#mha manga liveblog

[uozlulu]

I want it to be Kurogiri at the end of the chapter. I want to know what happens when Kurogiri and AFOragi are face to face. I've always felt like Kurogiri (and Shirakumo once we learned about him) would be the character to help Shigaraki overcome AFO if that's possible and I want to see it

[thelreads]

OH DAMN I HOPE I'M RIGHT

IT ALL SEEMS TO POINT AT THAT

IT'S THE MOMENT GIRL

TIME TO SEE IF YOU RECOGNIZE THE GUY ON THE TV

...

Dabi, did you had to start it like this? It looks like you're about to make a public apology video

I'm now wondering if you're gonna reveal you're a todoroki or if you're gonna pull an ukulele

[takami-takami]

PICKED UP THIS AT TARGET AND IT BROKE MY FUCKING HEART.

He's so... fucking self-sacrificing. He doesn't value his life or self as much as he does others. How he knows he can't dodge but at least he can help Endeavor.

The last page, especially, is so good. His expression... He looks so fucking scared, so moved by the kids protecting him. Keeping him safe, too. The way he feels so much here, you can practically see his heart skip a beat. :(

[halt-kun]

My Hero Academia Chapter 421 - WE ARE HERE !!

YAYYYYY Kirishima is back into action !!!!!

I love everyone here

I'm so glad they're there for our Izuku

Now please, all listen to me : NOBODY DIES OKAY

OMG

Watashi ga kita !

ALL MIGHT, you did well inspiring so many people

now they'll all save the world

Okay so now he's trying to be all sentimental on us

we don't care my dude, you killed so many people, destroyed so many lives while enjoying it

if you really feel bad about Yoichi, it's just because you lost "your object" and not because you loved him

you spent your life destroying him and never listened to what he had to say

More body horror from AFO's body

really a guy full os hands and fingers and anything really

full of shit too

unlike Sero

OooOOo DOuble Todoroki attack !! I didn't think they had it in them

I swear to god if Bakugou makes a comeback (which would be so good, I'd love to see him end AFO twice) someone needs to do something and help him stop killing his body

So Sero is baby sitting Shouto, that's one of our murder babies, who will be baby sitting Deku and Ochaco ?

Kiri will probably be the one babysitting Katchan if he comes here

Stop trashtalking, Mic is dangerous

and your freaky limbs are probably too

but please

NIIIIICE

TRUE I FORGOT ABOUT THAT

GO DECK HIM DEKU

Aoyama is baby sitting Deku, coooool

and Izuku is nerding about a shirt

LEZGOOOO

Yayyyyyyyy

he runs

and Ochaco's meaning of the Deku kanji has taken form

[uozlulu]

BnHA/MHA chapter 365 reaction and spoilers

I’m curious how Edgeshot got his hero name. Maybe because he can shoot while folded into an edge?

Kind of a shame we aren’t going to see what Midoriya would do if he saw Bakugou dead, but I’m kind of low key living for the idea that Midoriya doesn’t find out Bakugou died for a while and then has a “!!!!! What?!” moment.

Shigaraki says, “My body is searching, groping, for its ideal form,” while he’s also talking about how no one would reach out to him as a child in need. It sounds almost like there’s a part of Shigaraki that still wants someone to reach out, which would also make sense since Tenko still exists deep within him. It’s going to be interesting to see if isolation wins before Midoriya can arrive.

Although there’s still a part of me that wants it to be Kurogiri who arrives, though I know that’s close to an impossibility. I’ve always wanted the villains to rally around Shigaraki at some point in the story, to give him what he seeks from heroes and citizens who don’t wish to understand him. Shirakumo being able to speak even if it was just one word makes me wonder if there is a way to overcome Kurogiri’s programming, whether as Kurogiri or as Shirakumo. I could also see Toga or Spinner reaching out to Shigaraki too depending on how close Horikoshi intends the League to be to each other. Shigaraki’s definitely falling down another psychological well here, and I’m curious what he’s going to find at the bottom if he reaches the bottom.

[uozlulu]

BnHA/MHA chapter 364 reaction and spoilers

I feel kind of like it’s getting difficult to keep track of who is where and what’s going on as we go along here. Luckily the anime will likely eventually cover this part and that will help make hopping around more clear.

 I think it’s interesting that Bakugou is getting a new heart as he himself matures into having a new emotional heart, but at the same time, it seems like a strange plot point. It’ll also be interesting to see if he gains some of Edgeshots’s powers kind of like you can gain people’s allergies during organ transplants.

Also I have a lot of questions about Best Jeanist being a club president when UA has no teams or clubs but they’re both wearing what looks like UA uniforms. Maybe this will make more sense in the anime too or maybe there used to be clubs at least back before Aizawa’s group was at UA

[uozlulu]

BnHA/MHA chapter 380 reaction and spoilers

Love that Gentle’s back on camera. He deserves to have his heroism documented. I also like that the students saw what happened post-hospital battle and decided to document things, because that’s something we need to do in real life too since film is one of our greatest modern day primary source mediums at least until AI improves beyond where it is currently.

There’s something so emotional in Aizaway getting ejected from the flying craft with Yamada following only for Kurogiri (who more like a Shiragiri now for lack of a better term) to say, “I am…pro..tector…” and save them. I’m curious where Aizawa and Yamada got warped to. I doubt it’ll be where AFOraki is right now since Shiragiri has to protect him too.

Love the expression Camie’s glamour gave the Hawks illusion. Also loving how wild and unhinged Inasa looks when he declares he decides how the wind blows.

[uozlulu]

BnHA chapter 373 reaction and spoilers

I really love the chapter cover, how it combines Shirakumo and Kurogiri seamlessly with a slightly unsettling color palette. It’s very quiet but also strangely hopeful.

I like the imagery of All For One’s hand on the ground, both discarded but also resting like an outstretched hand.

Spinner is worried that he’s going to screw this all up while Yamada either wants Shirakumo back or for it all to cease. It looks like, by the end of the chapter, it’s possible that both of them might not get what they want especially when you consider the chapter cover. At the end of the chapter the nomu that is Kuorgiri and Shirakumo looks like neither of them. His eyes glow like the chapter cover and we can start to see a mouth and nose, but the dark mist still remains, perhaps indicating he might be some kind of Shiragiri or Kurokamo for lack of a better name. He calls himself Shigaraki’s protector, and so my hope is here that I’m going to get what I wanted and never thought I’d get: Shirakumo (or some hybrid) wakes up and decides he’s going to protect Shigaraki, which (maybe if I continue to be lucky) will lead to the League or even part of the League saving Shigaraki from AFO. I mean Kurogiri getting captured just before Shigaraki begins his transformation seems too coincidental since turning Shigaraki into AFO’s next vessel seems like the opposite of protecting Shigaraki. Also, if this is where it’s going, I like that it might transform the character into something between a villain and hero, someone willing to do what the heroes and citizens refused when Shigaraki was still Tenko.

[uozlulu]

BnHA/MHA chapter 367 reaction and spoilers

I love the chapter cover. Everyone chilling together – student, hero, and villain having pizza. It’s also nice to see Twice again. I missed him.

Love how Midoriya’s getting a ride on a fighter jet. Not like he can kaiou-ken his way here after all.

I like how there aren’t any words, just the panels following Midoriya’s gaze as he assesses the situation.

I think it’s interesting that when Midoriya snaps, we don’t get the demented hedgehog look but something that looks akin to Kurogiri with glowing eyes.

I like that while Mirio can’t actually do something against AFO, he can help keep Midoriya from losing himself completely, which is what AFO wants. I also like that the focus returns to Shigaraki because I’m also curious how much of him remains inside this AFOraki creature too.

[uozlulu]

BnHA/MHA chapter 363 reaction and spoilers

Jeanist says that Bakugou is indeed dead and I’m inclined to believe this, however, it’s possible that Bakugou might not be dead (why tell an enemy he didn’t finish the job when Bakugou can’t defend himself?) and since Jeanist’s quirk is fiber and the heart is a muscle with fibers, I won’t be surprised if something unexpected happens at some point. I’m good either way because it’d be nice to have some high stakes consequences, but I’ve also read Dragon Ball, which my mind keeps returning to in this arc, so….nobody’s truly dead until they’re buried and even then they might not be truly dead forever.

Love that Fuyumi and Natsuo are with Rei right now. Also love how some of the kids from the provisional license exam are there too even if no one other than those kids know who Five Wienies is.

It’s interesting that AFO seems to rejuvenate his original body because I was almost thinking he was going to take over Shigaraki’s body completely. This leaves me with many questions about how AFO as a quirk works. I still think it’s meant to work in conjunction with OFA though, otherwise why name the quirks after the Musketeer motto?

[uozlulu]

BnHA chapter 362 reaction and spoilers

Great to see Tamaki get a massive hit in even if it doesn’t work.

It’s interesting how in the moment of death, All Might’s OFA visage appears before Bakugou. I don’t know if this is an indication that OFA can do anything about any of this or if it’s just a means for Bakugou’s soul to accept the situation, kind of a play on the theory that each person picks the entity that ferries them in death.

Bakugou does his best but it’s not enough. Jeanist mentions Bakugou’s heart, so I think we’re meant to infer Jeanist can actually see the organ itself possibly or that maybe with his fibers he can detect that Bakugou’s heart stopped.

I have a lot of thoughts on the idea of Bakugou dying for real. I’m going to try to present them in some kind of organized fashion.

Firstly, this makes me think of Dragon Ball because I’ve been saying for a long time now that I want Shigaraki to have a Vegeta kind of ending (AFO gets defeated, Shigaraki ends up in a more positive place away from his abuser and gets to heal, he and Midoriya possibly come to some kind of understanding, etc…), and this set up is looking similar to the battle with Frieza on Namek before Goku can finish healing. There are more comrades involved here, but everyone’s at their limits, AFOraki is still on top, and now Bakugou, like Kuririn, has died before Midoriya, like Goku, can arrive. However, unlike Goku, Midoriya might not be aware of Bakugou’s death until he arrives unless one of the purposes of All Might’s OFA visage was a way for Midoriya to learn Bakugou dies before arriving at the main battle location. I do think it’s possible we’re also heading for a scene where Tenko and Midoriya manage to reach each other much like Vegeta and Goku had a moment before Vegeta died on Namek, but I’m sur ethe circumstances and Tenko’s survival will play out differently in this context. It’ll be interesting to see what happens from this point forward since this is a decided tonal shift in the narrative, which has been avoiding killing off Class A up to this point.

Now, let’s talk about Bakugou’s death itself. I both like it and dislike it equally. When I first found out about it I waffled about if I wanted him to actually die or not, and after reading this chapter I think that I am firmly in the camp of no dragon balls Bakugou’s going to stay dead. That said, there are some pros and cons to this.

Pros:

The students shouldn’t even be here. At lest one of them dying should happen because all of the adults around them have let them down. Even if it’s true that the heroes need the students to help fight this war, this is a consequence of war that is inescapable especially if you’ve got people on the battlefield that have no business being there in the first place. This is also a culmination of mistakes made no just by UA but also the Hero Commission who should never have let the first years get their provisional licenses a year early in the first place.

This happened in front of Aizawa and as much as I love him, ffs, he is the person who could have objected to multiple phases of this and bears a lot of responsibility for how things got to this point. He is not the person who is solely responsible but I like that the first student to die dies in front of him because he needs to be faced with the fact that if he wanted to prevent another Shirakumo, there was more to change than just how students perceive their own lives. That said, I do feel bad for him that it’s come to this and if we delve into his extended reaction it is going to break my heart.

I appreciate that Horikoshi had the balls to kill off one of the fan favorite main recurring Class A students because sometimes when these types of scenes happen it’s one of the second or third tier recurring protagonists who die.

I also like that it was Bakugou because Shigaraki originally kidnapped Bakugou with the intent to save him from the heroes after Bakugou was chained up during the awards ceremony at the sports festival. AFOraki choosing to kill a person Shigaraki wanted to save underscores some of thee difference between Shigaraki and AFO and sets us up for whatever’s going to happen between Tenko and/or Shigaraki and Midoriya later possibly.

I like that we got to see the death happen because one of the things I didn’t like about the previous arc was how there was this page of heroes who died and that was that. Hopefully this bodes well for getting something with more emotional impact instead of speed running. Not that I particular want to see characters die, but if they’re going to die at least give me something emotional to work with, you know?,/li>

Cons:

I don’t like how this cuts off Bakugou’s storyline about him finally getting around to maturing. We never got Midoriya’s perspective on the apology or a scene between them alone after the apology. Not that Bakugou deserves that after how he treated Midoriya, but I think from the audience perspective no matter how such a scene would go, it’d have been nice to see it. That said, maybe we’ll get a flashback to such a scene when Midoriya finds out about Bakugou since we’ve been kind of doing flashbacks for some scenes in other areas of the arc.

If I had to choose between Bakugou and Endeavor for which one should die and which one should live quirkless, I’d have Endeavor die, but I can see how Endeavor surviving unable to use his quirk for whatever reason is also a fitting punishment for his toxic behavior. Also, I acknowledge since Bakugou did identify the problem he was having with Midoriya correctly and apologized correctly, he in some ways has no unfinished business whereas Endeavor is still working on identify the problem he’s having with his family and the solution to it.

I feel like I’m going to have to see this in the anime to understand what exactly went down though the flow of action wasn’t as hard to follow in this chapter as it was in the previous chapter.

All that said, I’m looking forward to seeing how this narrative choice impacts the manga and characters as a whole and how it’ going to change Midoriya most of all.

[uozlulu]

BnHA/MHA chapter 361 reaction and spoilers

Mirio’s comments about friends dislodges something in AFOraki’s structure and causes Tenko to speak. Then AFOraki thinks, ‘This body was complete! A perfect unification of Tomura Shigaraki and me - or so I thought? It seems there's a component that hasn't quite melted...’ which seems to confirm that in the restructure, AFO seems to bet a dominant force since AFOraki refers to Shigaraki being separate from a ‘me,’ which is presumably AFO. It also appears, because AFOraki wants to wrap this up quickly upon realistic there’s a crumb of Tenko that remains that perhaps this could destabilize something about AFO’s takeover of Shigaraki’s body. This also fits with the visual we had several chapters ago of Midoriya wanting to reach out to Tenko in the space where AFO and OFA existing with in the mind (soul?). That said, I’m still hoping for a Dragon Ball kind of conclusion to all this rather than Shigaraki just completely reverts to Tenko. It’d be nice to see Shigaraki get a kind of Vegeta ending where he’s still himself but away from his abuser and off with the League who genuinely like him, perhaps even on some kind of terms with Midoriya by the end of the series.

[uozlulu]

BnHA/MHA chapter 359 reaction and spoilers

I want an anime opening or ending based on this cover spread. So much going on here. It looks so friendly and welcoming.

Love that the business majors are here to film a documentary about the war. Also loving the beehive hairstyle.

”Believe it or not he [Bakugou] really does swat the details!” Kaminari asldfkjasdlfj lol. I mean it’s true, but nice punny word choice there.

I think Bakugou got close range with AFOraki (for lack of a simple way to refer to AFO in control of Shigaraki’s body), because like everyone points out at the start of the chapter, Bakugou has to juggle the heroes and the villains. Also the closer his blast, the more likely to cause organ damage to AFOraki. However, no one really knows what all quirks AFOraki holds and so the price of this game is very steep. It’s also ominous that after disintegrating Bakugou’s right side, AFOraki points out that Bakugou is “closer to Izuku Midoriya than anyone else” while smiling.

Also won’t surprise me if Bakugou loses his hand/arm in this given that it was hidden in the chaapter cover and he reached out to Midoriya with his left hand in that recent volume cover. Losing his right hand and/or arm could represent an even more definitive break with his toxic childhood behavior, a physical atonement even.

Excited to see what the Big Three will do. Definitely more than excited to see them work as a team against a serious threat.

Also excited to see Midoriya likely go into hyper demented hedgehog mode when he finds out about Bakugou, but also worried about that because I think that’s what AFOraki is hoping to achieve.

[uozlulu]

BnHA/MHA chapter 357 reaction and spoilers

It’s interesting that Endeavor’s drawn a bit more like Redestroyo here.

Endeavor says, “My mistakes took form as Touya leading to so many stolen futures. Rage, resentment, and even penance are wound together toward the future, and the future is a path for the young. A path with so many branches choices. That's why I must win, so that when those kids walk that path, my past won't stand in their way. I’ll keep paying my peance! I’ll win today and keep my eyes on Touya! No. I’ll keep raging against myself.” In some ways he’s making progress to correctly identifying the problem he’s having with his family and how to change to fix it, but he’s also not quite there yet. It’s also evident in the visual. When he mentions his kids, the only Todoroki child present in the visual is Shouto. That said, it would be weird if Endeavor actually managed to figure out what his family needs from his is for him to be some kind of present positive productive father, because he’s still kind of slowly gaining proper self-awareness.

I do like the visual of an older Shouto joining his classmates all of them dressed as proper professional heroes. I kind of hope much like I hope we return to the family supper vision Endeavor had ages ago only for Touya to also be at the table, I hope we get to see a similar call back to this future vision towards the end of the story. Even if Midoriya and Todoroki swap positions in the call back since Midoriya is the main character, it’d make for a great final shot. Though, I’d like to see the hero system done away with or perhaps changed completely by the end of the story. (Though I know we might not get that much like how Naruto and Bleach never had a big upheaval of change in their corrupt systems even if the people in charge of the systems did change somewhat by the end of the stories).

It’s fascinating to see AFO make a sacrificial play in his fight against Endeavor for multiple reasons. I always assumed AFO kept his previous body because Shigaraki wasn’t complete and couldn’t handle the full quirk/persona that is AFO, but now I’m curious if it was fully for that reason or as a fail safe like right here to make some kind of kamikaze move. Another fascinating thing is that we don’t really think of AFO as someone who would make such a sacrificial play, but again, he’s still living on within Shigaraki’s body right now, so he can possibly spare the expense. This might also mean that AFO doesn’t need the full AFO quirk to inhabit Shigaraki as well, which also kind of makes sense since AFO can pass various quirks to other people so this sacrificed body could be the equivalent of a backup drive for files no longer desired on a main computer. It’s going to be interesting to see what consequences might come from this act as well, though I’m hoping we’ll get something more than just a page of deaths like some kind of yearbook page of staff photos this time.

[takami-takami]

Tokoyami roping Hawks into his little larping thing is so cute. "My master" hahahaha

[takami-takami]

I am so sick of him.

I'm so sick and tired.

Hawks will see the most serious moment and throw a bird pun in it. I hate him. I hate him and I hate his face.

He thinks he's so slick.