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delawaredetroit · 28 days

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She's honestly one of the few LOV characters who has consistently had a relatively coherent systemic critique of hero society while actually believing in a future. It's actually not surprising she follows Stain even if she doesn't exactly share his ideology.

Shigaraki and Dabi's systemic critiques are muddled by the involvement of All for One and Endeavor in their stories. In that Shigaraki was groomed to see only the worst in everything and prevented by All for One from experiencing anything that wasn't misery. And Dabi in both what created him and his current goals are tied up too much in Endeavor specific neuroses. There are systemic critiques in there, but you have to pull back a few layers of scheming and circumstances that wouldn't apply to even most disenfranchised people in their society.

Toga doesn't have that problem. She was a "normal girl" from a "normal family". She (and Twice) are the examples of the psychological toll of their society's suppression of all quirks outside of heroics.

Due to the nature of Toga's quirk, she connects to people by drinking blood. This didn't inherently have to include violence. People routinely get small injuries in their day to day lives. Blood banks exist. Even the narrative directly acknowledges this - baby Toga didn't attack other children, she "kissed their booboos".

But because they live in a society based in suppression, she was treated poorly every time her quirk - her individuality - affected her relationships with people. And the fact that her parents, her quirk counselor are faceless - they could have been anyone. The reactions she received by those around her are typical of their society.

And kid Toga did her best to put on that faceless mask too, but it didn't fit right. In a moment of weakness - one bad day you could say - she attacked her crush after seeing him bleed in a fight. And she likely felt connected to another person for the first time in years. But Saito died. And then she was a villain. And thus the connection was established. She could only feel connected to people through violence - through causing harm to the people she wants connection with.

In the end though, Toga wants acceptance and believes a future like that is possible. But her experience has told her that the only way to accomplish that is through violence. Stain also killed to establish a future he wanted. He had a significant fanbase despite having a "creepy" quirk that necessitates the ingestion of blood. This might be the first time Toga saw society interact with a person with a quirk like hers in a way other than outright disgust. It's not a surprise she was also inspired by Stain.

#bnha reread #bnha 68 #bnha #toga himiko #shigaraki tomura #todoroki touya #dabi #twice #bubaigawara jin #hero killer stain #akaguro chizome #the final arc has really solidified how important toga's arc is to the series' main themes #bc you can't deal with her conflict by defeating a particular baddy or fixing one family - the system must change

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mintcakeart · 4 months

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the venn diagram of recovered catholic school kids who wanted to choose their confirmation name after joan of arc and unholyverse readers is a circle

fun fact i was an altar boy until i was twelve before i passed out in front of the whole church and quit bc a lady said i must be ungodly. so. some free jam lore for u

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buff-muffin · 4 months

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Guess who finished marineford…

Meeeeeee………

The worst part is I was completely spoiled. I knew what was going to happen I got spoiled way before I thought I’d watch one piece. And yeah it actually happening didn’t make me cry that much. BUT EVERYONES REACTION AND LUFFY CRYING SHATTERED ME!!!

The intro song didn’t fucking help either jfc

#the worst part was I even guessed the episode number right #I’m keeping this vague cause like this arc probably came out before 2010 but spoilers #am I sad I was spoiled? nah I could tell it was coming #and I heard luffy takes it bad but I CLEARLY wasn’t ready ;-;#my shirt got fucken tear stains. congrats Odda you won #I think I cried over laboon more tho. or well brook finding out about laboon #if I could draw you bet your ass I’d draw fix it art of them rn #semi live reaction #one piece #marineford #monkey d. luffy #luffy #portgas d ace #:’(#random rambles #welcome to the shit show

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9trixieturner6 · 8 months

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So it wasn't for effect, shes actually visible. Hot dog thats nifty, I honestly was not expecting to get any more from them but hey I'll take whatever hagakure Horokoshi wants to give us.

Going back to the all might fight its a weird gimmick and some of the ways the quirks are used seems a little off, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't enjoying it. Of course all might hits him with the "should have aimed for the head" as his suit is even more wrecked but hes still alive.

Love the call back to Star, once again I'll take any appreciation we can get for her. Now when you pin an enemy in place with concentrated lasers its called a Star and Stripe.

We also got baby afo as he's finally free of the heat beam. But oh whats this, something I wasn't expecting but am most happy to see. The come back of stain. I can't wait to see where the hell this fight ends.

#bnha 400 #mha 400 #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #tooru hagakure #mha hagakure #hero killer #stain #all might's teacher arc #all might #class 1a #afo #star and stripe

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plusultraetc · 10 months

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"Completely blinded by a selfish desire for revenge... You're about as far away from being a hero as I can imagine."

pt 1 | pt 2

#this is clunky but i have an even clunkier pt 2 about friendship #anyway that first textpost articulates everything that's important to me about iida in the stain arc better than i ever could #bnha #iida tenya #mha #bnha web weave #tenya iida #my hero academia #web weaving #parallels #my webweaving #wrote a fic about this and i'm still not done being *clenches fist* about it #i'm not projecting you're projecting #i'm on the training camp arc rn and i'm having a Less Fun time mostly i'm just uncomfortable :/#but at least blorbo is here

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villainsandvictimsalliance · 1 year

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I said this before, but for me the best example of a real hero in the bnha universe is Iida Tensei, also known as Ingenium.

It appeared to me so stupid when Stain attacked him. It was the moment I lost respect for Stain and started considering his ideals as empty.

When they show you the recap of what Tensei used to do as a hero, you can feel he is the type of man who would have helped the villains before the villains if he had met them. He was advocated to the little things, the daily struggles, situations that can become way worse if not treated on time

Helping neglected or abused kids are not things below him, for he is not a hero of great acts and entertainment, but a hero of the people, a hero so close to you as a person that you can forget just how important pro-heroes like him are.

He was also a wonderful friend and an incredible older brother. Even after Stain, Tensei showed a level of maturity that impressed me.

Why was he considered a fake hero while All Might was regarded as a real one?

If you compare the way All Might firstly treated Deku to the way Tensei constantly talks in both the Vigilante spin-off and the main series, it hits you like a train just how much of a wonderful role model Tensei is. I don't have a single bad thing to say about him, I can't find a single one, for real.

⠀

Isn't more people like him what the hero society needs? heroic at heart and not at mind or mouth, heroic in the details and not just on tv, heroic even if no one's watching, heroic on their homes, heroic for the sake of it, because they can, because it's the right thing to do, because it's who they are.

#Tensei is my favorite pro-hero and Tenya is my favorite UA student #We don't talk enough about how magnificent is their arc against Stain #Vengeful Iida Tenya was life-changing for me #Ingenium is a hell of an underestimated hero and I want everyone to know it #bnha #mha #my hero academia #boku no hero academia #Iida tenya #Iida tensei #Ingenium #Ingenium bnha #Shan's bnha opinions #Shan's mha opinions

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blixa-illustrations · 11 months

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And so he gets to die a saint but she will always be a whore

But late to the party, but here’s a Gerard Joan of arc from a few months back! I’d been wanting to do a stained glass piece forever and seemed like the perfect excuse.

#mcr #mcr fanart #mcr art #gerard way #joan of arc #stained glass #illustrator

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itsnothingofinterest · 7 months

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Is horikoshi just trolling for narrative stakes now??

I mean it's good All-might lived (I think?), but after showing the bright flash of a large explosion and the fading away of All-might's vestige last chapter, only to reveal that AFO easily stopped it all before the blast even went off...

I don't really hate this completely, because it gives more merit to the villain's (especially the core Lov's) survival, but I kind of wish there wasn't this big and drawn out AFO vs All-might fight if it was going to lead to such a tame ending.

Do you think so? Or do you like how things went or ended up?

Wouldn't be the first time he trolled us like that. Need I remind you of the time AFO talked about his mole in UA while the 'camera' zoomed in Hagakure...in some room somewhere not being a mole? Or how about the cliffhanger where Nana asked if Deku could kill Tomura for her? Still mad about that one.

Although it's not like stakes weren't already launched out the window forever ago. I've mentioned how the heroes outnumber and outgun even both AFOs so that they pretty much won as soon as they got the ambush off; and AFO's plan to control Tomura has also been doomed since he broke free. The only stakes left are if Tomura & the other villains can escape Deku & the heroes to fight another day, and if any individual characters we like are gonna die.

So one the one hand; I get where you're coming from since hero deaths are the only stakes left worth worrying about (that the narrative 100% agrees should be worried about). But on the other, I guess I can't bring myself to care too much who AFO takes with him on his road to his own unwitting doom. I hardly want All Might dead either way, same as you seem to, but least of all just so it can be said that an important hero died.

Besides, it might not end too tame yet. All Might's alive, sure, but he's also in AFO's greasy hands and Bakugou's gotta save him still.

#ask & reply #bnha #bnha 403 #all might #all for one #shigaraki tomura #paranormal liberation front #PLF #pro heroes #hagakure tooru #midoriya izuku #katsuki bakugou #class 1a #nana shimura #As an aside; I'm not sure how this would affect the villains' chances of survival.#The heroes and villains & what they respectively care about have been treated quite differently the whole arc #so villain deaths feel already on the table after Stain died.#Feels like the only thing really keeping them alive is instead how bad a conclusion any deaths would be for their respective arcs.

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jaded-ghoster · 1 year

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Horikoshi’s just knocking these out

#mha leaks #mha spoilers #bnha leaks #bnha spoilers #mha manga leaks #mha manga spoilers #bnha manga leaks #bnha manga spoilers #mha 385 #mha chapter 385 #yes i count this as a stain redemption arc #unpopular opinion stain WAS an asshole idc if he had the right idea he was a fucking psycho who paralyzed tensei

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justatalkingface · 1 year

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The Failure of Corruption in Heroes

So, here's the thing with MHA: when it first started, it made a lot of promises to the readership; there's Izuku becoming a hero, of course, but I'm talking more about the unstated promises, about the themes that were presented to us, which are as much the reason I got as into the story as I did as the characters were. A lot of these themes, over time, have fallen to the wayside, and today I'm talking about one I mention again and again: corruption in heroics.

I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that early on this was one of the biggest themes we were shown, and one that presented as early as the first chapter, no less.

From Mt. Lady kill stealing for glory, to Stain getting a cult following for killing the "corrupt" (more on my contempt for Stain later), heroic corruption was referred all over early on, and even now, in the grim post war era it still clings to life.

Here's the problem: where are the corrupt heroes?

I can count, on one hand, all of them: there's three who are on screen for more than five minutes, Endeavour, Hawks, and Lady Nagant. There's aso that mole for the MLF that get picks up before the raid who is there for about a minute.

And... that's it.

I mean, that's three and a half examples; that seems pretty good, right? The thing is that this problem isn't supposed to be an aberration, it's supposed to be systemic. Stain murders people, and one speech seems to give him a cult following, to the point where he has merch. This is something that almost every major villain talks about; this is supposed to be a lot more prevalent than Endeavour and the Hero Commissions barely expanded on black ops squad.

Where's the heroes taking bribes, or working with small time villains? Where the abuse of power? Where are all the other abusive spouses? Where is all the typical things you'd expect of a corrupt law enforcing institution?

On top of that, there was a focus early on about what heroes meant, but after awhile that petered out as well.

One of the big things of MHA, you see, is that hero is a multifaceted word in setting; it refers to people who save people, yeah. It's also a job, though, one with massive influence, merchandising, public accolades and presumably income.

Izuku, early one, seemed like he'd be the one to... redeem heroics, take them back to their more vigilante roots of just helping people rather than having it as some big popularity contest... which it honestly is? We don't really know what metrics go into ranking heroes, which honestly is probably a damaging concept in itself, but it seems to be heavily involved with the public perception of said heroes, if not completely coming from it.

We had a nice contrast to Izuku, to show this grey area, with Bakugou, who wanted to be rich and famous, Ochako, who wanted money for her family, and just the way UA itself operates at times, with things like the Sports Festival being as much about branding as anything else, and the heroes in the first chapter just standing around instead of trying to save the child dying in front of them.

And the thing is, all of that is a good setup for Izuku, as an audience proxy, to start getting past his blind hero worship and start questioning the system he wants to be a part of; not just how it fails the regular people, but also how it preys on heroes themselves, but it just never happens. That grey area starts fading away over time.

I think it was supposed to be sparked by Stain, at some point into something more, and in story, that's apparently what happened. In reality...

Yeah... about Stain. He has a point, in theory. He's a crazy serial killer, but he's not completely wrong. In practice though? He's supposed to hunt the corrupt. We... we don't see that. Almost all the heroes he's attack have been, at best, names, and then there's Tensei, who I'll get to in a second. If these are corrupt heroes, shouldn't we... hear about that? That they were threatening people, maybe, or taking bribes, or... something, to spark these attacks? And that's not even getting into Tensei, who, from everything we've seen in the spin off, was honestly the ideal kind of hero, kind, helpful, inspirational.

So, it's weird that Stain is attacking him, right?

Actually, not really. Stain has this idealized view of heroes, where if they aren't All Might, society's vision of the ideal hero and someone he almost literally worships, they aren't worth living, and that's why he falls flat as this big symbol of societies darkness or whatever; attacking heroes for failing to be heroic, for doing bad shit, is one thing, something that makes his takes more valid. What he's actually doing is attacking everyone that doesn't meet his personal vision of perfection, which pretty much invalidates whatever is left of his point once you got past all the murdering.

And then, as if to lampshade how much he doesn't work, Hori gets rid of him right after, and after maybe ten chapters he almost never comes up again.

So why is it like this? This is something I brought up when I talked about the League, if approached from the other direction: Hori is afraid of his heroes being wrong, and while he makes the villains always seem wrong to discredit them, he also makes his heroes always seem right so they seem infallible. At this point, I'm not sure if he chickened out part way through his writing, or editors or the industry stopped him, or he just never meant to go in depth into all of this, but so much of the story revolves around the idea that heroes are imperfect.

But we don't see that.

Can you imagine how much harder all the Stain stuff would have hit, for example, if every time he attacked someone he leaked an exposé on who he attacked and why? If every 'victim' he attacked turned out to be a criminal in their own right? And, I feel like I'm doing Tensei dirty by saying this, but imagine the development for Iida if he finds out his brother, his beloved brother he looked up to, was bad? Did bad things? Maybe even, dare i say deserved to be attacked? How his internal debate over taking up the name Ingenium would have looked?

Or when Momo is apprenticed to a hero who spends all her time on fashion shows and commercials, if she said, 'No, I became a hero to save people, not to sell out', and took a stand against a woman who seemed to be almost using her to make a quick buck .

Or... anything, really.

Because for this big, systemic issue, all we really have is Endeavour, who Hori started engaging in Initial D worthy U-Turns to try and salvage the perception of his character almost immediately after he was introduced. Less than a year of in story after it started, no non-villain ever says an unkind word about him any more because he's apparently changed that much. We also have Hawks and the Commission pulling his strings, but since they were killed off off screen that's just... better now, apparently, and we should never talk about them ever again even if the organization itself is still there, and Lady Nagant who, as a character introduced Post War, by default barely even exists.

Oh, and you know, Post War itself. Let me sum up how Post War talked about heroic corruption in the press conference shortly after it begins:

Hawks: Ah, yes, cold-bloodedly executing Twice really tore me up. Deep inside.

*pats chest*

Right here.

Reporter: ...Your heart is on the other side of your body. That's so far to the side... there's nothing important even there.

Hawks: And?

Reporter: Endeavour! Endeavour! What do you say to critics who cite... *checks notes* ...Your entire existence?

Endeavour: Watch me.

Reporter: What? What does that have to do with-

Endeavour, louder: Watch me!

Reporter: But what abou-

Endeavour, screaming now as he burns down the podium: WATCH ME!!!!

Hawks, under orders, joined a bunch of villains for months, apparently killed someone to get entry, blended enough that only a perpetually paranoid shell of a human being saw through his act, and killed a man on national television.

Endeavour was so desperate for success that he married a woman to breed her like she was cattle, and discarded every child she bore like a particularly jaded gatcha player until he got the proxy he desired for his ambitions.

I know I hammed up the responses a lot, but their answers to these problems answered nothing, solved nothing, and barely acknowledged anything, yet it was presented to us as, well, important, like it helped show how sorry they are, and how much they really mean that they'll do better this time, honest.

And this is the pinnacle of the supposed corruption in the later parts of the story, since stuff was theoretically happening off screen, while Lady Nagant showed up and repented in a matter of minutes.

The thing is, for this big, corrupt system, one that is failing so badly that it's collapsing, we never really see the corruption. It's only there, conveniently, so it can provide backstories to motivate the villains, and then vanishes. Meanwhile, all the heroes are, to a man, woman, and apprentice, blindingly Good, willing to sacrifice themselves for the cause (or for Hori's fan favorite), or at worst willing to quit when they don't think they can do it anymore, and that doesn't seem particularly corrupt, now does it?

You can tell us until you're blue in the face about how the heroic industry is flawed, Hori, but until you actually show us these flaws, it'll only fall flat.

#mha critical #bnha critical #the failure of the development of heroic society and corruption #stain is a hollow character #endeavour critical #hawk's abandoned character arc #momo's abandoned character arc #show not tell

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