Present Mic from MHA is so Sans from Undertale coded I can't even...
The underlying depression of a character who is purely there for comic relief. They smile and tell jokes when they are fundamentally unhappy/ lonely due to being in a situation where they're the only one who can relate to their situation. Here's where I'm gonna interlink their differences somewhat, being that of the actual circumstance of both characters. Sans is a guy who has no energy to try anymore until he's the only one left standing in Chara's way. He lives through every timeline and remembers everything that's happened in each of them. And regardless if Frisk is the one to take the pacifist route and free the monsters from the underground, Sans can only hope there won't be another reset and is unable to share in the others celebration of leaving the underground. Because he's seen it all before, however many times this path has been taken. He's grieved his brother time and time again and has stopped the player time and time again, only for the player to reset until they can kill him.
However his attitude and actions in the game speak for themselves. Sans is lazy, makes jokes about everything, including himself, and carries a very laid back attitude. Until...depending on the route you take, you're about to have a very bad time. Despite not having much endurance in a fight (as in one hit, he dies.), Sans is powerful, and he knows it. He will throw one hundred percent of his abilities at Chara, over and over again until he's physically too tired to keep going. And even when he's hit, he just resigns himself to it. Sans comes across as someone who believes that his life is pointless. He puts no effort into anything but making others smile, as in you, the player, Papyrus, Toriel, you name it. Because even when he's lost the will to hope, he's not about to take that away from those he loves.
Regarding Hizashi, he is one of the most potentially complex characters we could have recieved in the show. Not that what we got didn't make him complex, he's easily the most complex of the rooftop squad. But it feels like alot was left unsaid by the end of the story. More specifically, his story. Hizashi is someone who despite having a very extroverted personality, comes across as the epitome as being the loudest in a room full of deaf ears. Much like Sans, he isn't taken very seriously. We the audience aren't supposed to take either character seriously initially.....until you piss them off and the masks they kept held in place for so long start cracking up real fast.
Hizashi knows that no one takes him seriously and he honestly seems for the most part okay with it. He's not projecting a serious hero persona like Endeavor or Eraserhead. Hizashi, or rather Mic, smiles for those who can't. Much like Allmight, who holds a similar motive. Though also like Allmight, there is so much pain behind that smile that until it's forcibly dragged to the surface, Hizashi never dealt with properly. Because Hizashi didn't just lose one friend in Oboro, he lost another month's later in Shouta. There's no other way I can see it, Shouta took the self-preservation route and left his remaining friend behind. And despite the fact we will never see it, I would have loved to see a scene where they finally reunited as adults when Shouta made himself present again. Because I have a hard time wondering if Hizashi would have confronted him in a bitter way about it, especially since shouta never really changed or showed any remorse. I understand where Shouta was coming from by leaving, but he gave no regard to Mic at all. (I'm gonna move on before this becomes a 'Aizawa is a bad friend' post, and the stans absolutely roast me).
That being said with that in mind, Hizashi probably felt so alone for so many years. As well as constantly being told to be quiet, that his opinions and feelings hold no vailidity, that he's a joke. Something tells me that the build up of the mask that is the hero Present Mic, Hizashi, does project as sense of spite into the character when he's playing the part. And what I mean by that is when he goes particularly overboard. (Insulting/jabbing at the students, being overly egotistical/obnoxious/mildly threatening). It comes across as also a show of his intelligence and unpredictability, given that no one knows when he's actually being threatening because he's mad/protective, or he's just doing it on purpose to be an ass. Because Mic will let you know when playtimes over. Which brings me back to Hizashi outside the persona. Hizashi is and always has been a very loyal, very protective and incredibly angry person. The anger stems from past trauma but the way he displays it is so well done. Much like sans, Hizashi uses threats disguised as jokes, or he will speak so calmly that its beyond unsettling.
Do I need to remind ya'll of - "I'll have a surprise karaoke contest with them. Then boil their guts while their eardrums bleed." A literal death threat. Not yelled, but spoken so casually. Same goes for Sans with the "Do you wanna have a bad time?"
Their eyes are also such vital attributes to their characters. When Sans reflects on all of his past trauma with all of the timelines, as well as being forced to mentor and guide the same person who destroyed his family and his home over and over again, depending on the route taken in the current playthrough, when Sans is being completley serious in his threats against you, his eye sockets turn completley pitch black, with the absence of such a small detail being his pupils making him look ten times scarier. With Mic, I remember seeing a post that if Mic's eyes are visible, it's the signal that Mic has left the room. Hizashi Yamada is out of hiding. Hurt those he loves, and he's gonna make them pay for it, even at the cost of himself.
With Sans, it costs him both physically (depending on whether he dies) but mainly mentally. This guy can't talk to anyone about what this human did to them all except for the actual kid in question as they're making their way through the underground. Mic has now lost another major person in his life and he wasn't even allowed to touch upon the subject before being shut down. This constant reinstating that his feelings don't matter, are only worsened by the very person he has left. Not to mention, this person in question is the same guy who left him behind the first time and then spent years placing his own grief and feelings on the back burner, just for the sake of making sure he was okay. If shouta tells him to be quiet, he's gonna. Not because he wants to but because the importance of making sure that his friend is okay is so deeply rooted in his mindset that he doesn't want Shouta to leave him again.
Much like the monsters in undertale, aside from sans, the heroes get to win and grow and move on with their lives for the most part. Including Aizawa. The fact that until the timeskip in 431, we have yet to see Mic crack a smile goes to show that his worst fears came true. He was left behind again even though Aizawa was still with him. (I think? We don't see them together but idk) because he was never given the opportunity to talk things through about himself. So I'm willing to bet that post time skip, going from the looks of him anyway, Hizashi is still stuck where he was at the end of the war.
Honestly, if any character from this show we're to have a spin off, I'd want it to be Mic.
Maybe this is why he's my favourite...🤷🎧🎙 in any case, this is already super long so I'll leave it here for now XD
