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ok hear me out; Keigo personally funds a gravestone for Jin after the war that he visits and maintains it as often as his schedule permits

he goes through periods of guilt where he feels like he doesn't deserve to face him and mourn like that so he won't visit for a while, but he always comes back with a pack of cigarettes and fresh flowers after not too long

(he also helps Ochako fund a gravestone for Himiko and they put it right next to Jin's)

crazy how hawks meets a guy who's a lot like him and that guy burns his back really badly and almost kills him but he just brushes it off like it doesn't get followed up. i just know hawks dreams of that encounter every night for a couple of weeks

hawks finding out dabi's mom risked her life and got badly burned in an attempt to save her terrorist son's life, meanwhile hawks' mom sold him off to the government for some money

Toga and her two families:

scary | cute

restrain | free

repression | permission

distrust | faith

rejection | acceptance

thrown away | welcome back

you know I just now realized that I have seen a thousand posts about That One Jacket but I have never seen a single question about why Hawks is wearing high waters as part of his hero costume

I remember that Hori referred to Hawks (and Ochako) being a 'light of hope' in 2021. It's also interesting that it was Hawks who commented on Ofa and how it connects people's hearts. Do you have any thoughts on this?

I think that arc was very dark for Hawks specifically and the anime's rendition of it is very dark. However these chapters... in 323-325 it is a bit different. It's where I think Hori was honest and where I do think Hawks and especially Ochako are at their brightest, narratively. So, uh, to go back to my writing for Graduation Day, I remember debating whether to analyze this scene because I thought it was relevant. I eventually decided that six thousand words is enough and to spare y'all, but let's get into it because I think it confirms my thesis that vulnerability is needed for connection in BNHA.

Ochako's first panels in 324 have her saying, admitting actually, that she cannot reassure people. She acknowledges they're all scared and worried.

This was the best thing she could have done.

The deification of heroes was something that led to the system they have now. Somewhere in the glitz and hero rankings people forgot these are regular people.

We see this repeatedly as an issue of identities - why Toshinori seems a shell of himself outside of All Might, most of Enji's issues boil down to him not knowing how to be Enji versus Endeavor and screwing his family up for it, and Hawks is...well, everything about Hawks is about being a Hero rather than a person, which is why Horikoshi had him kill someone literally named "humanity".

Ochako doesn't allow this to go on. She makes it clear they're all scared, they're all people who want safety, comfort, and want to be clean from mud and dirt, same as any other. It's why she's one of the Savior Kids; she's geared to try and humanize the other side. It's why she's paired with Toga. See below, as she thinks of Toga while giving a speech.

Essentially she reached the people in that crowd by reminding them who Deku is - a kid with way too much on his shoulders, a person just like them. Not a symbol, not a quirk, like AFO is treating him as. A boy. Or "regular high school kid" - yeah, I should have put this in Graduation Day, lol.

Symbols aren't meant to be fragile or have to come out from the rain. Deku does because he's a person.

So what about Hawks?

This isn't the last time Keigo is going make metaphors about One for All. Remember the line so many people read in bad faith about him comparing Endeavor "linking" people together too? He was talking about connection, pure and simple, realizing that much of his own motivations and Inasa's are connected through Endeavor, or their perceptions of him.

Truly, it's just him remarking that seeing society as holistic, as a whole rather than a part, is the key to solving their issue.

I think the emphasis on showing your soul, ugliness and cracks and all is one of the keys to reaching the villains. Something that doesn't position them as moral superiors, which is where Keigo failed drastically with Jin. He didn't give him a good choice at all. He also wasn't willing to be fully vulnerable with him. But I also think there's another dimension to this. More and more I think Horikoshi is actually criticizing individualism and the idea of "the great man". In his depicting of bystander system that has become an issue from society delegating acts of kindness and heroism to an actual career, I think he's critiquing the idea that one person can shoulder that burden.

It shouldn't be a person but a village, so to speak. It says a lot that the characters we know as villains are both seeking connection but also saying, in the depths of despair, that their individual will can change the world.

I still interpret this scene as Dabi deep in denial. Uh oh, he actually FELT something, time to double down and reiterate he doesn't give an actual fuck when truth is he DOES, he just doesn't want to. Otherwise he has to FEEL.

Anyway, the emphasis on the single person and single convinction is another one of those clues I think Horikoshi is leaving us about the "Great Man theory".

The great man theory is a 19th-century approach to the study of history according to which history can be largely explained by the impact of great men, or heroes: highly influential and unique individuals who, due to their natural attributes, such as superior intellect, heroic courage, extraordinary leadership abilities or divine inspiration, have a decisive historical effect.

I remember balking when I read this. Maybe it's because here in the West, there's little uhh agreement over Napoleon being heroic. Maybe it's because my history teachers were unsual but I've never really seen anyone seriously consider Napoleon heroic. There always seemed to be agreement he was a power-mad tyrant who took advantage of the Revolution to enact a military coup and then actual progress made by the Jacobins. So the fact chapter 3 of BNHA has Mic quoting him as a great hero was always weird. At the time of my first read through, I wrote it off as maybe Japan doesn't take this approach to Napoleon and the Revolution. One person's tyrant is another's hero, you know? But more and more I think Horikoshi has been debunking Great Man Theory with his manga. First off the premise of Great Man is usual that the Great Man is born, that his Greatness is congenital. That there's a natural aptitude for greatness, like superior intellect, etc. BNHA is absolutely refuting that, has from the first page. In fact the characters who get into the trap of believing they are born "anything" are shown to be trapped or not in a good way (see Redestro, or see Tomura and Keigo believing they are born to destroy/have dirty wings respectively). So much of who Deku has become is supposed to change this idea of biological predisposition to greatness.

Even Dabi, who has struggled against the circumstances of his birth, falls into the trap of believing some people are born with everything and are born to everything, essentially internalizing the worst of his father's own beliefs.

The story isn't kind to people who give us this rhetoric - that depending on others is wrong, or weakness. It's why Deku had his arc, after all.

Which brings us to my second point - the story isn't the triumph of individuals against evil. It's about people coming together. That's why Ochako and Keigo had their moments of realization in 323-325.

It's not about one person. It's about people.

Lastly, and this is conjecture, but there's a curiosity to the Great Man theory from a cultural standpoint. Now each culture has its Great Man to some extent. I've spoken about how All For One is likely trying to emulate Oda Nobunaga with his Demon Lord talk. But the emphasis on individual actions over collective ones, the commercialization of heroism, and the idea of competition breeding innovations/results are distinctively Western Capitalist ones. And in...a clumsy way, I think Horikoshi has been hinting at this being part of his own criticism.

Did you ever notice how the Japanese anime has them say "Hero/Hiro"? It's an imported word. Japanese has other words that mean hero, like yusha or eiyu, which have different meanings that all relate to the English hero as either a brave person (yusha) or a person of greatness/importance (eiyu). Why then use hiro, a foreign word as the title for this career?

Because the hero system is canonically imported. And so perhaps are the ideals it brought with it.

looking back at my initial reaction to this moment when it happened in the manga, i can't believe i didn't immediately realise that it wasn't supposed to be taken positively. as someone who's been preaching about shigaraki being an unreliable narrator for years, it's really weird that at the time i didn't realise that the contradiction in what hawks saying ('i had support') and what he's thinking about (his toy. he didn't have any real support, only himself and his dream) is intentional, and didn't notice that his speech-bubbles are shaky. he's not really fine or alright, but he's convincing himself that he is to keep going.

SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAGAFDUKDKSJAFSSLDFKLSQ

Graduation Day

If you haven't read my earlier analyses of the narrative/thematic components of Jin vs Hawks (One's Justice) that might serve as a good primer. This meta focuses on the interpersonal relationship rather than overarching themes, and the strange framing throughout their relationship and how it connects to the rest of the plot of My Hero Academia. This work will be followed by a few more on Twice, Hawks, and the League before addressing some of the main themes in BNHA. This is a very long post, with lots of quotes, images, links, and parts, so please get comfortable as we dig in. Get a warm drink if you can. If you have any desire to tip me after reading this work, my Ko-Fi is here.

1. The Words

Remember this panel?

What's he actually saying here?

ore wa anata no koto suki deshita shi. 俺はあなたのこと好きでしたし。

When translated it actually goes like "I liked the kind of person you are." But there's so much more to this sentence and we should explore it and what it actually means.

For one, it is past tense - the deshita shi.

Shi is the ender here, and at the end of a sentence (し) it works like a "because". Deshita (でした) makes the preceding word/verb a past tense one (it's the past tense of Desu), in this case the verb Suki which we will get to in a minute.

Ore wa (俺は) is the way of saying I. It's say "I am", in a rather masculine and informal way. Hawks uses ore usually to say "I". Next we have anata no koto (あなたのこと) (koto is written in the manga with the kanji 事, the furigana is こと). This is a big one. Anata is a way of saying "you", as in this a direct second-person pronoun. While no means "of" and koto means "things (intangible)". I've seen other Hawks meta-writers say Hawks was rude for this part of the sentence, and in a way he was, but I think that misses the larger context. Anata can be read as condescending but I don't think that's the right interpretation of Keigo using this word. So, what is Anata? It's really a "neutral" way of saying you. But the thing is people usually don't say "you" and go out of their way to not do that, instead calling someone by their name directly or role. So for example, saying "Sensei did not teach us this..." instead of "You didn't teach us this" would be how things like this are usually approached in a situation where a student reminds a teacher they haven't learned something.

Here's a more thorough explanation:

Because Japanese culture tends to avoid directness, people started to use あなた to refer to a person in an indirect and polite way. It eventually became a way to address someone, and acquired the meaning "you." - IS あなた POLITE or RUDE? A Guide by Tofugu This common tendency of words losing politeness over time is inevitable due to the nature of second-person pronouns in Japanese. Once a word starts being used as a second-person pronoun, it gradually acquires a feeling of "directness," which is considered impolite in Japanese. あなた is not yet as unequivocally offensive as some of the other second-person pronouns, but it's definitely following the same path. IS あなた POLITE or RUDE? A Guide by Tofugu

So, it's rude because it's direct because usually Japanese people avoiding using direct pronouns and omit them from sentences and try to make the context of the sentence clear without using them. Otherwise, it's personal. Anata is usually neutral, though also used between spouses (specifically the stereotype is that old-fashioned wives use it for their husbands), but the fact it's being used at all is the "rudeness/impropriety" here. Typically people use people's names or "roles", like calling your mother "Kaa-san" instead of directly addressing her.

But we also need to talk about gender here. In the spectrum of gender of using second-person pronouns, anata does indeed usually come from feminine mouths, especially due to that stereotype of wives calling their husbands it. Of course, there's intentional subversions but ones that acknowledge where on the gender spectrum the words usually fall.

And lastly, suki. "Like". Suki can be platonic and romantic, but it's really the way Japanese people will confess they like someone (that and daisuki, which translates to "big like", or the way we in English often say "like like", though like is usually enough).

So, I think the confusion comes from the translation and how the words are perceived in the various cultures. You might say "I love you" in English and we might say "suki" in Japanese. To us, suki can mean "love" but it isn't the same kind of love as aishiteru, which is when you're actually feeling love for another person. That's why when you're confessing your "love" for someone in Japanese, it isn't as big of a deal because you're saying you love them, but in the same way you might say you love a donut. So, you know, you say "love" and we say "suki" and you say "love" and we say "aishiteru." - Tofugu's Guide to Kokuhaku First, that not only can suki have romantic connotations, but it is in fact part of the most classic stock phrase for confessing romantic feelings; and second, that the English “like” can also have a clearly romantic meaning in the right context — in this case, the context is the first confession of a crush between teenagers, so it makes sense that the translators went with the lighter “like.” Suki or Not Suki: Impossibilities in Translating Queerness

Let's look back on no koto. The usage of it is actually Keigo softening his statement - he knows just leaving it as "I liked you" is very direct so he obfuscates it with no koto, as is traditional. Keigo's explaining that there's specific things he likes/liked about Jin, non-physical (intangible) things, like qualities or traits, not anything he can hold.

For those wondering, using...here rather than simply the name is emphasizing that the meaning is the actual, embodied person... with all of his traits (koto means “(intangible) thing(s)”); the unadorned name can be taken as a linguistic pointer, not capable of being loved. This nuance doesn’t matter a ton but it is true that the “~no koto” form is the traditional, idiomatic way to phrase this sort of confession of feelings. Suki or Not Suki: Impossibilities in Translating Queerness

So, what am I trying to say here? A lot of this is incredibly intentional on the author's part. In a very twisted way, the scene mimics kokuhaku scenes in Shoujo manga. More so following some further context. What is a kokuhaku scene?

kokuhaku 告白こくはく, literally means "confession", and it is done when a man or a woman declares their love to another, and hopes to begin dating that person. Tofugu's Guide to Kokuhaku

Most anime fans have seen confession scenes. Usually between students or someone fairly young, the confessor approaches the person they have a crush. They are usually portrayed alone in this - out the way of anyone to interlope as the other person gathers the bravery to share their true feelings with that person. Or they write them a letter.

In these age of mobile phones, email, and messaging applications, handwritten letters are becoming less and less prevalent. Although not as common as in the past, the tradition of putting love letters in the “shoe cabinet” (“Getabako – 下駄箱) of Japanese students is still continued to this day. It is also a cute culture, widely utilized in manga and anime girls to portray a youthful and joyous life. Kokuhaku: Japanese Confession Culture

I do want to point the way this works is quite different from how we approach this in the West. The "confession" starts the relationship, so it happens pretty early to formalize things. You could have a two or three dates prior but this locks things in. Something I came across in my research on this phenomenon is several youtube videos from Japanese youtubers, particularly male ones, where they talked about being confessed to, or doing the confessing. Something that I noted was the emphasis on taking all of yourself and being brave enough to be open with the person you like. That this sort of thing was seen as brave because of the vulnerability it took to confess to someone.

As we go along this essay, please keep in mind this idea that the vulnerability and courage to be "open" with your true feelings to someone is seen as a key part of this ritual.

2. The Setting

Let's rewind to the earlier parts of the Twice/Hawks dynamic, because it sets up the later framing and how weird it is for Horikoshi to do it this. From the inception of the interactions between Keigo and Jin, the relationship was comedic and completely off-beat to the seriousness of the manga/infiltration.

Jin is immediately nice to Keigo, asking him to come work for him. Keigo, busy trying to manipulate the situation in portraying Katsuki, Shouto, and Izuku as mere students, is trying to deflect the situation and doesn't really give it more attention than just a thanks. What sets up their relationship is Twice, actually:

It's Twice who reaches out to Keigo, two times. We don't know if Hawks already had him as a target in mind, but we do know it was Twice who sought out Hawks and asked to spend time with him. According to Twice, it was because he didn't like how Hawks was being treated:

Keep in mind the second time he approaches Hawks with a concrete request to be taught things, it's as Hawks is being approached, maybe even followed, by Redestro and has been denied entry to the cafeteria. Take the hero and villains and spy shenanigans out of it and it absolutely reads like some school manga where Keigo is the distrusted new kid and Jin is the perpetual outsider with a heart of gold and soft spot for people like him.

It's remarkable how compared to everything else, Hawks's infiltration of the PLF is extremely quirky. Jovial even, comedic. None of the tenseness with Dabi remains, just light repartee featuring Slide N' Go, Skeptic, Redestro, and Twice. The very juvenile way this is all set up even makes it to the actual fight:

While the volume and set of chapters where Hawks murders Jin and the ensuing Dabi fight is set up as a thematic conversation about what is justice and duty when it comes to heroes, in a closer look to the relationship, it's all about bonds and relationships being pitted against those ideals of justice and duty. That's why it's framed so much like a school-setting. It's not for nothing that the chapter where we got such a rich look at the Jin-Keigo friendship was called "Friends". The chapter title translates to nakama. Longtime shounen fans would be incredibly used to this word being thrown around. It's a core part of One Piece, of Bleach, of Naruto, of... well, almost every popular Shounen.

In Japanese, the word nakama 仲間 means "someone who's in the same group as you," or can refer to the group itself. This group is, often, a group of friends, colleagues, etc. But it can also mean other sort of groups, like in a "birds of same feather" sense, for example. Japanese With Anime's Guide to Nakama

Nakama is at once a term to refer to a comrade, a friend, a member of your "party" in gaming terms, and also just people you share traits with (kin) hence the birds of a feather analogy that site uses - it's meant to show that there's a spirit of togetherness. The League use nakama for each other.

Another reason it is interesting that this chapter is translated as "friends"; there's one other chapter named "friends" (like straight up romaji "Friends"), and it's 373. And, well, I've shared my thoughts on how Spinner's crusade to reach Kurogiri is portrayed as self-harming and leaves him alone and looking back to see no one else is around him, with no allies behind him. I think Horikoshi titling these chapters despite the negativity of the friendships they portray expresses something about the shakiness of the relationships they contain. That something is missing in them.

This brings us to the central arc of the relationship - Hawks tutors Jin in "Liberation Ideology" (the writing on the board is "Little late to ask about this stuff!!! - Liberation Army Facts") and thus the rest of their relationship takes place in a secluded classroom with a white board where Hawks lectures Twice on the Liberation. Probably unsuccessfully.

Now the culmination of their friendship can be Chapter 258, again the chapter titled "Nakama". Just look at these panels and how comfortable they seem with each other.

Back to their room, with their white board. The classroom setting is actually what their relationship centers on.

And then, when it's ruined - It's telling the beginning of the Hawks and Jin fight opens with this image. The white board falls over. The room is in ruins. The illusion of a classroom setting is shattered. So, too is their friendship.

I also want to point something else that's relevant to the setting - the manga tells us it's the end of March, and then shows us a panel with blossoming cherry blossoms.

If you're unfamiliar with the significance of Late March and cherry blossoms in Japanese culture, let's have a refresher.

Japan has "two" ends of the year, the one going by the Western Calendar, and the one that is the end of the "Fiscal Year" - March 31st. The school calendar follows suit so the end of the year is in March, with graduation ceremonies taking place in the latter half of March.

Sakura season is thus a highly visible sign of spring, the beauty of nature, renewal of life, and first love... but can also represent the transiency and fragility of beauty, life (especially a samurai's life), and love. Since the meanings are highly romantic, the sakura motif is especially common in media aimed to the Shoujo audience. Japanese symbolism also connects cherry blossoms with death... As the Japanese academic year begins in April and ends in March, scenes of graduation from high school or the coming of a new transfer student are often given atmosphere with a liberal sprinkling of cherry blossoms in the air. In this context, sakura evokes both the "new beginning" of spring and the transiency of passing from one stage of life to another. TVTropes's article on Cherry Blossoms.

In anime, graduation kokuhaku are often treated like last moment chances for the heroine(or hero) to get their feelings across. Certain rituals exist with this type of confession - the popular one is that graduating boys often give their favored kouhai the second button from their jackets. With the motifs of the cherry blossom, setting a confession scene at this sort of end relies on the feeling of death/rebirth on the part of the viewer. The old world is dying; and with the confession we can see if these feelings will persist in the new one. So to put it all together, the Jin and Hawks friendship from the very beginning has had an air closer to a relationship between the kids than two adults in the show - it's jovial, funny, and centers around an educational environment represented by a classroom with a white board where Hawks tutors Twice, who approached him for help. As the end of the Japanese school year comes, symbolized by a panel with cherry blossoms, so does their school friendship.

In this way we can even read the raid as a 'graduation' of sorts - certainly it marked the graduation for the children of 1-A into 2-A, and similarly it shows the ending of Hawks's infiltration into the PLF. The quasi-teenage dream he's built in that classroom with Bubaigawara is brought into the light and with the breaking down of the walls of the classroom must stand against the real world.

3. The Feelings

The following is the most I'll ask you guys to consider any sort of non-platonic feeling in this meta as we go on and try to figure out what Keigo was trying to do with this and why Horikoshi would frame Jin's murder as a near parody of a high-school-style kokuhaku:

It’s certainly worth paying attention to the fact that the exact phrases used here, in more heteronormative contexts, are routinely translated with the verb “love.” Suki or Not Suki: Impossibilities in Translating Queerness Words like suki, which carry intrinsic ambiguity and sensitivity to context, are especially interesting and important to pay attention to when looking at queer works in translation. Implicit or subtextual queer love isn’t signaled in the same blatant ways that cishetero love is, and the heteronormative lenses of translators and audience alike can make it easy to choose the less romantic translations in queer contexts, or to assume a less romantic implication of exactly the same phrases. But this also means that writers can play with those ambiguities deliberately to allow characters to express those emotions while still staying under the radar. Suki or Not Suki: Impossibilities in Translating Queerness

While I can discuss at length that if either Jin or Keigo were a woman I wouldn't have needed to write any of this because it'd be redundant about how strongly Keigo feels for Jin (or thinks he does), the fact is that we don't live in a world where homosexuality is the default and thus unlikely to be explored in shounen more so than hinting at or subtext. What is more important than the platonic/romantic dichotomy is the strength of the feelings involved. Regardless of the nature of the intention behind Hawks using suki, the fact is he essentially used the strongest and most typical way to confess to liking someone in standard Japanese culture, mimicking word for word the way characters in romance manga do it.

Which leaves us with the following questions.

First off, why?

Secondly, why did this not garner a reaction from Jin?

Third, was Hawks being sincere?

Looking back at the original panel, two things strike me: one is how closed off Hawks appears to be, and two is what Jin is able to see. And this is where we should look at the two "Hawks" that we see in 165-166, because there's a difference in how Horikoshi draws him in some panels from others. If you'd like to read a breakdown of this @redphlox has one here.

To bring a little more technicality into it, Horikoshi in this scene is playing with both perspective, by inserting the dutch tilt into the scene to convey tension, and also by incorporating art techniques named chiaroscuro and tenebrism.

Chiaroscuro is when artists utilize strong contrasts between shadow and light to highlight important things in their work, usually using one light source. Tenebrism uses shadow and light to up the drama of a scene, usually to give a sense of doom. Both are present in the scene. As said in the meta linked previously, in the beginning of this scene, Hawks is shrouded in shadow. The light source is to his back; when Jin looks up at him, Hawks is covered in shadows, which is why he looks so menacing and inhuman. His facial features are obscured - we can see his eyes but they're....well, the only thing we can see. This is Horikoshi utilizing those techniques to both give dimension to the scene and create an air of unease and unknown around Hawks, furthered by the inconsistent angles he's shown from. But as the chapter goes on....

Let's look at the progression of how the panels change. @redphlox puts it best here:

But, what made me think more about it is that when Hawks is offering Twice a plea deal, for lack of a better word, his face isn’t obscured by shadows even though he hasn’t moved from his place in front of the doorway. It’s weird. Light doesn’t work that way, and there is no other light source. He’s not moving. Did They Make the Right Choices by Redphlox

As Hawks thanks Jin, he's still framed in shadow. As he begins offering Jin a way out (or what he thinks is one), light artificially enters the frame and we no longer see Hawks from the same downward perspective, and then, in a face that's unnaturally lit up, eye level with Hawks, we see his expression. As he tells Jin he's a good person, he's mournful. He looks sad. Upon seeing this panel, the sincerity of his words (since echoed after Jin's death) is clear to the reader. But the reader isn't Jin. Jin just sees the inhuman monster shrouded in shadows looming above him.

We see Hawks emotional. We see his expressions as he speaks. Jin doesn't, not until they're off fighting more - because Hawks has his back turned to the light consistently. Nothing can reach Jin because he cannot actually see Hawks as anything but a shadowed, looming presence.

This is so consistent that even the cover to Volume 27 continues this theme of Hawks being back to the light source. Here's a quote from an meta that broke down this cover by @cutiesableye:

From behind Hawks, we have a soft golden light. It looks like sunlight, shining down upon Hawks - but his back is turned to it. Instead, some of that sunlight shines down on one of the Jins’ faces. The sun symbolizes strength, warmth, will, influence, and even salvation. Hawks has turned his back to it, fitting that his role in this volume is an inner struggle of his own will and wants, versus Jin’s own. - Cutiesableye on Volume Cover 27

There's another aspect to this. The panel we've been analyzing from the very beginning is an in-between. Hawks is neither fully illuminated nor shrouded in shadow, but remarkably there are two things emphasized in the panel.

One is that Hawks's expression is obscured. His front is mostly in shadow. His mouth is hidden from us by his jacket. His eyes are hidden by his visor - again this image shows that he's still facing away from light, so Jin does not see Keigo as he is. Two is that there's a clear non-typical light source used to highlight the device Hawks is holding. The former is more important in our analysis.

We won't know for sure, but this is the panel where Hawks admits to the strongest feelings he has in this manga for another person, by the rules of his own culture. Yet we cannot see the emotional depth of it, and so much is obscured! From Jin's point of view, it must seem so fake to have this robotic figure you can't even seen admit to liking you like this. But was he being sincere?

Again, to tie back into those initial words, Hawks is expressing himself extremely directly for a Japanese man. He's directly addressing Jin as "You". He's using the same sort of phrase and word someone would use in confessing romantic feelings and in a warped way, recreating the same sort of scene where someone would do such a thing. He doesn't want to kill Jin but he will if he chooses to (and did). Keigo's telling Jin how he feels because he doesn't want to kill him and hopes his words, so strong and direct for a relationship like this, will give Jin enough pause to listen to his offer. It's meant as a reassurance, a promise of sorts. "I like you. I'll make sure there's a way you won't be hurt. I'll help you land on your feet." Keigo wants to save Jin. He wants Jin to accept his feelings.

Aside from his words, what is Hawks doing and showing in that panel?

Let's talk about Hawks and facial expressions. There have been discussions over the years like this thread by @scarletrain1724 that I think makes a few good observations. Here are some choice quotes that I believe will serve us better going forward in this meta

But when he’s closing his eyes or concealing himself with his wings, it’s when he can’t help being himself, when he can’t help but feel a bit too much. He’s afraid of exposing himself, especially if it hits too close to home. It’s an obvious defense mechanism.  Ironically his face is clear/the most exposed when he’s playing a part, such as him delivering the  message to Endeavour. And when he arrives at Best Jeanist’s home. When he hides himself, he ironically reveals more of his personal feelings. Hawks and Closed Eyes by @scarletrain1724

So while I do think Keigo hides himself as a protective motion, and is able to lie best when he's "wide-open", I think it's less truth and lies and more the distinction between Hawks and Keigo.

Hawks doesn't like being uncovered. He doesn't like it when you can see Keigo so easily - there's few people he'll let see Keigo.

Here is an image I gathered of Hawks either lying or showing earnest emotion or some context about how he's perceived (or how people struggle to perceive him). I think the important thing to note is Hawks outright tells us being so openly expressive and easy to read feels "gross". Again, he's constantly protecting himself and that includes protecting himself by rarely expressing his true feelings out loud. Visor on his face, high neck, high collar, thick gloves - there's very little of him we actually get to see. It's interesting that as he's pushed into a corner, he gets stripped - of visor, of jacket, or wings, of the veneer of calm and control once Dabi strips him of "Hawks".

Hold on - didn't Keigo say something about this?

We're going to come back to this scene soon, by the way, but let's finish talking about Hawks's feelings. So - was the murderous, back-into-a-corner-Hawks more sincere than the Hawks who told Jin he really likes him? Are we supposed to read him like that? Seems uncharitable, even coming from someone as critical as I.

So, I don't think it's fair to say Keigo was lying in that one panel. But it still didn't land. Keigo's motive behind baring his soul didn't manage to reach Jin. Why not?

Well, that's why we looked at the visor and facial expressions of course! Ultimately, it's less about sincerity and more about vulnerability! Hawks looks so guarded in that one panel. His mouth is again covered. We can only see his visor, not his eyes. We see the costume. A costume that notably has the HPSC symbol on the center of his chest, a sign of what is covering his "heart".

We don't see Keigo. We only see Hawks.

That was why! If we see these images from Jin's point of view, where he can't even see the actual Keigo he'd come to know in that room - what reason does he have to believe Keigo when he only sees a costume, a hero, not an actual person? Keigo didn't remove his visor, didn't offer an ungloved hand, didn't move his collar away from his face to show him his expression.

Of course it doesn't look earnest to Jin - why would it? Because Jin is all about vulnerability and trust! From the very start, his own conflict with his mind is that he can no longer trust himself and his perception of reality! It's always been about trust! All about it! Trust essentially killed him.

Jin trusted Keigo. Keigo didn't trust him back and that's why his begging, his true genuine feels of strong, strong affection for Bubaigawara Jin were ignored. You can't admit something like that and try to remain invulnerable Hawks! You can't try to form a bond as Takami Keigo while being scared to be Takami Keigo!

You can't ask someone to trust you when you've taken advantage of their trust and won't trust them back. You can't bare your heart when it's covered by an HPSC diamond. You can't perform a half-assed kokuhaku, and that's what Keigo tried to do.

Trust was the key issue all along!

Before we move on to the next part of the essay, I do want to say that Hawks and his trust issues have been apparent for a long time. He's the type to shoulder his own burdens - we saw this in 199 with how he worked with his sidekicks. He doesn't trust people with his actual emotions and thoughts, he's just wary in general. Whereas Jin is ultimately too trusting - he wears his heart on his sleeve, exposed for everyone to see while Hawks covers his up with the symbols of the organization that created him.

4. The Confessions

Here's a quick question; have any other characters discussed liking/loving anyone else? Have we ever had "actual" kokuhaku?

If you answered yes - congratulations! You're correct! There's La Brava and Toga!

Hi Toga! We were always going to get to you in an essay about feelings and love, right? Anyway, while Hawks and Toga's foiling deserves their own meta, let's look at the language used in Toga's confession to Izuku from chapter 348, another "failed" one. Sorry, folks, we're not done with Japanese breakdowns yet!

A big thanks to @pikahlua for Toga's words.

好き初めて 見た時から

suki hajimete mita toki kara

Yes, there's a suki there. The literal translation is her saying "I've loved/liked you since the first time I saw you."

Okay, nothing too weird yet. We've established this is the main way people confess Love/Like in Japan. There's nothing else that ties this into the Jin and Hawks narr-

Just a small note - 299 is a very difficult chapter in of itself and there's very large translation discrepancies. Here's a post on it.

Yeah, okay, if we look at the Ykza scanlation, this is creepy. What is the actual japanese then?

Toga says: 私君になりたいの

watashi kimi ni naritai no

Hawks says:

俺もそうありたい

Ore mo sō aritai

They look different at first glance, but that's not the case.

Watashi and ore are ways of saying "I" - Hawks uses the masculine ore, Toga the feminine/Neutral watashi. Kimi is a "you" word and remember, Hawks is talking generally while Toga is confessing and full on addressing Izuku. Mo is "too", and Ni and No are particles, the former which shows purpose while the latter indicates posession.

The key word in both sentences are aritai and naritai, and the only difference between them is time and literalness.

From what I can find on the internet. Aritai, which Hawks says, makes this sentence actually translate as, "I want to be like that too." reads as something that has already started and is going forward. Naritai is a wish that hasn't happened yet.

So what makes their statements different? One, Toga is very literal here about "becoming" Izuku. Two, Hawks says "like". But the desires are very, very similar.

They have created images of their "liked one" in their minds, polishing and propping the traits about them they liked, and then set themselves on a course where they want to emulate them. This ties into this idea of wanting to be like another person is a sign of liking them.

Toga's desire has little to do with wanting to be with Izuku, but wanting to be him. Hawks, having killed Jin, only has the option of being like him because he can no longer be with him.

They both failed. Neither confessor gets what they wanted.

Toga's failure is a no-brainer; if we apply our idea that Jin and Hawks failed because the people weren't on equal ground, because there had been broken or no established trust, and because the confessor wasn't being open, we can see a lot of that here. Izuku doesn't know Himiko. Himiko is talking about this with a knife in her hand and threatening him while openly admitting to loving him. Sure, she's being sincere, but it doesn't connect because everything else is wrong. You can't trust someone with a knife in their hand.

As I was writing this meta, I came upon a scene that is not a "confession" scene, but very much feels like it has the depth and gravity to be a "connection" scene which I think is what Horikoshi was going for all this. How it's supposed to "work".

Look at these panels from 148. To show the depth of his grief and feelings, Twice risks his momentary sanity by removing his mask. And Tomura sees this and returns the favor to shown his own sincerity, removing the hand on his face. By trusting them with his own unguarded face.

A mask for a mask. Openness. Vulnerability. From all that follows trust and connection.

This is what was missing in the Jin and Hawks confession.

5. Graduation Day

My Hero Academia is setting up a framework that true connection between people involves people being able to let down their walls, their protections, and trust in the other person in order to engage with them and therefore, "save" them.

As we reach the end of this meta, I want to talk about why Horikoshi decided to drawn Jin and Keigo like this. Back to our original question of why exactly is Jin and Keigo's relationship framed as a high-school one? Because Hawks isn't a high-schooler.

Hawks is part of the old guard. We have gotten repeaten reminders of his age, the kids remarking he's not much older than them in the grand scheme of things. If anyone should 'be like the kids', it's Keigo, but he's framed as being part of the old order, the machine.

He even tells us this:

Hawks considers himself part of the the older generation and makes a clear distinction in the two groups, noting the difference between him and the kids, and putting a lot of hopes into them. This is important to note.

At the same time, startingly, one of the reasons for the quirky tone of the of Jin and Hawks being friends was because it felt so... teen-like. Again, to reiterate what I said in the meta earlier, there's a clear sense of a "high-school" plot if you strip it of all the spy and hero stuff. Imagine this:

A new kid, distrusted, isn't welcome in his new school. Someone in the school, who has known how it is to be distrusted and excluded in his life, comes and tries to offer a welcoming hand and discovers the new kid is very smart and has a lot to teach him. They become friends.

Before the betrayal part, this is essentially what the Hawks-Jin friendship was being shown as.

And something we have to consider is that in each other, Keigo and Jin both found something they never got to have - that feeling of bonding teens-bordering-on-adulthood get to have. Both of them had disrupted childhoods. Jin had to grow up too fast in middle school, as an orphan. Keigo didn't have much of childhood to begin with, with two broken and neglectful and abusive adults around him, with one intent on adultifying him.

The thing about the kids who are forced to grow up too fast and "mature" faster, is that it isn't exactly a real maturity. A lot of development is given up in order to survive for those children. Twice's mind was broken, so his outer personality became very child-like, expressing an inner desire he must have repressed all those years as a boy forced to be an adult too soon, and an adult with no choice but to rely on only himself for survival. Is it a wonder he clings so much to Toga, besides her nurturing, if not because his level of emotional maturity has mostly (except for certain moments of control and sanity) regressed to something teenaged? Even the way he spoke to Hawks, of his real friends, reads incredibly juvenile. Twice invokes nakama like a shounen-manga hero; he's 31 acting like a protagonist of a manga for 12 year-old boys.

Keigo has spent a life apart from people. He never got to play with kids his age, he's spent a life observing others as if watching a TV, taught to make every social interaction a lesson have an ulterior motive by the people who groomed him.

My Hero Academia began and centered around school-life. It is a bildungsroman, a story dealing with a formative part of a person's life, usually the childhood/teenage transition into adulthood. At the end of this story we will see the kids of 1-A grow into adults, shaped by the events in this manga. The whole premise of the manga centers around this idea of becoming "something", all tied in with a transitionary period, of time passing and growing into something else.

Deku tells us that he will become a great hero - an older Izuku narrates this story, looking back. Hawks's hopes and dreams for the children, as shown above, all center that they grow into something better than he is, than the ones who came before them.

The stunted development that let him bare his heart to Jin without true openness and trust will not let him grow into the same "fully realized" adulthood that the children will.

That's why the relationship is so immature. When Hawks confessed his feelings to Jin, hoping the other would abandon his friends for him, the friendship between them had not matured enough where he would understand that Jin would never take such an ultimatum and that he would need to be far more vulnerable and trusting of Twice to even have that dialogue.

Hawks cannot "graduate" to the True Hero status as the Savior Kids will. He's simply not the right person in the narrative. He failed - and his "assigned" villain counterpart, Jin, went unsaved, and was killed by the man who should have saved him if we followed the idea of the Heroes saving their "Assigned Villain".

Hawks couldn't graduate. He couldn't give Twice what he asked of him - to trust him. He couldn't show him his words, even if they were powerful. And that meant little in the face of the betrayal and distrust he'd already proved with his actions.

But the kids can - and will. They know that true connection has to be with not only a willingness to understand the person, but to show them, not tell them, that they're willing to connect. If heroes save, and this is their Hero Academia, where they learn to be heroes, then they will "graduate" by saving those who were never saved.

Pretty words can spill out of a mouth but are they true if you can't see the person's mouth? Can you truly take another person's hand if it's covered? Can you love and connect with a person too afraid to be themselves for you?

No. That is the real lesson here, one that Jin and Hawks didn't cover in their tutoring session:

Trust is a two-way street.

everyone, from characters in the manga to fandom: hawks just...optimistic isn't he? Wow, Horikoshi is just not going to make him reckon with what he did, continue on thinking he was right to murder twice, continue his parasocial and creepy obsession with Endeavor and the Todoroki family, wow his writing is SHIT.

horikoshi: *literally NAMES JIN HUMANITY AND MAKES KEIGO KILL HIM IN THE NAME OF DUTY*

horikoshi: *draws this man getting progressively loose and deranged with his facial expressions WHEN HE STARTED OFF HIDING THEM KNOWINGLY FROM PEOPLE*

Horikoshi: *likely asked the people in the anime and Yuki Hayashi (i believe music is composed before animation might be wrong) to specifically frame the scene a certain way just in case people got the wrong idea*

Horikoshi: *draws hawks screaming they have to kill twice again NEARLY EXACTLY LIKE HE DREW DABI MANICLY TALKING IN A VOLUME EXTRA, LIKE A PANEL TWIN, DID THE SAME FOR SPINNER WHO HE'S ALSO SHOWN PROGRESSIVELY GETTING WORSE AND WORSE AND LOSING HIMSELF*

Horikoshi: *word for word makes Hawks talk about liking Jin in the same way Toga does when she wants to "become" someone and they both use the same language when they tell someone they like them*

Everyone:*sigh* well, that's it with hawks then, he's just going to live in denial forever. or maybe he wasn't even wrong????

Never gonna get over BUBAIGAWARA JIN looking at the number two hero Takami Keigo and feeling bad for him. How hard did Hawks work that sad trapped hero schtick for Jin of all people to be like, "that kid needs help." ??????? Or does Hawks like drop the mask once in a while to disassociate and everyone kind of gets the "ah this man has been through some fucked up shit" vibes?????

Twice saying he had to trust Hawks because it would be too sad not to, just on the risk that Hawks was telling the truth and really needed their help to be free, FUCKS me up. Because that's like the core of so many fanfictions. Where the League takes a risk to help Hawks and in turn Hawks wants to protect and help them too. But this isn't fanfiction.

Just, the thought that canon Hawks has never had someone do that for him before. To make such a risk and sacrifice just to maybe help. Twice was the first person too, and that meant so much to Hawks. That he begged Twice to let him help him rehab, that he begged him to not fight back, that when Hawks said "I can't let sentiment trip me up and someone has to die in these situations" and pinned Twice down, sword to his head, he still didn't do it and listened to Twice talk. And it was because of that hesitation that Dabi could get there to fight him too where Hawks was out in such a position that he couldn't put it off for a single second more.

Twice was the first person to try to help Hawks for no personal gain, and Hawks had to manipulate him and kill him. All the while repeating that Twice was a good man and he can help him. If the Commission just had a little less of a grip on Hawks' moral upbringing and sense of mission......

Don't talk to me I'm FUCKED UPPP

A Thin Veneer: BNHA 374

As dedicated readers of BNHA and meta for BNHA meta would know, the way characters drawn and depicted, the way certain scenes are framed, all of that is crucial to points Horikoshi makes about his characters, the plot, and the themes he wants to convey. Something to note is expression and how people are drawn. On the subject of Hawks, we know from in-text reactions to him that he is seen as conventionally attractive, and typically has a cheeky or happy-nature in his expressions. It's alone or in tense movements that we see something else.

What we do have is faces that break the Uncanny valley, like the famous image pre-"attacking" Best Jeanist, or getting confirmation about the raid where he very much show-cased his heteromorphic side, or the frightening image of him from Jin's pov as he was shrouded in shadows and looked very much like a predator.

What's consistent in these images is 1. Hawks was in control at of himself when he makes those faces 2. They usually don't *take* away from him in terms of find him "palatable" even if he's frightening. And there's a point to this.

Hawks isn't unflappable; there are plenty of moments where he loses his facade and cool, and we can argue those faces were truer to his inner nature than the bubbly cheeky personality he puts on a lot of the time.

But facially, it's interesting that he was so solemn as a child, and when alone and comfortable with himself, he seems to be mostly blank-faced and not very expressive. Perhaps that is the "default" Keigo.

Why all of this talk of faces and how Hawks is drawn? Because with 374, something has changed, and it means something very heavy is coming up with Hawks in the future.

First off, let's read about a certain trope

If a character is deranged or has just lost it for a moment, one eye is drawn as being very different than the other. Commonly, the Mad Eye (or its iris/pupil) is much larger than the other. Can also double as an unspoken Oh, Crap! moment. For extra effect, may be paired with Twitchy Eye.

Consistently, Dabi has been shown to be drawn with this trope time and time again. It's featured in promo art, in his battles, and this example up top. Dabi is clearly mentally unstable, openly and not unlike his friend Twice. The "Mad Eye" trope is meant to be a visual indicator of mentally instability. There's nary been a time where we've seen Hawks drawn like this. Even when he was drawn smirking before "killing" Best Jeanist, the eyes were the same.

It's interesting that his expression and eyes were relatively stable through out the process leading up to killing Bubaigawara Jin. But in the same panel where he kills him (right in the image above), half his face is obscured. Still, there's still an element of control here. I, and many other meta writers, have written about how control is a specific element in Hawks's character. His skill is in his technique, where he lacks in pure power, his skill in using his quirk in extremely adaptable and creative ways shows that he has an intense amount of control over it. And essentially his quirk is in that - controlling feathers do the various things they're capable of (sensors, listening devices, controlling their movements, flexibility, hardness, etc).

When being in control is so crucial to Hawks's quirk functioning, and being out of control so crucial to his narrative (the frequent caged bird references), it's interesting that most of the time Keigo is control of himself, even if he isn't in control of his circumstances. It's what made the HPSC make him a spy and what makes him, in my opinion, an interesting character.

By interesting, I don't mean "good" or "bad", moral or immoral or amoral, etc. I mean interesting in that he's complex and there's still mystery to him. It's very hard to understand Hawks because Keigo's story and personality are layered and presented to us in a way that it's difficult to get a full picture.

So what do we see in this chapter?

Keigo losing control.

He's been remarkably poised this war arc. He started by immediately trying to assassinate AFO without hesitation: While he's had emotional moments, one of the most striking things is that in earlier chapters against AFO, he's been repeating something that shows where his mindset is:

This whole fight Hawks has been telling Endeavor to keep a cool head, to not be provoked, to regain control of himself. He also keeps trying to play the circumstances - delaying so heavy-hitters like Enji can get a shot in, making sure everything it together.

Something else to notice is Hawks is wounded over the left side of his wave, and there's blood drying over his eye. However, there are numerous pictures of him in this state where his eyes are open at the same time or half-closed and there's no indication that he can open more than other.

As you can see here, this is Hawks with the blood over his eye in various expressions. Even when stressed, his expression never gives us indications of the "going mad" trope as the most recent chapter does. Thus, whatever is going on cannot be explained as due to his wound - it hasn't been shown before.

Why make so much of a single panel?

Because it's important.

We have Hawks, known for being very in control of himself and who tries to be in control of situations around him, and we have heavy build up by Hawks being the one to remind Endeavor to not lose it.

And yet....

This is not like anything we've seen from him so far. The mere sight of Twice alive again, the knowledge that what he did was for naught, heck, All For One is provoking him just on that basis:

"Time to learn how it might have turned out if you hadn't made his death your top priority back then."

Hawks's extrajudicial assassination of Twice became a viral moment, and don't forget it was drawn that way in the same time Japan had started undergoing protests for police brutality in 2020 due to viral videos of local beatings going viral amongst Japanese social media and twitter. Hawks has had to face immense scrutiny and criticism over his choice to kill Twice for the past few months, and his reaction to it has been to publicly apologize that he couldn't find another way to deal with him and to privately tell Best Jeanist that he admired the person he killed and wishes to be like him.

There's been no real show of regret, no reflection. And suddenly, with the appearance of Twice once more, we see a crack in this veneer:

Hawks's first words at the sight of the man he killed is to scream that the clones have to be killed immediately. Hawks's first expression at sight of Twice is one not of collected focus, nor even his usual anger or frustration.

He's drawn as if he's fucking crazy.

Horikoshi doesn't do panels like this for nothing. The way the panel beautifully lines up with one of Dabi's back covers, and the fact it's the first time Hawks has been drawn with the "mad eyes" trope is significant. It's showing us that Hawks, for the first time that we know of, is losing control of himself. And for a character whose narrative has been about controlling what people think and know about himself (and letting others do that for him), that's elemental to breaking down all we know of him.

This panel promises to show us another side of Hawks, a side he cannot hide away, or charm and joke his way out of. Naked, raw, and with no ulterior motives to control the situation, this face promises that we might finally hear what Hawks thinks of his actions and the reaction to them.

from the fear of forgiveness by jihnari on ao3. EYE obviously liked it very much but thats just because im a freak who loves despair, tread with caution. it is not portraying a healthy or happy relationship