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Parallels: Katsuki Bakugou (chapter 362) vs All For One (chapter 423)

#AHHHHHHH #YES YES YES YES #afo bakugou parallels are soooo #mha #bnha #mha meta

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a twitter user pointed out that everyone is helping izuku forward but the only one he looked backward for was kacchan and the director was like “hehe you noticed” and I’m UN FUCKING WELL

#bkdk #bakudeku #mha season 7 #mha #bnha

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Let's talk about Jump GIGA

Jump GIGA covers, 2016-2024. Volumes are published (left to right per row) as Winter, Spring, Summer, and Autumn releases, with 2018 and 2019 briefly breaking the pattern by having three Winter and three Summer volumes each. 2023 has an Early Spring volume in addition to the standard four.

So, people have pointed out that the 2024 Spring cover is, uh, not like other covers.

But I've only seen comparisons to other MHA GIGA covers and MHA Weekly Shonen Jump covers. Out of curiosity for what GIGA's typical marketing aesthetics might be, I put together a comparison between all of Jump GIGA's covers to date.

And, um. Some things stand out, to say the least.

First, let me clarify what Jump GIGA even is: it is a seasonal magazine from Shonen Jump, published separate from Weekly Shonen Jump. SJ is an absolutely massive brand and they have a number of magazines serialized outside of the most well-known weekly magazine.

The content of Jump GIGA is primarily made up of one-shots and spin-offs. From the beginning, a lot of the appeal has been the cool cover illustrations which showcase special merchandise that comes with the purchase of GIGA. Usually the cover also promotes big things going on related to the WSJ series, like movie events, new games, or special figurines for sale.

The marketing aesthetic has been clear from the start: the cover consists of one core illustration and a number of ads surrounding it. Most often you get a cover illustration of a protagonist, and then ads and merch for other series, e.g. Food Wars protagonist cover with One Piece film promotion and Haikyuu!! merch.

The purpose of this marketing direction is pretty obvious. Spin-offs and one-shots are not likely to generate a ton of interest consistently, so they lure people in with the cool covers and tempting limited edition merchandise of the series they already know and love. In this way, highlighting one series with the cover and different series with the merch makes sense, because maybe somebody doesn't care about Food Wars, but they definitely want those Haikyuu!! stickers, stuff like that.

Starting from 2020's Autumn volume, you can see a shift. For the first time, basically all of the merchandise is for the cover series. The Demon Slayer manga had already ended five months earlier in May, but a two-chapter spin-off was scheduled for release in WSJ during October. This GIGA was released exactly one day before the second chapter was published and it capitalizes on the hype.

After this point, only MHA and Jujutsu Kaisen dominate the cover and the merch in quite this way, with Black Clover getting attention last volume as a way to highlight the fact that it actually switched syndication from WSJ to GIGA.

Anyway, most commonly the cover illustration is a solo shot of a core cast member (usually but not always the protagonist), and if it's not a solo, it's a big cast illustration.

Only a few covers focus on two characters, and usually it's a crossover as opposed to characters from same series sharing the limelight.

Here we've got Food Wars' protagonist with the main characters from Dr. Stone and Act-Age.

The two covers most similar to the Izuku & Kacchan cover are 2022 Winter and 2023 Autumn.

Winter depicts the main trio of Blue Box in a seasonally-appropriate aesthetic. Not gonna lie, this one kinda makes me laugh--Blue Box is a romance and sports manga, and even though Christmas has a romantic air to it in Japan, instead of depicting any sort of like, hesitant but hopeful romantic energy between the heterosexual couple that actually get together later in the series, they focus primarily on the two girls being cute with the guy is a wee footnote? I mean, all right.

Meanwhile, Autumn depicts one of the protagonists with the series antagonist with a typical cool action style. I'm not very familiar with JJK, but I hear these two have got Some Drama going on, so, there's that.

The merch itself has also evolved over the years. Stickers and posters were present early on, but they have since expanded to decorative folders and now acrylic stands and coasters. 2021 Summer sees the first time the cover illustration is marketed as merch, with the Jujutsu Kaisen cover included as a decorative folder.

Right after that, the Kacchan cover of 2021 Autumn is included as a poster alongside earlier covers featuring Todoroki and Izuku.

2023 Summer's cover is a huge, wrap-around MHA cast illustration and it was published three days after chapter 396 came out, strategically timed to highlight the big shift in the final battle as Ochako vs Toga ends and All Might vs. AFO begins. Merch includes a decorative folder of the wrap-around cover and character motif stickers.

And then we get this!?

A duo cover illustration where the cover art itself has been merchandised to hell and back!?!?

Acrylic stand and pin set!?

Double-sided coaster showing bkdk greatest hits!? With volume 29's river scene cover!?

There's also a double-sided poster featuring the Spring cover with the ninth popularity poll art and a decorative bag with the anniversary art. The cover art itself is plastered all over the volume, front, back, and spine, apparently a total of 21 times.

I honestly don't know what to say about this. It feels wild that this is actually what the cover is. Obviously it is a huge marketing push in anticipation of season 7, and Izuku and Katsuki are the most popular characters, but. it just feels... unique.

In the course of Jump GIGA's publication, this direction is kind of unprecedented. Genuinely no one could have expected this. This seems to be the first time there's been this much merch for a cover. And it was a solid fucking move, marketing-wise--it's sold out basically everywhere, everyone is talking about it. And even people who don't follow the series or ship these two can't help but comment on how strikingly romantic it looks!?

I don't know how much say Horikoshi had in what the cover was, but damn it sure feels like he drew this with immense affection. I kind of wonder if he personally pushed for it to be these two, rather than the typical solo shot, cast shot, or even a protagonist vs. antagonist shot.

I'm KO'd, man. idek if this post is useful to anybody I'm just on my hands and knees here.

Everybody knows what we're all here for, and it's these cute boys finally getting their happy ending.

#incredible #a bunch of jp fans are comparing it to the bridal magazine zexy #from a marketing standpoint this is brilliant #from a shipping standpoint this is god tier #jump giga #bkdk #mha #bnha #bakudeku

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The list keeps going! I completely forgot about All Might naming his car Hercules after the god of strength.

And now we have a new cover by Horikoshi! “Educational Manga: World History” received all new covers and he did volume 3. I don’t think I need to say it but it’s Caesar and Cleopatra.

Hori, probably:

MHA and Greco-Roman Imagery

I, and many other fans, have noticed a trend within My Hero Academia to include Greek and Roman imagery and symbolism. It feels like these themes are ramping up as we get closer to the end of the story so I figured I would list the ones I've noticed so far!

Possibly the most obvious would be Hawks' parallel to Icarus, who flew too close to sun and whose wings were burned, ending in his demise. Oop. In this case would Endeavor signify the sun, who Hawks wishes to be close to?

The other extremely obvious parallel is Tartarus, literally named after the Greek underworld abyss Tartarus where the wicked are kept to torture, far below Hades. This is also where the Titans were kept before escaping.

Speaking of Tartarus, it seems Kronos- I mean AFO let all the Titans and sinners out to wreak havoc on the living world which ends in a huge war against the Olympians. Ultimately it was his son, Zeus, that defeated Kronos. Hmmmm.

Another interesting parallel is how much AFO looks like a biblically accurate angel, his wings even have hundreds of 'eyes.' While this might be a Christian reference, Christianity notoriously had a moment during the Roman empire (soz Jesus). His tunic do be tunic-ing though.

Oh yeah, and then there's this big flag. Seriously, how did I originally miss that one?

Anyway, if ya'll have anything to add please do, these are just the obvious ones I picked out.

#mha #bnha #my hero academia #meta #roman empire #educational manga: world history #mha meta #bnha meta #all might #Hercules #man’s got some kind of brainworm I’m telling you

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An important difference in Izuku's version of heroism compared to hero society's general approach is that Izuku returns agency to the people he has saved rather than inspiring the bystander effect/learned helplessness in others. He doesn't just beat the big bad and leave. Izuku tells the child who just felt helpless that he was a part of his own salvation and that he can now help save others

#bnha #mha #my hero academia #meta

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It’s gotta be deliberate at this point, right? Right? Bueller?

#I forgot to post this here #will I ever get around to writing that pregnancy metaphor meta? #mha 415 #mha #my hero academia #bnha #crack #but also some truth #tomura is pregnant and it’s Izuku’s

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Omae Part 2 Electric Boogaloo

Tomorrow is the one-year anniversary of my post Omae: Complexity of Self-Expression and Intimacy in the Japanese “You.” In honor of it, I’m doing a follow-up post.

Why? Because I made two claims in that post:

“as far as I can tell, Izuku is the only person Katsuki has ever used the pronoun omae (おまえ) towards in-canon”

“Furthermore, he has only used omae towards Izuku on three occasions.”

I prefaced both with “as far as I can tell” because I had some doubts that Katsuki’s use of omae was exactly that exclusive, but I knew it was pretty damn exclusive, so I went ahead and wrote the meta anyway. And I still stand by my assessments of how he uses it and what those moments mean.

But I was wrong on both counts.

Katsuki has used omae towards people other than Izuku.

He has used omae towards Izuku on five occassions, as of chapter 409.

Of course, chapter 409 wasn’t released until months after I wrote my pronoun meta, but at the time of my post, I had in fact missed one pivotal omae directed at Izuku that occurs much earlier in the series.

I wanna talk about those two extra omae towards Izuku and who else he has used omae towards. Much like Katsuki, I am a perfectionist, so if I'm gonna revisit this topic, I'm gonna go all the way.

So, I went through 409 chapters and catalogued every single time Katsuki uses a second-person pronoun.

STRAP IN, BUCKOS.

An Exhaustive Analysis of Bakugou Katsuki’s Second-Person Pronoun Usage

These are all the “you” pronouns Katsuki has used in the manga. We’ll go over them one-by-one and talk about who he uses them for, when, and my thoughts on why.

First, a note about rudeness: In many languages, and certainly in Japanese, familiarity and rudeness go hand-in-hand. In dictionaries and on grammar websites, you’ll see advice about using a term only with “people above you” or “people equal to or below you.” In general, you are either talking up to someone (polite speech) or you are talking down to them (casual speech). Excluding outright derogatory language, talking down to someone is the same as treating them as your equal.

Talking up creates or maintains distance between parties. Casual speech, familiar terms, and directness are nuances that generally get introduced into relationships as they deepen. Basically, being close to someone gives you the “right to be rude” to them. To speak this way with a stranger or people who are your hierarchical “social superiors” is considered rude in part because you lack an established (or equal) relationship with them.

I mention this because I think some people are under the misapprehension that for Katsuki to show someone he cares, he would have to speak respectfully towards them—that is, talk up to them. That simply isn’t the case, and in fact such behavior might convey callous indifference instead, because switching from casual speech to formal speech with someone you have history with puts distance between you, pushing them away.

Instead, there are more nuanced ways to connect and affirm bonds. Katsuki using omae rather than temee, for example, is not him being more polite, he's just being less insulting. He is still talking down, and one could argue that by refusing to talk up to anyone, Katsuki treats everyone equally. I mean he is still a foul-mouthed little monster, but you know, at least he’s consistent about it.

Anyway, keep this “right to be rude” in mind.

As mentioned in my first post, temee is basically Katsuki’s default second-person pronoun. If he’s addressing someone directly and he isn’t using one of his mean nicknames, it is almost guaranteed to be this word. This graphic is the only one that is not exhaustive, featuring just the top three.

Temee is derogatory; it is often translated as “you bastard,” and even when it’s not, its presence encourages translators to slather a veneer of rudeness across the sentence as a whole. Unlike the other pronouns we’re going to talk about, there is basically no scenario where you could use temee and not come across like an asshole. You could use it with friends or family to joke around, but you’re still being an asshole, just a funny one.

And... can we just acknowledge the vast gulf between Izuku’s 62 and runner-up Todoroki’s 14? Obviously Izuku is the protagonist, so it makes sense that much of the dialogue we are shown from any character is about him or directed at him. But it’s also just really funny.

No single use of temee is particularly notable since it's so common, but it is obvious why these two are at the top of the list: Katsuki has a lot of scenes with them, and he considers them his rivals. As a result, they tend to throw him into a tizzy often.

Anta is a contraction of anata. If avoiding a “you” pronoun entirely is the most polite way to refer to someone, anata is arguably the next most polite way. It is considered polite towards someone of “equal or lower status,” but can seem distant—you hear it in commercials when the narrator has to address the audience, “you, the customer.”

Anta strips away that distance and expresses either familiarity or contempt, depending on how you want to read it, which makes it pretty fucking funny that Katsuki uses it for his mentor figures. It is worth noting that anta is significantly less offensive than his typical temee and arguably even omae. A normal person would never use anta towards their boss or teacher—or their lifelong idol, for that matter—because it is talking down, which puts them on your level. But Katsuki’s whole persona is built around rebellious superiority, so out of all the options, he affords All Might and Best Jeanist the least offensive pronoun he can stomach using. Essentially, “I’m not gonna be fuckin’ polite but god, fine, I’ll be LESS rude, I guess” while still maintaining plausible deniability.

I also wanna note that there are instances where Katsuki technically uses temee towards All Might and anta towards Izuku, because he uses them in the plural form to refer to both of them at once. It’s actually pretty interesting to see who is framed as the “primary subject” of his scolding based on which pronoun he uses.

Chapter 257

All Might is the one droning on and on, so Katsuki’s response pluralizes his All Might pronoun anta into antara, lumping Izuku in with him. Basically: “stop wasting my time and get to the point (and that goes for you, too, Deku).”

Here we’ve got him pluralizing temee and, between All Might and Izuku, it’s definitely more the Izuku pronoun. So this reads a little like “dammit Deku you kept this secret so badly I found out and then you swore me to secrecy but you’re STILL UTTER SHIT AT HIDING IT so you are MAKING MY LIFE EVEN HARDER (and you, All Might, don’t you fucking know better??)”

Aaaand now we’re at the good shit. Okay, let’s break it down.

Ochako

Chapter 36

Katsuki addresses Ochako with omae at the very start of their Sports Festival battle, and this is in fact the first time he addresses her personally with a second-person pronoun. It’s a great writing choice: unlike every other fight we’ve seen Katsuki in so far, he isn’t busting out his typical boisterous insults. Rather, what he says reads as a measured assessment of her as a threat, and omae contributes to this. Had he used temee, he might still have come across this way on the whole, but the use of omae as the first word out of his mouth—when the audience knows he uses temee—sets this moment apart even more.

The text of Uraraka vs. Bakugou isn't ambiguous: Katsuki takes Ochako seriously, immediately, when no one else does. This is of course a rejection of sexist assumptions about girls, but it is also because Katsuki is smart. Kaminari’s battle is the foil to this fight. Where Bakugou succeeds, Kaminari failed, having been too sexist, cocky, and just plain dumb to properly assess his opponent and the danger they pose to him.

I said in my first post that Katsuki’s omae towards Izuku immediately after Deku vs. Kacchan 2 reads as him addressing Izuku as an equal, and I would say the same is true here.

After Ochako tries to execute her plan and Katsuki accuses her of colluding with Izuku, he uses temee towards her. It’s his standard choice, of course, but the change feels a little loaded in hindsight. She might have been afforded a different pronoun once, but she quickly gets lumped into the temee pile at least partly due to Proximity To Deku.

Katsuki talks the most shit when he’s on the ropes—a strategic, cocky camouflage for his vulnerability. We know from his thoughts watching Todoroki vs. Midoriya that at this moment, he was pretty worried he was at his limit. But Katsuki also likes a good challenge, and he respects people who can give it to him, so in gearing up for the climax of this fight, he calls her by her surname.

The progression: omae + mean nickname → temee → surname.

In later scenes, he addresses her with his typical temee, which just goes to show you that Katsuki really picks and chooses his moments.

Or, as All Might put it:

Speaking of picking and choosing his moments, this next one was a delight to discover.

Jirou

Chapter 182

As with Ochako, this is the first time Katsuki uses a "you" towards Jirou personally. To be precise, what he uses is a sound-shifted variant of omae pronounced omee (written variously as おめえ, おめー, and おめぇ). We’ll talk about whether that means anything later.

This occurs during the school festival when Jirou belts her heart out suddenly. Katsuki thinks back to how the band had criticized his improvisation and her specifically telling him not to do it during the show. So he says out loud, to himself, “omee ga surun kai,” for which I think the funniest translation would be, “OH BUT YOU CAN DO IT, HUH??”

The official English translation is “hypocrite!” which isn’t bad, but yeah, he is being such a grumpy little sarcastic baby about it, it’s very funny. Just muttering complaints under his breath, with no actual ill-will attached. The fact that he uses omee reinforces the sense that this is not a serious complaint; it’s good-natured ribbing and contributes to the reader’s awareness that Katsuki likes and respects Jirou.

While Kaminari and Sero mischievously try to trick him into participating in the festival, Jirou earnestly asks for his help while acknowledging his skill.

Chapter 171

On top of outright asking "onegai" (please, but literally: "a request"), the verb construction she uses (やってくれたら, yatte kuretara) frames his participation as a favor; kureru is basically “to do for the benefit of someone else [often to your disadvantage or inconvenience].” And then she personally works her ass off to make their performance the very best it can be.

Later during the Joint Training Battle, Katsuki relies on her, uses a nickname for her (to her annoyance), and saves her. Kirishima and Kaminari both astutely comment that the festival band reinforced Katsuki’s trust in his classmates and his willingness to work with them towards success.

In this moment during the festival, Katsuki is letting Jirou shine, because each of them doing what they do best is what makes the performance a triumph in the first place.

But the boy’s still gonna be a bossy little tsundere about it.

4th Grade Bullies

Chapter 62

In Izuku’s flashback, little Katsuki uses omaera (plural form) towards the 4th graders who pick a fight with him.

You might be thinking, “Hang on, haven’t all the omae uses so far been for people Katsuki likes or at least respects? So why is he using it for these two?” And you’d be right, at least when it comes to present-day, teenage Katsuki using omae, because it’s no longer his default.

Flashbacks to Katsuki and Izuku’s childhood tell us that Katsuki’s default peer address as a kid was most likely omae, and that he switched to temee as he got older and became more of an obnoxious little shit. I emphasized in my first post that omae seems softer coming from Katsuki because it’s a departure from his normal way of speaking. The flashbacks show us a time when he was... kinda just a regular kid using language common among boys his age.

Still, there is a “cool tough guy” air to this moment, because omae can also come across as contemptuous—which is how Izuku uses it towards villains in present-day. Izuku uses boku for himself and kimi for peers, the combination of which tend to be seen as kind of soft and boyish, rather than macho and cool. Little Katsuki uses the boastful pronoun ore for himself and omae towards the bullies, who are both older and therefore technically "above" him.

So Izuku marvels at Kacchan, who talks big and tough like a grownup. Kacchan who can do anything, who stands his ground, fights to win, and invokes the heroic ideals of All Might.

Izuku

Chapter 9

The first time we see Katsuki call Izuku by his name is when we learn the origins of the nickname Deku. It also happens to be the first time we see Katsuki address someone with something other than temee. This scene shows us a glimpse of what their relationship looked like before it totally fell apart: before Katsuki nicknamed him Deku, he called him Izuku. And before Katsuki started hurling insults and screaming “you bastard” (temee!) at Izuku all the time, he used a different “you” word for him, too. Little Katsuki addressed him as a little boy would address a peer or a friend.

It made me wonder… is the aftermath of Deku vs Kacchan 2 the first time Katsuki has addressed him as an equal since they were little kids?

And, furthermore, little Katsuki uses the sound shifted variant, omee.

You might be surprised to learn that temee itself is a sound shifted variant of temae (手前, てまえ). Temae literally means “before the hand” and historically, it was a humble first-person pronoun, meaning “me, who stands before you.” Omae (お前) literally means “the one before [me],” it was historically very polite and only used for extremely high-class people. Somewhere along the way, temae became a second-person pronoun like omae, and both started to be perceived as quite rude.

Tough guy Japanese speech patterns are epitomized by sound shifts and bitten off words. Supposedly, this dialect originates in Tokyo’s historic Shitamachi area, which is characterized as rough and working class in sharp contrast to the wealthy, high class Yamanote area.

So, does omee mean something different than omae? Maybe, but not always. Does it mean something different when someone says “Thank ya” rather than “Thank you”? Or when someone says “y’all” rather than “you all”? Not exactly, but… does it feel different? It can.

Little Katsuki’s sound shift links this moment to our last example:

Chapter 409

As you acquire language, you develop a personal relationship with it informed by your experiences. More than just dictionary definitions, you gain cultural and emotional associations, and that impacts how you interpret media and other people. I don’t think anyone can say that omee definitively conveys something different than omae, but I do know that when I personally read Katsuki use it in 409, the shift feels like casual fondness. Like letting down your guard. A reassurance spoken softly. It somehow feels just a bit softer than if he had enunciated omae.

Years ago, Katsuki used it to tease Izuku about how he can’t do anything. And four hundred chapters later, he uses it to say “I won’t get in your way anymore.”

You should read pikahlua's really, really good meta about what this line means.

Whether it was intentional on Horikoshi’s part or not, I think it is a meaningful callback. These are the only two times Katsuki has ever used omee towards Izuku. It emphasizes how he has changed, yes, but it also ties in the context of his own past "uselessness" and how he has surpassed it, that he won't ever again be "a weakness others can exploit" to get to Izuku. But also, as pika says:

(And I read that he’s ready to let Izuku be the main character.)

The only other time Katsuki has used omee is towards Jirou, when he affectionately teased her for being a hypocrite while also making sure she got her time in the limelight.

And what does Katsuki think in the next chapter?

“Izuku, do your best.”

Izuku gets his time in the limelight. They each brought their own strengths to this final battle, and Katsuki has held up his end. He wasn’t a burden, he didn’t hold Izuku back—he came back from the dead, saved their hero, and took out All For One. Now Izuku has to do what he does best.

A lot of the things I said in this post simply reiterate the meaning of the text itself, and that's because the nuances in Katsuki’s dialogue support the narrative. They reinforce what the story tells us about him and his relationships, and I think that's pretty amazing.

#such a great explanation #I love learning about the cultural nuances that gives a deeper meaning to language #meta #translations #mha #my hero academia #bnha #boku no hero academia

[tnbwrites]

Me last chapter: ha ha Tomura's vestige world looks like an ovum

Chapter 413 Kudou: So anyway, you have to throw me as hard as you can at that sphere of hatred. If you transfer each of us hard enough then surely one of us will be able to pierce that shell. If one of us can pierce it, then we'll be able to reach the child within--

#oh my god yes!!! #I also see the opening as a vulva?? #where Tenko will be reborn from??? #kisses ur brain #mha #bnha #meta #mha meta #my hero academia #mha spoilers

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Control your heart, but not like how you think

I've tried so many ways to write this idea out before. Hopefully I get it right this time.

There's a widely-accepted fandom interpretation going around a lot lately that I think needs to be challenged. Perhaps I won't be able to express it in its complete version because I don't subscribe to it, but I'll try my best to approximate it and hopefully most of you will know what I'm generally talking about.

It seems like a lot of people believe "control your heart" is a plot line that refers to Izuku's inability to contain his love for Katsuki, that "control your heart" is advice from a well-intentioned but ultimately incorrect adult who wants Izuku to suppress his feelings for Katsuki, and that Izuku is hiding his feelings but will eventually let go and embrace his love for Katsuki in an explosion of anger. Or something. Admittedly this interpretation varies a lot depending on who's talking about it, and I cannot hope to encompass every interpretation of it with one paragraph. But it always boils down to some version of "control your heart is about Izuku repressing his feelings for Katsuki."

Let's discuss.

Table of Contents I. Why I want to challenge this aka false dichotomies II. What Banjou said III. Katsuki's rage IV. Tomura doesn't control his heart V. The AFO connection

I. Why I want to challenge this aka false dichotomies

I want to challenge this interpretation of "control your heart," but my main goal here is not to shoot down BKDKs. I want this to be understood more than anything: the goal here is to help BakuDekus.

You see, fandom and shipping arguments--they're very susceptible to false dichotomies. I believe this is the source of a LOT of certain shipping interpretations that seem to go so far in one direction they fall off the rails.

I'll give you an example. I vividly remember how an anti-BKDK once went for chapter 1 in which Izuku rescues Katsuki. They started with the argument "Izuku didn't save Katsuki because he loves him, he would have saved anyone else in that situation."

This is a false dichotomy. "Izuku loves Katsuki" and "Izuku would have saved anyone else in that situation" are NOT mutually exclusive. It's very possible for both statements to be true (and I would argue they both ARE true). However, in the heat of an argument, it's very easy to accept the framing of these statements as mutually exclusive without stopping to think. You can try to argue against the premise. You can try to argue "no, Izuku saved Katsuki BECAUSE he loves Katsuki, and he wouldn't have done the same for anyone else," but you have to ignore or distort so many canon elements to get there. That makes it very easy for your opponent to point and laugh about how your interpretations are so wrong that they have to bend the story to make them work.

But there's another option: reject the framing. If you accept the framing, you're allowing the other person to dictate the discussion.

What does this look like? Let the evidence lead you to the conclusion and not the other way around. And that's a difficult thing to do. I would never say I'm perfect at it either. But if you are convinced Izuku loves Katsuki, then whatever evidence lies in canon shouldn't scare you. In some way, it doesn't MATTER what happens in canon--in that you're invested in their dynamic together and you'll ship them regardless, because there's ALWAYS an interpretation that will support the ship. But you can read the ship into whatever the canon provides. If someone says "Izuku would save anyone, so he the reason he saves Katsuki is not because he loves him," one potential response would be "Izuku would save anyone, and also he saves Katsuki because he loves him." Don't let others control how you interpret the story with their words.

To take this back to "control your heart," there may or may not have been a shipping argument that spawned this--I have no idea. But there doesn't have to be. The point is to challenge the framing of the assumption, because there may still be another shipping interpretation if the original assumption doesn't hold up.

"Control your heart is bad advice that causes Izuku to repress his love for Katsuki and he will end up exploding" is one way to frame this.

But consider this new framing: "Control your heart is about Izuku using his anger/love as a source of strength so long as he doesn't let it control him--just like Katsuki does."

II. What Banjou said

The "control your heart" line comes from Banjou in chapter 213.

But I think people really gloss over the part that comes before:

This isn't about repression. Banjou says, "It's okay to get mad. That rage can be the source." Control here is not about repression at all.

This is about whether or not the rage controls Izuku instead. This is about Izuku going berserk and losing his senses. I've discussed the phrasing in Japanese before:

The phrase in Japanese is "kokoro wo sei suru" (心を制する). The word in question, kokoro, does not have a direct translation into English. It is often translated as "heart," "mind," or "spirit." The meaning of sei suru is "to control," "to command," "to get the better of."

The notion that "control your heart" means "don't let your rage get the better of you" is supported by chapter 367.

Tomura reveals that the reason he wanted to leave Izuku the "presents" of his comrades beaten and Katsuki dead was to anger him--which would cause Izuku to fight poorly. Mirio talking Izuku down after this further supports that "control your heart" is meant to be a good thing, something Izuku should do.

We also see a precursor to this in All Might vs AFO in Kamino (you know, the first one). AFO was determined for years to find something to "steal a bit" of his heart away--and he came up with using Nana Shimura's grandson.

Tomura himself stokes All Might's anger by attacking his students at the USJ.

But each time All Might gets angry, he keeps control and saves the day.

All Might is able to be effective despite his anger--or perhaps even because of it. Izuku needs to be able to do the same.

III. Katsuki's rage

In a weird way, the poster child for using anger as a source of strength is Katsuki Bakugou.

I say "in a weird way" because Katsuki's anger is often used as a front for something else. He hides behind anger. But at the same time, since he seems to be angry constantly, he surprises everyone with how much control he has over himself...

...to the point where Tomura even misjudges Katsuki's veil of anger at the sports festival to be resentment towards society.

And we know a big part of the dynamic between Izuku and Katsuki is about emulation.

We've just had a grand battle between Katsuki and AFO in which Katsuki achieved his strength by emulating Izuku--his battle analysis, his tolerance and willingness to endure pain, his use of his own pain as a weapon, etc.

So what if "control your heart" is the corollary to what Katsuki just went through? What if Izuku's "control your heart" is about him learning to use anger to win in the way Katsuki always does?

IV. Tomura doesn't control his heart

If Izuku does need to "control his heart" to be like Katsuki, this provides an opportunity for a moment in Izuku vs Tomura where Izuku can acknowledge Katsuki's role in Izuku's growth. This will depend on Tomura acting as a foil.

I start with the assumption "control your heart" means “if I want to save the people I love, I can’t let anger in the moment control me. I have to use my anger, which comes from my love, to reach the bigger goal.” In this case, Izuku has to control his heart long enough to get what he wants (to save Tomura), and he may have to go even further by applying this ability to someone else who doesn’t control their heart (Tomura).

I do think Tomura can represent a person who is not in control of his heart--which is why he lashes out and destroys everything. He gives in to his instincts to destroy. He loves destruction. And he represses the child inside him who has to explode out when someone like Mirio says he doesn't have any friends. If there's any character who represses his true desires, it has to be Tomura Shigaraki. He denies the idea that he's human, that he's saveable, that there's a crying child inside him--things Izuku rejects because he has seen the truth of them. So Izuku learning to control his heart may be what allows him to save Tomura, and if so, he can give some credit for that to Katsuki (and to All Might as well).

V. The AFO connection

I think one of the major details people discuss surrounding "control your heart" is this notion that Izuku lied about what triggered Black Whip in chapter 217.

"Any clue what set it off? Maybe something's triggering it." "I dunno..."

There's this assumption by the fandom that Izuku is lying because he should know that Black Whip going berserk was triggered by Izuku's anger at Monoma insulting Katsuki. Honestly, I think this is a misreading of the above scene. I don't blame anyone for the misreading because the scene is written in a confusing manner, but I think they're talking about something else.

Katsuki isn't asking "What caused Black Whip to go berserk?" (answer: Izuku's emotions.) He's asking "What caused Black Whip to become accessible?" In other words, why is One For All evolving in this way now? Why didn't All Might have access to these quirks when he had One For All? Why didn't you, Izuku, have access to these quirks until now?

To which all Izuku can say is, "they [the vestiges] just told me the time was right."

If you think about it, it doesn't make sense that Izuku's emotions triggered the "unlocking" of Black Whip and Izuku's sudden access to all these new quirks. If all that was necessary was for Izuku to have a surge of emotion and the desire to "catch" something to unlock Black Whip, he should have unlocked it back at summer camp when Compress kidnapped Katsuki or when Katsuki was about to disappear through Kurogiri's portal.

So in the above page, we're really meant to hone in on Katsuki's suggestion: "Yeah, something to do with All For One..."

There's evidence to support All For One is connected to One For All's evolution. In chapter 209, right before Izuku's team's match in the joint training exercise (where Black Whip first appears), we "randomly" get a cut to All For One in prison:

There are plenty of hints scattered about that this all has something to do with AFO. Remember, Izuku has a dream where Yoichi spoke to him the night before the Joint Training Arc begins--and the dream included a bit of AFO's backstory. It's very possible this was the true "unlocking." I would argue the best hint we have about what's happening with OFA is AFO's line of "I hear my little brother's voice!"

...because it sounds like the AFO-OFA resonance from chapter 369.

Putting all these pieces together, I would like to share with you my current theory about "control your heart." You don't have to subscribe to this idea, but this is where I personally am at right now.

I think the fact Black Whip went out of control in the Joint Training Arc reveals this evolution is about the resonance between OFA and AFO (the QUIRKS, not the people) that we’re seeing in the story right now. Katsuki’s role in this is that he’s the trigger for Izuku’s anger, which didn’t unlock the quirk factors but allowed them to go berserk in the moment. The idea of "control your heart" most likely means “anger is good, but don’t let your anger control you, you should be the one in control.” And Shigaraki understands this because he tries to provoke Izuku’s anger to defeat him. Izuku has to keep his own anger from interfering with his heart’s desire to save Shigaraki, and Katsuki is horrified that he’s a trigger for Izuku in this way (which is why he freaks out when Izuku attacks Tomura in the Paranormal Liberation War, and why he tells Izuku "stop trying to win this on your own" after he gets stabbed saving Izuku). This informs Katsuki's desire to "no longer stand in Izuku's way," because Izuku can only be triggered when Katsuki isn't strong enough to keep himself from being exploited. Izuku was triggered by Katsuki's death, but he managed to CONTROL his anger, not suppress it. He's still angry, he's just channeling it to achieve his goal of saving Tomura. And it's likely this point could come up in Izuku's attempt to save Tomura as Tomura is someone not in great control of his heart. And in the same way Izuku was an example for Katsuki to emulate so that he could use his pain and analysis as a weapon to defeat AFO, Izuku can use Katsuki's example to emulate "controlling his heart" aka controlling his rage to be his power in battle.

For your consideration.

#meta #bnha #mha #my hero academia

[tnbwrites]

Oh we’re so back, baby! Literally, babies…

We’ve got a wonderful parallel to Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, who were twins that were saved by drinking the milk of a female wolf.

If you didn’t know, the Latin word for prostitute was the same for she-wolf, lupa.

We also have a very subtle nod to Orpheus and Eurydice. The latter trying to get his wife back from Hades and, by turning around to look at her loses her to death forever.

And more Kronos parallels. He was considered an all-devouring force that eventually threw up all the children he ate. Methinks someone will have the quirks rebel against him.

MHA and Greco-Roman Imagery

I, and many other fans, have noticed a trend within My Hero Academia to include Greek and Roman imagery and symbolism. It feels like these themes are ramping up as we get closer to the end of the story so I figured I would list the ones I've noticed so far!

Possibly the most obvious would be Hawks' parallel to Icarus, who flew too close to sun and whose wings were burned, ending in his demise. Oop. In this case would Endeavor signify the sun, who Hawks wishes to be close to?

The other extremely obvious parallel is Tartarus, literally named after the Greek underworld abyss Tartarus where the wicked are kept to torture, far below Hades. This is also where the Titans were kept before escaping.

Speaking of Tartarus, it seems Kronos- I mean AFO let all the Titans and sinners out to wreak havoc on the living world which ends in a huge war against the Olympians. Ultimately it was his son, Zeus, that defeated Kronos. Hmmmm.

Another interesting parallel is how much AFO looks like a biblically accurate angel, his wings even have hundreds of 'eyes.' While this might be a Christian reference, Christianity notoriously had a moment during the Roman empire (soz Jesus). His tunic do be tunic-ing though.

Oh yeah, and then there's this big flag. Seriously, how did I originally miss that one?

Anyway, if ya'll have anything to add please do, these are just the obvious ones I picked out.

#mha meta #bnha meta #my hero academia #boku no hero academia #meta #greco-roman imagery #my hero academia manga spoilers

[tnbwrites]

Pikaaaaaa I read a summary of this weeks chap and wowowow i live for the backstoryyyy. also peaked at the full spread of AFO going all outtttt and is that HAWKS in there??

Gimme the thoughts and feelings and crazy ideas. I love reading ur input on leak day

Ooooh you mean those are wings? That's...totally plausible!

I'm just too distracted laughing my ass off at the person who pointed out "Fa Jin" is a Bruce Lee technique and so Buruusu Rii would have SURII be the "three" in his name and I NOW CAN ONLY IMAGINE HIS ENGLISH-TRANSLITERATED NAME AS

BRUH THREE

BRUH THREE

✨B R U H✨

#mha #bnha #my hero academia manga spoilers

[tnbwrites]

I wonder if that women AFO saw when he was fighting jiro was his mother and not eri mother

What are you, a psychic???

#oh #ohhhhh this is #alfjkaldhdk #mha #bnha #meta #mha meta #afo

[tnbwrites]

Fellas, is it gay to play heroes and villains with your younger brother but get far too into it to the point where you can’t discern reality from fiction anymore and you lock your brother away when he tries to tell you you’re wrong but some asshole breaks him out and transfers some thus unknown power to him, probably by kissing, so you kill them both but you continue to hunt down that power out of anguish and a sense of longing for what you can never have again?

And is it gay to accidentally call your new, young hero opponents by the names of your younger brother and his boyfriend savior while fighting them?

Asking for a friend

#the friend is afo #bro is losing it I’m having the time of my life #what do you meannnnn he called bakugou ludoi and izuku younger brother #is he going to repent for his sins? are we gonna get more divine imagery? #mha #bnha #mha spoilers #bnha spoilers #memes

[tnbwrites]

I guess we all gotta call him Kacchan now since he’s basically asking us to

#mha #bnha #memes #mha 406 #mha spoilers #bnha spoilers

[tnbwrites]

I really wasn’t imagining it then? That AFO has the stigmata?

Currently thinking abt.....!

How Hori describes the protrusions on Toshi's helmet as "horns" and how he's seemingly designed with somewhat occultic vibes in mind (skeletons, devils, etc) -versus- AFO's deceptively "angelic" appearance (to say nothing of all the jesus/messiah imagery)

AFO's menagerie of tryhard fleshhell quirks -versus- Iron Might's transformative steel and metal, AFO casually distorting his body into monstrous masses of teeth/eyes while Iron Might instead maintains Toshinori's "ideal" human form and silhouette.

AFO getting drawn with thin, delicate, ~dainty~ lines and minimal screen tones while Toshi gets drawn with big, bold, inky lines and dark shadows. Hori has experimented with his art so much during this final arc, and the end result is just fantastic.

Color schemes................,,,, (silver and gold, white and black, etc)

Like from a design standpoint alone, AFOmight is simply unmatched. Hori was cooking with gas when he designed these two.

#angelic AFO isn’t real and can’t hurt you #I’m always flip flopping between Christian imagery and Roman-Greco imagery #either way hori’s been cooking and I’m loving it #meta #mha #bnha #my hero academia #all for one

[tnbwrites]

I was so enticed by this I decided to compile as many references as I can because early MHA was so horny afnsjdf. Here is a not-at-all-exhaustive list of sadomasochism/bdsm themes in the first 100 chapters of MHA. Yes, just the first 100 chapters. Unsurprisingly, Bakugou makes the most appearances. I have a lot of questions for the author...

Pika, was it you who compared some of hori’s early mha art to bdsm themes? I remember someone mentioning that a while back and I’m so curious about it.

Yeah...

That

was

me.

#meta #mha meta #my hero academia #boku no hero academia #bnha #mha #bnha meta #bdsm themes #i mean hori is famous for breaking his body to push out his work so #i'm not really surprised #but also you know when you can just tell what a person is into? #yeah

[tnbwrites]

in the bnha story fantasy is used to reject and ignore someone else like Tenkos family, who rejected the reality of the situation in favor of the fantasy of a happy family. if they admitted that it wasn’t a happy family it would be like challenging the fantasy of a happy family that they created for themselves and admitting their complacency in the abuse. they ignored reality in favor of fantasy in turn ignored Tenko who was hurting  Afo has control over the narrative and likes being in control by reducing people to roles and archetypes instead of people. he likes to lose himself as a character and doesn’t want to be understood as a human he rejects reality in favor of his fantasy but when his control of the narrative and fantasy is being challenged he becomes aggressive he loses control of the narrative he was piling up, for example, ofa is the only quirk that can not be controlled he is technically is eating his own words “reality doesn’t follow the old playbook” with the same reality he used to reject is now turning on him in the form of ofa.  izuku has been given a quirk and now attends ua he got to live his dreams as a hero he gets to live out his fantasy but while he was using his quirk he constantly gets injured due to his lack of control when izuku lived out his fantasy, in turn, ignored his mother's feelings as a consequence. which comes to a head when she was discussing after being back in school

Ye!!!!!!

MHA acknowledges that fantasy is not inherently a bad thing-- It can inspire people and give them the strength they need to get through their lives! It can give them hope for their future! It helps people dream of becoming better and becoming happier! It can be a wonderful and healing force! It can save people! Fantasy has value and that value deserves to be acknowledged and respected! But, fantasy should never be used to ignore or cover up pain instead of healing it. Pretending that everything is all right when it's not or pretending that the problem will just go away if you refuse to acknowledge it is where fantasy starts to segue into escapism.

Like, to clarify I don't think every issue in MHA falls under the banner of "fantasy as escapism" (in the case of Tenko's household, there were a looooot of complex factors at play and I don't want to diminish or oversimplify any of them)-- but a lot of the core plots in MHA do involve fantasy/escapism in some capacity, so like, it's hard not to think of it as one of the main themes in the series lol.

Outside of AFO's whole deal (and Tomura's) (and Toshi's) (& Izuku's), one of my favorite examples of "Fantasy as escapism" vs "Fantasy as healing" in mha actually comes from the Todoroki plot:

The anime adds a scene of Endeavor sitting in a dark room and wallowing in anger/self-pity as he watches All Might be lauded as the ~*~ultimate superhero~*~ on TV, while Rei watches on in horror-- it's an absolutely horrifying scene, and I do understand why some ppl are mad the anime added it because it's framed in a very..... viscerally uncomfortable way. But, I like the scene purely from a narrative standpoint because I feel we're meant to draw comparisons to an early-MHA scene between Shouto and Rei:

In this scene, Shouto associates watching All Might on TV with a tender, happy memory. Everything is framed in a warm and bright way, and Shouto takes what All Might and Rei are saying to heart-- That he must be able to recognize who he is and appreciate himself independently of his quirk, and that he isn't bound by blood. It's ok for him to want to be a hero because HE wants to, and not because Endeavor tells him he has to be one. This memory, combined with Izuku telling him that "his quirk belongs to him and he alone gets to decide how to use it," allows Shouto to finally start healing.

"And that's the despicable truth!"

Meanwhile, Enji uses fantasy purely as escapism from a wound he wont allow to heal and as a way to mask his own ugliness as a person. He projects all his fantasies about "All Might" being this invincible, unbeatable, undying superman onto Toshinori-- and he's spent his entire life madly chasing after a vision of All Might that only exists in his head. He chases after the fantasy of becoming the ultimate superhuman because supermen don't have to worry about pesky human limitations like, say, dying. Or death. Or being killed. After all, if his father had been a "true superhuman," then SURELY he wouldn't have died and SURELY he would have been able to save that girl and NOTHING bad would ever happen ever, right?? ...... Right??????

Enji's long laundry list of sins starts with him treating his own sons as an extension of his fantasies and placing that absolutely impossible, unreasonable dream on their shoulders. The literal moment Enji is confronted with Touya's humanity-- that is, the moment he's confronted with his son's inevitable mortality-- Enji's immersion is broken. He immediately clams up and retreats as deeply as he can into his Endeavor persona, shutting Touya out and prioritizing sparing his own heart from injury over the heart of his son. Touya simply can't understand where his father went and spends his entire childhood trying to get him back. Mentally, Enji went out for a carton of milk and then never came back-- and Touya, a literal child, was left behind and expected to make sense of this abandonment.

To Touya, Enji and Endeavor were the same person: His dad. To Enji, Endeavor was an alter-ego-- just a mask he wore to feel better about himself and play pretend. All Touya wanted was for Enji be his father-- but being a father of course meant remembering that he is mortal, and that Touya is also mortal. So, Enji ran and continued to chase after his fantasies through Shouto while becoming more and more abusive towards his family for refusing to play along.

*AFO Voice*"This body is just a proooooooop what you're actually fighting doesn't have a tangible foooorm lol rofl lmfao 😂🤣🤣"

Endeavor is AFO's main foil for a reason. Like AFO, he uses fantasy as a form of toxic escapism-- both men essentially cannibalized their own families in their attempts to escape "humanity, weakness, pain, and death" and achieve their idea of "godhood," and both men attempt to live out their dreams through their children (AFO just takes this one to a literal extreme 💀💀💀). AFO and Endeavor are quite the pair, and Endeavor choosing to keep playing hero over confronting the realities of his responsibility as a father only enables AFO to also keep playing out his own comic book fantasies.

Speaking of fantasy.........!

When the clock strikes midnight and All Might turns back into Cindertoshi in front of the entire world, Endeavor's immediate reaction is to fly into an impotent rage and scream at him. As if to say "How dare you be human. How dare you be human when the entire basis for my whole fantasy specifically hinged on dehumanizing you. How dare you be a human, just like me!" Endeavor never understood what made Toshinori an actual hero and spent his life treating Toshi as an unreachable, unattainable "other"-- And now that dream is over. Toshinori's just a regular human, and supermen don't exist. The cold, hard, cruel reality of what he did to his family finally sets in.

Just as Touya's constant burns forced Enji to confront the reality of Touya's and his own mortality, All Might's true form again forces Enji to confront the "human" part of the superhuman ideal-- he is forced to admit that there is no such thing as a "true superhuman" and that he was always chasing after a fantasy that never existed.

Side Note: Enji looking at All Might and basically saying "YEAH YEAH COOL COOL I'M SURE EVERYTHING WOULD'VE BEEN FINE AND I NEVER WOULD'VE HAD TO EXPERIENCE ANY PAIN IF *YOU* WERE MY DAD. WATCH ME FATHER FOUR CHILDREN TO SHOW YOU JUST HOW FINE I WOULD BE IF *I* WERE YOU AND YOU WERE ALSO MY DAD AND ALSO IF YOU WERE MY SON (???) :)" is like next level unhinged and I don't think the fandom talks about it enough lmfao. Dadmight game so strong it created a generation of deadbeat fathers who would rather fantasize about ~All Might takin' them to the ball game~ than raise their own damn kids.

Another aside....!!! Bakugo's reaction in particular always gets me during the Toshirella reveal, bc Bakugo n' Endvr are so often foiled with each other-- but their reactions are like night and day.

Like Endeavor, Bakugo is witnessing the moment his untouchable, unconquerable fantasy "falls to earth" and gets exposed as someone who as just as human as him, just as human as anyone else, and just as capable of getting hurt and discouraged as anyone else. Unlike Endeavor, though, Bakugo's reaction is neither scorn nor blame-- he instead chooses to cheer for Toshinori harder and louder than ever:

Another day, another instance of Endeavor getting absolutely owned in some vague capacity by a teenager lol. I should turn this into a drinking game and just get, like, completely smashed. I mean I would probably definitely die by the time we reach the part where he starting gets verbally browbeat by horribly bitchy visions of his teenaged self, but at least I would go out doing what I love: bullying fictional middle-aged men.

^ The above is another good example of how fantasy isn't always harmful when you're still willing to accept the reality underneath it. When the chips are down, one of the things that really defines you in this series is how you react when that layer of "fiction" gets violently ripped away and you see what's underneath:

-VERSUS-

god DAMN IT ENJI--

/end

#my hero academia #mha #bnha #meta