ok but u don’t think it’s a little sad for bakugo? like genuinely asking bc ik im not normal
i think you're thinking of this page & ending, but i think i read is as much kinder than most people, at least from what I've seen go down on twitter but I don’t think it’s particularly sad?
Opinion under a read more since it’s p long sorry let’s just kill me
I think most people read this scene as one marked by rejection because bakugo thinks of deku as a special person and looks at him while deku turns around and leaves, but I think the paneling of this page says sth else
idk I like the contrast of deku walking away from bakugo in a sequence of small panels vs bakugo getting one big, static panel of him just standing there. I think this and the fact that he’s being pretty vulnerable in this chapter tells us that regardless of where deku goes in life, bakugo’s going to wait for deku to catch up to him again. I can’t read this goodbye as a symbolically final one when this back and forth has marked their relationship since preschool, it makes sense for them to spend their 20s on trying to figure out a good balance where they’re both happy.
I don’t think it’s a bad thing that deku sticks to teaching or wants to start dating and i think this chapter made it clear that neither would bakugo as long as deku makes these choices with his own happiness in mind. Bakugo tells deku to pay attention to what’s important to him, who is important to him, and to express that more. the fact that deku’s first act influenced by bakugo’s words isn’t one directed at bakugo himself isn’t anything tragic. i read this special person conversation less centered on who the special person is and more about deku giving these things a thought.
I think bakugo notices more than anyone else that the war has changed deku, and while you can def read bakugo’s statement as a plea for deku to notice romantic feelings or whatever, i think he just wants deku to be happy again and it is up to deku to find out what and who makes him happy, that’s not bakugo’s choice to make, but he’s ready to deal with any choice deku makes because he just cares about his friend’s happiness.
idk, I like that chapter 431 presents a 25yo bakugo who seems to be be so sure of what he wants, that he’s capable of expressing that and that he can wait. deku deciding to talk to ochako I.e., to acknowledge his feelings more is a direct result of the love that bakugo pours into him and I find that really sweet.
getting kind of rejected & hurt and maybe making a bit of a fool of himself in front of their friends who can see bakugo get rejected is worth it like it doesn’t matter to 25yo bakugo like it would have to a 17yo bakugo, he really values deku as a possible partner & just the guy he has always just seen beside him forever. I like that he makes it a point to stay and wait, even if deku doesnt, I think this page that had a lot of people in shambles is actually a great testament of bakugo’s growth & his unconditional love for his friend yuppp 👍
I didnt want or feel the need to do this at first, but I think I figured out why while im mostly neutral about the ending something irked me. But for that we have to go back, back to the Kamino fight between AFO and All Might, the fight that ended with the Arrest of AFO and All Might losing his powers, and the consequences that brought to society.
After that fight any and all villains were causing chaos eager to get themselves that number one villain title now that both the greatest hero and villain were practically gone. We saw this with Overhauls gang.
Now think of the final final battle. All for One is dead, gone forever. Multiple héroes are crippled to a point they can no longer work or dead. The most powerful quirk to date (One for All) is gone and no one will ever continue its legacy. And society just...goes along with It?
There are still heroes and villains but somehow It all feels lesser scale, Heteromorphs are accepted into society, kids no longer get labeled as villains for their quirks due to ochakos program. Theres...no real threat after the ending. No one is rising up to be the next big villain, yet we still have the hero charts of who is number one hero wise.
It feels like a perfect ending. The good guys won, the bad guys are dead or in jail and there are no more big threats to society. Its perfect and that... Makes it incredibly fake. It doesnt feel like a real ending for such a tragic world, It feels like...delusions someone would tell themselves after the situation. Like what people want to hear instead of the reality.
Idk, I think thats what annoys me the most about It.
Ok but imagine being Shinsou Hitoshis childhood crush.
You've known each other since you were kids, around five years old, and it's been game over for him ever since.
This poor, sweet, absolute boy failure is absolutely helplessly inlove with you and you have absolutely zero clue because he can't seem to confess to you for the life of him.
You're in the hero course, class 1A and he....is pacing outside your dorm trying to convince himself to knock on the door and finally ask you out.
It doesn't matter what you are, you're it for him. He doesn't care how many proverbial fish there are in the sea, you're his fish.
Do y'all ever think about how Katsuki was the first person to deny Izuku— to bully and hurt him — because he was the first person to believe that Izuku could be the greatest hero?
I may have posted about this before, but I wanted to make a dedicated post about this. It's commonly known in the Western fandom that 'Musutafu' is the city where UA is located, where Izuku and Bakugou and the Todorokis live, and where pretty much anything important happens. It's basically MHA's equivalent of Gotham from batfam fanfics.
Except, I'm certain this is false, and I have evidence.
For starters, Musutafu is mentioned in canon sources I believe just twice: first in the dust cover from the Japanese volume 2,
where Backdraft is doing an advertising campaign for the city's fire department. (Photo credit @ shibuyasmash on twitter)
Secondly, it's the name of the middle school where Kirishima and Ashido attended.
(Photo taken by me, from volume 16)
I did check and the kanji are the same in both sources, so it's definitely the same Musutafu and not two different places. The school is certainly named after the city it's in.
However- and this is the smoking gun: Kirishima and Ashido are from the Chiba prefecture, placing the city of Musutafu in Chiba.
But Izuku, and the rest of the origin trio, live "around Shizuoka prefecture".
(Photos taken by me, of the Ultra Analysis supplementary book)
And while the two prefectures are close by, putting our protagonists (and UA) in Chiba would be a bit of a stretch.
(From Wikipedia, edited by me)
Actually, if you consider the anime canon, season 7 gave us a location for UA, which matches pretty well with the evidence so far.
(From MHA season 7)
I've pointed to it right there, on the coast near the western edge of the Shizuoka prefecture.
(This isn't super relevant to the issue at hand, but not a lot of people realize that UA is near the coast- you can see it in this shot from the second season 7 opening, and I think you can also see the ocean from a window sometime in season 1 or 2 when Izuku is talking to Uraraka.)
(From MHA season 7)
So basically, to wrap things up, I don't believe it's possible that Musutafu is the name of the city where the main events of My Hero Academia take place. The name is barely mentioned in canon sources, and when it is it's somewhere else entirely. My guess is the misonception started early on in the fandom's infancy and spread quickly, especially among fanfic writers. And since canon never really gave us a city name, there was no reason for the fandom to give that up.
But what does it matter? This is such an entrenched misconception that the wiki claims it to be true, and I'm sure if I went to go edit it it'd just be put right back. I've talked to people about this before, and one writer's response basically amounted to "cool, but everybody's expecting Mustafu so that's what I'll continue using".
I guess this is just one of those little inconsequential things that annoys me for no good reason.
(Please go check out this Twitter thread- this is where I learned of this and I'm basically just summarizing the thread here. That one goes into much more detail.)
Something interesting I was thinking about that I haven't really seen people talk about is the parallels between Monoma and Aizawa's quirks.
They both even the playing field with their opponent. Erasure makes many opponents quirks functionally quirkless while active, and Copy turns the opponents powers against them (assuming Monoma copies his opponents quirk and isn't using his allies instead)
Both, and this is what got me on this train of thought in the first place, affect or are affected by the recipients quirk genes. We know Aizawa can only shut off the part that makes the quirk active, barring mutant types. Monoma can only copy the base quirk
And because of that, Monoma can't carry over the energy stored in a stockpiling type like Midoriya's One for All and Eri's Rewind. Energy isn't part of the base genetic code. Aizawa can't affect a quirks energy store either. Even though he can erase Izuku and Eri's quirks, he can only make them inactive. He's not able to erase the power that's been stored in One for All, and when he erase's Eri's quirk, she doesn't lose any of the energy stored in her horn.
Both quirks can have some range (Aizawa just needs to see his opponent and Monoma can copy ranged quirks) but both lean more towards close quarters combat. Aizawa because he'll still get attacked while using Erasure (his binding cloth does help with this) and Monoma if he's trying to copy his opponent's quirk (or even if he isn't, a quirk may be close range)
Both quirks require a fairly great level of technique to use effectively. Aizawa has to be able to hold his eyes open during combat, and must be proficient at the combat itself. Monoma likewise needs good combat and agility (we see both characters demonstrate this) as well as be able to proficiently use any quirk he has copied, one of the best example being his use of Poltergeist.
things im noticing as i rewatch bnha, an ongoing thread:
SEASON 1
- deku really was such a nerd lmao he's just like me fr (like i KNEW but i didn't remember how much i could relate to it. oops.)
- it's also interesting that he always fights back against bakugo and calls him an idiot a lot. idk why (probably because of fandom characterization) i remembered early-seasons deku as a lot more innocent and scared of bakugo. like, here's the thing, deku is scared of pretty much everything at the start because he's shy/anxious. he gets nervous talking to most of his classmates (especially, but not only, girls) when he first meets them and starts trembling when he gets elected as class president before handing the role to iida. so basically, his anxiety isn't reserved to bakugo like i remembered – if anything, he seems to get over his fear of getting bullied by him pretty quickly once he realizes he can fight back.
- kaminari tried to ask uraraka out in their first or second day of school and she was like "uhhh i like to eat... uhh... WAIT DEKU CAME BACK FROM THE NURSE'S OFFICE" lol i really didn't remember that
- bakugo's insecurity was always there. as you're reading this you might be thinking i first watched mha with my eyes closed or sth, and you're not very far from the truth. here's the thing, i first watched it when i was like 14-15, so all i knew back then was that bakugo was insufferable and i didn't think further than that. of course, he ended up becoming one of my favorite bnha characters after reading all of the manga, but it's cool to realize his character arc was foreshadowed from the beginning and didn't just magically start around season 3.
- but yeah, anyway, bakugo's insecurity and his envy over deku's natural noble nature was always there, since season 1. also, deku's real admiration over bakugo was also there. like, going back to my other point, deku wasn't just Not Overly Scared of bakugo, he actually looked up to him despite knowing he was deeply flawed. tbh they were always a bit crazy about each other.
- uraraka is so funny i love her.
- all of class 1A was so chaotic good coded
- like they collectively made fun of bakugo on the bus to USJ for being rude lol. they really bonded over their shared dislike for the guy.
- bakugo gets fucking HUMBLED all of s1. i would also be irrationally angry ngl.
- the dialogues in the first season sometimes are so unnatural for the sake of exposition, like all might telling recovery girl: "do you mind not talking so loudly ab OFA? only you, a close friend, the principal, and midoriya know about OFA. but most professors and some pro heroes also know about my condition and not being able to fight for more than 3 hours a day" like WHO TALKS LIKE THAT ??!1?1?
- deku had to go to recovery girl's office a total of 4 times (if i counted correctly) for broken limbs of fingers in HIS FIRST WEEK of school. which is funnier considering no one else from class 1A had to go even once.
- damn shigaraki was a skinny legend before he got OP
- aizawa did not react at all when he first saw kurogiri (about the shirakumo thing). that was surprising.
- also. AIZAWA IS SO BADASS?? like yes i knew he was badass from the later seasons, but i genuinely didn't remember his first fighting sequence at USJ where he single-handedly fights like at least 20 villains.
- i had also forgotten that shigaraki calls eraserhead "really cool" so early on in the anime, i thought it was a later-seasons thing.
- this is really obvious but i had forgotten the all might theme's resemblance to superman's theme. it's such a cool little detail tho!
- uraraka and deku definitely were crushing on each other when they first met, but i think it's nice that they ended up developing a really strong friendship instead of getting together after hori didn't consistently develop them romantically. it also makes a lot more sense narratively, like why would we care who deku ends up with at the end of his first year of UA when the story actually ends 8 years after that, and it's very unlikely that you marry the same person you started dating when you were 15. idk, i liked that. i like that you can have two characters who maybe have a crush on each other but can't focus on that due to Circumstances and eventually move on and become good friends. it's a win for the platonic department!
- the animation was kinda bad in the first season 😭 but it's understandable and i had fun watching it regardless.
Regarding my last post about MHA’s finale, I just want to state that even though I’ll miss it, that doesn’t mean I want a sequels series. I personally think it would ruin the original show trying to come up with a new plot line, since the og plot was focused on the battle between All for One and One for All. I think trying to shoehorn in a new big bad would really undermine the original work and the whole point of the story.
Having said that, I wouldn’t be upset if a sequel series was announced. I would kid be very wary about what the plot would be. In my mind an MHA sequel would be like a Hunger Games sequel. It would make the original story feel pointless, like the challenge the cast overcame was all for nothing.
But that’s just me, what doesn’t everyone else think?
