Well He Looks At Me And I Look At Him And He Looks At Me And I Look At Him

no but srsly what are we hoping for here. like, okay, so we assume the villains don’t die and get “saved,” but aoyama, who: 1. was blackmailed into helping afo, 2. literally did not kill anyone, and 3. immediately and sincerely regretted his actions, still gets locked up and told to repay his debt to society, literally WHAT are we hoping will happen to people who willingly joined the villain cause and killed people for their own deeply-held values. at this point i hope they die i hope everyone dies!!

me in the. me in. the. uhm.

Something I’m finding pretty weird, and maybe a bit frustrating, in the fandom lately is people extrapolating one League member’s problems to exist in the rest as well; especially Dabi’s suicidal ideation as of late.

‘The League are all self-destructive and endanger eachother’ No that’s just Dabi. ‘The villains need to be given a reason to live for’ No that’s just Dabi. Shigaraki already has that. Toga especially already has that. Dabi’s the only one who wants to die.

Seriously, it actually feels silly to see claims that Toga wants to die when she has been telling us about her want to live despite the world being so incompatible to her since about the moment we met her, and fighting tooth and nail for her life for just as long. She could not be more unlike Dabi in this regard. Her entire character motive is to live, and there are people who think she’s suicidal. Okay. I don’t know what to do with that information beside be baffled by it.

lol y’all remember when i drew this bitch like every damn day

something i’ve been turning around in my head for a bit: i think it’s different being disappointed when a character with no clear motivation or set of values takes a turn you personally didn’t want, versus when a character who DOES have a clear, established motivation and values has those aspects abandoned. there were so many people who were upset with the direction hox’s character took, saying it wasn’t right for him and he should’ve stayed with the LOV, but honestly hox betraying them was always a possibility and there was no established characterization that ever implied he wouldn’t side with the heroes. just because there was a lot of fanon and theories about it doesn’t mean hori “took” something from y’all or wrote badly just because you didn’t like it.

there’s more argument to be made that, for example, deku’s characterization is less consistent and the writing might be weaker with him. deku IS someone with more-or-less established motivations and values, who tells off shouto’s abuser early on but in the late series only seems to take a conciliatory approach to the todorokis’ situation. there’s at least a case to be made that deku turned way too much from his earlier stance on the issue and it felt manipulated in order to support the abuser’s redemption.

these two cases are just not the same.

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.

Опять мемы калякаю

dunno if I should call this a headcanon or a theory and I know Horikoshi just went with what looked cool but the more I think about Dabi's initial design when he came to the League in the context of what we learned about him and what we saw happen to him during the second war, the less sense it makes that his body was already in that state.

according to the anime, he was learning by watching Endeavor's videos online. before Sekoto, he wasn't learning from any source at all and went about his training intuitively, but after Sekoto I strongly doubt he would be actively practicing his quirk, for a multitude of reasons. his body was still healing from the skin transplantation, the trauma associated with accidentally burning himself to death, plainly not having a place to train a fire quirk, which tend to be flashy and to use your quirk in public, having a provisional license is required, otherwise he risks getting arrested. he did a very good job staying out of the public's eye for the 7 years since he escaped AFO, who was also implied to be unaware of Touya surviving for so long.

so as far as we know, all he did for those 7 years is lay low and be very online. which makes his remark to Spinner hilarious ngl, at least Spinner sprung up to action as soon as he saw something that had inspired him, while Dabi had spent 7 whole years sitting on his very personal trauma and not going to therapy.

when Giran brings him to Shigaraki, he doesn't share any information about Dabi save for him being very invested in Stain's ideology. no criminal records, maybe, but not even a word of his absurdly strong quirk? no mentions of arson at all? they did discuss Toga making it to the news, so Dabi being left out like that was a bit weird in the context of the conversation, like him seeking out Stain's contacts was enough reason to let him join the League. he won't be useful to you, Shigaraki, but he's got the spirit. please take him in, he has nowhere else to go?

if you really look at the way Dabi uses his quirk until MVA, it's noticeable how he seems to have no idea what he is doing. there's no technique, no finesse to his moves, just throwing out huge blasts of fire with his hands and hoping for the threat to leave him alone.

when Shigaraki attacked him (fully provoked) his reaction was too slow to summon any flames at all, and if it weren't for Kurogiri, that would have been it for Dabi.

When he is fighting Geten and starts going beyond his limit, he scares himself with the increased fire output. because, yup, overusing his quirk by accident was the source of his trauma.

the databook puts his technique as the weakest of his stats. his power is huge and eventually allowed him to become the strongest fire quirk user in the BNHA universe, but his technique was extremely lacking.

all of the above just doesn't paint the picture of someone who has been consistently mastering his quirk for 7 years. rather, it gives the picture of someone who had just started using his quirk for the first time in years, having background training from his childhood.

it's not even that Dabi isn't hardworking as hell or doesn't have the potential to be trained, because he's a complete opposite. continuously going beyond his limit, despite his own body getting in his way, mastering Enji and Shouto's complicated techniques they have worked for weeks/months/years on in a matter of minutes after just observing it. surely, he has been watching Enji and learning the way his father uses his quirk for years, but putting theory to practice? i doubt he even had the chance, before joining LOV.

he had to wait, because starting to actively use his quirk sets the clock into motion, counting down the time he has left. he is like a candle, destroying himself with his fire, until nothing is left at all. he had to make sure his plan of revenge will have a chance to succeed before fully committing to the 'Dabi' route, a slow and agonizing process of cremating himself by continuously using his quirk. because when he really starts using his quirk for long stretches of time? this is what happens to him.

to conclude this post, I know why the final design was chosen (because it's cool as fuck) but after analyzing the crucial points of Touya's story and his relationship with his quirk, I really think him joining the League with post-coma design would have made more sense. once he had started really using his quirk, his body would slowly degrade to the state Dabi's was in, because his fire literally melts his skin. but his body already having 40% surface third degree burns, when he didn't even use his quirk the entire time, perfectly holding up up until the first war arc and then quickly starting to burn down? idk, seems a bit inconsistent?..

anyway, i love the concept of Dabi's skin slowly and inevitably burning down after he had joined the League. him losing more and more skin until there's barely anything left, when he reveals himself to his father and is bitter at the lack of recognition, because burning himself to the point of being unrecognizable was one of the many sacrifices he had made to be finally seen by Endeavor.

also, more of this. because this was bittersweet as hell

LOV

idk 😭