#tsutsumi kaina

[plusultraetc]

"you reminded me of how I felt back then..."

[rinaarts]

Lady Nagant the badass that you are. I had so much fun making this. 💜✨️

[girlatrocity]

kill to save

[wishecho]

eight years later she’s nowhere to be found? SHE GOT AWAYYY

[dailyfigures]

Lady Nagant ; My Hero Academia ☆ Bell Fine

[magicianenthusiast]

post-canon au lov (+ lady nagant + geten)

[fossilized-beetle]

Lil thing I quickly made lowkey for @mha-ship-of-the-day <3

[arturia-giallo]

レディ・ナガン！ by 四海紫郎 [Twitter/X] ※Illustration shared with permission from the artist. If you like this artwork please support the artist by visiting the source.

[lordofwaifus]

Lady Nagant ❤️❤️

Boku no Hero

More on my Patreon !!

[kainagant]

i think people gloss over lady nagant's hurt and actual emotions too often and just skip straight to "she wanted to be a hero, she was just disillusioned". like yes, that's her core feeling, that at the end of the day she was good and virtuous. but there was also heaps of guilt and resentment and disillusionment piled on top of that. saying "oh but she's a good person at heart" invalidates all of her hurt. this was never about whether she was truly good or evil, it was always, at its core, that she had reached a breaking point, and she was done being a martyr for the perfect, idealized hero society that everyone took for granted.

i'm not trying to say "therefore she was actually bad", i just think that a major part of what makes lady nagant interesting is the conflict between the altruism at her core and the desire for her own self-respect which was at war with her role as a hero.

at the end of the day, she shot the president because her personal feeling was that she didn't want to kill anymore. and i don't think that, at the time, she was thinking about the general corruption of society and how that was linked to the hits she carried out. like yes, obviously, having government sanctioned black ops assassins is a bad thing, so therefore, putting a stop to it would be "for the greater good" "to achieve a less corrupt society". but in that moment, she was not killing "for the greater good of society". that single bullet was different from every other bullet she's shot, because it wasn't shot with the belief that it was for the greater good, but she shot the president for her own sake alone.

in an ironic twist, you could say that the shot she fired in a moment of "selfishness" was "good", whereas the shots she fired out of her sense of heroism were "evil", and that's a far more fascinating aspect of lady nagant to think about, rather than just boiling her down to "she's good and altruistic at heart and she saw the corruption of hero society and got fed up with it". this is a true statement but also an oversimplification of her backstory.

[delawaredetroit]

While consequences ultimately do come down on Hawks and Endeavor for their own willingness to play judge jury and executioner in hero fights, do you think mha sufficiently tied it back to the systemic problems that this mentality was seemingly a symptom of, or would you say the resolution treated them more like unexplained ‘bad apples’ where removing the problem characters fixed the issue as if they were somehow also the cause of the systemic problems they seem to embody ?

So I don't think BNHA has a few bad apples problem. If anything, sometimes it leans a little too much towards the opposite problem of everything is the system in a way that avoids individual accountability.

Part of the purpose of Lady Nagant's character was to make it clear that the the professional hero system was corrupt to its foundation. She was introduced in the arc immediately after Dabi exposed Endeavor and Hawks on national television. Nagant's narration clarified that it was not an issue of a few heroes using excessive force on their own initiative. The Commission itself encouraged wiping out any potential dissent before any villainy was committed.

The issue is that BNHA set up these extraordinarily rotten systems but only offered mild reform in its conclusion. And to some extent, it comes from BNHA's message that focuses on the ability of individuals to make the world better. But there is this discordant tension in BNHA where bad things characters do are the result of the system (Endeavor, Hawks, Bakugou, etc.) but good things are the result of the independent actions of individuals

[libertastandem]

They're both so unserious 😂

[halcyon-nitro]

[munchcorner]

I believe Hawks and Mirko would unintentionally (sometimes intentionally) cock block each other.

[bnhaobservation]

When Heroes need protecting who will be there to protect them?

As I was re-reading chapter 429 this sentence ‘When Heroes need protecting who will be there to protect them?’ came up again and, like usual, it never failed to annoy me.

It’s of course a personal reaction and you might disagree, you might love it, but if it’s okay, I’d like to discuss a bit of why this sentence never fails to irk me for how redundant it feels. If you love it instead, feel free to skip this post.

Now, if I'm not wrong the manga started making this question around the end of the Paranormal Liberation War arc. Yes, it started making it in a time in which story also wonder what is a Hero, if it’s someone to whom people look up and count on or someone who suffers in silence.

Now… the whole ‘suffer in silence’ is tied to the Japanese idea that enduring is an heroic virtue, which is why it gets tossed into the discussion. Shouto is the family Hero because, according to Rei, he is the one who suffered the most among the Todorokis yet he endured it, he didn’t hate her (or Enji) and even called her ‘mom��, and now he’s making friends at U.A. high and saving his other family members.

No one else in the family could endure abuse like Shouto, Rei snapped, Enji fell prey to rage, Touya became a Villain, Natsuo hates his father as for Fuyumi… actually I would say she endured too but I guess Rei believed she didn’t suffer enough so she’s no hero.

Now that we got out of the way this Japanese concept, let’s go back to the original question. Who helps Heroes when they need protecting?

Let’s pick the most famous Hero ever, All Might.

Who helps him?

Let’s make a list.

We’ve Gran Torino, who not only fight at his side but is always willing to hear him out and to support him.

We’ve his sidekick, Nighteye, who not only helped him with paperwork but also wanted to protect him. Even when they parted ways because Nighteye disagreed with All Might, he continued to look out for him and it’s just All Might who avoided him.

We’ve the police, Tsukauchi is his best friend, he also does paperwork for him, supports him, sits next to him when he’s in hospital.

We’ve the people at U.A. high, Nezu offers him a job, suggests him to search for a heir among his students, Recovery Girl heals him and counsel him on the best way to train Midoriya. When he’ll make friend with Eraser Head the latter will also sit next to him, hear him out, support him.

We’ve other Heroes, during his first battle against AFO even Enji came to help All Might and tried to encourage him his own horrid way.

We’ve his protégée, Midoriya, who gets himself into deadly matches to save him, who, once he hears his fate might be to die horribly, wants to change said fate.

We've his students, it's Bakugou who will rush to save him when he fights AFO a second time.

We’ve the people he inspired, like Star and Stripe who challenges her own government to support him.

We've David Shield, who's willing to commit crimes to help him when he learns he's losing his strength.

We've Melissa Shield who creates for him the suit he used to fight AFO.

All Might often decides to suffer in silence but he’s surrounded by people wanting to help him. He doesn’t have to suffer in silence, they’re all around him, willing to help.

What about a less beloved hero like Endeavor?

He has his family who, despite having been abused by him, after Touya’s revelation still decides to support him.

We have his sidekicks who thinks the fact he worked hard as a Hero matters more than the fact he abused his family.

We’ve the other Heroes, like Hawks and Best Jeanist who decide to side with him and cooperate with him.

We’ve his driver, Kurumada-san, who remains loyal to him.

We've his interns, Midoriya will defend him when Touya will reveal the truth.

Actually, even if we see little of them, he'll still have some fans who will still support him.

What about a Hero in training?

We see many of them have their own families to support them, Midoriya has Inko, Ochako has her parents.

They’ve their homeroom teacher, Eraser Head is always there to help them.

They’ve the Heroes they interned under, who’re there to support them (see Best Jeanist with Bakugou, Gran Torino with Midoriya, Nighteye with Togata, Fat Gum with Amajiki).

They’ve the rest of their class, as class A always support its members and class B seems to be the same.

They’ve the people they helped, Kouta and the giant woman were fast to support Midoriya.

They’ve other Heroes, who’re willing to help them.

Asui also seem to have a friend from middle school willing to support her.

The police also protected and supported them, when Shouto, Iida and Midoriya got themselves in trouble in Hosu the chief of the police went to them and protected them.

Long story short, for Heroes and Heroes in training there’s a huge support network.

Hell even someone who's just a student at U.A. high like Shinsou, who’s not in the Hero course gets helped out to reach the Hero course and is supported by his classmates.

And if they can’t really stand the situation… well, Heroes can decide to drop the job. They aren’t forced to remain in it. They're paid a lot of money and, if they saved said money, they can just quit without problems, possibly without even needing to rush to find another job to support themselves.

Ultimately, in this manga, Heroes deciding to suffer in silence on their own isn’t something they’re forced to do, but their own choice, a choice that’s often thwarted by the people who care about them, as they're there to support them.

Honestly, the only Hero I can remember was left to suffer alone was Lady Nagant, and that’s because what she was doing wasn’t Heroic and so she couldn’t talk about it… and possibly she was kept isolated for that same reason by the Hero commission and denied the possibility to opt out.

All the other Heroes are shown to have a strong support network or the option to sign out.

Wondering who’ll save them when they DECIDE to bottle up their misery (as they’ve the option to share it) feels like a redundant question, not something I’ve to worry about because the story made beyond clear there’s plenty of people willing to save them.

For me, a more poignant question would have been ‘who’ll save Twice once he’s kicked out of his job?’

Not his family, not his colleagues, not the police, not the Heroes, not his boss. He was supposed to endure in silence the life of the homeless on his own.

‘Who’ll save Himiko when she can’t bear it any longer?’

Not her family, not her classmates, not the police, not the Heroes, not her teacher, not her crush. She was supposed to endure in silence the fact she had different urges from the rest of the people and kept it hidden.

‘Who’ll save Touya when he’s breaking?’

Not his family, not his Hero father, not the police, not his classmates, not his teacher. He was supposed to endure in silence how no one cared about him and his dreams.

‘Who’ll save Spinner when he’s targeted by racism?’

No one. He was just expected to endure in silence closed in his own room as the people in his city didn’t want him to get out of it.

‘Who’ll save Tenko when his father is abusing him? When he’s wandering through the city?’

Tenko’s family made an half backed and way too late effort to save him from Kotarou’s abuse, but for the most part Tenko was expected to endure. After they died he had no one and was expected to endure being homeless at five.

In short what I wanted the manga to ask me was:

‘When abused people need protecting, who will be there to protect them?’

For basically 429 chapters, Heroes focus on Villains, they wouldn’t protect someone who’s miserable for reasons that aren’t Villain related. They aren’t meant to save abused people unless they’re threatened by a Villain. It’s not their job and they don't wonder about it.

There’s no support network for people who’re abused, suffering in silence for them is not an option, it’s what they’re forced to do because no one cares. They can’t ‘opt out’ of that life, it’s all they have, they’re trapped.

So in the end they break, become the perfect targets for Villains like AFO, or decide to attack society as they start to see it as an enemy and turn into Villains… and ironically this gives them a support group in form of other Villains.

And once they’re Villains… all that Hero wants to do with them is to put them in jail.

Yes, in the very last chapters we see some kids are kind of changing the game.

Uraraka (who’s implied to be a special case) wanted to give Himiko her blood after she had put her in jail, and Midoriya (another special case) went to see Spinner to tell him Tomura’s last words and let him rage and mourn but that was it.

In the end the story doesn’t really address what to do with people once they turn Villains because they broke.

We’ve Uraraka making a support group for little kids in form of the Quirk counseling program and Shouji making a support group for Heteromorphs in form of him solving conflict peacefully, and it kind of implied that Midoriya’s example would turn common people into nice people that would now support each other… but the focus is on helping people BEFORE they’ll turn into Villains. The story never truly address a way to help Villains to turn back into decent people after jailing them.

The story specifically mention Tartarus as a place where human rights are violated which fits with how Japanese prisons are in real life. Amnesty International has documented cases where prisoners in Japan suffered from systematic cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment and are at high risk of being subjected to abusive forms of punishment like having been beaten severely by prison guards for minor infractions of prison rules, detained in solitary confinement for long periods, restrained in leather belts and handcuffs, and held in special cells as a punishment.

Horikoshi tossed this in his own story like a fact… but then never addressed it further than that, actually he even had Lady Nagant prefer remaining in jail.

That’s why Tomura, Touya and Himiko had to die in the story, because in the end their other option was to be tossed in a jail and have their human right violated until they would be executed.

There would be no salvation for them anyway, it was too late, all the support groups Class A kids created are for people who hasn’t yet turned into a Villain, not for Villains who could be redeemed.

I find kind of sad that I’m asked more than once to worry about who’ll support Heroes when it’s clear they’ve a large support group in the story, but I’m not asked to worry about who didn’t have a support group, about who was left on his own, and that saving them was tackled only in the last chapters, mostly in a fairytalesque way and that it still didn’t regard whose who weren’t saved prior to turn Villains.

It’s possible it’s, of course, just me… but I really needed to give voice to those feelings. Feel free to disagree and please, forgive me if I’ve bored you.

[purplemys]

Version 1 of a fake game title screen 👐