The Beauty of Shoto Todoroki: A Meta Analysis
So BNHA Chapter 241 had this odd running gag of people commenting on Shoto’s handsomeness. Since I’ve been rewatching the first few seasons, I can’t help but notice that this is a fairly recent development in BNHA. Shoto was not introduced as some bishonen Adonis who everyone swooned over; he was merely ‘cool’ in his bio page (unlike Shindo, who Hori mentioned he’d intentionally drawn to be ‘handsome’). So that got me thinking: When and Why did Horikoshi start emphasizing Shoto’s Unparalleled Hotness? It’s not that I don’t agree that Shoto’s good-looking. It’s just…an odd thing to focus on, considering the depth and weight of his character. So let’s examine!
The first time Shoto is mentioned, in-universe, as being attractive, is in Chapter 99 (from 2016), during the room competition. Mina calls him “the best looking guy in class”. Nothing too elaborate or hyperbolic. I guess, since the other good-looking guys in Class A (Bakugou, Kaminari, Midoriya, Iida, Kirishima, Ojiro) have reasons why the girls don’t notice them (anger (Bakugou), goofiness (Kiri and Kami), uptightness (Iida) and alleged ‘plainness’ (Deku and Ojiro)) then Todoroki as Class a’s ‘resident pretty boy’ makes sense. And only Mina calls him pretty.
Tatami asks for his autograph in the PLE, which seems to be just out of curiosity, not necessarily attraction. (also 2016)
Then we have the Remedial Course arc. Camie thinks Shoto is handsome and hits on him.
The girls in the young kids group they’re looking after find him almost irresistably pretty.
Camie makes an illusion of Shoto and Bakugou laughs and calls him ‘dreamy boy’. Clearly, this arc decided rather abruptly that Todoroki is just irresistably attractive to anyone female (and possibly Bakugou) and the mere sight of him will send girls into convulsions. (from 2018)
And now there’s this chapter, where every page featuring Shoto is about someone hitting on him, describing his good looks as being like, a death sentence for girls. (from now).
So if I had to guess - it’s just a guess, based on the first time Todoroki started getting referred to as ‘pretty boy’ - it might be because of the anime. It wasn’t until after the first season of the anime aired that Hori started referring to Shoto as an irresistible pretty boy. Or maybe there’s another reason, who knows. All fan theories welcome in the comments!
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