reblogs + meta about bnha. mainly about shouto. i love my boi. basically none of my irl friends are available to yell with me so i've resorted to the void of tumblr. so here we are.
Time for a little look-back of our year in the 2Top fandom. The 5 most popular* 2Top fics completed in January 2021 brought us crack, angsty last words, late night bonding, birthday fluff and a fashion designer / actor AU…
Maybe I’m reading too much into it but it seems like the way Enji used to talk to Touya seemed kind of soft? At least for him. From questioning his hair to telling him if it’s him he’ll surpass All Might. Has he ever talked like this with his other kids I don’t remember.
No, you are not reading too much into it, but you need to remember that the Todoroki family plot is told in a non-linear way, by different narrators. They are all telling the truth - as they know it, but they all have the different memories.
Sport Festival: The family dynamics are introduced through Shouto’s earliest memories. Shouto is five - this is 5 years after Touya’s breakdown. Enji is at his worst, completely swallowed up by his obsession of making everyone’s suffering worth it by turning Shouto into the ONE who will surpass All Might. He’s extremely rough with Shouto, violent with Rei. Rei is a nervous wreck. At the time we only know about the domestic abuse, and that’s what Shouto believes drove her crazy. Now we see it more nuanced than that: the tension between her kids, the fear of Shouto turning into another Enji or Touya. In Shouto’s memories, there is no warm Enji. We don’t know it at the time, but I’m sure he was resenting Shouto on some level for not wanting the great blessing of being perfect, not wanting what him and Touya wanted more than anything in the world.
Pro-Hero arc: We get some nuance. Natsuo is introduced, and he confirms Shouto’s view on Enji (because he was born into the same hell). Plus he carries with him Touya’s memory, Touya’s pain - his perception of the family are painted by Touya’s truth, so in a way he has an added accusation toward Enji that Shouto didn’t experience. On the other side, we get Rei and Fuyumi, who somehow both hint that a different family existed - something warm and happy.
JTA: We see Shouto’s perpective again, the brutal training, and also a glimpse of Endeavor’s craziest, thinking of Touya and trying to mold Shouto into a “perfected Touya” as he tries to force flashfire on a small kid, completely disregarding him as a person.
Endeavor-internship: We get more vague info on the Todo-family from different perspectives. Fuyumi giving us the timeline of when Touya’s incident happened, how Natsuo is blaming Enji for it, Enji explaining that he wasn’t trying to be neglectful, but how he was just unable to handle the situation at all. He also says that they were a happy family once, which we now know only Fuyumi remembers. That’s why she’s working to get it back.
War-arc: In 291, we get the early story, the early family dynamics of Enji and Touya having a good relationship, things going well, until Touya starts burning himself. In 301, we see the spiral - how Enji abandons Touya’s training for the boy’s sake, how Touya stubbornly wants to continue, the kid getting more hurt, the parents starting to lose their minds. How the whole “failures” and “being replaced” narrative grew instead of the “let’s have more kids so they support each other”.
Nothing is retconned, nothing that was stated by anyone else is contradicted. The whole family is telling the truth as they see it, as they experience it. It’s really a brilliant way to build the story - because it shows that what someone intends and how that is perceived by another person can create very negative cycles (bakudeku river incident, cough, cough).
Enji doesn’t set out to hurt his kids, but he created the family for selfish purposes and that’s the original sin of the quirk marriage that sets them on this toxic path. And even though he had chances to stop and correct course, he never did. Like Rei says, children are not stupid. They realize when a parent wants something from them.
The way Enji destroys his family is not a sadistic psychopath that some of fandom understands him to be who is cruel just for the heck of it, but more a mix of a narcistic parent who sees his children’s primary purpose as wish-fulfilment and an addict, who sees his own destructiveness but is powerless to stop it. Abusive parents often love their kids. They don’t love them the right way, but there is some care, which makes it even more painful.
Enji can be a caring father. Touya and Fuyumi experienced it at early childhood. Shouto and Natsuo only see him like that post-atonement and have a hard time reacting to this person they don’t know. Because that carries its own pain. If Enji could be like this - empathic, understanding, helpful, trying to see his kids - then where the hell was this person their entire lives, when they needed him? Why did he become the monster who made everyone’s lives pure hell?
I remember a few months back you did a post describing Shouto's self-loathing. Hoooooo boy, that's probably going to go up a lot after this arc.
Yeah, reading what I wrote back then, I think it will come down to a few things:
1. How does his family, especially his mum will come out of this?
I was leaning towards Rei suffering a set-back to set up the conflict between Touya and Shouto, but now seeing how Touya very much went after hurting Shouto personally, not just physically, but emotionally hitting him in the most painful places, plus hurting his friends, I think Shouto has enough reason to try to take him down.
So I have a feeling that Rei instead of suffering another breakdown, will be there for Shouto after this arc, to help him through it. Because yeah, the past never dies, but all the effort he put into helping Rei heal should help him now to get back on his feet and feel loved. Honestly, the biggest thing I want for him after this arc is a real hug from his mom. (I think it’s not a coincidence that we got a visual of the hug after she burnt him and the “hug” from Touya. We are getting the build-up for a real hug).
I think Fuyumi and Natsuo will be there for him too. They have worked very hard to build their relationship with each other, and I hope they’ll find a way to support each other.
The big question mark for me is his relationship with Endeavor. It has become progressively better, but I don’t know how they’ll come out of this arc, with Endeavor freezing up like that and Shouto basically taking the damage for all the hurt he caused. I have a feeling this is going to haunt them for a while.
2. Will his UA social support come through for him?
I believe he will suffer public backlash due to his connection with Endeavor. So how well he’ll weather that will depend a lot on the support from his friends, classmates and teachers. Touya made a dig at him how he was suffering alone while everyone else was having fun, and his loneliness start already when Bakugou and Deku ditch him. He’s alone for much of this arc - alone to find his way to the battleground, alone when Bakugou and Midoriya get hurt and he’s left to scoop them up, alone for a terrifying moment facing Shigaraki with everyone down, alone in confronting Touya. And people who try to help him - like Nejire and Midoriya - get burnt and hurt by his family.
So even if his friends want to support him, all this could result in Shouto pushing people away. (And sadly, Izuku - who seems like the only person caring about Shouto right now - may go through a similar crisis of “everyone gets hurt because of me”, plus they have the OFA-secret standing between them). So I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a crack in their friendship after all this.
But maybe others could help Shouto from regressing into his closed-off mindset. I’m thinking definitely Bakugou, but also I’d love very much to see All Might reach out to Shouto after seeing Touya’s broadcast and tell Shouto that he’s not responsible for Endeavor’s sins.
3. Finding a way forward
I think Shouto will walk away from here (just like all the students), feeling very weak and inadequate. Unlike Bakugou who just got an upgrade / quirk awakening, and Deku, who has still a bunch of levels / powers to unlock in OFA, for Shouto it is not very clear where his path to improvement lies. He just unlocked flashfire and trained it intensively for the past three months. And it’s not enough. Because it’s only half of his power.
So I wonder if his further training should concentrate on trying to improve his “half powers” or maybe try to unlock something from his full power - a move that is capable of bringing out his full strength (which Flashfreeze Heatweave can on the ground) also in the air.
end of act two — the idealogical war: who won the bnha war and why? (aka everyone’s in pain but who is in more pain — me. liking the heroes and the villains is a tough life. also shouto — can someone please give that boy a proper hug, NOT YOU DABI)
so it looks like the war arc is finally beginning to wrap up and while a lot could still happen, let’s take a quick moment on reflect on what’s happened and try and figure out who is winning this war because uh, both sides have taken some pretty major hits.
going into this war arc, in general, things were looking pretty bad for the heroes from a technical standpoint. structurally, it feels like we’d hit the point that many stories hit — where the hero loses.
you can find this happening in most stories, where at some point the villain comes out on top and things get bad before they get better. it makes the story a bit more interesting because normally it gives us a chance to see heroes at their lowest of low points. give us a sense of who they are when the going really gets tough and how they’ll react or respond to it.
and it seemed that this war arc would be moment where the villains came out on top. so a lot of us bnha readers were expecting the worst: bracing for death flags, expecting to see some major casualties from the good guys, or watching the heroes be forced underground as villains take over japan. we braced for the worst.
however at this point, things are kind of balanced. both the heroes and villains have suffered casualties. while crust is the highest profile confirmed hero death we’ve gotten, many other heroes are currently MIA or their statuses unknown (in addition to some grave injuries in bakugou, deku, hawks, miriko, aizawa and endeavour — all of whom at this point are pretty certain to survive but also very injured). the villains have lost twice, ujirou has been captured and things aren’t looking great for machia. plus compress is injured and escape routes are becoming limited (although admittedly very few heroes are left standing to stop them at this point).
so it seems like a bit of a toss up: so does this war come down to whether or not the LOV escapes?
well physically maybe, but i want to take the chance to talk about the main war going on — the idealogical one.
because quite frankly, that’s the one that matters moving forward.
yes, while the worst might’ve happened and things are looking grim for the villains, i feel pretty confident in saying that the villains have won this fight.
in most stories when the villains “win”, its normally accompanied by victory in some sort of physical fight. but bnha seems like it might be resembling the flip side to that: the heroes “win” the fight, but at what cost?
because the villains didn’t need to win this fight physically to come out victorious. their goal is to destabilize hero society, to make the public doubt the heroes that protect them, to punish and tear down the corrupt hero system that put them all in the positions they were left in.
that’s what this fight was really, symbolically about. while it manifested in brawls between heroes and villains, fundamentally it was about the villain ideology vs hero society.
even if they heroes manage to capture shiggy, dabi, compress, spinner and machia. even if the heroes win that fight, dabi’s video and the sheer destruction and civilian casualties of this “war” might very well lead to the villains winning out.
the flaws in hero society has never been more prominent than they are now, with the number one’s son being revealed as part of the villain organization that has just caused mass destruction that the heroes failed to prevent, lead there by a childhood of abuse.
the heroes failed to protect the public and with dabi’s video, it seems like they fail to protect their own even. however this plays out, there’s no denying that the villains biggest hit wasn’t on any hero individually, but rather on hero society.
and the heroes have no space any more for an “I AM HERE” moment from anyone, i think the chances of them doing equal damage to the villain’s ideology is slim to none.
and it’s going to be very interesting to see the fallout for all this. the heroes are going to be forced to try and minimize damage, the discussion of what to publicly say about endeavour (which is a whole other conversation that i started to talk about here), and figure how to win back the public support. and that’s going to be hard, and maybe even impossible.
the heroes might still win the fight, but i doubt they’ll win the war here. image and public opinions are one of the most important part of heroics: bnha has brought it up time and time again with best jeanist, the hero rankings, mount lady’s lesson at ua. and now that’s in ruins. with the worst side of heroes now upfront and visible for the public to see, hero society could very well be on the verge of collapse.
just what the villains wanted.
(okay look i promise i’ll be back on my todoroki tangents real soon if that’s what you’re here for. its just a lot to process and i’m too busy crying about shouto to form any sort of coherent thought -- yes dabi it is no fun only pain for him and IM SAD. anyway, once those thoughts have any sort of coherency i’ll be todoroki tangenting away)
the “undo” button: eri in bnha (aka me trying not to scream about the todorokis before the translations come out so here have eri instead)
so with mirio back in action and the knowledge that eri’s quirk is now capable to be used by our heroes (at least sometimes), i wanted to talk a bit about the type of plot device eri is. because while she does have room for personality and development, her main purpose in the story up to this point has been predominately focused on her quirk.
and there seems to be a lot of mixed opinions — largely because eri’s quirk does seem to operate as an undo button now for our heroes. and i’m not mad about mirio getting his quirk back, and i’m not even mad that eri’s quirk is part of this story now.
“undo” buttons by themselves aren’t inherently bad, like a lot of other plot devices it largely comes down to how exactly they are handled and executed. a good usage of the device can improve the story by putting the characters in difficult positions, giving false hope and quite frankly raising the stakes. a bad usage does the exact opposite.
so how should you use an “undo” button and how does is it being done in bnha?
when introducing the “undo” button, the redo optioon, the get out of jail free card, into your story, you have to set the terms that the button can be used in. we’ve already started to see this with eri — we know her quirk is based on the power that comes from/is stored in her horn and can rewind people.
so it’s not necessarily an instant redo power and while i am wary of it — i hope it can be executed well. how can it be best executed? there’s a few options.
give both heroes and villains access to the power. admittedly this has already been done kinda of as eri started with overhaul and is the source of the quirk erasing bullets. having said that — if both sides get too much access to the ability than it becomes ineffective. so this alone doesn’t really help. nonetheless by allowing both the heroes and the LOV to have some degree of access to eri’s abilities, it serves to help balance the scales between the groups and keep tensions high.
set hard limits on the power. make it clear as to what exactly the power can do — for example: can eri rewind the dead? as well as setting either that it can only be used so many times (ie there’s a limited number of quirk erasing bullets) or that it can only be used so often: as eri’s horn grows and shrinks as she uses her power — establish that she can only use her power to do one big rewind for a certain duration. however there is a caveat to that working, namely:
put time constraints on the effectiveness. establish that the further back you have to rewind someone — the more dangerous it is. make it so that to some extent the degree of effectiveness isn’t unlimited. this cam lead you to situations in which…
force your characters to choose who gets access to it. if eri can only use her power on let’s say one person from the whole war arc: who gets it? who do they prioritize and who do they leave to the side. who is fundamentally important enough that they get to be rewound while everyone else is left as they are. this is most effective if the last point is implemented because then there’s no waiting line. it’s now or never.
have situations that it doesn’t cover. for example: while eri could in theory rewind any injuries (ie aizawa’s leg, deku’s arms, hawks’ wings), she can’t rewind dabi’s video/reveal. so it’s not a universal undo.
there’s more but the point is, in general the more restrictions set on the ability and the more those restrictions force characters to make difficult decisions the more interesting/beneficial the power is. the less restrictions — the lower stakes are, and the less tensions there is because a reader (and the characters for that matter) know that it won’t stick.
that’s why “undo” buttons are such dangerous plot devices. look at deku’s final fight with overhaul — deku could use OFA at full power without consequence, he was basically invincible. in fact the threat by the end wasn’t even overhaul — it was eri’s control.
and the thing that worries me about eri is there is a lot of restrictions on her abilities now, because her losing control is disastrous and she doesn’t have too much control at the moment. however, bnha likes to train up its heroes. so if the more eri improves, the more restrictions on the ability disappear, that could make the “undo” button fears founded.
personally: i don’t really enjoy giving characters access to “undo” buttons. it’s why i don’t like time travel plots. i’m not a fan of giving characters get out of jail free cards, unless they’ve really really really worked for them and can only be used once. and it’s hard to predict where eri’s role in the story is going. but it’s not always a bad thing, so for the time being. she’s got my benefit of the doubt.
i just hope she can be utilized well. also i’m happy power boy mirio is back so i guess we can only see where it goes from here.
(disclaimer time: these are pretty general comments based on my own opinions and study into narrative. by no means are they universal though! good stories can use this plot device freely and still make it work -- bad stories can put restrictions on it and it doesn’t work at all. that’s part of why it’s such a difficult device to work with and anyone who does always gets my standing ovation - i really hope this story is one of them.)
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(next time on yelling about bnha 29-whatever chapter we are on: more todoroki family ranting — ft. deku! i promise i’ll be back on my todoroki rants soon: i just have to cry about the attempted murder hug and wait for translations.)
And Bakugou says, maybe, bitch, but that’s in the past. Just wait and see that I’m going to be like you. Because that’s what I ought to be.
Bakugou, who was not chosen by All Might, who is not an heir the way Deku is, who All Might never really sees himself in, who is known as the reason of the end of All Might, who is being compared to Endeavor by his hero, embraces the little All Might fanboy inside himself, pats that shiny-eyed kid on the head and tells him - it may be a long and windy road, but I promise you that I’ll get you there.
He’s holding himself to the highest standard he knows.
And coincidentally, it pays homage to the only person who ever saw All Might in him and their shared childhood dream - Deku. (I wouldn’t be surprised if this was a childhood thing they came up with together, maybe on the day Bakugou fell into the river). And tells him that you don’t have to carry this legacy alone - we’ll do it together.
while i did love ground zero as a hero name (and switching mindset after all the future pro-hero fics i’ve read is going to be killer), i really like the symbolism of it being bakugou who takes on a hero name homage to all might.
where midoriya initially wanted to choose an all might inspired name, and ultimately decided against it - it seems fitting that bakugou decides to go that route.
it feels reminiscent of the idea that while he might not be the chosen successor to all might, he’s still determined to ultimately reach that spot. he wants it just as much (if not more) than midoriya.
and it highlights that while i feel like deku’s journey might ultimately end up being a lot about finding out who he is as a hero outside of being all might’s successor, bakugou’s is at least a little bit more about establishing that he can be a hero like all might and on all might’s level.
so while i’m mourning the loss of ground zero, this fits very well as a reminder that while deku is “the chosen one” he’s by no means the only one aiming to fill all might’s shoes and he is by no means the only one capable of doing so.
Deku - a cryptic childhood nickname that only means something to Izuku, Bakugou and Uraraka.
Shouto - literally just Todoroki’s name. Plain. Simple. Understated. It’s meaningful for him. For his own struggle to define himself.
DynaMight - the bad 80s glam rock equivalent of a hero name with all its childish tackiness. It’s Bakugou liberating his childhood dream against all odds.
Basically, this is the future Big Three saying, we are not here to sell a brand or be a legacy or fulfill expectations. We are here to save you and beat up bad guys. We are not here to be true to someone else’s image of a hero - we hold ourselves true to our own dreams and aspirations. Deal with it.
for someone who religiously reads through everything in the “Todoroki Shouto Needs a Hug” tag on ao3 as much as i do i just want to say that this is not what i meant.
can’t wait for next chapter as todoroki shouto’s terrible horrible no good very bad day continues.
moral dilemmas and greater good mentality: so…what now? (aka me yelling about one specific panel in bnha 292 and definitely jumping the gun on aftermath talks)
so 292 happened.
and a lot happened. one miraculous return to another. injuries. and some battlefield conversations. and there’s a lot we could talk about in regards to what might happen in 293 or 294 or anything coming up next since this battle is still very much up in the air.
but one panel had me screaming and i want to talk about it. and since none of my irl fans are able to yell about it with me: tumblr void here i come!
so reading through bnha 292 i had a lot of thoughts. “where’s endeavour?”, “POWER!”, “NOT HADO”, “way to go midoriya for acknowledging todoroki’s current suffering on this terrible no good day that just won’t end”, and more! but there’s one panel that kind of brought up something that i have been thinking about in vague terms since 290 with the reveal. so i’m using this as an excuse to think about it in less vague terms.
the panel in question?
and why do i like this panel so much that i’m writing a tumblr essay about it?
it’s kind of the first glimpse we get at what could be very prominent in the fallout of this reveal. with best jeanist not dead, and as we know - hawk’s having a recording of the twice fight - dabi’s narrative is falling apart a bit. and if the public finds out that the stuff about hawks wasn’t necessarily completely true — they may be willing, and want, to question if the situation with endeavour is true. after all, why should they believe a villain?
but as best jeanist arrival begins to point out that fact, dabi isn’t concerned. after all, his story about endeavour is true - right shouto?
and here’s the thing, this very well could come down largely to what shouto has to say - what all the todoroki’s have to say post-war. the public is going to turn to the todoroki family to tell them it’s not true. and the todorokis — all of them — are going to have to decide how they will answer that question.
now my forewarning here, is this is pretty much baseless theorizing. it’s just something i find interesting and i’d love if the story explored it. nonetheless: whether the story will or not, i’m going to explore it.
say this fight ends as it is, with no more major casualties or reveals happening. the public is left with dabi’s reveals, destruction and wavering faith in heroes — but turns out best jeanist is alive, and i’m going to assuming hawks’ recording is released.
maybe the villain was lying. maybe hero society isn’t as corrupt as it seemed to be from the villain’s video. so what’s the next step?
statements from the todoroki’s.
first and foremost enji, the number one himself. so does enji deny everything? admit to some of it, but claim dabi was over exaggerating? or admit that the villain was telling the truth? and right off the bat, narratively speaking this puts us in a major moral conundrum.
because as a father — enji todoroki, who is seeking atonement for his actions, has an obligation to do what’s best by his family. by as the number one hero — endeavour, who just recently earned this position in the eyes of the public, has an obligation to the public and hero society to protect them. the pro-hero arc went out of its way to show us exactly what the stakes are on both sides.
and throughout this entire story enji has demonstrated extreme difficulty being able to separate being a father with his aspirations of being the number one hero. and while he has been trying to atone, this will be his first major decision to see if he has really changed.
but it’s more complicated than that. because layered into this: choosing his family would, in a lot of ways, mean choosing against the general public — who desperately needs stability and to be told it’s not true, lie or not.
if endeavour goes down for this, it means that arguably at this point in the story: the villains have won. the public lacks the stability all might built with no one really to replace him (which is a whole other conversation about how that might go down and what the hero commission and agencies might try to prevent that). the public doesn’t trust their heroes. hero society as we know it, is falling apart (whether that’s necessarily a bad thing in the long run is debatable but in the short term it is very bad if it goes down this way)
but it isn’t only enji’s choice: there’s four other members of the todoroki family to consider — and what they want should be a big factor in his decision.
but what would they want?
the family, while not necessarily functional, was steadily improving. fuyumi, natsuo and shouto all spending more time together. rei making colossal improvements. and while sure, that does not in no way erase the suffering they went through, at large the family was choosing to deal with it privately. even natsuo, who was the most against enji out of the bunch.
but now that choice has been taken from them, which say what you want about dabi, is probably one of the worst parts about this reveal.
so will fuyumi want to try and bury the damage, deny these claims and try and move on as normal, or will she want to try to minimize it? will she want to leave the choice up to other members of her family and do what’s best for them?
what will natsuo want to do? rei?
shouto?
and let’s talk about shouto for a minute here. because if anything, this puts shouto in an even greater massively difficult position.
not only is he the “main” one of the bunch, he has stakes in both worlds — his family and hero society. he also has very clearly acknowledged the fact that he hasn’t decided how he feels about endeavour seeking atonement yet and if he wants to forgive his father. in addition, shouto has said that as a hero he wants to be able to put people at ease.
does shouto distance himself from his father or stand by him as a hero? does he come out with his side of the story? what does he personally choose to do? because it affects his mental and emotional wellbeing, but it also affects his prospects as a hero. already he’s dealing with so much, and if the world looks to him to confirm or deny his brother’s claims, as dabi just did (albeit in that case probably tauntingly) — what will he choose to do?
and if this is the direction things take, this is a huge deal that i think shouto will play a critical part in deciding the outcome of. and it’s an awful heart-breaking decision but on a narrative level brings up some of my favourite character moments.
where characters are forced to choose between their morals, and ideals, choose what they feel like is right — but ultimately there are no good options. no way to get out without compromising something important regardless.
it’s those moments that we really get to see what is most important to a character. right now, it’s the choice of the family or the public. the choice of do we lie and hide our suffering, to put the general public at ease — to make them feel better. and by their professions endeavour and shouto both have obligations to the public. but natsuo, fuyumi and rei don’t.
is it fair to ask them to lie or downplay the truth “for the greater good”?
and i have no idea how everything would play out if this happened. if all the todorokis spoke out and denied dabi’s accusations would it be enough to convince the public to still place their trust in endeavour? if they acknowledge the accusations as true — where does it put them, where does it put shouto’s future hero career? can they find a middle ground and try to minimize damage on all sides?
and arguably, is preserving hero society the right choice? is it better to bring it down and try and build it back up? or is it too much to fast?
nothing is clear cut here.
and more than anything else i love when stories force it’s characters to pick between their own needs and the good of the public. if i may take from another franchise: it’s the age-old question, do “the needs of the many, outweigh the needs of the few”?
should they tear endeavour down — an action that despite at long last revealing the truth, will probably cause tension within the family because that isn’t universally what the whole family wants?
because that’s the component on the smaller scale: the needs and wants within the todoroki family itself. no matter what — someone in the family is probably going to have to give up their ideals. because the key right now is that the remaining todorokis (meaning fuyumi, natsuo, rei and shouto) kind of have to present a united front. an agreement on what happened to present to the public. or else not only would tensions continue to grow between the family itself (although unfortunately this may happen regardless) but also probably confuse and sow chaos into the public because it would become apparent that someone is lying — not necessarily just the villain.
it’s a really complicated moral situation. and i’d be beyond excited (read prepared to get my heartbroken) to find out. as a writer myself, these are the moments that really determine who a character is. and i’m very excited to find out how the todorokis will respond to all eyes suddenly being on them and their private lives.
anyway that’s all i’ve got. these is really less of a theory and more of just yelling about what if’s and moral dilemmas because these are my favourite moments in narrative.
(small disclaimer as well: obviously this is a very serious situation and its absolutely heart-breaking that the kids + rei are being put in these types of potential situations. it should be simple — endeavour was awful. he was abusive. dabi wasn’t lying about that. but it’s not. because of society, because unfortunately in this story, it’s a lot bigger than just them and their family. endeavour is getting what was coming to him but in light of seeing his character move and change and the different depths, and the work the whole family has put in to try and be a family, the fact that this is how things are coming out, and the fact that this is so much farther reaching that simply did endeavour do it or not, is heart-wrenching. they don’t have a “right” choice at this point in time. no matter what it will either cost them, or the world something. and that’s awful. but its these moments that make this arc and the todoroki family so good and well executed. because it doesn’t shy away from touching on the fact that sometimes there aren’t right choices. that sometimes, especially in a world like bnha, you have to sacrifice something and its those devastating moments that make the story all the richer. when i say “im excited”, i’m excited to see the narrative consequence + feel the pain of what the characters are going through. narratives are powerful because they can make us feel things, so the fallout of this is exciting to me because i’m expecting to absolutely feel uncomfortable and upset and as distraught as the characters because that's what good stories do.)
I may be totally wrong, because these scans are still not the best, but it looks like Shouto is not attacking Touya - he’s just trying to hold him back by putting his left hand on his shoulder. He never makes a flashfire fist. The fire is behind him (looking cool like a cape) and he moves with open hands.
My boy is standing in the epicenter of a Prominence Burn and hasn’t made a single hit yet, which is why he looks like he’s getting overpowered.
He’s basically shielding everyone - putting himself between the people he cares about and more random Todoroki-family caused harm and if that ain’t a fitting symbolism for his life.
not todoroki related and while i’m not a fan of the “redo” button in the form of eri, i am very happy to see POWER boy himself back in action.
although it does bring up questions as to when eri rewound mirio, assuming it was eri. did she do it at some point during the time skip with aizawa supervision -- and if so why wasn’t mirio part of the effort from the start? did she, all might and mirio try it as a “oh shit things are bad, last resort” kind of hail mary play?
and now that she can - how much of a reset button is she? how often will this power be able to be brought into play? while i really don’t like powers like this because they remove a lot of the stakes in a story - if there’s a hard limit on things, having to force people to choose who gets “rewound” and who doesn’t could be an interesting moral dilemma to play with.
regardless, i’ll be back on my todoroki tangents soon. just celebrating mirio and his POWER once again gracing our pages.
OK, so first impressions based on nothing but this picture:
- Todoroki’s costume - I just can’t breathe - it looks so good! I love the black, the silver accents, the new gauntlets, the neckpiece - everything. It’s so sleek and beautiful and has an underground / vigilante vibe (which I think is plausible after this arc). His is the biggest shift - so I think we’ll see some major changes / crisis to Shouto after this arc (I mean, we all know it’s happening). Also, he’s abandoning blue (his mom’s color) and every accent that had the Endeavor vibes. This is Shouto being Shouto - an identity for himself. And I don’t get the smiling, putting people at ease vibes - he’s leaning into the badass (please! I love me some unapologetically badass Shouto!)
- Bakugou’s winter costume, plus these new gauntlets - they look so good. Does he design new ones or he parts with his old design? Looks like a new move is on the horizon for Bakugou.
- Deku’s new gauntlets - or are those robotic arms - the way he’s spreading his fingers, how his hands are so much in the center gives me the vibes.
The three of them together makes me so hopeful. For a long time, I was worried that after this arc, the Todoroki plot will lose its importance and Shouto will fade out of the main plot, but it’s the opposite! Seems like the Origin trio-narrative is getting stronger and may be the end-game set-up.
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