This BLOG is very much against JK Terf to be clear. I will reblog whatever I want, but nothing linked to her shit show Also like to talk about the dystopic story of My Hero Academia
The best video ever made to explain the sexism in My Hero Academia in my opinion.
The only thing i disagree with the creator of the video on, is that i have an even harsher opinion on the writing of Ochako Uraraka, especialy how she was written in the Sports Festival Arc.
I think she should have beaten Bakugo and at least reached the semi-finals.
Similar to Momo honestly, she should have arrived at least in the semi-finals of the Sports Festival.
Notice how all the female students got eliminated early in the tournament? Even when they supposedly are major characters like Ochako?
"And One for All is a power passed down for the sole purpose of beating All for One! No matter...what happens...to me!!"
Some folks say that Izuku was at his worst during the Villain Hunt Arc, but arguably this first fight with Shigaraki was Izuku at his worst. Shigaraki did not factor into Izuku's reason for fighting; he was just the vessel of All for One, the quirk Izuku was destined to defeat. Izuku lost sight of his own dreams and ambitions in order to fulfill a pre-set role as the One for All successor. As much as Villain Hunt Izuku embraced a toxic style of resolving everything alone as the One for All successor, he also started acting outside of his role to consider villains in his saving, including Shigaraki the All for One successor.
This PLF War Arc Izuku completely disregarded his own wellbeing to destroy his bones over and over while knowing he could lose the function of his arms as a result, despite the presence of other competent heroes. Most of the other scenes where Izuku acted this drastically with the knowledge it could cause permanent damage occurred when Izuku was alone fighting in a life or death situation. When Izuku fought Muscular, no one but Kota was present. When Izuku fought Overhaul at 100%: Mirio was dequirked, Nighteye was bleeding out, and Eri's haywire quirk would have killed him if he stopped. Villain Hunt Izuku worked himself to exhaustion, but at least he wasn't intentionally giving himself grievous injuries. Notably, Villain Hunt was one of the few arcs where Izuku recovered with a bath and a nap rather than an extended trip to the hospital.
I feel like when people make those posts about like "If the Jedi had done everything perfectly then Anakin wouldn't have been Like That and Done Those Things" actually just want the Jedi to somehow be omniscient.
Like they need to have somehow just known from the beginning of time that Palpatine was bad and evil and manipulative and engineering their destruction so that they could make all of the perfect choices to fight that same manipulation of Anakin and the Senate. But those "perfect" choices are only available with a certain level of information that would have required literal god-level omniscience to acquire.
"If the Jedi had done everything perfectly" is a nonsense statement. They DID make all the right choices, but they made the right choices for the information they HAD, and the resources they had access to. The Jedi did everything right with Anakin. They took him in, they loved him, they made exceptions for him, they were lenient with him, they gave him the skills and tools he needed to survive and thrive, they rewarded him, they trusted him, and he murdered them anyway. The Jedi were loyal to the Republic's ideals and protected as many people both within the Republic and outside of it as they could, they were capable of seeing its corruption but also capable of seeing that it was genuinely still one of the best options out there for most people, they fought against becoming soldiers and then accepted that role anyway when war broke out and people needed to be protected, and the Republic turned on them anyway. Because doing everything right wasn't enough.
I don't know how often people in other stories and in real life can say that sometimes you can do everything right and still lose before it sinks in for this fandom that it's something that also applies to THIS story. There are quite a few characters who absolutely made mistakes, who made the wrong choices, who succumbed to fear and greed and selfishness. But there are also characters who did EVERYTHING RIGHT and still lost because the whole point is to show that one person's selfishness can have a massive impact that goes much further than just them.
I think the most horrifying thing about Kurogiri is that, despite being mind controlled and altered, all of that is still happening to Shirakumo. It's not like Shirakumo is just gone. I think people forget Kurogiri isn't separate from him and everything that he's been subject to is part of Shirakumo's life.
We've seen proof that Shirakumo is literally there, just forced to run on a certain program, but he's still there. Kurogiri is just the name given to him after his body was forcefully changed and rewired. But, that's still Shirakumo. It's Oboro's eyes seeing everything. It's Oboro's body acting. It's not like Oboro isn't aware through all of this. That is HIM, even when he's being forced to act as a totally different person.
That's the tragedy of him. He's not a host who's unaware until suddenly woken up. He's present and that's the hell he's living. The hell of being chained to a new role because someone was able to rewire your body. The hell of subconsciously knowing who you used to be. The misery of having no control over yourself unless it's to act on the will of your creator.
Because that's the thing. Kurogiri isn't a mindless zombie. He's developed his own feelings and opinions on Tomura and the League. He just can't act in any way that goes against his programming.
So, that really makes me wonder how much Shirakumo actively remembered the life that was taken from him.
Did he remember the whole time he was Kurogiri? Did he repress it himself to prevent a full shutdown? It's not uncommon for deeply traumatized people to block out memories for their own survival. This is just stuff I wonder about because Oboro really is one of the most sad and tragic characters in MHA.
This is not two separate people in one body. This is one person in one body with a mind that, no matter what the programming wants, is still remembering everything.
These are the eyes of a man who knows what was done to him and knows what he himself has done. This is the face of someone who's known this deep down for years. The final time we see Oboro's face is through a window that shows he is aware, has suffered every minute since he was 17, and that he always was Shirakumo even when he was forced to be Kurogiri.
The final time Shouta and Hizashi see Oboro is when it's undeniable that it's always been him.
His expression is the apology. It's also a goodbye. Because, even if he lived, there was no way he could return to the people he loved most.
MHA has this weird pacing problem where it kills its own momentum with the "academia" arcs, so to speak. Like, the way the plot escalates feels very weird:
Introduction to UA arcs
Villains attack the school!
Sport Festival?
Students get caught up with a serial killer hunting down pro heroes!
Final exams?
Villains attack the summer training camp!
All Might fights Super Villain who had minimal build up to this point!
License exams??
Students fight the fucking yakuza!
Uhh, remedial courses and then school festival???
Arc about Endeavor, who I don't care about, but the action is fun!
Class 1-A and 1-B joint training that should have been an earlier arc, but it's here for some reason
Villain focused arc that I actually think is pretty cool!
Another Endeavor focused arc, I guess?
War arc!
Another war arc!
It just ends up feeling very odd That the story has to keep pausing the "hero" parts of the story to instead focus on the "academia" parts, which are never very good. The story really would have benefitted from front-loading a lot of the academia portions of the story (with actually interesting training exercises), before having the villain activity ramp up towards the end of the students' first year (or even their second year to justify these 15-year-olds being competent combatants).
What was it like to have no way out? Lots of modern women have asked themselves this question. Reading about possessive guys is all fun and games until you remember women were property once. This solemn story is about the quiet misery a "spoiled noble wife" experiences. Even when she is saved she isn't really. She doesn't know if she's receiving crushing love, or mere duty.
Jinya doesn't know her place sometimes. Sometimes, she has thoughts. Sometimes, she wishes being the wife of a powerful man wasn't such a stuffy existence.
Jinya has no friends, because that's normal.
She was married into her husband's family at the age of seven, and that's normal.
Her husband sent her away to live in an annex house until she became old enough to bear heirs, because that's normal.
If you read this review you have to say "hooray for feminism" after you finish.
Her first husband is a general. A man who could have become king. She lives a life of silk. A life the peasantry cannot even comprehend, but in exchange she must be chaste and quiet. No family secrets must leave her lips, and she must prepare to have many children. Her family branch has been struggling to produce heirs, and there is more pressure than ever on new wives.
Behold, the perfect match.
A hardworking husband with slightly hollow cheeks, and his young well bred wife. They live in a lovely home. They dress conservatively. The man of the house is a passionate leader of the people, and he's always on the front lines. He's something of a hero.
That young wife is struggling to get pregnant, but he doesn't blame her. He realizes the fertility issues plaguing his family are not her fault. How astute and forgiving! A man in need of an heir who treats his childless bride well. What a catch! Most men would blame that empty womb on the woman!
What a life...but it's chapter one and the story is a disgruntled subordinate killed him on the battlefield. A stab in the back.
The end.
Now his stupid little wife will inherit all his money.
Oh well, she's finally pregnant.
The child can be used to control her.
Or not.
You see the general recuited a very young boy. A talent found inside a dead battlefield. Woohee should be dead. Absolutely. 100%. The general found him in the thickest part of the battlefield. Where babies were abandoned to die. He was so young. So oddly sharp.
Capable of doing awful things to survive, as if it were only natural.
The general trained him up to be an assassin, and he didn't blink when the boy became Jinya's first friend.
Why would he care?
The boy isn't a real boy.
Just a servant, with a creepy lack of empathy to boot.
The astute general is genuinely shocked when he finally realizes there is an issue. By the age of 12 it's clear. His pet killer has a crush on his wife. As always he was astute. He slowly made plans to rid himself of the smitten young boy.
Not a moment too soon too, because Yeon Woohee does it. He asks Jinya to run away with him, and she refuses. She isn't trained for life on the run. She didn't know about his feelings. They both know she secretly hates her family, but she stays.
Woohee is full of talent, so the ambitious young king doesn't say no when the general offers him up.
This is the only stronger chain. The one man above the rank of general.
The king briefly wonders what the army hero is so afraid of, but he accepts the gift.
Yeon Woohee takes Jinya's rejection and he tosses it out the window. Her refusal has only bought her time. Yeon Woohee quickly becomes one of the kings aides, and the reward he wants is the house that hid his woman from him.
Plus the woman obviously.
It is a grim and stressful remarriage. Yeon Woohee has absolutely no talent for romance. In the beginning you doubt if he loves the wife he won at all. He is eager to desecrate and destroy every memory she had with her first husband.
He doesn't even care if the child in her belly isn't his. She can use the boy to control her relatives if she likes. She can be a political player. She can be lazy. He loves to give her options and she's afraid of all of them.
In some ways he's like every other man, but he's excessively generous and he encourages her....wrongness.
He wants her to admit she hates her family, and he wants to put his assassin skills to use.
Sometimes he brings her gifts and he's shocked when she's horrified.
He's not a jewelry giving kind of man.
I think it's nice that you can tell they've been friends for a long time. Jinya feels like a sinner for immediately clinging to her only friend after losing her husband. She's also mad she was forced into a remarriage over money and politics. She also hates how money and politics both control her.
Being with Yeon Woohee used to relax her, and now she has to deal with new feelings.
Specifically, a new dynamic.
Jinya used to be in charge. Yeon Woohee was a mere sword.
Now that he's the man of the house he's in charge, and it makes her so uncomfortable you can see it when they're intimate.
His flippant attitude around death doesn't help either. Yeon Woohee is downright Gothic. He wants everything burned with the old husband. Out with the old. In with the new.
Let's kiss in front of his grave.
It's intense.
The killing comes hard and fast.
It really does feel like....noble life sucks?
Listen, the hints we get about peasant life super suck.
That doesn't mean the constant war and assassinations and fighting over baby heir mess is a picnic.
The baby, a boy heir, comes into play pretty quick. Jinya loves being a mother pretty much instantly, but birthing a high ranking future man is akin to shooting yourself in the leg here. Jinya can scarcely leave the nursery without getting a "visitor" who is only interested in her child.
Yeon Woohee isn't. He is a helpful and dutiful parent. Not a doting one. He's there when it counts though, and that is why Jinya decides to live as if the boy is his son.
Sure, the boy looks more like the general. Sure the timeline makes things even more...uncertain, but Jinya isn't uncertain.
She can trust him to be there for the child.
Does she trust his love at this point?
Absolutely not, and she shouldn't.
A love this bloody deserves her scrutiny and doubt.
ughehrj youre so right on the tone thing!! thats the thing that i have the most issue with personally, cus i feel like its what makes mhas writing suffer the most. like with deku for example, in the first episode him being bullied is presented as this awful thing that no one should have to go thru, especially him LITERALLY being told to khs (which, to clarify, it IS) but then once him and bakugo go to UA its like the bullying is just supposed to be interpreted as "a frenemy rivalry" or smth?? not to mention how some serious issues r never treated seriously when they should (the overt sexualization of the female characters for one, looking at you mineta (which yes i know thats a common shonen thing i Dont Care its Weird and Creepy)) or like how the usj is never brought up again after its arc, we never see it have basically any affect on any of the characters mentally, and then theres stuff like the quirkless + "villainous"/mutant quirk discrimination which seems to come and go. like shinsou, for example, seems to have it be his whole motivation for the SF arc, and then is kinda never mentioned again by shinsou or ANY other characters in the whole series again. also the whole thing abt how unfair the entrance exams are- wtvr anyways
the BIGGEST example of this tho, other than bakugo, i feel like is todoroki and endeavors relationship. for the vast majority of todorokis character arc endeavor is explicitly shown to be an abusive piece of shit, physically and mentally. but after the incident with the high end nomu and he "tries to be better" todoroki is just.. supposed to forgive him??? suddenly the way that endeavor was shown as such a monster is just smth the audience is supposed to ignore now because actually its all cool guys endeavor got his shit rocked and had a come to jesus moment and now hes all good! like WHAT. the only reason they did this i feel like was to further cement dabi as not only a villain but as an unreasonable, crazy person, because he "refuses to see how endeavor has changed" or whatever. NOT TO MENTION how the fact endeavor yells angrily at todoroki is a recurring gag (the whole "SHOTOOOOO" thing)
i know these r not new greviences but youre just so right about how flippy floppy the show is with whether it takes its self and its characters/their arcs seriously or not 😭 and like this isnt just exclusive to the main anime/manga either, ive noticed this in vigilantes and the movies (or atleast what ive seen, ive not watched/read all of vigilantes or seen all of the movies except for WHM) although to a lesser extent than the main series
mha is such a "this would be so good if it was good" series which i think is why theres so much fanfic of it lol. that and the conflicting interpretations over whats serious or not and when leads to everyone seeing everything slightly different which, while not great for an isolated viewing experience, lends its self GREAT to aus. (also the lackluster ending, oops who said that 🫣)
sorry for the spam i just shhdhrn youre very right
yeah, i agree with a lot of this. ultimately, i think mha's biggest hindrance is it being a shonen manga. unfortunately, its impossible to make a well thought out, tight knit story with consistent worldbuilding and characterization when you're releasing chapters week to week/month to month, and a lot of the tone problems are because of the genre being for teen boys. i see people compare mha's stakes to disney and it kinda makes me laugh because, like, yeah. a lot of the conflicts are very cookie cutter and smoothed out and i do just think that's because of the demographic its made for. but, then again, ive been open about not like battle shonens very much. ive seen a handful of the most popular ones, but i havent finished any of them that have more than 2 seasons so its not like i have a great gauge for shonen audiences lmao (i think assassination classroom is the best one ive ever seen and idk if anything else will ever come close to how it good it was)
its another one of those situations where i hesitate to say that horikoshi is a bad writer because i don't think he is necessarily, i just think that *anyone's* story would severely suffer under certain conditions and the manga industry is one of them. i think that, for what it is, mha is done pretty well. its not perfect and there are some blaring issues with it, but it *is* pretty good if you look at it as an entire art piece within the context of what it was trying to achieve. but once you have the benefit of hindsight, it'll always fall apart pretty quickly.
i will say that i am kind of excited to get to the endeavor atonement arc because, to be perfectly honest, i havent seen most of it. i refuse to really comment on the todoroki family and endeavor's arc because i quit the show on season 5 and that was when season 5 had released (early 2021 iirc), so i feel like that arc is the one im least familiar with as a whole. im very intrigued to see how it holds up for me. particularly as someone who very fundamentally believes that every single person can change *and* someone who greatly dislikes how the villains were handled in the ending. in my current rewatch, i also think that i like shouto a lot more than i have in the past so,,, idk we'll see how it goes
what do they gain from keeping touya alive in this state like i’m actually irritated. he can quite literally only speak for a few MINUTES each day and he’s slowly dying anyway??? at what point do they consider euthanasia or some other alternative to end him. not to mention endeavor. just endeavor.
i might just be missing the point but i’m a little confuzzled
After a month, I have returned. I got a back injury early last month and soon after had to study for finals. Now I can finally do art again... Enjoy another meme redraw with France and England. Someone probably has done this already, but I'm rarely on the web for long, so I wouldn't know.
As always, more to come now that I am not in constant crippling pain and overwhelmed with class work.
