All for One reads the last report from his spy that was assigned to observe Shimura’s house, and frowns in disbelief.
At this point his horrific revenge against Seventh One for All holder looks rather disappointing. No actual fights, no catastrophic scandals, no quirk incidents, no murder attempts as well...
Basically he has to admit: despite his best attempts, Shimuras were acting like a rather regular family with very boring regular problems.
All for One sighs. Desperate times call for desperate measures, so with a snap of fingers he activates his least favourite, but quite useful quirk.
A few seconds later a big white cat jumps out of the window of his undercover office and runs towards Shimura’s house.
***
Kotaro’s cleaning high shelves in his cabinet when Cat for One meows at him loudly.
“Ah! Hello, my angel!” Cat for One that seemingly appeared out of nowhere jumps onto him, so the man almost falls from the ladder. “I missed you so much, do you want something to eat?” Kotaro coos at him, putting aside some photo — is that Seventh??? — and ignoring how Cat for One’s claws make his arm bleed.
Only after hours of unimaginable torture (“Who’s the cutest little thing! Would you give me a hug wouldn’t you?”) Cat for One is finally free.
But it is not in vain: due to his sudden demonic appearance Kotaro’s cabinet that he tried to clean is covered in cat fur, his clothes are torn to shreds, and, more importantly, he has to hide that annoying photo inside the table because Cat for One was constantly hissing at it.
Then he goes to the children that were chirping outside of the house. Probably they are supposed to be busy with their school tasks, yet they are clearly playing “heroes”. Disgusting!
Cat for One lays over their notebooks, shows his belly and starts purring when Hana pets him (he considers that it’s better to avoid Tenko’s pets, just in case).
It actually makes him a bit nostalgic, reminding of the times when little brother was obliged to give him head pats instead of playing with some random street cat. It could be potentially dangerous for Yoichi’s fragile health, so he wasn’t jealous of this cat as Yoichi said, he was very thoughtful as a good big brother he was.
Listening to the children’s whines about school, Cat for One rolls his eyes. Kids these days would never survive what he did, he was swimming in the cold water and fighting rats to get books only to learn how to read.
He makes sure that children completely forget about their homework since they are occupied with the more important duties, like playing with Cat for One’s tail. That definitely will lead to the lower grades in school, huge disappointment of their parents, and horrific demise of the Shimura family!
Unfortunately, their furry monster — that nasty dog — finally shows and starts barking like crazy, so the wise and great Cat for One decides to leave, not losing an ounce of his natural elegance and grace.
And that is another day of ruining what Shimura Nana tried to protect!
Walking on the roofs, Cat for One thinks that maybe he should visit Todorokis too. As a cat he enjoys laying on Endeavour’s shoulders greatly, feeling intense heat from his quirk, plus Rey gives him fresh tuna whenever he wants…
Deeply satisfied with himself, Cat for One stretches his spine.
The least favourite, but quite useful quirk of him, for sure!
Very very serious analysis on Zen(AFO) and Yoichi(who?) [Part 3] (1831 words)
Part 1 Part 2
Then we got a timeskip to the twins in their adult age. From here, we can see how Zen had started addressing his little brother affectionately as with the word ‘dear/adorable’, but not forgetting to call him ‘foolish’ because siblings thing.
At this stage, we knew that Zen had already amassed many followers and was already a great manipulator. So him calling Yoiichi affectionately could be him trying to manipulate him that ‘bro I have changed from my emotionless phase, I do love you and will shower you with compliments that you never got during childhood just like me, so pls join my evil organization’ or regretting the old days when he wasn’t as expressive. It depends on how humanized you imagine Zen to be.
In this scene, it is implied that Zen was on the way to meet Yoichi but Yoichi went to find him/go elsewhere but ran into Zen instead. So Zen made fun of his lack of patience and called him a hypocrite.
He did the same when Yoichi continued to call Zen manipulative after he helped two men who suffered from having and not having a metapower. Then again when he told Yoichi how loyal and respectful his followers are. All of these were him trying to gaslight Yoichi that he wasn’t doing anything bad and Yoichi was the one at fault here, which, successfully gaslighted the me from 2018 too NGL.
When I first watched this flashback on 2018, I felt like Yoichi is the bad guy here lol. One of his first lines being how metapowers shouldn’t be used for personal gain did not give me a good first impression.
Imagine being born with something you didn’t ask for, like maybe an extra arm. You faced discrimination for it, but your extra arm is helpful in your daily life. But this man with white hair came to you one day and screamed at you, saying how you should use your extra arm for the sake of others and never for yourself. That you shouldn’t be selfish with the body you are born with. I think I will put Yoichi in a double vault if he did that to me. Zen is pretty lenient for just putting him in one layer of vault.
And Yoichi constantly just trying to jump Zen who was just standing still and helping two men just doesn’t help at all. He also gets defeated by the air when he first tries to jump Zen. Like if he wants to be convincing about why Zen helping the two men is going to be a huge bad deal, show Zen reusing the men again and make them pay their debt in inhumane ways. But he only managed to show 20% of what he wanted to show so whatever. He forgot to show the other 80% even after the end of the series.
Heck, he will be a lot more convincing if he just shows Zen killing the glowing teen. Also he didn’t only show this flashback to Izuku, he showed it to all of the OFA users too. I have no idea what Yoichi’s end goal is by trauma dumping his successors of that time when he tried to jump Zen but got defeated by nothing while screaming like a madman. If his goal was to max out the pity factor, I must say he did a great job with it. I’m sending him back to his mental hospital.
Anyway as much as I think that Zen did help the two men who suffered due to their power/lack of one, he did do it for the purpose of getting followers. And a more morally better method to solve their issues was to get the parents to understand that their child is forever deformed now and to accept him as he is, and to just build a more peaceful society for the powerless man because you simply don’t hand a weapon to someone who looks like he is going to stab 5 people minimum.
Also I must commend Yoichi’s effort for standing up after getting defeated by his brother’s most powerful bodyguard, whose physical form is too strong to be seen but came in the form of coughs. Notice how adult Yoichi wears a singular jacket? It gives +0.1 defense. It will protect him from that bodyguard in his dream.
Moving on. From how Zen had the two men follow him to Yoichi, it’s implied that Zen intends to do the power transfer in front of his little brother since the start. The gaslight battles have been planned since long ago.
Then next up we see Zen’s second bodyguard, who is less powerful so we can see his physical form and pinning down Yoichi. While Zen is probably enjoying the feeling of someone respecting him so much so to put an end to his mentally unstable brother’s rampage.
Even so, he loves his brother enough to warn the bodyguard to be gentle because Yoichi is like a balloon. Kick him, he fly. Grab him a bit too hard, he explodes. Please do not the Yoichi.
Anyway slander and agenda aside x2, I found this part to be one of the most important pieces in understanding how Zen thinks. He knew that he was a metahuman and at this time, he still thought that Yoochi had no metapower. And his little brother who grew up beside him opposed him from being evil! Why? IT MUST BE BECAUSE HE HAS NO POWER!!! I HATE THE OLD HUMANS!!! THEY ARE ALL SO HYPOCRITICAL AND CAN’T UNDERSTAND MY DEMON KING DREAM!!!111!!1
Born with the Quirk All for One, Zen is highly likely born with the need to take and give Quirks. (insert 300 words why Quirks shape a person in MHA) Anyway, the point is Quirks shape a person. (insert 200 words why Zen is the way he is and Yoichi is the way he is)
Next we see the scene changed to the one the anime cut a bit here and there. Which I can understand why because this is supposed to be Yoichi’s flashback, so how is he showing Zen doing his daily quest if he wasn’t there in person? And yet the anime leaves the part of Zen walking between the army of metahumans and old humans. So we can safely assume that Yoichi made up these flashbacks because he really wants his successors and us readers to know that his brother is evil and he is the pitiful mentally ill foolish little brother.
Then the famous meme—I mean the vault scene. Time to bring back the whole ‘I think Yoichi ate Zen’s clothing’ theory from two thousand words ago. Notice how Yoichi is missing his jacket here? He ate it.
Now to estimate the length Yoici is locked in this place. From the way Zen say ‘still refusing to eat?’, the way none of them treat it like it’s a new thing. I will boldly assume that Yuichi has been trapped in the vault for at least 30 seconds. Maybe 40. Or a week. I really doubt that he has been hunger striking for longer because he doesn’t look that malnourished at all. Thinner than Zen? Certainly. Visible ribs? Definitely not.
The point of the time estimation is to tell you that enough time passed in the vault where Yonichi might’ve eaten something but skipped at least two meals for Zen to make that comment. Here’s the strange thing. How did Zen know that Koichi didn’t eat when there is no leftover food in the vault? And don’t you bring up the argument that the leftover food is outside the vault because my crack theory will fall apart otherwise.
Moving on. Zen knew that Yoichi hadn’t eaten because he hadn’t eaten more of his own clothing. Like we can even see how he has his shoes when his brother gives him a Quirk, but he lost his shoes when he got kidnapped by Kudo and Bruce. If this isn’t enough evidence that Yoichi’s main source of food is fabric, I don’t know what it is.
So why? Why didn’t baby Yoichi eat his own clothing and eat Zen’s instead? It’s simply because he is a selfish little piece of brother. The audacity of this devil. I feel bad for Zen.
Just to seal this case closed, in the anime, we even have Zen drinking something. But Yoichi? He didn’t drink the hot drink Kudo offered. In fact, there wasn’t even a drink in the anime because the staff was informed of Devichi’s eating habits. You will only convince me that Demonchi eats normal human food unless you can get me a panel with him doing that. Otherwise, he doesn’t.
Alright we are a little off track by 300 words but let’s continue. Why did Zen lock Satanchi in the vault? The widely accepted take is that he wanted to break his little brother’s spirit enough to give in to him. But obviously the real reason here is to contain the menace that is Shigaraki Yoichi. This man is not only diseased and coughing, he is also more powerful than the leader of the resistance against Zen. Yes I’m talking about Kudo.
On the left image we can see Yoichi successfully hitting Zen in just one attempt. On the right image we see Kudo successfully NOT hit Zen in his attempt. Therefore, we can conclude that Yoichi has a 100% hit rate while Kudo has a 0% hit rate. If Yoichi were born with the gearshift power instead, he would’ve been the most broken character in this universe. He will only be safely contained in 10 layers of vault, maybe 11.
Seriously speaking, I think Zen would be a foolish older brother if he had or intended to lock Yoichi in a vault for a ridiculous amount of time like months to years. Firstly, Yoichi is quite stubborn, he will probably let himself lose his sanity from the isolation rather than submit to his brother. What if he lost it enough and started throwing his ‘waste’ at Zen like a monkey? With his 100% hit rate, Zen would suffer a fate worse than death. And not to mention how gross it would be.
Secondly, Zen might be patient, but he looks pretty impatient and wants Yorichi to join him as fast as possible. We saw at least two attempts from him trying to turn Yosanchi to his side and one of them was after his little brother was already locked up. I really doubt that stubbornly keeping Zoichi locked up longer would work. The point is I just think Zen is smart enough to know that doing the same thing won't crack Yunoci. Basically, only my opinion is correct and everyone else’s isn’t.
Shigaraki Yoichi is actually AFO this whole time, you gotta trust me.
Very very serious analysis on Zen(AFO) and Yoichi(who?) [Part 2] (1651 words)
Part 1 here
Next up, we see Zen finally learned how to speak and wear proper clothes here. Speaking of the clothing, while I think it is possible that Zen prioritized clothing Yoichi before himself when they were younger because he is actually a great brother, it could be said that Yoichi clothed himself too and Zen was always in his trash bag fit because his spearlike bones would destroy his good clothing. But again, believe in your headcanons. My headcanon here is that Yoichi ate Zen’s clothing, which I will explain later in the post.
Anyway I want to point out how manga Yoichi here is less cute than the anime Yoichi. In the manga, Yoichi just goes ‘bro I’m illiterate but these comics are awesome! I will daydream about being a hero for at least a century’ (selfishly hold the comics in his hand without shifting it to his brother’s side)
Then anime Yoichi is like ‘bro I’m illiterate but these comics are awesome! I will daydream about being a hero for at least a century. Also you wanna read and daydream with me?’ (let his brother have the book while he yaps about the comics)
The only difference is that Yoichi asks if Zen wants to read with him but the difference is massive. Look at how distorted Zen’s eyes became after his brother asked him that. He probably got borderline cuteness aggression here and he didn’t know it. In fact, this is probably the first time in Zen’s life that he was asked to be closer instead of further away because he is a diseased metahuman. I can see why Zen values his only family so much. I wish little brothers were real.
Anyway, this building where the twins lived is probably a bookstore or a library because in both the weekly and volume releases, it is shown that they are in Jinbōchō (神保町), a district in Tokyo, Japan, that is widely known as a "Book Town," featuring hundreds of secondhand bookstores, particularly along Yasukuni Street.
However in the anime, we can see that it is the Shueisha(集英社) headquarters. And guess what? They are located in Jinbōchō in real life too! And I don’t need to mention how their IRL building design shares some similarities with the anime and volume version.
If you are unaware, Shueisha is the largest publishing company in Japan. They published basically all the big-name manga. HeroAca, One Piece, Chainsaw Man, Demon Slayer and more.
The takeaway from this is that a good majority of the manga are discontinued in the Dawn of Quirks. The headquarters is empty and in shambles in the MHA world. Hundreds and dozens of mangaka, editors, management team…all of them have gone jobless. Have I mentioned how I hate the metahumans? Although it is possible that they migrated to a new headquarters, but I will still hold Zen and Kokichi accountable for destroying their career.
Back to the point, judging from the design in the anime. They probably stole some editor’s office. That overwhelming amount of paperwork and messy floor with the books is enough evidence.
Another thing to note on this scene: Zen has blood on his head here and Pikachi doesn’t even care because his comics are more important. I feel bad for Zen. Especially the manga him. He was likely attacked by others and got his injuries. When he got home, the useless little brother he fed and protected and kicked every once and then doesn’t care about him at all or try to bond with him. Could this be the consequence of his own actions? IT CAN’T BE!?
One last bit before we move on to the 3-year timeskip, I want to talk about the narration and the narrator. In the 3 boxes I highlighted above, we see the narration box again for the last time.
Here, it was talking about the little brother’s inner thoughts instead of the older brother’s. So Zen can’t be narrating his own backstory the whole time to make himself look more like a born evil demon lord. It could be argued that the boxes are both from Zen and Pokachu but that same rectangular narration box just doesn’t help much. The narration is someone speaking on the third person perspective and I highly suspect that it is Horikoshi. Otherwise, it is probably Present Mic like the anime dub. But since he wasn’t there during the dawn of Quirks, this whole flashback is probably his fanfic out of his hatred for AFO.
Moving on. Here I’m using the volume version because the art is better with the moon. And moon! Let me share this post from @ s_g_hrak who pointed out how Zen basically descended as a lunatic from the moon (luna). Incredible catch and incredible laugh.
Speaking of laugh, this marked the first time in this flashback where we see Zen express an emotion that wasn’t being deadpan. After killing the glowing baby and telling Yoichi about his dream to be a demon lord, he smiled.
Zen’s lack of emotions in his early days could be due to him having fetal alcohol syndrome from his alcoholic mom. Since Zen took most of the nutrients, he reasonably took in most of the alcohol too. Some of the signs for fetal alcohol syndrome are delayed speech which can be safely assumed that Zen had it when he was still wearing trash bags, trouble telling the difference between reality and fantasy is kinda there with his whole reality and comic books bit, and social difficulties with his way of ‘bonding’ with Yichi and other people.
Another possible reason for his lack of emotions was probably because he was always in survival mode and there was nothing to laugh about in a world where people discriminate and hunt you for being you, a world where you had no one else to rely on except your powers, a world where you are always starving and hiding from society.
And yet, his little brother who lived in the same world as him was smiling. All because he had found a dream to be a hero from his comic books. To Zen, it was probably something incomprehensible. Why was his little brother able to find the slightest of happiness but he never feels anything other than the deep emptiness within him that screams to obtain more metapowers and anything in general?
This could explained why after Zen said ‘just like you do, I have my own dream too’, he smiled. He was probably jealous and yearned to have more emotions to fill his empty heart ever since that day 3 years ago. Of course, it is possible that Zen both has fetal alcohol syndrome and this vast emptiness in himself that left him unable to smile until teen years.
Anyway speaking of jealousy, the general idea that AFO killed the glowing baby(teen) is due to jealousy too. Which I agree. Zen said himself that it was unfair that the glowing teen got 10+ million sympathizers for being the first officially documented case. And he later said that he did it because he wanted to be a demon lord, in the center of attention and ruling people by fear. Probably why he took the glowing metapower too because he wanted those 10+ million sympathizers to follow him from then on.
Another one of the more abstract symbolism here with Zen descending from the moon to talk to Yoichi on the Earth can be seen as Zen being Yoichi’s moon.
Every action Zen did revolved around Yoichi much like the moon. One of the things the moon does to Earth is affect the ocean tides. In this case, it comes in the form of Yoichi having mood swings (tides) thanks to Zen.
And now you might be wondering about who the sun is in this case. Well.
Although Zen revolves around Yoichi and they are both gravitationally bound together as a dual-planet (twin) system, Yoichi revolves around the sun, Kudo instead.
As the leader of the resistance and the one who created One for All by saving Yoichi, the rest of the OFA users ultimately rely on him and his plan in the endgame against Tomura. So in a sense they also revolve around him. Not All Might though, his vestige is just kinda there. I don't actually have a degree in the solar system so I just randomly put the rest of the users on whatever planet. This whole solar system doesn’t really parallel with the users.
Also a great detail here is that despite Shigaraki Yoichi wanting to be a hero, he did nothing but read the same comic book all day as a hikikomori for 3 whole years. This marks a parallel between him and Midoriya Izuku, who is also Quirkless and wanted to be a hero since young but did nothing except daydream about it for years. Even Zen put effort into his demon king dream by going to China.
Anyway slander and agenda aside, the more important detail I want to point out is how Zen specifically flew back from China just to tell Pokichi about his kill, motive and dream at midnight. He really had to aura farm and intimidate his twin. And perhaps, for attention and even to get some sort of ‘omg bro that’s such a cool dream let me join you’ words from his brother. This is something we see Zen continuously do in the following years when they are adults.
One last detail, I like how the anime heavily implied that their power supply went off during the three-year timeskip. Was Yoichi staying up because he had a comic book addiction, or was he waiting for his parent figure/brother to return home like the child he still was here? Who knows…
Very very serious analysis on Zen(AFO) and Yoichi(who?) [Part 1] (2017 words)
(Very serious analysis, zero jokes to be found here.)
This is a post that mainly analyzes the brothers’ backstory with that generous amount of 1.5 chapters' worth of panels Horikoshi has given to us (chapters 407 & 408). Thank you…Horikoshi Kohei. Because…um…you are Horikoshi Kohei.
Anyway, for this analysis, I will primarily stick to the source material (manga) unless the anime has some worth noting addition that doesn't create plot holes or retcon anything from the manga. Let’s begin.
Shigaraki Zen and Shinpachi Youchi, a pair of orphaned meta twins from the dawn of Quirks. Their mother is a prostitute who was implied to be an alcoholic both in the anime and manga. Since we have a 100% chance of seeing her with alcohol in the grand total of one panel when she was alive, we can safely assume that she was, undoubtedly, an alcoholic.
As shown above in the image, it was stated that she didn't even know about her pregnancy of the twins for the first eight months. A full-term single child pregnancy usually lasts for 9 months and one week (40 weeks~), while twins pregnancy last for 8-9 months (37 weeks~).
So the mother had less than a month to process her pregnancy, and she chose to give birth to the twins by a river. Why? To easily dispose of the newborns, maybe. Not that we know if she had the time to crawl to the river when her water broke. Or maybe she just wants easy access to water to wash the twins.
Enough about this nameless dead mom, TWINS!
The narration says that the twins only had each other, but it was a lie. They had the rats who warmly welcomed them at birth and wanted to end their misery, but one or both of the twins swelled the river with their sheer will so they could get out of there. What did the rats do to you two, man? They just wanna be your friends!
The twins’ racism aside, I’ll be covering the analysis post in chronological order of the timeline. Because flashback within a flashback makes the greatest storytelling ever.
Here we see the twins in their natural habitat with Zen dragging Yoichi onto their mother’s corpse to use as a lifeboat, even using his newly taken power from his mother to have a better grasp on the boat. He is even smart enough to use the same power to pierce tunnels to get dying milk from it! The power of racism can truly drive individuals to unlock the skill of using tools, which is what mainly separates us from animals.
(Seriously though, was the mother’s vestige controlling Zen here? Why is this 0-day-old baby more intelligent than most people on the internet? Even saving the useless piece of brother with him?)
Thankfully, we very soon get the answer to baby Zen’s intelligence. He isn’t a human, that’s why. I bet Youchi is a monster too, given that his mother is one.
Thankfully again, we have a group of heroes rising up to take down these monsters. They are even wearing masks, goggles, and full-body protection clothing to prevent catching the disease. Role model!
Sadly, they were defeated by one of those filthy, evil, diseased monsters, also known as meta freaks or metahumans. There’s a ‘human’ in metahumans, but just know that it’s only there because these freaks are pretending to be humans, okay?
Like here, we can see Yoichi, the smaller meta freak, is shedding crocodile tears and has even learned the manipulation tactic called speaking. While Zen, the bigger meta freak with short hair, is slow on mimicking us and acts closer to his animalistic nature, wearing a trash bag, bare feet and muted.
With such intelligence that allowed them to mimic humans this quickly, it was no surprise that in just a few more years, their kind had started to demand ‘coexistence’ with the humans. The audacity. As if they weren’t the ones who messed up our society years ago. Even if you pretend to read and understand our language, we are not the same.
Although I must admit, meta freaks and us are both similar in the sense that we kill our own kind for no good reason. Even when these two meta freaks were brothers, they had no hesitation with killing each other. One of them then killed one of their fellow freaks while the other one has adapted to mimicking a hikikomori and wasting resources. Be it animals, humans or meta freaks, we cannot take violence away from us. I guess we are a little similar.
Then we have a timeskip to the two brothers in adult age, with the younger brother trying to jump his older brother because he is a violent animal that needs to be put down.
The older brother wasn’t even doing anything bad. He was just standing there, kindly using his metapower to revert a diseased man back to a normal one and spreading his disease to another normal human—NEVERMIND KILL THIS GUY! HOW COULD HE SPREAD THOSE DISEASES AROUND!!! JUST TAKE ALL THE DISEASES YOURSELF AND DIE SOMEWHERE DUDE
Although he had done it again here. At the very least, I must appreciate that the older brother has put his little victim in quarantine okay? If you know that you are diseased, please take the necessary precautions to avoid others meeting the same fate as you. Like if you caught a meta disease, it is very likely that your family would have it. Please do not lie about your conditions. Wear a mask, avoid skin contact, stand far away from civilization, do not share your food, and kindly surrender yourself to us, the heroes of this era who will save us from the meta freaks.
Do not be like those two freaks who aimed for the opposite and released a diseased man to the outside world. We, the anti-meta heroes, understand that you are likely just a victim of this unknown disease that those meta freaks keep spreading. We will protect not only you from further suffering and also the others too. How so? Our pipes will ensure it. Do not worry. Your body will be safely cremated and not returned to your family.
Ok I’m done roleplaying this NPC. Before you called his group racist, metahumans aren’t a race, they are a whole different species—Ok I’ll stop. Let’s start over again with a more serious tone.
Due to how metahumans started appearing and all, the old humans are reasonably afraid of the new humans. So naturally there’s a group of people dedicated to eliminating the new humans.
I’m not going to point fingers and say that ‘these anti-meta people are evil’ or ‘the meta freaks are evil’ despite me doing just that five minutes ago. Obviously the metahumans(or Quirked people) cannot actually spread this metapower thing around like it's a disease. (All for One excluded). But there do exist some metahumans who use their powers for evil. (All for One included)
Like in chapter 193 (anime cut content), we can see metahumans robbing the powerless. Just as what I have said when I broke out of my roleplaying as the anti-meta NPC character earlier, we cannot take violence from anyone. No matter who and what you are, violence is a part of us.
Enough humanity analysis in my Shigaraki brothers’ analysis, baby Zen! Here we see him showing himself to the anti-meta group, who then recognized that he is a poor orphan, but probably carries diseases and moved away from him. Then Zen killed them.
It is pretty easy to assume that this baby is born evil, I honestly agree. I mean, this baby is a metahuman—Fine I’ll drop the roleplaying for real this time.
From the above pages, we can tell that the anti-meta groups were armed and are taking notes of metahumans’ activities, particularly about a group that assaulted the protest group. So can it be said that ‘oh, the anti-meta is doing this in self-defense’? Did a group of metahumans kill the humans unfairly first? The argument of who is right and wrong is silly. They are all wrong in some ways. Some of them are just more wrong.
From their reaction, it is implied that metahuman orphans aren’t rare. One of them showed pity to Zen but otherwise nothing. I get it. What if you get his unknown disease by helping him? At the same time, leaving an orphan is as good as killing them yourself. This is a baby bro! At least place a can of food far away like you’d do with stray cats! (Though metahuman babies are different and can somehow survive to adulthood)
Also I want to talk about why Zen attacked the anti-meta group. There are two possible answers that I have:
Answer #1. Judging from the ‘he was born an arrogant baby’ line, Zen is born arrogant. Not born evil, mind you. Arrogant people aren’t necessarily evil, they are just mostly annoying.
Speaking of this, I die inside knowing how mistranslated these sections can be. Even the screenshots I provided above are not so accurate. Instead of ‘nuisance’, it was more of ‘he distrust/suspect them’ (‘疑問)
Anyway the point is that Zen killed the anti-meta group because he was suspicious of them for ignoring him/he felt hurt that he was ignored. For the former, his hunch was pretty spot on, if he didn’t kill them, they would probably come for him when he grew older because he would have lost his baby status and would feel less guilt when killed.
For the latter, the feeling hurt part is a lot more based on headcanons, but not totally baseless. In the entire manga, Zen has shown and declared himself as someone who likes to be remembered and focused on. It is very likely that this stems from his childhood trauma growing up as a neglected nobody who only really has his little brother looking at him.
Although Yoichi is in a similar position, he didn’t turn out like his brother possibly due to their different Quirk nature, or how Zen was doing all the hard work feeding his brother while Yoichi can be a shut-in. Many reasons on that part too.
Answer #2. Zen has a history of cannibalism, so he was just hunting his food. Yummy yummy.
(There are other possible reasons like Zen killing the anti-meta group because they were willing to let him die or Zen was just poking at anything that moves out of baby curiosity, but they aren’t as funny)
Anyway, we got a small timeskip where Zen wears his trash bag differently and is taking powers from metahumans. Remember what I said about we can’t take violence away from us? Youchi craves violence too. He is only the lesser evil of the brothers.
Anyway x2, again, we don’t have the full context to why Zen is attacking people again. It can be said that they actually hurt Yochi because we see how beat up he is here, so Zen hurt them in retribution.
But it can also be said that Koichi just fell all over himself and got himself those injuries, or that Zen abused Yichi more often than this one time we see him physically beat him.
There is no concrete answer to the backstory, all we will have are headcanons that can no longer be obliterated by Horikoshi because the story is over. And so, my headcanon here is that Yoichi is manipulative and his injuries are fake just like his tears. This all connects to the hidden lore of him having a brainwashing Quirk and he has used it on everyone in the story at every chance possible. I explained more of this in another post. This is why Zen kicked him. He saw through his evil little brother’s BS.
Anyway I’m ending part 1 of the analysis here. I will release part 2 before Horikoshi releases the next chapter. Stay hydrated. (It was 5k words but Tumblr doesn’t allow 30+ images.)
For some reason, the anime makes yoichi look like he's taller than deku. When in reality they could be the same height or yoichi could be even shorter.
This is the most Inaccurate shit I've ever seen, why does yoichi look so much taller than deku?
There is no canonical stature for yoichi. But I can get my own measurements based on the canon.
look. Yoichi in the manga is actually, much shorter than nana shimura, (Even, she is leaning over, and yet Yoichi looks much smaller)
And for some reason in the anime they want to sell you that yoichi is almost as tall as nana shimura.
Now, how tall is Nana Shimura? I have no idea. But we do know how long it was Torino as a young man.
He is 2 meters tall.
Let's see in the manga
Let's se more closer
If you notice, the difference is not much. So this is my estimate
YOU'RE NOT GOING TO TELL ME YOICHI IS ALMOST 1.80 cm TALL. NO UH.
Look. Considering his head barely High from what would be the height of Nana Shimura's shoulders, this is my estimate.
We know yoichi is malnourished since he is a fetus. Thanks to that it is very weak. I doubt very much that he is taller than 175 cm. And damn, And the anime passes yoichi off as if he were a titan.
WHAT THE HELL IS THIS ?
I get that the anime can’t exactly measure the characters down to the millimeter, but damn, Yoichi looks SO funny. lol.
There is actually an in-lore explanation for Yoichi's fluctuating height in both different media, but those informations are not disclosed to the general public due to an untranslated interview from the Turasumi Magazine by Horikoshi himself.
In the interview, Horikoshi made a reference to an old manga "この漫画は存在しない" that was more popular with the older generation in Japan. Particularly, he quoted a famous line from volume 9, where a side character asked what the main character mean that his hair being shorter than he remembered.
To understand this line, we must first understand the context of the manga. The manga was about the main character who time-traveled across universes to save his dead mother, just to create countless different universes and now had no way to return to his own timeline. In this manga, all of the universes ranged from having no world wars to super minor changes like a character having a different name.
Now that you know the context, you must think 'this is a shitpost, MHA anime and manga are NOT two different universes'. I'm sorry to break your safe haven, but you, someone who cared enough about Shinpachi Yuchi to read all this must also have cared about Kudo(ichi) to some extent.
It was a fact that the anime didn't adapt in the part where Yoichi was mentioned to have been with the resistance for 2 months. You could argue that 'it was just not mentioned, Yoichi still lived with them for 2 months'. But that wouldn't justify Yoichi's lack of shoes in the sewer unless he ate it that morning. I'm sorry, but you have to accept the fact that the anime is an alternative universe where Yoichi was murdered by Kudo the same day he was taken out of the vault.
Since the anime is an AU, Yoichi having a different height all makes sense. Without the two months with the resistance, Yoichi grew taller after inflating himself with all the air in the vault due to his self-inflicted hunger strike. All of this was an attempt to intimidate his older brother when he next visited the vault so Yoichi could stop him once and for all.
You may say, 'this is ridiculous. Yoichi is not a human pufferfish.' But 2 months locked in an enclosed room with no other distractions can truly drive any human into achieving enlightenment. That's right, without the distraction of being saved by comic book heroes, Yoichi unlocked a pufferfish skill using his newly gained OFA quirk.
Hopefully this post cleared out some confusion, it was hard for overseas fans to understand a Japanese media to its fullest when crucial information like this went untranslated.
OMG CATS OMG ITS CATS OH MY GOD CAT TWINS OMG CAT CAT CAT CAT CAT CAT So cute CAT they are so adorable CATTTTTSSS WHERE CAN I ADOPT THEM I PROMISE 3 MEALS PER DAY PLS cat... Cat cat cat cat cat. I kinda wanna touch their tails. I'd die, but CAT. Cat I love how protective AFO is. Cat. Now I imagine that maybe the person AfO and Yoichi are wary of here is probably someone like me, finding the twins mildly cute and now about to adopt (kidnap) them. If I put down a cage with food inside nearby, maybe I can catch them. Cat.
For some reason, the anime makes yoichi look like he's taller than deku. When in reality they could be the same height or yoichi could be even shorter.
This is the most Inaccurate shit I've ever seen, why does yoichi look so much taller than deku?
There is no canonical stature for yoichi. But I can get my own measurements based on the canon.
look. Yoichi in the manga is actually, much shorter than nana shimura, (Even, she is leaning over, and yet Yoichi looks much smaller)
And for some reason in the anime they want to sell you that yoichi is almost as tall as nana shimura.
Now, how tall is Nana Shimura? I have no idea. But we do know how long it was Torino as a young man.
He is 2 meters tall.
Let's see in the manga
Let's se more closer
If you notice, the difference is not much. So this is my estimate
YOU'RE NOT GOING TO TELL ME YOICHI IS ALMOST 1.80 cm TALL. NO UH.
Look. Considering his head barely High from what would be the height of Nana Shimura's shoulders, this is my estimate.
We know yoichi is malnourished since he is a fetus. Thanks to that it is very weak. I doubt very much that he is taller than 175 cm. And damn, And the anime passes yoichi off as if he were a titan.
WHAT THE HELL IS THIS ?
I get that the anime can’t exactly measure the characters down to the millimeter, but damn, Yoichi looks SO funny. lol.
There is actually an in-lore explanation for Yoichi's fluctuating height in both different media, but those informations are not disclosed to the general public due to an untranslated interview from the Turasumi Magazine by Horikoshi himself.
In the interview, Horikoshi made a reference to an old manga "この漫画は存在しない" that was more popular with the older generation in Japan. Particularly, he quoted a famous line from volume 9, where a side character asked what the main character mean that his hair being shorter than he remembered.
To understand this line, we must first understand the context of the manga. The manga was about the main character who time-traveled across universes to save his dead mother, just to create countless different universes and now had no way to return to his own timeline. In this manga, all of the universes ranged from having no world wars to super minor changes like a character having a different name.
Now that you know the context, you must think 'this is a shitpost, MHA anime and manga are NOT two different universes'. I'm sorry to break your safe haven, but you, someone who cared enough about Shinpachi Yuchi to read all this must also have cared about Kudo(ichi) to some extent.
It was a fact that the anime didn't adapt in the part where Yoichi was mentioned to have been with the resistance for 2 months. You could argue that 'it was just not mentioned, Yoichi still lived with them for 2 months'. But that wouldn't justify Yoichi's lack of shoes in the sewer unless he ate it that morning. I'm sorry, but you have to accept the fact that the anime is an alternative universe where Yoichi was murdered by Kudo the same day he was taken out of the vault.
Since the anime is an AU, Yoichi having a different height all makes sense. Without the two months with the resistance, Yoichi grew taller after inflating himself with all the air in the vault due to his self-inflicted hunger strike. All of this was an attempt to intimidate his older brother when he next visited the vault so Yoichi could stop him once and for all.
You may say, 'this is ridiculous. Yoichi is not a human pufferfish.' But 2 months locked in an enclosed room with no other distractions can truly drive any human into achieving enlightenment. That's right, without the distraction of being saved by comic book heroes, Yoichi unlocked a pufferfish skill using his newly gained OFA quirk.
Hopefully this post cleared out some confusion, it was hard for overseas fans to understand a Japanese media to its fullest when crucial information like this went untranslated.
