#i don't want to tag izu/ocha or tag izu/ocha anti ugh

[rikusoma]

(no hate to the shippers) I think the biggest problem with the "female love interest" in bnha is that anything that went past the first chapters became one sided, empty and sometimes really impersonal.

One sided because the MC barely showed interest aside from pretty superficial things, and their development became very easily platonic very fast.

Empty because the mentions and moments where the "crush" is brought up don't go anywhere, and are acknowledge to bring her down and make her uncomfortable

Impersonal because some things weren't either exclusive to or about each other.

Like, just because she isn't a love interest, don't mean she will suddenly stop being important or that she won't be a close person to the MC anymore. They just aren't going to be romantic.

(no offense to izu/ochas, you keep shipping whatever you want, I will not judge, but keep your opinions on it to yourself off my posts please, if you have a problem, block me and/or just keep scrolling)

Oh absolutely! And even in the first chapters, they didn't know each other well enough to anything To Be mutual. It's always been either nothing or one sided, there's never been a moment where Deku had any feelings toward Ochako.

I honestly think that part of the reason she was even hinted at being a potential love interest is because Hori needed something to keep the people who could pull the series early from realizing what he was doing. He had the formulaic "he was a boy, she was a girl, can I make it anymore obvious" hetero romance starter. Izu/ocha basically became a beard for bkdk.

Now that mha is kind of "too big to fail", Hori can pretty much do what he wants, and the man is chaotic enough to not care if making his two main characters a couple get him blacklisted. He's got a pretty dedicated fan base on his own. He'll be fine.

I will say I wish he was better at writing the women in his story, and he has admitted to being bad at it. But if I'm being honest, he does way better than a lot of mangakas and authors in general with writing women and giving them the spotlight. Is he perfect? No. Does he give them the same attention as the main characters? Of course not, why would he?

Ochako has had some great moments, but that speech when they brought Deku back to UA? It could've been pretty much anyone. I liked that it was her, but Deku would've reacted the same regardless. Bakugou's moment in 322 couldn't have been done by anyone else. And their moments are consistently exactly that. Ochako speaks for everyone and could be replaced by anyone and get the same reaction. Bakugou's moments would not have the same howitzer-level impact (ha, see what I did there?) if someone else took his place.

I still believe that she's going to have some really great moments coming up, completely divorced of Deku at all, save for maybe some teasing from Toga that will be immediately shut down because it just won't be good ammo anymore. She's not the love interest and her character is better for it. She's a hero and is focusing on being a hero. If it were up to me, I'd still have her get together with someone in the future, I personally love IidaChako, and TogaChako is cute, although I'd want to see some development of how Toga shows her love.

Basically, if izu/ochas cared about Ochako's character beyond her being in the same old formulaic main characterxlove interest that typically makes female characters "important" in a story, they'd realize that for her to have an arc that is on par with Deku and Bakugou, she NEEDS to not be paired with Deku. She NEEDS to have her own thing. She NEEDS to not be shoehorned into importance through just being a romantic interest.

TL;DR Hori is doing a great job and I'm looking forward to the rest of the series, bkdk canon

Also Bakugou is going to survive, don't @ me.