if you don't mind me asking, what is the protoverse?
Hello! Thank you for asking! No worries, I am happy to answer questions as best as I can.
The “protoverse” as I reference it as is talking about Hori’s first draft of MHA. I didn’t coin that name, but I can’t remember who did. The original story followed a quirkless character as he grows up to be a hero in a world filled with superhumans, basically. Hori’s editor thought that story would have been too bland and told him to create something better, so Hori made OFA and revised the main cast to be what their canon is now.
Mikumo “Yamikumo” Akatani = Izuku “Deku” MidoriyaKatsuki Bakugou/Gougou = canon KatsukiYuu Takeyama = Ochako UrarakaSuperhero / Valiant = All Might
Valiant was less of a dad figure and more of an absentee mentor to Yamikumo. He wasn’t meant to have the same role that All Might has. If my notes are right (and if someone knows more about this please correct me, I didn’t keep track of my sources) Yamikumo, Katsuki, and Yuu were supposed to be a hero trio. Yuu was supposed to have a much bigger role than she does now. Mt. Lady has the same name and quirk that Yuu had. Hori seemed to have recycled and evolved Yuu into Mt. Lady and Uraraka.
Katsuki was also very, very different!
That’s prototype Katsuki in the little doodle. He was meant to be sort of like Mirio, personality-wise. He and Yami also never had the same relationship as their canon counterparts, instead they remained good friends as they grew up. What a different story MHA could’ve been, right?
That is pretty much the gist of it. Protoverse = beta version MHA. I’ve left out as much fanon as I could. Fanon has a lot of takes on all three of the protoverse main cast, but especially for Yamikumo and Katsuki. I wanted to leave fanon influence out so you could go nuts with how you wanna interpret the proto charas.
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