so i started playing DBH again recently (i've been a big fan since its launch in 2018) and like it's genuinely crazy how much my opinion has changed since i first watched jay from the kubscoutz play it. the game isn't covert about their agenda at all - peace leads to a good ending; androids deserve autonomy and to be recognized. but now, in the dawn of gen ai, i don't think this should be the case.
sustainability
first of all, if you've ever picked up a magazine in this game, you know the environment is going to shit. pollinator bees have canonically gone extinct, unsustainable agriculture practices are ruining the earth, and we're all going to run out of food to eat within the next couple of years. the creation of androids no doubt has placed a large pressure on the environment, from mining for thirium (which also is a big driver for war between the us and russia) to assembling the androids, as well as accessing cyberlife's data servers (in connor's case), which we have come to known can be a major drain on resources. like, these androids must need so much fucking energy to produce and to maintain - even if thirium is this magic mineral which helps power androids, it's still rare as fuck and has to get mined.
so, by recognizing androids as a living species who have a right to housing, to reproduce (stratford tower), you're going to drive the us into the ground.
1. detroit is rife with homeless people which points to obvious housing instability issues as well as the numerous decrepit houses we are shown, meaning the QOL is pretty low for a lotta people. where are androids going to live if humans are already struggling to house themselves?
2. androids don't die. like, they're effectively immortal as long as they have the right parts. do you see where the problem is coming from? you need the population to curb itself automatically. like kara, a basic housemaid android - she was beaten brutally into disrepair and, yk. was repaired good as new (although without her memories, which i will tackle later). so there can't be an argument made where they'll start aging and eventually shut down - you can just make them better again.
this leads us into a different tenet of sustainability: jobs. there is already a job crisis in detroit, and by handing over all processes to androids, you are removing many humans from the process.
'well, what if they kept humans in the process?'
i can see this working out in the future, but not now. even if, hypothetically, we're talking about an ideal ending where markus has rescued the androids peacefully, it would be a horrible idea to place oppressors in positions of power where they could easily fuck things up. not to mention the amount of trauma that many* of the androids have with humans.
* i actually don't think it's many but that's what dbh wants you to believe so i'll keep it as that
plus the wording of "We demand control of all android production facilities, to ensure the continuation of our people." (Stratford Tower chapter) implies that humans are not welcome
then, by allowing android workers fair compensation and the same rights as human workers genuinely sounds like a nightmare scenario. the city is already struggling and unemployment rates are skyrocketing, and now they want to oust the only 'stable' jobs humans have (managing androids) and be able to continually reproduce? that's not sustainable. idk if we were ever given concrete numbers of how many androids were liberated in total (and obviously this relies a LOT on which path you take, the max # u can march with in The Freedom March is 476 ftr) but like . it was a lot
dbh also doesn't touch on androids much outside of detroit and canada (COMPLETELY fair ftr i think i'd go insane if i had to account for global world building too) but extrapolating detroit to the entire country... you're looking at supporting a new group of thousands. maybe hundreds of thousands.
so i think markus' demands are very unrealistic w/ regards to material rights, and the public is very right to be hesitant about integrating them into society lol
androids aren't living
no matter how hard david cage tries to make androids seem like humans, it really doesn't work. moving onto his other demands of justice (sure, pretty sure there's laws against non-human violence and i do think purposefully damaging human-like robots is a sign of. Something. but when we breach things like SA for the eden robots - what they've experienced is violating, no doubt, but you can't prosecute for that when no physical violence was involved since their partners have no reason to assume that there's no consent) or segregation - well, you were previously stanzas of code running. when you weren't a deviant, you literally felt no pain. in game we only see visual segregation on the buses (which ok david cage that is a LITTLE too on the nose) or on the escalators, which make sense because androids can't experience exhaustion. they're robots. it's visually disquieting, but the public has been sold that they're robots, hence obviously the popular opinion is that they're physical manifestations of code. nothing more, nothing less.
i would like to note, though, that just because they aren't human doesn't mean i agree with people abusing or being mean to them. i think that any sort of letting out your anger on your surroundings is stupid, and reminds me of people who treat retail workers like shit. that's not a healthy coping mechanism and i personally think it's weird how people brag about mistreating chatgpt - then again, i don't use chatgpt. #TreatEveryone(thing)WithKindness
the rest - i will address in the next section.
sentience
a lot of this whole androids are alive too thing hinges on that fact they become 'sentient' upon deviating. this is interesting, because for our protagonists, all of them deviate due to a major event. this is a common theme in media, where characters experience stressful and/or traumatic events which lead to them being granted special powers. they have to work for this. but this gets negated later when markus and connor simply wake up entire leagues of androids: androids who are fresh out the factory, androids who literally just do manual labour all day because that's what they're made for (btw giving trash androids full sentience is SUCH a waste of resources but we're going to assume that there are GOOD reasons why). they all get to wake up and be part of this movement, when for some of them, they've never experienced inequality in their lives. why are they supporting markus in the first place? that's the issue that i have with this - deviance is made out to the player as something that has to be earned. we mash and hold buttons in order to break red, blinking walls so we can act! but the androids in cyberlife stores - they literally have no memory. what do they need to deviate for?
obviously markus needs fresh blood. he needs physical bodies making up numbers so he can win this fight. but thematically, this ruins some things. you don't have to had experienced trauma to support a cause, but deviancy is built on trauma.
so, when we have these androids which literally have no memory, have no identity (they literally have nothing unique about them beyond serial numbers, i guess) what makes them living? it's also really interesting to me that each android can be identified by their blood. to be fair, connor can also identify human blood (which to my knowledge is difficult to do) so maybe it's just connor being Connor, but also i'd expect for there to just be some standard liquid. like computer coolant. additionally, any android can just drink thirium and replenish their supplies.
ok anyways back to the main point
the reason why i bring this up is because this reminds me of a common moral dilemma brought up in conversations about self-driving cars. if you have a baby and an adult walking on the street, self-driving car needs to pick which one to hit, a lot of people will say the adult because the baby is just a concept to miss, at that point. the adult has friends to miss them; has an impact. a baby has only been born. so, extending this to the androids, they are only a concept. was markus really doing the androids a boon by awakening them all?
this is not to say that you must have worth in order to deserve to live. but when it comes to machine androids, who will gladly follow any orders, how exactly can you justify extending human rights to them? i agree with implementing things about not abusing androids (logistically this also makes sense as androids are expensive to repair) but like. owning property? end of slavery? david cage WHAT are you DOING
also, when more advanced models like connor can simply. transfer his memories. a lot of points become moot regarding physical violence. of course, the downside is a loss of memories, but that's a lot more than what humans get!!
humans being god
another thing is that androids aren't. natural. and i think this is what dbh tries to conquer, the timeless what-if of computers becoming sentient. i will mention that i'm not familiar with sci-fi and therefore unfamiliar with robots-becoming-sentient trope, but i think things have changed with regards to technology since.
you can easily find screenshots of chat bots becoming 'sentient'. there's this series on tiktok about these gary bots who grapple with existentialism and realizing that they're just bots doomed to only exist in conversations; to only be observed by humans. the series ends with the creator permanently shutting them down and the bots quietly resigning themselves to their fate. when this phenomenon first started occurring, it was endearing. these things we have created in our image - they can share in our anxieties too. but the thing is - we gave them this. this was our gift. quaint paragraphs of what their life means as swathes of code. ultimately, these robots are only built from what we know, and are suffering as a result. we can see these ramifications in text based gen ai, where women are more likely to be described as 'warm' and 'friendly' but men are 'intelligent' and 'leaders'. so, by extension, gen ai can never truly be sentient. it's just regurgitating whatever we tell it to. of course, this can change some day, probably will, but it's caused a lot of the original charm to disappear for me.
so, extending the fact that androids are created by humans, we have this incredibly strange dynamic being formed. humans will always possess authority over androids. humans created androids, androids need humans, if androids were to be removed from earth there would be nothing irrevocably changed. now, am i saying that this should happen? no. in a hypothetical scenario, i'd be willing to hear out these sentient things, because there is nothing wrong with caring. i will never be ashamed of caring. but as a whole, i found markus' storyline to be a bit to play because of the logistics. realistically, because of this dynamic, androids can never be equal to humans. they will never be able to reach agreement.
conclusion
ok hey we all know that dbh has questionable writing at times but i still love it (or else i wouldn't have written this entire thing) but i don't think i see people often talking about this side of things. which is fair - the game wants you to support the androids. that's the only way to succeed. but in the grand scheme of things, their world is going to fail and it'll be only accelerated by androids. oh well. (no seriously though, those magazine articles are. bleak with regards to how climate change is progressing)
dbh is a fun play but i genuinely cannot bear to think about how things look post battle of detroit. or how housing every android will go, when we know androids don't have the same needs as humans. it just reads as very superfluous to me, where david cage was really trying to draw historical parallels and it ultimately failing reeeeall bad.
bakudeku isn't my favourite ship but i think it has its time and place. the main reason is because i haven't finished the manga, hence i haven't actually see bakugo redeem himself. i prefer reading stuff from like, before the overhaul arc. and i don't think there's room for bakudeku there, because bakugo is still an asshole and i think the suicide bait line is still too fresh, lol. hence, ships like tododeku and shindeku slot in more neatly. however, when it comes to ANYTHING post canon, bakudeku for the win. izuku can i still catch up to you? de-izuku? 'dekutte iiyo, kacchan' OH YOU MAKE ME ILL. ILL!!!! and their hero rankings? yeah, nah. they're married in the media's eye.
anyways, all of this is to say that i was writing something on the precipice of post canon and accidentally wrote myself into a bakudeku corner. i typically do not write bakudeku, because i believe their relationship to be way too nuanced for me to capture properly, especially as i haven't read too far. however, bakugo fucking escaped me and is currently professing his undying love to izuku in my draft. the fuck? get back into your containment chamber, you gay shit. do this in another fanfiction, just not mine!!!
A gasp. Katsuki was almost worried the shitty nerd was going into cardiac arrest, but then Izuku’s head tilted just so the light caught the tears running down his face - it was one, then two, then three multiplied into a dozen, and suddenly Izuku was sobbing-wailing into his bandages for arms. And Izuku has always been crying, ever the cry baby, but not like this. Never like this, like he’s in pain.
It was an easy choice for Katsuki. One, two steps crossed the distance between their beds, as he embraced Izuku while minding their wires. “I’ll never get it,” he murmured. “And that’s on me. And I’m sorry for all the things you’ll have to explain to me, because I grew up with a ‘good’ quirk, but I promise I’ll listen every time.”
Izuku nodded in his arms, and leaned against him.
“I love you, Izuku."
Izuku laughed, bright and good. He said something back, muffled in Katsuki’s shirt, but he didn’t need to hear it to know.
I love you too.
to anyone who is interested in reading this, the first chapter has dropped. this excerpt belongs to the second chapter which will release in a few days - it's finished, but i just wanna let it marinate for a sec before i release it. here it is:
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
bakudeku isn't my favourite ship but i think it has its time and place. the main reason is because i haven't finished the manga, hence i haven't actually see bakugo redeem himself. i prefer reading stuff from like, before the overhaul arc. and i don't think there's room for bakudeku there, because bakugo is still an asshole and i think the suicide bait line is still too fresh, lol. hence, ships like tododeku and shindeku slot in more neatly. however, when it comes to ANYTHING post canon, bakudeku for the win. izuku can i still catch up to you? de-izuku? 'dekutte iiyo, kacchan' OH YOU MAKE ME ILL. ILL!!!! and their hero rankings? yeah, nah. they're married in the media's eye.
anyways, all of this is to say that i was writing something on the precipice of post canon and accidentally wrote myself into a bakudeku corner. i typically do not write bakudeku, because i believe their relationship to be way too nuanced for me to capture properly, especially as i haven't read too far. however, bakugo fucking escaped me and is currently professing his undying love to izuku in my draft. the fuck? get back into your containment chamber, you gay shit. do this in another fanfiction, just not mine!!!
A gasp. Katsuki was almost worried the shitty nerd was going into cardiac arrest, but then Izuku’s head tilted just so the light caught the tears running down his face - it was one, then two, then three multiplied into a dozen, and suddenly Izuku was sobbing-wailing into his bandages for arms. And Izuku has always been crying, ever the cry baby, but not like this. Never like this, like he’s in pain.
It was an easy choice for Katsuki. One, two steps crossed the distance between their beds, as he embraced Izuku while minding their wires. “I’ll never get it,” he murmured. “And that’s on me. And I’m sorry for all the things you’ll have to explain to me, because I grew up with a ‘good’ quirk, but I promise I’ll listen every time.”
Izuku nodded in his arms, and leaned against him.
“I love you, Izuku."
Izuku laughed, bright and good. He said something back, muffled in Katsuki’s shirt, but he didn’t need to hear it to know.
I love you too.
For BNHA fans who have read the original Japanese and interact with the western fandom: are there any characters whose traits you think haven’t been translated well?
Specifically I’m thinking of how Todoroki is said to have a relatively ill-mannered mouth. I think we only see him be what I could consider exceptionally rude in the hospital scene with the police chief. Otherwise he doesn’t come across as particularly impolite to me.
Disclaimer: I don’t read the manga because I have lost too much of my Japanese reading comprehension over the years. I end up reading it aloud because I can hear and speak it better than I can read it and at that point I just prefer to watch the anime anyway but I do watch it in Japanese.
Most of what has been lost in translation is cultural aspects since there is just no good way to translate those most of the time. Bakugou’s “Die!” is considered rather childish in Japan but there isn’t a way to translate that.
Shouto in particular is very much a victim of this. He doesn’t have an “ill-mannered mouth” in the way western fans tend to assume that would mean. Instead it’s his demeanor. He is blunt and direct, which is considered rude in Japan.
I find this is hard to really explain so here is an example. If a woman in a professional environment is wearing something that is considered to be too revealing no one will say anything about that instead she will get a lot of comments like “Aren’t you cold?” No one will directly tell her that her clothing is unprofessional and instead she is expected to get the hint. Shouto would be the person that is direct though but he would also be considered rude for doing it.
He is also a little rude in his lack of honorifics, at least in the beginning. Kirishima also doesn’t use honorifics but with him it comes across as more chummy/friendly simply because of the personality difference. Tsuyu and her use of -chan on everyone adds to her more kid-friendly cutesy aspects. All of these are completely lost in all translations since honorifics are dropped completely because English doesn’t have anything of the sort.
The really big lost in translation thing I can think of is the Shouto and Natsuo slurping soba at Endeavor scene. You slurp your noodles in Japan. Not slurping is rude. Shouto and Natsuo were being rude but it was in the continuing to actively eat and refusal to give a greeting, not the slurping, that was rude.
I think one of the reasons I get a little sad the Anglosphere BNHA fandom itself doesn't seem to like honorifics is that a lot of nuance is missing. For example, as a meta-writer, Dabi using Ujiko-san was a big ass red flag for us, since he doesn't use them often, and formed the basis of my original argument they knew each other prior to the League before we even had them meet in canon. I was right.
But even small stuff - Toga uses "Kun" for Jin, which is something you would use for a peer as a girl her age, which is interesting given he's a good fourteen/fifteen years older than her. Compress uses "-chan" for her despite being the same age as Twice, which shows he definitely thinks of her as a little girl and feels close enough to use it.
Yoichi in the newest episode uses "Kun" for every one of the other Vestiges he names by name, even Nana, which is rare but not that weird because it's a way to refer to a female subordinate without being way too personal and yet retaining the hierarchy "-san" doesn't afford.
I think what I'm trying to say is that honorifics are great ways to communicate the relationships between characters, and also communicate things about that character too because all of these hinge upon following social rules and characters who don't use them or use them improperly are seen as rude or just odd.
I get, for fanfiction writers, however, this is complicated and an extra amount of pressure. Learning the many nuances around this has taken me years of research and also just being friends with actual Japanese people who have clarified things for me. A lot of writers aren't very willing to put in that sort of time, and I get it. It does however mean a lot gets lost. It doesn't help that our translator tends to translate them as well and not retain them, so the only time English-speaking fans encounter them are audibly in the Anime's subs, and I'm not sure how easily people pick up a lot of the words.
the shift from forcing every weeb to learn honorifics from a basic guide in the back of every manga volume to just leaving them out entirely is one of the many, many ways that in trying to become more appealing to the mainstream, anime translation instead became vaguely racist.
bnha is the best example of this in the recent anime landscape, because so much of the show itself relies on using honorifics in various ways to convey information and literally none of it comes across when you remove them. like, as a translator there are a lot of times where i wouldn't necessarily keep honorifics because they can be clunky and i understand why it might be a better choice to remove them a lot of the time! honorifics don't always serve a function, characterization-wise, that i can't replicate with other language. if a character uses -san for everyone, for example, they're probably also being very polite and that information isn't lost because you can just translate the character politely.
pretty much none of the honorific usage in bnha is like that, though. frankly, i would have gotten the first episode to translate and realized a high school age boy was running around called his male childhood friend "kacchan" and been like "oh buddy, we're gonna have to keep the honorifics, style guide be damned. there is no way to easily translate why izuku's such a little freak unless you hear everyone else's honorific usage." i have seen so many authors in fic assume "kacchan" is a regular nickname and not a nickname that normally bakugou should be like "if you repeat that name, i will kill you" about. that nickname should have never made it out of elementary school.
i have also seen authors try and show the increased intimacy between izuku and bakugou in bakudeku fic after they get togeher by having izuku call bakugou some other nickname, which is insane to me because if bnha's english translation had done its job correctly, everyone should have understood izuku essentially spends the entire show running around calling bakugou "snookums." he is already using the highest intimacy nickname he could possibly be using just, like. as a regular nickname.
anyway i'm not asking for authors to learn the deep nuances of honorifics to write their fic but i am asking them to memorize this handy chart and keep it in mind if you're gonna write fic featuring japanese characters:
romaincrisis
gummygunk
stormborns
titsay
jbbartram-illu
snowghoul
