#bnha vigilante spoilers

[class1akids]

Forgive me if you've already answered this somewhere (I dug around but didn't see it!!) But I'm curious what you think Hori's endgame with Dabi is? I want so badly for him to be "saved" because I think it would help complete Shouto's character arc.

Overall theme

OK, so here is the most important thing to keep in mind with the set-up:

Izuku - Tomura

Ochako - Toga

Shouto - Touya

I think we all agree that these are the main hero-villain pairs set up all the way back in the Forest arc. They are different from other "fated villain" set-ups, in that the kids' win condition is not only to defeat their counterpart, but save the crying child inside them and this became a very important theme over time.

I think fandom opinion is unanimous that Toga will be saved and will survive. Also, a majority thinks that Tenko will surely be saved, but may or may not survive. The only one whom I see fandom say that he's a too far gone sociopath with no redeemable qualities and who will burn himself in pure hatred is Touya.

I tend to ignore these people personally, because I think the story gave us enough clues both that Touya is capable of caring and that there is a love-hate mixed together when it comes to his family. He gets the same child-coding as Tenko and Toga, as recently as Ch 352. So I think the three main villains undoubtedly will have the same ending in that their inner child will be saved. This for Toga should mean acceptance, for Tenko should mean a hero who comes and for Touya should finding the meaning of his existence.

Another question is whether their adults selves will survive - or we get something like a moment of relief / closure, to be followed by redemptive death which is a common trope.

2. Precedents

We don't really know what Horikoshi is planning - we have a couple of clues though. I think we can all agree that there is no scenario where the kids will kill their counterparts. It's not that kind of story.

In Heroes Rising, which is the "original ending", Nine is defeated by Deku and Bakugou, but they don't kill him - the one who kills him is Shigaraki though I think it's less to do with the original ending, but rather HK not wanting to leave a loose end where one of the Shigaraki prototypes is still potentially walking around. The other villains the kids defeated survive, including Chimera, whom Shouto froze from the inside.

The ending of Vigilante is not HK's writing, but he supervised the manga, and we don't know if he had input on the endgame. Still, since the main villain, Six, is another Shigaraki prototype, it's worth taking a look what happens there. Especially, because some of Six' things aesthetic - including his Ghostrider look - are not only parallel to Shigaraki, but also to Dabi. "Proof that I existed" - does it sound familiar?

It's an impactful, heart-breaking death scene, but it's quite dark. Koichi reaches the child in Six, but can't save him.

So, ngl, this ending is always in the back of my mind when I think about Dabi's endgame as one small fear.

But it's also important to note that Vigilante in tone is a darker, more mature manga than MHA, which is known for never really killing off characters. In Vigilante, there are other hurt/no comfort kind of deaths - like Shirakumo's.

3. In-story set-up of the Todoroki endgame

Now, after this long introduction, let's see the set-up that's in the manga. So the general set-up is that Deku, Ochako and Shouto should all reach and save their villains. Physically beating them is not a win (as seen from Shouto's fight and now Deku's too), only reaching and saving them will do.

Beyond the overall theme, there are two "foreshadowing" moments specific to the Todoroki plot.

The first is Endeavor's dream:

Now you can treat is "prophetic" that Endeavor and Touya are not meant to survive the endgame. But can you imagine Shouto, Natsuo, Fuyumi and Rei be happy and laughing when they lost two of their family members? So I take this dream to mean that Enji has no place with his family unless Touya can return too. Endeavor's endgame happiness is conditional on saving Touya.

The second is Shouto's wish:

When talking about Touya, Shouto's wish is not only to beat him or stop him, but to get to know him. That's Shouto's happy ending - not just a win, but eating noodles with Touya.

If you look at Touya vs Shouto, they struggle with the same question: the meaning of their existence - Touya as a "failed creation", Shouto as some whose mere existence hurts others.

Shouto's Phosphor - a move born from his heart to connect his two halves - is what he sees as a tool to "affirm the reason he was born". And I think with Touya copying this move, the set-up is there - Shouto can save Touya if he can help him realize that it's up to him to give meaning to his existence.

Now, this could still go in the direction of a redemptive death if you just look at Touya's character in isolation - but there is the other part of the equation - Shouto's endgame; his success as a hero (stopping Touya from killing not only others, but also himself), and his happy ending as a person (someone who gets to bring together the family and build a relationship with his brother).

So I think even if you think Touya dying and maybe Enji dying with him would be a tragic but fitting ending for them, it still doesn't really work for Shouto - who despite other claims from fandom is still the main protagonist of the Todoroki saga. We started this family journey with him, this is the kids' story mainly on their path to be heroes, so I think what makes sense for him simply cannot be disregarded. And because of that, I believe that Touya will be saved (find meaning), but will also survive (Shouto's win) and get a hopeful ending where the Todoroki family will get a chance to heal.

4. What about his burns?

"But he's burnt to crisp - there is no way he can survive" - people will say. And to that, all I can say is, look at the guy with the exploded heart. We had the same arguments - Bakugou's survival "makes no sense", "you cannot put a heart back together", etc during those weeks. But those of us who saw Bakugou's death and felt that narratively it makes no sense for his character or even for Deku's character, were pretty chill because we knew that if the story needs him to survive, the story will find a way to do just that. And along came Edgeshot with Wash's soap bubble - things that weren't really set up in the story before were found because the narrative demanded it.

I think the same is true for Touya. I cannot predict what will be the thing that saves him in "medical terms", but if the narrative requires that he lives, the tool will be provided in that story for it.

TL;DR: So putting all this together, I'm 100% sure that Touya will "turn good" and find some meaning and closure and I'm about 80% sure that he will survive too.

[nekoo3001]

Like old times

[peconella27]

MHA | season 6 | When nightmares not only hunt you in your sleep...

,,When heroes save others... who'll save the heroes...?"

[welovethecloudboytoomuch]

EVERYONE WAKE UP

MY HERO ACADEMIA VIGILANTES ANIME

WE WON!

[greenhappyseed]

Now I’m thinking about how Izuku and Koichi both went into their big boss battles wearing All Might merch. Licensing king!!!!!

[delawaredetroit]

And thus, a million UA Traitor theories were born

This conversation makes it obvious the traitor was a student. This idea also comes up in the scene immediately after Aoyama's interference with the kidnapping.

Present Mic comes across as rash and aggressive here. UA was on the backfoot and still had a missing student. That isn't the time when they should be starting a witch hunt. Fanon tends to make him the good cop to Aizawa's bad cop routine, but in canon Present Mic comes across as more hardline. Like, the dorms were Nedzu's compromise. What measures was Present Mic willing to put in place on the hero course to root out the traitor?

[demidokuriya]

Should we hope to see Koichi?

Koichi drawn by Horikoshi?

Let me remind you that Koichi is currently working in the agency of Captain Celebrity, who after the death of Star and Stripe became America's number 1 hero.

[vigilantesweek]

HE IS REAL!!! WE WON!!

[aashi-heartfilia]

Shigaraki is Deku's villain and AFO is Bakugo's

Isn't it kind of obvious? This is the same Horikoshi who planned heroes rising as an ending for MHA and that was Bakugo and Deku sharing OFA to defeat the main villain. Why would he do the same thing again when he himself stated that the real story has moved beyond this?!

I will not go over the relationship of Deku and Shigaraki and how they are nemesis, yada yada but I would go over a possible ending for Bakugo's character arc.

So, BakuDeku has always been about Winning and Saving where Bakugo has been the face for Winning and vice versa but that's also their main weakness. Deku is always too focused on saving while Bakugo's ultimate focus is winning. That's not right.

The story explicitly tells us that an abundance of either of them is wrong. Deku's self sacrificial nature is wrong (vigilante Deku arc) and only running after victory like Bakugo is also wrong.

And the perfect victory that Bakugo wants will require both winning and saving. For Bakugo to reach the peak of his character arc, he'll have to learn to save people (and that has already started with Bakugo rising) and the same for Deku who'll have to focus more on the winning part.

Deku has to defeat Shigaraki, there is no if-else or but in that but he'll also have to save the innocent child crying inside of him. As for Bakugo, he has to achieve the perfect victory but that cannot be accomplished without him saving someone.

And who could be a better person than All Might?

The main point of Bakugo's arc was his guilt about his actions. His actions led to the downfall of All Might, as a hero, him bullying Midoriya because of his own weaknesses etc.

Currently All Might is taking on AFO all alone because everyone else is literally down for the count but it's also high time, that people start to rise and help All Might.

Shigaraki's problem with the hero system is that it relies too much on heroes to do all the saving work while the common folks, the civilians do nothing but pass by a little boy who looked battered and bruised.

Now AM doesn't have any powers and yet he chose to fight! That should inspire everyone who was saved by him at one point or another and that inspiration and team work should come from Bakugo.

I don't know how but I feel like something big will happen, like Bakugo waking up and realising AM is fighting alone and he inspires everyone to go save AM. Teamwork and arrogance were his biggest weaknesses, and he will conquer them.

There are two demon lords after all, Tomura Shigaraki and AFO, so it would be rather poetic if Bakugo teams up with everyone (civilians) to defeat AFO while Deku defeats Shigaraki at the same time and that marks the end of MHA in the most epic way possible.

MHA is a story about love and connection.

About how anyone could be a "Hero"

And that includes civilians and common folks.

All Might has been saving people his entire life...

and now it's high time, that those people stand up to save him.

Just how long do they plan to be AUDIENCE?

[xeonn6269]

i’ve wanted to redraw this manga panel of izuku and i did finally

[arjengelly]

So it looks like Deku’s rewinding

And we’re gonna get to see the babies bond in what little time they have left 🥺

Omg wait….

[class1akids]

Between Touya wanting to be awesome like Shouto and Shouto wanting to play with Touya-nii just one time + Touya's mind regressing - I'm getting ready for a scene like this:

[sorrel-the-kabbage]

@blackholeca wrote a one-shot to commemorate her fic Pied Piper reaching a million hits! Everyone go tell her congrats!

I drew these lil doodles based on the one-shot, couldn’t get the idea for the poster out of my head once she put it in there.

[escaping-peril12]

KOICHI APPEARANCE?!?

[ael-draw]

He's, obviously, enjoying his time here 💃

(I tried something, I'm not really sure what and I'm not event sure If I really like the result... But he's here anyway 🤷🏻‍♀️)

(pls do not repost this on other platforms ;;)

[tilly-toons]

Kacchan found his Angy BF ⚡️

Free Day for Twins Stars Week! 👀🤲

DO NOT REPOST

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