Don’t know if this a parallel or anything, but keep thinking about the first time we see deku fall, Ochako is introduced and stops him from falling. But now the one who catches him is bakugou
Late answer, I’m sorry! I sometimes postpone something and then entirely forget about it so I’m gonna go through my asks now! Eventho I take time responding, I do in fact ENJOY doing it.. i just forget. ADHD things..
I think this may be the time for me to share my analysis I posted on Twitter awhile ago about Horikoshi’s original intent and what he actually ended up doing so let’s go!
Horikoshi said he originally planned to have Katsuki develop separately, away from Izuku, as a separate vector while Ochako was supposed to be paired up with lzuku all the time and was supposed to be the cheerful light in his life that compensates for the darker parts of his relationship with Katsuki. This is important because Ochako was supposed to be the LOVE INTEREST and with the initial setup, it seems Horikoshi didn’t want to fall into the same path as other mangakas. He wanted to actually bond and develop the endgame ship and that’s why Ochako is introduced as someone important to Izuku and someone who is obviously going to be the love interest.
And we do see this. We see at the start Ochako being around Izuku, being his partner for exams, being paired up with him, motivating him and overall spending a lot of time with him while Katsuki is this awful human being and Horikoshi said he intended to keep him that way. BUT what happened?
Hori said that at one point he decided he wasn’t gonna keep Katsuki develop away from Izuku. And so Katsuki slowly comes back to Izuku’s life as his sun. Literally Katsuki was related to the sun and light before. Chapter 362 is called “LIGHT fades to rain”.
But who ends up getting a separate arc and her own villain instead? OCHAKO!
So to sum it all up..Horikoshi quite literally swapped Ochako and Katsuki in Izuku’s life. And since Ochako was supposed to be the love interest.. Katsuki took over that role when he became a permanent part of Izuku’s arc and Ochako was sent in a direction Katsuki originally had.
With this, Ochako lost her original purpose and Hori created Toga for her to give her a separate arc and decided he was going to have some fun subverting the shone trope of an underdeveloped love interest. So he chose to work on Izuku and Katsuki instead of Izuku and Ochako. And he’s aware of this. He said he created that illustration last year keeping in mind how would their relationship be IF he decided to explore it. And we also have these silly little scenes where Hori shows us he’s aware he purposefully blocks their interactions. It’s almost funny.
Once Katsuki came back in Izuku’s life as the person closest to him.. Ochako immediately lost that title.
And tho it seems as if Ochako’s character is only related to Izuku.. it isn’t. In a sense that Izuku isn’t much present in her arc physically. She s inspired by him but he is out of her reach and his attention is always elsewhere. His character arc also became kind of unaffected by her at one point.
This is why I believe ochakos feelings are simply a part of her character development and not something that leads into Iz/Ocha endgame.
You can notice Ochako really only has importantish scenes with Deku.. until Katsuki is back in his life for good. Then.. she’s gone from his arc altogether. Even the fact she changed the meaning of his hero name.. Hori entirely dismissed. Let me explain.
Every time Izuku was in a hopeless situation.. he could have thought about her. “She said I’m Deku who never gives up..” but this never gets brought up. Deku doesn’t relate his name to her at all after this. And the one time we do have a flashback to “Deku who never gives up”…It’s actually Katsuki remembering it. And the name is portrayed in a NEGATIVE SENSE!!! He became Deku who OVERDOES himself and therefore, hurts himself.
So Hori didn’t forget. He just chose not to give Ochako any special importance in Izuku’s life and so if he wants to shut the ship down now.. he doesn’t have to do ANYTHING with Izuku anymore. And since Ochako never specified what she feels and she never expressed the wish do actually be WITH Deku.. but rather be LIKE him.. so even if she does have feelings.. her “love interest” role can be taken away in one panel with the right dialogue. And it all goes back to chapter 11.
Speaking of chapter 11…I wanna share something I find interesting. So..In the same chapter Horikoshi mentioned as a turning point for Katsuki’s character (Katsuki crying and opening up to Izuku made Horikoshi change his mind in where he wants to take their relationship)..We also have Kaminari trying to ask Ochako out, but she ditches him to go after Deku. Deku then ditches HER… to go chase after KATSUKI… but Katsuki actually waits for him. 🧡💚
There is always a chance that Hori truly intended bkdk endgame from the beginning but purposefully set Ochako to look like a fake love interest for the purpose of subverting this bad shonen trope. Because he’s being quite defensive in the intro and even until this day he always says he believes nothing is off limits to him, that he will do what he likes no matter what anyone says. People he works with say he makes no compromises and has his own beliefs as a mangaka. What could possibly be “off limits” to a mangaka. What could he possibly have his own beliefs for? Mangakas have done it all from great endings to tragedies and killing MC’s and all.. but what hasn’t been done? What is considered maybe off limits? Queerness. Queer MC. Queer endgame couple between the protagonist and the deuteragonist.
It’s why he was always so careful never to show Izuku’s interest in her specifically, but rather girls in general. He blushed to a lot of girls because he was just nervous since he’s never talked to them before he got into UA. However Izuku has stopped doing this entirely. Did he have a gay awakening? Begining.. versus chapter 338. He’s clearly over it. And that also includes Ochako. We can see how nonchalant and unaffected he is by her in chapter 342 on the cliff and how easily he compliments her like he would any other friend. He doesn’t make an effort to give her an emotional “thank you” but rather a polite one. He’s there to thank a friend and move on. He stands 6 feet away from her as well. So Horikoshi is trying to do something here all the while HEAVILY pushing Katsuki love interest agenda… we can hope.
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