I guess this blog is mostly about the Todoroki family and the LOV, though you might also find posts about BNHA in general General stuff
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Hopefully helpful guide to potentially useful posts
Usually, for navigational purposes, I content myself with just tagging the posts in an organized way and placing a link on the sidebar but, specifically for this blog, I thought a pinned post might be more useful to track some of them so here they are.
BNHA Observations, speculations and assorted info - Places
BNHA Observations, speculations and assorted info - How they're called
How the Todorokis call each other (Part 1)
How the Todorokis call each other (Part 2)
How the Todorokis call each other (Part 3)
How the Todorokis call each other (Part 4)
How would you say “The Todoroki family” in Japanese?
The Todorokis, how they are called and how they call others - Part 1 (Chap. 1-21 & Ep. 1-13)
BNHA Observations, speculations and assorted info - Scenes and character histories
Dabi’s way to fight in the manga from the start to chap 363
My two cents about Episode 146 (with spoilers about scenes which will appear in future episodes)
The Todoroki Family: Questions and Anwers
Quirk counseling: canon, the cultural references and what we can guess from this all
‘Remedial course’ arc Vs Uraraka’s quirk counseling program in chap 431
Chap 431 and Touya’s panel
The justice system in BNHA - part 1 (canon terminology, real life japanese institutions, chap 1 to 97)
The justice system in BNHA - part 2 (chap. 98 to 193)
General Meta
Ramblings about the Shimura family
Ramblings about the Takami family
Ramblings about the Himura family
Ramblings about the Shigaraki family
Ramblings about the Todoroki family - Part 1: Todoroki Enji’s origin and teenager years
Ramblings about the Todoroki family - Part 2: The back that’s too big, the mountain that can’t be climbed
Ramblings about the Todoroki family - Part 3: The girl who’s like ice, Himura Rei and how she became Todoroki Rei
Touya and Shouto’s fight or why assuming the other is you and baring fangs wasn’t meant to work
Todoroki Enji’s father’s death and why he feels he’s not a superhuman
My two cents about chap 426
Changing society in BNHA
Did Enji atone to Touya (and his family) and stepped up on his role as a father?
Was Rei a bad mother or not?
BNHA and Japanese law, aka why Enji and Hawks can't go to jail
BNHA ENDING or how a good plan might become something not so good when written down
When Heroes need protecting who will be there to protect them?
‘Code red’ order in Aldera middle school aka teachers supporing bullying in BNHA
Were really Tenko’s choices not his own?
Was the savior trio really a savior trio?
Who’s to blame when the stakes are missing?
Missed promises
Heroes and human rights
Why Rei called Shōto the family Hero?
Why the Sekoto Peak fire shouldn’t have happened or, how it should have happened DIFFERENTLY from what we were told
Technological progress in BNHA
My Hero Academia Ultra Archive (May 2, 2016)
Prototypes for Todoroki Shōto and Todoroki Enji
Main events of the 1st semester
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The facts taking place during the year that ends with Rei's hospitalization and Tōya's assumed death
The facts taking place during BNHA first year
The facts taking place during BNHA second year: April
The facts taking place during BNHA second year: May & June
The facts taking place during BNHA second year: July
The facts taking place during BNHA second year: August
The facts taking place during BNHA second year: September
The facts taking place during BNHA second year: October & November
The facts taking place during BNHA second year: December
The facts taking place during BNHA second year: January, February & March
The facts taking place during BNHA second year: April & May
Full “Boku No Hero Academia” Timeline (Last update: 2024-09-28)
Settei
Todoroki family related settei for season 3
Todoroki family related settei for season 5
Todoroki family related settei for season 6
BNHA Observation
Chap 1 [Ep 1-2]
Chap 2-4 [Ep 3-4]
Keeping up with the Todorokis or, just me observing the Todorokis in the various volumes
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Volume 2
Volume 3
Volume 4
Keeping up with the Todorokis or, just me observing the Todorokis (Anime version)
Love is a fire Chapter 1: Promises
Love is a fire Chapter 2: Effort
Love is a fire Chapter 3: Chances
Love is a fire Chapter 4: Smile
Love is a fire Chapter 5: Burn
Love is a fire Chapter 6: Warmth
Love is a fire Chapter 7: …
Love is a fire Extra: Characters’ ages
I'm very interested in Fuyumi Todoroki. I'll ask the questions that particularly concern me (sorry for any typos, I'm using a translator).
1. At what age did Fuyumi start caring for her younger brothers? I believe there was a nanny before, but Fuyumi doesn't mention her. What did she do with the children and the household? Did Fuyumi help Natsu with his studies and send him to school, but she stayed home herself, presumably to be with Shoto? Did she cook his favorite dish, soba? Did she provide them with emotional or other support? 2. How close is Fuyumi to Shoto? The communication ban was lifted after Toya's loss, so does that mean Fuyumi was raising Shoto? Was she like a mother to him? How does Shoto feel about Fuyumi? 3. Did Fuyumi visit Rei in the hospital before Shoto started visiting his mother in Season 2? What is Rei's relationship with her daughter? 4. I'm very interested in Toya and Fuyumi's relationship. Toya called Fuyumi useless as a child and didn't share secrets with her like he did with Natsu. But Toya agreed to play with Fuyumi, didn't attack her like brothers in the future, and continued to call her by the close suffix "chan" and didn't speak ill of her. Does Toya love his sister? How close are they? 5. Fuyumi is often accused by fans of forcing Natsu and Shoto to reconcile with their father, calling it manipulation and disregard for their feelings. Were Fuyumi's attempts to reconcile her brothers with their father selfish and manipulative? Did she truly neglect her brothers for the sake of a family reconciliation? How was this portrayed in the original? I'd like to explore this further.
(in case the jpg doesn't download this is what it says:
I forgot to ask in the previous message. Was it a bad thing for Fuyumi to give Shoto's phone number to their father without his permission? I constantly see this moment presented as an example of Fuyumi's disregard for Shoto. But maybe she gave his number out of mentality or circumstances? I'd like to know if Fuyumi should really be blamed for this and said to have done something bad? Or is there something else that fans are missing? I love Fuyumi and I'd like to know she's innocent, but if she is guilty, I'd also like to understand that.)
Wow, so many questions about Fuyumi-chan! I'm so happy!
Just a warning, part of your questions have no official answer in canon. I can speculate but I can’t tell you for sure.
The story also have some plot holes so not everything makes sense.
To go in order...
(sorry for any typos, I'm using a translator).
It’s okay, I’m not a native English speaker myself, I understand how hard it could be to talk a foreign language!
1. At what age did Fuyumi start caring for her younger brothers? I believe there was a nanny before, but Fuyumi doesn't mention her. What did she do with the children and the household? Did Fuyumi help Natsu with his studies and send him to school, but she stayed home herself, presumably to be with Shoto? Did she cook his favorite dish, soba? Did she provide them with emotional or other support?
Well, technically Fuyumi AND TOUYA were probably involved in taking care of Natsuo just after his birth, though it was likely a gradual thing and they weren’t immediately fully entrusted Natsuo but just helped Rei taking care of him.
We know from School Briefs for example that, after Shouto’s birth, Rei, who previously would bathe with Touya, Fuyumi and Natsuo, stopped doing so to bathe with Shouto, leaving her other three children to bathe alone, meaning Touya and Fuyumi were helping Natsuo, who was 3, to take his own bath.
Entrusting the older siblings with taking care of the younger siblings, where possible, is pretty common in Japan (and not only there).
In Vol 10 there is a small story about Asui’s family and we see since her parents travelled a lot she was left in charge of taking care of her younger siblings, even cooking for them when she was 13 and who knows if she had started doing so earlier than that.
Long story short, in Japan it wouldn’t be seen as a big deal but a normal responsibility that would fall on the oldest siblings.
We don’t know if there ever was a nanny in the Todoroki house. Japan normally do not use nannies, Chap 302 says Enji hired help after Shouto’s birth but insisted for Rei to look after Touya so said help might have been just for housework (In chap 2459 is said they used to have someone to cook for them), or for looking after Shouto, and not after Natsuo, though School Briefs insists it was Rei that looked after Shouto, with the result she had no time for her other kids.
We see an old woman watching as Touya, Fuyumi and Natsuo play but I doubt it’s a nanny as in Japan Touya and Co are old enough to play on their own in the garden of their house without supervision while their parents are there. After all Midoriya and Bakugou, at 4 could go alone to play in a playground that was near their house and we see that Tomura does the same as 5. Really, Japan is pretty lax about children’s supervision, they didn’t need to have a nanny in that moment.
It is also worth to mention there is no nanny that is held accountable for supervising over Touya and his trips at Sekoto Peak, Enji blames just Rei so even more it is unlikely there was someone looking after the kids.
The result is the old woman might have been their grandmother or a servant passing by. We’ll never know.
Touya, Fuyumi and Natsuo likely all went to school together, with Touya and Fuyumi checking over Natsuo and helping him with homework if Rei wasn’t available, though kids are often pushed to handle their homework alone so it’s not like his siblings HAD TO supervise him, they more likely offered help. After Touya’s death I guess all this was done by Fuyumi only.
Fuyumi went on with her studies so she didn’t remain home to supervise Shouto either, and when she stopped studying she started working as a teacher so no, she didn’t have to look after him the way a mother would.
In theory Shouto should have gone to their own same school once he was 6 so Fuyumi and Natsuo should have gone to school with him but since Natsuo apparently had zero interactions with SHouto growing up… who knows. It is more likely a plot hole.
(And no, Enji’s driver wasn’t their home’s driver, Kurumada worked for Enji the Hero not for the Todoroki the family so he likely didn’t carry his kids at school and we have no mention of other drivers. The kids should have gone to school by foot like the rest of the kids of their age.)
We know for a long while the Todoroki had a servant who cooked for them, then she retired and Fuyumi AND NATSUO started taking turns to cook food. Apparently they never ate with Shouto as Natsuo has no idea if Shouto even ate what he cooked (it really doesn’t make sense as if that wasn’t the case who was cooking for Shouto? Enji? And didn’t Natsuo realized if the food was being tossed away or not?).
From School Briefs we know Fuyumi cooked Soba for the new year, as that is a traditional dish to celebrate it. She probably cooked it in other circumstances as well.
We also know Fuyumi supported Natsuo and became a teacher because she was ashamed she couldn’t help Shouto.
We don’t know how her interaction with Shouto was but, if you ask me, from the little we see it seems she wanted to be supportive and look after him… but Shouto seemed to keep distant in the early chapters and he calls her nee-san instead than nee-chan like Natsuo does, nee-san being a more polite way to say sister that might imply he is not as close to her as Natsuo.
2. How close is Fuyumi to Shoto? The communication ban was lifted after Toya's loss, so does that mean Fuyumi was raising Shoto? Was she like a mother to him? How does Shoto feel about Fuyumi?
We have no idea if the communication ban was ever lifted or if it was formally lifted in the first place but also, after Rei is hospitalized there is no one to supervise them and maintain the ban since Enji works till late most of the days, so it is possible the ban simply went forgotten and they could have talked if they wanted to. It was just that Natsuo was so grief stricken it never dawned on him he could talk with Shouto.
The relationship between the Shouto and Fuyumi is mostly left unexplored and is riddled with plot holes but Shouto doesn’t seem to see Fuyumi as a replacement for his mother. He doesn’t even seem particularly close to her.
We also know Fuyumi took care of Natsuo WHO DIDN’T INTERACT WITH SHOUTO, so Fuyumi couldn’t really split and be there for both. She likely focused on Natsuo because she was used to do so and Natsuo likely asked for her and tried to look after Shouto too who might not have been open to it due to the trauma of losing his mother because she had protected him.
This is speculation though. The truth is we don’t know.
3. Did Fuyumi visit Rei in the hospital before Shoto started visiting his mother in Season 2? What is Rei's relationship with her daughter?
Yes, she did. According to chap 250 apparently Rei only had problems seeing Shouto post Touya’s death (again this is the result of a retcon and things got messed up futher).
Fuyumi and Rei seem to have a good relation. We see them interact in School Briefs too and it is clear Fuyumi is taking care of her mother and supporting her and so she had been doing for years. We don’t know when exactly it started though as in the beginning it could have been done by Rei’s mother or by a servant. Still the two get along well.
4. I'm very interested in Toya and Fuyumi's relationship. Toya called Fuyumi useless as a child and didn't share secrets with her like he did with Natsu. But Toya agreed to play with Fuyumi, didn't attack her like brothers in the future, and continued to call her by the close suffix "chan" and didn't speak ill of her. Does Toya love his sister? How close are they?
We need to look at the contest.
Touya called ALL OF THEM ‘failures’ because that’s how he believed his father saw them.
He also said his mother and sister are no good BECAUSE THEY DO NOT UNDERSTAND him. We know Fuyumi sided with her parents, she didn’t want Touya to train because he would get hurt and she was worried for him, and she also didn’t want people to argue in the family so she meekly obeyed to what she was told and pretended everything was all right because she was too scared to act (with good reasons considering how Enji used to beat Rei because she acted).
We see though that she invites Touya to play and worries when he falls and he agrees to play and calls her Fuyumi-chan which is an affectionate way to call her, so it is not that they had a bad relation all the time, it was just Fuyumi couldn’t offer Touya the support he needed… and back. They were just kids after all and that was too big for them. We can’t compare them to adults.
5. Fuyumi is often accused by fans of forcing Natsu and Shoto to reconcile with their father, calling it manipulation and disregard for their feelings. Were Fuyumi's attempts to reconcile her brothers with their father selfish and manipulative? Did she truly neglect her brothers for the sake of a family reconciliation? How was this portrayed in the original? I'd like to explore this further.
Fuyumi is not FORCING anyone. She has a right to say she wants the family to reconcile, she has a right to invite them to family dinner with their father. They have a right to refuse.
The way Natsuo has the right to express his feelings on how he doesn’t want to reconcile, Fuyumi has the right to express her own. They are family and they are siblings, she doesn’t have to keep her feelings secrets same as he doesn’t have to. They have to be honest with each other.
Of course their own problem is that their respective wishes are conflicting and this makes things complicate because Natsuo is so traumatized he is not ready yet to meet her midway.
Still Fuyumi creating chances for reconciliations is not wrong per se if she leaves Natsuo the freedom to reject them.
In School Briefs we see that she warns Natsuo Enji will come back home and Natsuo decides he’ll leave before he’ll be home and she doesn’t stop him. In Japanese culture a reconciliation is something the family SHOULD DO and it is viewed as a good thing for all the members. Japan is big on reconciliation and group harmony.
To give you an idea Bakugou is not part of Midoriya’s family yet because they know each other from childhood he and Midoriya are expected to be friends by society.
As for Shouto, Shouto started seeing Enji after his match with Midoriya and decided to give Enji a chance after the latter decided to atone. Fuyumi didn’t force him to do it all, it was Shouto’s decision and saying it was Fuyumi who forced/manipulated him brings away Shouto’s agency in the matter.
I forgot to ask in the previous message. Was it a bad thing for Fuyumi to give Shoto's phone number to their father without his permission? I constantly see this moment presented as an example of Fuyumi's disregard for Shoto. But maybe she gave his number out of mentality or circumstances? I'd like to know if Fuyumi should really be blamed for this and said to have done something bad? Or is there something else that fans are missing? I love Fuyumi and I'd like to know she's innocent, but if she is guilty, I'd also like to understand that.
It really depends on your culture. In mine a minor cannot independently purchase or register a telephone contract or SIM card. However, they can own and use a telephone if their parents are aware of it and allow it. Basically no minor as a right to have a phone and keep for himself his telephone number. To me it seems ridicule that Enji had to ask because Shouto is a minor and he is just not allowed to that kind of privacy as it is a parent’s duty to check on a minor’s phone and Fuyumi couldn’t buy a phone for him and give it to him without Shouto’s father’s approbation.
But other cultures might feel differently.
For example in Japan Shouto can do all of the above… with Enji’s money as Shouto doesn’t work and has no money of his own. Or yeah, I guess Fuyumi could buy one for him without asking for Enji’s permission. However in Japan parents can—and are strongly urged to—control and monitor their children's mobile devices (they even have a law about it, the Act on Development of an Environment for Safe and Secure Internet Use for Youth).
So the scene more than of Fuyumi violating Shouto’s privacy speaks of Enji’s failure in parenting as he wasn’t controlling Shouto’s mobile device. Fuyumi is not violating Shouto’s privacy in this setting, she is helping Enji to act like a father.
On the whole the scene in chap 203 is meant to be humorous, Enji is making a big deal of gaining something he should have had from the start, and then he proceed to stress Shouto by sending him plenty of messages because Horikoshi is trying to paint him as an helicopter parent instead than an abusive parent.
As I said before though, if in a country a boy of Shouto’s age can have a phone and doesn’t have to have parental control in using it, it might feel like a violation of his privacy. He gave his phone number to Fuyumi and, if Fuyumi didn’t ask Shouto first, the fact she gave Enji his number would be a violation of Shouto’s trust. Since Shouto isn’t surprised to receive messages from Enji I think Fuyumi told/asked him beforehand and then passed the number to Enji, mediating between the two.
The truth though is that we don’t really know how things went, just that Enji had that number thanks to Fuyumi’s help.
Said all this… there are mostly my interpretations. Horikoshi doesn’t really devote much time on the relationships between the Todoroki siblings so we have no canon answers and people is free to disagree with me and come up with their own interpretation.
I think Natsuo and Touya's relationship should have been explore more throughly. For all we know, they used be really close, Touya confided in him and Natsuo played with him the most and had a typical brother relationship ( Natsuo laughing at him bcuz he fell down, telling him to "buzz off" during rants were really bro coded 😭). But how close were they actually? Did touya ever genuinely held affection for him? Its no doubt Natsuo did. How do u think Natsuo reacted knowing touya almost caused him to die via ending? I personally think natsuo prolly cut touya from his life as well after ch 426. He didnt even look at Dabi throughout the whole chapter, untill like once when dabi closed his eyes.
Oh absolutely we needed to explore it more, in more ways than one.
There are many things that could be said about this but, to focus on your questions...
But how close were they actually? Did touya ever genuinely held affection for him?
According to Fuyumi they were very close because they were always playing together.
Todoroki Fuyumi ‘Natsu wa Tōya nī to totemo nakayoshi de ne… yoku isshoni asondeta.’
轟冬美「夏は燈矢兄ととても仲良しでね、よく一緒に遊んでた。」
Todoroki Fuyumi “Natsu was very close to Tōya nī… they often played together. ” [Chap. 250]
We also know Touya trusted Natsuo enough to elect him as the person with whom he could confide his misery...
Todoroki Tōya ‘Jibun ga naze sonzai suru no ka wakaranakute mainichi Natsu-kun ni naite sugatteta koto shiranee daro.’
轟燈矢「自分が何故存在するのか分からなくて毎日夏くんに泣いて縋ってた事知らねぇだろ」
Todoroki Tōya “You didn't know that since I didn't understand why I existed, I cried and clung to Natsu every day.” [Chap. 290]
...the only one who could understand how he felt...
Todoroki Tōya ‘Natsu-kun made ore o tashinameru no ka! ? Yamete kure! Natsu-kun shika rikaidekinai kara hanashi terunoni! ! Wakarudaro ie no on'na wa kai dame damenada!’
轟燈矢「夏くんまで俺をたしなめるのか！？やめてくれ！夏くんしか理解できないから話してるのに！！わかるだろ家の女は皆だめだめなだ！」
Todoroki Tōya “Are you going to scold me too, Natsu-kun?! Please, stop it! I'm only telling you this because you're the only one who can understand! You know all the women in our family aren't good (at understanding this)!” [Chap. 302]
...which is confirmed by Natsuo as well.
Todoroki Natsuo ‘Uton deta wake janai...? Dattara nani...? Ore wa zutto Tōya nī kara kikasarete kita….’
轟夏雄「疎んでたわけじゃない...？だったらなに...？俺はずっと燈矢兄から聞かされてきた…」
Todoroki Natsuo “So you weren't shunning us? Then what? I've been hearing about this from Tōya nī all this time...” [Chap. 252]
So I'll say they were close... but being close when referred to children of that age and who do not have a solid support from family isn't exactly the same as being close when one is older and more psychologically all right.
Touya desperately needs Natsuo's support and it crushed him when he believed Natsuo too was turning his back to him, which really doesn't make for a healthy dynamic, especially since Natsuo is fundamentally a kid and can't offer the kind of support Touya needs.
Still, the moment Touya wakes up from coma his thoughts are for his family. He excuses them, he wants to apologize to them.
Todoroki Tōya ‘Ha… sonna matte yo kaeranakya! Otōsan wa shigoto ga haitte ko rare natta dake kamo shirenai kitto……! Shinpai shite…!! Hidoi koto o shitashi… ittashi… okāsan-tachi ni ayamatte… otōsan ni mata mite morawanakya.’
轟燈矢「は…そんな待ってよ 帰らなきゃ！お父さんは 仕事が入って来られなっただけかもしれない きっと……！心配して…！！ ひどいことをしたし…言ったし…お母さんたちに謝って…お父さんにまた見てもらわなきゃ。」
Todoroki Tōya “Ah... no, I have to go home! Father might just have had to work and couldn't come, surely...! He must be worried...! I did and said terrible things... I have to apologize to Mother and the others... and I also need to get Father to see me.” [Chap. 302]
This, combined with the trauma of what had happened and the trauma of having to escape from the orphanage, made even worse how he came back home and came to believe no one cared for his supposed dead.
Touya loved his father, mother and siblings, that's why he wants to go back, he wants to apologize, he is making excuses to explain why Enji didn't come, but when he came to believe they didn't care at all about him, love turned to anger. They hurt him, he'll hurt them back as hard as he can.
“Odi et amo. Quare Id faciam,fortasse requiris. Nescio,sed fieri sentio et excrucior.” (I hate and I love. Why I do this, perhaps you ask. I know not, but I feel it happening and I am tortured.) [Catullo - LXXXV)]
“If you can just stop loving her then you never really loved her at all. Love doesn't work that way. If you ever truly love someone, then it never goes away. It can become something else. There are all different sorts of love. It can even become hate- a thin line and all that- and, really, hate is just another kind of caring.” [Blakney Francis - Someone I Used to Know]
“No one can hate you more than someone who used to love you.” [Rick Riordan - The Blood of Olympus]
Its no doubt Natsuo did.
Natsuo did love Touya, but he loved him like a child can love an older sibling, it's a love selfish, dependant and immature, and then Natsuo idealized Touya as his father's victim, deciding Touya's death was another way had Enji hurt him. He never truly got to know or understand Touya, what lived in him was the pain of the loss as well as, likely, a buried sense of guilt because he couldn't save Touya, because he got bored to listen to him crying.
Natsuo likely doesn't fully remember Touya, because he just was too young and the trauma of his death helped Natsuo to form a certain type of memory of Touya.
Long story short, Natsuo doesn't really know Touya, not even the kid that he had been, he has in his mind an idealized version of him whom he loves very much, to the point that in School Briefs they say he pays more attention to his deceased older brother than to his living younger brother.
How do u think Natsuo reacted knowing Touya almost caused him to die via Ending?
I don't know if Shouto and Enji even informed Natsuo of that. The video which went viral didn't include this info, that was just something Touya told Enji personally, though the scene can seem confuse because the manga and the anime play Touya's dialogue with his father and the video alternating one and the other so that they seem to be a continue flow of dialogue.
Touya might have heard the video playing as he spoke if Skeptic put it in on mode, but I doubt Enji and Shouto did as they were distant and I genuinely doubt Skeptic's pc has such powerful audio, yet sometimes it seems as if the voice of the video is framing them.
The video though was edited and shared BEFORE Touya started talking with his father, so it can't include what Touya says to Enji right then.
Long story short, I doubt Shouto went and told Natsuo about Ending having been set on Enji by Touya so I don't think Natsuo ever had to react to that
I personally think natsuo prolly cut touya from his life as well after ch 426. He didnt even look at Dabi throughout the whole chapter, untill like once when dabi closed his eyes.
Nobody truly knows.
Technically, since Touya can handle conversations only for few minutes each day and Enji promised to be there everyday and Natsuo doesn't want to see Enji ever again, this also offers him a convenient excuse to never see Touya again.
Differently from the rest of his family Natsuo didn't express a wish to talk to Touya, he just went there once and can't truly met his gaze until the end, but Touya doesn't seem to answer them and they are ushered out... until Shouto tries again to talk to his brother and gets an answer.
Maybe Natsuo needs time before being ready to face Touya, maybe he will never get enough time as Touya will die first, we'll never know.
What we know is that Natsuo is also built to stand in opposition to Shouto, to basically underline how Shouto is better because, in the story, Shouto should be the model at which people should get inspired.
So, even though Touya personally tried to kill Shouto and told him hurtful things and Shouto could have spared himself going there as he is not the one to blame for what had happened to Touya, Shouto is there and wants to talk with Touya and connect with him and he is not worried of how Touya, with his actions, had basically ruined them all as Japan isn't kind with people who are related to criminals even if they bear no blame.
Sadly Natsuo in the story was used more as a device, a device to represent and try to win over readers who disliked Enji (that's why at the end of the story Natsuo first sends Enji to fight AFO and then he calls him father for the first time and tell him he is cool) but also to show how amazing Shouto is, the true Hero of the family.
Natsuo gets some space, definitely more than Fuyumi, it is possible to build analysis about him, but he deserved more, especially in his relationship with Touya... but well, we have what we have.
I've held the belief that Natsuo turned away from Toya after the reveal exactly because of how much of his adult life was built on the memory of his dead brother who he may have seriously idolized in retrospect, and he was unable to reconcile the memory with the truth. In a way isn't like the arc words of Pet Sematary - "Sometimes, dead is better." Toya came back from the dead as an unspeakable horror, toppling every good memory of him Natsu's had, and if we subscribe to the belief that the Todoroki siblings are meant to represent the four responses to fear where Natsuo represents the flee response, the best he could do was to look away, pretend it's not happening and preserve what good memories he has of his older brother. For the sake of his sanity, that "thing" in the contraption is Dabi, not Toya. Perhaps with time he would've been able to reconcile the two truths, but as tragedies have it, he likely wouldn't get that time. Idk, Natsuo appears to be the most well-adjusted of the siblings so I find it interesting if his relationship with Toya was the messiest in turn
Hum...
...I fear I disagree with you, Natsuo is not the most well-adjusted among the siblings, quite the contrary.
To help who's not a native speaker like me well-adjusted means to be mentally and emotionally stable, possessing the ability to deal with people, daily stressors, and life changes in a healthy, sensible way. A well-adjusted individual typically displays emotional maturity, adapts easily to new conditions, and balances their needs with the demands of society.
Of course the less well adjusted among the siblings is Touya, who's suicidal, obsessed, aiming to destroy society and his own family and desperate, but Natsuo is the one who comes second.
Natsuo can't stand in the same room with Enji.
It's not he just decided not to because he deems Enji a person he doesn't want to be with, it's he can't. Even when he tries to do it, he ends up snapping and leaving, with Enji hardly doing something that can be considered worth of such reaction.
This is particularly relevant the second time it is shown, as he was supposed to be there FOR SHOUTO, and instead ends up embarassing their guests, which is kind of a capital sin in Japan.
When Natsuo talks with Enji in chap 192, he can't do it in the calm and composed manner of a person who is emotionally stable and can deal with the stress of that conversation. He is bitter, sarcastic, can hardly contain his anger, ends up yelling and leaving. He can't sustain that conversation calmly.
He keeps his temper better in check in chap 249, but can't stop himself from throwing a jab at Enji, even though he should have known he would make their guests uncomfortable.
When he overheard the conversation between Midoriya and Shouto he feels troubled... he doesn't associate his refusal to forgive Enji with a rational choice but with an emotive one, he is not as caring as Shouto.
And look at his expression. He is clearly not a boy okay with himself.
Natsuo is not avoiding Enji because he has rationally decided Enji is unworthy of his forgivance, nor he is holding a grudge on the behalf of his family.
Natsuo has a problem, he just can't cope with his memories, with what had happened in the past. When he sees Enji it all rushes back to him and hurts him. He is a traumatized boy, whom no one is helping.
His way to deal with trauma, distancing himself from Enji instead than trying to murder him and kill himself like Touya is doing, is healthier but it is not the sign of a well adjusted person, it is the sign of a person who is carrying trauma and is trying to find a way to cope with it, to heal.
And mind you, what Natsuo is doing is a good thing!
If he can't deal with Enji, distancing from him is for the best!
But at the same time it is the sign he is not well adjusted yet, that this is a situation he can't cope with.
On the opposite Shouto manages pretty soon in the story to cope with his own trauma and to find ways to interact with Enji while, at the same time, mantain his stance that Enji do not deserve his forgiveness for what he had done. Mind you, Shouto didn't start well adjusted but he became it. Shouto overcame his trauma and doesn't let it influence his choices. He can train under Enji because it would be profitable for him, and he can interact with him in a civil way without snapping at the first thing Enji said.
Fuyumi's trauma is not explored at all so I won't really dig on her but, overall, she is the same as Shouto with even a plus, she can see Enji is trying and not only give him a chance but offer him a helping hand.
As for Natsuo and Touya... honestly I wouldn't really compare Touya turning out being alive with "Pet sematary". The ones who comes back in "Pet sematary" aren't the persons whose body belongs to but creatures possessed by the Wendigo, a primal demon. They didn't decide to come back nor they decided to harm people as a way to avenge themselves. They're more like Nomu, actually they are worse than that as they seem to have lost even more than Nomu their original self.
Touya is Touya.
He might look horrible and his mind isn't in the right place, but Touya IS Natsuo's brother, as well as the result of all the pain his own family's neglect put him through and while it might have been more convenient for Natsuo if such a damaged brother were to never come back, if Touya had died that day... well, Touya didn't die and it is his own right to choose to get vengeance over his family who abandoned him (mind you, I'm not saying it's the right choice or that it's legal what he does, just that he can decide such path for himself).
It is Natsuo's choice to decide to prioritize himself over an older brother he barely knew and had likely conveniently idealized, Natsuo is a person who's dealing with his own trauma after all, he might not have the resources to deal with Touya too. Sometimes one has just to choose to let others drown if they don't want to sink along with them and so it wouldn't be surprising for Natsuo to decide to let his older brother sink.
After all Natsuo didn't really have the resources to deal with Shouto, who never attempt to hurt him, so it probably wouldn't be in character for him to make an effort for Touya.
I think Natsuo and Touya's relationship should have been explore more throughly. For all we know, they used be really close, Touya confided in him and Natsuo played with him the most and had a typical brother relationship ( Natsuo laughing at him bcuz he fell down, telling him to "buzz off" during rants were really bro coded 😭). But how close were they actually? Did touya ever genuinely held affection for him? Its no doubt Natsuo did. How do u think Natsuo reacted knowing touya almost caused him to die via ending? I personally think natsuo prolly cut touya from his life as well after ch 426. He didnt even look at Dabi throughout the whole chapter, untill like once when dabi closed his eyes.
Oh absolutely we needed to explore it more, in more ways than one.
There are many things that could be said about this but, to focus on your questions...
But how close were they actually? Did touya ever genuinely held affection for him?
According to Fuyumi they were very close because they were always playing together.
Todoroki Fuyumi ‘Natsu wa Tōya nī to totemo nakayoshi de ne… yoku isshoni asondeta.’
轟冬美「夏は燈矢兄ととても仲良しでね、よく一緒に遊んでた。」
Todoroki Fuyumi “Natsu was very close to Tōya nī… they often played together. ” [Chap. 250]
We also know Touya trusted Natsuo enough to elect him as the person with whom he could confide his misery...
Todoroki Tōya ‘Jibun ga naze sonzai suru no ka wakaranakute mainichi Natsu-kun ni naite sugatteta koto shiranee daro.’
轟燈矢「自分が何故存在するのか分からなくて毎日夏くんに泣いて縋ってた事知らねぇだろ」
Todoroki Tōya “You didn't know that since I didn't understand why I existed, I cried and clung to Natsu every day.” [Chap. 290]
...the only one who could understand how he felt...
Todoroki Tōya ‘Natsu-kun made ore o tashinameru no ka! ? Yamete kure! Natsu-kun shika rikaidekinai kara hanashi terunoni! ! Wakarudaro ie no on'na wa kai dame damenada!’
轟燈矢「夏くんまで俺をたしなめるのか！？やめてくれ！夏くんしか理解できないから話してるのに！！わかるだろ家の女は皆だめだめなだ！」
Todoroki Tōya “Are you going to scold me too, Natsu-kun?! Please, stop it! I'm only telling you this because you're the only one who can understand! You know all the women in our family aren't good (at understanding this)!” [Chap. 302]
...which is confirmed by Natsuo as well.
Todoroki Natsuo ‘Uton deta wake janai...? Dattara nani...? Ore wa zutto Tōya nī kara kikasarete kita….’
轟夏雄「疎んでたわけじゃない...？だったらなに...？俺はずっと燈矢兄から聞かされてきた…」
Todoroki Natsuo “So you weren't shunning us? Then what? I've been hearing about this from Tōya nī all this time...” [Chap. 252]
So I'll say they were close... but being close when referred to children of that age and who do not have a solid support from family isn't exactly the same as being close when one is older and more psychologically all right.
Touya desperately needs Natsuo's support and it crushed him when he believed Natsuo too was turning his back to him, which really doesn't make for a healthy dynamic, especially since Natsuo is fundamentally a kid and can't offer the kind of support Touya needs.
Still, the moment Touya wakes up from coma his thoughts are for his family. He excuses them, he wants to apologize to them.
Todoroki Tōya ‘Ha… sonna matte yo kaeranakya! Otōsan wa shigoto ga haitte ko rare natta dake kamo shirenai kitto……! Shinpai shite…!! Hidoi koto o shitashi… ittashi… okāsan-tachi ni ayamatte… otōsan ni mata mite morawanakya.’
轟燈矢「は…そんな待ってよ 帰らなきゃ！お父さんは 仕事が入って来られなっただけかもしれない きっと……！心配して…！！ ひどいことをしたし…言ったし…お母さんたちに謝って…お父さんにまた見てもらわなきゃ。」
Todoroki Tōya “Ah... no, I have to go home! Father might just have had to work and couldn't come, surely...! He must be worried...! I did and said terrible things... I have to apologize to Mother and the others... and I also need to get Father to see me.” [Chap. 302]
This, combined with the trauma of what had happened and the trauma of having to escape from the orphanage, made even worse how he came back home and came to believe no one cared for his supposed dead.
Touya loved his father, mother and siblings, that's why he wants to go back, he wants to apologize, he is making excuses to explain why Enji didn't come, but when he came to believe they didn't care at all about him, love turned to anger. They hurt him, he'll hurt them back as hard as he can.
“Odi et amo. Quare Id faciam,fortasse requiris. Nescio,sed fieri sentio et excrucior.” (I hate and I love. Why I do this, perhaps you ask. I know not, but I feel it happening and I am tortured.) [Catullo - LXXXV)]
“If you can just stop loving her then you never really loved her at all. Love doesn't work that way. If you ever truly love someone, then it never goes away. It can become something else. There are all different sorts of love. It can even become hate- a thin line and all that- and, really, hate is just another kind of caring.” [Blakney Francis - Someone I Used to Know]
“No one can hate you more than someone who used to love you.” [Rick Riordan - The Blood of Olympus]
Its no doubt Natsuo did.
Natsuo did love Touya, but he loved him like a child can love an older sibling, it's a love selfish, dependant and immature, and then Natsuo idealized Touya as his father's victim, deciding Touya's death was another way had Enji hurt him. He never truly got to know or understand Touya, what lived in him was the pain of the loss as well as, likely, a buried sense of guilt because he couldn't save Touya, because he got bored to listen to him crying.
Natsuo likely doesn't fully remember Touya, because he just was too young and the trauma of his death helped Natsuo to form a certain type of memory of Touya.
Long story short, Natsuo doesn't really know Touya, not even the kid that he had been, he has in his mind an idealized version of him whom he loves very much, to the point that in School Briefs they say he pays more attention to his deceased older brother than to his living younger brother.
How do u think Natsuo reacted knowing Touya almost caused him to die via Ending?
I don't know if Shouto and Enji even informed Natsuo of that. The video which went viral didn't include this info, that was just something Touya told Enji personally, though the scene can seem confuse because the manga and the anime play Touya's dialogue with his father and the video alternating one and the other so that they seem to be a continue flow of dialogue.
Touya might have heard the video playing as he spoke if Skeptic put it in on mode, but I doubt Enji and Shouto did as they were distant and I genuinely doubt Skeptic's pc has such powerful audio, yet sometimes it seems as if the voice of the video is framing them.
The video though was edited and shared BEFORE Touya started talking with his father, so it can't include what Touya says to Enji right then.
Long story short, I doubt Shouto went and told Natsuo about Ending having been set on Enji by Touya so I don't think Natsuo ever had to react to that
I personally think natsuo prolly cut touya from his life as well after ch 426. He didnt even look at Dabi throughout the whole chapter, untill like once when dabi closed his eyes.
Nobody truly knows.
Technically, since Touya can handle conversations only for few minutes each day and Enji promised to be there everyday and Natsuo doesn't want to see Enji ever again, this also offers him a convenient excuse to never see Touya again.
Differently from the rest of his family Natsuo didn't express a wish to talk to Touya, he just went there once and can't truly met his gaze until the end, but Touya doesn't seem to answer them and they are ushered out... until Shouto tries again to talk to his brother and gets an answer.
Maybe Natsuo needs time before being ready to face Touya, maybe he will never get enough time as Touya will die first, we'll never know.
What we know is that Natsuo is also built to stand in opposition to Shouto, to basically underline how Shouto is better because, in the story, Shouto should be the model at which people should get inspired.
So, even though Touya personally tried to kill Shouto and told him hurtful things and Shouto could have spared himself going there as he is not the one to blame for what had happened to Touya, Shouto is there and wants to talk with Touya and connect with him and he is not worried of how Touya, with his actions, had basically ruined them all as Japan isn't kind with people who are related to criminals even if they bear no blame.
Sadly Natsuo in the story was used more as a device, a device to represent and try to win over readers who disliked Enji (that's why at the end of the story Natsuo first sends Enji to fight AFO and then he calls him father for the first time and tell him he is cool) but also to show how amazing Shouto is, the true Hero of the family.
Natsuo gets some space, definitely more than Fuyumi, it is possible to build analysis about him, but he deserved more, especially in his relationship with Touya... but well, we have what we have.
Well it isn't just the mob characters the fandom doesn't care about but the named characters of the LOV too. I hardly see anyone talk about how Toga stabbing Ochako is bad. Ochako is a victim of Toga, or a bigger example Touya becoming like his dad and beating the ever loving crap outta Shouto. Dehumazing him, all that.
The boy is a victim of three family members really but the only focus is just Enji.. It's always no the lov is victims and they can't be anything else.
I'll be honest, originally I wrote a long reply but...
I've decided to erase it because at the end of the day you aren't complaining about the story, you are complaining about how people don't talk of certain topics and not only THIS IS NOT TRUE as I've seen plenty of posts discussing such things so I recommend you to cure your net experience better but... what if it was true?
People talk about what they are interested in and are entitled to have their own opinion about what they are interested in.
Nobody is forced to touch a topic they aren't interested in nor they can be forced to embrace an opinion they don't believe in.
You can disagree with them, you can find it dumb but that's it.
I understand you want to vent, but since you are doing so over the lack of something THAT ACTUALLY EXIST, I can only recommend you to search for the net better.
Sorry if this is all I can do for you but I think this will help you more than whatever I can tell you.
I think the anon’s issue could be the way some LOV fans downplay or justify their actions?
Thanks for sharing what you think that anon had issues with but my answer to them stays the same.
If one doesn't like what some fans has to say they should cure their net experience, avoid them and search for people who share their thoughts.
It's the best they can do for themselves because no fan can't police what other fans think and want to say and this is also a suggestion I try my best to put into practice when I see something I don't like so yes, I know it's hard but I belive it's the right thing to do so no, I can't help with this one.
Again sorry about it but this is all the help I can offer.
can you tell me the LOV's age gap from one another ?
Well,
I think the best way to go at it is to reshare the table I shared in this post
It shows which age the League members would have turned into when they would have their birthday in the year in which Shouto started attending U.A. High.
I'm working on a better version but it will be shared on my other account, @thetodorokifamilyannotated.
If you want them in order by the age they would turn into during the year in which Shouto started attending U.A. High from the oldest to the youngest (including some other Villains for which we have ages) we have:
AFO who's around 138
Garaki who's around 120
Stain, Gentle Criminal and Atsuhiro who're all 32
Kurogiri is technically 31 same as Jin, though the entity known as Kurogiri can exist by at most 14 years since Shirakumo died at 17.
Overhaul is 27
Muscular is 26
Touya is 23
Shuuichi is 21 same as La Brava
Tomura is 20
Himiko is 17
We do not age ages for Giran, Magne, Moonfish and Mustard, but Mustard is suspected not to even be a high schooler so he is 16 (16 would make him in the first year of high school) or younger. Horikoshi completely forgot about him which is a pity because he was interesting but I guess Horikoshi decided Himiko had to be the baby of the League and so he kind of removed him from the story.
I'll say Giran, Magne and Moonfish are all adult from the look they have but we have no canon references for their ages and in BNHA you don't need to be an old person to have grey hair so this doesn't help.
The topic of Shouto being racist came up again with that police officer but I dont think Horikoshi thought about that. Shouto seems to be the only one focused on and criticized for it. Perhaps he is the only strong example for discussions.
I think there is more at play that meet the eye.
So my stance is that Horikoshi did consider Quirk discrimination from the start, that he planned to have Shouji's backstory being revealed at a certain point, but that he never managed to develop it well through the story if not in small hints.
Something that is worth to point out is that through the whole manga people get named after their own Quirk be they Heteromorphs or not.
Bakugou is the guy doing so more often than everyone else, calling Shouto first Icy bastard and then Half 'n' half while Touya gets called Blueflame by Geten.
Calling someone something different than their name is rude so yeah, it is rude even if you don't know about Quirk discrimination and it gets double when this person is in a position of authority.
Shouto calls Tsuragamae only "dog" in the Japanese version, but in the English one they decided to go with "mutt" which is a term used as an insult in real life too, an insult considered rude, dehumanizing, and offensive which stems from a term for a mixed-breed dog and, historically, as a synonym for "fool," making it inappropriate and demeaning to many.
In short in English it sounded very rude and since Shouto is normally not so rude it stood out.
Probably if Tsuragamae had been a cat and Shouto had called him "cat" it would have been remembered less.
Since I'm at it in Touya's case it also stood out he called Shuuichi 'lizard' because Shuuichi protested loudly at the name.
They're scenes that leave more of an impression than when it's done for other characters by other characters even if readers do not know about Heteromorph discrimination... in fact no one remembers Sero calling Shouji octopus, even though that was the first example of the use of calling people with Heteromorph quirks with animal names.
The scene is just less memorable, there is hardly any discourse about him being racist.
How bad Shouto and Touya's sentences are in canon though?
Horikoshi pushes forward the idea that city people do not know about Heteromorph discrimination.
Except for Shouji, class A seems completely unaware of the whole thing, with Mineta realizing only in that moment that comparing Shouji to a octopus might have been the equivalent of a slur instead than just a joke.
So yeah, Shouto and Touya were being rude but they likely had no idea they were being THAT rude because somehow they managed to remain ignorant of Heteromorph discrimination
Still, people had discussed they might have known what they were doing.
I doubt it for the simple reason that, when Shuuichi protests, Touya is confused. Touya was regularly being rude with everyone else, so he likely had called Shuuichi other things and Shuuichi hadn't protested it, he had done so only when he was called lizard (we see he won't complain when Touya will call him an empty cosplayer) because that one stung it... while Touya couldn't understand why that world made Shuuichi react.
People has discussed if Enji or Rei could have taught them to be discriminatory (calling them racist is technically wrong as Heteromorphs belong to the Japanese race same as them).
This because Enji is considered a jerk and therefore not above doing such things and Atsuhiro made a comment about how the Himura should have been prejudiced against Heteromorphs because now the Himura are the new evil and not Enji.
Enji actually hired Heteromorphs as his own sidekicks from a guy with a horse head to Burnin who apparently can't turn off the fire in her hair (and this qualifies her as Heteromorph) so it is hard to think he has something against them.
As for Rei the argument is poorly constructed because the Himura weren't actually prejudiced against Heteromorphs, they were prejudiced against whoever wasn't an Himura but gave in and let Rei marry Enji instead than a distant relative because he brought money and prestige on the table and the Himuras needed them.
However, since Horikoshi wrote that insane reasoning he might think the Himura (and possibly Rei too as she is an Himura), are more discriminatory than others toward Heteromorphs.
We'll never know.
Still for Horikoshi the premise is that city boys just do not realize such language is that bad because they just don't know about Heteromorph situation. We can discuss how realistic this is, but this is the way he set the story.
All this to say I get why in the fandom there is a discourse about this topic, but I do not think Horikoshi's intention was to portray Shouto as racist.
It's just me though so others might disagree. Thank you for your ask!
Well it isn't just the mob characters the fandom doesn't care about but the named characters of the LOV too. I hardly see anyone talk about how Toga stabbing Ochako is bad. Ochako is a victim of Toga, or a bigger example Touya becoming like his dad and beating the ever loving crap outta Shouto. Dehumazing him, all that.
The boy is a victim of three family members really but the only focus is just Enji.. It's always no the lov is victims and they can't be anything else.
I'll be honest, originally I wrote a long reply but...
I've decided to erase it because at the end of the day you aren't complaining about the story, you are complaining about how people don't talk of certain topics and not only THIS IS NOT TRUE as I've seen plenty of posts discussing such things so I recommend you to cure your net experience better but... what if it was true?
People talk about what they are interested in and are entitled to have their own opinion about what they are interested in.
Nobody is forced to touch a topic they aren't interested in nor they can be forced to embrace an opinion they don't believe in.
You can disagree with them, you can find it dumb but that's it.
I understand you want to vent, but since you are doing so over the lack of something THAT ACTUALLY EXIST, I can only recommend you to search for the net better.
Sorry if this is all I can do for you but I think this will help you more than whatever I can tell you.
As someone who comes from a country where insecurity is a big problem (to the point where people can’t transit from one place to another without being victimized in some ways), I will explain why I found the portrayal of the villains’ actions as whitewashing, specifically the LOV. One of my biggest issues is the lack of focus on their impact of their actions, specifically on the civilians. Their victims and by extension, their family members’ victims are either downplayed narratively speaking or portrayed in a unflattering light. The key example would be Kaito. He’s only used as a mere prop for Toga’s backstory. Another issue is the lack of focus on the impact of their actions, particularly in the civilians daily life. We don’t see civilians having issues with living in a city without being victimized (robbery, murder, etc), especially during Act 3, and when it does, the focus is extremely little. There’s little focus on people having genuine fear in living in the city and dealing with curfews, usually imposed by criminal groups. Unfortunately, this is sometimes reflected in how LOV is generally discussed. I have seen people downplaying their actions or even justifying them.
Sorry for the late reply.
I'm sorry about your country's problems and I understand you wanted BNHA handle things differently. I've been thinking long and hard to what I could reply but I doubt whatever I will say will satisfy you anyway I still wanted to try to give you my two cents.
I hope it is okay if I've split this in points
WHY HORIKOSHI DO NOT BOTHER PORTRAYING INSECURITY
Japan is the exact opposite of your country, Japan is considered one of the safest countries in the world and this ireflects in Horikoshi's work, in fact the population, despite the Villains going around, feels safe, believes Heroes will save them, the people in BNHA even handle Villain attacks like shows and stop there to watch or wear masks of the Hero killers.
THESE PEOPLE ARE SURE THEY WILL BE SAVED SO THEY BELIEVE THEY HAVE NOTHING TO FEAR.
And, interesting enough, it is Tomura who points it out, who doesn't understand why they are so sure they could be saved, because Tomura isn't just a Villain, he is also a victim that wasn't saved and believes the world is unsafe because, for him, it was.
In what for us is ironic, the Villains are actually the ones who most resembles the victims as we know them, the ones that were traumatized by living in an insecure place with no Hero coming to save them and they are a minority.
Normal people do not want that, they see no reason to change the world, they see no danger, society as it is, it's fine for them because Heroes will save the day. They have blind faith in them.
But Horikoshi went a step further than that. When society in act 3 crumbled he didn't focus on how it crumbled because it was actually flawed. He focused on how IT SHOULD NOT HAVE CRUMBLED BECAUSE PEOPLE SHOULD HAVE CONTINUED TO HAVE FAITH IN HEROES, keep calm, continue to support the Heroes and do as the government say.
The Heroes have a plan, the Heroes had shelters, they should just be supportive and obedient and blindly do what the government say.
It brings me images of the Japanese people during WW2, which were notable for displaying a profound, state-enforced commitment to national sacrifice, bearing obediently the harsh conditions, the bombing, the extremely scarce food rations with unwavering faith in the state and in the ultimate victory.
It also reminds me of Gaman.
‘Gaman’ (我慢) is a Japanese term of Zen Buddhist origin which means “enduring the seemingly unbearable with patience and dignity”. The term is generally translated as “perseverance”, “patience”, or “tolerance”. A related term, ‘gaman-tsuyoi’ (我慢強い), a compound with ‘tsuyoi’ (強い “strong”), means “suffering the unbearable” or having a high capacity for a kind of stoic endurance.
Gaman is variously described as a “virtue”, an “ethos”, a “trait”, etc. It means to do one’s best in distressed times and to maintain self-control and discipline.
Gaman tends to be misperceived by the non-Japanese as introverted behavior or as a lack of assertiveness or initiative, but for Japanese people is a demonstration of strength in the face of difficulty or suffering. Gaman is, in Japanese society, closely related to complying with conformity and silent heroism, which seems to be hidden pride for compensation for sacrifice and being satisfied to pay reciprocal service in advance or to being seen themselves as victims by folks. Showing ‘gaman’ is seen as a sign of maturity and strength. Keeping private affairs, problems and complaints silent demonstrates strength and politeness as others have seemingly larger problems as well. If a person with ‘gaman’ received help from someone else, they would be compliant, not ask for any additional help, and voice no concerns.
If a person fails to have/show ‘gaman’, the result could be a sudden manifestation of aggression.
Long story short, Horikoshi' deliberately decided that, despite the situation, society wouldn't be portrayed as insecure, that who would fall prey to insecurity, negative feelings or unwillingness to cooperate would be portrayed negatively because they should just bear the situation, cooperate and have unfailing faith in the Heroes/government and he didn't do so to absolve the Villains but because he believes this is how people has to behave.
Whoever doesn't is bad.
You are only allowed to be a perfect victim, just good won't cut it.
The Villains are, in the end the ultimate victims who failed to behave as perfect victims, failed to have gaman and turned against society.
The only concession he does to victims is that it is easier to act like he says victims should act if they also get some help.
Do I like this message he wants to spread?
Nope, I quite hate it, but his message isn't based on Horikoshi trying to downplay what the Villains do, it is based on him believing the behavior people/victims should keep is only of a certain kind and whoever can't keep it is wrong when it's not outright bad.
ARE VICTIMS DOWNPLAYED?
While the story do not focus on ALL THE VICTIMS OF VILLAINS, it actually focuses on some of them, who are considered relevant.
True, as this is a story about Heroes and Heroes in training most of the victims belong to those two groups or are related to people belonging in those two groups but they are still victims.
We have All Might, seriously wounded by AFO, Bakugou, who is victim of the Sludge Villain, something that is remarked more than once through the story, the whole class A which is attacked by Villains at the USJ, iida, whose brother is attacked by a Villain, Midoriya who is taken obstage for a short while by Tomura, Kouta, whose parents were murdered by Muscular and who was also attacked by Muscular, class A & B, who were attacked by Villains at teh school campus, Bakugou, taken as obstage, Ragdoll, kidnapped and whose Quirk was stolen, Eri, Sir Nighteye who gets murdered, Rock Lock, who gets wounded, Giran, kidnapped and maimed (and yes, he is a Villain but he is still a victim of another Villain group), Shirakumo, who got killed, Midnight who met the same end (along with a bunch of Pro the story didn't really care to develop) and, I would remark, the Todoroki family is a victim of Touya's actions as Japan will not treat kindly people who is related to a Villain.
Yeah, the story hardly talk about Saito (not Kaito, his name is Saito) because YES, Saito exists for the sake of Himiko's backstory, which is extremely summarized and has no need to dig on Saito because that story is used twice and meant to explain us how and why Himiko, who was supposedly a normal girl, became a Villain.
We couldn't have Himiko becoming a Villain without her committing a crime, hence Saito gets stabbed. It could have been anyone, really, because we are talking about Himiko here, about how and why she became a Villain, not about civilians getting victimized by Villains. And, interesting enough, we get to hear the voices of Himiko's classmates, of Himiko's parents (as I said Japan isn't kind to relatives of Villains) so it's not like victims do not get a voice, but victims weren't the purpose of those flashbacks.
In a story where the Villains are meant to be more than MOB characters, a random personification of evil, you have to spend time flashing them out.
This is not downplaying the Villains' actions, this is just making them characters.
Victims have plenty of representation already by the time we get to hear that Saito got stabbed.
Yes, their representation was shaped according to Horikoshi's beliefs so we see how Iida's wish of revenge is portrayed negatively, how class A and B, being true Heroes get over the trauma of having been attacked by Villains like they wound to an unpleasant tumble, how Kouta is basically taught he should just apprecciate Heroes and the fact his parents died to save people because, and I quote "there's no better way for Heroes to meet their end, an honorable death".
Actually in an OAV and in a School Brief sidestory short after the USJ attack U.A. High teachers pretend they are being attacked by Villains again because the kids have to learn to overcome the trauma of being attacked, by being forced to bear more trauma.
And, of course, it doesn't help that the rewarding system for Heroism in Horikoshi's story ERASES part of the Villains' actions, so that Bakugou actually doesn't die and Edgeshot's body is restored and Tensei eventually can go back being a Hero and so on.
Still we see plenty of people mourning, suffering, crying because Villains did hurt people.
If readers do think that Midoriya's mom being scared to death for her kid because he was attacked by villains do not matter, if they think Iida's pain for what happened to his brother do not matter do not matter, if they think that Mirio and the others crying over Nighteye's death do not matter, if they think little Eri going basically through captivity and torture do not matter, well, no amount of crying victims telling their own sad story of victimhood would manage to influence them.
DO NOT PORTRAYING THE IMPACT OF THE VILLAINS' ACTIONS DOWNPLAY THEM?
Maybe this comes with me not being anymore a kid and having experience with things but I do not need to see/hear the victims of an action to know that crimes hurt people.
I can very well picture in my mind what poor Saito should have felt when he was stabbed by a classmate, and I probably would even picture his reaction and his life with the trauma in a way that is worse than the one Horikoshi would use as I don't think trauma can be easily brushed away just by hearing a teenager girl sing a song about how she wants to be a Hero too (I am referring to the scene in which Eri overcomes her trauma because she hear Jiro sing).
I know what Himiko did to him wasn't right, that it hurt him, his family, his friends, her family, her friends.
On the other side, this is a story, not real life.
BNHA isn't the accurate portrayal of a real life story.
I do not have to care about Saito because all the characters in this story merely exist TO ENTERTAIN READERS. Their success but also pain, their victimhood exits TO ENTERTAIN READERS.
Saito's existence in the story merely as a mob character those use is to give Himiko a backstory is entirely valid. He shouldn't be handled like a real victim of a crime because he doesn't exist. There is no need to offer to someone who doesn't exist our sympathy, like we would do for a real person who were victim of a stabbing attempt.
People are free to feel indifferent toward him or hate him and wish Himeko had stabbed him harder because they should be capable to differentiate between fiction and real life and can wish on him everything or not to care about him at all, which would be a horrible thing to do in regard to a real person who instead DO NOT EXIST FOR THEIR ENTERTAINMENT.
And this is also why people is more focused on the LOV than on their MOB victims. The LOV is simply way more interesting to discuss, as characters and AS VICTIMS OF A SOCIETY THAT IS PORTRAYED AS DEEPLY FLAWED since it condones abuse of children and discrimination, which, by the way, in some countries are also viewed as crimes so the Villains are perceived not as the only criminals in the story.
There's more I could say but I fear I've talked already too much of a topic you probably weren't interested in exploring so I apologize if I wasted your time and taking so long in replying you, and I also thank you for clarifying your statement.
Touya was always conventionally alone just so AFO could get him and say he was keeping tabs on the Todoroki family but in reality it was just Touya he kept his eyes on.
Well, the problem is he said he was keeping tabs ON ENJI.
Not on Touya or on the Todoroki family, but on Enji.
And it's a giant size mess story wise only marginally better of how Touya claimed before Enji turned number 1 he wanted to kill Shouto and never made a single attempt against his life in those months after he decided to join the league and Enji turned number 1, not even when they faced each other during the training camp, as he only worried to retreive Bakugou.
I mean, let's assume to get at Enji he kept his eyes on Touya who secretly train on Sekoto Peak FOR 13 YEARS without doing absolutely nothing.
As far as we know he doesn't approach him, he doesn't try to manipulate him, he just keeps his eyes on him in hope something happens. He just keeps his eyes on him and waits.
What if TOUYA NEVER STARTED A FIRE ON SEKOTO PEAK?
It's something completely random that doesn't even make sense in the story how Touya can't suddently snuff out his fire. It might not have ever happened for all AFO knew.
Hell, Enji could have done the smart thing and show up because, as far as we know, it wasn't like AFO held him back.
I mean, with Tomura AFO definitely orchestrated things starting from triggering Tomura's birth but what about Touya?
AFO is absolutely uninvolved in him, nothing could have happened and AFO could have still be watching him for all he knew... but okay, let's put this aside and let's assume AFO was still keeping tabs on him through some cam he placed on Sekoto Peak or maybe through another Quirk Horikoshi made up out of the blue for this purpose and that was never mentioned before, saw him burn and... waited to show up until Touya managed to toss himself in the river, snuffing out the fire on him before it cremated him into fine dust.
I mean, if Touya hadn't managed to snuff his fire out he would have turned into dust.
The fire was above 2,000°C.
Fire at or above 2,000°C will easily break down, incinerate, and calcine bone material, as it far exceeds the temperatures needed for bone combustion. While standard cremation operates between 900°C and 1000*C, bone mineral (hydroxyapatite) begins to break down, melt, and turn into brittle ash at temperatures exceeding 1,100°C.
I don't know how much material Garaki needs to make a Nomu but it might not have sufficied.
AFO should have rushed there as soon as Touya took fire if he wanted to be sure to find something salvageable for his masterplan which is... maybe he'll use him as a replacement for Tomura who is already with me by 5 years (as he took Tomura when he was 5 and Tomura should have been 10 when Touya burned) and is giving him no problems and doing very good. I can totally see a reason to replace Tomura, sure. AFO was having so many problems with him, we were told so many times that... no, actually we weren't.
Why AFO would replace Tomura with Touya, when Tomura is obedient and is a slap to All Might and a spit on Nana to annoy Enji with whom he hardly interacted is beyond me. The only explanation is 'oh but AFO is so evil! Surely he wants to hurt Enji too!'
Then why he waits THREE YEARS before waking Touya up and when things do not work he let him go because anyway Touya was going to die and NEVER TRY TO HURT ENJI'S FAMILY AGAIN?
We have hospitalized Rei, whom he could manipulate easily, we have 'desperate to have her family back' Fuyumi, we have angry Natsuo, who doesn't even acknowledge Enji as his father and we have golden boy Shouto who also hates Enji and on whom Enji isn't keeping his eyes every waking minute because, differently from what fanfics say, ENJI IS A PRO HERO VERY BUSY WITH HIS HERO WORK AND CAN'T KEEP ON MONITORING SHOUTO 24 HOURS AT DAY!
I mean there were 4 other people AFO could try to use in those 7 years between when Touya woke up and when he joined the League and AFO did nothing.
And he did nothing because Horikoshi hadn't planned this at all since Enji was originally meant to die in the previous war, Horikoshi had pulled it out last minute to make AFO even more evil and had created giant plot holes as a result because he didn't even know how to handle it well.
He could have fed Enji the story of how he actually manipulated Touya, encouraged him to pursue Hero career, of how he tricked him into assuming a variant of Trigger the day he burned, which was what lead him to lose control of his Quirk, he could have said he kept on checking on Touya so he knew he survived and lived on his own, actually he could have even said that Touya only believed he came back home but no, he was shown an illusion to break him and make him leave the Todoroki house but no, none of this happened.
AFO just picked up Touya and then, when Touya decided to leave, he let him go and washed his hands clean with the Todorokis only to remember in the middle of a battle that yeah, he had picked Touya up and SAVED HIM. Because with such burns it would have been unlikely Touya would have survived the time it would have taken for Enji to get there, find him and bring him to a hospital.
Burns over 80% of the body are very difficult to survive and Touya had burns over 100% of the body. Hell his jaw detatched from him! (and his legs and arms should have done the same...)
AFO teleported there but Enji didn't have such luxury nor he knew exactly where Touya was.
Really, the way Horikoshi presented the situation is a mess that shows how little he planned and cared about the Todorokis at this point.
Even Enji's oh so tragic past is clearly a late spurn of the moment and brushed over to the point it is completely forgettable.
This is so sad... I love the Todorokis and I wish he gave them more love too.
It so funny how horikoshi implying that quirks have scientific explanation low-key kinda ruined his world . Nothing makes sense anymore !
It's not so much that he said the Quirks have a scientific explanation, it is the absolute lack of rules in how they work.
My fave example is Recovery Girl's Quirk which at the start can heal Midoriya without worring about his low stamina or setting his bones and then... can't anymore because first Horikoshi introduces the idea it needs stamina and than that bones will be set... and also in a way her quirk was presented as a magical fix it all at the start, the explanation why UA can do school exams that risky without students dying, only for her Quirk not being enough to save Nighteye.
Basically her Quirk was retconned along the way to suit the story's needs.
Then, always to suit the story's need, we are introduced to mutant Quirks like Eri's that pop up out of nowhere and to Quirk awakenings.
Plus Quirk powers get nerfed so that the only one who gets almost killed by Touya's intense fire is Touya himself as Hawks, who clearly has no fire resistance, only get some scars, instead than melting here and there.
Should I mention how some of them do not make sense? I mean, enjines in the legs? A rifle in an arm? How would bodies produce mechanisms? But also their power challenges natural laws.
And theres probably more but these are the ones that first came to me.
Horikoshi should have better written the Quirks' rules so, even though it would have been a fictional element, it would have made sense.
So, of all the Todoroki males, would Touya resemble Rei the most, right? If this is so, I wonder if there is a meaning behind it. What do you think?
As disappointing as it could be I fear it was merely a coincidence.
If we go by the genesis of the Todoroki siblings, Horikoshi first created Shouto, possibly planning to make him an only child (the Shouto prototype doesn't mention any sibling).
He then changed the Shouto's backstory made for the prototype and established Shouto wasn't the first of Enji's children (Chap 34) later giving us this image of his siblings (Chap 39).
In it the only one we can see clearly is the one who will become Natsuo and who looks like Enji and seems bigger than his siblings.
He was probably not already planning to create Dabi at this point so it is possible he wasn't thinking deeply at the siblings, their looks and their backstories. For all we know Natsuo could have looked bigger because originally he was meant to be the oldest.
We see the three of them have white hair, with, at most, some red streaks (no idea why the anime decided to turn Touya's hair red when Horikoshi very clearly made them white... maybe they figured/were told Dabi was Touya and assumed since he was a fire user he had to have red hair... or maybe Horikoshi asked them to retcon his hair... we'll never know).
When he decided to create Dabi though, the fact he already showed Natsuo's face made him no good material to become Dabi, the most mysterious guy of the story. This left him with the kid that was turned from the viewers or, potentially, with the option to create a 4th sibling which didn't appear in the image above.
I also think that Dabi's look was chosen also because it makes a good mirror for Shouto, though, of course, this is just me.
In truth we have no declarations from Horikoshi saying why he chose such look for Touya, there's actually little about him so in the end we can only speculate.
Oh. The soba brothers got ignored again for tgck and they went right to deku and shigaraki/deku and bakugo fights... this franchise is strange to the brothers. They are more popular than the girls. I guess we won't ever hear anything from their VAs again.
Sorry if I placed together these two ask but I think the answer I would give both is the same.
I find what had happened really sad.
I'm trying to tell myself that this happened because Kaji Yuki and Shimono Hero are busy with MAO and so they can't do it but I am still sad. They are not only the voice actors of two characters whom I love but they are also two voice actors I love from when they both worked in "Joker Game".
I don't really get the marketing strategies behind BNHA. This is just another thing in the list I fail to understand.
I'm just sad the soba brothers do not get more love... ;_;
I feel like what happens with shotos and Toya when they get emotional aren't really the same thing .
Touyas flames get hotter but there is no implications that the same happened with shoto
In his fight with sero shoto lost control of his quirk bc he was angry producing more ice than intended. With mydoria he burst into uncontrollable flames at first before he got it under control .
Another moment when he was watching endeavors fight with nomu and flames start flickering out of him
He gets emotional and looses control but it's never said or implied that his quirk get colder/hotter
The only times his quirk is mentioned to have become hotter is in his fight against class b and hes doing intentionally then
I guess I'll have to make a premise which is WE DO NOT KNOW HOW QUIRKS WORK EXACTLY AND HORIKOSHI LIKES TO CHANGE RULES AS HE SEES FIT, which means when there is no canon answer each interpretation is valid.
Shouto's quirk is defined as freezing with his right (not producing ice as the fandom tends to assume) so, basically, in order to produce that huge amount of ice he should have produced either more freezing... energy? air? whatever? or a colder freezing... energy? air? whatever?
I mean, in real life in order to produce more freezing you lower the temperature of whatever is producing freezing so he technically should have lowered the temperature of his Quirk if it works same as in real life.
Shouto doesn't say he lost control but that he overdid it because he was annoyed, tying the excess of production to his feelings and therefore making similar how Touya's feelings make him produce more heat/heat at a higher temperature because a possible interpretation of how fire Quirk works is that fire users actually produce heat that manifests in form of flames.
Does it works really like that? Who knows?
Is what Shouto did meant to be the same as what Touya did? Who knows?
When Horikoshi created that scene he likely didn't even plan to create Touya and when he created that scene with Touya he might not have remembered the fight Shouto had against Sero.
To me it seems similar enough, to you it seems not but who knows if it is meant to be similar?
So all I can say is it is fine if we do not agree and thank you for sharing your opinion with me!
For a manga whose main inspiration is comicbook heroes, it does lack of a character whose main motivation is getting justice towards a villain because a family member was murdered by them. Honestly, it would have at the very least make the victims of crime a bit more sympathetic and can help fledge out civilians if done right. Unfortunately, I don’t trust Horikoshi to handle it well without whitewashing the villains which is already present in the manga.
You raise many interesting points so, if it is okay for you I'll tackle them one after the other.
BNHA is a manga whose main inspiration is comicbook heroes
Taking inspiration is actually broader thing than many seems to think.
I think very well known terms of comparison can be "Fifty Shades of Grey" which is a book that takes inspiration from "Twilight" but has zero vampires inside it and the movie "Pretty woman", which takes inspiration from "Cinderella" but it has zero pumpkins, glass slippers, steprelatives and fairy goodmothers.
In an interview Horikoshi said he used to look at comic books when he was younger but couldn't read them.
What we see in comic books if we can't read them?
Guys in weird outfits and with weird powers allied with the police saving people and fighting against other guys in weird outfits and with weird powers.
This fits with the world of BNHA, which he then filled with Japanese values and his own personal beliefs creating of course a very different type of story.
BNHA lacks of a character whose main motivation is getting justice towards a villain because a family member was murdered by them.
Does it really?
Ida actually wanted to get revenge for his brother (yeah, he wasn't murdered but still that was what he wanted) and All Might and Gran Torino had to deal with AFO murdering Nana. Plus All Might's family members too were killed by a Villain and, well we do not know if Enji's father was killed by a Villain (being a Villain means using your Quirk to commit crime) or the guy he faced was just a scumbag not using his Quirk, and them all ending dead was due to a mistake Enji's father did while facing him, but stil Enji's father wouldn't be dead if that guy didn't attack a girl.
We also have Ashido dealing with the murderer of Midnight.
I should probably also mention Kouta, who is attending UA high, but we do not really see him at work and more than to avenge his parents he go there because inspired by Midoriya so we can skip him.
Honestly, it would have at the very least make the victims of crime a bit more sympathetic and can help fledge out civilians if done right.
No, not really because we see what happens with Iida.
BNHA is a world where Heroes can kill dangerous criminals, they just choose not to do it, especially when the camera is on.
But Horikoshi's belief is that victims shouldn't hold grudges, shouldn't try to get revenge, shouldn't get angry at all. They should just put up with the pain and let it go.
The most obvious example is another victim, Shouji, who hides his face because he wants to make sure the people wouldn't think he is out for revenge and doesn't want revenge, doesn't even want to jail people who abuse Hetermorphs, he only wants to pacifically solve incidents based on Heteromorph discrimination and tells the Heteromorphs not that they should search other ways to get justice but that they should all be on their best behaviour to show it is not right to abuse them.
Unfortunately, I don’t trust Horikoshi to handle it well without whitewashing the villains which is already present in the manga.
The problem of the story is actually that the Villains ARE THE VICTIMS. Victims of society that wants revenge/justice against it because their world wouldn't give them justice.
BNHA is a horribly flawed society which condones various types of abuse. Part of the abused people end up feeling cut out by society, as if they were to belong to a completely different group/class.
In BNHA the conflict between Villains and society is, in many cases, more of a civil war, a portral of sociology's conflict theories than people just choosing crime for the sake of being evil.
Society becomes the other evil, the one that excuses bullies, family abusers, Quirk discriminators and allows them to continue, the one who secretly murders without a due process Heroes because the population needs to be manipulated into thinking Heroes are perfect because this is what the population wants.
Horikoshi's choice in handling this though is not to criticize society so that a compromise with relative improvement could be archieved, nor to paint it as simply evil.
Society is not portrayed like the empire of Star Wars, the party of 1984, Prince John of "Robin Hood", the Matrix system in "The Matrix", the ICS/Games Network in "The Running Man", Capitol City in "Hunger Game", the administration of Mars in "Total Recall" and so the League, even if formed by people who were abused by society, is not the equivalent of the rebellion in Star Wars.
That's because Horikoshi, as said above, thinks that victims should just bow their head and be on their best behaviour. Through the story nothing is suggested that would imply there were other ways for them to get justice or to stop being victims.
They should just bow their head and be on their best behaviour and either hope someone would save them or that their abuse would stop abusing them.
So no, Horikoshi had no interest in showing victims that would try to get justice. In this story good victims do not try to get justice, they just endure and be the best version of themselves and if they become Heroes they put aside their pain and rage and whatever and just perform their job as everyone else would because the idea of getting revenge/justice for themselves is a taboo in this story.
Ashido too will say it in the final war. They aren't there for revenge, just to protect people... and considering how much of a terrible place tartarus was, openly violating human rights I had a hard time thinking they are there for justice... but justice is not really a big theme in BNHA where they talk a lot more about saving and about winning over the Villains or overcoming difficulties.
Society is openly stated as unfair and Heroes aren't there to make it fair.
People are not born equal, Midoriya says at the start, and at the end of the story he says this means that's why people are drawn to others in search of a common ground.
He paints the core root of discrimination and abuse in his own society as the main reason everyone want to make friends.
He doesn't focus on how misery and manipulation due to people being born differently made people chose to become Villains to the point Tomura would never consider stopping being one because out there, there will always be someone who is abused to the point he can't bear anymore society and wants it to be destroyed, no, he thinks that it is because we are different that we care for others.
Because society is so nice... when it is not busy discriminating or abusing or bullying and so on.
Whatever.
Horikoshi whitewashed the villains
Actually he judged them so guilty they all had to die, regardess of the fact they also were victims of abuse and that the story didn't provide a single way they could stop the abuse or get justice or whatever in any other way. Heroes insisted they were past being forgiven, that what they did was wrong regardless of their circumstances and of how there was no other way out for them, of how their mental status was degrading, of how they were manipulated.
I don't know why you think they were whitewashed.
The most common complains I see around are:
they are not being portrayed as purely evil
their victims have no voice
For point 1 many Japanese manga do not portray the antagonist as a cartoon Villain style Disney movies. They often target an audience that is not of small children and that can therefore understand that people do not need to be purely evil to do something wrong.
For point 2 this was mostly discussed above. Horikoshi views in a poor light victims who actually complain about being victim. The journalist that was understably upset because her mother got hurt and filled with rage was depicted as in the wrong. Iida who wanted revenge for his brother was depicted as in the wrong. The only acceptable behavior for victims is generally to be like Shouji or Eri or ordinary woman (remember the Heteromorph woman who got attacked because she looked scary and that other shelters refused to welcome because they didn't want Heteromorphs in even though it was a government order? The ones no one cared to punish and that she didn't blame or denounce at all?). So yeah, Horikoshi could have shown us victims who would have said 'yeah, Gigantomachia destroyed my home and murdered all my family but I will just go on with my life. I'm not upset with him at all' but I guess it wouldn't have been that interesting or pleasing to see them.
I don't know if you have another reason to think they were whitewashed, so, if that was the case, I'm sorry if I couldn't answer to it.
Why is Touya's quirk tied to his emotions and seems to work differently than Shouto's and Enji. He said when he hit puberty his flames changed from red to blue how and why? I wish we had more examples in the family but his is the only one to work like this.
My first answer would be...
...because Horikoshi needed it to.
I mean, Horikoshi did some things that clearly took place merely because he needed them to happen to hide Dabi's identity as Touya, like how Touya at the beginning didn't have blue fire which is something unique to have and would have lead to him being quickly recognized, or how he lost his jaw and only his jaw at Sekoto Peak so that the Todorokis would be sure he died there, never forgetting how he conveniently lost control of his Quirk and couldn't stop it because he apparently wasn't taught how to which is beyond stupid and I've a full meta discussing it already with AFO conveniently passing by and finding him, and them keeping him in coma but not using him for Nomu parts and he escaping and them letting him go because he was going to die anyway and who cares if he would have lived long enough to tattle to his father their whole secret orphanage thing, with Touya deciding that no, he won't die because he is too angry to do so... but I guess you aren't interested in the Doylist side of the problem, you want an answer from the Watsonian side.
So let's try to see if there are Watsonian answers.
Why Touya's flames changed from red to blue when he hit puberty.
We don't really see other kids reach puberty in the whole story so it can be that it is a normal thing for Quirks/some Quirks to change when their owner reaches puberty because yes, Quirks are tied to physical abilities pretty early in the story (the sport festival) and with puberty your body changes. We do not really know what generates the fire in fire Quirks but let's assume that part of Touya's body is involved in puberty changes hence his fire can get hotter. That or he got it wrong and it is all hard training and not him reaching puberty.
Or the two things combined, normal kids didn't notice when they hit puberty that their Quirk got stronger because they aren't meant to use their Quirk at 13, but Touya who trained it hard instead ended up noticing it.
BTW, I didn't mention it as I discussed it but the change in color in Touya's flames is merely due to the change in the temperature of his fire as fire changes color the hotter (or the colder) it gets.
This is a table I found in the net showing how the color changes along with the temperature of the fire.
Red
Just visible: 525 °C
Dull: 700 °C
Cherry, dull: 800 °C
Cherry, full: 900 °C
Cherry, clear: 1,000 °C
Orange
Deep: 1,100 °C
Clear: 1,200 °C
White
Whitish: 1,300 °C
Bright: 1,400 °C
Dazzling: 1,500 °C
Blue: 1600–3000+ °C
On a sidenote the temperature isn't the only thing that can color a fire, if you mix in it certain chemical elements you can change the color of the fire without changing the temperature, for example you get green fire by adding boron or copper and typically burns at temperatures between 1,000°C and 1,400°C, which normally would make the fire orange/white.
So basically Touya merely produced a hotter fire and the result of the increase in hotness caused the fire to change color. If the jump in hotness is due to puberty and the changes to his body that are associated with it as he believes, or merely to his training, I'll let it up to speculation. Technically, since Horikoshi doesn't contradict it, Touya's assumption should be true.
Why is Touya's quirk tied to his emotions and seems to work differently than Shouto's and Enji?
Actually, always at the sport festival, an angry Shouto overused his Quirk against Sero and we see that when an angry Enji confronted Haws after the Hero Billboard Chart he let his fire lose, so it is not that those Quirks work differently, it is just that their owners, being older and having a better grip to their emotions, normally manages to control them more.
As fire and ice Quirks are emitter Quirks, we have other Quirks who are tied to emotions, like La Brava's love Quirk and Re Destro's Stres Quirk and, in a way, Himiko's too as it will turn out she can copy/use the Quirk of the people she loves.
Intense emotions like anger, anxiety, fear, embarrassment, and excitement can cause your body to heat up by activating the "fight-or-flight" response. This surge in stress hormones (adrenaline and cortisol) increases heart rate and blood flow, often leading to sudden warmth, particularly in the face, neck, and chest so this can theoretically tie more losely to all the emitter types Quirks.
Quirks are, after all, fictional, so Horikoshi can use them the way he prefers and only losely tie them to real physical things (and fire Quirk is actually ONE OF THE MOST UNREALISTIC QUIRKS EVER as Horikoshi uses it in ways real fire couldn't be used) and he sadly didn't really value much tying them to rules but kept retconning them as he sees fit so often it is impossible to really give a satisfying answer to Quirk related questions, therefore sorry if I couldn't really be of much help and thank youf ro your question!
Helpful timetable for Villain ages (and for the Todorokis)
So I generally use these timetables for my posts at @thetodorokifamilyannotated but they usually, for obvious reasons, cover only the Todorokis.
Since I was at it though, I thought to make one that would include also the Villains.
This table covers the year in which Shouto (and Midoriya) start to go at U.A. High.
On top of each character you can see their day of birth, below them the age they would turn into.
For Kurogiri you get 3 ages because if he had lived as Shirakumo Oboro he would have turned 31 in that year but Shirakumo died at 17 so technically Kurogiri as Kurogiri lived for 14 years only.
Sadly we do not have ages/birthdays for characters like All for One, Garaki, Giran, Magne, ReDestro, Geten and the rest of the MLA and so on so this is the best I could do.
I hope it helps!
On a sidenote as said in a recent discussion Geten is stated to be a shōnen (少年) in Ultra Analysis and Ultra Age so he should be under 20. It usually refers to boys aged 7-16 with a general perception that they should be at most 18. On the other side in the manga he was referred as an 'otoko’ (男 “man”). Of course Horikoshi might have retconned his age or the authors of the guidebooks had no idea how old he was and assumed he was younger. Do your pick... and yeah, they state his real name is unknown making Geten his Villain name only.
Do with this as you want.
In addition to this All for One should be around 138 years old while Garaki is around 120.
I really, really really wish Horikoshi had given us more info about Geten... and yeah, about the other Villains. And Rei, I really wanted to know more about her but no, we needed to know the backstory of her family but not have her profile with her birthday and age. -_-
