#joint training story arc

[tabbyrocks]

manga spoilers!!!!!

the mischaracterization of Monoma and Bakugo's relationship on tiktok is literally THE WORST.

"Monoma never hated Bakugo!!" he ABSOLUTELY did.

the entire reason why Monoma thought 1-A sucked in the beginning was because Bakugo is an ass.

He was pissed off when Bakugo actually WORKED WITH HIS TEAM because he's known him as some prick who doesn't know how to cooperate up until that point.

He was shocked an upset by Bakugo's "death" because he has seen him and class 1-A as this unstoppable force ever since he met them. seeing someone you thought was unkillable BE KILLED is a shock.

sure, he shits on 1-A but it's VERY OVIOUS he doesn't actually believe 1-A is less then him. he holds them on a very high pedestal and he's watching it crumble before his very own eyes. and it's obvious that he doesn't like seeing stuff that forcefully changes his views from the joint training battles.

even though Bakugo's personality is flaming garbage Monoma still KNEW him. not only that but he had to watch him get mauled and he physically couldn't look away. that's horrifying.

and even if I'm completely wrong and Horikoshi decides to suddenly make Monoma respect Bakugo JUST BECAUSE he died for five minutes would be a horrible choice for Monoma's character. everyone who didn't like Bakugo at first always ends up respecting him for some stupid reason, and that's not how the real world works. there NEEDS to be someone that balances that out, and that someone IS MONOMA. his background and previous interactions with Bakugo make him the perfect guy to hate his guts.

this arc for Monoma, in my opinion, should be the arc that lets him finally win SOMETHING. that lets him shine. because all throughout this entire story we have seen Monoma fail over and over again. what this arc shouldn't be is Monoma suddenly gaining some sort of "newfound respect" for the guy he's hated the entire story.

[deadboyswalking]

What a lot of fans are wondering, myself included, is "Where did MHA go wrong?"

I can think of several points that kick-started the downfall. This is not an exhaustive list, but just a few of the bigger flaws. It's a really long post, especially on the last point.

1. The reveal that AFO was directly responsible for all of Tomura's woes from before he was even born. This completely absolved society and his abusive family of responsibility, thus cheapening the manga's themes centered around those aspects of the manga's world.

2. Excessive focus on Endeavor at the expense of Shouto's feelings, actions, and inner world. It seems that from the Endeavor Agency Arc onward, Shouto's character is constantly underwritten and shoved aside so his father can get more screentime. Shouto's climactic, emotional final fight with Touya is completely undercut by the actual final fight of Touya vs. Endeavor, with the rest of the Todoroki family (Shouto included) basically sidelined to cheer Endeavor on. Even in the last Todoroki family chapter, the primary focus is still on Endeavor's feelings and not Shouto or Touya.

3. The complete character assassination of Izuku Midoriya. He was never the most interesting MC to begin with, but at least he had something going for him in the early arcs. He was weird, brilliant in battle tactics/analysis, brave and determined, endlessly compassionate, and completely insane. He had a real fire in him as a person and, unlike what many fans say, started the series with an awareness of the deep flaws in his society. People always say that the "save the villains" angle was shoved into the story during the first war, but it's clear from the beginning that the way Deku looked at his society already primed him to believe in that idea. During his mall encounter with Shigaraki, he actually showed that he'd carefully considered Stain's message and understood where he was coming from, even if he didn't agree with his actions. This is the story's first indication that if a villain has a genuine gripe with society and can explain it, Deku is willing to listen to what they have to say. Similarly, at the Sports Festival, he doesn't treat Endeavor with any of respect/awe he usually treats heroes with because Endeavor doesn't show the heroic values that Deku believes in.

So what happened to Deku? Honestly, I think he as a character disappeared beneath the weight of The Vestiges of OFA, Becoming The New Symbol of Peace, and Acting As The Author's Mouthpiece.

Joint Training Arc was the first indication that Izuku himself no longer mattered because of the OFA mythos and Vestiges inside him. Now, I don't mind Blackwhip because it diversified his fighting style and gave him a long-range attack. I also appreciated how hard he had to work to use it effectively and consistently. However, all of the other Vestige Quirks seemed to come to him way too easily and he could use them in perfect combinations without trying and against highly skilled adult opponents. The Vestiges started to talk to him constantly and give him advice, so his battle analysis/tactics were no longer necessary and he didn't need to come up with his own ideas anymore. More importantly, his own strong inner sense of justice and awareness of society's need to change was utterly replaced by some mystical Vestige-world bullshit about saving little Tenko. Adult Tomura was right there, clearly explaining his point of view and deep pain, and Deku didn't even listen to him (or really care when Tomura's body started being controlled by AFO). What happened to the independently compassionate boy from the earlier manga?

Being The New Symbol of Peace is another place where Deku had his character steamrolled. As flawed as the arc as a whole was, I actually had hope for him during the Dark Hero Arc. He was asking questions and genuinely trying to understand why villains became villains. He saw how civilians treated people with mutant quirks, listened to Lady Nagant about the HPSC, and witnessed tons of other abuses by society that made him angry. His eyes were opened and his compassion for Tenko Shimura deepened, priming him for the Final Battle where he would save the man and make a stand to change their society forever. Unfortunately, due to Horikoshi's inability to let go of the All Might and AFO dynamic, Deku's character was squeezed into The New Symbol of Peace mold and he forgot all about what he learned during the Dark Hero Arc in order to take out ShigAFO and let society stay exactly the same.

Finally, Deku was lost when he started Acting As The Author's Mouthpiece. The first sign of this was during Endeavor Agency Arc, when he told Shouto that he would forgive Endeavor "because you're a good person" and fawning all over Endeavor in general. I'm sorry, what? As much as Deku likes heroes, he was already shown to strongly dislike Endeavor because he didn't act like a true hero should and abused his family (people smaller and weaker than himself). Now one of your best fucking friends and his siblings are giving you more details of their horrific upbringing, including about their dead brother, and your response is that a good person would forgive Endeavor because he's trying to be better??? There is no canon justification for why Deku would do that type of 180°, but there's certainly an author that continually pushed more and more screentime for Endeavor and his feelings as the series went on. I wouldn't give a shit if this opinion change had any lead-up to it (as characters can change their minds all they want), but there's nothing in Deku's previously-shown character/personality that would lead to that conclusion. As the story went on, Deku mostly lost his introspective nature and stopped struggling with internal conflicts over right and wrong and what it means to be a hero. Instead, he just started mindlessly spouting whatever half-assed "message" the author wanted to show during any given scene with no regard to his previous opinions, background, or personality, often contradicting himself as the story's messages couldn't stay consistent either.

[delawaredetroit]

Now that I have to see his face again, Bakugou isn't much a deuteragonist. He only really acts as deuteragonist in some school arcs until about halfway through the manga when the war arc begins. And in the arc where he is most relevant to the overall plot (the second war arc), he spends half of it as a corpse.

Shouto is deuteragonist of the Sports Festival Arc. Iida is deuteragonist of the Stain Arc. Mirio is the deuteragonist of the Shie Hassaikai Arc. If you consider Izuku the protagonist of the Kamino Arc (which there's a decent argument it's actually All Might), then Kirishima and/or Iida are closer to deuteragonists while Bakugou fulfills the role of the damsel in distress.

His record is dismal prior to the Paranormal Liberation Front War: The Battle Trials, the Midterms, Hero Licensing Exam/Deku vs Kacchan Part Two, and the Joint Training Arc (Endeavor Agency Arc is arguable, but the Hellish Todoroki Family took control of the plot for that one). Bakugou is somehow constantly present and almost completely irrelevant to the overarching plot for at least half the story.

And I can't tell if this is Horikoshi shoehorning him in because Bakugou was too popular but he didn't want to change the main beats of the story. Or if he was trying to make Bakugou grow into the deuteragonist role like Izuku and Shigaraki grow into the roles of "the hero" and "the villain" respectively. It wasn't well executed if that was the case. They had to grow into their societal roles through the story (so they could later overcome the roles of hero and villain), but Izuku and Shigaraki already fit the roles of protagonist and antagonist from the beginning, unlike Bakugou as a deuteragonist.

[oshiawaseni]

Between BkDk, which of them knows they're in love with the other?

A question was asked: Is it just one, is it both, or is it neither? This is my reasoning behind why I think that both of them have realised their romantic feelings for the other.

I'll start with Izuku’s side first, as he is the veteran.

Izuku's been sitting on his feelings for quite some time and repressing them as much as he can, simply just knowing these feelings… exist. Izuku has always loved Kacchan, but I'm talking specifically about the moment he realised what kind of love it was.

I think the moment that really did Izuku in was witnessing the growth in Katsuki's heroic heart for the very first time, during his team's battle in the Joint Training arc. Shiny eyes watched Kacchan's newly perfected teamwork as he fought the opposition while protecting his team and allowing them to cover for him in return.

This change in Katsuki was his heart becoming more like Izuku's, in his efforts to become the top hero that cares about saving and winning equally. He no longer looked down on the action of saving a person, so he no longer looked down on what it meant to be saved by others either. I think this really cast him in a new light for Izuku.

Kirishima: "But it's true it might be the first time we've ever seen him do something like this." (Katsuki protecting others)

As well as planting a seed foreshadowing Bakugou Katsuki Rising, Hori placed the speech bubble over a very bare panel of Izuku watching Kacchan for two reasons: Emphasis that Izuku was also seeing Kacchan's character growth for the first time, and to imply that the change in Katsuki's character that Monoma had just been yelling about was, in large part, influenced by Izuku himself.

The paneling is so genius. It seemed insignificant enough to be ignored by Bones, yet it says so much more than all other panels because it tells a story of the piece in Katsuki that had been missing their whole lives, it’s simplistic emptiness conveying the beauty Izuku saw in him finding it. If Katsuki was changing, maybe Izuku was, too... and this panel was the start of Izuku's admiration evolving into something more romantic.

Izuku watching Katsuki's heroism was an incredibly important moment for them and puts Izuku's view of love in ch.348 into some more context. Because chapter 208 was Katsuki definitely... undeniably sharing Izuku's heart. RIGHT AFTER sending his thoughts to Izuku: "Just keep your eyes on me, shitty Deku!"

".......If it responds to my feelings, at that time, I..."

And not long after JT, we get these unfinished thoughts about WHY Black Whip was triggered and Izuku has been hush about his inner thoughts on Katsuki ever since. (Other than telling Kacchan he doesn't mind being called Deku, if it's too hard to call him Izuku.)

The reason Izuku's emotions were so deeply triggered that day is because Monoma reminded him of the pain he saw in Katsuki's face when he cried to him about ending All Might in DvK2.

The recent anime ending further backs this theory during a montage of Izuku running away from the significant memories he has with his friends. This memory is a very important one to Izuku.

When Monoma triggered him, Izuku felt Katsuki's suffering on a personal level. His precious Kacchan, who had cried to him with that face, had fallen under attack, so by extension, Izuku was being attacked too. That day, Izuku discovered how very protective he is over him. (see also: "Give him back to me!")(see also: Kacchan getting hurt "because of me" to save Izuku was the Vigilante arc catalyst) (see also: Vol 37 Cover Art)

During his Bakugou Katsuki Rising chapter/episode, Kacchan too felt an immense amount of empathy with Izuku, because he refers to the moment he was about to lose Izuku as being "at death's door." Not specifying it was Izuku's death, but death in general. Izuku feels Katsuki's pain. Katsuki feels Izuku's pain. And this attunement with one another makes them both feel immensely protective over each other. Amazing.

So... Izuku has just figured out his feelings... and when asked directly by Kacchan, he runs away from giving him a concrete answer because he doesn't want to upset him with the love and overprotectiveness he feels for Kacchan inside his heart. At this point in the story, Izuku still feels somewhat disliked by him and is scared of Katsuki's potential harsh rejection. I'm sure he was thinking something like "Better to omit the truth and not cause anyone pain." No pain for Kacchan, no pain for him. Hedgehogs can't get hurt if they never lie close to each other, right?

＊* .•° ✿ °•. ❀。• *₊°。 ❀°。 ೋღ

With Katsuki, I think he awoke to a new feeling born inside him after he almost lost Izuku. The uncompromising need for Izuku to stay in his life. And his feelings from childhood that he’d hidden deep inside reemerged with the same explosive level of fervour that he’d given Izuku their whole lives, except now when he thought about Izuku, his heart was filled with something… different.

He only realised what those feelings really were at the same time he faced the looming death that was ahead of him. Katsuki was stripped completely bare by AFO and found all that remained of him, which was now staring him straight in the face, the precious piece of him AFO could never touch: Izuku’s and his intense and binding love for each other. There's no other explanation for chapter 362, other than him becoming more aware of both Izuku's and his own feelings. That's why he thought of him in the end, that's why he longed to see him so much.

That's why he wanted his feelings to reach him, to have Izuku in his grasp, at a time when he knew he had no hope to. All For One told him to face his reality. But that reality and Katsuki's wishes are two very separate entities and nothing can come between the love and belief Izuku and Katsuki have for each other. Katsuki would not be broken… and it was his hope that won out.

Edgeshot: "Don't give up, Dynamight! The guy you're waiting for will... Deku will come for sure. That's why I won't let you die!"

Hori revealed on the back of Volume 37 that Izuku is the person Katsuki had been waiting for because... (and this BREAKS ME):

Katsuki had been waiting to be saved by him.

I KNOW, I KNOW. There's a small part of me that's just like "SHUTUP HORI THESE CHAPTERS WERE ALREADY HARD ENOUGH TO TAKE YOU DIDNT HAVE TO RUB THEM IN EVEN MORE :((" because thinking about all of this hurts like hell.

But I know these lines probably weren’t written to upset those of us who live in a perpetual state of bkdk canon brainrot, and were written so that everyone else, the average "casual" fan, can start to see/accept the love that's between them a little more. I'm sure it's with this kind of intention that he reminded everyone again of who exactly it was residing in Katsuki's heart and whose name it was Edgeshot felt he needed to use to call out to Katsuki with, for the sole purpose of motivating him harder to stay alive. (ily Hori, thanks for the pain.)

As of ch.362, they are both now aware they love the other, Izuku doesn't know yet that it's very reciprocal, but I think Katsuki realised it, and he allowed Izuku's love to overflow him during his delirium, using it as his shield to protect his spirits after the awful things AFO did and said to him. It's devastating that he had to suffer so much to see the truth that had been lying dormant inside his own heart the whole time.

This uncovered truth is why he got back up and acted in the way he knew Izuku believed in most about him. Izuku wasn't coming. But at the very least... he could still become the hero Izuku admires and loves one last time, before it was all over...

"(Never giving up until I get my win is what you always believed in about me,) so I just gotta win, right.... Izuku....?"

Ch.362 felt like Katsuki's answer to Izuku's feelings, an incredibly private moment of him exposing his bare heart for all to see. His final act was an acceptance and reciprocity of the love Izuku felt for him that had been there all along. He was completely run down mentally, physically and spiritually, so he comforted himself by thinking about his special guy.

What provides more comfort than your beloved being right there with you, at your lowest? What greater desire does the heart have than to feel loved by the person it yearningly aches for the most?

Katsuki was only able to see Izuku's feelings because he could finally face and recognise his own.

[aromanticannibal]

Ojiro hate exists??????? Tf did that little guy do... He's just some guy...

I understand why people would think Ojirou dislikes Shinsou to be honest because until season 5 happened, Ojirou did look mad, or at least annoyed, at Shinsou for using him to win during the Sports Festival. The thing is that that doesn't make him evil, Shinsou was in fact in the wrong for not asking Ojirou normally and using his quirk on him without his consent. I don't think Shinsou is evil either, he's a desperate kid who looks like he's been rejected a lot, but he did a shitty thing and Ojirou would be right to dislike him as a result.

Thing is that Ojirou DOES NOT DISLIKE SHINSOU OH MY GOD. LIKE WOW HE LIKES HIM. We barely see them interact but everytime they do interact after the joint training arc (where Ojirou just looks surprised to see Shinsou) Ojirou is SO excited to see him.

Like come on. He's one of the characters smothering Shinsou when he makes his grand comeback before the war restarts, he's literally wagging his tail.

This official art is from chap. 146 which is still pretty early on and Ojirou is looking at Shinsou with a little smile and they're talking to each other. Like this is a nice interaction they r not arguing or giving each other the cold shoulder. And of course.

LITERALLY dying rn. Ojirou wants to be friends w/ Shinsou so bad it's adorable he's literally doing the tailman equivalent of wrapping your arm around someone if this was like Kirishima and Bakugou people would be going INSANE over this (rightfully so).

Anyways to answer your actual question I fear it's not that people hate Ojirou it's more that people need a villain for their story. I personally think it's often cheap to take a perfectly nice character and make them an asshole for the sake of conflict but a lot of people do it. In Ojirou's case it's especially out of character given he is a genuinely nice boy and does like Shinsou.

I do ship shinoji I'm sorry I fear it may have come through my rant

[sarahjtv]

My Hero Academia is Officially Ending and I'm Fucking Coping 😭

So, it was officially announced early today, June 24th, 2024, by Shueshia and mangaka, Kohei Horikoshi, that My Hero Academia/Boku no Hero Academia will officially end in 5 chapters on Chapter 430. The last chapter will be released at the beginning of August after 10 years of publication in Weekly Shonen Jump magazine if all goes well.

I woke up to this news. I'm sitting here on my laptop typing this as a way of coping tbh. On the outside, I'm numb and stunned. On the inside, I'M SCREAMING, CRYING, THROWING UP, MOURNING LIKE I LOST A LOVED ONE WTF 😭

*sigh* But, this was going to happen eventually. It was only a matter of when. When Horikoshi said that we would have more epilogue to cover, I thought "Maybe he'll give us 10 more chapters!" Turns out it is 6-7 chapters instead... In Horikoshi's defense, 6-7 chapters are much longer than what most mangaka have given us for epilogues to their stories. I'd rather have him give us 5 more chapters of an epilogue than rush it in 1-2. Plus, if possible, we could potentially get 19-20 pages per chapter which might be just enough to wrap everything up. And since final chapters of manga tend to be longer than usual, we could get extra pages in the last chapter to finish everyone's arcs and the story properly.

Still, it's so wild to see a series I have loved for years and have such a strong attachment to end as I am following it. I have been a part of many fandoms before and have stuck around them for years (Pokémon, Supernatural, Doctor Who, Breaking Bad, and many more), but it's not often that I've been there there to see a series come to it's conclusion. Sometimes that can turn out well (Breaking Bad) and other times I've seen it end badly (Supernatural; only read about it and it was not great. I bounced after season 13? and I am so sorry to the fandom). My Hero Academia is one of the very few series I will see through to the end.

I'm really coping here, honestly. I've been a fan of My Hero Academia since 2018. I first heard about the series randomly through the internet, but I didn't fully introduce myself to it until I listened to a cover of The Day on YouTube (I forget the artist, I'm so sorry). I thought the song was so cool and that led to me listening to more covers of MHA OPs (Peace Sign is still GOATed btw). This eventually led me to the manga and the anime where I became truly immersed in the series. I started reading the manga around the Joint Training Arc (I think) which was definitely an interesting time to read the manga because the chapters where so short due to Horikoshi dealing with health and I think moving conflicts at the time. It was still an enjoyable arc and enough to keep me interested in reading from the beginning. I want to say I started the anime around season 3?, but I started at the beginning and worked my way up from there. "Shoto Todoroki: Origin" was the episode that finally solidified my love for the series and is still my favorite episode of the series.

To say that MHA has an important place in my heart is an understatement. (⚠️Warning: very quick mention of suicide) I was very sad and depressed in the latter half of 2018. My life didn't feel like it was going anywhere and I was close to giving up entirely. (⚠️ ). Finding and loving MHA during that time honestly might have saved my life. As strange as it sounds, it was one of the few things that brought me genuine happiness at the time. I had something to look forward to every week and it was thrilling. I still remember debating whether Deku or Shoto was my favorite character. Shoto took the top spot in my heart, but Deku is a very close second 🩵💚.

Seeing MHA end is heartbreaking, honestly. I'm watching something I truly love come to an end. We'll still have the anime, movies, and spin-off series to keep us busy for the next few years, but the manga that started it all is coming to a close. It feels so, so surreal. God, is this how the Haikyuu fandom felt when it’s manga ended? My hope is that this fandom can be kept alive long after the series is over. The MHA fandom DEFINITELY has it's flaws, but it also has a lot of good in it too. I have seen incredible art and fanfics come from this fandom. I have laughed and hyped up some of the best moments of MHA with people who love it too. I know that the fandom is collectively mourning its end and I know we'll all cry bittersweet tears when it ends. If anything, I am glad to see Kohei Horikoshi end his momentous story on his own terms. I hope it ends up being one of the best manga endings in recent Shonen Jump like how Haikyuu's was. I think Horikoshi can do it. Regardless of how it ends, My Hero Academia will be one of my favorite pieces of fiction. I am really glad to be here to celebrate it.

[that-spider-fan-over-there]

Midoriya Izuku: Narrative Structures and Character's Emotion(al Repression)

Repression as A Story In Four Acts.

Or: Reaching Tenku to Save Tenko.

Izuku hasn't accomplished his goal of saving Tenko because according to literally every law of storytelling, he has yet more internal conflicts to solve, which he hasn’t addressed due to his nature of repression, which itself comes from other fatal flaws. Therefore, Tenko’s salvation, which should’ve been the “reward” for Izuku’s difficulties, is now another obstacle at the “end” of act 3 before Act 4 eventually begins. To elaborate:

BNHA, as of now, is split in three sagas — U.A. Beginnings (001-099); Rise of Villains (100-306) and; Final War (307-onwards); similar to the three-act structure in the west. However, by splitting Act 3 into Act 4; we meet East Asia's method of splitting a narrative: Kishōtenketsu. Using the Hero's Journey wheel as a counterpart, roughly we have:

Act 1/Kiku (起句) — Call to adventure, the inticing incidents and stage's set-up for;

Act 2/Shōku (承句) — The rising action; true conflict that will soon culminate, leading to the climax, so we head into:

Act 3/Tenku (転句) — The transformation that leads to the resolution of conflicts, so the story meets the denouement;

Act 4/Kekku (結句): the epilogue. If the consequences must come to fruition, the results must bloom at the end as it wraps up.

Similarly, BNHA presents the classic Four Conflicts: Against Man and Society; All For One and the hero world; Nature, the nature of Quirks; and Self, arguably the most important of them all.

As such, Izuku’s story is easier to see when split into these acts, and so are his conflicts. Planting this seed: Izuku wants to be a hero, but being quirkless is his status quo until the Sludge Villain incident. Presenting the question: How can Midoriya Izuku be a hero? Katsuki being attacked and All Might’s offer are the inciting incidents, and everything from USJ onwards are his brushes to growing conflicts that grow into the Kamino Incident, ending his personal arc in Act 1/Start of Act 2 during Deku vs. Kacchan 2 and The Three.

The rising actions and the new development from Kamino, lead to the rush to control One For All, becoming a new Symbol and what that entails, and more subtly, fixing his and Katsuki’s relationship (i’ll get to this one. oh boy i’ll get to this one soon.) These are Izuku’s conflicts.

His role as one as Toshinori's successor officially puts in center stage of the conflict alongside Katsuki (subtly, also a successor, permanent deuteragonist) and Tenko (foil, recurring antagonist, and the Big Bad’s successor). If controlling the current form of OFA was already accomplished (45% at least), it needes to evolve into another phase; one that ties with his fatal flaws and challenges his virtues. As such: Overhaul Arc shows Eri’s ordeal, Sir Nighteye’s doubts of AM’s choice, and subsequent death (the former conflicts), and Joint Training Arc introduces unlocking of Black Whip (his latter one) are his turning points.

All feed into his insecurities and repression of emotions such as (oftentimes righteous) anger, uncertainty, vulnerability and heartbreak. He doesn’t solve these conflicts just yet, instead choosing to brush it away or let them play out as they happen, a passive instance. For the former arc, it’s understandable because he was under Sir Nighteye’s internship orders, but the latter is a special case, as it ties with an emotional conflict in which we only saw his thoughts at the very beginning of the turning point.

Which, before entering Arc 3, also brings me to another topic: Narrative rewards and punishments.

The root of Izuku's character is stubbornness: When Izuku sticks to the convictions he believes in, and he does it stubbornly, often the hopeful narrative of Boku no Hero Academia rewards him, but when he goes against it (contradicting his morality and/or the story’s messages), the punishment ends up being severe. He’s far from the only example, but he’s the most prominent one. As such, BNHA prides itself in introspection of motivations and embracing every emotion and experiences as stepping stones to be the greatest you can be.

Izuku… Stubbornly also hasn’t gotten that kind of introspection yet. Keyword being yet. He's the character we know little about despite spending so much time in his point of view, and it's deliberate. The few moments he does, is when the roots of his insecurities are reinforced, or when he's dealing with someone else’s obstacle. Talk about others and avoid thinking about yourself.

If I were to describe Izuku; the best descriptors would be: kind, but melancholic. Altruistic, grateful, mostly selfless, but will destroy himself for others without realizing. Reckless, sticks to his values. Competitive and a little envious, but it's born out of admiration, pride and love. But overall, keeps so close to his chest while spouting praises for others out of what he wished he had before.

But in one sentence? This little shit is such a stubborn mule it'd get him killed.

The best example is from Act 1 itself, Summer Training Camp arc. In this, we see the first glimpse of someone he should strive to be: Someone who wins to save people. His reward is saving Kota and Tokoyami, but his recklessness in reaching for Katsuki alone and without a plan ends up costing him a win. The tally goes to the League of Villains; not a total disaster, but they got what they wanted in the end.

Happens again in Act 2, by failing to rescue Eri the first time he and Mirio meet her. Both find out she was tied to Overhaul’s operation, and the feeling of guilt is one of the reasons that makes them want to try again. Somewhat related to Izuku, it’s Sir Nighteye’s conviction that Izuku is unworthy that proves years of fatalistic views wrong too late, as his unwillingness to see what makes Izuku a good choice ends up being corrected as he’s already mortally wounded.

Gentle, La Brava and Lady Nagant are also good examples of the narrative punishing these characters for their nihilistic views, and when they’re shown they have another choice, the story takes them out and as they’ve changed their minds to a more hopeful view, gives them another chance in Act 3. After all, second chances and atonements are Boku no Hero’s cup of tea (Sir Nighteye's wasted his in fatality, stubbornness, unwillingness to change). Which is why characters like Muscular, Ending and the Sludge Villain are not given the grace of a proper sendoff, and All For One got such a rather undignified finale.

Returning to Izuku: Because his internal conflicts weren't challenged yet, and therefore the only visible developments he’s gotten were merely power upgrades, this bites him back by the end of Act 2 and continues in Act 3, the first hit being the most critical one. The things he repressed for the sake of others aren’t willing to stay like that anymore. Furthermore, going against his one consistent conviction and fighting Tenko with tunnel vision on winning, regardless of who needs saving, brings another conflict for him.

Izuku is trapped in Shōku. And that leads to Act 3, where his flaws branch out into four main symptoms amplified by trauma in the Dark Hero Arc, which remain, at the time of this writing, unsolved:

Detachment, fueled by selflessness. Choosing to take every risk on his own, Izuku has thoroughly detached his wants and needs from each other and himself. By not letting others get hurt, that means he doesn’t care if he himself gets hurt anymore, accidentally making himself a martyr. Detaching himself could arguably be the reason he doesn't acknowledge Katsuki at all in the battlefield, or doesn't really ponder on what happens to the vestiges/quirks when destroying AFO (and lets Tenko... well, we'll get there.) All For One vs. One For All.

Recklessness: Izuku’s naturally that by design, and it’s treated as the mark of a hero: "intervening even when they don’t want your help". At its most extreme, however, he goes alone, so Izuku can’t rely on others for help, and the way he wants to fix everything turns into his modus operandi on overdrive. Despite being careful and calculated, he ignores who and what he needs to continue, until he physically can’t. He’s on the other side of that sentence without realizing it. Suicidal recklessness.

Arrogance: A fatal flaw hidden in him but mirrored in his biggest foil. By believing he’s the only person that can handle AFO, hiding all his emotions and trying to be pragmatic, he becomes increasingly arrogant. “All of you, you can’t keep up”, a sentence fitting for someone like Katsuki, not Izuku. He still shows shades of this, even as others try to convince him he's not alone, and the narrative proves him wrong by letting other characters interfere.

Finally, the ropes of repression. Izuku isn’t a very introspective character for himself; he’s a very unreliable narrator because he never stops to fully talk about what he feels; the last time we got something like that was in Deku vs. Kacchan 2. As Deku, he wants to be strong, dependant, not let others worry about himself. As Midoriya, he’s the friend who lends you a shoulder to cry on (and cries along), gives you good advice, is there for you. But who is he as Izuku?

What are his other interests, his feelings on society, or on what is and isn’t fair? More recently, Katsuki’s apology, death, what does that mean for them now? Tenko’s identity as that kid who was crying and as Tomura, who hurt the people he loves, what does he think? Toshinori, as someone who was an idol and now it’s a label closer than mentor-mentee, almost dying? He hasn’t had time to reflect on them, but only recently Izuku's lack of introspection has become noticeable for the audience- placing us in Katsuki's shoes; intuitively, we know what Izuku's gonna do, but can we really tell what Izuku's currently thinking? If at all?

Not-so-recently (for the audience), he’s "moved on" very quickly from Lady Nagant blowing up in his face, seeing All For One single him out as a target, two mobs being so hostile Danger Sense got triggered, and Aoyama's role as a traitor. Except, not really. Everything Izuku’s gone through has been locked in a vault, and despite every character being reactive to it, Izuku doesn’t allow himself to dwell on anything that’ll make him remotely angry or sad anymore. There is one exception and even then Mirio had to prevent him from letting it out.

By failing to start introspecting in Act 2 in any of these, they bring back his internal conflicts, while adding a new two new ones to a pre-existing one, leading us to the Classic Man vs. Conflict part of this meta:

Control One For All (Man vs. Nature): Izuku had the theoretic part of it down; using it as his tools to help, but being Quirkless for so long means he lacked the intuitive part of it; the one that treats Quirks as muscle memories instead. So instead of second nature, they’re more like advisor crutches that can easily lose control; and momentarily as it was, they have, in Deku vs. All For One.

He controls only the mechanics, but never secured himself in believing they’re his power. And since Izuku is easily someone willing to give more than he should, it’s very representative that in giving up One For All, Izuku essentially embodied the definition of “you give an inch, they take a mile”. Or better, you give Tenko a hand, All For One takes an arm. It wasn’t the wrong choice, but an easy trap he fell in.

Izuku, while able to work out the theory, never really gained full control of a Quirk supposedly his own. Which is why it’s so odd his Quirk gets taken away now. Whether he shall remain Quirkless or receive a version of OFA, remains to be seen. I believe it isn't the last of OFA yet, but it's always a 50/50 chance.

Being a future Symbol of Peace (Man vs. Society/Men):

“Men are not born equal. That is the lesson [Izuku] learned at the age of four.”

At this point, “being a symbol” means something else now. For this to even have a shot of happening, Izuku has to find out what being a hero means, by including him as a person in the narrative. And for that, All For One, as the man representative of society’s worst symptoms, needed to go.

It’s no coincidence he and Izuku have many similarities, as both have a fascination with Quirks, are the only ones capable of wielding multiple at once, and grew as lonely; AFO by having a Quirk, Izuku by lacking one. Izuku can be possessive, he recognizes this as an ugly trait, but AFO acts out and relishes in it. It makes too much sense that he's one of the few characters able to lay a hand on AFO; If Yoichi is the version of Izuku whose love wasn't strong enough to reach out, AFO is the version of Izuku lacking understanding, love or empathy.

We Are Here and Midoriya Izuku: Rising show he is by all accounts considered one by every character, but his Rising isn’t finished until he finds out what being a hero means to him, without disregarding his personhood, and realizing he was always one, Quirk or not. He has succeeded in proving society wrong, and proved AFO wrong in every way that mattered. A quirkless nobody defeating the Demon Lord wannabe.

As stated in a previous post of mine, Izuku’s own Rising chapter is the opposite of his Origin because now everyone supports him, roots for him. Despite being weak, he has the strength to get back up and try to do his best… But this isn’t his best right now, which is why Izuku’s Rising isn’t finished.

Control your heart/His relationship with Katsuki/Saving Tenko (Man vs. Self):

This is Izuku’s true conflict; the question of his own personhood tied to the worthiness of his dreams and feelings.

“Can someone be a hero, even without a Quirk?”

Starting with the first conflict, from That Which Is Inherited to The New Power and All For One, “control your heart” are introduced as new arc words for Izuku himself; and a foreshadowing of the problems he’ll face when not addressed. In fact, Izuku’s aware the trigger for Black Whip must’ve had an external factor. Whether he’s oblivious or willfully ignoring what exactly happened is unclear, but he’s at least aware of who triggered it. And not thinking about it only makes Katsuki suffer the brunt of it, his Achilles’ Heel.

The second is the constant conflict since MI: Origin— Izuku isn’t someone blind to Katsuki’s flaws; in fact he’s the most aware of them, despite fandom perception. The thing that a lot of readers seem to miss is that he admires all of Katsuki, even if he was envious of him, and as those flaws ended up causing him a lot of pain. Which is noticeable the lack of interactions on Izuku’s part upon rewatching the first two acts as he was often the one seeking a relationship with Katsuki, while currently it’s the other way around.

It’s not a coincidence but a red sign; a herring or a flag, depending on the ending of One For All vs. All For One: Despite the bullying, Izuku still chose to perceive Katsuki’s good and heroic traits, when by all accounts he’s within his rights to refuse Katsuki in his life. I bring this up because Izuku and Katsuki are the main foils of the story… Which also makes Katsuki a foil of Tenko’s. This is an interesting factor. Izuku could’ve chosen to react to Katsuki’s apology then and there, but there might be three reasons not to:

The emotional conflict parallels Deku vs. Kacchan 2; Act 1’s turning point for the story was Kamino, but the incident pushes them together. Izuku and Katsuki’s relationship is the true turning point of the story as a whole because they’re the ones who fully feel the effects of the incident. The side effect intrinsically ties them, as a unit, to the main plot. Their choices are the true climax of the story.

Izuku forgiving Katsuki before fighting Tenko reveals Tenko’s fate or worse, seals it in a worse one. He hasn’t processed it, and intuitively, we know Izuku will do it, but to have it happen right before confronting Tenko means his actions are downplayed. Everything Izuku did would be a given, and meaningless. What does it mean to give a hand to someone in pain, when this person hurts you? He wanted to save Tenko, but wouldn’t that mean accepting that crying kid is also the man who hurt the ones he loves?

Izuku controlling his emotions isn’t just about Katsuki. He’s a huge trigger for his feelings… Including what he doesn’t like feeling. Repressing everything, detaching himself from that kid who once tried defending a kid in a playground despite having no Quirks, only means Izuku isn’t doing his best. That’s the mask of the “Deku, who’s strong, who’s fine, who can do everything, who always does his best”. Izuku reaching out to Tenko meant to share that sadness, the burdens from when they were young. Tenko did, so in theory, he shed the Shigaraki Tomura mask, but Izuku didn’t, so he’s still bottling his emotions to its breaking point.

So. Izuku's still in his Shōku. But we’re stuck in Act 3. Tenku (heh). Not enough resolutions, no conflicts fully solved. The Status Quo was challenged, changed? But where’s Izuku’s own turning point? The lack of introspections turns what should be Izuku’s rewards for going through the hero’s journey into an obstacle yet to be surpassed. His emotions are the turning point of the entire story, after all, right?

Narratively, Izuku has internally failed to pass the third part of the Kishōtenketsu: Transformation. His emotional conflicts weren’t dwelled on, and as such, he could only do so much to save Tenko. He can’t relate to Shigaraki Tomura, only Shimura Tenko, the crying kid. Every person is a hero in their own story, but anyone can be a villain. It’s what makes us connect to them. Izuku refused until he couldn’t anymore.

For comparison: Ochako doesn't know Toga Himiko, but her tears humanized her in Ochako's view; she wants to know what does Himiko value, what drove her to be who she is. Shoto doesn't truly know Touya, but knows the path it took for him to become Dabi, and wants to reconnect with his brother, at least a little. Shoji and Koda don't agree with Spinner but it's because they know what drives the mob to follow him. Hizashi doesn't see Shirakumo in Kurogiri but Aizawa does, which is why he becomes crucial in the endgame. All of them have a chance at surviving.

As it is, Shigaraki Tomura decayed, marked by All For One. Does that Izuku doing his best lead to a sacrifice? Neither heroes nor villains win. Which brings us back to reward and punishment: Izuku’s punishment for not solving his conflicts, means reaching out to Tenko was a doomed plan from the very beginning. His heart was not controlled while he had One For All, he’s unconvinced he could be a hero from the beginning despite earning his title, and he failed to save that crying kid. Using a power meant to save.

What message would that bring then? Both for a groomed child to believe he was born a monster, to die knowing that was true, that he never had a choice? Does that mean he could've only found peace in his death? And what does that mean for Izuku, who wanted to avoid an outcome where that kid died? Especially when Izuku previously would be fighting tooth and nails, blood, sweat and (many) tears to stop Tenko from destroying himself?

The story isn’t black and white, but it has always depicted abuse victims and their survivors respectfully, and the idea of the child that needed saving the most, dying before a chance of redemption goes against one message: That anyone can, and deserves to be a hero, in any way, shape or form. To have that glimmer of hope, of faith. It brings me the quote:

"Tenko, do you still want to be a hero?"

If Tenko doesn't get a choice, or a chance to respond, that means Izuku wasn’t doing his best just yet.

This enters prediction territory, which I don't usually make, but. In my honest opinion?

I think this is the moment Izuku finally reaches Tenku —Insecurities and repression of righteous anger, over not being able to keep his promise of saving that kid, uncertainty, for not being able to be a hero that saves people with a smile, vulnerability over realizing this is it, this “was the last act” of Hero Deku, and heartbreak. How can he call himself a hero if he can’t save a single child? Whether he likes it or not, now this is his Tenku, because Midoriya Izuku doesn’t walk away from this without being able to save Tenko.

He can’t; otherwise he can’t be considered the World’s Greatest Hero, if he doesn’t fulfill his half of “Win to Save, Save to Win”. That means a perfect victory, minimal to no casualties, is unachievable. All For One wins even if he loses, name tied to Shigaraki Tomura, the Symbol of Fear. He doesn’t get One For All, but gets to take down Tenko with him, so Tenko doesn't get to die free, even as a sacrifice of his choice. Unlike Eri, who was freed from the shackles of Overhaul, Tenko didn't get that chance. The Shimura bloodline dies, and Izuku doesn't prove their generation is different, better than the previous heroes. That doesn't sound fair, does it?

A failure he seemingly couldn’t avoid, or one he could’ve but was unable to? The lowest point Izuku can face, where he’s faced with the worst things that can happen to him has happened twice already in the same arc already; if we consider the time in-universe, the time between Katsuki’s death and Tenko’s death was at worst in the same hour. With everything that happened since the start of this saga; it’s been at best a month’s overdue of a breakdown. Thus, the missing introspection from him.

I believe it’s now beneficial that Izuku can't access One For All: there are no signs of the mask from “the strongest Hero who always does his best”— This is the Quirkless kid who wanted to save people with a smile. And if he can’t do that, does that mean he’s the useless Deku who can’t do anything?

Despite being more receptive to words, Izuku is a character who can't be trusted with what he says, instead what he does. He mumbles all he sees, cries rivers for others, but those green eyes will show you waters waiting to turn into a flooding storm. His actions will always overcompensate for his true thoughts he'd never share, because his thoughts only matter when you ask: What do you really know about Midoriya Izuku?

Nobody would have an answer, except for the one person who managed to misread him for ten years.

Izuku is by far the most reckless character, and stubborn to a fault. He'll pretend he's fine so others won't worry, so he can keep lying to himself a little more, but it's a mask to hide how much he's gonna hate himself, think he's a failure for this. Seeing him give up like that isn’t like him, now, is it? And that truth needs to come from the person, who, while not the only one to make Izuku question his worth, is the only one that can take him out of this mentality. Someone who matches that stubbornness, makes him listen to the truth. And makes him truly let the flood out, even if others think it unpleasant.

To counteract hopelessness, Izuku needs Katsuki. To finally ask out how any of what he experienced was fair. What good was all this pain. Why all of this, for a fight he lost this badly? For a person he couldn't save? For a dream that will never happen? For a Quirk that was never his, that he didn't get to keep? For a life where no one believed in him, were they proven right not to? Didn't he deserve better? He would know, having tried to leave him behind for a decade and realizing he can't go through it, when they just started being equals again.

If their feelings did become one, Katsuki then must be able to read Izuku like a notebook kept close to his chest and give him the right, truthful answers. Their walls aren't around anymore and Katsuki's now become the more emotionally open of the two, so he can make Izuku open up his damned heart and put it in his nerdy All Might’s shirt sleeve.

Izuku was Katsuki's hero before a Quirk. It's Izuku followed him when Katsuki didn't want him, who tried to save him even when he was told to take a swan dive off a roof. It's Izuku who still risked his life for a month to help others at the cost of his own health. If Izuku fought to save, to catch up to everyone so far ahead, why's he shutting down at the finishing line? Why stop fighting now?

In any case. Izuku needs to break down and someone to build himself up. Katsuki’s role as Izuku's closest one ends up being indispensable here— bringing in mind BK: Origin. If not seeking victory is unlike Katsuki, then so is Izuku thinking salvation’s too late. Contradicting their core beliefs is the lowest point, and pulling each other out of the spiral is the goal. The world and Class 1-A are connected to Izuku, but Izuku has yet to connect to himself. Both Tenko and Katsuki are now tied to One For All, through All For One and leftover embers, so why not make this count? From Katsuki, to Izuku, to Tenko.

These are guesses that rely on an outcome that might not happen in the story, but right now, I’d like to believe Izuku’s vault isn’t locked in nine keys anymore. There’s only him and a closed door, in a room that has always been locked, he never thought to open it before. Sometimes, it knocks, and he ignores it. And now it's time to open it and see what's on the other side, connecting him to what he’s been holding onto for the entirety of this story. Rewarding him one last time as he finally catches up.

By reaching Tenku, the story is allowed to continue, and wrap up in Kekku, the fourth act.

Izuku constantly breaks the expectations of everyone in-story. So maybe, he has some of One For All left. Maybe he’s somehow connected to it. Maybe he’ll keep it, receive a new version, or that’s One For All’s last hurrah. Maybe, there’s a chance he can take everything back, and start anew. But connecting to his emotions would help him understand Tenko. And in return, Tenko would finally take a comforting hand.

Either way, realizing what he’s been missing will be the key for the narrative to reconnect to him: Izuku doesn’t give up on anyone. There are no more people telling him what he’s supposed to be or what to do, no legacies tying him down— there’s only him, confronting the last of the Status Quo of the narrative. His actions are the ones that’ll restore this narrative to one of hope. Rain has finally faded to light. Starting with a death, ending with a rebirth.

The consequences will still exist, and must be faced by as many characters as possible, and if, hopefully when that happens, we can start to see the fruits of the turning points: Izuku’s own blooming realizations have to be the hand that’ll lead to Tenko’s Rising. Only then, the world they knew can rise from their mistakes. And maybe Izuku will be there, at peace, graduating with Class 1-A under cherry blossoms, knowing everyone gets to smile once again.

And only then, we'll know if Midoriya Izuku has gone further beyond his dreams of being a hero.

Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it, even a little bit.

[gece-misin-nesin]

Regarding your post on Bakugou vs shouto I agree and it’s weird in the story itself that bakugous weakness to cold doesn’t appear that much. I think it only appeared in the endeavor agency arc as well as the joint training arc where Bakugou said he had a hard time warming up in the winter. I feel like the writer doesn’t want to expand on that weakness more when they should

The writer doesn't want to expand on that weakness bc Bakugo is basically a Gary Stu. Also, Bakugo losing would look bad I guess? He's just Horikoshi's fave.

[pikahlua]

hello! i read your meta about “control your heart” and it has some interesting elements but i think the notion that “izuku controlling his heart means suppressing emotions and is bad” is not something that many bkdk’s have the opinion of.

we understand that he has to be able to control his anger and that it’s as good thing; our beliefs of this “control your heart” plotline as it relates to katsuki is us wanting izuku to explicitly acknowledge that katsuki is a trigger and why that is for him - some deku introspection if you will. katsuki knows it, AFO knows it (so much so he told katsuki to his face about it), deku possibly knows it as well but it is not acknowledged by him both on his own or in a talk with katsuki. is it some unspoken accepted thing? would there be further discussions on katsuki specifically being a trigger that makes him lose all control? will they talk about that?

But Izuku does acknowledge it on his own.

Unless you mean you want him to specifically acknowledge that his being mad at Monoma for Katsuki's sake is what caused Black Whip to go berserk. It then sounds like the thing you're focusing on is that conversation after the Joint Training Arc in which people seem to assume Izuku is "lying" or withholding information, to which all I can say again is "I don't think they were even talking about that." I explained what I think they're talking about.

Now, I don't fault anybody if what they want is Izuku to talk about his feelings for Katsuki working as a trigger out loud, but I'll be honest--I think the time for that has long since passed. I can't imagine a way he could say this now that would sound natural or meaningful. It's as you say; he and everyone around him and the readers all KNOW this is the case. His actions proved it. Katsuki's treatment of Izuku's rage since then proves he understands to some degree too. TomurAFO himself knows this is the case and he even says so lol. It's very much in the Japanese style to let actions inform everyone's understanding such that no one needs to talk about it, such that talking about it would be seen as clunky and crass.

A lot of MHA characters and especially Izuku are meant to be read on their actions rather than waiting for their words. I've seen this desire for a verbal acknowledgement manifest in ways that seem like people just want to be told explicitly what's going on rather than being shown, like for instance some people think Izuku still hasn't acknowledged Katsuki's apology. Izuku answered it pretty loudly if you ask me, by letting his guard down and apologizing back and thinking from Katsuki's point of view and accepting Katsuki's help via allowing Katsuki to catch him. If he were to stop the story just to talk about this with Katsuki, it would probably end up sounding like exposition and not really take us anywhere other than to destroy the pacing of the story.

What I want is to encourage people to trust their interpretations of the characters' actions. Just because a character doesn't talk about something doesn't mean the thing didn't happen, that the character didn't feel important things we as readers were supposed to pick up on.

So yeah, sure, you can want that sort of verbal acknowledgement, but be careful about expecting it. You cannot deny there are plenty of people who do expect it.

[deusvervewrites]

For being called “My Hero Academia”, we surprisingly don’t know much about the school’s history.

Like, who the hell made a hero school while cities were being leveled. Was it Nedzu? Was it someone else? How old is Nedzu? We don’t even know if he was Principal when All Might was a student.

It would be a testament to Nedzu’s character if, after being experimented on and tortured by human scientists, he saw the hellscape the world had become and thought “I am going to make/look over a school for heroes!”

The history of the school? The Academia in the title barely appears in the story!

Here is a list of the official arcs in this manga and how Academia they are

Entrance Exam (Pretty Academia)

Quirk Apprehension Test (Aizawa ignored orientation. Not Academia.)

Battle Trial (Back to Academia)

USJ (Villain interruption. Not Academia.)

Sports Festival (Back to Academia)

VS Hero Killer (Outsourced learning; school barely appears. Not Academia)

Final Exams (Skipped six weeks of studying/training. On thin ice)

Forest Training (Summer Break, outsourced learning)

Hideout Raid (Not Academia)

Provisional Hero License Exam (Only Academia by association)

Eight Precepts (Outsourced learning)

Remedial Course (Only Academia by association)

School Festival (Finally, Academia!)

Pro Hero (Focuses on Endeavor, Not Academia)

Joint Training (Academia already? New Record!)

Meta Liberation Army (Wait, nope, UA doesn't even appear in this one nvm)

Endeavor Agency (Outsourced learning)

Paranormal Liberation War (UA continues to not even appear)

Dark Hero (Midoriya ran away from school making this one negative Academia!)

Star and Stripe (School doesn't appear)

UA Traitor (School is only the setting; no classes. Not Academia)

Final War (School is only one of the fight arenas. Not Academia)

[stillness-in-green]

On Heteromorphs & Heteromorphobia (Arcs XI - XIV, Shie Hassaikai to Joint Training)

Thanks again for all your great responses, everyone! This week I'll be covering, among other things, the early indicators gradually getting more overt, the way the Hero System in its current incarnation is set up to fail rural heteromorphs, the eye-rolling shallowness of thought that says heteromorphobia is fake because Hawks is the Number 2 Hero, and some spitballing about Watsonian reasons that the One For All's bearers are all baseline.

Hit the jump!

The Shie Hassaikai Arc (Chapters 122-162)

Chapter 122:

Gag sequence with Hound Dog, playing up the discomfort of the students when Hound Dog “forgets how to talk when he flips out.”  Also a very weird instance of an animal-type heteromorph wearing a costume accessory that would be seen as a method of control if an actual animal of his type were wearing it: a muzzle.  There will be another of these in a hundred chapters or so.

Chapter 123:

Nejire asks Shouji directly what’s up with his mask.  He looks legitimately shocked—as well he might, given that he’s been in this class for five months and none of his classmates appear to have asked about his scar yet!  He nonetheless starts to explain, but only gets as far as, “A long time ago, I—” before Nejire interrupts to ask Shouto about his scar.  This chapter was published five years and ten months before the chapter in which the reader finally gets the rest of this tragic, violent story.     The gag with Nejire goes on for another page, of her hopping from person to person, asking six of the students in all about some distinguishing feature of theirs.  With the sole exception of Shouto, all are in some way heteromorphic, though it’s obscured somewhat by Mineta not being one of the class’s really obvious heteromorphs, and Mina having an Emitter-type quirk.  It’s unclear whether Nejire's questions were leading to some point or if she just completely blanked on anything she’d been intending to say about work studies when her curiosity reared its head.  It definitely feels like her targets are all kind of taken aback to be asked about this so openly—even Mina has a small sweatdrop, while Mineta (being Mineta) excitedly charges her with sexual harassment.    

Very shortly after, we find Nejire toying with an extremely uncomfortable-looking Mina’s horns while Mina asks her to stop.

Chapter 126:

Quick shot of Kaminari playing with Ojiro’s tail in the classroom, but no accompanying shot of Ojiro’s face, so we don’t know how he’s feeling about it, but it and the bit above with Mina’s horns could speak to a certain amount of tendency to treat heteromorphic features as open property to play with or poke at regardless of the person in question’s feelings.  That’s a bit reachy even for this piece, but there will be one further example later on.  Three examples in 300+ chapters does not exactly make for a phenomenon, but then again, that kind of physical forwardness in Japan is probably pretty unusual as it is.  Could be a case that’s more common in countries that are more culturally comfortable with casual touch.[1]

Chapter 131:

It’s not clear heteromorphobia, per se, but this chapter has another one of those fights with “giant villains”—two fighting each other, in this case—where they just get carted away in the background and no one asks—nor does the narrative concern itself with—why they were fighting each other to begin with.  Indeed, Ryukyu and her interns just stand around in the foreground chitchatting about work while, in the background, the dust settles on the two villains Uravity and Froppy just buried under rubble.  Hope they don’t revert to normal size and then have to be rescued from under a collapsed building!       o The “heroes stand around and talk in the foreground while villains get carted off behind them” thing comes up so often, and in most cases, it’s totally absent of context, just a cut-in on some hero in the middle of a work day. Only very rarely does the audience get any context on what the villain's deal is, and it's striking that all of the examples coming to mind for me —Starservant, Ending, the gang mook dude coming up shortly—are non-heteromorphs.

Chapter 141:

Tabe, of Overhaul’s trash trio, is described by Hojo as having been tossed aside when he didn’t mesh with society.  This makes Tabe both the only heteromorph of the trio and the only one described as having been rejected by society at large, rather than victimized by a specific person as in Hojo and Setsuno’s cases.  That said, given that his appearance is—while a bit manic—not all that far from baseline, and that his character blurb says he’s always hungry, I suspect Tabe’s ostracization is rooted more in the kinds of difficulties faced by characters like Toga, whose quirk comes with a strong psychological component they have difficulty managing and were not given any outlets or coping mechanisms for.

Chapter 144:

The bullied kid who middle school Kirishima tries to help is a heteromorph.  The reason he’s getting bullied, however, is that the two kids bothering him want him to use his quirk to transform leaves into money; it’s a pure Emitter quirk.  Still, the kid is shorter than average and literally mousy, only marginally more humanoid than Nedzu.[2]

Chapter 159:

The other incidence of Tsuyu being addressed by frog onomatopoeia rather than name—Suneater calls her Miss Ribbit.

Chapter 160:

A moment that looks small at the time, but will look considerably different when My Villain Academia rolls around: Dabi addressing Spinner as “lizard” and Spinner angrily firing back that his name is not Lizard, it’s Spinner.     This makes Spinner the first heteromorph to protest being addressed as their associated animal.  In true microaggression fashion, I imagine a lot of heteromorphs in similar situations just run the mental arithmetic and decide they don’t feel like making a stink about it and getting into a debate or coming off as a killjoy.  This would be especially true in Japan, with its culture of meiwaku, not being a bother to others.  Spinner, being a villain, is already resolved to make lots of trouble for others, so he comes right out and complains.     Dabi, for his part, brushes Spinner’s anger off with, “You don’t need to flip out,” which I have to imagine is also pretty typical.  It was just a joke, I didn’t mean anything by it, why are you getting so angry?: all probably pretty common responses to actually trying to push back against that kind of name-calling.

   

The Remedial Course Arc (Chapters 163-168)

Chapter 164: 

Gang Orca compares the students under his charge unfavorably to plankton.  I suppose if you get to the animal comments before they get to you…?  That or he’s leaning into it.    

The children’s teacher calls Gang Orca “Mr. Whale” rather than addressing him by his hero alias or any generic titles.  It stands out a bit more than Suneater doing the same to Tsuyu, in that there’s little reason to assume the teacher shouldn’t know what Gang Orca goes by, given his exceptionally high rank (on both leaderboards we know he’s on) and the fact that she would have had to agree to this whole exercise on behalf of her class.

   

The U.A. School Festival Arc (Chapters 169-183)

Chapter 169: 

When Jirou is getting angsty over her music hobby not supporting her hero work and snaps at Kaminari about it, there’s a shot of Koda watching her with concern.  They were, of course, paired up for their final exams, but it stands out to me as being the first time Koda’s had a relationship beat with a student that isn’t as blatantly heteromorphic as he is?  Jirou still is a heteromorph, but she doesn’t have the animal features or Weird Head that the students Koda’s mostly been associated with previously do.     He joins Kaminari in encouraging her later in the chapter, which is, again, about the most concrete character beat I think he has with another student in the entire series up until the hospital material.[3]

Chapter 173:

In the panel showing the totally spectacular original fantasy screenplay from Class B, I can’t help but notice that of the eleven students shown, all eight of the baseline/near-baseline types are in standard fantasy gear, while two of the three heteromorphs—Shishida and Pony—seem to have been decked out in wings and are playing at being quadrupeds.  Mounts?  Wild animals?  Sure, the giant eagles in Lord of the Rings (which is namedropped in the play’s title) are sapient, but it does stand out that the animal-associated heteromorphs in the shot are playing animals, not humans.           o Incidentally, the third, Bondo, is a bit less clear.  Only his head is visible atop a swatch of black cloak, so he could be some kind of wacky flying monster, but given his position up by the dark castle, I would assume he’s playing the main villain.  In the play itself, however, later on in Chapter 183, he seems to have been downed prior to Tetsutetsu’s character, and is at least collapsed amidst the heroes’ number.  Perhaps he’s a minion who joined the good guys or something?    

Whatever in hell is going on in this exchange between Midnight and Midoriya:

   I’m assuming what’s happening here is that Midnight, being Midnight, is flavoring her facetiousness with a kinky metaphor.[4]  But like, wow.

Chapter 175:

Hound Dog—this being the arc in which he gets the most screentime—shows up to run the students out of the gym.  He’s still wearing the muzzle and has spittle flying comically from his mouth.  Gets a “Yikes!” response out of the kids, comedic fear.

Chapter 183:

Hound Dog finally gets a good moment.  The bit starts off much as his scenes usually do, with Midoriya standing rigid and on-edge as Hound Dog leans in too close, panting heavily and shout-scolding.  The tension bleeds out of Midoriya, however, as Hound Dog segues into the stern reminder that teachers are there to protect students, and they should and can be relied on if fights break out.  It’s a nice scene, though it transitions back to cartoon violence immediately after as Hound Dog turns on All Might.  Ectoplasm gives us a reminder that Hound Dog forgets how to talk when he gets mad.    

The billboard showing the beauty pageant entrants is exceptionally loosely drawn, but from what we can see, it contains only people who are at least close enough to baseline to have normal hair and facial features.  One girl has ears that look enough like fins that the anime went ahead and made her a reptilian heteromorph, with a face somewhere between Tsuyu’s and dragon-form Ryukyu, but that’s pure extrapolation.  Regardless, even if you count her, she’s the only full heteromorph in the six entrants.  (And it’s not like the contest is even about traditional beauty, because reigning champ Kenranzaki Bibimi is a joke.)    

First appearance of Gori, the gorilla heteromorph police officer.  Between him, Tsuragamae and Sansa, an extremely sizeable portion of the named police officers are animal-type heteromorphs, though certainly police in crowd scenes run baseline enough.  It makes a certain amount of sense: if your animal quirk doesn’t give you enough badass superpowers to become a cool hero, joining the force is probably the next best thing.  It’s a slightly odd choice to make given what will later be implied about heteromorphs and their rate of villain designation, but perhaps, as with Shouji and Shinsou, there’s a degree there of wanting to prove oneself as well-intentioned and worthwhile against persistent dehumanization and discrimination.           o Gori and Sansa are both played pretty straight—no stray animal sounds or mannerisms from them.  Honestly, looking at how completely reserved they and numerous other animal-type heteromorphs are compared to Hound Dog’s tendency to meltdowns, I begin to think one could make a pretty decent argument that people with animal-trait quirks experience the same spectrum of psychological compulsion other quirk users do: on one end are people who are so completely in control of their quirks that their quirks seem almost incidental to who they are as people (ex. Momo, Sansa), while on the other end are people who are so deeply impacted by their quirk that it gives them significant issues with self-control (ex. Toga, Hound Dog).

   

The Pro Hero Arc (Chapters 184-193)

Chapter 184:

The Hero Billboard Chart chapter, in which the criteria that determine a hero’s rank are listed are incident resolution rate, contributions to society, and public approval rating.  I’ll ask the reader to consider how these metrics might combine to keep many heteromorphic heroes squarely in the mid-ranks, while also indirectly contributing to rural heteromorphobia.     Public approval is the most obvious place where they’re going to run into difficulty.  In a society where heteromorphobia is openly espoused in certain parts of the country, and, as we will find, simmering below the surface even in less regressive areas, heteromorphs are obviously disadvantaged.  I don’t know how the public approval rating is calculated, but if there’s any way for bigots to register their disapproval, that’s going to be a significant hit to a heteromorphic hero’s popularity.  Likewise, there’s plenty of room for unconscious bias to be present, in the, “I’m not biased against heteromorphs; it’s a complete coincidence that I think all these other, non-heteromorphic heroes are more worthy of my approval!” mode.     Poor public approval in rural communities is an excellent motivator for heteromorphic would-be heroes to come to cities—you can hardly have a good approval rate if the only people who’ve ever heard of you hate your guts!     Societal contributions would seem to require at least some amount of demand that heteromorphs can’t control.  Public appearances, charitable activities, maybe all the commercials and modelling gigs if contributing to the economy counts as contributing to society—how much of that can a heteromorph do if they aren’t being requested by other parts of society?     For example, we know Gang Orca is in high demand to make appearances at aquariums, but he's also the Director of an internationally popular aquarium, and clearly does extensive charitable work in that field.  How much demand is someone who hasn’t made that much of a niche for themselves going to be in?  What about someone whose power and personality aren’t as strong as Gang Orca’s?  If they can’t make much headway in other metrics of the ranking, how can they stand out from the rest of the pack enough to get those opportunities?     This also feeds into the pressure for heroes to move to cities—a small-town hero can work themselves to the bone for their small community, but that’s just one small town in the whole country.  It hardly compares to someone who can make contributions on the national level!     Finally, incident resolution requires a power that’s good at quickly, efficiently stopping villains and saving people, and, at least in terms of raw power, I think this doesn’t immediately disadvantage heteromorphs.  Heteromorph Mirko has a brutally simple power set and she makes it work like gangbusters.  Transformation-type Crust’s power is dead basic, yet he places just fine.  There are plenty of weak emitters and wildly OP heteromorphs, so in terms of who’s best suited to stopping trouble on a dime, that feels like a relatively even playing ground.     However, this one is the real killer in terms of keeping heroes out of rural areas.  After all, having a high incident resolution rate requires working in a place with a high number of incidents happening!  That means coming to cities, where the higher population means higher amounts of villain activity. It's not like bigotry is even illegal, after all, nor does it require the illegal use of quirks.     I’ll be coming back to this topic again later, after the series gives us more context for how ugly rural heteromorphobia can get, but this chapter gives us the pieces we need to understand how absolutely ill-equipped the Hero System is to address heteromorphobia in the places where it most needs to be addressed.    

We find that the Top Ten is comprised of a whole array of baseline or near-baseline types, with the ones who’re farthest from human appearance either wearing a mask (Kamui Woods) or being cartoon appliances (Wash, who could just as easily be a normal dude wearing a costume and doing a bit).     One of the frequent bits of sophistry I see about heteromorphobia is that it can’t be that bad because Hawks and Mirko are in the Top 10, but you only have to look at those two's cover-ready, conventionally attractive faces and tertiary animal characteristics to know that they’re hardly comparable to someone like Spinner.  Kamui Woods makes the better argument, and he is, again, masked.     However, I don’t want to harp on this too much, because the fact of the matter is that Gang Orca is noted to have been in the prior Top Ten, so certainly a scary demeanor isn’t necessarily that huge a deterrent.  (Though Gang Orca does a lot of public appearances at aquariums and the like, so his societal contribution score is probably crazy good.  Very powerful quirk, too.)

Chapter 186:

This chapter has the other incidence of the “non-heteromorph puts their hands all over a heteromorph’s divergent feature without any sign of asking for permission first” thing I discussed back in Chapter 123.  And while it is technically only one incident, it’s notable that it’s rather more than one case.

Not pictured: any of these grabby little assholes asking permission.

Hawks has the line, “The son of the Number Two would’ve been a nice feather in my cap,” which I would normally count as an animal-themed quip and talk about, but there’s no bird metaphor in the Japanese line.  I’m not going to comb the entirety of his dialogue in Japanese to see how regular bird puns are—maybe Caleb was fitting one in here in place of one he couldn’t work in elsewhere, or maybe he was just localizing colorfully without much thought for how it reflected on Everything Else About All Heteromorphs.[5]  Hawks will present another opportunity later.

Chapter 187:

This reads like absolutely nothing in the moment, but it’s noticeable in hindsight that, when Fuyumi brings up the possibility of Natsuo having gotten a girlfriend in college, Natsuo blushes and frantically deflects without confirming or denying.  We will later find out that he has gotten a girlfriend—she’s mentioned in his character profile page following Chapter 189, and we will later see a picture of her on the cover page of 259.  That cover page will establish that she’s a heteromorph, which, together with the knowledge of later reveals about the Himura family being blatantly heteromorphobic, adds some less-cute context to Natsuo backflipping out of talking about her in Himura Rei’s room at the psychiatric hospital.

   

The Joint Training Arc (Chapters 194-217)

Chapter 195: 

First real insight on Shishida Jurota, whose quirk is technically a transformation type, but whose appearance is plenty bestial even in his resting state.  Another interesting case of someone whose animalistic powers do have an effect on his personality, though it only comes out in his transformation; he’s otherwise pretty collected.

Chapter 197: 

Shishida protests Shiozaki calling him “Apocalypse beast,” but I’d say it’s just as possible that he’s objecting to her using the wrong mythological critter, seeing as his hero alias is a reference to a mythologized historical man-eating beast, so he’s clearly not above claiming monster cred himself.    

Rin echoes the nickname literally a single panel after Shishida complains about it.  It’s not a great look, honestly.

Chapter 199: 

Hawks has that “’Cuz we’re birds of a feather!”[6] line to Tokoyami, who asks him, in what looks to be an extremely unamused fashion, “Is that meant to be funny…?”  So, Hawks feels comfortable making bird jokes about himself, but Hawks literally does modeling work and is on magazine covers; he has extremely cool bird wings that he doesn’t even have to fly with normally, because he can control them with his mind, meaning they can carry a lot of weight—including his own—that physics would not normally allow.  Tokoyami, meanwhile, is of a body type (specifically, a head type) that we will later find had a hate group specifically dedicated to it.  It’s easy to imagine Hawks having a more flippant view!  (This might even be exacerbated by him being raised first in an abusive home and second by government agents.  One doubts he’s exactly learning wonderful lessons about body positivity and self-love.)    

Tokoyami has one line that’s a bird reference, while the other is another bird pun inserted by the localization.  Relevant to my point is that the bird-themed one is the “dumb carrier pigeon” bit—in the Japanese, it’s “not a dumb messenger bird.”  It’s coming out of frustration and annoyance that Hawks seemingly recruited him for no reason but to grill him about the stuff going on at his school.  He’s being derisive towards the thing he thinks Hawks is using him as.           o The other bird allusion is, “He took me under his wing again.”  In the Japanese, it’s just, “He accepted me again.”    

That said, while Tokoyami may not think the bird jokes are cute, Hawks does make the biggest impression on him by taking him flying and encouraging him to find a way to fly freely for himself.

Chapter 200: 

The proper introduction of Fukidashi Manga, a character who makes a complete mockery of quirk classifications.  His head alone marks him as heteromorphic as all get-out, and indeed the wiki classes his quirk as heteromorphic.  But given that he can both make sound effects appear on his face and then transmute them to real manifestations (a transformation effect) as well as use the regular old voice he somehow has to manifest his sound effects by yelling them (an emitter effect), his categorization seems deeply arbitrary.

Chapter 203: 

Proper introduction of Tsunotori Pony.  Not the most obvious heteromorph to ever walk the planet, but the tail and the satyr-esque structure of her legs and feet are a giveaway that her horns wouldn’t be on their own.  Like Hound Dog, she's making some very weird choices about her hero costume: stirrup accessories on her boots and a hairpiece clearly designed to resemble a bridle.  Pony’s a bit of a mishmash, really.  Her tail and horns say goat heteromorph, but her name and costume say horse-type.

Chapter 204:

In a flashback, Iida’s older brother Tensei mentions that their grandfather, the founder of their hero family, passed down the tidbit about how the Iidas can rip out their pipes to regenerate stronger ones.  I really have to wonder how in God’s name anyone would ever just happen to figure that out, and some of the possible answers are wildly grim. The most probable answer is simply that he found out after taking a bad injury in his hero career—having one engine torn out or damaged so badly it had to be removed—only to unexpectedly recover later on.  But if it wasn’t that, and assuming he didn’t just intuit that his pipes would grow back stronger if violently dismembered, that really only leaves removing them because he wanted to get rid of them permanently, only to find that they’d just grow back, or having them removed against his will.     The former, removing them himself, seems unlikely—even if he’s, say, a decade or two older than All Might, that’s still well after the period in which metahumans would have been such a persecuted minority that I can see one self-mutilating to hide it—though he might have been told the story by an ancestor of his own.  The latter, them being removed against his will, would also have been more believable some generations prior, but given the existence of the CRC, remains ominously plausible even in the modern day.

Chapter 205: 

An extremely rare case of an animal-type heteromorph using dehumanizing language towards another animal-type heteromorph: Pony tells Shouji that she wants to wrap a clash with him up quickly because she can’t stand octopus.  It has a similar tenor of Dabi calling Spinner a lizard, and Hawks calling himself and Tokoyami birds, 1:1 equating heteromorphs with their associated animal.  I believe Hawks is the only other animal-associated heteromorph[7] who does this, at least up until the hospital attack.    

Shouji responds, “I’m no stranger to being feared,” another explicit canonical nod towards his still-unknown backstory.

Chapter 207:

A good look at Class B’s Kamakiri Togaru, unusually open about his bloodthirst for a heteromorph, much less a heroic one.    

Bakugou calls Jirou “Lobes,” another in his pattern of referring to heteromorphs by their defining feature.    

Tokage Setsuna is a somewhat interesting case of having a bunch of animal signifiers—her name, the name of her quirk, her hero alias, her costume—but not actually resembling an animal to any degree at all, barring her pointy teeth.  Also, remember when I raised the point that animal heterormorphs can seem to get stuck with very plain quirk names that don’t distinguish them at all from other heteromorphs associated with the same animal, regardless of how many sub-abilities come as part of the total package?  And compared that to people with other quirk types, who get wildly varied quirk names despite having relatively similar abilities?  Here we see that with Tokage—she’s a transformation-type, and her quirk name is Lizard Tail Splitter.    

Bondo Kojirou, Class B’s other really bonkers heteromorph.  Seriously, what is life even like for this guy?  How do your senses function when you have a glue lid for a head?

Chapter 208: 

Bakugou calls Kamakiri a bug, saying, “I guess bugs do have quick reflexes!”  He follows up with a muttered, “Quick at scampering away, too,” that is likely aimed at Kamakiri’s bug-ness as well.    

Conversely, Tokage (in flashback) merely refers to Bondo as “big-boned,” which is true: Bondo has one of the largest frames of any of the first years.

Chapter 213:

Introduces the SIX QUIRKS!!1 element of the story.  This has nothing to do with heteromorphobia per se, but I do think it’s somewhat interesting/telling that neither AFO nor OFA seem to much like heteromorphic quirks.  Despite All Might implying rather strongly in Chapter 257 that OFA is a completely random assortment of weak-ish quirks,[8] accumulated from those who just happened to be there to help one another, every single quirk within it is an emitter-type.  Likewise, all of AFO’s quirks are either emitter or transformation-types, with the only known exception being Ujiko’s Life Force—a heteromorphic quirk by sheer technicality, and one that does nothing whatsoever to shift the bearer’s needle away from baseline.     Now, I can’t rightly accuse OFA of being heteromorphobic—again, it’s allegedly pure luck of the draw—but it is still worth comparing OFA’s train of 100% baseline prior bearers with the demographics of heroes, villains, and society in general.  To wit, if heteromorphs—especially strongly divergent ones—trend more towards villainy compared to the population at large, perhaps there’s a reason there haven’t been any heteromorphs willing to reach out a hand to someone in need?     There are other things I’ve posited about where heteromorphs tend towards gravitating in Hero Society that could be reflected in OFA’s composition, but it’s hard to theorize in greater depth without knowing more about the context of the OFA “passes.”           o Did the bearers know their successors in advance, as seems to have been the case with almost all of them?  Then it’s probably down to social groups, and we will see that heteromorphs often band together in times of social upheaval, which was the case for most of One For All’s span of existence.  Perhaps the prior bearers simply weren’t close with any heteromorphs because heteromorphs were distrustful of baseline-types back then.           (The bearers having pre-existing relationships would seem to conflict with All Might’s noble sentiments in 257 about the bearers not being chosen ones, but rather just people writhing in hell whose only capabilities were to receive OFA and to entrust it to another.  This writer will humbly ask you to take that up with the man who decided to portray every single bearer barring Shinomori and Nana as having some indication of a relationship with their predecessor prior to the latter’s death.)              o How visibly disruptive were the prior battles with AFO compared to the ones he has with Nana and All Might?[9]  If they were very dangerous, that could explain there not being a lot of mid-rank, so-so power-wise heteromorphic heroes at the grounds zero of those battles.  On the other hand, if they were very hidden, we’re back to the only people knowing and being present for a given bearer’s final battle being their own allies and possibly a random selection of cliquishness-prone bystanders.     Of course, the most likely explanation is pure Doylist: Horikoshi didn’t want anything that would radically alter the design of his main character.  Still, how hard would it have been to give even one of the bearers some kind of minor heteromorphic body trait like Koda’s weird head that wouldn’t have been a function of their quirk, and thus wouldn’t necessarily reflect itself on Deku’s body?     (I can and will accuse AFO of being heteromorphobic as all get-out, however.)

Chapter 217:

A largely facetious note, this, but All Might has a small comment during his, Deku and Bakugou’s conversation wherein he tells Bakugou not to call Deku a dweeb.  It’s the first and only time I can remember any teacher pushing back on Bakugou’s habit of assigning classmates derisive nicknames.  I believe there are instances of both All Might and Aizawa telling Bakugou to calm down or ratchet back on his temper, but nothing more specific than that.  As with Mineta’s sexual harassment, Bakugou’s heteromorphobic microaggressions go completely unrebuked, with All Might only protesting the nicknames when Bakugou insults All Might’s successor.   

--------

Have you been enjoying these lengthy rambles? Do you want even more? Then come back next time for a special installment devoted to one arc and one arc only, the arc of my heart, my one true arc love: My Villain Academia.

------------------- FOOTNOTES -------------------

[1] C-C-C-C-COMBO BREAKER.

[2] For Kirishima’s efforts here, he’s told by his friends that he should stop butting his nose in where it doesn’t belong.  Which is a hell of a thing to say to a guy trying to intervene with school bullying, but apparently that’s “old-fashioned.”  This probably speaks less to heteromorph discrimination than it does to the civilian attitude towards helping others when one is not a hero, a point that would be more relevant to e.g. the essay defending Shigaraki’s philosophical points, rather than this one.

[3] Which is a Problem, given how much emotional load the series is going to try and saddle him with regarding Shouji, a character with whom he has zero established dynamic.  But we'll get there, though this will probably still be off-topic even then.

[4] Not that, “Let Hound Dog off the chain,” would be any better in this circumstance.

[5] Insert, “RIP to him, but I’m different,” meme of choice.

[6] In the Japanese, tori nakama, lit. bird buddies/comrades.

[7] I keep specifying “animal-type” because of the incident early on with Sero and Mineta referring to Shouji as an octopus.  All three heteromorphs, but only one with that extra distancing factor of having an animalistic quirk rather than a simply fantastical one.

[8] Because AFO “went around crushing the strong,” also per 257.

[9] I’m perennially vexed by the question of how serious AFO was being in those fights.  The image of OFA being passed from bloodstained hand to hand is striking and all, but why would AFO be so freely trying to murder these people if he wanted OFA for himself?  I have theories about this, but they’re getting pretty off-topic for this series of posts!

[delawaredetroit]

I mean did Ochako get a good resolution? She failed her goal in saving Toga (who killed herself for her) after she vowed she wanted to save people after Nighteye was dying in her arms. Her arc of suppressing her feelings basically goes unaddressed and her feelings for Midoriya are essentially dropped despite being tied to that heavily (for better or for worse, and whether people ship them together or not that was a big part of her character). She doesn’t even get a chance to help Izuku in the climax, which doesn’t fulfill her resolve to help heroes when they’re suffering. She was dying from being stabbed, while all the other heroes with worse injuries (Bakugou) kept fighting. I would argue that her arc is basically nonexistent, which is a shame.

I'm sorry, I stopped listening to what you were saying after you claimed Bakugou played a more meaningful role in the last arc because he had more fights in the final war arc.

Now, all jokes aside, yes, Ochako did get a better character arc resolution compared to other key characters in the story (maybe excluding All Might and All for One).

Ochako starts out as a girl who went in to heroics, a job she believed was a performance to make the public happy, in order to provide for her parents. She was always a caring person, but Ochako didn't think structurally and she didn't think about the severity of what she was walking into with heroics.

After a few arcs, she really came to admire Izuku, a character who embodies an altruistic heroic ideal of saving others. After confronting life and death situations during a work context for the first time during the Overhaul Arc, she realized heroics was more than a performance. And despite that revelation that there were lives at stake - she wanted to continue moving forward to save people.

But hero society neatly divides people into those who save (heroes), those who are saved (civilians), and those to be defeated (villains). Once Ochako determined she wanted to save people, she quickly ran up against the limits of their society's framework of who gets to be saved. It started in the Joint Training Arc when she saved Izuku when he lost control of his quirk. She started with well then who saves the heroes? After seeing Toga cry during the first war arc, her next question became are villains also people who can be saved? Ochako was also the one to confront the civilians about their own complacency and to take initiative to help save others themselves at the end of the Villain Hunt Arc.

She did not have to fight with Izuku in the final fight and Toga was not required to survive to resolve her arc. The point of the "who helps heroes when they are hurting" with Izuku and reaching out to Toga was for Ochako to break down hero society's narrow, dehumanizing roles. Izuku and Toga embody some of the most self-destructive aspects of heroes and villains respectively. She reached out and recognized the humanity of each of them in their darkest moments - the Rogue Arc for Izuku and for Toga in the final war arc while Toga was still mourning Twice's (and what she believed to be Touya's) death(s).

As for the crush/feeling suppression plotline, she wasn't required to confess to Izuku to resolve that plot point. That plotline is intrinsically linked to her relationship with Toga. Because as I have said before, Ochako actually took Toga's advice for how to approach her crush. Toga wanted to become just like her crush. Izuku suppressed all emotions he believed interfered with his hero persona. Ochako then responded in kind by suppressing her feelings after she realized she liked Izuku in the Second Act. But in the final arc, Ochako acted according to her own feelings. She reached out to connect to the villain instead of defeating her because she wanted to do so. Trying to suppress her feelings of wanting to save Toga by looking at the destruction she caused didn't work. She freely admitted to Toga and herself that she liked Izuku.

This was a high school crush. Most people don't get married and have kids with their high school sweetheart. The crush plotline at the end of the day wasn't about Izuku. It was about Ochako and Toga and at a thematic level it was about restrictive norms around love and connection with others, especially as teenage girls.

And honestly, the epilogue also resolved Ochako's arc well. She gets to vent to her friends and let out her suppressed emotions surrounding Toga's death. She was able to connect with Izuku again without running away in fear of her own feelings as she had throughout the Second Act. And there is evidence she put her ideas of rejecting these narrow roles of who can be saved into practice through spearheading these systematic quirk counseling reforms.

[supersaiyanjedi14]

RWBY COMBAT ANALYSIS: JAUNE ARC (VOLUMES 1-8)

“You're right, Ren. I… I did cheat my way into Beacon. And I'm glad that I had people around me to help me see that I was bigger than that mistake. You've got people around you too. You don't have to force yourself to be strong. The more you hide from what you're feeling, the more alone you're going to feel. Trust me.”

As I mentioned in my previous Versus Series match, this analysis of Jaune Arc's combative abilities will be focused on his appearances until RWBY Volume 8, prior to falling into the Ever After and being displaced in time. The strengths and limitations of Jaune before he became the Rusted Knight are simply more interesting to discuss, and, similarly to Maria Calavera, the significant gap in time between his being sent back and Volume 9 makes equating the two inappropriate. While Rusted Knight Jaune did display just enough in Volume 9 for me to have a good gauge of where he stands, this analysis is already stupidly long (over 6000 words and 11 pages) so pulling a joint profile like I did with Maria will likely bore you out. Although, If you want me to do a breakdown for Rusted Knight Jaune, let me know!

With all that out of the way, let's begin.

PHYSICAL

Jaune Arc is a human male, nineteen years of age when he fell into the Ever After two years after the Fall of Beacon.  Born into a family with a history of distinguished Huntsmen and military service, Jaune grew up on stories of heroism and glory, seeking to emulate of his forebearers and dreams of becoming a great legendary hero.  Despite this ambition, though the exact reasons are currently unconfirmed, Jaune Arc never attended a combat school, living a wholly civilian life alongside his parents and seven sisters.  However, Jaune was determined to achieve his dream to the point of cheating, forging transcripts to gain admission to Beacon Huntsman Academy in Vale.  Unsurprisingly, his nonexistent training left him severely out of his depth compared to his classmates, while his misguided belief in his need to excel on his own merits led to him rejecting offers for aid from his teammates.  Fortunately, a short conflict with class bully Cardin Winchester led to Jaune eating some much-needed humble pie, and he submitted himself to private tutoring from his partner, the Mistrali prodigy Pyrrha Nikos.  Pyrrha’s training greatly picked up the slack and helped Jaune truly develop his skills as a fighter and leader, making genuine contributions to the defense of Vale and Team JNPR’s Vytal Festival battles.  Sadly, the Fall of Beacon and Pyrrha’s subsequent death cut his training short, and he found himself thrust headfirst into the war with Salem, his subsequent development coming from direct experience in the field and his being forced to cope with the mounting pressure of his traumatic experiences.

While Jaune Arc’s lack of combat training left him woefully underprepared for academy life and the Huntsman profession, he was ironically well-suited to the physical rigors he was bound to encounter.  As the Arc family was known for regular camping trips in Mistral, Jaune was clearly able to develop a high degree of physical fitness and maintained a healthy lifestyle, standing as a surprisingly talented natural athlete.  His past as an outdoorsman left him prepared with the harsh conditions of the battlefield, and his formal training ironed out his athleticism to leverage his body for fighting.  Easily identified by the blonde hair and blue eyes shared by his family, Jaune stood at a robust 6’1”and sported an athletic, muscular build.  In terms of physical performance, his primary attributes were strength and agility, expressed through his joint use of powerful stalwart stances and dynamic full-body maneuvers.  Even before his training truly began, Jaune proved himself to be remarkably strong, deflecting aside a Deathstalker’s pincer during his initiation and holding back an Ursa Major’s mauling swipe in the Forever Fall forest.  After proper training and combat experience, Jaune grew into a true physical heavyweight, his might, while not matching juggernauts like James Ironwood and Hazel Rainart, being easily comparable to heavy hitters like Yang Xiao Long and Nora Valkyrie.  He has sent an Ursa flying with a shield bash, launched grown humans several yards into the air, briefly held back the crushing weight of the Nuckelavee’s hooves, and supported the weight of a Sabyr and Tyrian Callows when they held onto his shield, in addition to various displays of strength-based swordsmanship.  In the realm of agility, Jaune may not have been a talented gymnast, but he more than made up for it in grounded speed and parkour even in heavy armor, traversing the battlefield with powerful jumps and running charges while avoiding injury with combat rolls and sidestep evasions.  He has kept pace with most of his teammates without too much strain, dodged boulders thrown by a Petra Gigas, blindsided the Nuckelavee by rushing in while it was distracted, and even moved fast enough to intercept Neopolitan’s lunge at Atlas Academy.  Though tripped up in sparring with Vine Zeki, he was able to effectively freerun with the aid of his shield through the treacherous landscape of the Solitas tundra while perusing the Hound.  Jaune’s reflexes and dexterity were easily his least developed attribute due to his lack of training, though he was by no means slow or crude.  Though he favored simple hack and stab bladework, his attacks were still executed with great precision when needed, aiming for one-hit kills.  Defensively, he had no difficulty responding to projectiles or other incoming attacks, notably raising his shield in time to block most of the obsidian shards Cinder Fall threw through one of the Evacuation Central Location portals despite being right next to the portal at the time.

While Jaune’s high degree of physical performance was extremely impressive even compared to other Huntsmen, easily his most valuable physical characteristic was his incredible resiliency, stamina, and tolerance for pain and injury.  Evan accounting for his large Aura reserves and the properties of his Semblance, the hits that Jaune has worked through are extremely impressive feats.  In his initiation, Jaune, despite having no active Aura to protect him, endured the impact of being pinned to a tree after being launched into the woods, and showed no sign of injury until he got scratched by a tree branch a few minutes later.  In Forever Fall, he suffered a serious beating from Cardin Winchester that left him with a bruised face, yet he was able to engage the Ursa Major almost immediately afterwards, soaking up more hits and ultimately decapitating the creature.  During Team RNJR’s journey to Haven, Jaune worked through a flying rock to the face, physical combat strikes from Tyrian Callows, and numerous mule kicks and blows from the Nuckelavee, yet his Aura never broke or even flickered.  In fact, the first time Jaune’s Aura was ever seen breaking in serious combat was when he expanded it to help shield Nora from a punch Caroline Cordovin’s Colossus mech suit (which I’d like to remind you was a giant robot designed to fight kaiju-sized Grimm), overtaxing his Aura and slamming him into a boulder.  His stamina displayed itself during the Fall of Beacon, the Battle of Haven, and the Battle of Mantle, all of which were long term conflicts that he fought all through yet remained vital and fresh by the end.  In Atlas, Jaune was slammed into a wall by Salem after he burned through his Aura amping Ren, yet was completely uninjured and stayed vital during their escape from the Monstra.  It wasn’t until he was forced into close proximity to Cinder Fall’s explosion in the Evacuation Central Location that his Aura broke again, and yet he still had enough fight left in him to regain his feet and attempt to escape.  Quite simply, Jaune has spent the bulk of his career as a human punching bag, yet he’s still going strong, wars of attrition being his bread and butter.  Jaune was unfortunately saddled with his share of mental hang-ups, his early hubris leading to him making reckless calls before wising up while his traumatic experiences, especially Pyrrha’s death, left him with an inferiority complex that led to him overextending in a misguided idea of sacrificing for his friends.  Fortunately, the influence of those same friends helped Jaune learn from his experiences and maintain his composure, trading away the macho badass for an incredibly strong-willed vanguard.  Even after being forced to kill Penny Polendina following Cinder Fall’s mortal wound, Jaune Arc never faltered, holding his ground against the Fall Maiden’s savage onslaught despite the grief-stricken tears in his eyes.

Reflecting the irony of being physically prepared for Huntsman life despite having no training, Jaune Arc consistently supplemented his well-honed physique with heavy combat armor, providing him from a degree of protection from the dangers of the world of Remnant.  He initially wore only a simple breastplate and shoulder pads, though like the rest of his skill set, his kit evolved and expanded over time.  During his time as an Atlesian Huntsman, he wore a full-plated gold-trimmed cuirass, pauldrons, and gauntlets over a black high collared shirt, while his lower body was garbed in blue jeans and rugged calf-high boots.  His earlier armor upgrade from an unnamed Mistral blacksmith was specifically noted to provide superior protection from Grimm claws, so the updated plating provided by Pietro Polendina was certainly just as durable, and very likely greater.  Though he had no protection below the belt (seriously dude, Adrian needs cousins. get a cup! 😊), the lack of heavy plating still allowed full freedom of movement, maintaining Jaune’s agility.  Easily the most sentimental wardrobe component was Pyrrha Nikos’s red sash adorning his belt, a final reminder of his lost love.

RANKING: Tier 2, Peak Human Fitness

Despite a severe lack of training at the start of his career, Jaune Arc still started out as a prime human specimen, and his numerous ordeals have propelled him to the Huntsman physical apex.  He is a solidly built athlete with powerful performance levels in all areas that can match or even exceed many of his peers, and supplements this with both an extraordinary level of endurance and some of the best armor we’ve seen in the setting so far.  While unassuming at first glance, Jaune’s physique serves as the vehicle for a one-man war of attrition, winning by leveraging his capabilities to stay alive and wait for the perfect opportunity to strike.  But much like his friend Ruby Rose, Jaune’s greatest asset as a physical combatant is his resolve, maintaining his composure even in the face of staunch resistance.  He won’t give up, he won’t break, no matter what.

MARTIAL

Jaune Arc’s primary weapon was Crocea Mors, a collapsible heater shield paired with an arming sword which was originally carried by his great-great grandfather during the Great War, eighty years before the Fall of Beacon.  Despite being an antique compared to what his classmates carried, the weapon remained in excellent condition when Jaune took it with him to Beacon, and it has been further modified and upgraded as he continues his adventures.  The sword was an approximately two and a half foot long double-edged blade outfitted with a golden crossguard and a lengthened handgrip wrapped in blue leather.  The shield, when fully extended, had a rough area of 2.5 square feet and featured an opening at the top to house the sword, its primary feature being to convert into the blade’s scabbard when not in use.  Following modifications from an unnamed Anima blacksmith, the sheath was upgraded to include retractable sharpened edges that could extend upward, transforming it into a stout zweihänder with a heavier blade, enabling far more powerful strikes in combat.  The most recent additions to the shield came from Pietro Polendina in Atlas, who outfitted it with hard-light and gravity Dust generators. The former extended barriers to either edge to improve Jaune’s protective zone, while the latter functioned as a combat repulsor.  Appropriate given its original owner was a soldier rather than a Huntsman, Jaune’s weapon remains one of the simplest and most utilitarian in the setting, form reflecting function even with its various upgrades.  While perfectly capable of slaying Grimm, Crocea Mors was built for war.

As he had never attended a formal combat school nor had grown up with real-world dangers to address, Jaune Arc was woefully unprepared for his early education at Beacon Academy, enrolling on the back of forged transcripts and having amateurish understanding of the field’s basics.  Despite this, Jaune was fortunate enough to survive his initiation, and his ability to coordinate Pyrrha Nikos, Lie Ren, and Nora Valkyrie in their takedown of a Deathstalker earned him leadership of Team JNPR.  While his early blunders were quite obvious, falling behind in his studies and regularly getting stomped in sparring, Ozpin’s early assessments of the boy’s potential were eventually proven to have merit following his conflict with Cardin Winchester.  After a peptalk with Ruby Rose and his successful killing of an Ursa Major in Forever Fall fed him some crow, Jaune accepted Pyrrha’s offer of private tutoring and began to properly develop as a fighter.  Under her tutelage, Jaune slowly grew into a capable swordsman and began taking his responsibilities as leader more seriously, eventually qualifying for the Vytal Festival and leading his team to victory against Team BRNZ.  While the Fall of Beacon and Pyrrha’s subsequent death cut his formal training short, Jaune continued to train rigorously with her prerecorded lectures during Team RNJR’s journey to Haven Academy and maintained his skill by sparring with his comrades.  But more than anything else, Jaune’s greatest growth came through the trial by fire that was the war with Salem, the threats he encountered forcing him to learn quickly and build his skill set through experience.  Appropriately for a beginner warrior growing through trial and error in the field, Jaune Arc’s fighting technique was an exceedingly simple and direct sword-and-board method, emphasizing the baseline reliability of the practical benefits of his weapon set.  He primarily relied on his shield as the foundation of his technique, using it to intercept or deflect incoming attacks.  He alternated between stalwart stonewall stances and active pushback deflections, holding his ground against everything from gunfire to pouncing Grimm while disrupting their own attacks with sweeps and bashes.  When he did choose to take the offensive initiative, his bladework consisted of a simple yet powerful array of slashes, cleaves, and thrusts, aiming for one-hit kills.  Together, the two weapons enabled a defense-and-counter fighting style, following up his solid blocking sequences with quick sword attacks to quickly disable or kill the target.  Though friendly and kind, Jaune never settled for half-measure, always decapitating, dismembering, amputating, impaling, or otherwise seriously injuring his target.  When utilizing Crocea Mors in its greatsword form, Jaune’s bladework became less refined yet far more powerful, using hacking chops to deal brutal damage, though at the cost of his defensive stance.  Despite lacking variation as a swordsman, Jaune’s simple and loose style was extremely adaptable, allowing him to accommodate to virtually any situation or opponent.  This technique was reinforced by his fluid use of his special abilities, most notably his Dust loadout and Semblance to augment his maneuvers.  However, Jaune has displayed little in terms of alternative disciplines.  Despite possessing a strong physical component in his style, he has never been seen employing hand-to-hand combat in any capacity, and his knowledge of firearms began and ended with blocking bullets.  That being said, he has engaged opponents who do use these methods and survived, most notably Tyrian Callows and James Ironwood, so he clearly knows how to combat them even if he lacked proficiency in using them himself.  Furthermore, he proved to be a competent mounted fighter, delivering strikes from Pietro Polendina’s hoverbike very effectively in Mantle.

For all the strides he made in his training and advancement in spite of his inexperience, what truly put Jaune Arc in step with his peers was his surprising natural talent as a tactician and strategist.  Humbled by his first semester’s failings, Jaune recognized his limitations as one of the least developed fighters of his class, and instead focused on pouring his energies into learning to circumvent them with the aid of his teammates and friends.  While his lack of book smarts would make the tactical display out of his element, his ingenuity and ability to recognize the strengths and weaknesses of both his troops and his enemy’s, even under dangerous high-stress situations, more than made up for it.  Jaune Arc was not a grand strategizing general; he was a boots-on-the-ground frontline commander, and in his tactics, he heavily emphasized adapting to and subverting the opponent while holding out for the long term.  He would open defensively to give him time to assess the threat and give his allies the opportunity to probe for weaknesses.  Once an opening was discovered, he would order a swift and decisive response to exploit it, often by disabling the opponents’ defenses and weapons and forcing them to expose the Achilles Heel.  Against the Deathstalker, Jaune worked with Pyrrha to defend against its claws while Ren weakened the stinger, and upon seeing this had Pyrrha sever it with her shield before propelling Nora into the air to drive it in.  Team RNJR’s battles with the Petra Gigas and Nuckelavee played out similarly, with the beasts ultimately being killed by keeping their limps tied up while leaving its main body vulnerable to Nora’s blows.  The Nuckelavee battle demonstrated Jaune’s ability to apply this thinking to wars of attrition as well, as he and Ruby were able to land several critical strikes on the legs while the head was distracted, wearing it down as they cooked up a decisive finishing strategy.  As far as more intelligent opponents went, Jaune demonstrated his talents during the Vytal Festival match against Team BRNZ, ordering a retreat following the initial exchange before quickly reengaging, working with Ren and Pyrrha to fend off the bulk of the team and flush out May Zedong’s sniper nest so that Nora could blow her to Kingdom Come.  While battlefield situations were Jaune’s specialty, he was still capable of contributing to larger strategic operations, and more importantly, demonstrated an ability to reevaluate and adapt if his plans were derailed.  The best example of this was the confrontation with Caroline Cordovin in Argus.  The plan was to commandeer an Atlas airship by having Weiss Schnee pretend to return home alone before she and Maria Calavera overpowered the pilots and picked up the others, hiding their return by sending Blake Belladonna to disable the relay tower.  However, their hand was tipped when Blake was ambushed by Adam Taurus before she could complete her sabotage, and Cordovin responded by unleashing the gigantic Colossus mech suit.  Despite this colossal setback (pun completely intended), Jaune quickly put together a plan of engagement, exploiting the mech’s bulk by having Weiss, Ren, Qrow Branwen and Calavera harass Cordo and chip away at her defenses while nullifying her firepower by evading her attacks.  Though the final blow was delivered through Ruby’s initiative rather than Jaune’s his overall game plan and trust in his teammates still enabled them to survive and disable the weapon despite the shock of their original strategy failing.

However, while Jaune was a fantastic field leader and achieved several impressive victories, most of these were done through the strengths and abilities of his allies rather than his own.  Jaune’s inexperience and underdeveloped technique left him at a disadvantage whenever he was confronted by a skilled opponent in single combat, his success predicated on his versatility and tactical supremacy rather than his ability to fight.  His first true victory against the Ursa Major demonstrated his tenacity and the raw talent he did have, but he nearly lost his entire Aura during the scuffle and survived only due to Pyrrha’s interference.  Despite pulling his own weight in the Vytal Festival and against Tyrian Callows, his personal performance mostly amounted to soaking up punishment while everyone else tried to make headway.  While Jaune had improved significantly by the time of the Battle of Haven, the psychological strain of his experiences combined with Cinder Fall’s posturing triggered an outburst from the still-grieving Jaune, who recklessly charged the Fall Maiden with his greatsword.  The only reason Jaune lasted as long as he did was because Cinder drew out the fight to play with her food, the closest thing he made to headway being when he scored a superficial graze on her face mask after she was stunned by Ruby’s Silver Eyes.  Fortunately, Jaune managed to get into a much healthier headspace following his time in Atlas and learned from his experiences.  In addition to improving his calm under fire, he managed to apply a solid measure of his tactical sensibilities to personable combat.  This was where his heavy defensive focus truly started to express itself, shifting his focus to protecting himself, his allies, and his charges and only attacking when the blow could efficiently end the immediate threat.  While his core technique was underdone, his tandem use of his alternative abilities allowed him to adjust to different situations even if he couldn’t win himself.

In Mantle, Jaune slew numerous Grimm in the streets by intercepting their attacks before immediately striking back, notably impaling a Sabyr after it jumped onto his shield and later throwing a hard-light Dust grenade into a pack of Sabyrs for them to faceplant into.  While unsuccessful at evading Vine Zeki while sparring in Atlas, he achieved greater success when he fended off Flynt Coal’s Killer Quartet, enduring the assault before closing in and overpowering him.  Against Neopolitan in the Atlas Academy dorms, Jaune managed to intercept her running charge and blew her backward with his gravity Dust repulsor, though he and the rest of his team were ultimately outmaneuvered by the assassin and forced to flee with the arrival of the Atlas security forces.  When confronting James Ironwood two days later, Jaune immediately followed up Emerald Sustrai’s disarmament and kick with a slashing sequence, and though the general was able to stop him and counter, Jaune immediately turned it around with his repulsor, giving Oscar Pine and opportunity to run in and attack himself.  In these various encounters, Jaune demonstrated great skill and fending off direct aggressors and using their energies against them, even when fighting opponents far above his own level like Ironwood.  Rather than just enduring an attack, he brought it to a halt by disrupting their forward advance and landing devastating counters.  Conversely, Jaune was less successful against more subversive opponents who could outmaneuver and undercut him, which is what he faced against Neo and ran into against Tyrian Callows in Oniyuri.  Furthermore, his success was predicated on his ability to strike at the moment of greatest vulnerability, and if unable to get the drop on his target, he could get into trouble very quickly.  Putting these strengths and limits on display was his second confrontation with Cinder Fall during the exodus to Vacuo.  Despite seeing his old nemesis again and witnessing Yang Xiao Long’s apparent death, Jaune remained composed and focused on ensuring the civilians could escape, only engaging himself when the last were gone.  He opened by flying in and blowing Cinder back with his shield and standing with Weiss and Penny Polendina, prepared to coordinate against their more powerful adversary.  Unfortunately, Cinder divided her assailants and mortally wounded Penny, forcing Jaune to tend to her while Weiss was on her own.  After Penny had Jaune reluctantly kill her to keep the Winter Maiden powers out of Cinder’s hands, an enraged Fall lashed out, but Jaune, despite his extreme emotional stress, stood his ground and repelled her.  However, Cinder recovered too quickly for Jaune to properly retaliate, and he was quickly overwhelmed when the Fall Maiden destroyed his weapon.

RANKING: Tier 5, Standard Application

Jaune Arc’s inexperience and limited performance in single combat make it clear that he is not a master, but he still possesses a well-rounded and comprehensive skill set that covers his bases and improves his overall viability.  His greatest asset is his intelligent tactical analysis on the battlefield, enabling him to adapt to situations and exploit weaknesses, even if someone else lands the killing blow instead of him.  In single combat, he can contend with superior martial artists by leveraging his techniques to nullify their offensives and hit them where they don’t expect, though his battles with Cinder and Neo prove that this has its limits.  Appropriately, Jaune Arc wears Pyrrha Nikos’s influence on his sleeve, both being talented albeit thinly spread fighters who compensate for their lack of development by using all of their skills together.  The difference is that where Pyrrha built a special weapon to enable all of her attack options in her technique, Jaune supported his basic technique with strong support gadgets and good armor to provide a margin for error.  Jaune’s feats make him seem better than he actually is, but unlike Volume 1’s macho dofus, Jaune is now aware of this, and has built his tactics accordingly.

SPECIAL

Jaune Arc was a late bloomer when it came to his Semblance, unaware of his abilities even after a year of formal training and thus making him an anomaly among his peers.  It was not until the Battle of Haven that Jaune finally properly manifested his powers.  Named Aura Amp, Jaune’s Semblance allowed him to amplify and enhance the Auras of both himself and others, bolstering the affect of the manifested soul power.  All Auras bless their users with moderate protection from direct injury, mitigating minor wounds, and the ability to utilize their own Semblances.  When amplified by Jaune, these abilities became far more pronounced, strengthening Aura shields far beyond their limits, enhancing the magnitude of a Semblance, and turning the mild regeneration into active healing, this last part easily being the most pronounced of Jaune’s powers.  The first time his Semblance unconsciously activated in the Forever Fall forest, Jaune was able to recover from the beating he took from Cardin Winchester fast enough to immediately engage the Ursa Major. This went even further when he properly unlocked his Semblance at Haven.  After Cinder Fall impaled Weiss Schnee in order to spitefully torment him, Jaune’s emotional distress over another friend being severely injured on his watch, coupled with his need to save Weiss’s life finally caused his powers to properly manifest.  Despite the fact that she had clearly gone into shock and was suffering from serious blood loss, Weiss was able to regain consciousness after mere minutes of treatment, and after a few more had regained enough of her energies to Summon a Queen Lancer and fight through the remainder of the battle.  Making this even more impressive was that Jaune was able to accomplish this instinctively and with little to no effect on his stamina.  Jaune refined his abilities for active use in the following weeks, to the point where he could casually heal the Huntsman Dudley’s broken arm on the Argus Limited, and later treated the battered Oscar Pine after rescuing him from the Monstra.  Beyond healing, Jaune’s ability to amplify Auras allowed him to empower the barriers of others to help them endure incoming attacks.  In Argus, he bolstered himself and Nora Valkyrie to brace against the Colossus’s punch, and thought disabled by the hit, Jaune’s power still saved their lives.  On a smaller though no less impressive scale, Jaune’s amplification proved instrumental in allowing Penny Polendina to resist the effects of Arthur Watts’ computer virus, allowing her human soul to overpower her circuitry.  Most impressive by far was Jaune’s ability to enhance others’ Semblances by adding his strength to their own.  Lie Ren was his most common partner in this, empowering Tranquility to the point where Ren could mask the entire Argus Limited train and whole mobs of civilians in Mantle, as well as conceal at least ten trained Huntsmen from detection by whole armies of Grimm.  When Penny nearly succumbed to Watts’ virus, Jaune’s enhancement of Weiss’s Glyphs allowed them to restrain her long enough to offer aid.  However, Jaune’s Semblance was not without its limits.  Prolonged use could drain his own Aura quickly, and even his own substantial Aura reserves were not limitless.  Furthermore, his healing powers could not mend all injuries, as Nora’s electric scars and the severity of Penny’s mortal wound from Cinder were beyond his ability to heal.

In addition to his Semblance, Jaune added to his arsenal with Dust gadgets during his time in Atlas, specifically the hard-light panels and gravity repulsor built into Crocea Mors’ shield.  Pioneered by Atlas and therefore costly to obtain outside of it, hard-light Dust is most commonly used in the creation of advanced defensive technology, generating tangible panels of energy strong enough to withstand severe kinetic impacts.  The projectors installed in the edges of Jaune’s shield could create barriers approximately a foot and a quarter wide and running down the full length, effectively doubling his range of protection, improving his ability to function as a defensive wall for himself and his allies.  While the strength limits of these projections has never been tested, I do feel they are at least comparable in strength to the shields created by figures such as Weiss Schnee and Arthur Watts, who were able to hold back the White Fan Lieutenant’s brutish chainsaw blows and block high-caliber gunfire from Due Process respectively.  More contemporary but no less potent, gravity Dust affected forces of push and pull in ways meant to facilitate adhesion, propulsion, and levitation, traits that made it an extremely common fuel in vehicles.  When applied combatively, gravity Dust used these same properties to function as limited telekinetic attacks, usually through the guided manipulation of thrown weapons, enhancing the tactile striking power of manual weapons, or, in the case of Jaune, powerful offensive shockwaves.  Outfitted in the center of the shield, Jaune’s repulsor enabled him to project bursts of power that pushed out in all directions, strong enough to repel charging enemies and deflect attacks though not enough to actively damage his environment.  Though unable to injure Neo, Ironwood and Cinder directly, the repulsor was still strong enough to stagger them, potentially setting up for a follow up strike.  This weapon in particular became Jaune’s most readily utilized combative tool, his favorite tactic being to activate it just as the opponent came within striking distance, essentially delivering shield bashes with a touch of a button.  Despite only recently taking these gadgets up, Jaune quickly became highly profieient in their use, smoothly integrating these abilities into his overall fighting method and together with one another.  In addition to combining the functions to turn his shield into a makeshift hang glider, Jaune could project the gravity waves to push back obstacles while activating the hard-light panels to cover his flanks, using this very method to clear away a pack of Centinels while infiltrating the SDC mine.  This combination tactic further demonstrated Jaune’s approach of utilizing all his abilities together as part of a greater fighting method, getting around his lack of power and skill through versatility and logistics.  At the same time however, Jaune’s Dust abilities had their own individual limits. The hard-light panels were a very specialized tool, and Ironwood’s ability to penetrate Watt’s barriers proves that even special Atlas Dust can’t take a beating forever.  While the gravity repulsor gave Jaune an offensive option, the kinetic output wasn’t sufficient to injure or kill, forcing Jaune to rely on other means to decisively defeat his adversary.

Regarding Jaune’s use of his special abilities in live combat, he clearly emphasized versatility over lethality, sacrificing offensive might for tactical supremacy.  While his Semblance’s properties have been most impressively demonstrated on external subjects, Jaune can and has used the power on himself to potentially decisive effect.  While training in Atlas, Oscar Pine observed that Jaune’s Aura was recovering at a significantly faster rate than usual, which leads me to believe that, similarly to Hazel Rainart’s Numbing Agent, Aura Amp functions as a minor healing factor to help Jaune replenish his energies.  Unlike Rainart, however, Jaune’s active use of his Semblance can allow him to do this on command and more quickly, which, combined with Aura Amp’s healing properties, makes him one of the only characters with the ability to mitigate his own injuries in the field.  Both of his Dust gadgets follow similar patterns of improving Jaune’s survivability, the hard-light shields artificially bolstering his martial defense while the gravity repulsor adds a layer of counteroffensive.  The latter has proven effective and giving Jaune a punch against opponents above his own level, successfully repelling Neopolitan, James Ironwood, and even Cinder Fall TWICE.  However, much like his martial skills, Jaune’s effectiveness as an ethereal combatant is predicated on his breadth of tools rather than their magnitude of his native proficiency. His Semblance is almost entirely a tactical support power, and its various powers still have their limitations that make its efficacy in single combat suspect.  While a number of factors were at play when Jaune was forced to euthanize Penny, the narrative framing makes it clear that the severity of her injuries would have been beyond his ability to repair even if he had time and shelter.  As far as his Dust abilities are concerned, Jaune may make creative integrations of his powers into his fighting style, but neither his shields nor repulsor have the means to decisively end the battle on his terms.  The effectiveness of the gravity repulsor is based around its ability to stagger the opponent and set up for a counterattack, meaning its effectiveness is significantly reduced if the opponent recovers quickly enough to exploit Jaune’s lack of skill as a martial artist.  Against Neopolitan, the attack was able to disrupt her forward charge and launch her down the hall, prompting her to retreat.  Against Ironwood, Jaune had the support of his allies, with Oscar rushing in to attack immediately after the Dust activated, while Weiss and Penny were clearly preparing to do the same against Cinder.  Jaune wasn’t so lucky when he was forced to fight Cinder on his own, their final bout taking place when Weiss was already disabled and Penny was dead.  With only his native abilities as support, Jaune’s final push against Cinder merely provoked her, and her quick recovery allowed the Fall Maiden to rally and shatter his weapon, Jaune’s survival owing entirely to the timely arrival of Winter Schnee.

RANKING: Tier 5, Limited Combat

Much like his fighting abilities, Jaune Arc’s special powers are comprehensive and versatile, but they lack the development to reliably set the battle on his terms.  His Semblance offers various supportive abilities that improve his survivability in the field, while the traits of his Dust loadout add layers to his fighting style, all coming together to cover all of his bases for just about any combat situation.  At the same time, he lacks the developed skill with these powers to properly control the engagement, getting by through the breath of his skill set and his intelligent use of all of his skills.  Rather than mastery of his abilities, Jaune Arc relies on clever gadgets to artificially elevate his fighting style into something greater than the sum of its parts, and his baseline reliability hinges on circumstantial factors.  However, Jaune ‘s limitations do not make him any less of a threat, and his cunning use of the various tricks in his bag means that he can still comfortably engage any situation even if he can’t always win.

OVERALL RANKING: TIER 5, STANDARD HUNTSMAN

Compared to the true masters of his era, Jaune Arc is not a particularly exceptional combatant, but he is still significantly above the rank-and-file.  On the back of his martial skills and special abilities, Jaune stands as the archetypical example of a Tier 5 combatant in the RWBY setting.  His foundation stands on his rock-solid physical attributes, his exceptional athletic performance levels giving him parity with better trained opponents and his inhuman resiliency giving him the ability to work through the hits he needs to take, further supplemented by top tier combat armor.  With his versatile weapon set, solid general purpose fighting technique, potent empowering Semblance, and flexible set of Dust tools, Jaune possesses an extremely comprehensive skill set that leaves him prepared for just about any combat situation, but his lack of developed skill means that none of these attributes are elevated to a degree that can decisively tip the scales of the battle in his favor, leaving him spread thin and vulnerable against more skilled adversaries.  However, being a jack of all trades/master of none does not make one an inept combatant, as Jaune’s attributes still give him a degree of adaptability and grit that many more specialized fighters tend to lack.  Jaune’s saving grace is his tactical mindset, allowing him to circumvent his limitations by using all of his assets, be they his own or those of his allies, together as a layered combative tool to stay alive and win in the long term.  Furthermore, despite his lack of formal training, Jaune has spent almost his entire career either on the battlefield or contending against opponents far above his own level, and he has still survived.

Jaune Arc’s ranking shows that he is not yet a true master combatant and still has a long way to go before truly matching his peers, but his track record also makes it very clear that he is growing very quickly and will undoubtably match or exceed them. He is a rising star, only held back by a series of roadblocks that continue to temper him. Jaune entered Beacon feeling that to be a Huntsman and a hero was to be a mighty warrior standing on his own laurels, though the harsh realities have not only shattered this narrow worldview but also brought out Jaune’s true route to greatness. Similarly, Pyrrha’s death led him to believe that self-sacrifice was all he was good for if it meant giving his friends a chance to survive, but those very friends made it clear that throwing his life away would only hurt them more. Instead of laying waste to armies of enemies as a one man badass, he has grown into a stalwart defender dedicated to surviving to protect those that cannot do so themselves. Rather than the lethal blade of his sword, it is the impenetrable shield in his off hand that has come to define the kind of hero that Jaune Arc is. He will stand firm against evil for the sake of others, holding out as long as he must while searching for ways to end the threat with as little lives lost as possible. The strength of this shield need only be gauged by what it and its wielder has endured. The Breach, the Fall of Beacon, the Battle of Haven, the Atlas Crisis; Jaune Arc survived all this and more, and he has emerged all the stronger and wiser for it. Pyrrha Nikos saw more in Jaune than the rest of them did, and I think it’s safe to say that she could not have been prouder of who he has become; as a Huntsman, as a leader, as a warrior, and more than anything else, as a man.

*originally posted on RoosterTeeth Community page on 06-8-22*

* images taken from RWBY Wiki*

RWBY Combat Analysis

[plusultraetc]

hii three questions in one ask for fun. who r ur favorite charas, what r ur fav arcs and what r ur fav subplots in mha :}} big fan of the todofam sideplot and the endeavor agency arc… bkdk third wheeling family drama. hilarious… 😁😁

genuinely HOW could you do this to me, I am so indecisive and I have so many favorite things </3 Also get ready for the sheer volume of words I am about to throw at you :D

SO, favorite characters. Obv there are So Many Characters in this show, but I still feel like I can count the ones I don't like on one hand and have fingers left over. I definitely have some obvious favorites (Aizawa, Mic, Shinsou) and some only-slightly-less obvious ones (Shigaraki, All Might, Hawks), but there are also some faves I don't yap about as much like Kirishima, Jirou, Miruko, and VLAD KING the LOVE of my LIFE. I queued a post recently about Inasa being an underrated fave, which is still true, but Vlad King is truly the king (haHA) of underrated faves. I love that man a ridiculous amount. THE TL;DR HERE IS THAT I LOVE 98% OF THE CHARACTERS IN THIS SHOW SM IT'S UNREAL.

Arcs & subplots under the keep reading bc my main personality trait (never shutting up) struck again ! The short answer is Sports Festival & Todorokis, Shinsou, Rooftop gang for anyone who doesn't want to stare at that wall of text 😭

Favorite arcs: I have almost as many favorite arcs as I do favorite characters LMAO. You are SO RIGHT about the Endeavor Agency arc; usually people are forced to witness Midoriya & Bakugou's drama but oh, how the tables have turned. I also love Fuyumi and Natsuo and am always delighted to see them, even if they <3 punching me directly in the feelings :(

The USJ arc is, imo, a perfectly executed plot point, so from a writing perspective I really love USJ. It's got action, it's got character spotlights, but most importantly, it ties together the plot/character/worldbuilding threads of the first season so perfectly. Like. It's seamless. It was a writing school level moment. No notes.

The Hideout Raid arc (specifically All Might vs AFO) and Paranormal Liberation War gave me grays at 25. Joint Training is always a delight. But if I had to pick One Arc to Rule Them All it might honestly be Sports Festival?? It features all of my top three favorite characters for more than one (1) scene each and it is just. Such a wild time.

There is so much to unpack about this arc but it has a very special place in my heart bc the first time I ever watched it (so, like, 5+ years ago) my sister and I for some reason decided to treat it like people who care about the Super Bowl treat the Super Bowl. It was our Olympics except the team we were rooting for changed depending on the episode. To this day I remember my sister turning on a DIME from hating Bakugou since Season 1 Episode 1 to CHAMPIONING him with her whole chest bc Monoma pissed her off so much when he stole Bakugou's headbands. And now he's like her second favorite character in the entire series so?? Origin story moment ig.

Last but not least, favorite subplots!!

TODOROKIS. YEAH. Their entire plotline was one of the major factors that motivated me to catch up on the show. I was like what do you mean they're trying to give superhero Fire Lord Ozai a redemption arc? What do you mean that other fire guy was actually a Todoroki? Like... you have to remember that where I left off w this show, Endeavor seemed to exist solely to give Shouto a backstory, and honestly I remembered like nothing about Dabi. If getting back into MHA was a pit of quicksand the Todorokis truly walked me right up to the edge of it. It was like that part of TAZ where Taako is like 'okay that's weird enough that I'm gonna go in there.'

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Shinsou's off-screen character arc is EVERYTHING to me. I could write a thesis on this side character who appears like. Three times in the entire show. Shinsou really said 'I will be a mirror character AND undo the First Great Contradiction of this series AND have tangible, believable character growth, all while being given less screen time than Mineta' and I love that for him.

The rooftop gang... I'm not going to say much on this one for manga reasons but it's definitely a subplot I find very compelling. I'm still ruminating on its execution so far but I Did Cry over the Reveal in season 5. It re-contextualized so much, not just about Aizawa and Mic, but about UA and the lives of hero students. Ack.

TYSM FOR THIS ASK, this week has been three weeks long but I had so much fun writing this exhausted ramble <3

[powerofthesunau]

ICEHEART (Scourge)

Scourge plays a large part not only in the events of TPB but of later arcs as well.

He tries to join ThunderClan but is driven out by Tigerpaw. He wanders the clan borders for a while before making his home in twolegplace. After the stories Quince told him about the clans, Tiny still wishes to live in a group like them. He forms BloodClan as inspured by his mother's tales of fearless warriors living a somewhat-noble life.

BloodClan remain a threat during Firepaw's apprenticeship. ThunderClan frequently encounter them in patrols near twolegplace.

BloodClan are more morally forgivable than in canon. They see clan cats as an oppressive threat to kittypets and loners. Skirmishes that take place in twolegplace are over border markings, the clans see BloodClan as a grouo of rogues, so they are to be treated as outsiders according to the warrior code.

BloodClan try to mimic the lifestyle of a clan through meetings and similar names, (Brickshard, Bonesnap, etc) however do not have a healer or an apprentice system. Although they do not have a warrior code, Scourge encourages his cats to be somewhat merciful. Seeing clan cats as a self-righteous evil group he wants his cats not to be as arrogant as they are.

Scourge is only mentioned in passing until Tigerstar persuades him to join his TigerClan allegiance. Scourge accepts out of the promise of a portion of territory for his cats and better relations with the clans. However upon witnessing Tigerstar's cruelty and arrogance he is reminded of when he was attacked as a kit. He kills Tigerstar and declares war on the other clans, hoping to drive them out the forest for good.

Within the battle he takes Firestar's first life but just before Firestar kills him StarClan orders him to spare Scourge's life. He had always been destined to be a clan cat, a medicine cat, however the incident with Tigerpaw threw him off that path. After the battle Firestar hesitantly accepts him into ThunderClan, giving him the name Iceheart. StarClan trains Iceheart to be a medicine cat through dreams. Although ThunderClan do not fully trust him, they understand that this was StarClan's will. BloodClan is handed over to new leadership.

After a power struggle in BloodClan, Iceheart finally earns ThunderClan's respect through aiding BloodClan to remove their corrupt leader Furyclaws who seized power. BloodClan ceases to interact with the clans with Iceheart's persuasion, moving deeper into twolegplace. Some cats join SkyClan when it forms in the gorge when the TNP travellers journey through twoleplace. Over time BloodClan eventually transitions to WarriorClan.

Iceheart believes in StarClan, however does not believe that they are always a force of good. He is willing to let acts against the warrior or medicine cat code if he thinks they are pointless. His closest friends outside the clans is Brokenheart, medicine cat of ShadowClan, despite Brokenheart's somber and soft personality he respects him. As well as Mothwing as the two hold similar beliefs.

He mentors Firestar's daughter Leafpool. However he develops joint problems and needs to retire from being a medicine cat. He helps her hide her pregnancy from ThunderClan, he views the rule of medicine cats not having kits as pointless. He dies of old age when the Three are kits. When Jaypaw walks in StarClan, Iceheart does not hesitate to speak to him unlike the other StarClan cats who fear his power.

Jaypaw only has a few memories of Iceheart's health deteroriating in the elder's den but heard and was fascinated by stories of the tiny cat who lead the cats of twolegplace and killed Tigerstar with one swipe. Rather than Spottedleaf attempting to guide him, it is Iceheart, with Yelowfang contributing occasssionally.

In his StarClan form, Iceheart wears his BloodClan collar for 2 reasons. The first is that when a spirit reaches StarClan their form is the one that is considered the peak of their success, the elders' tales of Iceheart as the legendery leader of BloodClan is responsible for this. The second representing Iceheart's own rejection of traditional StarClan beliefs. He believes in Silverpelt but does not follow them blindly.

Additional Note: Firestar and Sandstorm have a second litter, Foxleap and Icecloud. Their daughter Icecloud is naned after Iceheart

[quirkwizard]

When I first watched the series, I really thought they were doing something interesting with Mineta. In the USJ arc, Froppy called him out as not really having the makings of a hero and that’s pretty obvious to anyone watching the show. Then Shinso showed up and mentioned that if he got transferred to the hero course, someone would be replaced and lose their spot, getting moved to general studies. So I thought it was obvious that Shinso would eventually join the hero course and Mineta would be transferred out. Then maybe he would have a side arc where he realized that he was a bad person and didn’t really deserve to be a hero, maybe changing his ways and coming back to help in the final arc. It really disappointed me when I realized the show didn’t seem to have much interest in developing Mineta with an arc of his own and shinso seemed to suffer because of it.

I'm not sure what you're asking about here. It's more like a statement you're throwing in my ask box. A small aside, but I get wanting to develop Mineta because he's such a one note character. However, that could be said of any of the minor characters in 1-A. It's because they aren't the focus of the story. It's annoying, but I'd rather the story focus on what's important.

I half agree with this. I know every single person replaces Shinso with Mineta. It's a super common trope in fanfiction for a reason. Even then, I could think of a few duds that he could replace easily. However, in the story, it doesn't make a lot sense. With Izuku being the lowest in the class and likely losing to Shinso in the Sports Festival in this scenario, he'd be the most likely person to get the axe. Even if that wasn't the case, I doubt they'd just throw him right in. Shinso didn't have a lot of notable expiernece or and was relying far too much on his Quirk. That's fine for some heroes, but not ones with such glaring weaknesses like "Brainwashing". To top it all off, this is all predicated on the idea that he'd just be in the class right away, which isn't supported in the story. It's more then likely that Shinso would still be in General Studies until some later point, or even the second year. It's why he isn't part of 1-A even after the Joint Training.