BNHA And Japanese Law, Aka Why Enji And Hawks Can't Go To Jail

BNHA and Japanese law, aka why Enji and Hawks can't go to jail

I think it’s fair to dislike BNHA ending.

However when I see posts saying they don’t like it because neither Hawks nor Endeavor ended up in jail I think it’s important to remember that, in Japan, when BNHA was written:

Law enforcers can murder escaping criminals provided said criminals were judged dangerous enough (just so you know Japan had been asked to revise its domestic legislation on police use of firearms to ensure it complies with international law because currently it still doesn’t).

Although domestic violence is forbidden by 2001, Japanese law does not provide for domestic violence in terms of prosecutorial considerations. At the time BNHA took place the police wasn’t even obliged to investigate when ‘domestic disputes’ were reported, and the most they would do was offer counseling. The law has been changed in 2024 and things are a little better (even though Japanese law STILL does not provide for domestic violence in terms of prosecutorial considerations police is encouraged to investigate and the court may consider to impose penalties for crimes related to domestic violence aka assault and injury), but Japanese women still complain that, despite the improvements, it’s extremely hard to have their abusers punished.

Parents were banned from physically punishing their children solely in 2019 (BNHA started in 2014, Vol 21 was still printed in 2018, meaning the Todoroki saga was established PRIOR to this) following several fatal cases of abuse dealt out in the name of discipline however Japanese law does not provide for this in terms of prosecutorial considerations. The most that will be done is to take the children away if they fear for their life.

Abusive training (which includes beating, name calling, humiliation, overworking…) is not forbidden (although guidelines recommend not to do it) and, of course, as a consequence, Japanese law does not provide for abusive training in terms of prosecutorial considerations. People are protesting about this (notable protests had been done during the Olympic games) as people had also committed suicide over this. By the end of BNHA as far as I know, nothing was done.

Children of third-year elementary school age and below can be left unsupervised. A 2023 attempt at changing it due to unsupervised children dying was met with severe criticism nationwide so that in the end nothing was done.

Arranged marriages (as in parents picking up a candidate for their child to marry) are legal. The children have however the power to refuse a partner presented to them by the parents. Also, when organizing an arranged marriage it’s fair for both parts to investigate the other party and check if the family doesn’t have undesirable genetic traits (mental illness cases, lack of pure Japanese blood, relations with people belonging to group considered impure) so that the children won’t inherit them.

Now, I oversimplified what are in truth a lot of regulations and rules expressed by the laws and compared Hero training to sport training but, long story short, Enji and Hawks don’t escape jail because they’re rich, because they’re high in ranking, because they have connections or bribed someone. It’s just because law doesn’t consider punishing them and law wouldn’t punish them even if they were commoners like, let’s say, Kotarou or Himiko’s parents.

Also, Horikoshi is basically showing the negative consequences of all the above mentioned points, which can be viewed as a subtle way to criticize such things.

So, again, it’s fine if you hate BNHA ending, but please, don’t think Horikoshi is just letting those guys break law without consequences just because. If they don’t end in jail for such things it’s exactly because people normally don’t do it and that’s why we’ve the League criticizing society for how wrong it is, not just their abusive parents. Society enabled the abuse and you might very well see the League as a representation for the Toyoko Kids and the Jōhatsu.

Also, just in case, I'm not Japanese and just saying Japanese law doesn't think they should be punished, doesn't mean I agree. Just that I don't expect the story would follow my country's law.

If you want to know more about Japanese law please, research about them. It'll give you a better perspective on why some things in BNHA go the way they go.