#ch281

[pardon-my-scifi]

So Tamaki exists to bring porn to the new world? I'm so fucking confused right now.

[hollow-triad]

[🇲🇽]

Tritura... Pantera!!

Ichigo vs Grimmjow

Edson Matus as Grimmjow JaegerJaquez

[opbackgrounds]

Okay but we know that Luffy’s bones are just as rubber as the rest of him. Does that mean he has to put effort into things like standing? Is his natural state of being a floppy flesh prison? When he’s totally relaxed does Luffy just sort of melt?

These are the questions that keep me up at night.

[hotforhandman]

Gran Torino and the Legacy of Dehumanisation

Oh boy. Time to make another sect of bnha fans hate me. These are always fun- and always seem to come after I browse the bnha spoilers tag. 

So after the 281 spoilers hit, once again, the fandom seems to have been divided into two very vocal camps - those who are celebrating GT’s death, and those who are offended that anyone would dare do such a thing. The former hated GT (and in some cases Miruko, too) for being openly degrading towards Shigaraki, labelling him an ‘it’, a ‘thing’ or a ‘monster’, and the latter say... well of course he did. Shigaraki is a monster. He’s violent, destructive, aggressive, he’s purposefully modified his body in order to destroy, he’s the villain. And we can’t hate on a beloved mentor character for being mean to a villain. 

Now, my own opinions on the situation are... very meh. I wasn’t particularly invested in GT’s character, I held no particular affection for him, but neither did I virulently hate him. That being said, I do think there are some very interesting things to think about in regards to the whole debacle and people’s reactions to it. 

To an extent, I do think that a certain amount of it is played up for kicks, or happened as a result of a subset of the community playing hype-man for each other until a tiny gripe became a massive point of contention, but more than that I think a lot of it boils down to what the villains (specifically the LOV) represent to the reader. The LOV seem to have separated the hero stans and the villain stans more than any other bit of media I’ve been a part of the fandom for, and seem to be the source of a lot of these conflicts (see: Hawks v Twice, Dabi v Endeavour). And I think that is largely because Horikoshi has put so much effort into humanising them. I’ve mentioned before in an offhand way about how of course the LOV resonate with people, they’re a bunch of young adults who are considered to be some form of ‘degenerate’ by the general populace, who are dissatisfied with a corrupt system and want to see the perpetrators held accountable for the suffering they’ve experienced. They’re a perfect microcosm of all us LGBT+ kids, us poor kids, us disabled kids, us POC, all the young adults who feel like society would rather see us locked up or dead than simply existing as we are. Of course, they’re also wilfully violent, and fictional violence is a contentious point these days. Some find it unforgivable, some find it justified, some might be living out a power fantasy about hurting their own oppressors through it, and some simply don’t care, because a fictional murderer never actually killed anyone. So now you’ve got groups of people who dislike the villains because they’re violent and aggressive, groups of people who sympathise with the villains but can’t justify their actions, and groups of people who both sympathise with the villains and consider their actions a reasonable response to the abuse they’ve gone through.

And now we come back to Gran Torino. The beloved mentor of All Might, the man who taught Deku to use his power without breaking himself, the living proof of a legacy of heroism. The thing is that I think he represents something very interesting. Where Endeavour is the epitome of the corrupt system, where All Might is the accidental arbiter of complacency, where Izuku is the hope for a better, more compassionate future, Gran Torino is the visual representation of tradition. He’s a classically successful hero, he was fairly well-known back in his day, he took down a fair few villains in his time, and he lived to train not just his own successor, but his successor’s successor. He’s been kicking villain butt since his early years. I’ve seen people getting angry that GT seems to blame Shigaraki for villainous doings that are not his fault (see also: Mic/Eraser blaming Shigaraki for what happened to Shirakumo), and I think that’s because he didn’t view Shigaraki as an individual with the capacity for right or wrong, he viewed him as a symptom. A symptom of that disease called villainy, the one to blame for the suffering of the people he cared about - Toshinori and Nana. Nana didn’t give up her son because she was a heartless mother, or because she didn’t love him. She was forced to because of a villain. To the heroes, ‘villains’ are an angry, violent monolith that needs to be dealt with, and individual villains are symptoms of that intangible evil. 

To him, Shigaraki isn’t a hurt child, an abuse victim, a person to sympathise with. He’s an immediate threat, and a synthetic monster put together by AfO and Ujiko to act on that villainy. He’s a boss fight. And no one feels bad when they’re kicking a boss’s ass, because that’s just what you’re meant to do. 

And so to circle back, I think that’s where the divide comes from. On one side, you’ve got people seeing Shigaraki the villain, Shigaraki the threat, the aggressor, the boss fight. And on the other you’ve got people seeing Shigaraki the victim. 

And the thing is? He’s both. And for as long as the characters in universe fail to see the root causes of villainy rather than seeing villainy as the root cause itself, they’re going to keep creating new villains themselves. Because how many of us, given superpowers and the ability to change the world around us, would become villains in the name of bettering society for ourselves? Violence for the sake of violence isn’t acceptable, but dehumanising the violent and stripping away the environment that cultivated them won’t do anything except perpetuate the cycle. 

So was Gran Torino a bad person for attacking Shigaraki? No. Was he wrong to dehumanise him, and doing harm by doing so? Yes. Once again, as most of these things I write seem to come to the conclusion of, the answer is somewhere in the middle. 

[iiloffy]

Ace's great search for blackbeard

[kazukisakito]

[The constellations 'Demon King of Salvation' doesn't exist in the Star Stream.] [The constellations 'Demon King of Salvation' doesn't exist in the Star Stream.][The constellations 'Demon King of Salvation' doesn't exist in the Star Stream.][The constellations 'Demon King of Salvation' doesn't exist in the Star Stream.]...[The constellations 'Demon King of Salvation' doesn't exist in the Star Stream.]

[naginata-art]

[please do not repost, thank you 💜]

I have feels.

[notebook-13]

BNHA History

Alright! I decided to assemble what we’ve been told about how society has changed since the advent of quirks. So here’s a rough timeline + my speculation.

Distant Past

≈200 years ago

The birth of a glowing baby signaled the beginning of superpowers. Considering the tremendous chaos that followed, I think it’s likely that the onset was fairly rapid—the glowing baby was the first of a lot of people all at once born with superpowers (or, it was the first baby born with a noticeable superpower). Crime skyrocketed, the law became meaningless, humanity came apart at the seams.

Why there was such an explosion of crime and chaos hasn’t been directly addressed; presumably it’s because early metas were violently shunned as nonhuman, and because new powers entailed the opportunity to use them.

Under these conditions, All for One rose to prominence. He used his meta power to win slavish loyalty, granting powers to those who desired them and removing them from metas who rejected them. His manipulation of his devotees was so great that he didn’t need to give them orders: they anticipated his will and acted on it. He didn’t tolerate dissent and crushed those who defied him. (ch193)

AfO’s period of de facto rule is not included in history books (he persists as a myth), so it’s unlikely that he occupied an official, publicly recognized position. But his rule apparently stretches from approximately the advent of quirks till the battle of Kamino Ward. (ch59)

However, AfO’s younger brother opposed him. AfO punished him by forcing on him a “useless” power-stocking ability. This power fused with the brother’s latent ability to transfer his ability, and the brother was able to pass it on. Over the next two centuries, the OfA holders continued to pass it on, largely to whoever happened to be nearby when they were dying instead of to selected proteges. (ch59, 257)

Relatively soon after the advent of superpowers, the police foreswore using them as weapons in order to keep the trust of the public. Vigilantes emerged to fulfill this role, attempting to mete out justice, and at some point the government authorized certain people (heroes) to use their powers offensively to enforce the law. Heroes were heavily criticized at first, but they eventually developed public support thanks to their strict adherence to the law (according to police chief Tsuragamae). (ch56)

According to the bnha spinoff Vigilantes, the government classified vigilantes into heroes or villains based on public opinion of them. (ch13)

MLA Era

How long ago was the Meta Liberation Army active?

Ch232: Redestro weakly implies that Destro was born before the beginning of heroes as a profession. This early date would also coincide with writing legislation to authorize heroes to use their powers to apprehend any other meta who used their ability.

Ch238: the MLA was in hiding for generations, plural.

Ch223: Redestro states the MLA has trained for “many generations”

So…somewhere between seventy years ago and more than a hundred years ago?

Regardless of the exact dates, Destro was born into a borderline period when there was intense prejudice against metas and official effort to coexist peacefully. When his mother defended him by claiming his power was a mere “quirk,” she was killed by a mob.

Sometime later, when the government drafted legislation to (supposedly?) promote peaceful coexistence, they recalled her idea of “quirk” and tried to use it as part of their reform. Destro, now an adult, opposed this and their reform, asserting that this was not the world his mother envisioned when she’d said “quirk.” (ch232)

He rallied metas to his cause, to bar any restriction of meta ability use, and the MLA fought the government for several years before defeat. It dissolved, many of its members in jail, including Destro himself. He penned his autobiography and then killed himself. (ch218)

Post-MLA, Pre-Symbol of Peace

Unknown number of years ago

Villain: “Seems like no one’s willing to break the law nowadays. All this whining about not selling out their friends. It’s a real pain. […] Man, I miss the days before All Might came along… I was young, and this country was a way more impulsive place.” (ch57)

Yagi: “I believed that this country needed a symbol so I started dashing headlong towards that goal. A shining light…hope. A wake-up call for everyone. As I ran, I swore I’d become that sort of man. People always had these worried looks. All the heroes in the world couldn’t slow the rising crime rates. Much more than now…they were truly scared.” (ch165)

This was an apparently cutthroat, impulsive period where efforts to curb chaos continued but found limited success. Crime was on the rise, something Yagi attributed to the idea that there wasn’t anyone (a “pillar”) for people to rely on. (ch93)

≈70 years ago

When Ujiko proposed his “paranormal singularity theory,” he was roundly rejected and mocked. Due to his own struggles with housing multiple quirks, AfO recognized how prescient Ujiko’s warning was, and he reached out to recruit Ujiko. (ch270)

(Note: Ujiko’s use of “paranormal” could mean he proposed his theory before “quirk” became the standard term, meaning “quirk” could be a rather recent change of language.)

≈35 years ago

AfO killed Nana. All Might was eighteen; he subsequently went to America to complete his training.

Symbol of Peace Era

≈30 years ago – Battle of Kamino Ward

Deku: “Ever since he appeared on the hero scene, his strength has won him undisputed popularity. Every year that he’s been active has seen a marked decrease in the appearance rate of villains. His existence alone is a deterrent to villainy.” (ch2)

Gran Torino: “[Stain’s] ideals and opinions…they’re gonna get out there. On the net. In papers and magazines. On TV. This age we live in, for better or worse, is one of suppression. But mark my words—people are gonna be influenced by this.” (ch57)

Shigaraki: “It’s not crazy to imagine that someone could commit an atrocity at any given moment. So why do they smile and mingle like this? Because the laws and rules are built on their individual morality, they’re convinced that ‘No one would ever do that.’” (ch69)

Shigaraki: “The reason these fools can smile and live their lives is cuz All Might’s always got that grin on his face. Smiling wide, as if to say there’s no one he can’t save!!” (ch69)

Deku: “All Might. Was there ever a time you really couldn’t save someone…?” Yagi: “…? … Sure. Plenty of times. Right now, somewhere out in the world, someone could be hurting or dying. It sucks, but I’m only human. I can’t save people who are out of my reach… That’s why I stand tall and smile. I’m the Symbol of Justice. The citizens…heroes…villains…I need to light the way for all of them.” (ch70)

Kid: “Nowadays people expect different things from heroes than they used to. It’s all about the entertainment factor and approval ratings.” (ch144)

Shigaraki: “You heroes pretend to be society’s guardians. For generations, you pretended not to see those you couldn’t protect and swept their pain under the rug. It’s tainted everything you’ve built. That means your system’s all rotten from the inside with maggots crawling out. It all builds up, little by little, over time. You’ve got the common trash, all too dependent on being protected. And the brave guardians who created the trash that need coddling. […] I don’t care if you don’t understand. That’s what makes us heroes and villains.” (ch281)

After about two centuries of chaos, Japan achieved stability after All Might established himself as the Symbol of Peace. All Might was specifically noted to have demolished most organized crime, so that villain teams were relatively rare (ch83, 115, 125). As Shigaraki put it, now people could go about their lives confident of their safety because All Might convinced them that everything will be alright, a hero will take care of them. This was true to the extent that people would flock to the sites of hero/villain battles to take photos and videos.

Whereas, as Twice put it, if you were on the wrong side of the law, then All Might’s catchphrase “I’m here” was a curse, something to fear and loathe. Gran Torino characterized this era as an age of suppression, as in, the symptoms were suppressed, producing superficial stability, but the underlying conditions hadn’t changed.

During this period, the industry of heroism shifted to over-emphasize heroism as public entertainment, rewarding attention-grabbing stunts and PR skills over humbler virtues.

This shift inspired Stain the Hero Killer to enact a purge of unworthy heroes in order to revive true heroism. He deeply impressed society, and, despite his murders, he became a popular figure. His ideals provoked some people to question whether society’s heroes were “true heroes,” while others disregarded his ideals and simply found him cool.

During this era, 80% of the population had a quirk. Whether that statistic was stable or if it was an effect of demographics (ie, most quirkless people are elderly and almost all kids have quirks) hasn’t been specified.

This era could be separated into All Might’s Bronze, Silver, and Golden Ages, each with a different costume.

≈30 years ago

All Might debuted in Japan, and he kicked off an unprecedented era of stability.

5 years ago

All Might fought and “killed” AfO.

Age of Endeavor

Battle of Kamino Ward – Present (ch283)

HPSC: “All Might had it all…power with enough charm to win the people over. The gulf between him and the perennial runner-up was always huge… I doubt we’re gonna find someone that charismatic again anytime soon.”  Mera: While we’re waiting for the next All Might, hero squads with a focus on team unity are gonna have to fill the gap. This order from up high is meant to make some headway on that front… (ch111)

Miyagi (newscaster): “If we’re being honest, I think All Might just got too big for our own good. So big that we lost sight of things. […] As for us, we shouldn’t just passively protect the status quo. Isn’t it our duty to bring back a culture of excitement around heroes?” (ch115)

Kid: “We know what’s up. Mom and dad and the TV all ask the same thing. ‘Are the heroes doing okay?’ …We know. We’re better than them!” (ch165)

Hawks: “That guy earlier, screaming ‘Long live metahuman liberation’…this [rumors of nomu sightings] is kinda like that. They republished some old-school criminal’s autobiography, and it’s flying off the shelves. I’m thinking that’s influencing people. That stuff tends to sell best when society’s feeling unstable, right?” (ch186)

Gentle: “What counts as a spectacle is a question for the current generation. We shall go to the source [UA]—the source that enchants our society.” (ch171)

Newscaster (surveying the stampede of fleeing civilians during Endeavor’s nomu battle): “This is society without a Symbol of Peace!!”  Can’tcha See-kun: “Stop saying that crap already!! Open your eyes before spouting off on TV! Especially at a time like this! Look! Those flames’re still rising up! You see ’em, right?! Endeavor’s alive and fighting!! So don’t give up just cuz the other guy’s gone! There’s still a dude out there risking it all for us!! Can’tcha see?!” (ch189)

Kuraishisu (newscaster): “In the past, a situation like this [the destruction of Deika City], where heroes were forced to make a difficult call, would have earned those same heroes criticism, but I suspect we may be witnessing a critical turning point in this era. A large-scale shift in opinion from criticism to passionate support.”  Uraraka: “Feels like everything’s different ever since the ‘Can’tcha See kid’ did his thing.”  Ashido: “It’s all cuz Endeavor kicked butt!” Mt. Lady: “Y’think the future’s bright? Not so fast!! It might seem like the winds of good fortune are blowing our way, but if you stop and think about the flip side of all this…it’s actually coming from a sense of urgency—it’s a response to danger! These cheers for the conquering heroes are really prayers—a plea that we emerge victorious! They’ve had enough of the showbiz side of heroism and want us to prove our worth for real now!” (ch241)

Mineta: “Not too long ago, she didn’t give a crap about anything except being on camera…” Aizawa: “Mt. Lady’s not the only one who has changed. Every hero out there is being pulled up by the number one’s rising ride.” (ch241)

After All Might retired, uncertainty gripped Japan as people wondered what would happen now. A strong consensus agreed that Endeavor wasn’t suited to fill All Might’s boots, something reflected in how the crime rate went up 3% in the month after Kamino, and reflected in how people suddenly became interested in reading the MLA ideology of rejecting heroes and protecting themselves.

During Endeavor’s battle against the nomu, the press attributed the public’s frantic stampede—ignoring heroes trying to guide evacuation—to the public’s lack of trust in Endeavor (and heroes generally) now that All Might was gone. Public trust improved after the nomu battle, especially thanks to Can’tcha See-kun.

Within a month after the battle, expectations shifted. People had enough of showbiz heroism and wanted the heroes to walk the talk and protect the public against villains, to the extent that comfortable armchair criticism was replaced a passionate support driven by fear of villains.

Miscellaneous Questions

When did “hero” become a recognized profession?

When did the hero ranking system begin?

When did the celebrity culture around heroes develop?

When did “quirk” come into common use?

How old is Yagi? How long ago did he debut in Japan and begin the era of peace?

How old is AfO? How long after the advent of quirks did he come to power?

When did AfO recruit Machia?

When were the nomu invented?

When did humanity pass the point of quirk singularity? (ch193)

[shiggy-stan]

Ch281 Spoilers and Personal Rant

Okay but besides my unending stanning for Shigaraki POOR GRAND TORINO. It’s so sad to see him go.

I mean in context of the story, Someone had to die because otherwise there would be no impact and Gran Torino in retrospect is a good choice because it hurts Deku and All Might and it’s a very effective slap in Nanas face and continues the Meta that even beaten down Shigaraki is a threat meant to be taken seriously because people WILL die and he will do it directly. Also he was there and was aware of Nanas choice and might’ve been family to shigaraki in another life if things if Nana hadn’t left. No this is not blaming Nana this is just acknowledging that things might’ve been different if she had survived and had taken back her son.

I’m sympathetic to Gran Torino because that’s another friend of Toshinori and mentor to Deku who believed in him taken out; but I also needed this or something like this to happen and I need Shigaraki to be dangerous otherwise if he just never follows through and kills anyone we care about is he an effective villain? He’s not a real enemy if the only people he kills are people we would want locked up anyway or Pro Heroes we didn’t get more than 5 lines from.

Now to all the assholes saying UWU y’all are evil for memeing on Grand Torino’s death, stop stanning Shiggy he killed someone nice, or you know he’d kill you because you’re the exact people he would hate. Look, it’s not real, I’m so so SO sorry the side character in the MHA manga died but I started stanning shigaraki since he was trying to kill kids and I’ve since watched him kill a lot of people including pro heroes. Unless he kills Deku, I’m probably still gonna love him because he’s a great fucking character and his development has honestly been the best development I’ve seen in a long time. A tantrum throwing gamer to an absolute fucking king, it’s incredible. Would he kill me? I don’t know and I don’t care because this isn’t a real person.

Maybe stop acting like we’re shitting on a real persons grave and remember this shit ain’t real. Calling us psychos for liking him is not only ableist; but also really fucking stupid in context and makes me love him more if only to know it pisses you off.

[skenekidz]

so did ya read ch281 in hero aca 😔

SHUT UP WE DON’T TALK ABOUT IT also they just straight gave up on drawing Shigaraki’s face huh 

[seika-kagami]

Ch281 by Old Xian 😳😂😱🌼😁

[pardon-my-scifi]

Fire Force got really freaking meta. My head hurts.

[hollow-triad]

[Ch281]

[Ep166] Sexta Espada’s Resurrección

[🎙]

[opbackgrounds]

As hilarious as it is to see Luffy’s thought process in action, I think this is worth more a candle than a light bulb.

[hotforhandman]

I don't think Gran Torino's death is particularly important to the audience, but I think it's important to Shiggy's character and I think it's pretty symbolic. If Shiggy wants to destroy hero society then heroes like Gran Torino are the first kinds of people he needs to get rid of in my opinion. I myself don't have a reason to celebrate Gran Torino's death but as a fan of Shiggy who loves watching him grow I can't help but feel super proud and happy for him lol

I think it’s very much a visual metaphor for society moving forward, being passed on (for better or worse) to the younger generation. The old, the outdated ways of thinking are gonna be the first to go, for sure. 

[iiloffy]

GUM-GUM SPACE OUT!!