The TodoFam and U.A. Sport Festival - Third Event: “Tournament-style one-on-one battle” (トーナメント形式一対一のガチバトル ‘TOURNAMENT keishiki ichitaiichi no GACHI BATTLE’)
To better follow the sport festival here are a couple of info about the second event, in a step by step progression.
This part is maybe the easiest to follow as we have a nice map that shows the order of the fights, though some matches in the manga are completely forgettable as they're solved in a panel or two.
ROUND OF SIXTEEN
1 Midoriya Izuku vs Shinsō Hitoshi
Winner: Midoriya as Shinsō is thrown out of bounds.
2 Todoroki Shōto vs Sero Hanta
Winner: Shōto as Sero is rendered immobilized and unable to continue
3 Shiozaki Ibara vs Kaminari Denki
Winner: Shiozaki as Kaminari is rendered immobilized and unable to continue
4 Īda Tenya vs Hatsume Mei
Winner: Īda as Hatsume jumps out of bounds once she has finished showing the use of the support items she created
5 Ashido Mina vs Aoyama Yūga
Winner: Ashido who knocked Aoyama out with an uppercut.
6 Yaoyorozu Momo vs Tokoyami Fumikage
Winner: Tokoyami as, in the manga he didn't give Yaoyorozu the time to use the shield she creates (and presumably he pushed her out-of-bonds). In the anime though, she managed to use the shield to protect herself but Tokoyami still managed to push her out-of-bonds.
7 Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu vs Kirishima Eijirō
First match - a tie as they both went down.
Second match (arm wrestling match) - winner: Kirishima
8 Uraraka Ochako vs Bakugō Katsuki
Winner: Bakugō as Uraraka is unable to continue.
QUARTER-FINALS
1 Midoriya Izuku vs Todoroki Shōto
Winner: Shōto as Midoriya is out-of-bounds.
2 Shiozaki Ibara vs Īda Tenya
Winner: Īda. The manga do not show their match. According to the anime he pushed her out of bounds.
3 Ashido Mina vs Tokoyami Fumikage
Winner: Tokoyami. The manga do not show their match. According to the anime he pushed her out of bounds.
4 Kirishima Eijirō vs Bakugō Katsuki
Winner: Bakugō as Kirishima is knocked down and unable to continue.
SEMI-FINALS
1 Todoroki Shōto vs Īda Tenya
Winner: Shōto as Īda is rendered immobilized and unable to continue
2 Tokoyami Fumikage vs Bakugō Katsuki
Winner: Bakugō as Tokoyami is forced to surrender.
The TodoFam in BNHA Vol. 4 Chap. 032 - Smile, Prince of Nonsense Land! (笑え！ナンセンス界のプリンス Warae! NONSENSE-kai no PRINCE)
Release date: February 23, 2015 (WSJ Issue 14, 2015)
Let’s look at what the manga shows us first:
Todoroki Shōto ‘Igaito hayakatta na... Koiyo Midoriya, kono-te de taoshite yaru.’
轟焦凍「（意外と早かったな…来いよ緑谷、この手で倒してやる。）」
Todoroki Shōto “That was unexpectedly quick... Come on, Midoriya, I'll defeat you with my own hands.”
Midoriya Izuku ‘Shinkei o togisumasu mono.’
緑谷出久「神経を研ぎ澄ます者。」
Midoriya Izuku “Sharpening his senses.”
Observation notes:
Even though Shōto is present, we won’t see much of him in this chapter as he basically appears only in 3 scenes, one is when Ojiro says he wants to retire, the other is when the matchups are shown, and he shows he is eager to face Midoriya and the third is as he is outside sharpening his senses, probably meditating or something like that.
We also get a tiny glimpse of Shōto as Midoriya talks of how he still has troubles using One for All.
Sexism notes:
This is more sexism in the way the story is narrated than sexism showed happening in the story. Anyway we have Ojiro and Shōda retire because, they think they didn’t deserve to be there since they couldn’t remember what happened to the cavalry battle and their pride don’t allow them to accept this since everyone else is doing their best. Ashido tries to dissuade Ojiro, pointing out by his logic she shouldn’t be there either because she didn’t do anything, which is not true even though it is the second time she said so (but she is not going to retire). Kirishima admires the boys for being so mainly and Midnight praises the boys and accept their request, basically telling us we should apprecciate what they are doing. This however also implied what Ashido is doing is wrong. She should have shown pride and drop out too, but no, she didn’t because this is a manly thing to do and she is a girl (by the way I am not counting the fact Aoyama is not dropping out either because he is being used as a comic relief and the fact he stays doesn’t look good on him).
Now what happens next is slightly better but not by much.
In fact the ball should then pass to Team Kendō, a team composed solely by girls, but Kendō, who despite being a girl has decided to embrace the narrative of retiring if you didn’t do anything, insists to pass it to Team Tetsutetsu because they barely did something in the cavalry battle.
The problem here is that yes, Team Kendō got immobilized by Shōto’s ice, but this didn’t happen at the start but only when only 6 minutes were missing, meaning they had been on the move for 9 minutes, more than a half of the time during which they, who started in the 9th position with 225 points, managed to steal 2 headbands. They will lose one due Shōto, managing to keep 2 and reaching 520, finishing the game in 5th position.
The narrative they did nothing is FALSE.
On the other side it is true, Team Tetsutetsu never got immobilized by Shōto’s ice but they only managed to steal 1 headband AND THEN LOST SAID HEADBAND AND THEIR OWN ending up with 0 points. But let’s praise them because they managed to run through all the time. And yeah, I know Team Tetsutetsu contains a girl but not only the focus here is on Tetsutetsu and not on Shiozaki.
Teaching notes:
Normally athletes can decide on their own if they can drop out of a competition. The thing can have consequences on subsequent events in the competition and legal consequences if they break a contract but it is still up to them. Here deciding to accept if Ojiro and Shōda can drop out of the sport festival is up to Midnight, which is something already questionable but what is worse is that Midnight decides so because... she likes it, she likes how they are being naive and green, even though, up to moments before they were trying to teach to the kids that life is a dog-eat-dog competition and so things like pride likely has no place in it and, honestly, they would be horrible in the Hero job. I mean, can Heroes drop out of a job because they feel their pride is wounded? Midnight’s decision is totally arbitrary and not even based on what they are supposed to teach to the kids. What is worse though is that when Bakugō will try to drop out for the same reason they won’t let him. Coherency much? Sure, the story both times tries to make the whole thing a joke but it remains a horrible teaching decision.
But okay, let’s look at the rules of this competition and see why they make me cringe so hard.
PRESENT MIC ‘RULE wa kantan! Aite o jōgai ni otosu ka kōdō funō ni suru! Ato wa “maitta” toka iwasete mo kachi no GACHINKO da! KEGA jōtō!! Ko chito ra ware-ra ga RECOVERY GIRL ga taikishitekkara!! Dōtoku rinri wa ittan sute oke!! Daga maa, mochiron inochi ni kakawaru yōna no wa KUSO da ze! OUT! HERO wa teki (read: VILLAIN) o tsukamaeru tame ni kobushi o furū noda!’
プレゼント・マイク「ルールは簡単！相手を場外に落とすか行動不能にする！あとは『まいった』とか言わせても勝ちのガチンコだ！ケガ上等！！こちとら我らがリカバリーガールが待機してっから！！道徳倫理は一旦捨ておけ！！だがまぁ、もちろん命に関わるよーなのはクソだぜ！アウト！ヒーローは敵（ヴィラン）を捕まえる為に拳を振るうのだ」
Present Mic “The rules are simple! Knock your opponent out of the ring or incapacitate them! And even if you can make them say ‘I gave up,’ it was still an all-out battle for victory! Injuries are fine! Our Recovery Girl is standing by, so you can set morals and ethics aside for now! But of course, anything life-threatening is crap! No! Heroes use their fists to capture enemies (read: Villains)!”
Now... since it was meant to be an one-on-one fight I guess injuries are to be expected but am I the only one who feels horror at the idea they just told teenagers who aims to become Heroes it is okay to set moral and ethics aside because no matter the injury they will cause to their opponent, and the pain it will cause them, Recovery Girl can fix it? We are encouraging them to do much more than just bruises here! Besides how much can Recovery Girl fix? I guess decapitation is off the list, but what about amputation of a limb? It is not necessarily fatal, but can Recovery Girl fix it? And for something tamer like broken bones? Midoriya still reported damage after her healing so she can’t perfectly fix them, what if I break a leg so bad my opponent remains permanently invalid? If I scar their face for life?
I mean, I get the story nerfs the effects of the Quirks so bad that they can’t really do serious damage but still telling someone to beat another person as much and as hard as they want as long as it is not life-threatening because they can fix it is horrible.
And what does it means they can’t cause life-threatening damage because Heroes swing their fists only against Villains? That it is okay to go for life-threatening damage with Villains? Mind you, I know that the Japanese police can shoot at escaping criminals provided they are judged dangerous enough but here Present Mic is not even saying dangerous Villains, he is just speaking as if it were a given it is okay to murder them. Really, this is a pretty horrible teaching.
Besides... the kids will go for the kil in this tournament, even though they didn’t realize it. They will be stopped only once, but the match won’t be considered invalid. The other times their Quirks will be nerfed or they will manage to avoid the killing blow so nobody will die... and nobody will really complain. Really, this is bad.
Now, regarding the anime version...
Episode 19 - The Boy Born with Everything (全てを持って生まれた男の子 Subete o Motte Umareta Otoko no Ko)
Added parts notes:
We just have some extra glimpses of Shōto, nothing noteworthy but always nice to see.
Changed parts notes:
Now the sentence about Shōto sharpening his sense is part of a longer sentence describing what everyone does. It is not really a relevant change.
Extra notes:
It is worth to mention that one of the extra glimpses of Shōto might have been actually a scene that was included in the manga. The anime decided that the guy with his hands in his pocket whose face we can’t see is Shōto which could make sense as Shōto tends to put his hands in his pockets. He is not the only one though, so we can’t really know if it is him in the manga. Still it felt worth to mention it.
