Curate, connect, and discover
So what broke you on MHA? Was there a turning point for you?
OMG MY FIRST ASK!? Never thought I’d see the day someone would use my ask button to the point I completely forgot its existence. But thank you!
Now to answer your question….hm. It’s been such a while since I’ve actually immersed myself with MHA, but let me give you a little backstory of how I got into it.
Around 2019 I believe, or maybe late 2018. I was 16yrs old and a friend of mine recommended it. I was immediately hooked, and that’s saying something because usually it’s hard for me to get into a show without loosing interest. I’m talking about hyperfixtating and obsession, not a one time thing or immediate drop.
My first favourite character? Fukimage Tokoyami. Then it was swapped for Hero Killer: Stain. Then I considered favouring Spinner before it was officially last swapped for Hitoshi Shinsou.
Pinpoint of when I began to lose interest? Sometime after the sports festival arc. It was still there, but my main driving force was because of Shinsou. Like I previously mentioned its been a while since I’ve actually immersed myself with MHA so I apologise I can’t give a detailed analysis of why this episode was the nail in the coffin.
Even when I first started watching the series I could already see the flaws and was highly critical, but I bared through it in hopes it couldve gotten better.
Also, I’m someone who’s a tunnel vision fan. Not the bias type fan, but I hardly interact with the fandom unless its to look at certain fanart or fanfiction or they’re likeminded people.
Imagine my surprise and disbelief when I decided to go out of my bubble and see everyone worship the ground b*kugo walked on. Honestly for a moment I thought I was going insane or was being too harsh on him, until I decided to download tumblr and found the critical tags
Sidenote I once did have a tumblr account that was active in the 2019-21 mha critical accounts before I decided to delete it.
Then I dropped it around late 2020- early 2021. Just didn’t feel like torturing myself with a show that disrespects its characters, and the overall census of the fandom lacking critical thinking skills. And also 16yr old me was just salty Horikoshi wasnt paying attention to Hitoshi but I digress that doesnt count lol.
Then sometime around 2023-24 the final war arc began gaining attraction. At first I ignored it cause I was just a tired hater, but then I just kept on seeing it everywhere and decided you know what let me check it out and see how far Horikoshi fell off.
And boy was that arc a cluster fuck within itself. Too many things going on at once. This arc and that arc and that character and this one and that. I was just hating the entire time.
But it was only after the dust settled, the episodes were animated and the manga finally finished did I decide to rise from the ashes and rejoin the tags under a new account that I originally used for Demon Slayer fan content.
While I can’t give you a dissect analysis on an episode or a character because that would require me to go back and watch the episode and truthfully I don’t wanna torture myself again…I can lay out the things that I never liked about MHA.
In no particular order
•The world-building. Not utilized in the grand scheme of things, and it being focused on Japan is not an excuse. This is not your average story where only a certain group of people hold powers and those powers are God like. These are your everyday people, born or not born with a Quirk thats unique and tailored to them. So many opportunities, gone and wasted.
•Addressing controversial topics (Lack of better word). Horikoshi would highlight it….and then forget it the next day. An opportunity to touch the darker side of Quirk society, or have a talk about the philosophy of it.
•Too many characters. You want to have a large cast fine, but if you’re going to do that please understand your limits and what you can handle. If you know you can’t write for every single characters then establish that, make it known that x character is a one off character, a side character or a plot device etc- As long as they all help contribute to the story in some way instead of leaving them to rott then suddenly remembering they exist and you try to make them have this important arc as if I should care when you never even bothered to make us care for them.
Or just reduce the cast, simple as that. Seriously, 20 entire classmates? Horikoshi, please take a page out of Danganronpa when it comes to handling a large cast. (Fyi: Im also critical of Danganronpa but I know when to give credit when due)
To be fair Horikoshi couldnt even handle his main characters properly.
•Tell don’t show. This is quite common in the Anime Industry, and for what reason I have no idea. Never liked this type of narrative storytelling, but I’m able to suck it up just as long as you know how to make it work. Horikoshi just did the most with it, and especially with too many flashback scene it just turned me off if anything.
•Lack of consequences. It took me a very long time for me to tolerate asshole characters turned good, and you can thank bakugo for that. Before I always had my foot on their neck everytime, and you could not convince me to even shed fake tears for them. Bakugo is coddled by both writers and his insufferable fans, so their love for him only fuled my dislike for him.
But aside from bully archetype characters there’s also plot type of consequences, and I can see Horikoshi lacks the nuances to delve or stick to the door he opened. The supposed high stakes are illusions, and that is best seen with the war arc. Like you knew all the heros and students were going to survive, except maybe like 1 or 2 no one should honestly cares about yet apparently everyone held a pity party for midnight lol.
•The disrespect of the Female Cast. Horikoshi had the perfect opportunity to address the sexism the female cast wouldve faced. He barely brushed it and he was only using his jerk off right hand to create these characters designs and story. He’s a disgusting pervert
•Favouritsm. Horikoshi favours Aizawa, Hitoshi, Mineta and Bakugo. 2 of them are confirmed to be his self inserts and that speaks for everything in itself.
• I may add more bullets in the future when I remember my other reasons as to why I dislike MHA. But this is about it really.
Thanks for the ask, and my first one! Honoured to answer your question.
Back again posting once in a full blue moon.
I’ll admit I am a fan of Hitoshi Shinsou. Always had been since the age of 16 (moreso crush; I shipped my OC with him), and now 5 years later after the series has ended my interest in mha has decided to resurface for whatever reason.
And I’m deciding why not reprise my OC and make a story of her journey with Hitoshi being the Deuteragonist + Love interest.
Obviously my crush on him is long dead, but for the story I’m making for my OC, think of it like a pay off for old time sake. Healing my inner teenager who was so critical of MHA that I ended up hating it and forgetting about it 2 years after I fell inlove with. Tbh I still don’t like MHA but I’m getting ahead of myself.
The following statement can be applied to any characters I favour:
I’ve always been okay with people hating on characters I favour, to the point I go out of my way to read critical rants of them. Sometimes I would find myself disagreeing, only if it’s from a narrative standpoint.
Take Muzan Kibutsuji from Demon Slayer for example. He is a character created to be hated, and heck even I was his biggest hater from the get-go before I eventually favoured him for reasons. When I see everyone slandering him I’d find myself joining in. Watching Muzans stans unironically babying him (especially on tiktok) annoys me to the point I reply to them with some reality check comments.
And where I’d disagree are the parts where fans, or rather outsiders, talk about how Muzan is an anti-climatic coward villain with weak powers who’d get nerfed by [insert overpowered villain].
It’s not exactly critical if that was the author’s intention all along. The episodes spell it out for you that Muzan is written to be an anticlimactic narcissistic coward, and compared to some villains I don’t think its fair to underestimate his powers.
What I’m trying to say is, reading critical rants of Hitoshi as a fan is refreshing for multitude reasons.
Again like I previously mentioned I’m okay with people hating on characters I favour, and when I read critical points of them it helps me keep an open mind and not allow my emotions develop a (parasocial) bias with them.
More importantly in my future fic it helps me keep my characterisation of him as canon as possible; he will be going through a character growth arc, and it will involve the story holding his asshole tendency’s accountable but giving him room to improve and grow. He will not lose his fundamentals and do this whole 180, he will still be a smug ass at times.
Secondly I’m not a fan of the dadzawa relationship in canon and fanon, and especially not a fan of how I last remembered the fandom portraying him as this kicked puppy that was trampled on in the past and follows midoriya / denki / neito around with heart eyes or is this attractive edgelord whos into 2020 grunge aesthetic and listens to soundcloud emo trap music. That will not be happening in my fic, he can kiss his pseudo-dad goodbye because he will be the one to help report him in the end (spoilers).
And I’m not saying this out of stingyness or thinking Im this hitoshi-bible enthusiast, but I genuinely do not get the appeal of shinsou x midoriya / denki / neito / bakugo.
Whos bright idea was it to ship shinsou with bakugo? Thats a recipe for disaster, theyll end up physically and mentally abusing each other what a horrible pairing.
I see Midoriya needing to be shipped with someone with a sweet caring heart who doesn’t dump their traumatic luggage on him (Oochako, no offense to midoriya x todoroki fans). Midoriya doesn’t need to deal with a smug winger who doesn’t know how to friend.
Denki doesn’t seem like the type of person Hitoshi would willingly befriend, especially because of his association with mineta (hitoshi canonically believes mineta should be expelled, read the link). The way how I see Hitoshis friendship with Denki is close approximately slight co-hersion. You’re friends because youre classmates, hes a friendly nice dude and you feel a little coerced, and its not like you’re in the right place to judge because you don’t know what its like to have friends and people will see you as a charity case.
If the two were not in close proximity Hitoshi wouldve avoided denki like the plague. Canon and fanon will not fool me otherwise.
And with Neito, aside from their quirk discrimination what exactly do they have in common? Ill leave that to your imagination but what I can think of as someone who is a genuine fan of Neito and side characters generally speaking is…nothing.
I understand there’s not much to work to go with his canon character but unless you’re able to give a reasonable in universe explanation as to why you want to portray him as such, 99% it just falls flat because of how blown out of proportion his portrayal gets. You can just tell the fanon version is done from an emotional bias point.
And if youre atleast able to admit that then fair enough, but the mha fandom does this thing where they like to cosplay as media intellects. Its sad to watch.
And if it’s one thing I find myself disagreeing with few of the critical rants about him (no hate or shade) is that how he seems to be completely remorseless of the actions he did. Or being completely self centred.
I’m only saying this because I just found out on his wiki synopsis he was shown to feel guilty over calling Oijiro a monkey or brainwashing him. (https://myheroacademia.fandom.com/wiki/My_Hero_Academia:_School_Briefs_IV)
And a summary of his further thoughts (https://notebook-13.tumblr.com/post/629545863925137408/oooo-what-do-the-light-novels-sayshow-about/amp)
Personally I see Hitoshi as someone who has a tunnel vision worldview, has an asshole skin with some insecurities on the inside. A little nudge of kindness and someone to challenge him he’ll soon come around to change, albiet slowly.
I’m able to empathise with where he’s coming from, as in how his canon character wouldve come to be like the whole primary & secondary influence and whatnot.
Yeah he’s a winger who threw a little tantrum who used his quirk with not so good intentions, and I won’t deny any of that. But unlike *some* characters it’s not like he really felt like he had any choice during that time, but it looks like his apparent guilt was there to chew him up. He cannot be compared to someone like bakugo whatsoever.
As for Aizawa I do see where everyones coming from, but the difference is Aizawa is a seasoned adult while Hitoshi is an unseasoned teenager. Tbh Hitoshi deserved a better mentor who wasn’t training him out of projected feelings covered up by logic, but that could be said for every other character.
And where MHA fails in having characters challenge him, my story will be there to pick up the pieces.