The TodoFam in BNHA Vol. 2 Chap. 011 - Todoroki Shōto’s profile
Release date: January 5, 2015
Let’s look at what the manga shows us first:
Cultural notes:
Hayaumare (早生まれ lit. “early birth”): this word is used not for someone born premature but for “someone born between January 1st and April 1st (the school entrance date)”. In Japan it is important if one is an Hayaumare or not because they will start school on the year of their 6th birthday while everyone else will start school on the year of their 7th birthday as Japanese schools requires all their students to be ALREADY 6 at the beginning of school. This means the Hayaumare are the youngest kids in the class, which often lead them to be the smallest kids or the ones that hadn’t yet reached puberty. Since Shōto is born in January, this makes him a ‘Hayaumare’. Tōya too is a ‘Hayaumare’ though in chap 302 this word is translated in a way that seems to imply he was born premature.
Food notes:
The profile mentions Shōto likes ‘Soba (atatakakunai yatsu)’ (そば（温かくないやつ）“soba (the not hot kind)”). For who is wondering what this is ‘Soba-kiri’ (蕎麦切り “buckwheat slices”) or, more commonly just ‘soba’ (蕎麦 “buckwheat”) are Japanese noodles with an ashen brown color, and a slightly grainy texture, made primarily from buckwheat flour which can have a small amount of wheat flour mixed in. The dish in which they're usually served cold is ‘Zaru soba’ (ざるそば “soba in a basket”), a traditional chilled noodle dish served with a dipping sauce which takes its name from the container in which it’s served, though recently restaurants calls as such also the soba served in a ‘seiro soba’ (せいろそば), a steamer-shaped container.
Extra notes:
This is an extra page in the volume version which was printed on January 5, 2015. At the time the magazine version had reached chap. 25 (printed on December 26, 2014) so while Shōto’s past hadn’t been revealed yet, Horikoshi was in the middle of the arc that would reveal it, hence he wanted to hint at it so as to get interested more potential readers while at the same time not revealing it. The downside is that the information in this profile ultimately tells us nothing interesting, not in the behind the scene part nor in the supplement part.
The TodoFam in BNHA Vol. 2 - The Todorokis in street clothes
Everyone is familiar with the Todorokis Hero and Villain clothes. What people might have missed though are the ordinary clothes the Todoroki wears so if they do wear ordinary clothes in a volume, I will collect the images for everyone to see.
We only have one image of one Todoroki in street clothes in this volume, the Todoroki in question being Shōto. The image is in his profile in chap 11.
The TodoFam in BNHA Vol. 2 Chap. 011 - Bakugō's Starting Line (スタートライン、爆豪の START LINE, Bakugō no)
Release date: September 22, 2014 (WSJ Issue 43, 2014)
Let’s look at what the manga shows us first:
Todoroki Shōto ‘Sototero, abunē kara. Mukō wa bōeisen no tsumori darou ga… ore ni wa kankeinai.’
轟焦凍「外出てろ、危ねぇから。向こうは防衛戦のつもりだろうが…俺には関係ない。」
Todoroki Shōto “Stay outside, it’s dangerous. They’re probably trying to defend themselves… but that doesn’t matter to me.”
Todoroki Shōto ‘Ugoite mo īkedo. Ashi no kawa ha ga recha manzoku ni tatakae nē zo.’
轟焦凍「動いてもいいけど。足の皮剥がれちゃ満足に戦えねえぞ。」
Todoroki Shōto “You can move, but… you won’t be able to fight properly if the skin is peeled off your legs.”
ALL MIGHT ‘Nakama o makikomazu kakuheiki ni mo DAMAGE o ataezu naokatsu teki mo jakutai-ka!’
オールマイト「仲間を巻き込まず核兵器にもダメージを与えず尚且つ敵も弱体化！」
All Might “He didn't involve any of his allies, won’t cause any damage to the nuclear weapon, and also weakened the enemy!”
Kirishima Eijirō ‘Saikyō ja neE ka!’
切島鋭児郎「最強じゃねエか！！」
Kirishima Eijirō “He is the strongest!!”
Todoroki Shōto ‘LEVEL ga chigai sugita.’
轟焦凍「レベルが違いすぎた。」
Todoroki Shōto “Our levels are too different.”
PRESENT MIC ‘Suisen nyūgakusha 2! Todoroki Shōto. Kosei: Hanrei hannen! Migi de kōrashi hidari de moyasu! Hani mo ondo mo michisū! ! Bakemono ka yo!!’
プレゼント・マイク『推薦入学者２！轟焦凍。個性：半冷半燃！右で凍らし左で燃やす！範囲も温度も未知数！！化け物かよ！！』
Present Mic “Recommended admission student 2! Todoroki Shouto. Quirk: Half-cold, half-hot! Freezes with the right and burns with the left! The range and temperatures are unknown! ! Is he a monster? !” [Chap. 11]
Bakugō Katsuki ‘Kōri no yatsu mitetsu! Kanawanēn jatte omotchimatta...!!’
爆豪勝己「氷の奴見てっ！敵わねえんじゃって思っちまった...！！」
Bakugō Katsuki “Look at that ice guy! I thought there was no way I could beat him...!!”
Observation notes:
In a single move Shōto ends the match quickly and efficently with his team’s victory. From a Doylistic point of view this allows Horikoshi to spend few pages on him, especially compared to the ones he had to spend from the fight between Team A and Team C and still make him impressive. It also hints at a certain aloofness in Shōto. Shōji looks straight ahead of himself but Shōto seems to look away from him and even his actions in the whole battle give a vibe that seems to hint he is working solo, even though it is subtle as he let Shōji do reconnaissance before icing the place. Shōto is also shown as confident of his own ability, but in a way that seems calmer than Bakugō. Shōto is paired up with Shōji, which is one of the characters who appeared early on, in the admission test and who is meant to have a prominent arc at the end of the manga. Sadly, in this interaction with Shōto, same as in other scenes in which he will appear later on, he doesn’t manage to shine significantly, when it would have been good if this scene was used to later build a relation with Shōto, be it positive or negative. In itself instead, it doesn’t even seem his reconnaissance matters.
Cultural notes:
Suisen nyūgaku (推薦入学 “admission by recommendation”): in Japan admission by recommendation takes place when Japanese universities and high schools, when recruiting students, select students who have been recommended by their alma mater and admit them, usually exempting them from academic tests. Often the alma mater which recommend them has to be a designated school and not a random school. It seems the receiving schools benefit from this system as they are able to secure talented students early on. Thanks to Ultra Archive we know of three middle schools in the BNHA world that are designated schools for U.A. high, Corusan middle school (凝山中学校 Corusan chūgakkō), which is Shōto’s middle school, the middle school annexed to Horisuma University (堀須磨大付属中学校 Horisuma dai fuzoku chūgakkō), which is Yaoyorozu’s middle school and Kintora middle school (近寅中学校 Kintora chūgakkō), which is Honenuki’s middle school. Tokage’s middle school remains unnamed. It’s unknown if they’re private schools as Ultra Archive doesn’t mention it.
Places notes:
The chapter hints at a location:
Korusan middle school (凝山中学校（こるさんちゅうがっこう）Korusan chūgakkō), which is Shōto’s middle school
Korusan Chūgakkō (凝山中学校) takes its name from planet Coruscant (‘Korusanto’ コルサント), the location of the Galactic Republic Senate building and the central Jedi Temple.
To be honest we learn this school’s name only in “Ultra Archive”, here it is just said Shōto is a recommended student, but since it is a direct tie to its existence I still thought it would be worth to mention it here, especially because, as said before, in Japan public middle schools take the name from the places they are located, be it a city/town, a ward inside the city (Shizuoka has three wards), a small town, a specific area or a geographic reference, so the fact that Shōto’s middle school is named as such hints also at how Shōto likely lived in Korusan, be it a city, a town or a ward.
Retcon notes:
Here it is said that Shōto’s Quirk “freezes with the right and burns with the left” and we indeed see that by touching the place with his right hand he freezes it and by touching the bomb with his left he basically warms THE WHOLE BUILDING, melting all the ice that covered it. However, later on, Shōto’s Quirk will be corrected so that he burns with his left because he creates fire with his left, not just heat. Here instead we can’t see a single flame yet the heat spreaded through the whole place. This is even more visible in the anime. While we can still make it work by assuming that to make flames all Shōto has to do is to further raise the temperature of the heat he produces, it still seems possible Shōto’s Quirk originally produced coldness and hotness and not ice and fire and later his Quirk had been adjusted to produce such things (Chap 29 is the first in which he produces flames instead than heat and chap 38 is the first in which he uses ice to attack instead than to freeze... with chap 34 being in the middle way as he still freezes Sero but he does so by producing a giant wall of ice where before he used to just ice/freeze the surface of things)... though we will never know if this was the case.
Sexism notes:
Hagakure, whose Hero costume consists only of gloves and boots and, for the rest, is naked, removes them also as Horikoshi attempts to titillate male fantasy with the idea a completely naked girl is around without showing the girl in question. Considering we are told in chap 139 that the special fibers in Mirio’s costume are made with his hair and therefore can reacts and permeate stuff as well as he can, it would have been possible to make her a costume that would disappear with her but that still wouldn't leave her naked. What’s more, considering Quirks are purely fictional and can do whatever Horikoshi says, he could have given her a Quirk that also gives her the ability to make her clothes invisible. Instead Horikoshi left her naked for the viewer's fantasy pleasure. Not only it’s pretty gross but it’s disgusting how no one in the series, adult Heroes/teachers, Hagakure’s parents, classmates, shows some form of concern about it, not even for safety purposes. Hagakure do wear a school uniform or everyday clothes, meaning for her it’s not the norm to go around naked and Midnight mentions a law against skin exposure but everyone turns his face away for the pleasure of leaving a girl naked as she fight Villains.
Translation notes:
In this chapter we learn that, in order to say “I”, Shōto uses ‘ore’ (俺/おれ Lit. “Oneself”). I’ll spoiler you a bit and tell you that in normal situations all the Todoroki males use ‘ore’. This term is the most casual form of self-address used by men, which establishes a sense of masculinity. It can be seen as rude, depending on the context, as it’s suitable for conversations among close friends or relatives but not in polite conversation. It emphasizes one’s own status when used with peers and with those who are younger or of lesser status. Among close friends or family, its use conveys familiarity rather than masculinity or superiority. It was used by both genders until the late Edo period and still is in some dialects.
‘Suisen nyūgaku-sha’ (推薦入学者 “Recommended student”) refers to a student who received a recommendation from his previous school. Long story short, Shōto wasn’t recommended by his father as many western fans seem to think but by his previous school.
A ‘Bakemono’ (化け物 “monster” Lit. “transforming thing”) is a class of yōkai (妖怪 “strange apparition”) in Japanese folklore. Literally, the terms mean a thing that changes, referring to a state of transformation or shapeshifting, therefore it’s used to refer to living things or supernatural beings who have taken on a temporary transformation. Here it’s clearly used not with the intent to insult Shōto but to imply Shōto is too amazing to be human.
Bakugō’s ‘Kōri no yatsu’ (氷の奴 “ice bastard”) is the first insult Bakugō uses for Shōto... but it won’t be repeated through the story as, in future, Bakugō will use another insult. Tecnically 'yatsu’ (奴) means “guy” but the nuance here is that you’re either using for someone you’re close to, therefore in a familiar way, or it comes out as derogatory and is therefore often translated as “bastard”.
They included an image of Shōto and Shōji waiting outside the building. The scenes were significantly expanded so that, for better comparison, I placed the images of the manga parts in which Shōto appears next to the correspective scenes in the anime. The anime focused on showing Shōto’s entrances, both in the building and in the room Ojiro is, and in how he crosses the others (Shōji and Ojiro). Visually, showing him walk from left to right while Shōji remains still and Ojiro is looking in the opposite direction, implies that Shōto is going ahead of both. We get a better visual of how his Quirk works and there is a note of creepiness in how the light in the red eye seems to leave a trail of red light.
We also have a line of Ojiro that implies he has recognized Shōto’s Quirk said before Shōto appears on the door.
We finish with the anime showing them, or more specifically Shōto, leaving the building. That is because although the anime has it’s own way to introduce the characters, all that dialogue couldn’t be said in such a short space so they added a scene of Shōto leaving to manage to finish the sentence.
Present Mic’s sentence is also slightly changed so as to make it flow better.
PRESENT MIC ‘Todoroki Shōto. Koitsu mo HERO-ka no suisen nyūgaku-sha 4-nin no uchi hitori. Kosei “hanrei hannen”. Migi de kōrashi hidari de moyasu. Hani mo ondo mo michisū. Bakemono ka yo!’
プレゼント・マイク『轟焦凍。こいつもヒーロー科の推薦入学者4人のうち一人。個性“半冷半熱”。右で凍らし左で燃やす。範囲も温度も未知数。化け物かよ！』
Present Mic “Todoroki Shōto. He’s one of the four recommended students for the Hero Course. His quirk is ‘half cold, half hot’. He freezes with his right hand and burns with his left. The range and temperature are unknown. He’s a monster!”
In the end the additions are not something drastically new, we could figure out what the anime showed by the manga panels we had but they still made their best to expand the scene and give it more importance.
Changed parts notes:
The building used for the training was changed in the anime. Ojiro in the manga seems angry while in the anime he seems sorry.
Deleted parts notes:
They cut the 2 panels summarizing how the teams were formed and who was the Hero and who the Villain.
Extra notes:
The scene of Shōto freezing and unfreezing the place was included in the scenes that took part to the ultimate scene ranking.
