#bnha discourse

[class1akids]

This art proves (to me at least) that Hori really prioritizes the yuri fetishization and iron might (even though both sucked) over everything else in the actual story

Yeah. It's interesting to watch Hori react to the (very predictable) backlash to Vol 42 and Ch 431 from fans / and the marketing department trying to do damage control.

BNHA's core support (in terms of events and merch sales) are adult women / especially shippers. Now, many of these are primarily invested in male characters and male ships. There was also support for tgchk, but from the perspective of goods sales, it was always secondary to their main ship (overwhelmingly bkdk), and when tgchk was used to make izch endgame a lot of that support disappeared.

All Might has always been the face of the franchise, and he's fairly popular with the fans and has some ships, but it was never a big sales puller. Also, All Might has lost popularity compared to the first half of the series and never really recovered his place in the Top 10. I think Hori miscalculated that the reason for that was not enough "badass" moments for All Might. But I think in fact it was more due to the fading of the Deku-All Might relationship, with less and less heartfelt "dadmight" moments. Still, I think AM remains fairly uncontroversial and a "safe bet" to draw. But not a character who moves big money.

So the way Hori tries to push his own favorite characters - Toga, Ochako - often causes a pushback from fandom. You don't see much of that on X, as Japanese won't do much criticism on public social media, but on anon boards, there is a lot of vitriol towards especially Uraraka, who is now in some places, the No 1 hated character of the franchise.

I think a lot of the fandom quietly moved on. This reflects with lower overall engagement on Horikoshi's Twitter art, on news on new merch, on lack of hype for Vigilante, etc.

And it's clear that the marketing division took note. Despite tgchk being in the center of the new art, they do not feature much in the merch. Bakugou, Deku, Todoroki all got individual merch, Uraraka didn't. There is BKDK paired stuff, but no izch.

The collection cards don't feature Uraraka, but have Endeavor or Hawks. The entry ticket bonuses have Origin Trio, AM, BKDK, but no Uraraka.

She is only featured in group art, and the Villain-Hero acrylics, where I think they count on Toga's continuing popularity to carry their paired merch. Otherwise it's blind merch - but even there notice how the Origin Trio got adult designs included, but not Uraraka. This shows that the marketing team knows how "toxic" timeskip Uraraka is for the sales and try to limit her.

I'm not sure how much the talk to Hori about this or just quietly line up the products they think they can sell - but it seems to me that Hori is "sulking" about the fan reactions.

The way the Xmas art became controversial - after 431 fandom lamenting the end of the rivalry, and him dropping the "look back when they were rivals, let me add my fave bunny waifu" art. Then the depressed Aizawa / Shiggy art and now this group art, where he seems to put tgchk explicitly into the "Tomura-Deku slot", as if saying to fans, "I don't care what you think or want, I will draw what I want".

Seeing this, Japanese fans are already doomposting both about the fanbook and the art exhibition, resigning themselves to more Ochako content and Horikoshi's favorite female bodies being drawn over and over, despite having made it clear that they want to see more of the fan favorite male characters. They see it as betrayal that despite having made their preferences clear with the (paid-for) votes and merch buys, the author ignores them and refuses to provide the "fan service" they expect.

Now you can of course say that these fans are stupidly entitled and Horikoshi as an artist should draw what he wants. But from the perspective of WSJ/TOHO/Bones, MHA is not just Horikoshi's story, but their franchise which loses value as fans get unhappy and leave. There is plenty of competition with other stories that are happy to cater to their core paying audience.

Another controversy is that the Global Poll website appears to be deleted/ down / down for update (????) and there is no news on the new global Top 10 art, nor the Bakugou statue in any of the announcements. Many Bakugou fans are pissed. Many fans are also worried that Hori will include Uraraka in the Top 10 art, despite being only 11th, because Hori will simply want to draw her.

It's really fascinating to watch this "back-and-forth" between the fandom, author, marketing team which kind of shows how the readers feel like their buying choices and votes creates an entitlement to certain content, while the author wants to both draw the things that excite him, but also feels bad about the criticism and wants only praise and then the marketing team in the middle trying to boost sales anyway they can.

I think Horikoshi really cares about the reader reactions, but instead of giving them what they want, he pushes his favorites even more, trying to make them more appealing which creates an overall even bigger backlash.

[somethingsad]

It irks me the way enhox shippers talk abt Rei Todoroki as if she's some kind of obstacle for their ship like borderline misogynistic if u will

[derseprinceoftbd]

So how's discourse doing? This good or bad? Who deserved what?

[veroverse21]

MHA has been so problematic from the get go and the ending made it worse.

Ugh.

Why can’t mangas just end normal?!

At least Ochako remained single and didn’t become a housewife unlike Hinata, Sakura and Orihime, that’s the only good thing.

But the ending felt so flat.

That’s just me though

It's not problematic and neither was the ending.

Who cares if characters became a housewife? It's just a story. The ending was fine.

[mofsblog]

"This is some gay shit" Good. Silly. Fair enough. Doesn't inherently invalidate other interpretations of the relationship. Honestly yeah, it is kind of gay regardless of their canonical relationship status

"There's literally no platonic explanation for th-" WRONG!! KILLING YOU WITH AMATANORMATIVITY KILLING LOBSTERS 🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞🦞

[cheeseonatower]

HE SHOULD HAVE BEEN FLYING😭😭😭😭😭😭

[valhalla-awaitsfor-us]

Horikoshi released drawings of Hagakure as an adult — and surprise, she now has a “hero costume”… that looks like lingerie. And the worst part? This implies that before, she was basically fighting in nothing or just underwear for years. YEARS. Even though this universe has shown — multiple times — that it's possible to design support items and costumes that adapt to individual quirks. So, why wasn’t she given one earlier? Why didn’t anyone care?

With Momo, it's the same pattern. The second she’s shown as an adult, her costume suddenly covers more — especially around her chest. It's like their dignity only matters once they're no longer teenagers. That’s not just lazy design. It’s deliberate.

People can try to justify it all they want with “quirk-based limitations” or “fanservice is part of the genre,” but at this point, it’s tired. Transparent. And honestly gross.

The message this sends — both in-story and to the audience — is that it’s fine to oversexualize young girls for years… until it’s no longer “funny” and starts becoming “awkward”. That’s not just a bad trope. That’s a creative problem.

[pinkypastal]

Fandom please...

[discodadsnamgi]

some people are so against the idea of izuku forgiving katsuki for the bullying as if this man doesn't reach out to literal homicidal villains and see the good in them.

I'm glad the story expanded on the trope of the shonen hero inherently being a better person, not just seeing the best in antagonists but also other people who wronged him in the past.

Bakugou was never gonna face consequences from other classmates, teachers and the society btw. He is quite literally a product of their obsession with heroes, quirks and thinking quirkless people are worthless. (I'm not even gonna get into him having an inferiority complex to izuku - the person)

This is why even after getting OFA izuku views his self worth as equivalent to the quirk. "I'll save everyone no matter what happens to me", he isn't in the right state of mind at all, quite literally viewing himself as expendable and useless barring his ability to use OFA. This is also a consequence of what their world considers to be "useful", "strong" etc

The fact that Bakugou is at the heart of giving him the suit because izuku doesn't need a quirk to be a hero, he is a hero because of the person he is. This ties up their arc beautifully.

Yes, I wish we could've gotten some introspection, a change to the existing corrupt system , it was rushed, lowkey gave Harry Potter and i actually have many critiques but later.

[maspers]

Left Brain: I ship Kacchako because I think there's the possibility for tons of parallels and nuance in their relationship, both as individuals and as foils to Midoriya, and strong themes of self-confidence and self-improvement deeply connected to both of their characters could push them both to even higher levels of awesomeness while still retaining the core of what makes them them, and also-

Right Brain: Honestly, I ship Kacchako because Uraraka would be able to throw Bakugo very very very far, and I think both of them would be into that.

[amaranthdahlia]

i luv kudou's pretty wife

[shih-coulda-had-it]

Hello! If you still are doing the drawing meme can we perhaps get Kudou + 👪? (Could be found or just the blood relation family type of thing)

a very serious conversation held at the end of the time travel sensate ofa au.

[moodyvoid]

“I can’t believe people hate Endeavor and like the League of Villains”

The league members are all shown to have faced abuse, neglect, and injustice in their lives that lead them to where they are.

What abuse, neglect, or injustice has Endeavor faced to make him do what he did?

Not as an excuse for their actions, but as an explanation for why people empathize with the league members more than they do with Endeavor.

[veroverse21]

“They made the MHA girls thinner to sexualize them!”

The fact that you think that and you go to that thought is more of a you problem.

“But young kids are gonna see and are gonna think it’s ok! They’re gonna follow an unrealistic beauty standard!”

Being at a healthy weight is not a beauty standard!

The MHA fandom will find anything to get offended over.

MHA isn't even for kids to begin with. If someone watches MHA and thinks they need to be thin like a MHA girl that's a maturity problem on them, not the anime/Manga.

Yeah they do look for anything to get offended over, but that's people in general for the last 11ish years.

[scftizuku]

Seeing people arguing over bkdk vs dkbk on the bird app makes me lose brain cells. I don’t understand why so many people take that very seriously and can argue daily on whichever ship dynamic they like more. Thank goodness that many people here are actually peaceful and I rarely see those arguments.

[chandralia]

IM GONNA BE SICK SHDKDHSSJSH Hori’s really saving him for last,, we’ve got panels of every single character guiding Deku, cheering him on, pushing him through… except Bakugo?

we’re about to get something so incredible