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cuchufletapl · 2 years ago

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I want your personal opinion. We see a lot of shipping controversy when it comes to MHA, but none of the ships have actually been confirmed, just teased. And I find that the biggest tease is Tododeku, honestly. Do you think there is even the slightest possibility that Horikoshi could just bless us with this ship? Do you think there is something there, genuinely? I want this ship canon, and honestly I'm really not feeling it with Ochako at all. What are your opinions on her? I dont know if you agree, but her character revolves around the main character in a way that makes it annoying and unbearable and I cant stand the interactions, yet it seems that Horikoshi seems to have given up as of recently. Do you think so?

Please don't take this as hostile because I don't mean it as such, I just struggle with tone. But.

This ask is kind of strange to me because 1) I don't write meta that often; 2) I've never written meta about BNHA; and 3) actually, in the past four months I've reblogged a grand total of nine posts about BNHA.

It's a fandom that I'm a part of but that I barely talk about on Tumblr — if you only followed me on here you'd think that I'm barely into it.

So what on Earth would make you ask me my opinion on this, anon?

Like, you see a profile with a Fullmetal Alchemist icon talking about Sonic, Ladybug, and Spy x Family and go: "Yeah. This is the person I'm gonna ask about Boku no Hero shipwars"?

Besides, considering how this ask is worded, it looks to me like you have a fully formed opinion and just want some sort of validation for it.

And I checked the recent stuff in the tododeku tag and I saw at least one more person responding to a very similar ask to this one, so there's that.

I'm prefacing with this to clarify that I'm aware that this is some sort of bait (even if I'm not completely sure what you're baiting for, anon) and that you probably went through a bunch of people that had posted/reblogged tododeku stuff recently and sent them similar asks.

However, I do have an opinion, and my ego can't resist sharing it, so here we go. Buckle up, I started rambling.

Honestly, I'm not entirely sure of what you are talking about when you say that tododeku has been the most teased ship.

Their dynamic is solid and well-written, and they've had a lot of page/screen-time to develop together. They're close friends (Midoriya is Todoroki's best and favourite friend, without a doubt), they're at ease around each other, understand and trust one another — in sum, they care and there is a lot of proof of that over the nearly 400 chapters of the manga (plus spin-off media).

This would be a good basis for a romantic development in their dynamic, it'd make for a good love story, but I don't think Horikoshi has ever intended to go in that direction, not even in subtext. I don't think he would even if a gay/bi protagonist was allowed in a battle-action shonen.

I think the "tododeku teasing" is the inevitable outcome of having two characters impact each other's narratives in such a way. Of course there are a lot of Moments™ between them that can easily be read in a romantic light — fighting Izuku in the Sports Festival was literally a turning point in Shoto's life! But Horikoshi just wrote them that way because he wanted to advance their character arcs through their friendships.

(It's a huge theme in BNHA, in my opinion. Class 1-A constanly inspire each other, make each other better. They don't just develop on their own, it's with the support of other people that the characters move forward. Deku is the epitome of this: his gifted power born out of the sacrifices of eight other people, his fighting style inspired by his mentors and his friends. And he's not the only example: Tamaki and Mirio; Kirishima with Bakugo and Ashido; Uraraka, Iida, and Todoroki himself of course. Horikoshi is good at writing admiration and friendships.)

And after all, good friendships tend to (although not always) make for compatible romantic pairings.

Listen, if tododeku ever became canon, I'd end up in the ER because my heart wouldn't be able to handle the joy and the surprise bursting out of it. I don't hope it to, nor do I particularly want it to be canon (romantic subplots are not my priority in BNHA), but it would definitely make me very happy. I've been on this boat for, what? Five years, give or take a couple of months? Tododeku is probably my actual OTP (as in the meaning of the acronym, my one and only true pairing).

(And that's without taking into account how massive it would be in terms of queer representation in Japan. The male protagonist of a top Shonen Jump nekketsu manga, bisexual and in an overt relationship with another major male character? Kohei Horikoshi would make history.)

But back in 2017 I went in fully expecting it not to be endgame, and that hasn't changed in 2022.

First of all, because regardless of Horikoshi's intentions, this is shonen manga, c'mon. It's Shonen Jump Magazine. The only gay action we see in this demographic is questionable yuri pandering to male audiences.

Although to be completely fair, BNHA does have confirmed queer characters: Tiger, Big Sis Mag, and Toga. However, you'll notice that none of them are gay men, only one of them has any relevance whatsoever, and not all of them are handled with the same care (Magne is... oof. People make excuses for it but I'm too familiar with Japanese media not to recognise that her design looks just like a transmysoginistic charicature, and the theory that Horikoshi is doing a social critique by making medical transitioning not accessible to her due to marginalisation is utterly fanon interpretation. It's not anywhere in the text, it was made up outright. It'd be amazing if it were true, but considering how unsubtle Horikoshi is with the politics of BNHA, as manga tends to be, if it's not there, it's because it wasn't supposed to be).

Second, because if Horikoshi wanted to make his main characters boy lovers and was allowed to... Well, in all honestly, I think he'd go for bakudeku (if, ya know, Bakugo makes it, which he probably will). They're one of the central dynamics of this story, their arcs don't make any sense without each other. They're not up to the level of, say, sasunaru, but they're not that far off. It's the most popular pairing in this fandom, both in the West and in Japan, for a reason.

(And if not bakudeku, I think kiribaku would have the biggest chance. Mostly because there's quite a lot of evidence to support a queer reading of Kirishima, and I'm not entirely sure it was accidental.)

Of course, if anyone gave me the reigns, I'd make Bakugo and Midoriya queerplatonic and make Todoroki and Midoriya marry but alas, 'tis not the case.

Nevertheless, there might be no canon ships whatsoever.

I'm still holding out for a time-skip and a sequel, despite what Horikoshi said earlier this year about ending the manga — a lot of things feel unfinished in ways that can't be resolved in one single arc. So hey, maybe he'll surprise us and pull a Shippuden.

But if he keeps his word and this is the end of Boku no Hero Academia, then he definitely does not have the time to include a romantic subplot of any kind. Not at this stage, not so near the end and with all characters in the middle of battle like this.

So, yeah, maybe you're not feeling it with Ochako because you're not supposed to. Midoriya had some mild interest in her at the beginning and she used to have a crush on him, but that was that. Which would be a nice subversion, to be honest, since an izuocha endgame is what everyone and their mother expected ever since their first interaction, based on the usual romantic tropes of this genre.

But, another thing, because this interpretation of Uraraka ("her character revolves around the main character in a way that makes it annoying") is one that I see echoed everywhere in this fandom and it does annoy me a little. It's a parroted opinion at this point, because the absolute lack of nuance implies that most people saying it haven't actually analysed Uraraka's character and are just repeating what other people said before them. Not saying that you're in that group, anon, maybe you did think it through and just disagree with me, and that's fine.

This critique of Uraraka comes from a larger criticism of Horikoshi's writing of female characters — criticism that is not undeserved. He is capable of writing good three-dimensional female characters (look at Rei Todoroki, or at Himiko Toga), and I think Momo Yaoyozoru's character arc is one of the best that he's written for a supporting secondary character of any gender (it's simple but well-executed!). But it's true that he has way fewer female characters than male ones, and a lot of them are underdeveloped and underutilised to boot.

(Part of that has to do with a more general problem. Horikoshi ended up biting way more than he could chew with his gigantic cast of characters, which is a conversation for another day, but long story short: it's not easy to juggle that many plotlines and character arcs, and sometimes he pulls it off but a lot of the time, particularly in the later half... eh. But it just so happens that a lot of the characters he's unable to give the time and space needed happen to be the few female ones that he has. Well.)

I do feel this is somewhat the case with Uraraka, because considering how she started out, she should've pulled more narrative weight than she has, at least for the arcs that she participated in (the Overhaul Arc did her dirty, let's be honest here). And she's the main female supporting character, it makes it more evident.

But I think that people get so focused in looking for what should have been there that they miss that already is there. People will criticise her arc for revolving around Deku and then completely ignore the parts of it that have nothing to do with him, funnily enough. You guys don't look past Deku's shadow either.

Midoriya inspires Uraraka in a similar way that he does the rest of his classmates and his friends specifically. That's what he is to her — an inspiration, a friend. Much like Midoriya himself does with Bakugo and All Might, she decides to go on her own hero path while taking some of Midoriya's determination as an incentive for her.

Her childhood in poverty shaped her desire to be a hero, and the kind of hero that she wanted to be — she wants to make people happy through helping and saving them. And when she starts the race towards her dream, and she sees her teachers and friends hurting, she's the one to ask the question no one else does: who saves the heroes? Who heals them? Who makes sure they're okay and happy?

And now she's going one step further, and she's trying to save a villain — Toga. And this has nothing to do with Midoriya. He isn't even in the picture right now! Hell, their last conversation before the final battle was about Toga (and other things, but it was obvious Toga was at the forefront of Uraraka's mind)!

Yes, her relationship with Deku is important (he's the protagonist, c'mon), but not the end-all be-all of her character arc. She sees Iida decline Midoriya's offer to join his team in the cavalry battle and decides that she's not going to be all dependent on friends either — and then comes up with a better strategy to fight Bakugo than even Midoriya had thought of. She catches feelings and immediately tries to shake them off because they're a distraction she can't afford for the sake of her own goals. She becomes an inspiration for him, as much as he is for her.

Their friendship is pretty neat, and while Uraraka could be more, let's not act as if she was nothing but Deku.

So.

To conclude.

Look, anon, from your words I can tell that you're obviously very invested in tododeku. I understand that, I really do, but I'd advise you to get over it. At the end of the day, it's just ink on a page. The emotions that they make you feel are real and valid (that is what art and storytelling are for) but if it gets to a point where it genuinely upsets you that two characters don't end up together, that it feels like a need that they be together in canon, it might be the time to take a step back.

I say this as someone who still gets angry over klance lol. But it's true.

I think you can find a lot more joy than you realise in simply not giving a shit about canon. And while shipping is very fun, I don't find it recommendable to look at all media only through that lense.

As I said before, all the "tododeku teasing" you mention is just one particular interpretation of their interactions, and at times it can be one that removes the actual themes written into their dynamic.

#if there are any typos or some of this doesn't make sense I don't care #it's almost 2am in my time zone and I have class tomorrow good night #my commentary - sort of meta?#boku no hero academia #bnha #tododeku #midoriya izuku #todoroki shoto #uraraka ochako #my original post

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