I love analizing fictional characters, and so that is what I'll be doing. (Banner by @paperkatzstuff)
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(Spoiler warning for My Hero Academia!!)
Himiko Toga and Ochako Uraraka obviously parallel one another quite a bit; for example, their appearance and color schemes. But there is a specific way in which they parallel each other that isn't as obvious: their quirk awakenings. Both characters' quirk awakenings happened in relation to the love they have for each other.
Himiko Toga's quirk awakening happened in season five, episode twenty one. This is the very first episode that we learn something from Toga's past. In this episode, Toga uses her quirk, Transform, to become Ochako Uraraka with the little bit of blood she had stolen from her. While she was transformed into her, she accidentally used Uraraka's quirk, Zero Gravity. Of course this was the first time she had ever used someone else's quirk, so she was confused for a while. She eventually realized that this was part of her own ever-growing power ("I want to become more... like those I love!") Episode: Revival Party.
Ochako Uraraka's quirk awakening happened in the episode "A Girl's Ego". Her quirk awakening was the realization that her Zero Gravity was able to spread like a chain. She was in the middle of telling Himiko Toga that she wanted to have their long-awaited "girl talk" when she made this discovery. ("Because I still want to talk about love with you, Himiko!") Episode: A Girl's Ego.
These kinds of parallels really show how Himiko and Ochako truly are two sides of the same coin, and that's why they can understand one another so entirely.
In Indigo Park, every mascot’s name starts with the same letter as their animal:
Rambley=Raccoon
Mollie=Macaw
Salem=Skunk
Lloyd=Lion
But Finley is just “sea serpent”. First of all, that’s the only creature that doesn’t exist irl. Second, the first letter of his name doesn’t match his animal.
I think that Finley is definitely a fish, and originally he was just called “Finley the fish”. But then SOMETHING happened to all the animals, and then Finley just didn’t look like a fish anymore. This is why he isn’t a real animal.
VERY sad lesbians, because I can.
I made this a few weeks ago, but I hadn’t posted it here yet, so have some J angst.
we used to laugh as though we both were little kids
well at least you loved me when you did
I can't believe togachako are legitimately centers of the final war...the power of yuri is so real...
(Spoilers for episode seven and eight of Murder Drones!!!!!!!!!)
J's relationship with Tessa is apparently clear in episode five. You can easily see that the two are very close, and even are best friends. "There's humans coming, and I've only ever yakked to robots, J!" (Episode: Home) In episode five, there is also a scene that shows how much they care about one another: Tessa and J clinked their glasses, and Tessa who was reminded of the noise of chains locking her up, rubbed her own wrist and winced in pain. J looked at her with concern and sadness, so Tessa assured her that she was alright.
As we can see just from these two examples, J and Tessa definitely care for each other quite a bit. As we know, Cyn killed Tessa and wore her skin. It could easily be assumed that anything Cyn would do has a purpose and would benefit her in some way, but this just doesn't make sense, as it doesn't do her any favors. With this thought process, it's obvious to come to the conclusion that she didn't have a reason; she just wanted to because she's sadistic, and she particularly wanted to disturb J, specifically (yes, I know that sentence is redundant). Because J was so close to Tessa, and likely was forced to watch Tessa die at the hands of Cyn, she was very disconcerted by Cyn wearing Tessa's skin and even mimicking her voice, so it was easy for Cyn to manipulate her. "If I promise you anything, it tricked me, too." (Episode: The Absolute End)
If you were to ask yourself what you would do in J's situation, I'm sure that you would want to think logically. What do you do if somebody who you've never liked in the first place kills your best friend, wore their skin, mimicked their voice, and tried to act like them? On top of that, this person is super powerful and would be nearly impossible to defeat. Now, they are telling you that they won't hurt you if you do something for them. Anybody would take the deal at this point, so that's what J did. In an already distressed state, J realized that there was basically no way that Cyn would ever lose, so theoretically, it would be the safest option to do what she wants. "I promise, it's better on the winning team as a team." (Episode: The Absolute End)
After J had teamed up with Cyn, she also got V in on it, too. "You said we do our jobs, and that thing leaves us alone!" (Episode: The Absolute End) Both J and V kept the secret from N, and this is implied to be part of their deal with Cyn. This is particularly shown in episode eight after V tries to tell N about how the "Tessa" that they know is actually Cyn, and then Cyn says to her, "Do your job, and I leave you and N alone. Right, V?" (Episode: The Absolute End). Since we know that J and V both had made a deal with Cyn, we can infer that they had always known since the beginning, and have been being manipulated by Cyn in real time during the time of the show. Of course the way that V was manipulated by Cyn is heartbreaking as well (and I will make a post about her in the future 😉), the way that J was manipulated is horrifying. You may have seen memes online about J being William Afton from FNAF, because every time we think she dies she tends to come back eventually. But the truth is that it was very intentional of Cyn to make J basically immortal, because in that case J would never be capable of rebelling against her. If she rebelled, Cyn could torture her and or simply kill her and bring her back with all the memories. J couldn't take her own life because Cyn would bring her back. Because J thought that There was no way to beat Cyn, she figured that getting on her good side was the safest often. She just thought that there was literally no way that she could go against Cyn without being tortured forever.
"You know there's no escape, even in death!" (Episode: The Absolute End)
(This is just a theory of mine, but I find it likely that the reason that J would call Cyn "Boss" just like she called Tessa "Boss", is so she could try to familiarize Cyn and make her seem more like Tessa in order to make the situation feel better. But that's JUST A THEORY-- A GAAMMMMEE THEORY)
"if i were still alive, do you think we could have been friends?"
speedpaint under the cut!
Himiko Toga has always loved a lot, and because of her quirk, Transform, she would express her love by drinking blood. When she drank a dying sparrow’s blood and happily showed her parents, they pressured her into suppressing her quirk, and by extension, her love, “I fall in love too easily. With animals, with villains, heroes too, boys, girls, anything alive. Because they all have such lovely blood flowing through them.” (Episode: A Girl’s Ego).
Since she wasn’t going to drink blood to show her love anymore, she started envying others, instead. She envied their quirk, their smile, their relationships, and more, “Everyone told me I shouldn’t smile, and it made me so envious” (Episode: A Girl’s Ego). A prominent example of her envy is with Izuku Midoria. She is constantly asking for his blood, and saying that it’s because she utterly and truly loves him. While this is true, she is intentionally ignoring the reason why she loves him so much, that being how she would rather be him than be herself.
The one character that she loves purely at this point in the show is Twice. But when Twice gets killed by Hawks, she ends up switching from using her powers because of envy, to using her powers because of hatred. She does so by turning into Twice and making clones of herself in order to get revenge on Hawks, along with other heroes. “Die, heroes!” (Episode: A Girl’s Ego).
Himiko Toga has now gone through three stages. Love, envy, and hatred in that order exactly. In the episode A Girl’s Ego, Ochako Uraraka manages to get Toga from hatred back to her final and first stage, love. Ochako Uraraka is the one who ends up fighting Himiko Toga, but instead of harming her, she just tries to talk. This doesn’t work, however, because Himiko Toga is way too blinded by hatred to cooperate, “I’ll make you stop talking, Ochako Uraraka!” (Episode: A Girl’s Ego). Eventually, Uraraka manages to get Toga to go back to Envy, “You seem normal because you played by the rules! You have no idea what an easy life you had!” (Episode: A Girl’s Ego). Now that Toga had went back to the stage of envy, it was easier for Uraraka to get her back to the stage of love. “Ochako, am I cute?” “The cutest in the world” (Episode: A Girl’s Ego).
Himiko Toga never stopped loving. All she needed was understanding, and that was enough to clearly see how she drank blood out of malice. It was always pure love and affection. Now that she had someone who loved her for who she was, she decided to save Ochako’s life at the expense of her own. “Thank you, Ochako. You made me so happy. Genuinely, truly happy” (Episode: A Battle Without a Quirk). In this heartbreaking scene, Himiko is shown, alive, holding a sparrow that looks exactly like the one she had drank the blood from in her past. But this one looks up at her and flies away as Himiko smiles at it. Though it’s true that she had started and ended her life loving how she wanted to, the first sparrow was dead, symbolic of how back then, Toga only knew how to take. But now that she had met Uraraka, the sparrow was alive because she knew a way to love that now benefits everybody.
“If only I had understood then. If I’d had experienced this kind of love before, maybe I would have wanted to give people blood just as much as I wanted to drink their’s. And then maybe the world would have been an easier place for me to live in.”
I’m confused… who’s Rem?
Going back to the Rem Infodump, well- this is part of the reason I think Rem's definitely not stopping her character development. From the beginning, we get the message from this story that self sacrifice without any reward is not something someone should be satisfied with.
And this is extremely interesting because of what we learn later on- that despite all the physical pain, Ram was relieved that her horn broke. She didn't regret it, and only Rem was hurt by it emotionally.
I wonder if she ever properly talked to Rem about it? I wonder if she knew how to do that. I wonder if Rem ever knew how it felt to hold the pressure the clan was putting on her sister...
Ram's only guilt here comes from how it hurt Rem.
And then Ram asks Subaru who he'd prefer to be friends with, and I realized something pretty interesting.
These describe each of the twins, but they also describe Subaru himself. Both, together. Those two things add up to a large part of his internal conflict, and are made difficult by the fact that they contrast each other so much.
Because Subaru cannot just save everyone easily, because he's just a normal kid who was thrown into situations far beyond his abilities, he has to learn to love himself while dealing with both of these issues simultaneously. Letting go of one of these flaws (as he sees it) means completely and shamelessly embracing the other. If he refuses help, the only way he can be strong is to sacrifice himself. If he prioritizes himself, then he'll only ever be able to take from those he cares about.
I love how the story doesn't give him the option to become stronger, either. Like- he has Guiltywhip, he has Beatrice, he has Witch Authorities, but he's not the Isekai Protagonist he'd hoped he could be. He can't be Reinhardt (though... I don't know if he would want to be. That comes with its own rabbit hole, doesn't it?).
Rem and Ram each are like two mirrors of different parts of him, and they each have dynamics with each other that play on these connections.
Rem and Ram each embody different parts of the message of Re:Zero and I think that is so cool. All of them do, but the way this is presented just. I love it.
I don't mean to always talk about Subaru, I swear... I'm just in love with his character... Subaru's got such good dynamics with the whole cast,,,
I wish this conversation was in the final timeline, or that Subaru recreated it somehow... got the message across... man
Dear Diary, today I thought about Re:Zero again
also can we talk about how there's little trinkets and items that represent the main cast's personalities? Like, the spoon and the quill represent Rem and Ram in this story, the flower pin that Emilia gets from the little girl is like... the proof of her kindness, and the 10 yen coin represents subaru's brand of kindness- from the very beginning of the story. as well as the key from the elior forest being another one of emilia's, which has a similar diamond shaped gem to the quill and spoon. The only one of the main cast I can't pin down is beatrice... her book? her crown? I'm not sure. I hope we see Subaru's Beatrice diary in the next season!!
If you too wanna be super sigma go follow stingray he's awesome and preppy and cool :D
characters from a webtoon!!,,, (btw the webtoon is called Triphans, it’s a work in progress,,,)
Paperkatz makes super cool art stuff make sure to follow them!!
MASSSIVE ART DUMP!!!!111!!!
My Hero Academia is a popular Japanese anime about a super-human society. About 80% of the population has a power of which they call a quirk. Although being able to fly or heal for example seems to be very exciting, these abilities dictate the course of the character's life. This is seen especially in the tragically beautiful and beautifully tragic character, Himiko Toga.
When (not if) you read my analysis, you will REEEAAAALLLLYYYYYYYY see how passionate I am about my silly little characters.
This whole blog will just be me yapping a lot :/
Hope you enjoy!!
Lol follow @paperkatzstuff their so sigma:)))
ocs!!!!!!