#bnha critic

[valhalla-awaitsfor-us]

Is crazy to find out my old posts about how bad Endeavour redemption arc was handled after the manga finished.

In those posts I used to say "To achieve a well written redemption we had to see actual justice, not just his sons ignoring his texts. That not a punishment, that just a consequence." Thats was always my problem with this character, his punishment didnt fit his crime.

I haven't watched or read anything related to bnha in a long looong time. But now that it ended I was curious so i wanted to check out what happened with this storyline of Endeavor and Dabi… and boy it was bad. The episode where we find out how Toya became Dabi is bad. Plain an simple. Bad as hell.

In that situation Enji was the abuser, he had the fault. Yes, you can kinda say Rei could have done more and she did make mistakes….but the fact that we have an scene were everyone on the family, THE CHILDREN INCLUDED, said "it was our fault too, dad. Now lets fix your broken heart", IT'S DISGUSTING. THEY WERE LIKE 10 WHEN IT ALL WENT TO SHIT, HOW THE HELL WAS THAT THEIR FAULT-

god i hate it.

And then we have the ending, where basically we are forcing Dabi to having to deal with Enji for all the rest of his life.

Anyway, another anime where abusers are excused.

[clownishshit]

My hero academia critic:Class 1-A

I've always had an interest in my hero academia since the first chapter, I enjoy the prospect of world building and how author's build this fictional world that is different from ours. Although, I believe it is important to point out the issues in the story. Namely Class 1-A. In the story we are told that these groups of students have a strong bond as friends and yet, it doesn't feel like they're close friends but moreso just acquaintances to one another and that's where character growth and characterization comes in. Half of the students in Class 1-A do not feel fully fleshed out where you have an emotional connection to them. And while one can argue that My Hero Academia is Midoriya's story, the problem comes in when you bring in numerous characters or subject matters such as discrimination,abuse,etc. I makes the story more complex and should be handled with care. Why should we care about Class 1-A? What about these other characters makes the reader/watcher invested in their goals and aspirations? Why are they a close friend group. Another issue that I have is that if we're under the impression Class 1-A is the top of the top classes in UA being the most prestigious school. Then what are there quirks that make it reasonable for them to get in??? I'm not saying they have to be this overpowered quirk that over rides Midoriya's but atleast on some level its sensible. At the end of the day, I do on some degree enjoy Mha. This isn't an insult of Horikoshi's writing or his story it's really just an issue that I've kinda for a while.

[socalledsomethingorother]

y’all…

[embers-of-the-league]

Okay, so here's where we're at apparently

Tomura is dead

Toga is dead (or, let's just call it as it is, she committed suicide) - this is despite the fact that if she died other characters (read: heroes) should have died as well, but didn't (Bakugo and Edgeshot for example)

Dabi is presumably still in the hospital (since we didn't see a funeral), unable to move or do anything on his own

Spinner wrote his book, but where he is and how he's actually doing is unknown - presumably he still has to deal with multiple quirks that aren't his own and are tearing at his body

Compress is alive but where he currently is is unknown - he read Spinner's book (and that's it)

Kurogiri exploded?? And nobody has bothered to mention anything about him since

Twice has been dead for a while, but his murderer is not only free of charge but also the head of the HPSC (which still exists btw)

Other things:

The hero ranking system still exists

Seemingly no real changes have been made which would help victims like the LOV before they felt like they had to turn to villainy to be heard/seen/understood

Deku gets to be a hero again by the power of ~technology~ - kinda making the whole deal about him losing his quirk feel pointless

Not from this chapter, but I still feel like it's very important to point out that it's heavily implied that Rei is just gonna take care of Enji (her abuser) now and probably for the rest of time

The few good things:

Ochako bringing more focus on mental health

That was it, I have nothing else

[nagitosstolenhand]

i don't like the growing opinion that people are being 'too hard' on deku for his failing to save shigaraki.

i've seen quite a few people complaining that a lot of the bnha-critical crowd are being too mean to deku for getting tomura killed, arguing that it isn't really his fault, and that hes a 16 year old child soldier who's been failed by almost every adult in his life, why should we be putting all of this on his shoulders? hes just a kid after all?

and the truth is, they're right. deku IS a 16 year old boy whos had the fate of the world thrust on his shoulders. but the story itself just plainly refuses to acknowledge this.

the narrative doesn't acknowledge how fucked up having a school that trains literal children how to be combo cop-celebrities is. it only tentatively acknowledges the fact that a universe having combo cop-celebrities is fucked up, and even then the only people who ever point this out are antagonists, who are portrayed and treated in-universe as untrustworthy. the narrative doesn't care how fucked up dekus circumstances are. the narrative treats deku like hes a fucking messiah here to touch the hearts of the evil depressed villains with his magical empathetic heart of gold before they get blown up or just sent to fucking superhell for daring to challenge the status quote.

deku isn't a person. he's barely even a fucking character at this point. he's a plot device, and a mouth piece for the objectively shitty themes bnha is trying to spout. the themes that tell you that if you're mistreated by society and want to do something about it, you're a villain. that disrupting the status quote and refusing to repent to some random teenage boy spouting empty platitudes at you means you deserve to get sent to fucking superhell. the themes that portray people fighting for civil change as mass murdering supervillains. the themes that look the audience dead in the eye and can call deku the greatest hero to ever live.

deku, who barely spared a second thought to lady nagant telling him the truth about the hero commission. who spouts meaningless platitudes about heroism and morality at nagant, and aoyama, and toga and shigaraki, when even the thought that he should question the world around him comes up. who's constantly talked about as this truly kind, empathetic person, but hasn't spared an empathetic thought to literally anyone who is classified as a villain. who listened to every authority figure around him except the ones who asked him to question his worldview. who saw la bravas tears, shigarakis various breakdowns, himikos plead for understanding, chisakis catatonic state, lady nagants truth, and barley batted a fucking eye. deku, who killed tomura shigaraki.

people don't criticize deku for failing shigaraki because they just hate deku. people criticize deku because of what he represents. because hes a mouthpiece for the atrocious morals and themes of this ideologically rotten manga. because any character he had was chopped up to bits in favor of the incomplete husk we have now. people criticize deku because hes the main character of my hero academia. theres nothing more damning then that.

[solitairedeere]

i was never as optimistic about the ending of bnha as some villain stans were, but i never thought it'd end so badly it left me wondering why horikoshi ever bothered to humanize the villains or make them complex characters at all.

like-- i expected that at least 1-2 of the 3 villains who were heavily foreshadowed and outlined by the narrative as people to be saved would be, you know, actually saved. i didn't think that was a high bar. i've been let down before in fandoms where everyone was certain a character would live and then they didn't, so i tried to keep my hopes low. AND YET.

what happened to tomura was upsetting, but i wasn't that shocked after how disinterested the manga has seemed to be in him for like, the past 100 or so chapters. a bit surprised, because you'd think if anyone would succeed in the 'saving' mission it would be the MC, but whatever. dabi, well, they've spent a lot of time showing the way his quirk destroys his body even before this arc, so that also sucked but at least it didn't feel completely out of left field.

........but they're not even letting toga live???

i just-- what have we even been doing here? when zero out of the 3 characters that were marked out for saving were actually saved, you have to acknowledge that something has gone seriously fucking wrong with the storytelling. not even just from the perspective of a villain fan but from the perspective of someone who likes stories to be thematically consistent or satisfying in any way.

you can set up an expectation of these characters being saved and then subvert that and turn it into a tragedy- if done well that could even be worthwhile and interesting. but you can't turn it into a tragedy and then just... keep trucking along with the happy ending messaging and act like anything in the manga has been resolved and that the characters have somehow successfully completed their heroic origin stories.

like, maybe i shouldn't have expected this much from a shounen- at the end of the day it is still a shounen so i didn't expect to feel that it truly satisfactorily wrapped up all the themes it brought up around societal ills. but i expected it to at least resolve those things in a shounen-y way where they punch the problems and help these specific people and then you can feel good assuming that the state of things will continue to improve in the post-canon world of the manga.

instead we got... uh, none of that. the story refused to answer a single one of the larger questions it's been outlining for the past 400+ chapters. in the end, it was all flash and no substance, which again could've been fine, if it weren't for the way the story seemed to spend significant chunks of time trying to delude you into thinking it had substance.

truly makes me wonder what horikoshi thought he was doing the entire time. can it really all be blamed on burnout? the most that can be said for this ending is that it is, well, an ending. fuck dude, it is that.

and that's just... such a sad way to end a project that took up 10 years of your life.

[cryiling]

i see a lot of people headcanon that bakugo loves horror movies, meanwhile deku is a huge scaredycat/crybaby towards them. BUT actually i think it would be very funny if it was the other way around

SO. headcanoning that bakugo really fucking hates horror movies. NOT because he's. scared or anything what r u talking about. haha definitely not. but do not turn that shit on anywhere near him or he will fucking kill u

meanwhile deku USED to be afraid of horror movies. but then he decided that in order to get over his fear of them, he was gonna watch a bunch of behind the scenes for them to see how the movies were actually made and to be less scared when watching them. and then he became a HUGE horror movie nerd. he LOVES breaking down how the practical effects work and identifying them on screen when watching. jumpscares don't bother him anymore, he's too busy nerding out about the behind the scenes stuff and analyzing how all the different effects are working seamlessly together to make the horror movie effective

deku loves dragging bakugo to see new horror movies or forcing him to sit and watch them at home together, he's always really excited to analyze the effects and camerawork of the movies. bakugo only (barely) tolerates it because he just looks away during all the "scary" parts and concentrates on deku's mumbling to distract himself from the movie

deku: no kacchan it's actually so cool how they did this shot!! they only had one take so they had to position all the camera equipment perfectly and there's a whole bunch of hidden triggers and the visual perspective makes the intensity of the shot SO much more effective and blah blah blah-

bakugo, face buried in deku's shoulder and very much avoiding looking at the screen: turn this off immediately or i will explode ur face

[sanjipussyindulgence]

i havent caught up with bnha in a while but after hearing about the ending... i think we can all safely agree its the naruto of this generation. they both got too distracted writing an accidental gay love story for the ages to fix the fucked up corrupt society that uses child soldiers.

[commander-revan]

Can't believe Toga became the exact martyr that Curious was going to turn her into.

[denkisauce]

my growing collection from redacted dot com 🥲

[writerswho]

Aizawa is a terrible teacher. I love Aizawa, but I love the fanon version of Aizawa. Even when he's a bad teacher in the fanfics, he's still better than the canon. But what made me realise what a crap teacher Aizawa is was Kalego. After watching Iruma-kun and starting to read the manga, I realised that Kalego, the uptight, grumpy, tired and kind of sadistic teacher who gives his students extra work just because he can, is everything Aizawa tries to be, but isn't. Because Kalego cares about his students in a way canon!Aizawa would never. Like, yeah, Aizawa would die for his students, but that is not due to the fact that his a good teacher. It is because he is a hero and that is what heroes do. While Kalego would also die protecting his students and even kill for them, he also pays attention to their needs as students. Half of the 1-A need help with their regular grades and the other half need help finding ways to use their quirks without hurting themselves. We all joke about Midoriya and his bone juice, but why does nobody think about giving that kid some extra help? Why didn't his homeroom teacher try to find a way for him to use his quirk without blowing himself? Or a way for Kamimari to use his quirk without frying his brain? Aizawa ignores de most basic things about his students' needs, like finding ways for them to use their quirks without damaging their bodies and health. Or the way Midoriya is around Bakugou, who tried to attack him on the first day and almost killed him on the second day. Kalego-sensei, on the other hand, took his time to make a personal notebook for each of his students and worried about finding ways to utilise their strengths regardless of how seemingly meaningless or nonsensical they may be and so many other things. Kalego-sensei cares about his class, about their growth and their future and is trying to find the best alternative for them. Everyone talks about what a bad teacher All Might is, but All Might is a rookie teacher with less than a year on the job (and nobody knows if he has a teacher's licence or not) while Aizawa is believed to be one of the oldest people on Nedzu's payroll. I am comparing Aizawa to Kalego because when I first saw Kallego, I thought he was the demon version of Aizawa. I now realise that if Aizawa were a third of the teacher that Kalego is, maybe these child soldiers would have a chance. When Iruma tried to do everything by himself/messed up, Kalego scolded him, obviously, but he made it clear that if Iruma had another problem, he could ask for help. Because Kalego is his teacher, and he's there to help him in any way he needs. But when Midoriya messed up/did everything by himself, well, they just yelled at him and made him feel guilty, and think that the solution isn't to ask for help or trust the adults next time, but to find a way not to get caught. Aizawa should spend a few days with Kalego and learn to be a real professional and a teacher who does what's best for the students.

[valhalla-awaitsfor-us]

I feel like from the 90s to this point, shonen became more cowardly when it came to taking a risk and making a gay character. Before, at least some things were left ambiguous and you could say that some characters were bi, and nobody made a fuss. And no, I know it's not entirely the mangakas' fault. There are homophobic companies behind this. BUT, the fact that certain authors spend their time drawing their female characters (minors, I should clarify) in erotic situations and then completely forget about it, tells me that they just get turned on by drawing them in those positions but they don't give a damn about doing something about it.

[tardigradetheking]

I actually feel sick to my stomach about what happened to dabi. I'm not being hyperbolic. I was never abused but the fact that Dabi's abuser gets to visit him even though everyone knows what that man did is sick. Endeavor gets to stare at him through a pain of glass like dabi is a goddamn monkey in a zoo and dabi is too weak to even object.

[mettywiththenotes]

I hope my gf is okay (longingly touches the stab wound she gave me during her breakdown)

[redphlox]

Shouto's ruined character arc in the epilogue

The epilogue’s toxicity-positivity message about smiling ruined Shouto’s characterization and undoes the growth and purpose of his arc because he’s not allowed to mourn the imminent death of his brother Touya.

Shouto partaking in these tone-deaf, festive activities with his friends in chapter 429 feels out of character, feels cheap and shallow, and is a slap in the face to his family. In the past Shouto declined school-related activities and prioritized spending time with his mom at the hospital. Now the narrative is trying to sell the idea that he would NOT spend every remaining minute alongside his family with his dying brother, who he has always wanted to know, the brother he practically begged to confront and said, "Our paths will cross whether you want them to or not" to. Shouto spent all this manga reconciling his feelings about his family and reconnecting to them to just... not be with them when they’re about to experience loss AGAIN? 

I'm not saying I want Shouto to be miserable, but realistically (since readers are so obsessed with realism in this superhero manga), he wouldn’t be wasting the limited time he has left with his brother by going to a farewell party, or any party. Damn, can the author let him mourn? Despite all the celebration the kids are doing, Shouto didn’t get a happy ending. While the rest of their community is rebuilding and making sense of what happened, the Todoroki family is still going through their crisis. It’s not over for them. At least let them cry.

This is a regression for Shouto’s character because the concept of allowing heroes to cry was first presented through Shouto, literally through his own words. The narrative then picks up this concept again during Ochako's speech at the UA shelter civilians, and then... Shouto isn't allowed to cry in the epilogue, and is forced to fake a smile so his friends don’t worry about him.

It’s not like Shouto has cried in this manga. He cried during the sports festival, during the Dabi reveal, and after Dabi escaped to Gunga to go after Endeavor because he knew this meant he had failed to reach his brother -- so no, it doesn’t make sense that he wouldn’t cry now. Instead, he's the one fake smiling, and only Ochako is allowed to be shown crying and being comforted. The double standard and retcon is astounding.

You can literally see the light not reaching his eyes in this panel from 425 when Deku asks if he’s okay. And yes, Shouto is prioritizing his family in this panel, but like I said, Touya doesn't have much time left... why waste it?

Shouto doesn’t want anyone to worry about him, so he’s putting on a brave face. And yet Deku and the other classmates reaching out to Ochako in 429 is selling the opposite message - don’t cry alone, let us be here for you, etc. Why isn’t Shouto granted the same support, especially from these classmates he claims are there for him?

If Horikoshi was aiming for a happy ending where people smile, then Touya’s grimdark, cruel, second and final death doesn't fit because Shouto has to mourn. You can't have both fake smiling and off-screen assumed mourning… it makes no sense for Shouto’s arc, or for the epilogue’s message about reaching out for help or to help. It doesn’t make sense in any context.

Shouto's characterization feels so off in this epilogue. He’s a shell of the person he was becoming. The story starts out by saying that this character is supposed to process the trauma of childhood and a dysfunctional family that he always wished was different, but now he has his found family in his classmates instead. And I'm not saying he can't have both - I'd say the support from his friends is imperative - but, it doesn't make sense that he has seemingly moved on because the fact is, his family situation was his entire start. 

It's not just Shouto that feels off, but his family too. Their once-considered-dead brother/son is alive, but now is dying in front of their eyes for real this time and they just… don’t try to spend as much time with him as possible? Even the sentiment that Shouto gave the family more time to talk falls empty because Touya can only endure a few minutes of conversation at a time, and it’s not like he’s slowly improving and that time will increase. It will only decrease. And yet, the family doesn’t seem too concerned or heartbroken that they’re witnessing someone they love die a second time, this time slowly. He can’t even communicate with them, and he’ll most likely have many things left unsaid when he dies.

The Todoroki family plot was set up to be about reconciliation, but they’re not reconnecting even with Touya’s upcoming death. This scene of Touya and the other siblings kicking a ball while Shoto looked on from the second story of the house begging his father to allow him to play with his siblings has been addressed like four times, and yet in the end he doesn’t get to spend happy moments with his siblings. His reward for his heroism is Touya’s slow march toward death and the knowledge that he has the same favorite food as the brother who his father neglected to death twice. 

Instead of being shown mourning or connecting, the family is acting cold and distant - only Natsuo is acting with a semblance of his normal self. I know some readers attribute the family’s aloofness to Japanese culture not being very affectionate or open with their emotions, but that doesn’t mean Japanese people are devoid of feelings. That’s so fucking racist. We’ve seen parents express love and concern for their children in this manga, and yet the Todoroki family continues to say “we’ll talk, we’ll talk” but we’ve never seen any follow-up. It’s ironic because Shouto’s whole mentality is “actions speak louder than words”.

For a family that became unstable because of misunderstandings about feeling loved and wanted, the family continues to feel devoid of caring. No one comforts Shouto, no one talks about how they feel except for Endeavor. Shouto isn’t allowed to grieve in front of his friends because Ochako takes priority because the narrative is pushing this toxic positivity message about smiling that works on the surface but fails to address any systemic changes. 

This ending doesn't fit the hopeful tone of Shouto's arc.

RIP Shouto’s arc. We loved you. 

[villainsandvictimsalliance]

A reminder that Spinner canonically compares himself to Dabi and feels inferior to the rest of the League of Villains.

Part of the reason he allowed AFO to manipulate him is because he wanted to be reliable, as in he wanted to be stronger to be of use to Tomura. So again, he's canonically kinda jealous not only of Dabi's quirk, but of him as a person.