#anyways deku you know how you had that irrational fear that afo would somehow become unstoppable the minute you finally let your guard down

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 332: This Fight Has Actually Taken More Than a Month

Previously on BnHA: Horikoshi was all “please enjoy these three whole pages of exposition about how New Order works. Spoiler alert, it all boils down to how much the user understands the nebulous inner vibes of their target, so I hope you’re all taking notes for the inevitable Final Battle Shenanigans to come.” Tomura was all “well I sure can’t wait until I get my hands on this quirk, wonder how many more chapters it’s going to be.” S&S was all “nothing else we’ve tried has worked so why don’t you Air Force guys ask the Secretary of Defense to send a few missiles our way, and in the meantime I’ll hold Shigaraki off by punching him a bunch with my giant LoK Season Two Homage.” Fandom was all, “[checking to make sure that they’re still reading the correct manga which somehow they are].” Btw how much longer are we going to let Horikoshi keep pretending that he’s never heard of A:TLA lol.

Today on BnHA: Horikoshi is all “I’m just gonna draw the most ludicrous attack I can think of” and has Star’s giant sky avatar make the hypersonic missiles do a couple of loop-de-loops for absolutely no reason before detonating with a giant FSHAM. Everyone is all, “I WONDER IF IT WORKED.” Tomura is all, “IT DID NOT WORK.” Star is all, “WELL I’M ALL OUT OF IDEAS, GUESS I’LL JUST STAND HERE AND FUCKING DIE THEN.” Weekly Shounen Jump is all, “WHAT IS THE OUTCOME OF THIS DECISIVE BATTLE!?” like GEE I WONDER. You’ve put us all on the spot here, WSJ. Idk, what do you guys think.

oh goody a Star and Stripe flashback, this is definitely the order Horikoshi should have done this in. who says we have to put foreshadowing before the actual thing. aftershadowing, that’s what all the cool kids are doing now

so she’s hanging out with a bunch of muscle bros in tank tops in the military or whatever I guess, and being all frustrated that her quirk doesn’t always do everything she wants it to do. though to be fair, if there was ever a quirk that desperately needed an instruction manual it’s gotta be this one

wowwww lol

“isn’t it such a shame that our sexist society is filled with men who are constantly demeaning women and refusing to acknowledge them as equals” -- man who is already well on his way to pseudo-fridging his third female character in the span of a year, in his story which already features a cast that is 75% male, which runs in a periodical which has never hired a single female editor in its entire history

-- actually you know what, just in case this winds up being one of Those Chapters, I should probably press pause for a sec and post a few Clarification Bullet Points just so that we’re all on the same page before we continue here lol. so here goes:

BnHA is kinda sexist you guys

no, it’s not as sexist as it could be

no, I’m not saying Horikoshi is a bad person, or the most sexist person who ever lived, or even in the top 100 (maybe even 1000) of sexist manga creators. BnHA is actually very progressive for a shounen manga in a lot of ways. he’s definitely trying

that being said, all the A’s for effort in the world won’t change the fact that WSJ is a boys’ club, and shounen manga’s idea of progress is “look at that, our female characters don’t all have to wear high heels all the time, and sometimes we even give them plotlines about stuff other than doing the boys’ laundry!!” I mean, pretty much anyone is going to look like a paragon of feminism when the bar is that low lol

tl;dr, I appreciate what we get, but that doesn’t mean I’m gonna fall on my knees in unreserved gratitude just because Horikoshi isn’t out here zooming up his female characters’ skirts every three panels. and this also happens to be the one and only thing about the series that I often find it very difficult to lighten up about, because of how it reflects circumstances in the real world. so yeah. apologies in advance, but if you continue to read this recap I can’t promise you won’t be subjected to occasional random chill-less remarks about gender equality or the lack thereof. it may happen at any time without warning! I, a person who is reading this manga on the internet for free, do in fact have the audacity to complain about some of the things that happen in said manga from time to time! and then I keep on reading the series anyway even though I only enjoy 95% of it and not the entire 100%! it’s some straight up r/choosing beggars shit! I might even choose to make a couple of critical remarks that aren’t watered down by jokes! right here on my own blog where anyone can read them!! it’s a lawless jungle out here!!

anyways lol so I think that’s about as clear of a disclaimer as I can possibly make. don’t say I didn’t warn you. now back to our regularly scheduled programming

anyway so after all of that ranting, these military (Air Force?) bros are actually being pretty chill though

(ETA: in hindsight, writing this rant seems to have used up most of my fucks lol. the rest of this chapter wasn’t really that bad so I managed to coexist with it peacefully pretty much right up until the last page, and even then it was mostly just eye-rolling and sighing. the type of situation “I’m not mad, just disappointed” was coined for, I guess.)

and you know what I like about this, is that Horikoshi actually took the time here to ask himself how S&S’s journey of becoming the number one hero might differ from All Might’s journey, and what kind of challenges and pushback she might come up against which a male character in the same situation would likely not encounter. this wasn’t necessarily the most graceful way of bringing that up, but I do appreciate that he was being thoughtful enough to consider any of this stuff at all, let alone actually work it into the character’s backstory

THAT BEING SAID, while I do appreciate what Horikoshi seemed to be going for here, I would have preferred if the message was more of a “you’re just as strong as All Might, your quirks just work in different ways” thing as opposed to “don’t sweat it if you’re not as strong as All Might, it’s not you it’s the quirk”

to be clear, it’s not that I have any kind of problem with All Might being the undisputed Strongest Character In The Series; it’s just that I still can’t really see why he’s considered to be stronger than S&S. it’s like they randomly decided that physical strength was the only metric actually worth considering. like sure, S&S may be having trouble trying to catch up to All Might in terms of bench presses, but All Might is probably having trouble catching up to her in terms of Turning Himself Into A Massive Laser-Wielding Sky Kaiju so I would think it evens out lol

anyway so Horikoshi is just not doing a good job of selling me on this Super Strength > Magic Reality Bullshit thing. and for that matter, it’s in his interests not to convince us, because aren’t we supposed to be worried that Tomura will be unstoppable once he gets his hands on this?

but these are all questions I’ll have to ponder more at some later date, because the flashback scene has now ended and we are cutting back to everyone’s favorite hypersonic missiles

so the missiles are almost there now, and Star says she’s going to have to release the laser rule in order to set up a new rule for the missiles. man, what? so you knew all along that the missiles on their own obviously wouldn’t be enough to stop him?

okay so real talk, how is this going to be any more effective than the lasers were. because regardless of whether it’s a laser or an explosive, at the end of the day we’re still dealing with thermal energy here right? meaning that you’re still going to run into the exact same problem you had with the lasers, and with Endeavor’s Prominence Burn, which is that FIRE IS NOBODY’S FUCKING WEAKNESS my god why doesn’t anyone in this manga listen to me. I’M TRYING TO HELP YOU

so now there’s an entire page of Tomura just chilling in the midst of the laser bombardment like it’s an afternoon at the sauna, and wondering what these explosive-vibes-giving things are that he can feel approaching. probably explosives, Tomura

fffffldkjl “LOL NO WAY, THIS WOMAN REALLY LAUNCHED A BUNCH OF HYPERSONIC MISSILES?” I know, right??

and there’s another page of Star giving a countdown to whatever bullshit she’s about to do, and then the bottom panel is showing the missiles breaking through her giant sky titan’s hand, which is some hella trypophobic shit that absolutely nobody in the world asked for

hey, Horikoshi? file this one along with the centipedes and the mushrooms. let’s not have any more of this ever again please and thank you

lol what the actual fuck

? ???? ??

LOL, WHAT

?????????????

is anyone going to explain to me how this makes the attack more powerful, or should I just keep reading. “keep reading makeste, duh” yeah you’re probably right, I keep going off on random tangents for no reason. I really need to focus up here

huh

well, you guys. so it appears that Star’s trump card was [checks notes] randomly having the missiles spiral around a couple of times for extra fanciness before they finally hit him. you know, for that extra spiraling power boost. the coveted spiral bonus

A WHOLE TWO PAGES OF EXPLOSIONS WOOOOOOOOOOOOO

FINALLY, SOMETHING BOTH AMERICAN SUPERHEROES AND SHOUNEN MANGA HEROES CAN AGREE ON. WHEN IN DOUBT JUST MAKE THING GO BOOM

WOW ANOTHER PAGE OF THE EXPLOSION. JUST IN CASE THE PREVIOUS TWO PAGES WEREN’T ENOUGH

I HATE TO BREAK IT TO YOU, MISTER SIDE CHARACTER GUY ASKING ABOUT TOMURA’S STATUS WHILE YOU WAIT FOR THE DUST TO SETTLE FROM YOUR MASSIVE EXPLOSION ATTACK, BUT THE ANSWER ISN’T GOING TO BE ANYTHING THAT YOU’LL PARTICULARLY LIKE. I JUST GOTTA WARN YOU NOW. YOU MIGHT NEED TO SIT DOWN FOR THIS ONE

MAN WHY ARE YOU ALL TRYING SO HARD TO PRETEND LIKE THERE IS ANY TENSION HERE LOL

“WELP, THAT WAS IT. THAT WAS THE MOST POWERFUL ATTACK WE HAD. I WONDER IF IT WORKED. LET’S ZOOM IN ON THIS MASSIVE CRATER THAT WE JUST BLASTED IN THE MIDDLE OF THE OCEAN. I GOT A GOOD FEELING ABOUT THIS ONE YOU GUYS” yep. for sure, Star

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH hahahaha oh no

“NOPE NEVER MIND. GOOD FEELING’S GONE”

OH MY GOD I ACTUALLY LOLED FOR REAL

her faceeeee oh no. oh, Star, we’re really in it now

lol this motherfucker used Decay to burrow underground to hide from the explosion. what a power move. “if I was even a millisecond late it would have been a fatal wound” lmao you asshole. “good game,” Tomura says placatingly as he shakes Star’s hand afterwards. “that was a real nail-biter right up till the end. all the respect bro, you’re one hell of a competitor. let’s keep in touch.” follows her on Twitter after. “Shoutout to my homegal S&S, we had a WILD ONE this weekend [fire emoji] [fire emoji] [fire emoji] Down to the wire! Nothin but respect [100 emoji] [100 emoji] [100 emoji] [flexed bicep emoji]”

lmaoooo now all the Air Force bros are like “OH SHIT OH SHIT” and flying around all panicked lol

“OH GOD, OH FUCK” somebody help me please why is this chapter so unexpectedly funny

NOW WHAT LOL

did the Noumu explode??

(ETA: this page is literally indecipherable to me.)

and now AFO is suddenly taking over and Tomura’s landing on one of the fighter jets still all crazed

SIGH

I’m sure you will lol. a James Patterson ghostwriter could put this quirk to better use than we’ve seen it used in this fight tbh

“do it now, Star” do what now??

oh for fuck’s

are you really gonna pointlessly squish your Respect Women Juice-drinking Air Force bros just so we can all feel even worse about this situation sob

FUUUUUUUUUUUUU

NOPE, INSTEAD SHE HESITATED FOR TOO LONG AND HE GOT HER

holy shit she basically just gave up? just straight up stopped fighting basically

I mean it wasn’t like the options were suddenly reduced to a binary “kill your buddies or let TomurAFO get you.” there were seriously more than just those two options here. you could have dodged him, or done literally anything else other than just standing there with your vaguely wistful expression and letting him grab you, Star

anyway so that’s it I guess. not one single person reading this was ever expecting any different. like Mirko and Nagant before her, S&S gets to be show-stealing and badass for approximately 1.5 to 3 chapters before her fairy godmother Horikoshi’s magic finally wears off, and her resourcefulness turns back into a pumpkin

I mean, idk. like I said, I never expected anything else. it would just be nice if we could get a fight like this where the badass lady character actually won. or lost, but still stayed relevant to the plot afterwards (and was actually relevant in any way before the fight, for that matter). or if Horikoshi would stop doing this every few months just because he can lol

anyways but good game. down to the wire. nothin but respect

#bnha 332 #star and stripe #shigaraki tomura #all for one #bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha discourse #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #bnha manga spoilers #makeste reads bnha #well I hope you're happy now horikoshi #anyways deku you know how you had that irrational fear that afo would somehow become unstoppable the minute you finally let your guard down #well uh #brace yourselves for that deku angst spiral part two folks #nomad deku's revenge #it's not paranoia if you're right!!!