-While the My Hero Academia manga was still being released, I used this as a place to share my thoughts on new chapters and make up theories. Long story short, a lot of things with the story did not go even remotely how I wanted. So I guess this is an interesting little diary of that journey, as someone who ships Izuku and Katsuki and also wanted better for the villain endings.
-Since tumblr's search feature is awful, I'll make an index of some old posts to pin here at some point
But wait! I'm not leaving!
-You're still very welcome to send me asks about anything. Just know that if your message has nothing to do with me and basically amounts to something you could have just posted on your own, I might not reply. Otherwise, nothing is too trivial or silly and I love to hear from people!
-I'm planning to be writing some fanfiction when I can. So far all I've done is one exchange event, but you can find my AO3 here. Please note that account will contain some (but not all) nsfw content. Also you need to have made an account to view fics because I lock them. Any time I make an announcement here about something I have written it will be tagged accordingly and this blog will remain sfw otherwise. Obviously if you didn't sign up for that and you wanna leave, I understand.
-One of my longterm goals is to write a fic that reworks the ending in a bunch of ways and expands on the potential of OFA. It'll be a monster of a project though. Much to think about.
To me the most fun part about fix-its is placing dominoes.
Tragedies often consist of escalating series of actions and circumstances which, in isolation, were not clearly leading to the tragic end but form a chain of cause-and-effect directly towards it in hindsight. In equal but opposite fashion, I love starting with small inoccuous changes to canon that in themselves do not obviously fix everything but start a new chain that leads to a better ending.
It's kind of impossible for fix-its to feel fully natural– the reader by definition knows what the original ending was and that this ending will be happier because the writer wants it to be– but it is possible for them to not feel contrived. A big deus-ex-machina, or a character breaking with their pre-established tragic flaws to suddenly make all the "correct" decisions almost always feels unsatisfying to me.
But a few carefully placed small domino pieces slowly knocking over bigger and bigger tiles until the entire story has radically changed? That's a lot more fun.
It recquires the author to both correctly identify the original chain of cause-and-effect and understand the characters well enough to know how they'd react to different circumstances. Because if the story feels like it's fixing the wrong problem or the characters don't act like themselves the magic is lost. But when it works? When it clicks and the reader sees the domino chain laid out in front of them? It's beautiful.
Have you seen the fanbook leaks? And the oneshot? How are we feeling abt it?
I had drafted a positive, optimistic response talking about how it’s a little bit better note to end on than 431 and reinforces the idea that everything is up to the reader’s interpretation and what they imagine. I was even starting to feel less betrayed by 431 knowing it (apparently?) wasn’t meant to force that ship on everyone.
But then I read the translations/summaries of the conversation between Horikoshi and his editor about how they hashed out and made the sudden decision that Toga should die. And I. I am right back at square one now. I’m so done. I used to think Horikoshi was some kind of master of foreshadowing with plans locked in for the finale. But everything about the way this manga ended is a goddamn mess. I don’t know who’s to blame necessarily, whether it’s the time crunch or the publisher or Horikoshi’s own lack of imagination, who can say.
All I know is there’s very little if anything that could redeem it for me at this point.
Ok hang on I do have something else to add. Because I have been thinking a lot lately about the paratext of bnha and the mediation that takes place in literally any publishing scenario.
Everything that IS and IS NOT included in this fanbook is intentional and has a purpose that is separate from the question of authorial intent because paratext has a lot more to do with marketing and imposed framing. It is worth asking why this story decision-making process was talked about publicly. The answer isn’t necessarily to provide clarity. It could also be to obfuscate or silence, or to make someone look good. Who does this benefit? Horikoshi risks making a lot of people upset and exposing a lack of continuity in the story. But the takeaways they’re presenting are:
1. It was Horikoshi’s idea for Toga to die
2. The editor took care to make sure that this choice was thought through
3. the chapter was well-received by the audience, thanks to the editor
The thing is idk that it was so well-received in the end, because at the time, when 395 had just come out, many people were hyped up about the growth Toga showed in her sacrifice and also convinced that she would live because it ended in cliff hanger fashion, unresolved. The bad reception of 431 shows that in the long run her actual death was deeply controversial. I’m sure they’re very aware of this tension and this is their attempt to resolve it. So if that last point is a blatant lie, what about the rest?
Have you seen the fanbook leaks? And the oneshot? How are we feeling abt it?
I had drafted a positive, optimistic response talking about how it’s a little bit better note to end on than 431 and reinforces the idea that everything is up to the reader’s interpretation and what they imagine. I was even starting to feel less betrayed by 431 knowing it (apparently?) wasn’t meant to force that ship on everyone.
But then I read the translations/summaries of the conversation between Horikoshi and his editor about how they hashed out and made the sudden decision that Toga should die. And I. I am right back at square one now. I’m so done. I used to think Horikoshi was some kind of master of foreshadowing with plans locked in for the finale. But everything about the way this manga ended is a goddamn mess. I don’t know who’s to blame necessarily, whether it’s the time crunch or the publisher or Horikoshi’s own lack of imagination, who can say.
All I know is there’s very little if anything that could redeem it for me at this point.
My aromantic vibe is I usually do not like shipping in fandom. But I've realized what I actually dislike is when the shipping eclipses the actual characters, dynamics, and plot. I'm actually perfectly happy to play in the space as long as the ship is a pair of sunglasses I can put on and take off depending on what my vibe is.
Yeah actually those two should make out. Actually they'd never touch each other. They're divorced. They've never spoken. Actually neither of them has ever kissed another person. They'd do unspeakable things to each other and both be worse for it. They're invited to each other's weddings and it's really sweet. They're really good friends. They get beers and hang out and that's it. They're obsessed with each other in an entirely non-romantic way. They want to kill each other. They're FWBs and it's actually one-side-unrequited love. They kissed once until I decide tomorrow they haven't. You understand.
Hey there. I feel slightly awkward bringing this up because this has been a pretty sfw blog, but I want to share here that I've participated in the first round of the dkbk exchange over on AO3! It's 18+ and while fics can be either sfw or nsfw, this round did lean very heavily nsfw, including the one I wrote.
Anyway, I had a really good time with it and I feel like it's such a lovely way to get inspired and motivated to write and keep the fandom going. 45 new fics came out of this round alone! That's wild! I'm slowly making my way through reading them too :)
Here's the link to mine, called Enough Already, if you're interested in reading an E-rated oneshot about basically-already-dating dkbk finally getting together after a... revealing incident (mind the tags).
I'm looking forward to doing more of these exchanges in the future! Maybe next time I'll even do two--one sfw and one nsfw. Fanfic in general is becoming how I heal my relationship with this manga now that it's over <3
That video of Alex Hirsch reading S&P notes for Gravity Falls conveys a few things to me:
1) the U.S. entertainment industry (especially animation) is run by older conservative types who make up offensive terms and get really mad about them.
2) the people who run Disney would be the first to fall in line with a fascist regime.
3) most of the media we consume is tailor-made and watered-down to appeal to the tastes of older, deeply religious conservative audiences.
4) conservatism, not the left, is and always has been the biggest voice of censorship in American culture.
J. Michael Straczynski, creator of Babylon 5, was before that a producer and writer for a number of cartoons in the late ‘80s/early ‘90s (The Real Ghostbusters and the original She-Ra, most notably). After a few years of dealing with the censors and their obsession with finding Satanism (or at least looking for Satanism to further political agendas) he wrote an article about the whole corrupt and bullshit system.
And published it in Penthouse, to force those same censors to buy a skin mag. The editor there asked, why Penthouse?
That one is from his autobiography, Becoming Superman. See also:
(As he goes on to say, he’s never worked in animation again–he’s effectively been blacklisted by the cartoon industry.)
Every time something like this comes up, I remember two stories about making media. The first is about movies, and comes from Quentin “Feet Man” Tarantino.
When he was making Pulp Fiction, he was worried that the MPAA would object to the high level of violence in the film, so he shot a bunch of extra-gory stuff that he didn’t actually want in the film, and added it in before submitting it to the MPAA. Predictibly, they asked him to cut most of it (without even commenting on some of the things that had him worried, like the bits of Marvin’s skull that lodge in Samuel L. Jackson’s hairpiece). The resultant cuts were actually more permissive than he’d expected, so he cut a little more and submitted it, and it got passed with an R.
The second story is about that artist on Morrowind whose name escapes me (I’m not a big ES fan tbh) who figured out that if he made two creature designs, one weird and what he wanted, and one even weirder, he could get Todd Howard to agree to just about anything by showing him the whopper first, then going back and “working” for another few hours on a second, “toned-down” version, and it worked every time.
The reason I bring these up is that the thing that drives censors isn’t some extant physical rubrick of what is and isn’t acceptable, it’s the idea that they can have absolute power over someone else’s creative work. It’s about the social dominance of the interaction.
There is nothing so innocent, so clean, that a censor will not find some fault with it. Because they must find something wrong with it to justify their existence, and because it makes them feel powerful.
I’ve been a professional designer for 8 years and that last bit is so true. In addition to politics, a huge part of people meddling with creative work is just ego. They want to feel like they had a hand in the final product, even though they not only did not create it but are in fact incapable of creating something on that level. So they reach their hand into someone else’s work and command it to change, not in service of a mutual artistic goal, but simply because they have the power to do so and they like feeling that power.
Worth noting that unlike Steven Universe, Horikoshi had months of free time to write the final chapter of MHA. It's weird to imply censorship was involved when he was always teasing Izuku x Ochako even if he didn't put the necessary work beyond the most basic interactions.
Also, Horikoshi, much like Oda, is known for not really regretting what he eventually draws, as even scrapped ideas tend to be repurposed in some form (like his original ending being used in Two Heroes). I would like if people didn't really go full conspiracy theory about Hori's work ethics like he was being held at gunpoint (he's obviously not since he's a rich, succesful author now).
It’s not a conspiracy theory to point out that at the end of the day we don’t know one way or the other and if nothing else the whole situation is just baffling.
Regardless of the media being discussed, I don’t think it’s a good idea to dismiss the possibility of censorship as a baseless conspiracy and it’s something I take very seriously, with sympathy on my part as a creative person for the simple fact that freedom of expression in art is always restricted my capitalism in some way.
There is no "after the revolution." No "ideal world." I don't care how much progress we make, we will always fail someone, hurt someone, and the best thing we can do is accept that, and keep striving to make it better as we go.
And don't get me wrong, I don't say this to discourage anyone from trying to make that ideal world. Quite the opposite.
I feel like it's very naive to continue to approach these big changes we want to make in the world as if there's an "after it's all over" when we don't have to worry about it anymore.
We should always be striving to make life better, even when life seems pretty damn good.
There's something that's been bothering me for a while now, in terms of bnha's ending and it's final canon pair. I had a hard time understanding the way people seen to interpret their "superiority" over other pairs because they are "pure, healthy and wholesome", adding in how strange the author's intentions came across, and just feeling even more confused.
Until i came across a NileRed video of all things. (It feels so bizarre bringing such a random video to this discussion but bear with me lmao) Where he attempted to make "the world's purest cookie" by creating it in a lab, basically. Using the purest form of every ingredient he was able to find because "well it's pure, so it must be better, right?". And it was very amusing watching a guy who never baked before struggle to make even something so basic, with a decent, easy recipe. Everyone was excited until it came time to taste it, and it ended up being the blandest thing he's ever tasted.
And then another youtuber, Ann Reardon, who's a professional baker, not only explained the wrong in the use of the ingredients showed in the video, but also tested the recipe he used normally, and the result was just a nice choc chip cookie. There was nothing wrong with it.
Nile's entire problem was that he didn't know a thing about the nuances of baking as a science of it's own, and only went by what he, a chemist with no experience in baking, thought would work the best.
To me, that is literally that pair's entire existence in physical form. People in favor of it use the first basis of how "pure and predictable" is good regardless, because they deemed it inherently healthy but didn't bother with actually analysing it further. The story had the recipe for a regular, typical shonen romance, but both use of it and ingredients were all totally wrong.
And the author, not having any experience with writing romance, did what he thought was best, (maybe because he liked them together and was attached), but fumbled tremendously when he realized he wouldn't be able to make them happen organically, because it was too late, it didn't fit anywhere else in the story, and there were too many things in the way as well. So he did what he could to side step them into a believable conclusion, but in doing so, he sacrificed his story's flavor and complexity for something that fell flat and became unpopular among true fans of the series.
"I think that my interpretation of purity was naive... Purity didn't have anything to do with flavor or smell or texture. Purity is its own thing, and if you want to achieve true purity, you must sacrifice everything. Everything that makes it worth it."
(fantastic quote from the NileRed NileBlue video)
Anon, you've really charmed me with this metaphor, and I think it works. The details get a little fuzzy once you know that the "pure" ingredients he got are actually made so you know exactly what's in them, not necessarily so that they are impurity-free. But he still applied an extreme level of hubris in using chemistry lab materials to make a "perfect" or "better" cookie, without understanding anything about the very different science that is baking. Like, he didn't know what baker's chocolate even is. Besides, what he sought was impossible, because chocolate practically cannot be made 100% without "bug parts" etc. And in the end, he made a really fucking terrible cookie anyway. I'm fascinated by the fact that it didn't even have a smell...
I'm definitely not one to judge ships against each other to say that one is inherently better, but when the other side keeps pushing this idea of purity, it does make me pause. Do they like it because it's bland? Because it ticks off all their morality requirements? Because it affirms their idea of normal? Honestly I'd have a lot more respect for them if they openly rejected what the source material has given them in favor of what their own imaginations can come up with. Some do, to be sure, but most still try to defend canon. Come on. Give them something to struggle with each other over and grow from. Anything but this constant unspoken blushing awkwardness.
I do want to put a small wrinkle in what you've said, though. I don't want to assume Horikoshi was doing what he thought was best with 431. Think about it this way. If he, much like many shonen mangaka like Oda for example, set out to write a story where romance is not the focus because he wasn't interested in writing those kinds of plots, but instead more interested in developing plots that are based in politics, friendship, family, sacrifice, and examining the dichotomy of "good" and "evil," why not maintain that priority through the end? Why would he spend dozens of pages systematically dismantling everything he cared about in the first place for the sake of something he clearly viewed as secondary? Like yeah, maybe he did think they were cute and was still attached to the idea of them ending up together, but I can't believe he thought they were worth this much compared to everything else he actually put effort into.
However, this "pure cookie" metaphor you've made fits quite well with how publishing can operate, where the rules of marketing are often erroneously applied to art of storytelling, like lab chemistry to baking. The things that give the story its uniqueness and flavor are refined and boiled down for the sake of making it predictable, benign, safe, easy to digest. So it can sell. So it can avoid controversy with conservative society. I'm honestly really sick of debating all the points of this ending as if they are definitely 100% only Horikoshi's vision or personal mistakes. We really don't know that and maybe we never will. I for one at least hope that we keep in mind that censorship is still a very real and current issue, and I'm not going to speak ill of the dead, as it were.
btw, I was largely inspired by this thread about Steven Universe on twitter, and tbh I include this reasoning not just for 431, but other things along the way, especially the last 10-15 chapters or so.
Have a cup of tea. Grab a blanket and bundle up around your shoulders like a hug. Take a deep breath, at least once.
I'm not doing too well either. Part of me wants to wallow in it and part of me wants to run away and never look back. But yet another part of me wants to make sure I say this so other people are reminded: it's okay to be upset. It's okay to feel betrayed, to be angry. You don't have to beat yourself up for being delusional or foolish or whatever. We were smart, thoughtful, we had amazing creative ideas. We knew the story and characters better than most, dotted all our i's and crossed all our t's, had chapter numbers and panel screenshots ready for any argument. We were right.
One of the major reasons it hurts so much is because of the whiplash. We're not used to cherrypicking and propping up a flimsy source material with headcanons just to keep going, because 99% of the way, we had it made, we were catered to, we had our expectations met and exceeded.
I think I'd be satisfied forever if I only had that handhold. I don't know if I'll ever make sense of that part. And no amount of fan content is going to change the fact that Horikoshi didn't draw that ultimate symbol of their relationship mending and becoming truly close the way they're meant to be. That's always gonna pull at my heart because it seemed so inevitable. Why? why why why...
Alright, deep breath again.
Only time will tell if I'm up for sticking around, but right now I think I've wrapped up too much of myself in this to let it go. Like I need to put it into words in order to process and heal. I need to lovingly pick apart their psyches to teach myself the lessons I wanted to learn from them in suffering as well as joy. I need to solidify my own imagination into a representation that rings true.
I hope you all find whatever peace looks like for you <3
"Essentially 429 was the final chapter, and 430 was the curtain call, which I drew with the sense that it was a bonus stage in a video game." So is it accurate to say that, it's like Izuku is playing an otome game? He tried Ochako's route and that handhold in the end is a special CG? I feel like this is a dumbass question but ToT LMAAOOOO I don't really get it but that's how I'm trying to process this...
No, as far as I can tell, Horikoshi is explaining how he approached making the "curtain call" chapter, which refers to 430, not 431. He often describes things in video game terms. He's saying the story was essentially complete with 429, which ends with granny taking the boy's hand and the hope that heroes can have "more free time in the future."
430 being a "curtain call" makes sense because it contains the timeskip. It occurs right at the conclusion to a stage production to give closure and joy to the audience. One might also call it a victory lap. Anyway, I happen to like curtain calls, so I accept Horikoshi's bonus stage.
431 is set with the "cameras off." The characters free from the "drama," like they are actors in a play. Take that how you will. For me, it emphasizes that there is nothing particularly meaningful or important in 431. It's just a feel-good scenario. The characters are still doing their best, but they aren't in the story anymore.
Ok but this actually does not compute with leaks. People are talking about how confusing this is but it’s deeper than that. I’m reminded of how deeply Horikoshi cares and I have a sickening feeling that someone, either within or without, has done something awful here
Hope you’re well. Do you know how much extra content volumes usually have compared to the number of weekly pages? Apparently we’re getting 60 extra pages. Is that a lot more than normal?
Hello! Thanks for the well wishes.
You've come to the right person, because I'm a weirdo who has done a ridiculous amount of research on Shueisha's tankōban releases and how they differ from WSJ serialization, so I have a good idea about how some of those pages are going to be used. I'm also gonna compare what we know about this final volume to those of other series.
Strap in for the spreadsheets and data party, pal!
First, here's a look at a selection of MHA volumes.
EDIT: These numbers come from Shueisha's official listings of the volumes and their table of contents, cross-verified with the MHA fanwiki's chapter page counts, some of my own physical copies, and online fan scans.
As you can see, roughly 20 pages is typical. 58 seems wild in comparison. I wanted to know what those 20 pages were usually used for.
So, I went through my copy of volume 37 and did a breakdown of its contents.
Now lemme explain some things:
Every tankōban will have between 4-6 pages for legal disclaimers ("this is a work of fiction", etc.), table of contents, and copyright information.
A "door" is a printing term for what one might call the volume title page or chapter title page (example in link). Not all chapters have "doors," most have their titles integrated into the first page, like so:
The vast majority of tankōban have page counts that are divisible by four. This is related to the physical mechanics of printing and binding books, so it is unusual to find ones outside this format. Volume 11 is an outlier in this regard with 210 pages; in fact, the English language release cut those two surplus pages.
Tankōban may have dust jackets. MHA tankōban with dust jackets often have a second, internal "sketch cover" and a final page promoting the next volume. These are not included in page counts, and are thus not included in my breakdown.
Manga is of course read right-to-left; this means if you hold a tankōban open, odd-numbered pages will be on the left side and even-numbered pages will be on the right.
In professional publishing, chapters are structured so their first page of actual story content is on the left. Page planning, which is taught to new artists and enforced by editors, involves the odd-numbered page ending on some sort of "pull." Basically, page 2 might be drawn to lead your eye across the book, but page 3 has to make you want to turn the page and find out what happens next.
Basically everything published in Weekly Shonen Jump has chapters with an odd-number of pages, so it'll have 15, 17, 19, or 21 pages, instead of 16, 18, 20, or 22. This allows the chapter to both begin and end on the lefthand side; even-numbered pages before and after the chapters separate the different series with promotional ads.
What we think of as bonus material is mostly what I personally call adjustment pages: in order for every chapter to still begin and end on the odd-numbered page in the tankōban, they must be separated by at least one page that fills the even-numbered gap.
Sketches, quotes, doors, all that extra stuff is really just there to make the structure of the tankōban a little more appealing to the reader. In my breakdown, "adjust" refers to an even-numbered page that is totally blank except for a MHA logo in the bottom corner.
So, 4-6 pages for legal stuff and at least 1 page separating each chapter (typically 8-12), plus a few pages of extra art like character pages or chapter doors, you can see why we end up with roughly 20 pages more than the total of the chapter pages combined.
With this information, let's imagine what Volume 42 might look like.
In this estimate, I just guessed it would have the same pattern of extras as Volume 37, since we know the final volume will have the results of the last WSJ popularity poll. This totals 146 pages, so basically, even accounting for the inter-chapter sketches, that's 38 pages of new, unknown content!
I've seen people guessing that the final volume will include the 2008 one-shot Horikoshi used as the basis for My Hero Academia, but I can basically guarantee you that won't happen, because when it was published in Akamaru Jump (which is now called Jump GIGA), it was 47 pages long. Yes, I went and found a Japanese blog post from January 2008 to verify this page count.
126 chapter pages + 4 legal pages + 8 adjustment pages between chapters + 4 pages for popularity poll + 47 one-shot pages = 189 pages, 5 pages too many. They would have to remove the adjustment pages to make it work, which totally fucks the flow of the manga.
Furthermore, the word used in the WSJ ad to describe the bonus material for the final volume (描き下ろし) specifically refers to drawings newly made for a special purpose. They simply would not use this to refer to a previously published manga being included.
For comparison, I researched the tankōban releases for a number of other WSJ series.
Dr. Stone and Mashle's final volumes were basically identical to their regular volumes in terms of extras and content. I also researched The Prince of Tennis and Naruto as older comparisons, but I couldn't find information exact enough to warrant inclusion, but what I saw more or less matched Dr. Stone and Mashle.
As you can see, Demon Slayer is the weird one here, and it's obvious why. The series ended during the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic, and Gotouge mentioned having a family member they needed to care for; a lot of people felt these issues contributed to Gotouge not being able to end the series as they had originally intended.
Demon Slayer chapters were typically 19 pages, but the last two chapters were 26 pages and 24 pages, uncommonly even-numbered. If you look at the final chapters and the epilogue in the tankōban, just numbers-wise, the ending could have been four 19-page chapters. But for whatever reason, that wasn't how it went down during serialization.
It's worth noting that the pages added to the tankōban do not change the ending, they merely provided greater emotional closure.
Side note but if anyone's gonna try and bring up Attack on Titan, I'm just gonna point out that AOT was a monthly manga published by Kodansha, a different company entirely. I imagine they have their own approach to marketing tankōban or special releases. You also have to consider the tastes and intentions of the creator, and hot take but I have absolutely no fucking positive opinions on that dude or his work, so it was no surprise to me that anything he added just made the ending worse.
TL;DR: Yes, it's a lot more than regular volumes! Content-wise, we'll probably get beautiful new illustrations and some revised page art that add details which improve pacing or themes. We might get a few extra chapter pages where a single serialized page gets turned into a big double-page spread, like we saw for Katsuki's fight with AFO.
There could be a couple new panels that bring more closure to things that were hinted at in the final chapters, who knows.
The only thing I personally want is a true bkdk handhold.
I'd love a double-page spread of Izuku taking Katsuki's hand and beaming up at him. Just insert it right there at the end before we see them all scampering off to make the world a better place. That would do my heart good.
(Google Translated)
And what's more, volume 42 also includes a 38-page manga drawn by Horikoshi-sensei that depicts what happened after the last chapter...!
EXCUSE ME??????
38 PAGE EPILOGUE!?!?!?!?
I WAS EXACTLY RIGHT DOWN TO THE NUMBER???
listen I was scared to hope for anything so I didn't know what those 38 pages would be but WHAT THE FUCK
Crawling briefly out of my grad student hell pit to say that I have not abandoned this blog! Only on a hiatus of indeterminate length… and not just because of irl life things, but in anticipation of volume 42 which I can now admit has been making me hesitate to do or say anything much. Now that we have confirmation that it is indeed going to have a pretty good chunk of bonus content (whatever the heck that is!), I feel less silly saying I’m waiting to see how the story wraps up for real.
