn't make sense at all why toga and twice would willingly follow shigaraki's plan of making them work for overhaul when overhaul

1) made a horrible impression and completely disrespected them

2) killed magne (whom from the title of big sis the league cards for a lot)

3) literally blew off compress's arm

I would assume that after the camp training arc where 3 previous leauge members got captured that the leauge may start to feel as if shigaraki doesn't actually care for them at all or the stain ideas that first attracted them to even joining the leauge in the first place.

Ita such a shame I feel like this could of been a great arc to actually challenge shigaraki's leadership and have him prove to the league that he is worthy to be their leader and that he cares for them and tries to earn their trust. I kinda of believed that this was the route that horikoshi tried going since he made shigarakis and overhaul quite the foils of eachother with overhaul having no problem in sacrificing his members compared to shigaraki who "done a poorly planned out revenge plan for magne".

I wish we got shigaraki talk about the revenge plan or imply it to the leauge because to me it felt like it was just him going with the flow and going to make overhaul taste his own medicine.

[ihatetaxes99]

I'll say it: I love the MLA, but they probably shouldn't have existed. Not in their canon state, at least.

Everything about their presence after their introductory arc only really serves to make everything to do with storytelling harder for Horikoshi. Let's remove the League from the equation for the moment. The MLA has Geten and Re-Destro, implied to be two of the more powerful characters in the series (and neither of whom were actually defeated during the MVA arc, with the latter only standing down due to losing his own faith in the battle), and that's without getting into the 100k+ foot soldiers they've got kicking around. Curious and Skeptic are fairly useless in regards to combat proficiency, but Hanabata provides another strong support pillar of the army. Even before you add in Shigaraki, Twice and Dabi, the MLA is overpowered.

And what did this lead to? A massively tangled operation where half of its members had to be unsatisfyingly knocked out off-screen because Horikoshi had accidentally made them too powerful to be conceivably beaten. And to be fair, it's a trap I fell into myself the last time I wrote them. The Liberation Army are very difficult to make threatening, because you have to gimp them in order for the heroes to not get immediately blown to pieces like a small child throwing a rock at the Berlin Wall. As it stands, they're too good.

So, in all this smug retrospect, what would I have done? Well, it's something I'm toying with for something I'm working on, but my main idea would be to cut the MLA down. Make them a real underground faction of extremists. They still have their primary figureheads, but that aside, give them a couple of hundred loyalists spread throughout the country, not a couple of hundred thousand. They're powerful, but they're low in number, with many of their forces consisting of people like Yotsubashi's private security team and Hanabata's party subordinates. Much like the IRB at the turn of the twentieth century prior to the Easter Rising, they're basically an old boys' club, sitting around and reminiscing on when the group had power. Their schemes have to be more subtle, more focused on the - ahem - hearts and minds of the public. Things like Detnerat's products and commercials, Curious' articles, Hanabata's proposed policies, they all subtly push a pro-Liberation message. They warm the general population up to the idea, they take advantage of the Commission's failures, they engineer public crises from behind the scenes to weaken people's belief in the current system. What if, for example, it had been the MLA who had secretly encouraged Overhaul's production of a Quirk-erasing drug, in the hopes that it would cause further unrest and fear that they could manipulate to turn public sentiment against the current government? What if they had provided funding to the League post-All for One's arrest in order to stir up more trouble, instead of getting in a big fight and losing half their men to Shigaraki? What if the UA traitor had been acting on orders from the MLA, who then relayed the information to the League for the purpose of essentially using them as their pawns to attack UA on their behalf? A secret society pulling the strings, and using the League as their unwitting patsies, behind the scenes to sow distrust in the Commission and set them up for their eventual failure. The final arc could have been less about whatever the hell it was about and more about the League finally realising what was going on and having a massive three-way battle between the heroes, the villains and the MLA who finally take to the streets after spending pretty much the whole story scheming and manipulating and building up their forces.

It's all fanfic stuff, and it's so easy to point and gape and go "I would do that so much better!" but I honestly think the secret society working to undermine the government angle would have been more interesting and made for a more threatening faction than a massive revolutionary army which gets immediately crumpled during their first major battle with the heroes.

[stillness-in-green]

Saw your latest ask answer and the idea the author really wanted destruction to be all shigaraki was meant for reminded me of Loki from the mcu. Spoilers if you haven’t seen the show but in the first episode a Loki from before all his character development is shown his entire life in the mcu and during that there’s a monologue from mobius about how Loki exists only to cause death destruction and suffering but he services of other people so they can become the best versions of themselves. Just was curious if you had any thoughts on how his portrayal and handling compares with shigaraki since horikoshi is such a fan of western media especially comics.

I’m afraid I can’t really weigh in on TV Loki’s presentation because I haven’t watched any of the MCU shows since the Netflix ones.  MCU Loki’s also one of those characters I resent just slightly because their runaway popularity negatively impacted the story of other characters.  (MCU Tony is the far, far worse version of this, but I remember reading that Malekith in Thor 2 had his scenes reduced to make more room for Loki.)

My impression is that their superhero intake is more DC-centric, but I wonder if @linkspooky might have any insight?

That said, I do think, “You only exist for the betterment of other people, none of whom have the slightest chance of improving you in turn,” is a pretty loathsome sentiment.  Like, there’s some leeway there when you’re talking about the narrative role of a villain in the story they occupy, and it does sound like that was meant to be a fourth-wall breaking moment that acknowledges Loki as that villain.  But it’s a vile thing to tell a real person, and therefore a vile thing to tell a character in-story, regardless of how fourth-wall breaking its intention.

It’s also a particularly odd thing to say about Loki, who I understand to be a much more sympathetic figure in the MCU than he is in the comics![1]  Like, the guy who whose father lied to him and weaponized against his original people for centuries?  The guy who was hugely traumatized by the time he spent with Thanos?  The guy who fought on Thor’s side to save Asgard from Hela, who fully supported Thor from then up until being killed by Thanos?  That Loki exists only to cause death, destruction and suffering?  #Yikes

1: This is not to say Loki is totally without redeeming value in the comics!  I haven’t read anything like enough Thor or Avengers comics to say that, and obviously the more recent Young Loki iteration (though himself influenced by the MCU, iirc?) is intended to be sympathetic.  But the baseline Marvel comic Loki I know of is the grinning dude in the bodysuit with the horned helmet and cowl that means you never see his hair, a grown man who delights in causing problems on purpose.  Not nearly as soulful as Tom Hiddleston’s version!

I guess in that sense, it does remind me somewhat of Horikoshi’s treatment of Shigaraki, in that no matter how sympathetic his backstory or what connections he’s made with others or what good he might be capable of doing in the world, he has to be treated as an existence that in the long run can only cause harm, that must only ever be opposed, because to do otherwise would be to upend the entire framework (both in-universe and meta-narrative) in which he exists.

It’s just a really cynical way of looking at a character—that they’re only there for protagonists to level grind against until they’re sufficiently heroic that the antagonist is no longer useful to that purpose, at which point they can be killed or put back away in a box until the story needs them again.  Again, that is what antagonists do in a story, ultimately—serve as a contrast/warning/foil/motivator/whatever all else for the protagonists—but (Marge voice) that doesn’t mean they have to say it.  And also too, it’s hardly the only purpose an antagonist can serve!  What about the ones who are ultimately saved/won over by the protagonist?  What about expanding on the worldbuilding in ways the protagonist might not be able to?  What about calling attention to some problem in the world that the protagonist might not otherwise have noticed?  What about propelling the plot in the traditional “villains act” fashion?  What about getting the best song numbers?

The reductive absolutism of the claim reminds me that, some years ago, I got really into Captain Marvel (the Shazam! version, not the Marvel one, no offense to Carol), but it was frustrating because the whole concept of him seemed so rich in potential stories but so limited by the needs of a serialized medium.  The stories I imagined you could tell with Captain Marvel/Billy Batson were so interesting in part because of where those stories would end, but in a medium like American cape comics, they can’t end, they’re never allowed to, not permanently.

That problem carries over to comic book villains—they’re virtually never allowed to really and truly change, nor can they ever count on being really and truly dead, and that means they do only ever serve to make other characters the best versions of themselves,[2] and the best they can hope for is spates of antihero/reformed villain happiness in between writers.

2: “Best versions of themselves” here meaning, of course, “best suited to the needs of the story”.  Do not ask yourself if e.g. Batman might better like the person he would be if the Joker were ever allowed to make a complete and total permanent recovery.

That’s not the case in manga, of course, where stories end and characters die, and the finality makes for a profoundly different medium.  The difference does not help BNHA’s case, however, because that means there’s no cynical marketing or medium-based explanation for why Shigaraki and the other Villains don’t get a more hopeful ending—only the cynical ideological one.  That is, Horikoshi is either too unimaginative to rewrite his setting’s status quo, too afraid of the reader response to try, or he honestly believes that the Villains deserve the endings they got.

The last one is the most harrowing, because it would mean he was willing to actively sabotage the development and conclusions of his story’s protagonists because punishing the antagonists was more important to him.  That is, the Heroes are forced to end up distinctly less than the best possible versions of themselves because if they weren't—if they were allowed to be the idealists their world needed them to be in order for it to truly change—then the Villains might have gotten anything less than the fullest, heaviest extent of retribution their author believed had to be levied against them.

Thanks for the ask, @9trixieturner6!

[bakuhatsufallinlove]

Chapter 348's "Shitty Nerd" Narrator Isn't Omniscient (And It's Not Bakugou Katsuki)

So, for a good bit there we were all theorizing about what was up with the narrator of chapter 348 calling Izuku a "shitty nerd" for not recognizing Toga's feelings for him, right?

Now, in a previous post I explained the different expectations Japanese audiences tend to have for frame narratives in weekly serialized manga. I posited that this may mean that the identity of 348's third-person narrator isn't necessarily of direct importance and, as a result, may never be explicitly revealed. I maintain the validity of this observation in general, however I no longer think it is relevant to understanding Horikoshi's approach to writing.

Because I am confident I have figured out who the narrator is: Best Jeanist.

To be clear, I do not believe that Best Jeanist is the source of every third-person narration in the series so far—I have yet to go back and research earlier chapters enough to theorize about that. I believe he is specifically the frame narrator who is explaining the critical moments of the Heroes’ final battle against AFO/Shigaraki, most notably in chapters 348 and 377.

Let’s go over the supporting evidence for this reading.

Best Jeanist's speech patterns match the idiosyncrasies found in 348

Back in February, pikahlua pointed out that 348's narrator uses "de aru” (である, also conjugated as であり, de ari) and I have been thinking about this detail ever since. Early on I described 348’s narration to a friend as sounding almost like a textbook, and it is “de aru” which contributes most to that tone. It functions as a connecting verb meaning "be" or "is," but it feels uniquely literary, even a bit archaic. Due to this, I pretty readily imagined that 348 was narrated by an omniscient figure who was telling the story to us as a historical event, like it was a passage from a book on “the great Hero Deku” or something like that.

But I kept wondering if, among all the fanciful characters in MHA, there was anyone who fit the bill for this type of language. Lo and behold:

On top of Shigaraki escaping, we sustained tremendous damage. But… nevertheless, we Heroes must continue the fight with the threads of our faith utterly unrent! This is the hope of our scattered comrades, and it will be spun into a new era… Plus Ultra!

The back cover of the Japanese volumes all have in-character narration blurbs that match the speech patterns and personality of the character featured on the spine of the book. This is not replicated in the English releases, so the above translation is my own. Here, Best Jeanist uses “de aru” (highlighted in blue) for that same literary effect 348 uses. I looked through other volume covers and a few dozen chapters, and I found only a couple other uses of “de aru” in total--by Iida and a member of Spinner’s army shown in 370, neither of whom are likely candidates for 348’s narrator.

Best Jeanist in general speaks in a deliberately refined, elegant way. He uses polite speech at times and, even when talking casually, his word choices are rather serious and poetic. Notice the top orange text highlighted: 一糸の綻び (isshi no hokorobi) meaning the tear of a single thread, an evocative metaphor. Keep this and the bottom orange text in mind (散って, chitte, describing the “scattered comrades”).

Side note: Best Jeanist has used “kare” (彼, meaning "he") in canon to refer to Izuku, seen here in chapter 323:

This is less of a smoking gun than “de aru,” but the politeness of 348’s narration and the word “kare” specifically rule out Katsuki as a potential narrator, so it is worth mentioning.

Volume 31 covers chapters 296-306, with the last chapter entitled, “The Final Act Begins.” I think it is significant that Best Jeanist is the narrator on this volume cover; it may be foreshadowing for his role as the narrator for the Final Battle itself, which leads us to...

Best Jeanist's Threads of Hope

Best Jeanist's Quirk and his entire schtick are about fibers and threads. He makes this a direct metaphor for the Heroes’ struggle against the League of Villains in 292 where he says that they will stop the League by weaving "threads of hope" (一縷の希望, ichiru no kibou). He develops this metaphor further in 294, describing their victory over Gigantomachia.

He also used this kind of language in 311 and 317.

And don’t forget, he sutured Katsuki’s damaged heart back together in hopes of reviving him.

Then, we got this sequence in 377:

A faceless, elderly individual speaking about the Final Battle in the past tense. This person directly references that thin thread to describe the Heroes’ chances and their gambit against the villains.

The blue text in the top panel, which is curiously absent from the English release, says:

「舞い散る桜のように・・・」

maichiru sakura no you ni…

Like falling cherry blossoms…

The verb for “falling” here is actually two verbs joined together meaning “to fall as if dancing.” Literally, maichiru means dance-scatter. The Heroes’ gambit relies on dividing the villains, and in their efforts, they themselves are being scattered, like cherry blossoms. Remember how Best Jeanist described his comrades as scattered? The second verb here is that very same one.

The thread and snap (or cut) wording even gets brought up six chapters later by Tsukauchi:

The “hope” part is technically not present in the Japanese here, but I think official translator Caleb Cook caught on to the thematic parallel. And in my opinion, it is a pretty significant parallel.

So, with all this in mind: My bet is that Best Jeanist is the primary narrator for the final arc of the series.

This is a very interesting choice; it definitely raises questions about whether All Might survives. Best Jeanist is currently in his late 30s, so for him to be the elderly narrator seen in 377, he would have to be relaying these events from 30-40 years in the future, which might mean All Might survives the final battle but dies of old age later.

Whatever happens in the battle against AFO/Shigaraki, I think both Best Jeanist and Katsuki survive. Sometime post-battle, everyone gets the explanation for what happened when Izuku was warped away by Toga, and Katsuki—hearing that Izuku didn’t recognize Toga’s feelings for him—utters some iteration of 348’s infamous line about how, no matter what he does, he is still "a shitty nerd.”

Best Jeanist quotes him in 348’s narration, because... well, even though it is vulgar, it is a pretty accurate and even affectionate description of Izuku’s oblivious nature from his childhood friend, who knows him quite well. I think Best Jeanist, having mentored and watched over Katsuki all this time, deferred to him on the subject of Izuku’s personal life.

But he also did it because it’s funny as hell, and we should never forget that MHA is a comedy.