What our your feelings on All Might and Deku? Both as Mentor and Student, Father Figure and Son Figure, and just as a character relation in general. I personally find it one of the most touching mentorships in the show, and I guess that's the point as they are center stage. (Just give us all of the hugs Hiro. Let Izuku hug skeleton dad)
All Might and Izuku’s relationship
Ohno Anon, what have you done, sending me an ask about one of myfavorite subject in BNHA? Do you like to read my overthought endless answers that much? I’ve taken quite the time to write, so I’m late for this one and all the others in my inbox. Sorry; I hope this sorta long appreciation post will take you some time to read and make the waiting more tolerable. All Might and Izuku’s relationship is one of thebest written and touching I’ve ever had the chance to read, and letme tell you exactly why I think that.
Izukuspent most of his life admiring All Might and identifying to him.There’s no such a thing he ignores about his heroic achievements.Even though he was quirkless, he looked up to him, so much heconsidered applying for UA, the high school where All Might went. WhatIzuku wants to do is ‘save people with a fearless smile’, just like AllMight. His room is filled with All Might’s goodies, and kinda likeus, Izuku spends time on the internet rambling about his idol andmaking theories about his eventual quirk. All Might has been presentas an image in Izuku’s mind practically his whole life. However, likethe rest of the population, he knows close to nothing about AllMight’s previous life as Toshinori Yagi. All Might, because of thesecret he’s carrying of One for All, is just known as All Might. Infact, his personal identity as Toshinori Yagi was almost lost when hebecame the Symbol of Peace. Only Gran Torino and his best friend Naomasa Tsukauchi knowabout his previous identity and are still kinda close to him. Well,only Tsukauchi is, and all the odds are they barely see each other atall outside of their work. All Might doesn’t have any family because of his status; thosetwo are what are more close to a family to him. Despite being thestrongest hero, All Might is alone. He’s carrying this burden byhimself and hasn’t allowed anyone close to him, probably because hedoesn’t have time to do so, because he does’t want to endanger anyonehe might cherish, and because he knows about his fate more than anyoneand didn’t want to establish any relationship that may have caused alot of pain. Nana Shimura had an husband and a child; her husband waskilled, and she separated herself from her kid because it was toomuch of a danger for them. After those tragedies, Nana was killedherself, and all the pain it must have caused All Might probablydissuaded him to get close to anyone. He raged against All for One,almost killed him and was barely killed himself. His healthdeteriorated, and Nighteye, his sidekick at the time, tried topersuade him to retire so he could prevent his foretold death. All Might refused and took hisfunctions back, because what could he do other than that? Being theSymbol of Peace is all that there is about him, if he can’t be thisstrong pillar anymore, he can’t find any purpose and will be leftwith nothing but regrets. He left Nighteye and continued his duties,being more and more bitter about his health and how little he coulddo now. And then, he met this weird kid who stuck himself on his legjust so he could talk to him, and poured his heart out in front ofhim. And the first thing he did was rejecting him and telling him togive up. What were the odds for this kid to jump in shortly after ina situation where All Might himself was hesitating over? What werethe odds for All Might to find his inspiration back because of thisquirkless kid who made him remember who he was and why he was doingall of that? We often see how All Might changed Izuku’s life, butjust consider how meeting Izuku has changed All Might’s life as well.
Whenthey met, Izuku and All Might were both alone. Izuku as a quirklesskid rejected and denied by others, and All Might as the Symbol of Peace whocouldn’t allow himself to be close to anyone. Sure, he was lookingfor a successor, but I’m not convinced someone else than Izuku couldhave inspired All Might so much, and give him another purpose in hislife. Izuku keeps surpassing All Might’s expectations, and each time,All Might grows more and more fond of this boy who seemed so weak atfirst but is, in fact, more heroic than anyone. He’s genuinelyimpressed by Izuku, and keep discovering new sides to him. Theirrelationship clearly evolves through the manga and is becoming moreand more personal and loving. Honestly, I’ve never seen such a beautifulrelationship deprived from any struggle for authority and power.Izuku and All Might immediately bonded: after the Sludge incident AllMight rushed to Izuku to apologize for making light of him, andfinally tell him what’s gonna turn their lives upside down ’You canbe a hero’. After that, Izuku spent ten months training under AllMight’s supervision, and so they gradually became accustomed to eachother. Izuku never lost his admiration for All Might, but becausethey’ve been hanging around and getting used to each other, theybuilt up strong foundations for their relationship. The best way toget close to someone is spend time frequently with them. So eventhough it was presented to us through an ellipse, Izuku and All Might actually spent a lot of time together and were already pretty accustomed toeach other since the beginning. I like that Hori made it that way sothe rest of the story is used to unfold their relationship and how itgrows up to be even more strong because the bases were already builtsince chapter two.
Eventhrough that ellipse, we were shown some characteristics of AllMight, like how careful, supportive and kind he is, and how much of adork he can be. All Might is someone who is very gentle,and that’s probably what I like the most about him. He’s thestrongest hero, so he could be intimidating if he wanted, butsurprisingly, despite all the power and authority is in charge with,All Might is still very gentle and benevolent. He keeps praisingIzuku, encouraging him and being amazed in front of him. And asthings go on, All Might truly becomes a doting parent. Once Izuku wasadmitted to UA, he went to look at how things were going hiddenbehind a wall and thinking how cool Izuku was. In Ultra Archive, on Izuku’s presentationpage, it’s All Might who’s doing the little commentary on him. Andit’s just so cute, you can tell how fond he is of Izuku.
All Might truly cares about Izuku’s upbringing,and is doing his best to understand and answer what he needs. Becauseof that, All Might can make mistakes and fail as a proper teacherbecause he’s too preoccupied by Izuku’s well being and isn’t beingfair and objective. All Might isn’t handling Izuku’s educationperfectly, and he doesn’t have any issue admitting it and trying toimprove, particularly about Izuku’s relationship with Bakugou. When Isee All Might behaving like that, I truly wish he could be a modelnot only as a hero but as a parent as well. Like Inko Midoriya, AllMight truly values Izuku and respects his decisions, while notagreeing on everything and taking time to talk with him aboutdifferent issues they’re concerned with, because his opinions andthoughts are also important. They share and come to decisionstogether; if you take Todoroki and Endeavor’s relationship to compare,you’ll understand how important it is that Izuku and All Might are on equal grounds. After that,their relationship progressed steadily, and I’m not gonna comment allthe times All Might was amazed by Izuku and his progression.
WhatI liked from the beginning is how there’s mutual affection and care in their relationship. Izuku also tries, in his own way,to protect All Might. At USJ, he knew All Might was actually injuredand couldn’t keep up the fight. So even though it was dangerous andpainful for him, he jumped in and protected his mentor. When AllMight is known to be safe and sound, Izuku is sincerely relieved.
It alreadydidn’t matter that All Might wasn’t strong and perfect all the time;Izuku protected him and looked up to him anyway. It truly made me notice how much Izukualready valued All Might as an actual person and not just as hisidol, and how it was opening up the path to a more family-orientedrelationship. All those times where Izuku thought of All Might,wanted to talk to him about his improvements and share stories withwere also a casual and daily way to build up their upcomingrelationship as a Familial bond.
Whattruly changed their relationship to what is it now was their reunionafter the Kamino incident. AllMight and Izuku met up, and All Might scolded Izuku for putting himself in danger once again. But then, he let him know he was relieved that Izuku was alright, and took him in his arms to comfort him. It’s such an intense, moving and heartbreaking scene to witness. As it was the end of All Might, it also truly was the rebirth ofToshinori Yagi pledging to take care of Izuku, to devote himself tohim. His role now isn’t to take care of society anymore, to be aSymbol of Peace and a pillar. This All Might is no more. His role nowis to take care of Izuku and nurture him, so of course theirrelationship just took a new turning point. This scene was sopowerful, and probably made all of us cry from the pure distress, fearand love in there, it was overwhelming. So much emotions were colliding and making both of them cry as well. They were relieved they were alright and at the same time, they couldn’t help what was lost forever and fear the consequences awaiting for them.
Afterthat, Toshinori meeting Inko Midoriya was such an heavy and intensescene where the two people who care the most about Izuku confrontedabout his future. It was amazing. It made Toshinori considered Izukuin a new light too. When Izuku brought the letter Kouta wrote toapologize and offer his thanks to him, Toshinori truly realized thatIzuku had already become his own person who could find reward in whathe had done by himself. This realization came with so much pride andadmiration for Izuku I was myself astonished of how much Toshinoriloves Izuku. He adores Izuku, and it’s so important for him tocontinue guiding him and being present in his life he actually did adogeza in front of Inko Midoriya and offered his life as acounterpart. His pledge was so powerful Inko felt on her knees,because Toshinori was groveling on the ground and begging her so hecould continue to nurture Izuku. This boy is so precious to him heoffered his very own person. Not as a hero protecting society, but asa guardian, as a parent cherishing his child.
Afterthat, it kinda desolates Toshinori to be ’the one being protected’now, but the man has done so much until now, he really deserves hisrest. As this newfather figure, it’s gonna be hard on Toshinori to just watch Izuku fromafar and can’t do anything to help directly. But now that theirrelationship took this path, there are gonna be plenty of things forthem to do as well. At first, Toshinori really need to open up to Izuku morebecause there are still a lot of things they need to talk about, andtoo often Izuku was left in the dark about some issues that disturbedhim. The very existence of Mirio and the possibility there was forhim to inherit One for All took aback Izuku; and this kind ofsituation already happened too often and it’s not a good thing. Once he learned that, Izuku was so preoccupied he did poorly in class, and in the end rushed after Toshinori to confront him about it.
So there’s still plenty of roomfor their relationship to develop, particularly about Nana Shimura, Toshinori’s past, and his and Izuku’s future as well. It’sstill pretty unclear what Toshinori’s fate will be from now on.Nighteye foresight told him he was to die a gruesome death, but allthe moments Toshinori pledged he was planning to go on living, infront of All for One and Inko Midoriya, even after losing his powers,we can’t tell for sure what’s gonna happen.
Toshinori was planning to die, to let go of his life and wasn’t afraid to do so once his duty was done. But then he met Izuku, and all of his plans changed suddenly. He couldn’t allow himself to die anymore because Izuku was here. And I’m not gonna pretend I have the precise words to tell exactly how beautiful this is. He’s not ready to die for Izuku; he’s ready to twist his fate and live for Izuku.
Izukureally became the reason for Toshinori to find a new purpose in life,and to actually hold on to his life. Their relationship is wonderfulbecause it’s flawed and improving for that reason, and is overflowingof mutual affection and admiration. So I truly love their relationship. Toshinori is also my favorite grown up character of all times,because he still grows and improves, still meets people and changes path, still is an awkward and loving doting parent who wants nothingbut the best for Izuku. He also shows that adulthood isn’t the end ofthe road, that making your dreams come true doesn’t mean you livehappily ever after and your life’s interest kinda over. It’simportant to convey it in a shonen such as BNHA; it makes youidentify with older characters as well as you grow up, and provesthat even if youthfulness is represented and idealized everywhere as‘the most fun and important part of your life’, it’s not the onlytime you’ll be developing yourself, meet important people in yourlife and chose new paths and purposes for yourself. As you growolder, there’s still plenty of room for you to improve, change andtake on new challenges. It doesn’t make you bitter aboutadulthood. How could you be bitter when you see such a dorkyadult as Toshinori? Izuku surely truly isn’t, as their relationship can witness, and really, it’s nowonder why.
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