@kevo_koma
It would be a great narrative service have "the greatest hero" end up using "the most destructive quirk" for good. You know, helping fight quirk prejudices.
But O Seven ghosts forbid we have something good out of lore plots.
@kevo_koma
It would be a great narrative service have "the greatest hero" end up using "the most destructive quirk" for good. You know, helping fight quirk prejudices.
But O Seven ghosts forbid we have something good out of lore plots.
This is getting confusing. I mean, it already was, but it's not getting any better.
A lot of flashback panels. Makes me wonder if Horikoshi's using them as a crutch because he's not at 100%.
Overall, it sucks that I don't care about this fight as much as I think I should.
@Satsuki
Young boy gives homeless schizo quirk adis. And he will do it again.
@Nectar said in My Hero Academia II - A true Hero:
A lot of flashback panels. Makes me wonder if Horikoshi's using them as a crutch because he's not at 100%.
Probably, the chapter wasn't released last week do to a correction that didn't make in time for the printers.
Not sure what Eri's gonna do. Heck, how is she even gonna get there?
Maybe she'll magically restore All Might to his prime and he'll regain OfA?
(Unlikely, I just wanna see Buff Toshinori again)
@Nectar
I wanna joke about a second run of the trademark lol backpack from the yakuza arc to heal Deku, but it's more likely that she will deage a depowered Shigaraki.
She did nothing.
https://mangaplus.shueisha.co.jp/viewer/1020081
Aww, Kaminari :(
I really liked that human moment.
Thank goodness Eri didn't somehow end up at the battlefield. Would've made no sense.
This was a good character driven chapter. Special shout-out to Ectoplasm for looking after Eri. Looks like Deku breached the barrier, but does he still have OFA?
I really liked this chapter, especially Nana's reaction to seeing what her son became without her. And, yes. The art was on point.
All that said, I'm nervous if Horikoshi can stick the landing. I wasn't keen on Toga dying nor the black and white message from Spinner's final battle basically saying Don't Fight Your Oppressors (Although, maybe I'm remembering it wrong.). I feel Horikoshi is maybe going too deep into the emotional trauma weeds without the experience to give a satisfying conclusion that isn't a mostly surface level moral without depth.
@Nectar said in My Hero Academia II - A true Hero:
All that said, I'm nervous if Horikoshi can stick the landing.
Probably can't
@Nectar said in My Hero Academia II - A true Hero:
I wasn't keen on Toga dying nor the black and white message from Spinner's final battle basically saying Don't Fight Your Oppressors
The message was exactly that.
@Nectar said in My Hero Academia II - A true Hero:
mostly surface level moral without depth
It will probably be, he tried to give the villains depth but without properly given heroes nuance, if you commit a crime anything is fair game for the heroes.
The loss of a dog can turn ANYONE into a psycho villain. It definitely could me.
@Nectar said in My Hero Academia II - A true Hero:
I really liked this chapter, especially Nana's reaction to seeing what her son became without her. And, yes. The art was on point.
All that said, I'm nervous if Horikoshi can stick the landing. I wasn't keen on Toga dying nor the black and white message from Spinner's final battle basically saying Don't Fight Your Oppressors (Although, maybe I'm remembering it wrong.). I feel Horikoshi is maybe going too deep into the emotional trauma weeds without the experience to give a satisfying conclusion that isn't a mostly surface level moral without depth.
On the Spinner thing I think the message is meant to be that violence just leads to more violence, and just because some people oppressed you doesn't mean everyone did. Their hatred was justified but their plan was to attack a hospital full of innocent people who did nothing wrong to them and it fell apart once the mob realised that it was pointless violence, spurred on by a handful of individuals with worse intentions. It was less about not fighting your oppressors and more about not blaming the majority for the minority (esepcailly when it comes to issues like racism).
We'll see how Horikoshi handles this but its clear this was the intent from the start with these characters. With how far gone Shigaraki was, a talk-no-jutsu on the level of Naruto and Pain would absolutley not work. Deku needs to get down into the root problem of Shigaraki's hatred and make an attempt at coxing him out of it. All the pieces are there but it will come down to how well thought out Horikoshi has done this.
@black-leg-jex said in My Hero Academia II - A true Hero:
It was less about not fighting your oppressors and more about not blaming the majority for the minority (esepcailly when it comes to issues like racism).
No no no, while your point of the plan be raid the hospital to free a guy in the name of the LoV is valid, and a interpretation of things. Regardless of what Hori wanted the message left was don't fight the oppressor, just chin up and fit society even if said society hates you.
The issue of racism is that it doesn't exist in a vacuum, racism is a social construct and only exist because society permits (highly recommend
'The Racial Contract' by Charles W. Mills on the irl application of what I just wrote).
An individual person can expose prejudices and bigotries but by themselves they don't have the power to oppress or harass individuals without punishment (or fear of it) with out complacence of it's peers and unspoken agreement from societal institutions (cops, judges, politicians, employers,etc).
It's not enough not being racist, one must be anti-racist.
The surrealistic art this chapter was awesome. Redestro's nose turning into Overhaul was particularly inspired lol
@pariston_hill said in My Hero Academia II - A true Hero:
@black-leg-jex said in My Hero Academia II - A true Hero:
It was less about not fighting your oppressors and more about not blaming the majority for the minority (esepcailly when it comes to issues like racism).
No no no, while your point of the plan be raid the hospital to free a guy in the name of the LoV is valid, and a interpretation of things. Regardless of what Hori wanted the message left was don't fight the oppressor, just chin up and fit society even if said society hates you.
The issue of racism is that it doesn't exist in a vacuum, racism is a social construct and only exist because society permits (highly recommend
'The Racial Contract' by Charles W. Mills on the irl application of what I just wrote).An individual person can expose prejudices and bigotries but by themselves they don't have the power to oppress or harass individuals without punishment (or fear of it) with out complacence of it's peers and unspoken agreement from societal institutions (cops, judges, politicians, employers,etc).
It's not enough not being racist, one must be anti-racist.
Of course, and MHA didn't go that deep into the issue like it could have (which is defo a problem of the series not spending the time to really set-up this plot point or give Spinner as much attention as it should have).
But I think having the message you took away be that you shouldn't fight your oppressors and just take it on the chin is an incredibly negative reading of the events. Given that what stopped the angry crowd in the end was seeing all the hospital staff united to protect the sick, and the hospital staff was made up of all kinds of people working together regardless of how they looked, I'm pretty sure the takeaway we are meant to have is that this angry mob was taking their anger out on the wrong people. They were lashing out at everyone and that included innocent people who were very clearly not racists, and it was that group that were going to suffer the most. Their anger was justifed but it was misplaced.
@black-leg-jex
Having a positive reading of how much butchered the heteromorph racism plot was is the weird thing.
And again you're conflating things, the hospital situation ending with a positive spin (people realizing that raiding the hospital was bad) does not mean the issue was resolved with a positive one. Nothing was done or proposed to change the situation of heteromorphs asides from what amounts to a undergade cop with powers giving a speech about one must appeal to the morals of it's oppressor to achieve liberation (or you wouldn't be bullied if you weren't a weirdo, so accept it and hold no grudges).
@pariston_hill said in My Hero Academia II - A true Hero:
@black-leg-jex
Having a positive reading of how much butchered the heteromorph racism plot was is the weird thing.And again you're conflating things, the hospital situation ending with a positive spin (people realizing that raiding the hospital was bad) does not mean the issue was resolved with a positive one. Nothing was done or proposed to change the situation of heteromorphs asides from what amounts to a undergade cop with powers giving a speech about one must appeal to the morals of it's oppressor to achieve liberation (or you wouldn't be bullied if you weren't a weirdo, so accept it and hold no grudges).
I'm sorry but this is the worst reading you could've possibly taken from this moment. I just went back to reread this section of the story just to make sure I had remembered it right and see where you came to your conclusion, but to do so you took literally one line said in chapter 373 and ignored literally everything else that happened in this part of the story.
For starters, I never said the issue was resolved entirely. Your putting words in my mouth. The issue isn't resolved until the arc is over and we see the fallout from this. But Tenta's entire speech in this arc is literally about how hard it is to be the bigger person when your on the side of the ones being oppressed, and how the easy option would just be to give into the hatred and lash out and everyone around you. But blindly fighting back and attacking anyone will only make things worse in the long run. He even says that the anger these people feel isn't wrong but the people who casued that anger haven't been dragged into the light.
The message Horikoshi is trying to get across, imo, is that those who are on the receiving end of racism have every right to be angry but using violence as a means of fighting back is only going to lead to more stigma - especially when that violence is directed at people who had nothing to do with the situation and may in fact be allies. Instead, people are better off trying to tackle racism by showing that they aren't what people claim they are (in the specific context of this story, by showing that they are human on the inside even if they look different on the outside).
Now, the message is a bit clunky and it's certainly one of those 'it makes sense in theory' type of messages but we haven't seen the end result of this. Who knows how Horikoshi will chose to show the result of this in the epilogue, if he will at all. But claiming the message is that your only option is to appeal to the moral of the oppressor is a very bad reading of the story, and trying to say it's that they should accept it and hold no grudges is actively incorrect, given that they are told they aren't wrong for holding the grudges, they should just only be holding grudges against those who wronged them.
@black-leg-jex
First off I don't think I claimed or said you did the situation was overall closed.
I think the fundamental problem we are having - you and me - is that I forget that my interlocutors are USians and Europeans and thus put faith in liberal politics.
The message that you can only hold grudges against the racist person and not the society that breeds racism is fundamentally flawed, is trying to heal a stab wound with the knife still 9in deep. It's not for the allies or anyone else to say how the oppressed must protest or act or be made heard. It's for them to do.
What Hori does is acknowledge the reason but condem the action, which end up holding the position in story of - and implying that it's his view:
"...moderate who is more devoted to 'order' than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice."
Having said that, the story puts that the heteromorphs were manipulated and goaded to the hospital raid to free Kurogiri. And I agree with that. But having them to do something to force society do deal with it's racism is positive.
On your bit of using violence to fight back circles back to: 1) the negative peace; 2) that response of the oppressed is equal to the violence of the oppressor (which is not); 3) that by condemning the methods of liberation of the oppressed you fall into a taint validation of the racist perspective ("You see, these [slur] can't protest like civilized people like you and me").
The above paragraph of mine touches more on doyelist analysis of the situation, but are points that can be made in wattsonian way into the narrative.
I personally think the message of "be the bigger person" by: not exploring the topic sooner and better, having the oppressed manifest themselves while being used as fodder by the villains (which sure could be used by in universe racists), putting the two most hetetomorph students to be the ones passing a message along the lines of: "I agree with out anger, but the shooting starts when the looting starts". Shouji and RockHead are heroes, they are enforcers of the law, upholders of the status quo having then proselytize and not the people reach the be a bigger person by their actions make their words sounds hollow and fake.
And I think Hori fumbles even more to place the discrimination boundary into urban-rural axis by having the only Shouji and Spinner being and only been show to experience discrimination in their rural backgrounds. (Well there's Todoroki calling the police chief a mutt but that's a whole other can of worms).
Armless
https://mangaplus.shueisha.co.jp/viewer/1020706
AND. ONCE AGAIN. CHOOSE. THE. WORST. POSSIBLE. WAY.
Thank you Hori, I haven't seen so much squandered potential in a series like in yours.
I guess Horikoshi will now explain AFO's unexplained cameo in Tenko's flashback. Looks like it's all going come down to Blame All For One.
But, I will say I do find seeing a few people actually root for Shigaraki interesting. I wonder where Horikoshi's going with that?
@Nectar said in My Hero Academia II - A true Hero:
Looks like it's all going come down to Blame All For One.
Shigaraki just got:
The dignity to be Deku's foil? Denied.
The dignity of being it's own character? Denied.
The dignity of having agency for his actions? Denied, mostly.
ALL FOR ONE CHEAP GOLDEN AGE LIKE VILLAIN.
What, like this is a surprise? Shiggy's been wrestling for control with AFO for like 100 chapters now, and we also know AFO was suspiciously close after Tenko's formative event. I know we're all a bit exhausted with AFO but this makes a good deal of narrative and thematic sense.
And AFO's "no choice has ever been your own" is already disproven in this very chapter with Shigaraki's feelings of responsibility and friendship towards his fellow LoV-ers. Shigaraki might be antisocial and reclusive but he still wants to stand up for his found family and others like him. AFO sure didn't teach that.
The fucker just won't die.
AFO's a regular Palpatine.
@Satsuki said in My Hero Academia II - A true Hero:
The fucker just won't die.
Hey he loves young people.
Probably the last popularity poll
Btw spoilers out. All is leading me to be Hori's strongest hater.
It's almost as if Bakugo is actually interesting and Deku has the personality of cardboard.
9 popularity polls in 400 chapters. Wow.
Naruto had 7 in 700 chapters.
Bleach had 5 in also nearly 700 chapters (there were other random polls like "favorite Zanpakutou", but only 5 character polls).
One Piece so far had 7 in over 1100 chapters.
@access-timeco said in My Hero Academia II - A true Hero:
9 popularity polls in 400 chapters. Wow.
Yeah, I think we decided around the sixth popularity poll that this was a sign the man was desperate for approval and was just going to mold his story around whoever was popular,,, and you see that constant shift.
Like how Froppy got extra focus early on, and even expanded dedicated filler episodes in the anime in the first season because she got memed at the start and was in the top ten for the first two polls, and then fell off hard to forgotten background extra after she slid into the mid twenties in the third poll, to the point she was one of the characters that wasn't even in the first movie except for one scene.
Any chance to have Miyake Kenta chewing the scenery is a great benefit to the world.
Apparently dragon ball only had 2 popularity polls? And the first was around the cell game.
I would have expected at least one from the kid goku era. Are character popularity polls for jump series a recent thing?
Arm prophecy fulfilled
https://mangaplus.shueisha.co.jp/viewer/1020754
This has to be one of the worst chapters I've read in recent memory.
OFA's dialogue. The mouth hand appearing just in time to "silence" him. The trio of forgettable characters from 1-A randomly getting their shining moment. And to top it all off, the cliffhanger teasing that Eraserhead is coming with Eri to bullshit Curaga++ Deku into his Prime.
If it's true that BNHA only has 3-4 chapters left I can't WAIT to see how this continues. Most I've been interested in the manga since the Star and Stripes battle.
Who says it has 3-4 chapters left? It seems likely that we'll flashback next chapter to show what happened between Eraserhead and Kurogiri. I doubt we can do that and the rest of the fight and the epilogue in 3-4 chapters.
Also super happy to see the final three members of class 1-A show up. There were doubters here but Hirokoshi is managing to give each of the students their moment and something to do in this final arc.
As for the AFO-twist I have mixed feelings. I think him revealing that he was nurturing Shigaraki to be his successor long-before they properly met is fine, but I'm not a big fan of him purposefully giving him the worst quirk. I kinda of wish he picked Shigaraki because he had a qurik that would make him a villain, rather than just because his Dad was an abusive asshole.
Mixed feelings on the chapter.
On one hand, love that this is how the last three class members were used. Perfectly suits the themes of the manga and I'm always happy when the side cast gets to land a few punches on the final villain. Shigaraki's quirk originating from Overhaul is also a nice touch, Horikoshi has been planning this one for a while.
On the other hand, All for One being behind everything takes away the weight of Deku saving Shigaraki, and by extension the theme of reaching out to people, no matter how far gone. All for One already had a satisfying conclusion. There was no need to bring him back, Shigaraki is a far better final boss. He's got the personal connection to Deku that All for One lacks.
I didn't even realise that he got the quirk from Overhaul! That makes me wonder if Overhaul has some kind of role to play still? He's still around, even if he is armless and crazy.
I get why Hirokoshi would want AFO as the final boss still. It was carthatic seeing him get his shit kicked in by Bakugo and this way there is a big bad for Hirokoshi to pull an Endgame scenario with, where Kurogiri uses his powers to summon every active hero who can still fight into the scene and just dogpile AFO like he's Thanos, at least while Eri is being used to restore Deku's arms (which btw, has Deku lost OFA now? After all he purposely gave it to Shigaraki). And this also allows Shigaraki to get his own revenge on AFO. I think Deku managing to save Shigaraki's soul somehow and then Shigaraki killing AFO (and himself in the process because they share a body) would be the best way for them both to go out. Deku can't physically save Shigaraki but he can at least save his soul, if that makes sense.
@black-leg-jex said in My Hero Academia II - A true Hero:
bad for Hirokoshi to pull an Endgame scenario with, where Kurogiri uses his powers to summon every active hero who can still fight into the scene and just dogpile AFO like he's Thanos
Jesus Christ Jack, that's terrible.
One the quirk thing I have the opposite reaction, Shigi wasn't even given the dignity to be molded because he had a powerful quirk. He was given scraps of Overhaul.
Shigi was built up as a character and than completely destroyed as a character solely for reach a conclusion of...I dunno "it's like pottery, it rhymes" with all for one and one for all.
Yeah, a reveal like this really doesn't work for a character arc that you've had in the oven for a decade. This chapter just doesn't work.
@Goukan said in My Hero Academia II - A true Hero:
OFA's dialogue. The mouth hand appearing just in time to "silence" him.
If I understood it correctly, Tenko's "lingering note" was the "AAAAAAA" sound reverberating behind AFO's voice, so he (AFO) made the hand covering his mouth to shut it. The "Be silent" was said by AFO.
@black-leg-jex said in My Hero Academia II - A true Hero:
I didn't even realise that he got the quirk from Overhaul!
Hopefully that won't mean Shigaraki will be able to redo Deku's arms once he can access the "erased" part of the quirk...
@access-timeco said in My Hero Academia II - A true Hero:
@Goukan said in My Hero Academia II - A true Hero:
OFA's dialogue. The mouth hand appearing just in time to "silence" him.
If I understood it correctly, Tenko's "lingering note" was the "AAAAAAA" sound reverberating behind AFO's voice, so he (AFO) made the hand covering his mouth to shut it. The "Be silent" was said by AFO.
Oh no yeah I definitely understood it as you've just said. I just feel that AFO summoning one of Shigaraki's signature hands onto himself to "silence" what little remains of him isn't what I would exactly call compelling writing.
I also didn't realize the kid in the facility was Overhaul. Interesting.
Still, it's a shame Shigaraki got done so dirty. I'm sure he's come back to be the final nail in AFO's coffin but I was following his story along with Deku. They, I feel, are the main characters of the series. I wanted both of them to achieve glory, proving they're both the greatest hero and villain respectively. A shame.
I wonder if Eri has enough power to reverse Deku's injuries and (I assume) rewind him to where he has OFA again? They made a point to say a few chapters ago she wasn't at full power.
Do it, Horikoshi! Have your Endgame moment! Just make sure you throw in Skycrawler.