Fandom Saturday, My Hero Academia
I finally watched it. I watched MHA.
I can't say I regret putting it off for so long. It's not a bad show, and one of the ways this show really shines is how thorough the author was at considering the different types of powers, "quirks", could be utilized in different situations. However, I do have a really big gripe with this show.
Sometimes, the god hand used in the writing is so blatantly obvious it's annoying.
Two vital moments come to mind for this, but first I'll give you a warning...
The first one is when Izuku meets All For One, indirectly. So we have this team of kids and I really appreciate that they make these kids super powerful, but also don't make them super badass in all situations. AKA, it never makes Izuku out to be the most powerful person from the getgo. He works for it, and you see the potential, but he makes so many mistakes that you can see how badly he's going to fail before he goes and fails gloriously. Very important when creating OP characters. Part of this is the overwhelming fear these kids have just being in the presence of the biggest baddie that they show.
So, we have this group of kids wandering around to try and see if they can save their friend Bakugo. Okay, makes sense, and they all have their own reasons for going. Iida is making sure they aren't all being stupid. Kirishima can't just abandon his best friend. Albeit one-sided, Izuku can't abandon his friend either, and he blames himself for it. Yaoyorozu is the one that made the device, and also joins to keep the others in check. But... why the hell was Todoroki there?
I'll tell you why, simply because the author needed him there to help pull off the stunt they did.
And maybe some of you will point out that he has a reason, that he feels guilty because he was paired with Bakugo when he got kidnapped, but they just glossed over it like it didn't matter. Well guess what, it fucking matters. You don't just spend an entire episode deeply analyzing everyone's reasons for going to save Bakugo and then not include Todoroki's with the same depth and weight. For all I know, he went because he "felt like it", which is such a copout on the writer's part. He was barely utilized throughout that entire part of the show, except for the "absolutely necessary" involvement at that one particular moment?
I'll tell you another reason the writers did that, fan service. That was all it was. That's it. 😒
Another time they do that is when they face Overhaul.
So, you got Aizawa because you really should have him there otherwise you won't be able to take down the badguy, which makes sense, but then I imagine they thought it'd "take all the fun out of the fight", so they needed a way to incapacitate them. Okay, so the building starts to collapse because of the fight, and for the entire duration, instead of a number of other things they could've kept him busy with, Chronostasis makes him super slow and just sits there the whole time because Overhaul "might" be interested in him. No tying Aizawa up, no taking him anywhere, just "sitting and waiting for help".
But you want to know why they did that? Because they needed Aizawa to stop Eri from erasing Izuku from existence later! So they used Chronostasis to hold Aizawa hostage just long enough for the battle to get really really interesting and only released him at the last second because otherwise you got no more Izuku.
These were just the ones that stuck out to me the most, and like I said, it's infuriatingly obvious that the characters are just there because the writers needed them there at that particular moment. They also have a habit of making characters have certain quirks just because they needed them for a particular scene to work the way they wanted, just for the character to never be seen or heard from again. (Like Chronostasis. >.>) And there are entirely too many characters in this anime. They literally have more characters than episodes and it's nearly impossible to keep up with them all.
Anyway, more good stuff because I don't hate the anime, I just get frustrated by it sometimes.
It didn't start out this way, but I like how relatable or endearing the villains are. I only watched up to the end of season 5 (saving season 6 for when I can watch it all in one sitting) and just with those final episodes, I find that Shigaraki is very interesting. Imagine his father's hate for his own mother was so strong that it manifested Shigaraki's power of decay and his insatiable need to destroy everything. Just the possibilities themselves are fascinating. And then I'm also a sucker for Todoroki and his whole backstory. 😏
But I like how not everything is black and white and there's this underlying battle centered around the perception of powers going on too. Anyway, I wouldn't say I'm a hardcore fan by any means, but I can see a lot of the reasons it's a really popular fandom. It's more than just another hero story.
And that's it for today! But also, I'm attaching my Todoroki pic because posts with pictures always do better and I'm so absolutely in love with how it came out. ^^
