#ua critical

[thr0wnawayy]

Hi l, I absolutely love your takes and I want to ask smth...I never saw anyone ask before....what was the point of Izu?

Maybe you are confused with this question, after all, in the first chapter we see (the first signal of delulu) he wanted to be a hero and became one ...

And got suffering

Suffering

And oh yes sure, suffering.

Like ...what this helps in the narrative?

"he is there to cheer for abusers" something Izu haters say but ... honestly, that isn't correct as many people in this story cheer for Endy or Aizawa. Izu is not even needed for that.

I know we can't read Hori's mind to know what was the point....and we do know he doesn't hide his disdain for Izu....but like, in canon, he is just there to suffer and his suffering adds nothing.

"to show how corrupt the hero society is"

We have plenty of examples like that...Izu is really not needed.

So...again, why?

It's just tiring seeing him feeling worthless and people all validating this feeling. Why? No one knows nor cares.

The problem with Midoriya is it feels like he never actually works for anything.

Excluding for a moment the very real possibility of 'learned helplessnes'.

After Gran Torino, when do we see Midoriya work for anything? What does he accomplish?

Nothing, he gets nothing and he works for nothing.

Sure he worked for OFA but after that, he kind of stagnates. But admittedly it's not his fault entirely, The (very small) world of MHA seemed intent on screwing him over at every given opportunity.

Aizawa and the rest of UA is fucking useless as an institution. Throwing untrained child soldiers out on patrol and seeing what sticks. How nobody has died yet, idk.

One Ao3 commenter said it best:

"UA is a horrible learning environment where I wouldn't be able to trust anyone and would very quickly grow paranoid and grow/hold grudges against "stronger" students because every loses against them could mean my expulsion for being "too weak".

"Also, he uses his quirk all willy-nilly without caring about the potential lethality of such usage (you have a quirk like Denki's that stockpiled something like electricity, he uses his quirk on you, the stockpiled electricity goes haywire and kill you and several other people nearby or you risk losing years of accumulated energy.) OFA could have lost all it's accumulated energy.)"

Everything Midoriya does feels pointless because there's no reward. Midoriya receives zero acknowledgement or recognition and the viewers are given no payoff.

His classmates ignore him, or make some comment on his failings/pain but never act.

Aizawa seems to single him out constantly, while the rest of the staff, even All Might seem content to twiddling their thumbs as Aizawa continuously tramples over the rules of student-teacher conduct.

(no aggressive physical contact, no verbal abuse, etc)

Midoriya is the centerpiece and that's precisely why Hori tried to use him to prop up the abusive cash cows. It's narrative gaslighting 101.

"If the protagonist says it, then it must be correct"

I'm going to be honest, Midoriya was always a vessel for the plot but he at least had character. That's why so many people jumped ship when the Dark Deku are turned out to be a total bust.

Because there was no reason go engage in story that can't respect it's roots (original premise)

He was given power up after power up with no thought on what came before

By the logic of OFA being a stockpiler, Flight should be the strongest quirk out of all of them. Gearshift should be the weakest. It makes no sense until you account for Hori's "subtle" sexism *and I have no idea if it's intended or borne of ignorance.

It was supposed to be "This was how I became the greatest hero"

Not "How we repeated the sins of the father"

That's why Midoriya fails as a protagonist, as a character. Because MHA doesn't have a protagonist, it doesnt have a hero. Just a bunch of super-powered SWAT celebrities covering eachothers asses.

Mha was a story about focusing on the victims .

And ended as a story about the abusers.

[ihatetaxes99]

Alrighty, fun theory time: What if Neito Monoma was actually brain-damaged?

I swear, this isn't a joke post, this is a genuine headcanon/theory I like to consider that possibly explains the... Sharp shift in his behaviour. Of course, it obviously isn't actually canon, I don't think anyone would believe that for a second, but it's an idea I like to ruminate upon. That said, time to elaborate:

It's no secret that when the character of Neito Monoma was introduced during the Sports Festival story arc of the Boku No Hero manga, he was rather different from his later portrayals.

Unless I'm forgetting something, this was the first proper panel introducing Monoma in the series:

As you can see, there were some... Changes later on down the line:

Anyone can tell that something happened here. Anyone who has a basic knowledge of the manga is aware that this second image is not an outlier. Monoma has been consistently portrayed as arrogant, over-the-top and borderline mentally unwell. There's clearly something wrong with this boy, this isn't just a kid being energetic.

Monoma in his initial appearance was clearly a bit underhanded, yes. He was a schemer, a trickster, almost like the heroes' version of Mr. Compress (I had to fit a reference to my G in there somehow) in how he relies on subterfuge and deception over raw strength; None of this translates to the psychopathic brat he became as early as the Training Camp arc. The question is, what happened to cause this? I mean, yeah, there are a few pretty good guesses as to why his personality was retconned out-of-universe (I've always taken an interest in the theory that his insanity was turned up to make Kendo's behaviour towards him seem more justified, somehow, and have her come off as less unlikeable, though there is also the popular theory that Bakugo's popularity had a hand in things as well, which I won't get into here), but that's boring. I am an Autist, and what I want is an in-universe explanation to use as my personal headcanon.

And so, we come to this delightful little panel:

Acquired Brain Injury (ABI) refers to a form of brain injury brought about by physical trauma or other damage caused sometime after birth, as opposed to genetic brain damage. As listed by the Scottish Acquired Brain Injury Network, symptoms of ABI can include:

Reduced motivation.

Reduced ability to initiate activity.

Reduced motivation.

Reduced empathy.

Emotional Lability

Reduced impulse control (i.e. reduced ability to control expression of emotions and behaviour).

Agitation.

Aggressive behaviour.

Impaired judgement.

Socially inappropriate behaviour.

Sexually disinhibited behaviour.

Reduced insight/awareness of the consequences of brain injury and its impact.

Obviously, not all of these symptoms are relevant to Monoma's case, but some - such as emotional lability, reduced impulse control, agitation, aggressive behaviour, impaired judgement and socially inappropriate behaviour - sound very familiar.

In short, it's proven that physical trauma to the head can very much influence and alter a person's personality, resulting in instability. And as we can see from the image, Bakugo very nearly blew Monoma's head off during the climax of the chariot battle. The way that his head snaps back is clearly indicative of receiving some sort of sharp blow.

And that is where the basis of my theory is formed. Neito Monoma starts out his UA career as a somewhat ambitious and devious, but intelligent and well put-together kid. Then, during the Sports Festival, he receives a severe blow to the head from Bakugo. Given the nature of UA's training regiment, it's even possible that he would sustain more injuries off-panel between the end of the Festival and his next appearance at the Training Camp, possibly even developing the situation into Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy. And that's not even considering all of the times Kendo has been seen striking him hard enough to knock him out cold. We're also well aware of how lax UA is in regards to their medical care, with a kiss from Recovery Girl and a few days' rest typically being seen as the best way to deal with incidents. In this environment, Monoma's head trauma would go on to manifest itself in more and more personality defects, transforming him over time as his intellectual capabilities were diminished and his aggressive and socially unaware behaviour grew more and more pronounced. It puts a tragic spin on what is essentially a mishandled joke character, holding the lens to UA's negligent behaviour that the manga barely touched in any real depth.

Of course, as I said, obviously none of this is the case. Monoma was rewritten to be a joke after the Sports Festival and that is the long and short of it. There isn't really anything deeper going on there, not intentionally at least. But I like to dream. And I've really grown rather fond of this little headcanon.

[bibibbon]

What was hound dog THINKING?!?!

There is a reason why izuku doesn't trust adults forcing him to trust them doesn't help?!?!.

I can't believe that hound dog is supposed to be the UA counsellor or therapist and it's literally canon that students fear him so what is UA thinking?

Why is UA even considered a good school?

[sapphic-agent]

With MHA coming to a close, I thought I'd see what you all thought should have been addressed. There's no small amount of missed opportunities in the story, but I want to see what folks were hoping for when they started reading/watching

[justatalkingface]

The 'Great' MHA Read Along, Part Five (Chapters 22-44): The Mandatory Exploitive Tournament Arc

Been awhile, huh? Let's see if I can still pull this off. I'm warning you, this is probably going to have a bit of heft to it.

We start off people trying (and failing) to investigate Shigarki and the Villains and, first off, a couple of things. The whole, 'Quirk Registry' shit? Very X-Men. I'm... kinda mixed feelings on it. It makes sense for a government to try and keep track of this kind of shit, but at the same time it feels like a whole lot, you know? That said... the way the guy in the suit phrased it makes it seem like they only searched for 'Shigaraki/Disintegration' and 'Kurogiri/OP warping' pairings, which seems... dumb. Like, really dumb.

Are they.... are they not going to search for anyone with a similar Quirk? Because it sounds like there are other people with similar Quirks, so... what about them? Oh, this pale haired guy who mutters a lot about how horrible heroes are isn't named Shigaraki, so clearly this isn't the guy? Do some ground work or something, man, bloody hell.

*spits out drink*

Even All-Might thinks Shigaraki is a man-child, lol. Brutal. That said... Vlad goes, 'You mean he's just like a kid with a 'power' or something?!'

And I. My dude. You're just some guy with a power. It feels like some depersonalization of the 'villains' because, yeah, everyone in this story is, in fact, just some rando human, 99.9% of the time with super powers. I don't know, it just feels like that's this really concerning perspective for someone in authority to have.

'I keep forgetting this is an actual school!'

That. That's... actually really concerning? Everyone, literally everyone, from Aizawa, to the students, to the actual author, can't seem to figure out if UA is some military academy meant to pump out child soldiers, or an actual high school meant to prepare children to go into society. And not to belabor the point here, one I've talking about on and off again for awhile, but that's fucked up.

I can't help but get the impression that UA (and presumably every other hero academy) is some military complex, setting up the students to live a life where the only way they know how to live is through violence and trying to be famous, but it's just... pretending to have standards, pretending to care for the kids as anything more than the next generation of... idol-police, or something. The way every school related thing is so out of place, the way their grades are so unimportant... it's very telling.

And like. It's not a bad thing, per say. Morally bad, sure, but from a story telling perspective? For a story like this, the way the heroic's school is morally dubious is actually a really good plot point to work off of. But... that's the problem. It never happens.

If the setting was fucked up enough, it'd be understandable if it wasn't explored, but it's not. I feel like there's some fertile ground to talk about... how heroes don't know how to handle living normal lives. How to cook, clean, do taxes, hIstory (which is, of course, very loaded sort of topic in a more dystopian kind of a set up) and so on. There's no way they have the time and energy to do all the thing a normal kid should do at their age, and as they grow up, and get these dangerous, fucked up jobs? There has to be consequences to that.

And the next line later, they bring up, you know, a bunch of terrorists just attacked the school. Which is, in fact, a serious fucking concern! What does Aizawa say?

'No no, we're only doing because we're so sure we have this shit locked down.'

Spoiler alert: They did not, in fact, have this shit locked down. In the least.

My god, this is so fucked up. It's pretty clear that the fact this is still happening is because UA, and heroics as a whole, honestly, is doing a show of force to try and make all the bad things go away. In all honesty, they're putting these kids lives at risk; the only reason nothing went wrong isn't because 'the school had all its ducks in a row when it comes to crisis control' or what the fuck ever, but because AFO didn't want to do anything. And you know why he doesn't interfere?

Because it's so damn useful for him that they flat out broadcast the details of the students and what their Quirks are!

And don't even get me started on this 'Olympics have fallen out of favor' bullshit. It's a world wide event, and it doesn't matter if the population has... shrunk (? That's what my translation says, anyways. Is this honestly saying that so many people died that the Olympics no longer holds any attraction? I mean.. what? What the fuck? What happened???? Why in the hell is this getting brushed over?! Or is that just a bad translation, and if so what is he saying is the reason the Olympics no longer have any appeal?) or whatever, because that's just... bullshit. That's just bullshit. If super powers happen, and they get at all stabilized and regulated like they are in here, all that's going to happen is that the powers are going to be part of the Olympics, and a lower population count really isn't going to change the fundamental reasons why it's popular in the first place.

Speedster racing, various forms of competitive flying (racing (in all its variations), acrobatics, mid-air dancing, synchronized flying.... flight along has dozens of potential new Olympics sports, easy), something like shot-put hurling but with some kind of projectiles, fire, lasers, whatever? Oh yeah, the Olympics are going to be just fine.

So please, Hori, spare me your obsessive need to make heroics the most important thing EVAH all of the time.

But, wait, there's more! It's not just, the new super Olympics, oh no, this is for their careers. In high school. This is, apparenlty, a make or break moment for the rest of their lives (again, with however that undefined heroics ranking and what not works). How old are they? What, fifteen? 'Here, go do bloodsports, and if you fuck up, you're going to be a menial, loser fry-cook of a wannabe police officer, dressed in brightly colored spandex for the rest of your life, barely making any money, and never getting any real respect or validation for putting your life at risk'.

Oh, I have opinions on the Sports Festival, believe me, I have a lot of opinions, but I'd like to save at least some of these more for when the actual Sports Festival starts, and not, like, five pages into the first chapter out of what, twenty two? We've got the time.

Uraraka! You're an actual character! My, this is nostalgic. I always loved the contrast between her hyper cute-zied design of her and the fact she's down to beat the living shit out of someone at the drop of a hat, and it's nice to have that again.

(Also, she's showing more ability to inspire the class here than Bakugou has shown literally the entire series, no matter how much Hori goes on about his 'charisma' or whatever.)

And then we get into her "impure" motivations to be a hero, (which I've also talked about on occasion), and it's very humanizing, both for Uraraka as a character, and the industry as a whole. It's one of those great set ups Hori ended up dropping on world building, which sucks because it'd be so interesting if he got into the nuts and bolts of the world a bit. I'm not saying we need to see the tax code or anything, but for a series that's about corruption and what not, some more detail would really help pull all of this together.

Ah, Dumb Might. I didn't miss you, except I kind of did because Dumb Might is still better than Useless-Side-Character Might.

Also, can I talk about how stupid it is that Dumb Might is burning his less than an hour's worth of time 'teaching' students again? Because holy fuck that's such a waste it's honestly criminal.

And what the hell is this switch in motivations, here? All Might never mentioned, you know, replacing him is the Symbol of Peace before now. Before this point, the whole reason he chose Izuku is that he'd be worthy user of his power, not, what, replacing him. If Izuku never gained any real fame, but still managed to save a lot of people? Before-this-point All Might would have been fine with that. More than that, he would have been proud of it, proud his successor was humble and chose to focus on doing good rather than fame. Hell, not too long ago it was pointing out by All Might that Izuku wouldn't want to use All Might's fame to benefit himself, to go slow and steady and earn his success rather than relying on fame.

Where the fuck did this come from? What the fuck kind of pressure is he trying to put on this kid?

And then right after that, we see flashes of who All Might used to be with the whole 'don't forget how you felt at the seaside park, that day', bit. Because, like, that's good. That's great! It's real, and deep, and gritty, and I'd love it if it wasn't being use with this set up, because those expectations work in other shonens, but they don't work here. Izuku can't do what All Might did, because he can't stop damn hurting himself. Going Plus Ultra, here, now, for this? It could cause real, serious harm to him for the rest of his life! And for what? To make a good impression?

And if something would call him on that, it could still work, because All Might is canonly shit at taking care of himself, that could, like, close the circle for all of this, bring it together with the two them as shit at at self care as a place to build them improving off of, but for whatever reason, Hori never went all the way on that because he was too damn afraid to commit to it, commit to a story, commit to a theme, commit to a moral.

...Holy shit, how many pages is this? We haven't even gotten to actual Sports Festival yet in the post about the damn Sports Festival.

And now we have this creepy, kind of morbid mob of people filling the hallway to stare at Class 1-A for.... being attacked by terrorists.

*what the fuck.jpeg*

What is wrong with you people?! What the actual hell is wrong with you???

And then Shinso rolls up:

"Wow. Look at these arrogant assholes, so excited about not getting killed. I'm going to declare war on them, because they deserve it for getting all high and mighty."

...

You know, I completely forgot about the epic story of, 'Shinso Hitoshi and his Completely Unmerited Persecution Complex'. I'm sad that I remember that now.

Bakugou: "People's opinions don't matter once your at the top."

Me: *looks at how much people's opinions matter to getting to the top, and staying there*

Me: ...Uh.

Thank you, Kaminari, for pointing out his edgy bullshit is, in fact, actually bullshit, and is only going to make his life more difficult for no reason. I like you as an actual person who does things other than cheerlead for Bakugou.

Izuku. Izuku no, Izuku...! Damn it. Bad Izuku. Bad! Stop getting inspired by the festering waste spewing out of Bakugou's mouth!

Cue all of two panels of the media being absolute assholes only out to make ratings with no redeeming features.

And... here's the actual Sports Festival, god knows how long into this post later!

(if you believe the text editor I just posted all of this into? Well into four pages. ...Even with my generous use of spacing, I think I have a problem.)

..Wait. Wait. Where the hell is this happening?

*does five seconds of research on the wiki*

I'm right. They have a stadium for this. Like, a giant ass sports stadium that exists for this. Only for this. That is used once a year.

At this point, I'm honestly wondering why UA isn't just it's own city. Like, Izuku should have moved here, along with the rest of the students, and all the families and various staff needed to run this just.... live on site. It's not like it'd cost them anything, since they apparently have spare cities sitting around for the kids to trash.

That's... that's actually a really interesting idea? Because it'd be a hero run city, then, which feels like it'd work well into the over commercialized, corrupted state heroics is supposed to be like, their overwhelming level of influence. I don't think that's what Hori was going for, to be clear, I think he has no idea just how much space he's causally put on UA's campus and didn't think through the implications... at all.

Ooh, and here comes Todoroki's characterization.

And... here comes the bloodsport, because that's what all of this is: bloodsport. They're throwing a bunch of teenagers onto this stage, broadcast them to the entire country, and have them fight against each other for fame. This society is so fucked up.

Random Gen Ed kid: Yeah, he placed first in the Heroics Entance Exam.

...Yeah. As fucking stupid as it is that Bakugou somehow placed first, it does make sense the person who place first in the Heroics Entrance Exam would be class representative in a school for heroics. Damn, you're salty, kid, but you're also kinda dumb, not going to lie.

Bakugou: *opens his mouth on live TV*

Bakugou: *vomits diarrhea for the entire country to see*

Izuku: ...Wow, Bakugou's so cool! He's grown up and mature now!

...Izuku. Izuku, buddy, please, stop doing this to yourself.

As yet another thing I've mentioned before, a lot of our views on Bakugou comes from Izuku. Izuku who has, from chapter one, all but worshipped Bakugou. Even when he does things wrong, even when he's actively fighting against him, Izuku can't stop himself from going on and on about how great Bakugou is, how cool and tough and determined he is. Izuku's hero worship of his abuser is sheltering Bakugou's actions from the readers, papering over all of his worst traits with a a transparent facade that he's this glorious figure. It's the narrative going the extra mile to cover his arrogant ass, to make him seem like a rival instead of an bully, someone worthy of respect rather than contempt.

Hmm. I don't want to go too much into the nuts and bolts of the event, I think, since I've done that before, so let's try something else: How Many Times Could This Kill A Literal Child? Where I, you guessed it, count how many times a teenager could have been killed, on national television, in this event.

Count one: The start of the race itself, where... *counts how many kids are in 1-A, multiplies by eleven*... two hundred and twenty kids run forward at the same time, trying to force themselves through the same opening. This shit is why it's illegal to shout fire in a theater, because a stampede like this could get someone trampled to death, or maybe crushed by the sheer weight of the crowd (which is something that happens, someone getting killed by the a crowd of unruly people just... squeezing them on accident).

*stares at Shinso being carried around like a wannabe king instead of using his own damn legs judgingly*

Count Two: Mineta gets bitched slapped by a robotic arm bigger than he is. I don't think I have to get into how that could be fatal.

Count Three: The army of Zero Pointers who could easily step on someone.

*Momo wondering about how UA can fund this makes me feel very validated, BTW*

Count Four: Todoroki dumping the Zero Pointer on the rest of the competition to block the way, again for obvious reasons. He obviously doesn't meant to, but this kid isn't even looking back. This is both lamp shaded and then dismissed because it happens to the only two people who could shrug that off, but holy shit that could have killed so many of them.

...The cameras are robots. The cameras are robots with AIs that are cheering on the other robots. I- I can't- what?!?

And then everyone can't stop themselves from praising Bakugou for the radical idea of going over a problem instead of blasting through it. Wow, Bakugou. Amazing. Such brains, such smarts.

Count Five: The Fall. Because there's no way that anyone could get themselves killed by. You know. Falling. If I was more generous, I'd say something like, 'There's probably something down there to catch them if they fall', but I'm not terribly impressed by UA's ability to actually keep these kids safe, so that doesn't make me think they'd have thought that through that much.

Grudgingly, I'm going to give a landmines a pass, because they're explicitly supposed to be non-lethal, and them blowing up didn't do any real damage. Burns, maybe, possibly a broken limb, probably some scars, but this count is about people dying. Izuku's pile could have been, maybe, but that's a level of deliberate action on his part big enough that I can't really blame UA, per say.

Eraserhead, on how 1-A has improved: I didn't do anything.

...Well. At least he's honest.

One other thing: I've said before how bullshit All Might telling Izuku to 'fight to win' was, and right here, here's the proof: All Might explicitly going, "I was afraid you'd be too nice to try and beat other people in competitions, but you proved me wrong! I'm so proud!". You know, fighting to win. Like he later says Izuku doesn't for some mysterious reason *cough*, to make him seem at the same level as Bakugou, *cough*. Poor, poor All Might, yet another victim of Bakugou's narrative warping favoritism.

And here we see the management kids going all out in how to sell Izuku and his brand, which is so very fucked up, for them and the people they're 'selling'. I'm aware this is something that celebrities go through, (which is fucked up for them as well, don't get me wrong; I'm an equal opportunity 'this is fucked up' call out-er), but these kids are in high school. The fact that they're doing this, and getting this done to them, in such numbers, in such an early age... yeah. There's no way this could give them lots and lots of long term stress and psychological problems, right?

Meanwhile, as we get to the offical rankings, I think it's time go back over the 'How Many Times Could This Kill A Literal Child?' count... at five. Five times they could have been killed on complete accident.

That is not a good score.

I'm stopping it here because the other events don't have the same problem, but instead of a whole new problem of delibrately pitting them against each other. On live TV. With minimal supervison. Cementoss popping in at the last second in Izuku vs Todoroki, considering how badly Izuku got hurt in the process, does not fill me with a great sense of these fights being well monitored.

*gets an omake chapter*

*Bakugou gets called Izuku's childhood 'friend'. Bitch, please.*

So. Here's a new point: the million point bullshit is... well. Bullshit. It's the snitch in Quiddich all over again, giving the hero something both super import, with an extra layer of difficulty, to drive up the stress and stakes, only kicked up by a million. Making more than the others makes sense, and making it enough to pass by itself is still pretty reasonable, but making it so excessively much has no point other making Izuku feel isolated from his peers and hunted by his classmates.

Also, Mt Lady going on about how 'great' an exercise the second round is is missing the point that this is literally a thing Japanese kids do in school. Literally, this is a game they're playing with Quirks, not some tactical exercise; it's like saying that playing hide and seek makes you great at hunting people down or something. Again, Hori, dial back your constant need to tell us how great the Sports Festival is. Because it isn't. It really, really isn't.

More doses of everything drooling over how great Bakugou is, and how much of a total shit of a human being he is, joy. Mineta and Shouji's teamup is actually pretty damn brilliant, even though it's tainted by how much of a one-dimensional character Mineta is. Iida is getting shown as Izuku's enemy, but honestly it looks more like he's just trying to improve himself more than anything, while acknowledging how competent Izuku is. Not just that he won the first round, or has a lot points but that Izuku, as a person, is the goal he wants to surpass; there's some good shit there, and pretty validating, if Izuku could allow himself to accept it.

Oh Mei! Mei... actually, I have a post I need to do about the Mei and Izuku dynamic at some point, how they're so designed to work together, but yeah she's fun.

And then Uraraka thinks about how strategic Izuku is being and again, I can't help but contrast this with how things happen later on; even if Izuku never lets himself really feel the respect people have for him, people at this point in time really, honestly seem to respect him, not for his Quirk, but for his brain, his determination, his heroism; it's so well setup for Izuku to stand on his own two feet without OFA and it's some really good stuff. It's a shame Hori gets rid of it.

Hmm. Class B. Class B is... interesting. They're set up as rivals but after this it never goes anywhere, and just leaves us with a bad impression of Monoma, without letting him get a good chance to get past it. I don't like him, honestly, his personality grates at me and he needs to get over himself, but he doesn't deserve the hate he gets from the fandom.

That said, though, the Class A vs Class B victory philosphy is honestly just another example of destroying yourself vs having realistic limits, how All Might and Izuku keep destroying themselves vs everyone else not doing that. The fact Class B is actually thinking ahead is smart, but the series doesn't give them that credit because it's not ambitious enough... even though that runs straight into conflicting with Izuku and his issues.

Hori, fucking commit already. In all honesty, it feels like 1-B should have won over Bakugou and knocked him out of the compition; they planned it out, and played him like a sucker, because he's a bullheaded moron. It's all right there, but right as they win... Eraserhead shows up in the booth and says, 'Yes, you've won, but actually no, because Bakugou need to win anyways. So he is. Because REASONS!' Then All Might gets dragged into that same bullshit just to make it really clear that no, Bakugou is right. Planning? Strategy? That's for losers. Real winners just need to want it hard enough, and no one wants things more than Bakugou!

It would have been better, as a story, and for everyone's character development, if that had happened. Bakugou would have lost to some 'nobodies', Izuku would have gone past him without even validating him with a fight, and Class B and Monoma would have gotten a better chance to show themselves as characters; win win win.

And then Endeavour shows up. Fuck Endeavour. Also that is a man who looks like a serial killer. Dumb Might continues to reign and be completely unable to recognize when someone hates him when he monologues about it right in front of him.

Meanwhile, Bakugou is just... there. For some reason. Why? Why does he need to be there for this? It makes his hissy fit later even worse when you realize he knows why Todoroki doesn't use his fire, and it has literally nothing to do with him. Ignoring him, though, Todoroki and Izuku's moment here is some good stuff, a nice setup for a healthy rivalry based on mutual respect, rather than the toxic mess he has with Bakugou.

Ugh. That cheerleader bullshit. Honestly, it says a lot that they can be told that, 'Aizawa says you need to dress up as cheerleaders', and apparently no one questions this, because of course Aizawa would pull some kind of weird bullshit on them with absolutely no warning at what anyone else would think is the worst possible time.

Midnight being really creepy about how she talks to teenagers, of course, and now... Shinso.

'Consent is for losers' Shinso. 'Everyone is coasting on their Quirks except for me, who only knows how to use my Quirk' Shinso. 'Let me use my Quirk on someone before we even get in the arena so I can blatantly cheat' Shinso. 'No one else has dreams or ambitions' Shinso.

I don't like Shinso. I like the idea of Shinso, sure, but that idea is another one of those paper thing veneers Hori likes to put on his characters, without doing the work to make that match the reality; the only hardship we've seen him go through is his apparent inability to work hard. Like, everyone loves Shinso, in story and out, they can't stop themselves from telling him how great his Quirk is. And you know what? It is. It is a great Quirk.

But Shinso talks like he's had a such a hard time with it, even though he seems to love it, love using it, and the way he acts, like he knows he can go through a career as a hero based only on that Quirk. He's wrong, since he's so out of shape he can't even run, apparently, but he's operating off that assumption at this point, which conflicts with his poor little martyr act.

I want you to look at the iceberg Todoroki makes, and compare it to his efforts against Stain. If he did that against him? That fight would have been over the minute he showed up, and Todoroki ambushed him. This is pretty much our last moments of Todoroki, certified badass, before the nerfs roll in. Savor it, Todoroki fans, because he'll never recover from having to lose against Bakugou.

Another omake, which seems like foreshadowing about Hori deals with women characters: bringing up a good characterization, or valid idea (do women heroes need sexiness to do their jobs?), before throwing it away to fall for the same tropes that he was making a stand against just a minute ago (women getting in a cat fight, which apparently gets really explicit, all of this on a TV before Mineta, Hori's avatar of his own horniness).

Then, as if to prove my point, we get Bakugou vs Uraraka where, like Class B before her, she does everything right, gets the win... and then gets it taken away at the last minute by idiotic bullshit pulled out of nowhere (since when could Bakugou make a blast like that? Why does he need those bomb gauntlets if he can do that?) because Bakugou isn't allowed to lose. And then Eraserhead, Hori's mouthpiece, shouts down the crowd, and us, when we think bad thoughts about it because that isn't allowed either; we need to love Bakugou.

Bakugou respects women! ...Just as much as he respects everyone else. That is to say, he doesn't. Hell, he doesn't respect her enough to think Uraraka planned her own fight! He just gets one line for one second that makes it seem like he respects her, but of course once that moments gone it's back to the normal level of complete disrespect. That's totally character growth right there, one second of acting different before returning right back to standard behavior.

So... Izuku vs Todoroki. I like the fight, it's very dramatic, very cool, but... stop to think about it a second, and about a minute in, Izuku's entire ass hand is broken. That is not OK. Why are they letting it go on? It's simultaneously a great fight, but a seemingly awkward implementation of Izuku having a Quirk, because so much of this arc is built off of him not using a Quirk, not having it. This fight only works with it, though. And it's cool, don't get me wrong, but it's shallow at the same time because of the Quirk, because Izuku has to go Plus Ultra, has to go past his limits. Instead of accepting a more reasonable win, he has to win, period, and he doesn't have the power for that.

There's this awkward conflict here between the story's various narratives, between Izuku needing to suffer, and struggle, and break himself, and his more grounded planning and actions, and you can see Hori's old, better planned out ideas getting replaced with newer, less thought out ones. It's honestly kind of a theme for this arc in it's own right.

Flaws aside, though, the fight is gripping, and it's a great setup for Todoroki, a great starting point in making him an important character, in giving him growth. Shame Hori ends up throwing all that away literally the next fight.

Well, before that happens, let's talk the one two punch of, 1, Izuku having done himself permanent, life long damage, which nobody thought to stop, and 2, the sheer, unmitigated clusterfuck of Recovery Girl going, 'I'm not going to treat wounds like these'.

So. If Izuku breaks anything... well. She's not going to treat that. I guess he has to walk around with a broken finger/hand/arm, without any medical attention whatsoever? Well. I certainly don't see any problems with that.

Then we get Bakugou, who canonly has problems using his Quirk for extended periods of time, outlasting someone by using his Quirk for extended periods of time, before going on to fight someone who uses cold, his canon weakness, and ignoring how it should completely neutralize his Quirk to overpower it, through what I can only call his sheer, narrative warping concentration of favoritism.

On what happens after he wins... I've seen people say that he doesn't mean to attack Todoroki, just try to wake him up, but looking at that scene: he's holding Todoroki's body up with one hand as if to shake him, sure, but it's the other hand that's the problem. The way he's holding it is, for his Quirk, an offensive pose, making it ready to attack his target. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt (against my own opinion) and say it's not proof positive that he was about to attack, but there's no getting around that Bakugou had himself perfectly set up to hit Todoroki, full blast, while he was unconscious. Even if it's the more innocent explanation, that feels like something that should have disqualified him because... that's really concerning. That feels a step away from him threatening victims he thinks should have stood up for themselves or something; it's not heroic, in the slightest. The fact they had to knock him out, presumably for Todoroki's own safety, says enough about how bad that is.

The fact that the ending comment is basiclly lamenting from his perspective, that this 'isn't what he wanted' is... certainly a choice. He won, but, gasp! The person with long held issues in using his full power that long predate him didn't use his full power! The poor baby!

Then we get to the award ceremony where they... chain him up? Why!? If the doesn't want the damn award, don't give it to him; they let those guys earlier give up when they felt they didn't deserve it, why is Bakugou different? It feels like it's Hori tying him up here, against Bakugou's own will, and characterization, to give him that win just so he can win, but also to forcefully set up Bakugou's own importance with the League later. It's ham handed. It's probably child abuse. It's stupid.

It's fucked up all the way down, is what I'm saying.

Then All Might shows up, and fucks up his entrance timing because he's not allowed to win anymore, of course, and then forces that medal on Bakugou.

Uuuugh.

Last couple of panels, though, are pretty nice: we build up Uraraka's character, get the next arc set up, set up Izuku (fucking finally) getting away to use his own damn power, and develop Todoroki a bit.

A nice little cherry on top of the shit sundae.

[nutzgunray-lvt]

I love how people honestly believe that Izuku's unfairly favored by the narrative when:

He can't do any sort of good deed without getting in trouble with UA, his classmates, or the adults in his life

Only got ONE internship offer despite there being classmates who performed worse than him

Has friends/classmates/teachers who sit by and let him be bullied by a fellow classmate

Was LEFT INJURED ON THE GROUND while his bully got coddled

Was put on house arrest for defending himself against his bully

Never once received any thanks for sacrificing his education or health to drive AFO and Shigaraki out of hiding, instead having civillians be scared of him and his classmates beat him into coming back

Is never allowed to view his bully in a negative light, despite having every right to

Is portrayed as being a part of a mutual rivalry, despite the clear bully/victim dynamics being present

Has his literal defining characteristic completely forgotten about because it'll make his bully look bad

Has no hobbies or talents to speak of, and his only shown hobby is a subject of mockery

Has clearly bullshit power, presence, and speed stats (1/5) that blatantly contradict what he's shown to be doing in the fucking story

Has his bully inserted into story arcs with him, even though said bully wasn't even present in the arc to begin with

[electronicdelusionstarlight]

You know, I was just thinking about the UA entrance exam.

Specifically, how terribly designed it is, but not for the reason they seem to give in the story itself.

Like, here's how it is: Aizawa is shown criticising the UA Entrance Exam once, during the Sports Festival. And the ONE criticism he makes, is that the use of Robot enemies during the exam would disproportionately affect people whose Quirk work against biological opponents, essentially.

His one criticism, is that the exam is not designed to also cater to people like him, and that's it. The way therefore it's set up, it'd be logical to assume he'd ask for a restructuring to the exam to remove the Robots and substitute them with live enemies, possibly Ectoplasm clones.

This is never brought up again, aside from maybe a stealth bring up during the mid term exams when they switch the exam from fighting robots to fighting teachers.

The exam is, and I just got to it myself while watching this video about how Copaganda paints police training and the relative risk police officers face on the job, set up in a very specific environment:

An empty town, where what is essentially a murder spree is taking place. The ONLY entities in the place, outside of fellow examinee, are robots that have been literally designed to attack everyone on sight, and that need to be destroyed to pass. The points granted from saving people are hidden, so they can be more "genuine" of course, and are, ultimately, also part of the problem.

Because here's the fucking thing.

When the fuck is that ever going to happen.

When the fuck, is a superhero, after their 5 years of Hero training in high school, then entering the work force without a need for a decree in higher education, ever going to find themselves in an environment where they can use LETHAL FORCE on civilian targets? With no restraint or care for collateral damage?

And where they are ENCOURAGED to kill as many criminals as they can, and NOT collaborate with other heroes? Because that's another thing, you need to steal points from other people to pass, by culling the number of limited robots, much like heroes are paid by the arrest and by popularity.

You do understand how fucked up that starts to sound right? The other, the enemy, is reduced as a caricature Droid from star wars, there only to kill and destroy, and against whom your only TWO methods of defeat are outright destruction or sneak attacks on their off buttons.

And here's the cherry on the shit too, because, AGAIN, when is that EVER going to be the case?

Do you know how many heroes show up in the first villain attack in BNHA?

Five.

Two are engaging a purse snatcher, three are doing crowd control, the Slime Villain, who may I remind you was guilty of robbery at a convenience store before he got the hostage, gets THE NUMBER ONE HERO, as well as those same FIVE heroes involved, of which only BACKDRAFT is actually doing anything.

Now, imagine you are a hero school, and you produce 40 heroes a year, just like every other hero school out there. How many of those heroes will see active duty, if the rate of crimes demand FIVE heroes to react to ONE criminal?

And people will say "but EDS, this mentality is later rewarded when All Might retires and it all falls to shit," Except NOT REALLY, because that's an externally forced situation caused by, and I can't stress this enough, a hundreds of yeas old NEET boomer who read too many Doctor Doom comics as a kid and decided to become a supervillain, the riots, the open air warfare, is only caused by AFO forcing the hand and inciting popular unrest, which is an unrealistic thing to expect off any society.

In one of the movies, Class 1-A is sent to open an hero agency on a small island with barely a village on it. 20 Heroes. Until the movie truly picks up, the best they do is help kittens from trees, and Bakugou, the sort of person for whom the Entrance Exam was designed, is useless, left in his tent like Achilles, the perfect cowboy cop who peeked in highschool and didn't realize just how much paperwork and dead time his dream job actually entailed.

So that's the ACTUAL Issue with the entrance exam. It take no account for any other mean to beat the robots but brute force, it takes no account for collateral damage, or the sanctity of life of your opponents, and it tests nothing but how good at ending lives you are.

Which is a problem when you're picking future heroes.

[lacedteatime]

Hypocrisy

It's always frustrating when characters get mad at Izuku hurting himself with One for All but never get mad at Bakugou for hurting Izuku. And the characters that get mad at Izuku for hurting himself don't even offer any help! No, Aizawa, telling a kid to stop having quirk side effects does not help them learn to avoid them.

All Might may be bad at teaching, but at least he doesn't get mad at Izuku for not being able to control One for All perfectly like he could.

The teachers don't care if Bakugou punches Izuku in the face for no good reason, insults him constantly, drags him outside to beat him up, stabs him with pieces of his costume... but the minute Izuku gets hurt while using One for All they act like he failed in some way. It isn't necessarily wrong to say that he failed to keep himself whole, but you don't get to be upset at someone else for being in pain when you knew and did nothing to help prevent it.

This one is short because I should get back to writing what I'm supposed to be writing

[rewrittenmha]

UA should've been similar to a college city.

Maybe. I'm actually playing around with the idea of UA.

I feel like if UA was going to be a boarding school it should have been like that from the beginning. Because if you think about it, all the dorms did was give the UA traitor (Aoyama in this case) better access to Izuku and All Might. Yes the villain attacks were something to worry about. But a) the LOV literally infiltrated UA once and b) having the students all together like that feels even more dangerous.

Also, these kids were literally put into a war. Protecting them really didn't do much in the end.

I'm either going to have UA be a boarding school from the beginning or not make it a boarding school at all

[zi-o3]

mha rant# ua is bad school and people need to acknowledge it

Ua is supposed to be the best hero school right. Well about that, there are a few bad eggs in it. Aizawa 'expulsion trigger' shots, who worships bakugo(then again hori and the fandom already do this), recovery girl who denies medical treatment, midnight who flirts with anything that has legs, and nezu, who is supposed to be smart, yet somehow makes the worlds dumbest decisions. Seriously the fact no has died here is a miracle in and of itself. Like seriously the fact that All might, a newbie teacher is a better teacher than them, who have been at the school longer than him is just sad.

[theloganator101]

I'm not sure if I did an ask about this, or if you did a write up about it, but isn't funny how we never hear what exactly makes UA such a prestigious school?

I did some research on Japan's 10th grade public high school education, and from what little we see of their classes, it matches it. It's nothing especially advanced or rigerous, so we can cross academics off the list. The only thing we know about extracurricular activities is that Hero Course students aren't allowed to participate in them, so it can't be that either.

We only know for sure that All Might and Endeavor are UA graduates. What about other highly ranked heroes on the Billboard (excluding Hawks and Mirko, who were explicitly stated to have not gone to any heroics schools)? This arguement holds some weight - that it's based on their alumni, but not really.

What extra advantages does UA have over other schools like Shiketsu or Ketsubutsu? Do they have Sports Festivals or internships, too? What about Work-Studies? What's the passing rate of those who take the Provisional Licensing Exam amongst the hero schools?

And this isn't even counting all of the bad press UA has racked up through the series.

This is something I've been trying to think about myself as my dad was a high school teacher himself, but when you try to think of UA as an actual school it doesn't make a lick of sense.

Even though it's meant to be the main setting of the series most of the time, we hardly get any chances to see how it functions as a school, how it's different from regular schools, or why it's even considered the number one hero school in Japan.

And I know I've ranted on this before, but I hate how they literally work their students to the ground and forcing them to be mini adults instead of allowing them to be fucking teenagers when they can. Which I get, it's an elite school where the work is gonna be hard. But I'm sure other elite schools ALLOW their students to breathe and have time for their hobbies and interests so they're not burned out and numb when doing their work!

SPEAKING OF HOBBIES AND INTERESTS!!

Why doesn't UA have any school clubs or extracurricular activities? Wouldn't that be a good thing for the hero students to do so in case they decide doing hero work is not their thing, they would have something to fall back on and not be fucked in the job department?

Is heroics all that this school cares about? Because apparently fuck the other departments and what they do! If they can't fight then they are not important! It would've been nice to see how they fair compared to the heroics class, how they contribute to society when they graduate and what they actually think of 1-A instead of the whole hate wagon that was going on.

UA being a horrible school could've made for some good story telling how it's a good school ON PAPER but in practice their flaws really show. Because you have teachers that don't seem to teach anything, show clear favoritism and biases against students, victim blame and punish the wrong people while the true aggressors go Scot free.

It would've been refreshing to see people in the story call UA out for wanting to put their reputation and image first before the safety and well being of their students, how it utterly failed most of their students while praising the ones that would probably go on to abuse their power and continue the cycle of being full of corrupted heroes.

[thr0wnawayy]

Who would the 10-13 1A members that died in the MLA be, if MHA had any actual stakes? I really liked your Kaminari idea, so I just wanted to explore it with you. It would have realistically made UA/the heroes look a hell of a lot worse and the villains look a hell of a lot smarter if they went for the angle of "the best heroics school in Japan is using child soldiers!"

I know for the heroes, it should have been Pixie Bob and Gran Torino in addition to Crust. Endeavor also should have died because it would have actually given the story actual stakes - Japan is now in shambles and the new #1 hero/heavy hitter is dead. Oh shit, what are they going to do?

Firstly I feel I should clarify that both 1A and B would lose some team members as both classes were thrust into war with basically no real training. Although for the sake of plot 1A would lose vastly more.

With that stated, let us begin.

I know for a fact that Koda is dead.

Truthfully, there is no way someone as bulky as him (with the addition of his poorly designed costume) would be even marginally capable of outrunning Shigaraki's Decay.

His quirk (Anivoice) gives him zero advantages and being in Jaku (a city under evacuation) would only add to this.

We also mustn't forget that the rubble by itself was also capable of disintegrating anything it touched. Putting all that together and given how close he was to "ground zero", his chances of survival are slim to none.

Additionally, everyone who found Midnight's corpse is either dead or brutally injured.

Midnight's body is isolated in a decently foliage heavy area, with plenty of hiding spots and vantage points making it all too easy to set an ambush.

Our merry band of MLA/PLF mercenaries simply have to bide their time, wait for the shock and horror to settle in and then strike.

Sero, Kirishima and Setsuna are easy targets (with Setsuna being the farthest from the bait) their backs are turned and mentally are either distant or "vacant".

If Momo didn't recover from her grief and get off the floor, it's game over.

However. She would likely manage to fend them off long enough to escape (thanks to her intelligence and dexterity), although not without some scars. (eyepatch momo, anyone?)

Mina might be able to hold them off due to her acid but will eventually falter because (as you mentioned) Aizawa's a shitheel.

That brings us up to 5 students so far (if we include Kaminari's death) that have died due to UA's (and the HPSC's) crippling negligence.

I'm a tad hesitant to add Tsu here but it's unlikely she'd survive. (even if she does survive the wave, she'd likely die in the crossfire)

Comicman, because yeah he's unimportant.

For the Villa Raid team it's important that we cut some heroes in order for this scenario to work.

Edgeshot is dead, likely fried to death by Electro-lite.

This would cause the raiding heroes to become discouraged and overwhelmed.

the MLA's gear is more than a match and combined with their years of fighting and tactical prowess. It's not even close.

Simply put; divide and conquer.

Mineta's dying for sure. His costume restricts his (torso and leg) movements and makes him standout like a traffic cone. That guy with holes all over his body is likely the one to snuff him out.

Ojiro is dead the moment the MLA members use numbers to overwhelm him, no amount of martial arts will save you from getting jumped.

Mines dies because his quirk (Twin Impact) suffers from the Flect Fallacy.(Overwhelming the quirk will break it). So pretty much any MLA member could be the one to kill him

That sets the score to 11 total student deaths (8 for 1A, 3 for 1B), not a good look.

We know the rest, Dabi kills Enji for good.

Skeptic publishes a video along with Dabi's exposé that reveals UA is using child soldiers and that the HPSC forged paperwork to allow this.

And the crowd goes wild!

The reactions would be brutal, national if not global criticism from every angle.

The entire raid and evacuation effort would be considered an immense failure, the villains remain at large to gather their numbers and most civilians would be left homeless and displaced.

The hero that everybody placed their bets on turned out be a child/wife beating eugenicist who bought (and later assaulted) his wife when she was only 17. Only to be killed off by the very child he left to burn.

The (global) outrage partially stems from the fact that if it weren't for Dabi, no one would have known otherwise .

The number 2 hero is an (attempted) murderer and seems almost irritated at Enji being outed, the world stage takes this the wrong way and opts not to aid Japan.* What pisses them off the most is his uncaring attitude.

Considering them a lost cause when Shigaraki not only breaks everyone out of Tartarus but also manges to kill AFO by sheer force of will (and wanting to see his friends live as they please)

Rei's speech/conference serves as the final nail. Going into immense detail of the pain she and her children suffered at the hands of Enji. (If their were any doubts Touya was her son, they were killed here)

When asked if anyone knew, she finishes her speech off with revealing that some heroes and staff knew about the abuse and chose to look the other way. Causing the room to burst into an uproar.

*(explaining why Japan was allowed to fester for as long as it did without intervention, something Hori failed to explain)

Parents begin pulling out their children in droves, not wanting to risk their kids getting drafted, others quit by choice.

Shiketsu and Ketsubutsu don't put their students on the front lines (they aren't stupid). The commission is unable to force them due to their, "unique" situation.

The heroes that quit are harshly criticized by the public and media (and usually fairly too), pointing out how shitty it looks (and is) for heroes to suddenly abandon them as soon as things get serious.

Class 1A is left to pickup the pieces with 8 classmates killed (+ Bakugo) the events of the last week have shocked them to their cores but perhaps there is hope.

Of course they're left to pick up their predecessors mistakes, again.

Midoriya would still go rouge, albiet he would stick to his principals. He's made a disturbing connection between Bakugo and Endeavor and it haunts him.

(I should add that Bakugo's death is portrayed for the selfish play it was)

Midoriya likely driven by the need to ensure that he doesn't lose anyone else. His anger at AM would probably stem from the fact that he is putting himself in danger for someone as "expendable" as himself.

I could see the two having a heart to heart that Midoriya is more than his quirk once he willingly returns.

Some additional information:

Bakugo dies permanently, because Edgeshot was killed by "Electro" earlier (even then I'm not doing the writing atrocity that is the "Jeart".)

For heroes I'd like to add Jeanist to the roster. Gigantomachia should have swatted him and his airship like a fly. This means the top 3 are dead, adding to the chaos. This also prevents the old-gen from taking up space.

The High-End Nomu beat the tar out of Miriko, leaving crippled at best and a paraplegic at worst. (That is assuming they don't kill her).

Fourth Kind is killed when, like Ojiro, he is overwhelmed.

Your absolutely correct, Gran Torino and Pixiebob are eliminated, joining Crust.

Twice actually lives, though I would keep that ambiguous until later, he wouldn't get out unscathed of course and would probably need to be put into a coma while his injuries heal.

Himiko's revenge plot now has additional stakes as she promises Twice that she will return to him. (before he's medically put under)

This also fuels the PLF + Spinner, vowing to do right by their ally and friend.

Dabi would have disfigured Hawks upon discovery of his attempt on Twice's life, no more cosmetic scars. Just good old fashioned brutality.

(The fear of losing Twice may have dug up the past memory of losing his mother after Enji drove her to the brink. As Dabi cares deeply for both [even if he won't admit it] ontop of the fact that it's a "hero" that's trying to take them and he betrayed them).

Overall this world is going to be one wild ride with a very different ending to what Hori gave us.

It is a story not of heroes and villains, but of ideals and goals. It asks the question:

What is it to save?

A few additional notes:

Momo would likely have a revenge arc as a sort of parallel between Izuku and Himiko. However it wouldn't be as bland as what we got in canon with Mina.

The mercenaries aren't mustache twirling supremacists, no. Here they're cold, calculated soldiers who are strictly tactical. Midnight was "nothing personal, just business" to them.

They serve as a dark mirror to Momo's shift in personality during the war, as Momo reverts to her initial cold confidant personality and kicks it up to 20 as she hunts them down.

Midnight's killer even points out midbattle on how Momo was sexualized and she doesn't even know it. Telling her at one point: "You may see them as an equal, they see you as a display"

The battle isnt treated as a victory either, while the Momo and her squadron win, the gravity of the situation isn't ignored and Momo actually listens to her opponent's critique.

[deer0skullz]

Does anyone else feel like Umbrella Academy, What We Do in the Shadows and Our Flag Means Death went down very similar paths or is that just me?

To preface, this is mostly based on how I felt as I watched the shows but also on some of the opinions I picked up from the fandoms.

Also, I’m not going to go back and rewatch all of these shows for the sake of a Tumblr post so I’m working from memory and if you feel like I’ve misremembered any of the plot/ characters let me know.

1. Started as well-received and highly acclaimed live-action fantasy shows with ensemble casts.

Based on my own opinions and what I remember from other fans, UA seasons 1-2 were fairly well received, as were WWDITS seasons 1-3/4 and OFMD season 1.

They’re all definitely different genres of fantasy but I’d say they still all fit under the label. And they obviously all have ensemble casts, with the Hargreeves in UA, the vampires (and Guillermo) in WWDITS and the pirates in OFMD. Even though the plots and characters can be quite different they all have similar vibes.

2. Noted for having open queer representation.

Klaus and Viktor in UA, pretty much the entire main cast of WWDITS, and multiple main characters in OFMD.

3. Tied to already established and respected creators.

UA is based on the comics written by Gerard Way who, of course, is also well known for My Chemical Romance. WWDITS is based on the film by Jermaine Clement and Taika Waititi, who are both executive producers of the show. Taika was also involved in OFMD as the actor for Blackbeard and as an executive producer. He has his name tied to many acclaimed films like Hunt for the Wilderpeople, Thor Ragnorok and Jojo Rabbit.

These are obviously not the only famous people tied to these projects but it’s just a sample of the talent involved in these shows. I feel like the fact that there was so much talent working on these shows makes my next point more interesting.

4. Experienced drops in quality and/ or introduced problematic elements that caused fans to lose interest or respect.

Again, this is opinion based and if you still liked the shows during these seasons then more power to you.

My overall feeling about all of these shows is that they lost a lot of the joy from their initial season(s) as they went on. Like, they just got significantly less fun to watch. But they also had more specific individual issues that I would like to get into.

I stopped watching UA during season 3 and don’t plan on watching season 4. I feel like a lot of people will already know what I might be referring to with this but yeah, the scene where Allison *did that* to Luther made me so sick. I feel like that season absolutely destroyed her character, and as I said, it just wasn’t anywhere near as fun as seasons 1 or 2.

WWDITS is probably the most successful of the three in my eyes but I could still apply the same argument about loss of enjoyment. The “Guillermo wants to be a vampire” plot line got very stale for me, especially with how they “resolved” (?) it. Saying “oh he’s a vampire now oh nevermind he doesn’t actually like being a vampire and also can’t be one anyway so everything’s back to normal” felt like such a waste of time for me. I know a lot of people also criticised the show for queerbaiting because of the Nandermo plot lines and teases. I wouldn’t necessarily call it queerbaiting but I would agree that the “will they, won’t they” is very played out at this point. Another big criticism I have of the later seasons is how Marwa was treated. The fact that she had no autonomy and was being forcibly changed mentally and physically to appeal to Nandor was treated as like, a running joke and I just found it kind of disturbing. Dark humour is pretty common throughout the show, but given how often her character appeared it felt a lot more, significant than throwaway jokes about drinking human blood. I feel like they could have done so much better with her character.

OFMD is probably the most egregious example of the 3. Season 2 was just not good. I’m not saying it was the worst thing I’ve ever watched but it was incredibly disappointing. The pacing was off, the characters were off, the dynamics were off. It was all just very off. The huge cliffhanger ending with Evil Blackbeard felt like it was resolved way too quickly and everything else in the season felt equally rushed. A lot of the character dynamics, but especially Ed and Stede, just felt wrong to me. From what I understand there were production issues or something so I’m not saying the writers just woke up one day and decided to be bad at their jobs but I can only really judge a show by what I saw on my screen, and what I saw was so far removed from the quality of season 1.

5. Finished on a sour note.

UA ended after 4 seasons, with the fourth being released on Netflix today. I haven’t seen anything that indicates whether this was the intended endpoint or whether it was cancelled. WWDITS will end after season 6 which comes out in October. Again, I can’t find anything indicating whether this was the intended endpoint. OFMD was cancelled just a few months after the release of season 2 in October 2023.

I can’t tell other fans how they should feel but for me I’m incredibly disappointed that 3 shows I really enjoyed saw a gradual (or not so gradual for OFMD) drop in quality that ultimately culminated in them just… ending.

Like I said, I have no interest in US season 4, but I am still somewhat hopeful for WWDITS. I would be really happy if they could bring it back to what it was.

Conclusion

I don’t know what the point of writing this was other than the fact that I’ve always associated these shows as having the same vibes and I feel like it’s interesting that they have a lot of similarities and went down similar paths. Also I just like yapping.

[bibibbon]

Mha chapter 428 rant

Well two more chapters left before MHA ends and this chapter was expected.

All might and izuku parallels are still going strong. Somebody help this man fr.

Even though the system hasn't actually changed the civilians do seem to be realising the importance of what they do. It's an improvement I supposed and a good one at that however the people do still worship heroes in a way that they shouldn't so it kind of gives me vibes of history may repeat itself.

A starting conclusion to ochako and her feelings about toga was to be expected. Iam glad that this is actually being introduced and Iam guessing from this is that toga is dead.

I do hope that ochako and izuku both help eachother out since they haven't been in the best mental space. Ok but I just noticed that izuku was so worried for her that he is using his OFA sparks to travel faster and find her now that's a good friend right there. The man heard about ochako not answering asui's messages and ran to find ochako. Thinking about it we might get a paralleling scene of them finishing talking about what they talked about before the beginning of the second war

Aizawa has made some improvements like rejecting interviews because his class may feel overwhelmed. It's an improvement but I feel like the man should know his class enough to enter some mfs or all of them to therapy because how do you not expect them to be severely traumatised after what they went through. Personally I was hoping to see a conversation between Izuku and aizawa to fully flesh out what he meant in chapter 420 by "Iam sorry izuku"

Still not sure how no teachers can actually recognise the mental problems that izuku and ochako have.

Still not a fan of the fangirls thing and the bakugo not getting attention felt so unnecessary. I see that maybe it was used to show how bakugo has changed and developed from his old behaviour do that now he is worthy of attention or something. Also edgeshot has chosen to be connected to bakugo in a way?!?! If that's the case we should of just made him bakugos mentor instead of best jeanist and he should of played an active role in a proper redemption arc with all might.

Iam glad iida called them out fr!

Overall Iam mostly glad we didn't get a thorough introduction to the first years but this chapter was expected I suppose and Iam hoping hori shows us whats going with the mysterious character.

Also at this point there's no point of showing us Izuku's father

[sapphic-agent]

For how much Class 1B constantly outperforms Class 1A, not once has Super Genius Peincipal Nedzu ever adressed this with Aizawa.

You'd think someone as smart as him would see this glaring problem and pull Aizawa into a meeting to see what the hell is going on, but that's apparently asking too much.

Because Hori's gone so out of his way to paint Aizawa as a good teacher that having Nezdu acknowledge this fact would be retconning that.

You actually just brought this to my attention, but 1B outperforming 1A is supposed to pin blame entirely on the students. As much as 1A's failings aren't attributed to Aizawa, 1B's successes aren't attributed to Vlad King either. It's implied that it's the students and the students alone who make the difference, Aizawa and Vlad are often depicted as bystanders who simply observe and make comments here and there. They're not held responsible for their students' progress or lack thereof (Aizawa all but confirms this during the Sorts Festival).

And yeah, in case of the provisional licensing exam that's kind of true. All Bakugou had to do was not be a dick for like ten minutes. As awful of a teacher as Aizawa is, that is something he shouldn't have to teach especially considering that Bakugou's job at the time didn't require nearly as much effort as almost everyone else's.

(Todoroki's a little different as I've said before he only failed because Bakugou did and Hori couldn't have his golden boy be the only one to fail)

But the final exam is a completely different story. His decision to pair up Kaminari and Ashido was terrible. Neither one of them are very bright and they were going up against (possibly) the smartest creature on Earth. They were set up to fail. Why not pair one of them up with a classmate they could learn from and vice versa? Especially since that was the intent with pairing Izuku and Bakugou up, right? To have Bakugou learn from Izuku (and make Izuku do his job for him). Why did this only apply to them while almost all the other matchups were the complete opposite?

(Not to mention a lot of these issues could have easily been resolved earlier if Aizawa had just made the effort. Ashido and Kaminari can't think strategically? Give them exercises to help them. Yaoyorozu's struggling with self-esteem? Help her regain her confidence. Bakugou can't work with others? Attempt to rectify that instead of making it another student's problem to deal with. Instead he waited until an exam worth a good chunk of their grade)

We don't know how 1B was paired up, but I assume it was because Vlad saw their strengths and weaknesses and matched them accordingly while also taking the time to work with them beforehand. And that's why only one 1B student failed as opposed to 1A's five. Because Vlad took the time to improve them instead of just relying on kids being attacked by villains and logical ruses.

1B improves at a steadier rate because Vlad actually acts like a teacher and puts in the effort with them. Aizawa does neither

[fandomstuffsworld]

Oboro spirt seeing aziawa abusing his power, threatening expulsion on his students, being biased,not doing anything about bakagou bullying,not helping some of his students control there quirk and NOT teaching his students jackshit and always sleeping,being so fucking ungrateful towards izuku after saving his ass and tried to single izuku out,trains bakagou and shinsou, aziawa and the rest of the teachers not stoping midorya black whip and also being so mean and such a asshole towards all might and izuku:

(this is honestly my thoughts of oboro spirt seeing aziawa being an asshole and him not teaching his class and being god awful towards midorya, abusing his powers and threatening expulsion and many more