Just A Girl: Why Ochako And Toga Matter.

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 This hasn't happened yet, so I might be proven wrong and this meta will be outdated, but personally I find that to be unlikely)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.