A Quick Shigaraki Sketch Before Bed

it's interesting that bnha attracts many "fandom isn't activism" types (it's a big fandom, so of course they come here) when bnha IS imo very concerned with instilling a sense of ethics within its readers. bnha IS a series where the protagonist is right, the flawed characters on the protagonist's side "get better," the good guys win and the bad guys answer for their crimes. "fandom isn't activism" but good lord bnha is guiding you down the most lawfully sanctioned route.

yes, bnha goes through the trouble of characterizing the bad guys and showing the reasons behind their actions, but it insists that the bad guys should still be held accountable. which is fine, plenty of stories do, but bnha is: (1) really ethically very simple as a story because of that, and (2) stymies its own emotional storytelling because it's fundamentally more concerned with drawing lines in the sand that "good" and "bad" guys can't cross.

for example: good guys can never overly identify with the bad guys or put the harm bad guys have done on the back burner. we have to remember endeavor, natsuo, and shouto are more worried about other people's lives, even as touya is burning to death in front of them. there's no lapses in judgment, no wrong decisions, no selfishness, nothing crazy, no one making insane gambits that put others in the line of fire to save their loved one, no one to say "fuck the world, you're the one i choose." only villains do that.

it's love at its safest and most sanitized for capitalism, love that is only self-sacrificial, love that doesn't interfere with the law, love that doesn't upset the social order, love that never implicates the world. at this point, even deku going berserker mode over bakugou's death would be more interesting, but that impulse is immediately suppressed and he follows the plan to fight shigafo, without even going to bakugou's side. in ten years they'll be married with a child and they'll miss its 13th birthday in a row because they have to bust a trigger smuggling ring. please god it's so fucking bleak.

so, yeah, i believe in the villains' relationships more. they make disruptive, unhinged, terrible decisions out of love and i love that for them. spinner puts the hand back on tomura's face, dabi burns down himiko's house, spinner wants to save tomura by walking into hell with him, himiko wants to pay back twice's death a hundred times over, and she knows what dabi will try to do and she lets him do it. it's fucking unhinged and i am invested!

people really are out here giving takes like "fandom isn't activism so the characters i like aren't really cops, but the LOV make each other worse so they have to be saved from themselves by paw patrol" as though that isn't the most vanilla take on the gotdamn earth... i don't want the shit that's been workshopped by therapists and lawyers for maximum correctness, give me some crazy deranged shit that'll determine the fate of the world.

Anyone wanna guess what my next Animatic is gonna be? 0.0

Take my hands 

And chop them off

Cover my grave with forget-me-not and cornflowers 

Samsas Traum - Zähne in der Hand

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Bnha heroes vs villains honest trailer (parody) part 2

Dabi-obviously-not-touya-todoroki, a villain that wants to follow stains will in destroying fake heroes and their place in hero society-

-while listening to every "fXck you dad" song on his way to the hairdresser for all the essentials, because everyone wants to look great on their special day.

Toga Himiko, the evolutionary endpoint of all love obsessed schoolgirls and cosplayers-

-her greatest deception in convincing others that she's just that, instead of a girl driven to madness by her own power and society's rejection.

Also due to the fact that she’s mostly only able to communicate through romantic one-liners.

Together they'll confront the heroes and the heroes will face them, all trying to reconcile their world views while beating the shXt out of each other.

Though Deku spends most of the final War in a Beach Day episode.

And Shigaraki spends it posing like he's a dragon ball z villain.

But taking hits like he's Krillin.

Then the Todoroki brothers face off in a battle of hot vs hot/cold/extras.

Before the whole family gets involved in the fight like it's a reality TV show.

That'll be one awkward family dinner.

And finally, toga vs Ochako takes the series into full Shojo territory, complete with dramatic proclamations and the resulting stabbings-

-resolving in heartfelt confessions and floating light bubbles.

Are there romantic implications when the villain says that blood is her romance, and the hero replies that she'll give her own blood to them for the rest of her life?

Hmmmmm???

So strap in, for a story about conflicting ideals and standards of living, in a world ruled by power and oppression.

Where all of that will fly clear over a lot of people's heads, because the setting doesn't look like a futuristic dystopian landscape ruled by an uncaring well-dressed government that has its children fight for the benefit and entertainment of their society...

Even though it actually kind of does.

Well as long as none of the kids ever get killed, it's not really-

Oh...

Starring:

Memories spoken; no bones left unbroken! 

Every-time we touch, you get to crumbling!

Sans the skeleton

We're halfway there!

The red means I love you!

And Utena Rizzako 

Too cool for hero school

(Left out the closing line, does anyone have any ideas?)

Behold: an angery lizard

Some instances that I feel show how some messages MHA are detrimental, especially on how victims react to their abuser, can be gauged by responses that tend to be highly prevalent in the fandom.

(Definitely not every fan, but a great majority).

Endeavor is a great example. Whenever you post criticizing his approach to atonement (and ultimately criticizing Horikoshi’s writing), you get BOMBARDED by people either belittling you for not liking his character or essentially forcing you to like his character by frantically writing “at least he tried” arguments.

If I have the CHOICE whether to forgive his character or not, especially given he goes through an atonement arc and not a redemption arc, why is any form of criticism about his abusive behavior and essentially his abuse of power practically ignored by the story unacceptable?

The message was detrimental because people operate on the notion that for victims to be good people, they must forgive and even help their abusers. MHA presents people who choose not to forgive him as either a monster (Toya) or inconvenient (Natsuo). And if they are still unforgiving, they must admire the abuser for doing the bare minimum (taking responsibility; this is also about Natsuo).

Essentially, they are considered "imperfect victims" because they weren't merciful in their approach to their abuser.

The majority of the fandom tends to ignore the lack of actual consequences for Endeavor's actions because he vows to talk to Toya every day. Insisting that doing the bare minimum, which is recognizing his son's existence and suffering, became his "hell" is a wildly fucked up message, in my opinion.

It harps on the issue mentioned above that if a victim isn't receptive to forgiveness or doesn't act "demure," they are seen as an inconvenience—which is how the Todoroki family ultimately views Toya.

On a less critical note, I'll vent, so if you don't like this, just ignore it.

I'm so fucking tired of stories depicting imperfect victims as people who deserve death and torture. Plus, having to be on the brunt of so many people acting like you're morally fucked because you're not impressed with how a writer handled abuse. Horikoshi is not the first writer to try to atone a character who is an abuser (and he isn't the first to fail at that, either).

I'm not about to dick-ride every decision every author makes. Especially if the message convinces some audience members that victims are inherently broken if they can't bring themselves to forgive and/or admire someone who hurt them.

People who don't want the villians to get saved because "it's not realistic because you can't save everyone" like sir people can shoot flames out of their buthole here. You can excuse frog people, rabbit people, and washing machine people but you draw the line at saving people?

Just a girl: Why Ochako and Toga matter.

(Disclaimer: For purpose of this analysis, I'm going to be operating under the assumtpion that the young hero trio of Shouto, Izuku and Ochako are going to be succesfull in saving their respective villain counterparts, reinforcing one of the main themes of bnha that everyone deserves to be saved, and a true hero will not give up on anyone. This hasn't happened yet, so I might be proven wrong and this meta will be outdated, but personally I find that to be unlikely)

I love this trio, and I think they are all essential to expressing the themes that they do. But out of the three, Ochako and her villain counterpart Himiko have definitely gotten the least narrative focus. Understandable, since the other duos consist of 1: the literal protagonist and the series' most prominent villain (and i suspect horikoshi's personal favorite character) and 2: the lynchpins of the most popular and interesting subplot in the entire series, as well as two of the best-written characters of the manga and fan favorites

Ochako and Himiko are both major characters and definitely the most developed female characters of bnha, but compared to the other 4 they seem... less important. And so here i'll be arguing why without the two of them, the entire theme bnha is trying to express through the kids saving their respective villains crumbles, and how that perceived ordinariness is exactly WHY they're so vital.

So, arguably the main question bnha is trying to answer besides "what is a hero?" is "is it possible to save everyone?" This is expressed mainly through the characters of all might (and the other ofa holders to an extent) Mirio and Izuku himself.

All Might, the greatest hero of all time, was still not able to save everyone on his own, which is why he constructed the symbol of peace, wanting to make even those he couldn't save feel like he was watching over them. We have seen, most obviously through tenko, how this approach has not worked. It has instead made people overly reliant on the symbol of peace, and left those that fell through the cracks to feel completely abandoned by society. The message received was "If all might won't save you, no one will."

Mirio, while a side character, is an immensely powerful hero and was considered to be a possible heir of one for all. He, too, knows he can't save everyone on his own, and nakes himself lemillion to vow to himself that even if he can't save everyone, he will save at least one million people. He is, in a sense, a mini all might. If he can't save everyone, the least he can do is get as close as possible, right?

But Mirio, too, is wrong. Like all might was. He rushes ahead during the overhaul raid and pays the price for it by (temporarily) losing his quirk. But his fault was not that he wasn't strong enoigh to take on overhaul alone, it's thst he tried to do it alone at all instead of fighting side by side with his allies. The reason Mirio can't be all might's successor is becaise he is too much liek him,and woudl make thexsame ksitakes.

Izuku, on the other hand, learns to have trust in his friends during the rogue arc, he tries to run off on his own and is proven wrong by them. Going into the endgame, he knows that he needs to let his allies walk by his side and work with them if he wants to achieve his goal. So through these three characters, bnha answers the question of "can you have everyone" with "yes, but not alone." Which is cheesy, sure, but what did you expect from a shounen superhero manga? And as far as arguments for collectivism and reformative justice go, it holds up.

So, back to our trio: why do we need Ochako?

Because without her that argument of collectivism falls apart.

Let me be clear, "together" in this context means not just 1a, not just pro-heroes, it means society at large. Communities that stand up for each other, people that don't look the other way when they see a hungry child walk past. Collectivism needs to include normal people.

And Todoroki Shouto and Midoriya Izuku are not normal people.

Shouto is the son of the number one hero, the perfect heir that has surpassed his father not because of him but in spite of him. He is literally "the boy born with everything." And Shouto isn't just saving any villain, he is saving his brother. He knows, better than anyone, why Touya is the way he is, and cares about him more deeply than he would a villain he didn't know who experienced the same kind of abuse. Would he still care? Sure, he's a good kid and a good hero, but would he care as much? No. And can you blame him? This is his family!

And Midoroya Izuku is our protagonist, our moral center, the heir of one for all. Aside from key character flaws, that are always clearly marked as such, what he does and aims to do is what the series wants us to think is right. Izuku is special, his empathy is boundless and his will unbreakable. Of course Izuku, good boy extraordinaire, wants to and actually can save everyone!

And Dabi and Shigaraki are not ordinary villains either. Touya is the son of the current number one hero, a living testiment to the monster that he was, to what he put their family through. A walking corpse too angry to die, dead set on revenge. There is nothing subtle or normal about Touya, everything is larger than life.

Tomura, meanwhile, is the descendant of a previous user of one for all, has been taken in and groomed by all for one since childhood. He's inherited a century old fight between two brothers and the two strongest powers in this world. He too a testament to the flaws of hero society, a dark mirror to the symbol of peace and those he leaves behind.

So we have the two children of the number one hero, and the heirs of one for all and all for one respectively. With just these two pairs, a reader couldn't be faulted for thinking that Dabi was saved only because he had a true hero in his family who cared for him more than anyone not his relative would. And that Izuku, in all his shounen portagonist-y goodness, is just so much better than everyone else that only HE could have saved tenko. Which is the opposite of, you know, the actual theme of the story.

So then we have... Ochako. Who is not that special, not related to anyone of note. Not the moral center who we can always trust to do the right thing because of their paragon goodness. She's kind, of course. But Stain, who saw in Izuku a true hero on par with All Might, would have judged her for going into heroism for the money. She's not greedy, she wants that money to support her parents, but she is not a beacon of selflessness.

Ochako is just a girl who saw another girl cry. And she wanted to help her, because that's what people do when we see others in pain. She did not know Himiko, had no special reason to care about her. She's a girl who saw another girl in pain and wanted to understand her.

And Himiko is also just a girl. She was a girl with a not-so-acceptable quirk, and not-so-good parents, who forced her to hide herself until she snapped. She's a girl who didn't fit into mainstream society and had to seek solace with other outsiders, and is scared that peoe like her might not be seen as people by those who are supposed to save them. Like the other two villains (and many others) she's also a testament to hero society's failures, but in a way that we could imagine many others also being, while Dabi and Shigaraki are unique and alone. There are others like Himiko. Dozens, maybe even hundreds. Kids who are cast out and find criminal life to be the only place they're allowed to exist. They might find ordinary gangs instead of the league of villains. But that's a matter of circumstance, not anything innnate to her.

And so Ochako and Himiko are the affirmation that this is an ideal that can and should be achieved by regular people. Yes they are still a hero and a villain, but they are not incomprehensibly different from everyday citizens like the others.

The trio are three pillars together holding up the theme. Izuku representing the ideal of heroism, Shouto representing family/friends/communities looking out for those close to them, because they understand them better than law enforcement could, and Ochako represents regular plain kindness. The kind that everyday people display all the time. No supernatural vestiges, no blood bond, just a girl seeing another girl crying and wanting to help.

21.3.20

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