Yo, listen…and this is going to be long winded—
It was a bit more understandable when people continued the narrative that AFO only cared about Yoichi as a possession; perpetuated that AFO had no love or care for him in anyway when all we had was the manga to go off of. Throw in the poorly translated AFO pages from the final fanbook and, yeah, I get it.
BUT there’s very little excuse to continue that line of thinking after the anime. Seriously.
The anime decided to add multiple animations that were never in the manga concerning AFO and Yoichi.
(You might need to click the gifs in order for them to animate. I had to compress the shit out of them to get them to upload…)
The anime showing AFO wanting to hold Yoichi within his Quirk and saying, with a lot more emotion than expected, “Yoichi, I have to have you back with me”(this was originally only him thinking to himself over panels from his baby perspective before he was revealed to be a baby in the manga)
AFO reaching towards him while Yoichi turns away and disappears(very similar to when AFO blew him up) and then showing a hole close to where his heart is when he talks about feeling his twin shattering(again, this was originally just him talking in the manga),
Probably the most important, the scenes shown when Izuku calls him out for his humanity—AFO asking Yoichi to come with him, that he is important, and then him and Yoichi reading the comics all set to emotional music.
AFO running to Yoichi’s fragment
AFO’s VA’s voice cracking as he states how he feels about him.
Again, the fucking HERO of the story announces it—he isn’t a monster beyond understanding, he’s no demon lord, he’s just a lonely man and that loneliness is immediately equated to Yoichi.
I often see people using Horikoshi’s strange choice of saying AFO never developed emotions due to the god-mode of his Quirk as the reasoning for him having no love for Yoichi, but that’s honestly just a paranormal version of Alexithymia. People often conflate emotions and feelings as the same thing when they aren’t. Love is a feeling and those with Alexithymia show love differently than people who understand their emotions better. Not having emotions does not negate someone feeling love for another. These people show their love through actions and this is why the idea that AFO held no care/kindness for Yoichi is so strange because…he straight up made sure Yoichi had clothes before he did; instead of leaving his twin to die so he could better survive, he dragged him around since infancy(cause magic giant baby), he kept him alive when all survival instincts should have caused him to, well, not. Even when Yoichi was obviously trying to disrupt his evil plans by screaming at those allowing his brother to take and give Quirks to them, when he probably tried to leave(resulting in the “vault”): AFO didn’t kill him and still demanded he join him in his dream. Even his intense control over everything his twin did was a symptom of a fear of being alone, of Yoichi leaving him. Is his version still super duper unhealthy and terrifying? Yes, but I’ll go over that shortly.
A person is not lonely because they miss their teddy bear from 100+ years ago. Loneliness is “a distressing emotional state characterized by a perceived or actual lack of connection with others”. It has to do with other people. AFO had a ton of loyal followers, Dr Garaki, Machia, Tomura, etc and so on(I feel that the anime showing how bored AFO looks sitting on his throne with all his followers was done on purpose to get this point across), yet his loneliness was tied to his twin. So much so that he spent well over a century doing literally anything to get him back; viewing Yoichi’s Quirk factor as his brother. But this loneliness was the one thing he wanted to hide from everyone. Outside of talking to himself, he presented it as wanting One for All, but we all know that wasn’t the case—it was Yoichi. He suffers from extreme twin unit identity, his idea of self twisted to include Yoichi as his extension. Of COURSE he was obsessed and of course he was possessive—that’s so ingrained into him not just from the nature of his Quirk, but also a symptom of a childhood lacking anyone else…besides Yoichi. Why do you think the only time he says he doesn’t want someone to look at him is when that person finally breaks through the demon lord facade and sees him as the traumatized child that always kept the only thing that was with him since the womb by his side?
If the hero’s words can’t convince you then I don’t know what the hell will.
Oh, and this season had Horikoshi way more involved, so I assume that these new animations were checked off by him because I think AFO’s end was fairly confusing for people for…some reason.
AFO is a BAD GUY. There’s no denying that. He very much used everyone around him to get what he wanted and did some pretty fucked up stuff to have Yoichi. His idea of love is twisted—affected by his Quirk, his childhood, his selfishness, his fear, etc and so on. When a fan of AFO talks about his love for Yoichi, we are very much aware that it is an incredibly unhealthy possessive love. I think people try to apply a healthy love when arguing that AFO didn’t have any for Yoichi, which is silly.
Telling someone they are his most precious possession is the only way AFO can understand love. His fear of not having Yoichi with him, fueled by his possessiveness, is why he forced a Quirk on Yoichi(which I think was the final straw for his brother too), is why Yoichi so desperately wanted to leave(besides not wanting to have anything to do with his brother’s evil ideals), and is also why Yoichi died. That intense possessiveness fueled by a fear he probably didn’t even entirely understand resulted in him killing the only person he ever cared about. Anyone that sees AFO’s face right after Yoichi is torn apart and still thinks he “oh yeah totally meant to do that and was fine with it” has to be crazy.
Anyway, those are my thoughts. Disagree? I honestly don’t care at this point because it’s far too obvious now.
