Wasn't the original idea for Midoriya being a gadget user like Batman?
Anyway, I find him using several low tier abilities more interesting.
Wasn't the original idea for Midoriya being a gadget user like Batman?
Anyway, I find him using several low tier abilities more interesting.
Cool chapter, I like Deku´s compromise, he is trying to understand the villains, but if they don´t let him other choise he will still fight them seriously. Also it seems that the OFA´s vestiges can talk with even when Deku is awake, that should be fun.
Wasn't the original idea for Midoriya being a gadget user like Batman?
Anyway, I find him using several low tier abilities more interesting.
It´s a neat callback, makes me wonder what the two quirks left are gonna be, since Hori may follow the tool comparison. The only thing I can imagine is a shooter-like quirk, since it would be a gun or batarang´s equivalent.
I want a Deku and Stain to happen at some time. Kinda like….Deadpool and Cable.
So Deku is now basically Spider-Man.
I'm really interested in knowing how long it's been since Deku left U.A.
I want a Deku and Stain to happen at some time. Kinda like….Deadpool and Cable.
Deku getting another crack at understanding Stain would be interesting to see.
I fail to see how smokescreen will be useful in the future, but I guess it worked here.
Despite all the bad going on, it seems that Deku is still progressing in his training and generally getting better at using his powers. It's weird, because he's still progressing despite the fact that leaving his friends feels like a massive step backwards. Hopefully this comes to a head soon.
I'm really interested in knowing how long it's been since Deku left U.A.
The raid happened somewhere in the last two weeks of March, the new school year starts at April. since Yo an his girlfriend are third years, somewhere between 2-6 weeks. My guess would be 3-4, mid-April now.
Considering that Aizawa, one of the strongest quirk we have seen, requires eye contact, there can be a good numer of uses of Deku's fart powers.
I like that he's started wearing his mask but the 1st villain the encounters already knows who he is and yelled his name for all to hear lmao.
Love Shindo for some reason. Glad he had a serious effect after all.
Gotta say, that falcon punch left a lot to be desired. Expected a lot more impactful knock out. Luffy did the first punch after coming back from time skip a lot better.
The Cabal of 5
https://mangaplus.shueisha.co.jp/viewer/1009090
Love the page with where Midorya is hugging his mom a lot.
Nice that Dr. Mario has found his way into the MHA universe.
We had Dr Todd and Dr Josh already. This was inevitable.
Need a Bowser and Peach as other attending doctors lol.
Speculating other Nintendo cameos is more interesting than watching this team up.
Hey folks, guess what? Boomerang Man.
So All Might is now basically Deku's Alfred?
Satsuki, please.. All fred.
I wonder who made those mid-gauntlet supports. Melissa?
And, yes! Inko finally knows!
I also like the explanation why Deku's arms aren't puddles of mush.
I really liked this chapter, especially the scene with the mother.
Not bad, a little dissapointed that we didn´t get a little more out of Muscular, but then again the guy never was really relevant to begin with. The explanation on Deku´s arms and legs not being dust sounded good to me, his body is not the same it was when fighting Muscular.
On one hand I like how All Might is working as Deku´s alfred, on the other hand I don´t really like Deku teaming up with the top 3, can´t explain why though.
So instead of doing a tiemskip to get to the second half of the series or endgame, we're just going to go… Deku's totally got it now, so lets put him with the three strongest guys, skip developing any of the rest of the cast, and just get this done with?
Why's Horikoshi in such a rush when he had an actual bonafide hit this time around? It's on like, year 8.
I'm getting serious Negima flashbacks.
F E A R O F C A N C E L A T I O N.
Hori really needs therapy for his well being, there's no other explanation for his story rush besides the above and all things point that he not gonna get axed any time soon. His getting almost a movie a year.
Talking about the anime I think cour 1 will be the class fights, hope there enough budget for MVA in 13 episodes.
why would there be a timeskip?
why would there be a timeskip?
Because covering all three years of their education at the pace they covered the first year would take 25 years and that was never going to happen, especially since they're basically all acting like pros already anyway. And there was so much "end of the current status quo everything is different now" after the last arc that for things to have time to shake up, and make any sense at all out of not finishing the big bad off then, you need tiem to pass in series.
So you can shake up the class structure and drop the students that don't cut it and put in some of the others. Or give everyone new redesigns for marketing purposes and refresh things, as most shonen do.
And so Deku can reach his full power without it coming out of basically nowhere.
It feels like we've skipped a year now anyway except its been like a week.
Because covering all three years of their education at the pace they covered the first year would take 25 years and that was never going to happen, especially since they're basically all acting like pros already anyway. And there was so much "end of the current status quo everything is different now" after the last arc that for things to have time to shake up, and make any sense at all out of not finishing the big bad off then, you need tiem to pass in series.
So you can shake up the class structure and drop the students that don't cut it and put in some of the others. Or give everyone new redesigns for marketing purposes and refresh things, as most shonen do.
And so Deku can reach his full power without it coming out of basically nowhere.
It feels like we've skipped a year now anyway except its been like a week.
1- i agree that izuku got too strong too fast esspetially with his new quirks.
2- the shcool part of the series is over, Hori was never going to cover all three years.
3- experiencing things "shaking up" on panel is a more interesting approach for this story, that's the reason for the last arc.
4- a timeskip doesn't make sense narrativly because shigaraki and AfO have no reason not to go after izuku as soon as they can.
@Robby:
So you can shake up the class structure and drop the students that don't cut it and put in some of the others.
why? most of the students are just side characters the story isn't about them.
I mean, I see how you can see these last few chapters as rushing things, but that's assuming that this mission does something to speed up the story at this point. It could easily just fail, and leave us with a new problem to solve after the fact.
4- a timeskip doesn't make sense narrativly because shigaraki and AfO have no reason not to go after izuku as soon as they can.
They built in the fact that he had a flawed power up and it would take time to fix. So just go "it'll take one year before he can move again" and then built in timer, and explanation for why he's not blowing up cities every other day.
why? most of the students are just side characters the story isn't about them.
The side characters are the interesting part of the series. Deku's a meh main protaganist, there's a reason he's often second or third in the popularity polls despite being the lead.
I mean, I see how you can see these last few chapters as rushing things, but that's assuming that this mission does something to speed up the story at this point. It could easily just fail, and leave us with a new problem to solve after the fact.
It blatantly announced this is the final act. I don't expect this mission to mean anything, or for the series to be wrapped soon, the "final arc" was nearly five years in both Naruto and Bleach… but it HAS jumped to endgame, so the time for fun mini-arcs or side stories or character growth has mostly passed.
It also begs the question of what was the point of that nearly 6 month arc of class A versus class B if none of those characters from either class are going to do anything of importance from here on out.
Deku's now being paired with the three strongest, elevated to their playing field, and left the school behind. It's not going to dwell much longer on the stuff that actually made the series good.
It was only a short while ago that Deku had a simple power like black whip go out of control but a few weeks/months later he is alternating between multiples abilities with no issue. I guess talking to the spirits of death people is enough justification for that sudden change.
They built in the fact that he had a flawed power up and it would take time to fix. So just go "it'll take one year before he can move again" and then built in timer, and explanation for why he's not blowing up cities every other day.
so make up an arbitrary excuse for a timeskip that isn't nedded in the first place, why?
The side characters are the interesting part of the series. Deku's a meh main protaganist, there's a reason he's often second or third in the popularity polls despite being the lead.
strong disagree, the interesting part of the series are the villains and the pro heroes and their drama not the students, izuku has more going for him than any of them sans maybe bakugo and todoroki whos main plotlines don't have anything to do with the other students.
So instead of doing a tiemskip to get to the second half of the series or endgame, we're just going to go… Deku's totally got it now, so lets put him with the three strongest guys, skip developing any of the rest of the cast, and just get this done with?
Why's Horikoshi in such a rush when he had an actual bonafide hit this time around? It's on like, year 8.
I'm getting serious Negima flashbacks.
Having an effective timeskip would require consistent, cohesive world building with distinct political, societal or other organizational structures to undergo pronounced change. Barring that, have a well fleshed cast of relatable characters undergoing character arcs that require a long period of transition to pay off. MHA lacks these elements. I guess we could have had a timeskip and done a bunch of redesigns on Deku's class we could have shown off for 2 chapters before throwing them back into the trash but why waste everyone's time pretending that they're not worthless minor characters?
For a series with ACADEMIA in it's title we learned very little about how to become a hero besides fighting/rescue training and applying for bureaucratic licenses.
As I feared, Horikoshi has let the hero/villain stuff overtake everything, as opposed the school stuff which was clever and interesting.
I vaguely remember him saying that he feared/fears that if he focused too much on the school aspect the audience would lose interest, so he tried to balance doing school focus arc, action hero vs villain arc.
For a series with ACADEMIA in it's title we learned very little about how to become a hero besides fighting/rescue training and applying for bureaucratic licenses.
While this is true, honestly Horikoshi straight up sucked at that kind of stuff. Every time they did something along those lines, including the nearly pointless Joint Training arc, it never felt remotely insightful or anything. I always felt that he was visibly struggling to come up with hero training for them to do at school.
I like when the students interact, but not in that context.
Naruto ran into the same problem back in the day. They had exactly one round of actual training before being thrown head first into an S-rank danger mission against Zabuza, and then after the Chunin exams everyone was basically full ledged ninjas and Naruto was the only one we ever saw actually training or developing.
Like I get big casts are hard to balance but you're a weekly series, you have the freedom to actually do so… so why do so many of these shonen make giant classes full of interesting characters and then proceed to ignore all but like three of them, and often abandon original cast members when the author gets bored of them. Not a new problem, YuYuhakusho and Dragonball had this issue too, so its not just the stuff from the last 20 years.
Makes one appreciate One Piece's ridiculous bloat, for all that it slows the story down..
Naruto ran into the same problem back in the day. They had exactly one round of actual training before being thrown head first into an S-rank danger mission against Zabuza, and then after the Chunin exams everyone was basically full ledged ninjas and Naruto was the only one we ever saw actually training or developing.
Like I get big casts are hard to balance but you're a weekly series, you have the freedom to actually do so… so why do so many of these shonen make giant classes full of interesting characters and then proceed to ignore all but like three of them, and often abandon original cast members when the author gets bored of them. Not a new problem, YuYuhakusho and Dragonball had this issue too, so its not just the stuff from the last 20 years.
Makes one appreciate One Piece's ridiculous bloat, for all that it slows the story down..
I might be totally off with this guess but I would say because it was never the authors intention to focus on them in the first place. To me it seems more like creating those characters to fill the world with "content" for the lack of a better word. I can't think of any examples right now but isn't the comic world full of series where you have a little main cast and ever other character in that universe is just a random number in the background both by design any appearance. So creating all those characters with interesting designs, backstories and character quirks just fills the world with more flavour. But it wasn't never meant to go deeper than this shallow first impression in the first place. It's actually us the readers who thought that there would be more to them while there really isn't. Not saying that we are to blame for anything. Just think that this might be a reason why this happens so often.
Yes, obviously any narrative is going to have characters that are more important than others, that's inevitable.
I'm not suggesting that all 20 Class A students and all 20 class B students get the exact same ammount of screen time as Deku and Bakugo. That's silly.
But the specific medium they're in, with weekly chapters and no real end deadline in sight, is the perfect ideal to rotate out that cast, and showcase them one by one, at least a little. Not everyone needs a full blown multi-chapter arc, but give them something. Assassin Classroom managed it pretty well with much of its cast. One Piece somehow juggles hundreds of characters, though at some cost to one on one fights. Negima before its super rushed ending did a fantastic job of showcasing its entire class of 30 characters… where fully 15 or so of them were major players with substantial roles and the other 15 all still got moments, or individual chapters here and there.
I'm not suggesting that Ojiro, the tail guy,and Sato the sugar guy, needs to given a fully developed backstory and 12 unique named moves... but slowly upgrade his outfit in the background the same way Deku's does, and let the anime do filler.
At the very least, keep giving some time to the characters that WERE made prominent at the start. Uraraka, Kirishima, Ida, Asui, Tokoyami, even freaking Mineta awful as he is. They were all given personalities and character arcs and growth to go through, and lots of lots of scenes... and then just phased out.
Naruto introduced a dozen new characters for the chunin exams, and while Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura were the main focuses, we kept seeing Hinata and Neji and Lee and Shikimaru... up until they chased Sasuke and both Neji and Choji and Kiba got huge major defining moments, "died"... and then the series had a timeskip and from that point on those characters that struggled and wanted to grow stronger and had unique power sets... just got completely sidenlined and never did anything of note again.
It just seems a shame. If you're going to filly out a world with secondary and tertiary characters... at least keep showing the secondaries a little.
Poorly developed characters aside, I think in terms of world building, the biggest missed opportunity the series has ever had was how poorly fleshed out the bureaucratic system of this world was and how little it actually connects to the themes of the series. Time and time again, because the plot called for conflict, the Japanese government has shown itself to be inept, incompetent and harmful to the development of hero society. Stain, Gentle, the existence of Tartarus prison and how easily it was overtaken, letting Overhaul get killed/captured, how it's apparently a tradition for UA to get a public hazing as part of their testing, the number of times students almost died during training or training courses got invaded by villains. Also they still haven't found that fucking spy not that Horikoshi even remembers that plot thread lol.
My point is I always had the idea that we were going to have some sort of thematic payoff that hero society is corrupt and Deku needs to fix it. However Deku, the main character never reacts to these outrages or comments on how he wants to become a hero to change society. It feels like it's just stuff that happens and the main character is oblivious to it. It's like Horikoshi is accidentally touching on something brilliant and never capitalizes on it because ultimately these events are just an excuse for conflict and no thought is being put into how it connects to the bigger picture.
Now before anyone says, well Luffy never talks about how he wants to take down the world government for its oppressive ways, well Luffy is not that type of character, he's very simple minded and only thinks about helping the people in trouble in front of him. However by doing so, he's constantly undermining and dismantling those oppressive institutions, because his whole character's ideal is about personal freedom, it conflicts and erodes those political institutions that try to maintain the status quo at the cost of innocent lives.
Deku is supposed to be a thinker, hell even Naruto made a vow to make the ninja world a better place after Zabuza and Haku died(yet ninja are still a thing where children are forced to enlist as soldiers after he became Hokage which is another can of worms). And it's not just Deku, no other character, not All Might, not Gran Torino, not Endeavour, not Aizawa, not anyone acknowledges that hero society is corrupt and needs change, The only ones who make this point…are villains like Stain. And even when they have a point, no character ever thinks to himself that they may have a point.
It's a big missed opportunity because with a little retooling and putting faces behind the incompetent bureaucratic system who are seen making bad choices for selfish and corrupt reasons, you could make a much more interesting, thematically relevant and emotionally resonant series on government institutions being run to the ground by greedy old men only interested in power and money and how new blood needs to be nurtured to purge it and bring about positive change. But sadly Horikoshi lacks the insight, talent or will to turn the series into something other than "look at these cool designs doing cool powers and fighting pew pew" so we get this empty world that lacks identity and life instead.
Like I know there are quite a few people who complain about the world of One Piece has become over-bloated and has let the worldbuilding take over the character growth and fair enough (ideally a balance between the two should be maintained) but I'd take that over this nothing world that looks like it's inhabited by stick people and driven only by plot convenience and not organic developments created by setting up interesting character and world dynamics.
I'm surprised that people are surprised that the power spike is happening when it should be clear a few months ago or when he first had access to black whip
I enjoyed this chapter because I kept my expectations in check, there's no other way things could go except for power spikes because the students pretty much fought the strongest enemies the previous arc which doesn't make sense in terms of progression at all.
How's all those red flags not red flags that any form of realistic power scaling went downhill a long time ago
@TLC:
Poorly developed characters aside, I think in terms of world building, the biggest missed opportunity the series has ever had was how poorly fleshed out the bureaucratic system of this world was and how little it actually connects to the themes of the series. Time and time again, because the plot called for conflict, the Japanese government has shown itself to be inept, incompetent and harmful to the development of hero society. Stain, Gentle, the existence of Tartarus prison and how easily it was overtaken, letting Overhaul get killed/captured, how it's apparently a tradition for UA to get a public hazing as part of their testing, the number of times students almost died during training or training courses got invaded by villains. Also they still haven't found that fucking spy not that Horikoshi even remembers that plot thread lol.
My point is I always had the idea that we were going to have some sort of thematic payoff that hero society is corrupt and Deku needs to fix it. However Deku, the main character never reacts to these outrages or comments on how he wants to become a hero to change society. It feels like it's just stuff that happens and the main character is oblivious to it. It's like Horikoshi is accidentally touching on something brilliant and never capitalizes on it because ultimately these events are just an excuse for conflict and no thought is being put into how it connects to the bigger picture.
Now before anyone says, well Luffy never talks about how he wants to take down the world government for its oppressive ways, well Luffy is not that type of character, he's very simple minded and only thinks about helping the people in trouble in front of him. However by doing so, he's constantly undermining and dismantling those oppressive institutions, because his whole character's ideal is about personal freedom, it conflicts and erodes those political institutions that try to maintain the status quo at the cost of innocent lives.
Deku is supposed to be a thinker, hell even Naruto made a vow to make the ninja world a better place after Zabuza and Haku died(yet ninja are still a thing where children are forced to enlist as soldiers after he became Hokage which is another can of worms). And it's not just Deku, no other character, not All Might, not Gran Torino, not Endeavour, not Aizawa, not anyone acknowledges that hero society is corrupt and needs change, The only ones who make this point…are villains like Stain. And even when they have a point, no character ever thinks to himself that they may have a point.
It's a big missed opportunity because with a little retooling and putting faces behind the incompetent bureaucratic system who are seen making bad choices for selfish and corrupt reasons, you could make a much more interesting, thematically relevant and emotionally resonant series on government institutions being run to the ground by greedy old men only interested in power and money and how new blood needs to be nurtured to purge it and bring about positive change. But sadly Horikoshi lacks the insight, talent or will to turn the series into something other than "look at these cool designs doing cool powers and fighting pew pew" so we get this empty world that lacks identity and life instead.
Like I know there are quite a few people who complain about the world of One Piece has become over-bloated and has let the worldbuilding take over the character growth and fair enough (ideally a balance between the two should be maintained) but I'd take that over this nothing world that looks like it's inhabited by stick people and driven only by plot convenience and not organic developments created by setting up interesting character and world dynamics.
I've been hammering thins since the war arc - which was just the last one but was soo damn long it doesn't look like it - the closest we got was child soldier Hawks doesn't giving two fucks about the Hero commission being butchered. And now Deku wanting to "Talk no Jutju TM" with the villains to try to save them.
I will repost a long ass analysis I found on reddit, but for the sake of brevity by creating the "Idol Hero" model society had to implement a bunch on blind spots without safety net for people to fall, to become criminals and use their quirks in crime thus becoming villains and allowing the Idol Hero society to flourish.
[hide]
Summary
In Conclusion, what is the role of capitalism in My Hero and how does it serve the thematics and narrative and what is the author Kohei Horikoshi trying to say about society? Or more specifically what is he trying to say about capitalistic society or its intersection in heroism?
•The commercialization of heroes has drawn in figures who traditionally would not have the role of a hero
•Media sews social unrest and misinforms the public for the sake of clicks and watch time in the sake of profit and publicity.
•By structuring the ranking system as it is with popularity being a significant variable the neighborhoods who need the most protection(Twices) receive less attention and less heroes while more popular and business healthy areas receive the most heroes(i.e Deku’s).
•Those socially and economically disadvantaged are faced with larger pressures to be driven into crime and are more ripe for exploitation by governments like the commission or other older experienced villains such as the Yakuza and All for One.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XgZKuTLjyn6vxqjGmelovI7qZvFqfGDdRX5KnKov_Vg/edit
it's funny how i have the opposite problem with the worldbuilding than everyone else, i think that MHA society is generally alright and that the villains grievances are dumb
It also begs the question of what was the point of that nearly 6 month arc of class A versus class B if none of those characters from either class are going to do anything of importance from here on out.
Deku's now being paired with the three strongest, elevated to their playing field, and left the school behind. It's not going to dwell much longer on the stuff that actually made the series good.
I'm a bit confused by this statement. It seems as if you're assuming this team up is all that we'll have in the coming storyline, as if more characters can't be introduced later. Members of class A could easily come to play. Between either being upset over Deku leaving, their defeat with Gigantomachia, the death of one of their teachers, or personal storylines in the cases of Todoroki or Tokoyami (who I don't think we've seen speak with Hawks again) their are plenty of reasons for these characters to seek out someone from the main storyline right now, and we've seen that it's in their personality to do so.
Also, a lot of Class A did get screentime and some development in the last arc, so I'm really confused about the complaints here over the last few pages. Maybe it could have been better, but it is happening.
I'm a bit confused by this statement. It seems as if you're assuming this team up is all that we'll have in the coming storyline, as if more characters can't be introduced later.
Deku's been elevated to Goku status, as was inevitable. He's now stronger, faster, smarter, and more important than everyone else by leagues and loaded with plot maguffins for multiple power ups. He's being paired in importance with the very best , and he just super easily handled a guy that gave massive trouble before.
There's still room for others to do things yes, but contributions are going to be lesser from here on out. Unless you're explodey fist murder god or ice Zuko, they're all going to be even more sidelined than they already were. There's not really anything they can add that Deku can't just do solo now. They're gonna be fodder to show how tough the enemies are, at best.
–- Update From New Post Merge ---
I'm surprised that people are surprised that the power spike is happening when it should be clear a few months ago or when he first had access to black whip
Its not surprise, its just dissapointment that its being rushed so much.
People were annoyed when black whip showed up too, because we knew this was exactly where it was going to lead.
No creative power uses from other characters or interesting growth paths, no overcoming all odds in an impossible situation, it's just going to be the big three carrying literally everything still.
But hey, Kurashima stole the thunder from… the one girl, who was she? when they had to get medicine into a giant's mouth so the pattern is well and truly set.
You're either a Saiyan or you're Yamcha, there is no inbetween.
The prison break being rushed and the Shiragaki power crept were all signs of this inevitable speedrun to Sage of six paths Deku saviour of all mankind route.
I mean, the moment he could handle Black whip well after a few uses despite the fact that most quirk users actually need decades of practice to be proficient is a clear sign that this manga is broken.
I guess I made peace with it a long time ago despite bitching and getting bitched on by others in return in this thread when I pointed that this was exactly what was going to happen so it actually felt slower to methan I expected considering it's been a few years since black whip.
Despite all the flashy panels and blamzamwham moments the past few arcs, I was most inspired by the Class vs Class because everyone got to shine and it was actually creative and fun.
I mean, I'm holding out a bit of hope for the other class members to fight random enemy that was never foreshadowed no.3 or to fight a super strong league member in a teamwork setting. That's kind of what I still look forward to as opposed to the shounen cliches this manga has been dishing out.
The prison break being rushed and the Shiragaki power crept were all signs of this inevitable speedrun to Sage of six paths Deku saviour of all mankind route.
I mean, the moment he could handle Black whip well after a few uses despite the fact that most quirk users actually need decades of practice to be proficient is a clear sign that this manga is broken.
Sure man, let's pretend Dragon Ball didn't do that first, the event where the main protagonist masters in a short span of time or even instantly a technique that others needed their whole lives to peform half as well. That ain't no sign of anything, that's just the way most fictional works about superheroes and such tend to operate. It's not just limited to manga and anime.
I mean, I'm holding out a bit of hope for the other class members to fight random enemy that was never foreshadowed no.3 or to fight a super strong league member in a teamwork setting.
Forget it. There ain't one in a million chance every student will get to show off. And is not like there's any need also, there are plenty other ways to portray good character development without having to do it all through fighting.
@TLC:
Poorly developed characters aside, I think in terms of world building, the biggest missed opportunity the series has ever had was how poorly fleshed out the bureaucratic system of this world was and how little it actually connects to the themes of the series. Time and time again, because the plot called for conflict, the Japanese government has shown itself to be inept, incompetent and harmful to the development of hero society. Stain, Gentle, the existence of Tartarus prison and how easily it was overtaken, letting Overhaul get killed/captured, how it's apparently a tradition for UA to get a public hazing as part of their testing, the number of times students almost died during training or training courses got invaded by villains. Also they still haven't found that fucking spy not that Horikoshi even remembers that plot thread lol.
My point is I always had the idea that we were going to have some sort of thematic payoff that hero society is corrupt and Deku needs to fix it. However Deku, the main character never reacts to these outrages or comments on how he wants to become a hero to change society. It feels like it's just stuff that happens and the main character is oblivious to it. It's like Horikoshi is accidentally touching on something brilliant and never capitalizes on it because ultimately these events are just an excuse for conflict and no thought is being put into how it connects to the bigger picture.
Now before anyone says, well Luffy never talks about how he wants to take down the world government for its oppressive ways, well Luffy is not that type of character, he's very simple minded and only thinks about helping the people in trouble in front of him. However by doing so, he's constantly undermining and dismantling those oppressive institutions, because his whole character's ideal is about personal freedom, it conflicts and erodes those political institutions that try to maintain the status quo at the cost of innocent lives.
Deku is supposed to be a thinker, hell even Naruto made a vow to make the ninja world a better place after Zabuza and Haku died(yet ninja are still a thing where children are forced to enlist as soldiers after he became Hokage which is another can of worms). And it's not just Deku, no other character, not All Might, not Gran Torino, not Endeavour, not Aizawa, not anyone acknowledges that hero society is corrupt and needs change, The only ones who make this point…are villains like Stain. And even when they have a point, no character ever thinks to himself that they may have a point.
It's a big missed opportunity because with a little retooling and putting faces behind the incompetent bureaucratic system who are seen making bad choices for selfish and corrupt reasons, you could make a much more interesting, thematically relevant and emotionally resonant series on government institutions being run to the ground by greedy old men only interested in power and money and how new blood needs to be nurtured to purge it and bring about positive change. But sadly Horikoshi lacks the insight, talent or will to turn the series into something other than "look at these cool designs doing cool powers and fighting pew pew" so we get this empty world that lacks identity and life instead.
Like I know there are quite a few people who complain about the world of One Piece has become over-bloated and has let the worldbuilding take over the character growth and fair enough (ideally a balance between the two should be maintained) but I'd take that over this nothing world that looks like it's inhabited by stick people and driven only by plot convenience and not organic developments created by setting up interesting character and world dynamics.
I mean, Hero Society did change.
I don't think it being corrupt was ever an issue, rather that it was bloated, leading to complacency as heroes were just something taken for granted (that was Stain's whole point, not that "the heroes were the true villains", since that would contradict his own views of All Might). And now the people that have bloated it have fucked off.
Corrupt heroes by itself is not a creative, brilliant idea either. It's also a pretty cliche theme.
I also don't like how the government is framed as in the wrong for being bureaucrats, when the only point of their bureaucracy is to make it harder for people who do not fit the mold of public servants to be public servants. This should be a good thing, otherwise you get stuff like the U.S Police, where corruption runs rampant because there's little oversight in hiring processes.
In fact, this argument that the government is being oppressive for keeping Quirks in check reeks of pro-gun arguments, especially when you have the Meta Liberation Army using similar populist rhetoric.
Freedom should only be applied to harmless things like travel, (non-hate) speech, sexual orientation, etc. not potential weapons. And the people who are allowed to have said potential weapons need to be properly trained.
I don't know where you got the idea that I had a problem with quirks being controlled via government mandate. Maybe you got confused because I was bringing up One Piece as an aside into how you properly flesh out your world and characters but it doesn't mean that both stories have to have the exact same themes and storybeats. I think that's a cool idea and I wish it were explored and fleshed out more than the series is actually capable of doing.
My problem is that the institutions in this series keep fucking it up through gross incompetence and corruption. Which would be fine if that were the point and it'd be an interesting angle if the series explored the idea of reforming it through more idealistic progressivism. That's what I assumed it was going to lead to for a while until I realized that the protagonist was never going to acknowledge the failings of his society in a meaningful way (despite originally being part of a group that used to be overlooked by his society, being formerly quirkless, and as such an excellent way to inform his character). It just seemed like a missed opportunity given what I thought were clever hints were just accidental tappings of a genius idea that the author wasn't equipped to handle or explore.
Horikoshi could have taken the worldbuilding in any direction he wanted. Taking down a corrupt hero? I didn't even think of that, that would have been a cool idea to explore bringing conflict to Deku's sense of idealism and adoration of hero society. I guess Endeavour could have filled that bill until Horikoshi threw that idea into the garbage and gave him a total redemption. I mean i guess that's a valid route to go and is challenging in its own ways but it does make the overall story less interesting in the end run in my opinion.
Whatever, I don't care, I just wish Horikoshi would do something, anything interesting with this world he created other than being a backdrop for cool designs and well drawn (albeit badly choreographed) fights and preaching to the choir about how amazing the ideals of heroism are and how that needs to be protected and maintained. You wanna talk about boring and cliched? How boring is it after 300+ chapters, we don't really know anything about who runs this society, what political factions exist, what other various government bodies exist to accommodate a society of super heroes, how do the various factions work and interact with each other in a hero society. Like I know the police exist and they're run by a dog and that's about it, no idea what's in their jurisdiction, their mode of liaison with heroes, whether they're full of quirkless people (because why else would you be a police officer instead of a hero) whether they feel overshadowed and obsolete because of heroes. You may think I'm being pedantic over meaningless trivia, I'm just spitballing ideas here on how to make this series more interesting and fleshing the world out more instead of wasting 4 months on another worthless exam arc where we pretend the side characters are going to do something before we throw them out again so we can focus on how cool Hawks is.
And I dunno, you seem to have a one note idea of the directions Horikoshi could have taken, like it was either one or the other, either total freedom or control instead of exploring a various spectrum of ideas and society structures. Again, really would have liked SOMETHING more interesting than how thicc bunny hero's thighs are (as amazingly thicc as they are).
@TLC:
I don't know where you got the idea that I had a problem with quirks being controlled via government mandate. Maybe you got confused because I was bringing up One Piece as an aside into how you properly flesh out your world and characters but it doesn't mean that both stories have to have the exact same themes and storybeats. I think that's a cool idea and I wish it were explored and fleshed out more than the series is actually capable of doing.
My problem is that the institutions in this series keep fucking it up through gross incompetence and corruption. Which would be fine if that were the point and it'd be an interesting angle if the series explored the idea of reforming it through more idealistic progressivism. That's what I assumed it was going to lead to for a while until I realized that the protagonist was never going to acknowledge the failings of his society in a meaningful way (despite originally being part of a group that used to be overlooked by his society, being formerly quirkless, and as such an excellent way to inform his character). It just seemed like a missed opportunity given what I thought were clever hints were just accidental tappings of a genius idea that the author wasn't equipped to handle or explore.
Horikoshi could have taken the worldbuilding in any direction he wanted. Taking down a corrupt hero? I didn't even think of that, that would have been a cool idea to explore bringing conflict to Deku's sense of idealism and adoration of hero society. I guess Endeavour could have filled that bill until Horikoshi threw that idea into the garbage and gave him a total redemption. I mean i guess that's a valid route to go and is challenging in its own ways but it does make the overall story less interesting in the end run in my opinion.
Whatever, I don't care, I just wish Horikoshi would do something, anything interesting with this world he created other than being a backdrop for cool designs and well drawn (albeit badly choreographed) fights and preaching to the choir about how amazing the ideals of heroism are and how that needs to be protected and maintained. You wanna talk about boring and cliched? How boring is it after 300+ chapters, we don't really know anything about who runs this society, what political factions exist, what other various government bodies exist to accommodate a society of super heroes, how do the various factions work and interact with each other in a hero society. Like I know the police exist and they're run by a dog and that's about it, no idea what's in their jurisdiction, their mode of liaison with heroes, whether they're full of quirkless people (because why else would you be a police officer instead of a hero) whether they feel overshadowed and obsolete because of heroes. You may think I'm being pedantic over meaningless trivia, I'm just spitballing ideas here on how to make this series more interesting and fleshing the world out more instead of wasting 4 months on another worthless exam arc where we pretend the side characters are going to do something before we throw them out again so we can focus on how cool Hawks is.
And I dunno, you seem to have a one note idea of the directions Horikoshi could have taken, like it was either one or the other, either total freedom or control instead of exploring a various spectrum of ideas and society structures. Again, really would have liked SOMETHING more interesting than how thicc bunny hero's thighs are (as amazingly thicc as they are).
I don't particularly care for the people running the government institutions since those are just things you'd expect to be run just like in real life. Like, I don't care who the prime minister of Japan is, since that's probably just a regular ass guy whose face resemble Donkey Kong or something.
It's not like the government is headed by Heroes, so it's not really interesting to follow them that much. This is not like One Piece or Naruto, where the politicians are simultaneously fighters. It's more like Dragon Ball, where the king of the world is some unimportant dog guy.
The interesting part is the Hero agencies and Hero schools because those are unique to the setting, and we mostly know how they are run. Then there's the Hero Safety Commission which oversees Heroes as a whole and support tech companies like Detnerat. Those aspects have been all explored in the series.
In the end, it all boils down to the Heroes, really. They're the people who actually get into the action and influence the people. And we see that villains have similar powers of social influence. You also have villains being created by unique social situations (Toga), or sometimes just mundane stuff (Twice), and it's difficult to pinpoint a originating cause for all this.
Like, was Twice really the fault of corrupt Hero society? Because to me, he was the result of a bunch of things that fall beyond that scope. Same for Toga. It doesn't seem like she can function in a normal society since her psychopathic issues are inherently biological. Only Dabi was truly a victim of direct Super Dickery.
Wasn't Re-destro's character based on a political activist in Japan's history that strongly oppose the politics of the government? And in the same way his entire group opposes the current government?
And that's a pretty huge group we are looking at. Also the governing body in BnHa is not similar to a figurehead in Dragon Ball and is actually closer to the old aged corrupted ninjas back in Hidden Leaf.
Heroes is regulated and no matter how much a saint the heroes think they are, public opinion obviously plays a huge influence and public opinion = government decisions. Past arcs have shown how public reception lead to the government tightening the rope around the heroes.
I don't think the heroes have all that say and are more restricted by the government, mass media and regulations more than we would think.
What's happening right now is rather similar to how the Hidden Leaf village in Naruto has had all sort of fucked ups and darkness but the solution given by the author was to ninja nuke and brute force with Jesus talk as a solution towards it without any concrete detail on how it would work. Rather than addressing the problems he himself brought up, just punch harder and refer to the textbook of shounen cliches of love and peace.
Sure man, let's pretend Dragon Ball didn't do that first, the event where the main protagonist masters in a short span of time or even instantly a technique that others needed their whole lives to peform half as well. That ain't no sign of anything, that's just the way most fictional works about superheroes and such tend to operate. It's not just limited to manga and anime.
Goku took a drastic boost to his physical capabilities that he was well in mastery of. He punches harder and faster, cool and that was build on his base stats.
Deku, on the other hand, now has access to a variety of different powers at what seem to be a intermediate level of mastery.
The narrative have shown and the entire setting takes place in an Academia where roughly more than half of the focus of schooling was to train your quirks so you can become a better hero. It's literally in the title.
Urakara can barely stay afloat for extended periods without feeling nauseous and had to train after hours just to extend her timing despite having that ability since young but now we have Deku who can pretty much soar up, take down ten guys, and blitz through buildings without a symptom of that same dizziness.
With Goku, he's not able to suddenly freeze people to death or stop time or create spider webs, he just punches and shoot stronger beams.
If we are pegging current shounen writing to a troupe that has been beaten half to death as our current standards then i'm really not sure why I am having this argument because expectations are so low who the heck cares anyway.
Also by the way, Deku was literally budget Goku. Like his powerups were pretty much: flick finger harder, punch harder, use your legs, kick harder, punch alot harder.
So it was a dry well in terms of creativity from the get go but because it was cool so that was somehow good writing.
Forget it. There ain't one in a million chance every student will get to show off. And is not like there's any need also, there are plenty other ways to portray good character development without having to do it all through fighting.
I'm genuinely curious how do you portray good character development without the heroes doing what they spend the entire series doing: hero-ing.
Like, I'm not even saying each and everyone of them needs to get the spotlight but here you are zooming in on me like I just pointed out I wanted a fight scene for every single one.
How…
How is there not any need?
Is this not my hero ACADEMIA? Am I stupid for wanting progression for the rest of the characters?
I'm not sure whether you wrote this because you genuinely think that is a better approach to throw away more than half the cast in favour of flashy over the top fight scenes and because you think every manga end game should be a dragon ball z fight to death.