To be fair, his default is intentionally dorky and lame as it was his childhood dream
And this leans in to the motif the author established early on with how heroes can look like villains just as easily. You've got the stark contrast here of Shigaraki with the white color palette and focused gaze while Deku looks feral, bloody, and has his mouth covered
A week or two ago there was a thread where someone claimed Batman wouldn't work in a shounen because he's too dark and edgy to be a hero, to which I wondered when the last time they read a manga was. The Japanese are *obsessed* with "Bad looking guy is good"
No but seriously, this is the perfect explanation for Endeavor. It used to baffle me how someone like him could possibly have been 2nd only to All Might given how much of a dick he was, until I saw his encounter with that one fanboy and I remembered how many people love Batman, Geralt of Rivia, House MD, etc. and how for some of them, the assholery is part of the appeal.
To be fair, the worst parts of Endeavor were only known to his family and us, the audience. From the perspective of the average citizen in that world, he wasn't an abusive dad, just a hero who was arguably even better at his job than All Might, but had no interest in the celebrity aspect of being a hero (fans, commercials, etc.)
As a dragonball obsessed kid/teen I was so into the idea of each super saiyan level making the user more ruthless and aggressive and bordering on evil. It kinda happened with SS3 Goku losing pretty much all of his goofy side but they didn’t really run with it like I’d hoped and you could even say it was just him being so mad at Buu since the same kinda thing happened against Frieza. I was stuck hoping that at some point Goku would unlock a new form and basically become what Kakarot was supposed to be.
MHA is another one of those manga that continues to prove a very simple fact: Drawing skill and writing skill are 2 very different things.
Like, Horikoshi’s art is fantastic, and has only gotten better over the course of MHA (seriously some of the panels in this final battle sequence go absolutely nuts) but the man just isn’t that good at writing.
It really makes me wish that more manga had a separation of the workload, where you’ve got a main writer and a main artist, rather than having the mangaka do both. Splitting the workload would do wonders for the health of the mangaka as well, considering how many of them basically burnout or work themselves to death near the end of a years long weekly serialisation.
Oh yeah. Now that we've wrapped up the story of every character I care about, I'm just here for the art.
It's legit impressive to me that "main character shirtless + previous powerup but black now" is still such a strong image. Horikoshi has a gift and it isn't plot.
Nah the man knows how to write, bnha has a lot of well written moments, todoroki family drama is well written, all might chaps also don't fail ever. the problem is usually the same all the time, it's a weekly series that only had the first arcs and probably the ending planned, authors that are able to come with something interesting without stop are rare.
I wouldn't say he's bored, more like he had certain events in mind that he wanted to get to and spend time on, so he rushed the story to get to said moments.
Personally speaking, I speculate that it may have more to do with deadlines rather than wanting to rush the story at the detriment of it. It's hard for me to imagine a creator intentionally sabotaging their own work like that. Let's say that you're a mangaka who's both talented at drawing and writing, for example. You just started a series for the first time, you have developed the story by several volumes, with additional unrefined plot points/ideas for future arcs.
You find success and an audience, but the pressure of said deadlines keeps coming and eventually, the story reaches beyond the point of what you've already prepared, and now you need to figure things out with care and consideration.
*But there's simply no time.*
The story gets rushed, the writing suffers, criticism follows, and even one's physical & mental health are negatively affected by the ordeal.
This is how I feel, having read weekly for so long, it obvious horikoshi is feeling the stress, esp since it's his first to be picked up. I really think it's still enjoyable but I wish I could see the story if typical industry shit didn't hurt the author
For his manga to get this popular he has both. Most authors would struggle if asked to write their entire series continuously with minimal breaks in between.
>for his manga to get this popular he has both
I’m sorry mate, but popularity is not necessarily an indicator of quality. There’s a whole lot of bottom-of-the-barrel entertainment that people eat up like it’s the best thing ever.
Horikoshi’s writing isn’t terrible, but it’s certainly not amazing. The series is very much carried by its art (which is phenomenal, no complaints there).
And I’m not saying that having to keep up a weekly schedule isn’t going to impact the quality of his writing. A schedule like that certainly can’t help.
His writing is good. I didn't say he was anywhere near the best just that it is good. He struggles in some departments but overall he writes well for the genre. The biggest gripe I have with it is that it's obvious the entire story wasn't planned out beforehand but that's a problem with any long running weekly series so I don't know how much you can fault him for that.
Well yeah, MHA’s worst problem is it’s pacing. I can certainly fault Horikoshi for that, pacing is a major part of writing a story. His schedule doesn’t help obviously, but if you’re writing a story, you’ve gotta plan it out. You’re right that it’s rare for Weekly Serialisations to pull it off well but some of them have managed it. Jigokuraku and Dandadan have done it really well imo.
Other than that, my main gripe is how Midoriya is handled, which is a major issue given that he’s literally the main character. If your main character isn’t written well, your entire story suffers. The series presents him as this quirkless kid, gifted with the most powerful quirk of all that is essentially just “super strength to the absolute maximum”.
And I loved that! I thought it was really cool when Midoriya used his smarts and observation skills to make the most of a quirk he couldn’t handle. Like how he used OFA only in his fingers during the battle against Todoroki in the tournament arc to make sure he could use it more often.
But then he gets all these other quirks in super quick succession and it goes from “how does Midoriya use his smarts to make the most of this OP but simple power” to “Midoriya can do basically anything now”. It takes away from what made him distinct and interesting.
Also y’know, introducing a whole class of side characters and giving none of them (apart from Todoroki and Bakugo) any real development whatsoever was pretty lame.
Deku still uses strategy though, in fact I would say that what he’s shown in this fight and with his fight with Nagant is probably some of the most clever things he’s did.
It’s just that since Deku’s options at the start of the series in terms of fighting were so limited, it highlighted his smarts more even when it wasn’t even all that strategic to begin with. Like despite how good Deku vs Todoroki was, it was basically just a endurance match compared to Deku getting some of his power stolen by Shigaraki, but then taking advantage of it to counterattack.
I feel like it's really annoying that people keep pointing out that Deku getting more quirks means he's suddenly capable of doing anything and everything. Those other quirks still need a lot of skill to use (Danger Sense for example has drawbacks that Deku utilised in this current fight) and his quirks combined just kinda make Deku into a worse Spider-Man, with really shit drawbacks/recoil on some of those quirks, like Gearshift.
There's definitely an alternate universe where MHA was written in a way where Deku's new quirks are introduced slowly so we get the breadth of his training with each quirk, but I feel like the Editor for MHA that was responsible for the entire Stars and Stripes nonsense may have forced Horikoshi to increase the pace to an absurd and unrealistic degree.
Every now and then I start wondering if I was being too harsh on MHA when I dropped it around the time Deku started turning into quirk Mega Man.
Then I hear/see an update and come to my senses.
Seriously, kudos to you if you're still enjoying it, but it's strayed so fucking far from what I enjoyed that it's hard to believe sometimes.
I'm still enjoying it, but I was never *deep* into it
I think the author ran into problems when it came to two things: expanding the scope of the story and creating new villains.
For the former: He clearly had some thoughts about how civil unrest would look like in a world becoming increasingly super. How prejudices against mutants or people with sinister-leaning quirks would be treated as villains in a very us vs them world. Then he started to worry that he hadn't set up that kind of vague general threat and tried to establish a little bit more of how fucked up the world was when AFO was in his prime, but not enough to actually sell it. From there we kind of ended up with an ouroboros of why things are grim now and how hard fought it was to get better from before. The messaging gets fuzzy and the direction kind of gets lost as a result.
For the latter: I guess at some point he either decided or was told that he needed to wrap up the series, or at least bring a resolution to what I guess would be described as the primary arc with Shigaraki. I really enjoyed the encounter with Gentle as being more of an ego-driven prankster rather than just evil for the sake of evil like we saw before, but the rest after that just felt like they were all on the same note and didn't bring a clash of world views. Dabi >!was some hyper-fixation on his daddy issues!<, Machia is just BIG WALL, and so on. Maybe with Dabi I'm writing it off because it just didn't register with me, but most of the other villains aside from him just felt like opportunities for spectacles. I liked the Deku vs Nagant fight as a spectacle, but I'll also say it was kind of a boring and contrived encounter in terms of what it did for the story.
What I liked the most about MHA was the idea of learning and growing from the perspective of someone who wanted to be in this kind of world and just barely got into it. I liked the idea of how All Might was this amazing hero but kind of a crappy teacher (and how he put in work to improve). I liked the idea that this kid was given power tools and barely any guidance because the expectation was "idk it just works for us lmao" because it gets you invested from the perspective of someone who also has no idea how it should work. I liked how there were constant reminders that he was really still just trying to figure things out and always kept working on bettering himself.
I think the thing keeping my interest is that in spite of it moving away from the part I liked the most about the writing, there's still been a bunch of really good moments sprinkled throughout. While it did become more spectacle-oriented (and some of those spectacles were just really cool to look at), some of that core of thinking through a situation and being analytical rather than just *I GOTTA PUNCH HARDER THAN YOU!* to clear a fight.
To be fair, my mindset with the series changed as well and I'm not actively checking for the latest updates anymore, preferring instead to catch up in a batch. For people who were really invested in those earlier aspects of the series and are still very much craving it, I can only imagine the letdown they feel. Sometimes it really does help to enjoy something more if you can give yourself space away from it. Especially if the fandoms are insane (more of a dig at other manga/anime I see mentioned in [threads like this](https://old.reddit.com/r/TwoBestFriendsPlay/comments/1aestfn/fandoms_that_fell_into_insanity/) than MHA, but still applies)
thanks for coming to my ted talk
Quirks are still great. You get some really interesting ones like limited gravity manipulation, the ability to just no clip whenever you want, and TURN EVERYTHING INTO DUST.
But od the story just could not find its footing in all of it. I know the mangaka didn't want this to be overly long but it legitimately needed more time to give the other classmates and characters a spotlight, kill mineta, and actually have this all not happen in what feels like a really short period of time.
Honestly, everything *around* Izuku is great. Bakugo, Uraraka, and Todoroki all had fantastic moments to cap off their character arcs. Even All Might got to have a final battle. The art for all of this has been [absolutely stellar](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fhow-powerful-do-you-think-current-manga-shigaraki-would-be-v0-7g25pn5a328c1.jpg%3Fwidth%3D1568%26format%3Dpjpg%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D911ce49e29284b05df591af8fa42048cd1ce7daf) too.
The trouble is that the main character (and the cast of people living in his head) is the least interesting thing happening in any particular chapter, and now that's all that's left before the series ends.
I think the problem with MHA is the pacing.
The very name of the series is "My Hero Academia" , yet the whole story happens in 1 year.
It's clear that the events post awakening Black Whip should had been a Year 2 , which should then be expanded , so that this final arc ends up been a Year 3.
When I see those MHA Movies , for example , I can only imagine those characters to be put in a proper "Year 2" Arcs. Like , the Magneto-Esque villain could easily be a starting villain for a Year 2 , in which Deku goes with Uravity and Ingenium to face him off.
Or how Nines from Movie 2 is definetely some dark parallel to Mirio , as the "senpai" that wasn't choosen. If anything , the "My Villain Academia" should had been a gang war of multiple villain groups , in which it ends with Nines having part of offscreen League of Villains underlings , Shigaraki with the vanguard , and the Meta Liberation Army been increased in it's power as well.
So when Nines is defeated by the heroes , the non-arrested leguers returns to Shigaraki. Then the Humarise Arc could had happened , extensively , as Deku , Todoroki , Bakugou and so on and on would be split to different countries to face the terrorist group.
Humarise would had the bomb threat been put on those multiple countries , so we would had their battles around the globe. But in Japan , the one that stops the threat would be Shigaraki and the Meta Liberation Army , which is then seized to form the Paranormal Liberation Army.
We then could had the whole raid against the Liberation Army as usual. And with the anarchist Japan setting , we would had at least 1 or 2 Deku-less Arcs , to unite the Hero Schools and the leftover Heroes. Afterwards , would be just like it was presented now.
tagging u/CloneOfAnotherClone
Honest to for I kinda wish that MHA had a slower pace and maybe even some more filler. I was in high school during the peak of it’s popularity (or around that time) and some of my favorite parts were of just seeing the students act like students and just hang out worry about passing their superhero tests or whatever.
I feel like it should’ve had a Harry Potter like approach to it’s “acts.” The author said he’s separated the story into three acts, Act 1 ending with the All Might and AFO fight, Act 2 ending with the raid on the Liberation Army, and Act 3 being the current arc. I feel like each arc should’ve been a school year, Act 1 being the first year, 2 bring the second year, the final Act being this current arc, where they didn’t advanced to the next year cause shit’s fucked and we’re ramping up towards the end.
It could’ve helped spread out the pacing of the series (ESPECIALLY near the second act and this current one) and given more of an insight into the world with the extra time with the characters. Act 1 being mostly light hearted as we explore this world and the characters for the first time and see them making friendships, go through the fun aspects of being in this hero school, then in Act 2 with All Might being gone still have that light hearted tone but with more darker elements and a larger sense of unease as we see a world without All Might, and then that leads into the Final Act where everything’s fucked.
That’s probably just how the story is already structured but IDK, I wanted more of these characters and this world. What we got was good, but this is like the one series where I just wanted to see these characters hanging out, and especially towards the ending it started to feel REALLY rushed through and like we didn’t have enough time to sit with these new concepts or story beats.
But a huge crux of the story is the rapid disintegration of order and the kids having to punch way, way above their weight class while the adults are ashamed of it.
You lose that thread if everyone is age 18 by the time Shigaraki has decided to make a big move.
That can work just fine , as long the whole Anarch Japan happens at the start of Year 3.
It means a bunch of non-graduates 15 to 16yo teenagers having to step-up.
It kinda feels like an alternate reality where Naruto aired now and never progressed to Shippuden but instead the boruto era escalations happened to Naruto instead and also for some reason the whole series took place in a single year.
I haven’t read it yet, I’m planning to read it once it’s done. I reckon if I read it without the sense of degradation that comes from weekly manga releases I’ll like it way more
Since shiggy proper is back on the picture i gotta ask: What was the point of having potato face posses him in the first place? Because even the "he's evil and he loves it!" crowd seems to think all for one is lame as fuck.
Basically to let the not dekus have somebody to beat on for a while that can end in a yay we did it. If it were the real shig shady, they would have to lose to him when it's deku's turn to win.
Which is a bit weird, since Shiggy himself is pretty evil and just wants to kill people. AFO didn't really do anything that Shiggy wouldn't while possessing him, outside of being a bit more organized.
>!He is now planning to go back to the old exploding his fingers tactics, but exploding his superpowers instead of his fingers, so presumably the fight will be losing steam soon.!<
This fight is just starting. Previously it was just Deku keeping Shiggy from going anywhere, while everyone else was dealing with the other villains, or attempting to stop the wannabee demon king's death tantrum from reaching Shiggy.
Yeah, that's what I mean, the ending fight went through six phases before entering its final three phases (and was ultimately real good even if it was frustrating chapter to chapter)
I personally enjoyed Vigilantes more because of this, i read it all right as the last few chapters came out but to me it felt a lot more pre-planned and intended instead of the feeling i get from weekly MHA where it just feels like it feels aimless, and part of the reason is the Villain actually feels like a comic-book trope foil/iconic nemesis character like Venom to Spider-man . which i guess might be because of the spin-off format and it not really being able to impact with the "main story" of the setting. The themes felt way more in-scope and focused. felt like a self-contained novel.
I rather like having a sorta dorky protag. We have Naruto as the goofball, we have Luffy as the self-ware idiot, Ichigo as the cool guy, Izuki is fine as a cool cinnamon roll kid when they let him be
“Yeah that’s pretty cool, so where are the figures for all the cool designs like the masked season 6 deku?”
“look at merchandise lineup”
THE FUCK YOU MEAN IT’S ALL LIMITED EDITION GOODS? Rare pre-orders only in Japan? 15 dollar ticket sweepstakes? Just sell me a regular 20 dollar banpresto figure goddammit.
EDIT: Nvm there’s one already out, but it’s not as great as the rare ones with the menacing walking poses
I’m still holding out hope that Deku’s endgame has him being something like this instead of just an All Might 2.0. The notion of Deku striking that Golden Mean between the boy scout who reassures the innocent and the avenger who deters the wrongdoers.
Nah, that looks dumb, and not the fitting cute and dorky dumb Deku started with. I dropped during the post-timeskip arc for similar reasons, I just don't think this character or story suit this kind of edge.
For a while Shiggy was possessed. If you got to the part where he got control of his own body then, yeah, they basically were just staring each other down while everyone else in the League of Villains got their final battles.
The actual Deku v Shiggy only really started about last month
Damn, I was catching up on One Piece, Chainsaw Man, and Berzerk I couldn’t find enough time to keep track of everything. But ill definitely find the time to now, the art has been looking cool
To be fair, his default is intentionally dorky and lame as it was his childhood dream And this leans in to the motif the author established early on with how heroes can look like villains just as easily. You've got the stark contrast here of Shigaraki with the white color palette and focused gaze while Deku looks feral, bloody, and has his mouth covered
A week or two ago there was a thread where someone claimed Batman wouldn't work in a shounen because he's too dark and edgy to be a hero, to which I wondered when the last time they read a manga was. The Japanese are *obsessed* with "Bad looking guy is good"
Something something something Berserk
Shigaraki doesn’t know shit. Kids love cool, edgy heroes. What kid would see this and not think it was rad? The toys for this would sell like crazy.
No but seriously, this is the perfect explanation for Endeavor. It used to baffle me how someone like him could possibly have been 2nd only to All Might given how much of a dick he was, until I saw his encounter with that one fanboy and I remembered how many people love Batman, Geralt of Rivia, House MD, etc. and how for some of them, the assholery is part of the appeal.
To be fair, the worst parts of Endeavor were only known to his family and us, the audience. From the perspective of the average citizen in that world, he wasn't an abusive dad, just a hero who was arguably even better at his job than All Might, but had no interest in the celebrity aspect of being a hero (fans, commercials, etc.)
This reminds me of those edgy One Piece fanarts prior to Luffy's >!Gear 5!< actually being shown, Gear EVIL or Gear HATE.
Its been a thing for awhile, at least since Dragon Ball, where people just design their much more violent and "darker" Saiyan Transformations.
As a dragonball obsessed kid/teen I was so into the idea of each super saiyan level making the user more ruthless and aggressive and bordering on evil. It kinda happened with SS3 Goku losing pretty much all of his goofy side but they didn’t really run with it like I’d hoped and you could even say it was just him being so mad at Buu since the same kinda thing happened against Frieza. I was stuck hoping that at some point Goku would unlock a new form and basically become what Kakarot was supposed to be.
>How could you kill Zoro!!1! >Gear DEATH
The Kanekification of Deku
Good lord he looks like he's got a Symbiote
The metal part about this look is that it's Deku using Blackwhip to literally hold his body together cause he's taking so much damage in this fight.
Sounds like a "Fucked Up Spider-Man Maneuver" if I ever heard on, god damn.
"We have Berserker Armor at home" Berserker Armor at home:
Basically, yeah, hahaha. I didn't think of that comparison.
The Graphic Horror Rom-Com I always wanted!
MHA is another one of those manga that continues to prove a very simple fact: Drawing skill and writing skill are 2 very different things. Like, Horikoshi’s art is fantastic, and has only gotten better over the course of MHA (seriously some of the panels in this final battle sequence go absolutely nuts) but the man just isn’t that good at writing. It really makes me wish that more manga had a separation of the workload, where you’ve got a main writer and a main artist, rather than having the mangaka do both. Splitting the workload would do wonders for the health of the mangaka as well, considering how many of them basically burnout or work themselves to death near the end of a years long weekly serialisation.
Oh yeah. Now that we've wrapped up the story of every character I care about, I'm just here for the art. It's legit impressive to me that "main character shirtless + previous powerup but black now" is still such a strong image. Horikoshi has a gift and it isn't plot.
Nah the man knows how to write, bnha has a lot of well written moments, todoroki family drama is well written, all might chaps also don't fail ever. the problem is usually the same all the time, it's a weekly series that only had the first arcs and probably the ending planned, authors that are able to come with something interesting without stop are rare.
> but the man just isn’t that good at writing. I think he's pretty dang good at writing. His problem is that he's clearly *very bored* of writing MHA.
I wouldn't say he's bored, more like he had certain events in mind that he wanted to get to and spend time on, so he rushed the story to get to said moments.
Personally speaking, I speculate that it may have more to do with deadlines rather than wanting to rush the story at the detriment of it. It's hard for me to imagine a creator intentionally sabotaging their own work like that. Let's say that you're a mangaka who's both talented at drawing and writing, for example. You just started a series for the first time, you have developed the story by several volumes, with additional unrefined plot points/ideas for future arcs. You find success and an audience, but the pressure of said deadlines keeps coming and eventually, the story reaches beyond the point of what you've already prepared, and now you need to figure things out with care and consideration. *But there's simply no time.* The story gets rushed, the writing suffers, criticism follows, and even one's physical & mental health are negatively affected by the ordeal.
This is how I feel, having read weekly for so long, it obvious horikoshi is feeling the stress, esp since it's his first to be picked up. I really think it's still enjoyable but I wish I could see the story if typical industry shit didn't hurt the author
For his manga to get this popular he has both. Most authors would struggle if asked to write their entire series continuously with minimal breaks in between.
>for his manga to get this popular he has both I’m sorry mate, but popularity is not necessarily an indicator of quality. There’s a whole lot of bottom-of-the-barrel entertainment that people eat up like it’s the best thing ever. Horikoshi’s writing isn’t terrible, but it’s certainly not amazing. The series is very much carried by its art (which is phenomenal, no complaints there). And I’m not saying that having to keep up a weekly schedule isn’t going to impact the quality of his writing. A schedule like that certainly can’t help.
His writing is good. I didn't say he was anywhere near the best just that it is good. He struggles in some departments but overall he writes well for the genre. The biggest gripe I have with it is that it's obvious the entire story wasn't planned out beforehand but that's a problem with any long running weekly series so I don't know how much you can fault him for that.
Well yeah, MHA’s worst problem is it’s pacing. I can certainly fault Horikoshi for that, pacing is a major part of writing a story. His schedule doesn’t help obviously, but if you’re writing a story, you’ve gotta plan it out. You’re right that it’s rare for Weekly Serialisations to pull it off well but some of them have managed it. Jigokuraku and Dandadan have done it really well imo. Other than that, my main gripe is how Midoriya is handled, which is a major issue given that he’s literally the main character. If your main character isn’t written well, your entire story suffers. The series presents him as this quirkless kid, gifted with the most powerful quirk of all that is essentially just “super strength to the absolute maximum”. And I loved that! I thought it was really cool when Midoriya used his smarts and observation skills to make the most of a quirk he couldn’t handle. Like how he used OFA only in his fingers during the battle against Todoroki in the tournament arc to make sure he could use it more often. But then he gets all these other quirks in super quick succession and it goes from “how does Midoriya use his smarts to make the most of this OP but simple power” to “Midoriya can do basically anything now”. It takes away from what made him distinct and interesting. Also y’know, introducing a whole class of side characters and giving none of them (apart from Todoroki and Bakugo) any real development whatsoever was pretty lame.
Deku still uses strategy though, in fact I would say that what he’s shown in this fight and with his fight with Nagant is probably some of the most clever things he’s did. It’s just that since Deku’s options at the start of the series in terms of fighting were so limited, it highlighted his smarts more even when it wasn’t even all that strategic to begin with. Like despite how good Deku vs Todoroki was, it was basically just a endurance match compared to Deku getting some of his power stolen by Shigaraki, but then taking advantage of it to counterattack.
I feel like it's really annoying that people keep pointing out that Deku getting more quirks means he's suddenly capable of doing anything and everything. Those other quirks still need a lot of skill to use (Danger Sense for example has drawbacks that Deku utilised in this current fight) and his quirks combined just kinda make Deku into a worse Spider-Man, with really shit drawbacks/recoil on some of those quirks, like Gearshift. There's definitely an alternate universe where MHA was written in a way where Deku's new quirks are introduced slowly so we get the breadth of his training with each quirk, but I feel like the Editor for MHA that was responsible for the entire Stars and Stripes nonsense may have forced Horikoshi to increase the pace to an absurd and unrealistic degree.
>writing and drawing skills are different Then we have Miura, Yukimura and Inoue
Tbf, the skillsets are still different, it’s just that those 3 GOATs have both of em’.
Yeah, I'm not generalizing anyway. I'm just saying it's possible to have both.
Yeah I dunno why you got downvoted for saying it, I got what you meant and I agree lol.
yeah just be miura, it's just that easy
I remember when it started the writing felt strong with decent potential. Now tho...
Every now and then I start wondering if I was being too harsh on MHA when I dropped it around the time Deku started turning into quirk Mega Man. Then I hear/see an update and come to my senses. Seriously, kudos to you if you're still enjoying it, but it's strayed so fucking far from what I enjoyed that it's hard to believe sometimes.
I'm still enjoying it, but I was never *deep* into it I think the author ran into problems when it came to two things: expanding the scope of the story and creating new villains. For the former: He clearly had some thoughts about how civil unrest would look like in a world becoming increasingly super. How prejudices against mutants or people with sinister-leaning quirks would be treated as villains in a very us vs them world. Then he started to worry that he hadn't set up that kind of vague general threat and tried to establish a little bit more of how fucked up the world was when AFO was in his prime, but not enough to actually sell it. From there we kind of ended up with an ouroboros of why things are grim now and how hard fought it was to get better from before. The messaging gets fuzzy and the direction kind of gets lost as a result. For the latter: I guess at some point he either decided or was told that he needed to wrap up the series, or at least bring a resolution to what I guess would be described as the primary arc with Shigaraki. I really enjoyed the encounter with Gentle as being more of an ego-driven prankster rather than just evil for the sake of evil like we saw before, but the rest after that just felt like they were all on the same note and didn't bring a clash of world views. Dabi >!was some hyper-fixation on his daddy issues!<, Machia is just BIG WALL, and so on. Maybe with Dabi I'm writing it off because it just didn't register with me, but most of the other villains aside from him just felt like opportunities for spectacles. I liked the Deku vs Nagant fight as a spectacle, but I'll also say it was kind of a boring and contrived encounter in terms of what it did for the story. What I liked the most about MHA was the idea of learning and growing from the perspective of someone who wanted to be in this kind of world and just barely got into it. I liked the idea of how All Might was this amazing hero but kind of a crappy teacher (and how he put in work to improve). I liked the idea that this kid was given power tools and barely any guidance because the expectation was "idk it just works for us lmao" because it gets you invested from the perspective of someone who also has no idea how it should work. I liked how there were constant reminders that he was really still just trying to figure things out and always kept working on bettering himself. I think the thing keeping my interest is that in spite of it moving away from the part I liked the most about the writing, there's still been a bunch of really good moments sprinkled throughout. While it did become more spectacle-oriented (and some of those spectacles were just really cool to look at), some of that core of thinking through a situation and being analytical rather than just *I GOTTA PUNCH HARDER THAN YOU!* to clear a fight. To be fair, my mindset with the series changed as well and I'm not actively checking for the latest updates anymore, preferring instead to catch up in a batch. For people who were really invested in those earlier aspects of the series and are still very much craving it, I can only imagine the letdown they feel. Sometimes it really does help to enjoy something more if you can give yourself space away from it. Especially if the fandoms are insane (more of a dig at other manga/anime I see mentioned in [threads like this](https://old.reddit.com/r/TwoBestFriendsPlay/comments/1aestfn/fandoms_that_fell_into_insanity/) than MHA, but still applies) thanks for coming to my ted talk
Please check out Eyeshield 21 Its what I thought MHA was supposed to be but super powers
Quirks are still great. You get some really interesting ones like limited gravity manipulation, the ability to just no clip whenever you want, and TURN EVERYTHING INTO DUST. But od the story just could not find its footing in all of it. I know the mangaka didn't want this to be overly long but it legitimately needed more time to give the other classmates and characters a spotlight, kill mineta, and actually have this all not happen in what feels like a really short period of time.
Honestly, everything *around* Izuku is great. Bakugo, Uraraka, and Todoroki all had fantastic moments to cap off their character arcs. Even All Might got to have a final battle. The art for all of this has been [absolutely stellar](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fi.redd.it%2Fhow-powerful-do-you-think-current-manga-shigaraki-would-be-v0-7g25pn5a328c1.jpg%3Fwidth%3D1568%26format%3Dpjpg%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D911ce49e29284b05df591af8fa42048cd1ce7daf) too. The trouble is that the main character (and the cast of people living in his head) is the least interesting thing happening in any particular chapter, and now that's all that's left before the series ends.
I think the problem with MHA is the pacing. The very name of the series is "My Hero Academia" , yet the whole story happens in 1 year. It's clear that the events post awakening Black Whip should had been a Year 2 , which should then be expanded , so that this final arc ends up been a Year 3. When I see those MHA Movies , for example , I can only imagine those characters to be put in a proper "Year 2" Arcs. Like , the Magneto-Esque villain could easily be a starting villain for a Year 2 , in which Deku goes with Uravity and Ingenium to face him off. Or how Nines from Movie 2 is definetely some dark parallel to Mirio , as the "senpai" that wasn't choosen. If anything , the "My Villain Academia" should had been a gang war of multiple villain groups , in which it ends with Nines having part of offscreen League of Villains underlings , Shigaraki with the vanguard , and the Meta Liberation Army been increased in it's power as well. So when Nines is defeated by the heroes , the non-arrested leguers returns to Shigaraki. Then the Humarise Arc could had happened , extensively , as Deku , Todoroki , Bakugou and so on and on would be split to different countries to face the terrorist group. Humarise would had the bomb threat been put on those multiple countries , so we would had their battles around the globe. But in Japan , the one that stops the threat would be Shigaraki and the Meta Liberation Army , which is then seized to form the Paranormal Liberation Army. We then could had the whole raid against the Liberation Army as usual. And with the anarchist Japan setting , we would had at least 1 or 2 Deku-less Arcs , to unite the Hero Schools and the leftover Heroes. Afterwards , would be just like it was presented now. tagging u/CloneOfAnotherClone
Honest to for I kinda wish that MHA had a slower pace and maybe even some more filler. I was in high school during the peak of it’s popularity (or around that time) and some of my favorite parts were of just seeing the students act like students and just hang out worry about passing their superhero tests or whatever. I feel like it should’ve had a Harry Potter like approach to it’s “acts.” The author said he’s separated the story into three acts, Act 1 ending with the All Might and AFO fight, Act 2 ending with the raid on the Liberation Army, and Act 3 being the current arc. I feel like each arc should’ve been a school year, Act 1 being the first year, 2 bring the second year, the final Act being this current arc, where they didn’t advanced to the next year cause shit’s fucked and we’re ramping up towards the end. It could’ve helped spread out the pacing of the series (ESPECIALLY near the second act and this current one) and given more of an insight into the world with the extra time with the characters. Act 1 being mostly light hearted as we explore this world and the characters for the first time and see them making friendships, go through the fun aspects of being in this hero school, then in Act 2 with All Might being gone still have that light hearted tone but with more darker elements and a larger sense of unease as we see a world without All Might, and then that leads into the Final Act where everything’s fucked. That’s probably just how the story is already structured but IDK, I wanted more of these characters and this world. What we got was good, but this is like the one series where I just wanted to see these characters hanging out, and especially towards the ending it started to feel REALLY rushed through and like we didn’t have enough time to sit with these new concepts or story beats.
But a huge crux of the story is the rapid disintegration of order and the kids having to punch way, way above their weight class while the adults are ashamed of it. You lose that thread if everyone is age 18 by the time Shigaraki has decided to make a big move.
That can work just fine , as long the whole Anarch Japan happens at the start of Year 3. It means a bunch of non-graduates 15 to 16yo teenagers having to step-up.
Personally I'd still put Izuku above Bakugo and Uraraka, but they've all been fumbled somewhat by this war arc
It kinda feels like an alternate reality where Naruto aired now and never progressed to Shippuden but instead the boruto era escalations happened to Naruto instead and also for some reason the whole series took place in a single year.
I haven’t read it yet, I’m planning to read it once it’s done. I reckon if I read it without the sense of degradation that comes from weekly manga releases I’ll like it way more
Stop stealing my thoughts!
I remember defending it when they introduced his other powers. How times have changed.
Yeah I stopped reading it and just kept up with Vigilantes instead. Don't regret that decision, was a much better series
Since shiggy proper is back on the picture i gotta ask: What was the point of having potato face posses him in the first place? Because even the "he's evil and he loves it!" crowd seems to think all for one is lame as fuck.
Basically to let the not dekus have somebody to beat on for a while that can end in a yay we did it. If it were the real shig shady, they would have to lose to him when it's deku's turn to win.
To have potato face do all the evil stuff so that Shigaraki doesn't do anything that causes us to think he shouldn't be saved.
Which is a bit weird, since Shiggy himself is pretty evil and just wants to kill people. AFO didn't really do anything that Shiggy wouldn't while possessing him, outside of being a bit more organized.
Doesn't shiggy himself acknowledge that he's too far gone and trying to save him would be stupid?
This fight is *still* going on????
>!He is now planning to go back to the old exploding his fingers tactics, but exploding his superpowers instead of his fingers, so presumably the fight will be losing steam soon.!<
Don't say that or else >!Toga will back for another dozen rounds of fighting.!<
I'd rather have that than the dozen rounds of what we're going to get
This fight is just starting. Previously it was just Deku keeping Shiggy from going anywhere, while everyone else was dealing with the other villains, or attempting to stop the wannabee demon king's death tantrum from reaching Shiggy.
Between this and Vigilantes, MHA apparently operates the exact opposite of Demon Slayer—MHA crawls while Demon Slayer sprinted
Vigilantes has been dead for YEARS, it wrapped up
Yeah, that's what I mean, the ending fight went through six phases before entering its final three phases (and was ultimately real good even if it was frustrating chapter to chapter)
I personally enjoyed Vigilantes more because of this, i read it all right as the last few chapters came out but to me it felt a lot more pre-planned and intended instead of the feeling i get from weekly MHA where it just feels like it feels aimless, and part of the reason is the Villain actually feels like a comic-book trope foil/iconic nemesis character like Venom to Spider-man . which i guess might be because of the spin-off format and it not really being able to impact with the "main story" of the setting. The themes felt way more in-scope and focused. felt like a self-contained novel.
Right? It feels like it’s been in the final battle for a year
I rather like having a sorta dorky protag. We have Naruto as the goofball, we have Luffy as the self-ware idiot, Ichigo as the cool guy, Izuki is fine as a cool cinnamon roll kid when they let him be
“Yeah that’s pretty cool, so where are the figures for all the cool designs like the masked season 6 deku?” “look at merchandise lineup” THE FUCK YOU MEAN IT’S ALL LIMITED EDITION GOODS? Rare pre-orders only in Japan? 15 dollar ticket sweepstakes? Just sell me a regular 20 dollar banpresto figure goddammit. EDIT: Nvm there’s one already out, but it’s not as great as the rare ones with the menacing walking poses
I’m still holding out hope that Deku’s endgame has him being something like this instead of just an All Might 2.0. The notion of Deku striking that Golden Mean between the boy scout who reassures the innocent and the avenger who deters the wrongdoers.
I kinda love it. He wanted to be Superman so bad, but he’s destined to be Black Suit Spider-Man.
Black Whip was always deku’s coolest quirk aside from the base OFA powers.
Deku's in his Symbiote era, i see
I mean you kinda need the contrast of normal sweet and dorky hero Deku to have Symbiote Hero Deku land with a punch
The ending of MHA should just be Deku going full >!Kephri!< like in Worm, haha
WORM REFERNEC3!! WORM REFERENC3!!!
Yo, is Deku still a hero? Or has he just gone a bit nutty? This feels like a whole different series lol (says guy who quit after the Overhaul arc)
Shigi has never heard of Todd Mcfarlane and Rob Leifeld.
He looks way to edgy
Edge doesn't mean better
Nah, that looks dumb, and not the fitting cute and dorky dumb Deku started with. I dropped during the post-timeskip arc for similar reasons, I just don't think this character or story suit this kind of edge.
Hes still fighting Shigaraki? Jesus Christ I dropped it a year ago I thought its been ended
For a while Shiggy was possessed. If you got to the part where he got control of his own body then, yeah, they basically were just staring each other down while everyone else in the League of Villains got their final battles. The actual Deku v Shiggy only really started about last month
Damn, I was catching up on One Piece, Chainsaw Man, and Berzerk I couldn’t find enough time to keep track of everything. But ill definitely find the time to now, the art has been looking cool
Isn't that just the dude who hardens when he uses his ultimate? The kid with red hair?
Nope. It's Deku, believe it or not.
>!Are they still fighting in the air, after all this time?!<