My Hero Academia - Plus Ultra

[Tenshi Eating A Corn Dog!]

Every image I've seen of Horikoshi always gave me the impression he'd make an ending like this. I'm not even surprised he did.


Like he's somebody with very low self-esteem and Deku's his self-insert which is why he has such a pathetic end to his character arc. It doesn't help he's usually hiding his face.


Physiognomy showing itself to be real again. Other mangaka show it a lot too (see: Tsukishi, the mangaka of Made in Abyss and a pedophile looking exactly like what you think a pedophile looks like).
Tsukishi below.

 

[6MillionCoofs]

Deku never becomes his own person and is just the same as All Might except he peaked in High School,

Down to the fact both were quirkless and seemingly scouted by their teacher because they both ran to help without thinking.

Seriously, revealing All Might as quirkless was the dumbest thing Hori ever did. He should have just said All Might’s OG quirk was his muscle form. Fits with ever other user having an almost worthless quirk if not for OFA on top and explains why he just took to OFA so naturally. His quirk allowed him to skip the buffing phase.

It speaks to a fundamental flaw of how Horikoshi screwed up the theme of passing on the torch the series was built upon when Deku never ended up carrying that torch far and just stood in the same spot as his mentor.

Which considering the anime starts with ‘this is how I became the greatest hero’ and evidently showing Deku vs the world, how do you fuck up the landing so badly? Like how?

 

[Back me up!]

I like how the hispanic fanbase has gone all in on "Deku marries the big green check to be happy ever after". At least that would have given closer to his "Superhero" life and moving on to the next stage of adulthood.

 

[6MillionCoofs]

I like how the hispanic fanbase has gone all in on "Deku marries the big green check to be happy ever after". At least that would have given closer to his "Superhero" life and moving on to the next stage of adulthood.

Honestly, raising a girl that can rewind time on a whim has got to be a handful. Honestly Deku just going ‘i’ll stay and look after Eri
and baby while Uraraka fights crime’ would make sense.

But the idea that the entire series ends like a bad fanfic where Deku gets abandoned by all his friends and then meets a new girl and his old friends regret their mistake is funny.

 

[Doctor of Autism]

In Hori’s defense, Deku still has contact with some people and realistically it’s hard to really connect with old highschool friends

At the same time, Hori trying to talk about realism in the epilogue is funny with how overly idealistic MHA is to the point of naivety, so suddenly trying to add realism doesn’t work.

 

[Xarpho's Return]

And then that story is completely destroyed when it’s revealed All Might was also quirkless. So it isn’t like Deku is doing something that hasn’t been done before in being the first quirkless OFA user. And then it turns out All Might only just missed killing AFO. So he wasn’t even completely outclassed and someone else was needed as a result. Dude just got unlucky.

I was expecting something up with All Might in the first episode, my bets were evil, some sort of fraud, or going to die. So when Deku caught him in "deflated" mode my suspicions were confirmed.

The start really set up to something good and the anime certainly helped.

The anime was the high point of the series. Then every season got worse. They knew that frog girl was a fan favorite so they put more focus on her only for her to become the ultimate rules cuck and rat everyone out for doing hero work.

Not only that, but Deku just becomes a second All Might than a hero of his own. Deku doesn't really have his own villain, Shigaraki just becomes a victim of All For One rather than a villain in the end, and All For One becomes Deku's Arch-Enemy. Deku also follows the same arc as All Might where the entire world sees a hero who despite being weakened, throws an extremely powerful punch at the main villain, and becomes powerless forever. Hell, Deku even becomes a teacher just like All Might, and gets an iron man suit just like him (which was handed to him, rather than something he really pursued).

Based on the way the first season was shaping up I was expecting Bakugo to become the main villain because they had all the pieces lined up so perfectly:

- About the same age as hero
- Thinks he's better and cooler than everyone else
- A cruel bully (he takes Deku's prized "hero notebook", sets it on fire and then tosses it in a pond)
- Got all the right anime aesthetics (white hair, unfriendly eyes) to become a bad guy
- Angry because he was humiliated when he had to be saved from the slime monster or whatever.

Worse, around S2 or so he was kidnapped by the villains, all he would need is a little "convincing" and he's burning orphanages by the end of the season. Fangirls would still love him anyway and ship him with Deku, and then there would be that hint of tragedy as Deku is forced to beat Bakugo into submission when Bakugo escaped Tartarsauce Prison again.

 

[6MillionCoofs]

@Xarpho's Return
Froppy ratting everyone was so strange. That was more Ida’s kind of thing but even then you don’t have one of the main case doing all the hero stuff just to rat everyone out later.

As for Bakugo. I honestly liked the fact that he’s portrayed as a bad guy to the point the villains take note and they get it wrong. Turns out he is just an arsehole.

But that was early on when the series was doing interesting stuff like ‘a really heroic person can be an arse or wife abusing scum but that doesn’t mean they don’t care about other people’ or having villains that were doing things because they looked up to the same heroes the good guys did and concluded they just weren’t doing enough.

And then all the good stuff fell away.

 

[Xarpho's Return]

As for Bakugo. I honestly liked the fact that he’s portrayed as a bad guy to the point the villains take note and they get it wrong. Turns out he is just an arsehole.

Even then Bakugo could've been the "asshole hero" to the more idealistic Deku, the one who will beat the perp within an inch of their life (think Batman on the worst days). But the "asshole rival hero who uses fire" slot is already taken up by Endeavor, and even if you had the younger/older generation thing going on there could be some bouncing off of Todoroki. But I think as far as mentors go, I had to look it up and Bakugo got the pants guy as his mentor.

 

[The handsome tard]

I dont know the first thing about MHA after a certain point. I know what is it all about and I was always close to getting into it but something always kept me from going all the way beyond a couple of episodes.

Clearly, given the ending and its reaction, I did the right thing. Given how idealistic and optimistic the whole setting was (to the point I legit had issues with its world building) ending with a depressingly realistic conclusion seems a tad narratively jarring. Our main ends up powerless, chickless, friendless, with no recognition but hey, he is a teacher so he could inspire someone...I guess? Ehh? The End!

You know its sad when the controversial Attack on Titan ending felt more fitting than this. Yeah, sure, what Eren did was controversial and its final scenes where it all seems to have been for nothing on the long term might have been as so but it all still "felt" Attack on Titan, its not the type of story that is bound to ever have a happy ending and thus we naturally didnt get one.

I wont act like the mangaka owned the community a satisfying conclusion necessarily, it is his story afterall but it does make you wonder if this ending didnt have, even if just a little, an element of spite and of telling his audience "Done, now get a fucking life you pricks. Leave me alone."

 

[6MillionCoofs]

but it does make you wonder if this ending didnt have, even if just a little, an element of spite and of telling his audience "Done, now get a fucking life you pricks. Leave me alone."

Considering the amount of shit he was getting from his audiance at every little thing he did there is definitely an element of ‘fuck off, leave me alone’

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Based on the way the first season was shaping up I was expecting Bakugo to become the main villain because they had all the pieces lined up so perfectly:

On one hand it would be incredibly cliche, on the other hand the actual villain is just stock bad childhood and inferiority complex, I don't think he has a single thing in common with Deku.

 

[6MillionCoofs]

On one hand it would be incredibly cliche, on the other hand the actual villain is just stock bad childhood and inferiority complex, I don't think he has a single thing in common with Deku.

He did to start with. It was the exact opposite of Deku. And they were both adopted by the main hero and villain basically. Hori spent arcs upon arcs showing Deku and Shigaraki’s growth paralelling each other and then he just threw all of that away.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

He did to start with. It was the exact opposite of Deku. And they were both adopted by the main hero and villain basically. Hori spent arcs upon arcs showing Deku and Shigaraki’s growth paralelling each other and then he just threw all of that away.

That's too basic though. A good antagonist will generally share a main character's origin/circumstances/views/powers.

 

[6MillionCoofs]

That's too basic though. A good antagonist will generally share a main character's origin/circumstances/views/powers.

They basically did just from the complete opposite sude of things though. That’s what I’m saying. Then the concept, that being the heroes and villains train their replacements that were the same but for circumstance was dropped.

Early Arc straight had the dude who everyone thought would grow into the final villain atraight seek out Deku because he wanted him to explain why he was a hero, considering they seemed to have so much in common.

That’s why when it started to become cliche and boring it dropped all of that.

 

[Xarpho's Return]

On one hand it would be incredibly cliche, on the other hand the actual villain is just stock bad childhood and inferiority complex, I don't think he has a single thing in common with Deku.

There's a lot of clichés as-is in MHA, and what actually happened with Bakugo was far less interesting than anything that would be considered cliché. I started noticing Disney trying to do this in the last 15 years or so, is to set up one character as the villain so much so that it becomes obvious he isn't. (Frozen, Big Hero 6, probably other examples).

The fundamental problem is that the superhero genre is extremely well-trodden with many variations done (probably shouldn't be a surprise that MHA came around the high-water marks of the MCU), and I think the premise wasn't a bad one ("X-Men, but where a vast majority of the population are mutants instead of the other way around"). It should be accepted that whatever is done WOULD be considered cliché, but MHA initially saved itself by having interesting characters and some unique powers.

Meanwhile TVTropes acts like MHA is some subversive deconstruction when it follows shonen and capeshit tropes to a T.

Deku is a bit different from your typical shonen hero by being an autistic nerd who keeps stats on all his favorite heroes; whereas most of the shonen protagonists are usually a bit dim in the intelligence department. However, this works. Everybody likes Luffy, for instance, and even for Luffy's friends involved a bit of trial-and-error (by the time they got to Alabasta, Zoro and Shinji got nerfed).

When you start screwing around with this formula, it comes off as unbalanced. Deku's crybaby antics for the first third of the series are what caused fans to like Todoroki and Bakugo more, except Deku never got fixed. He always remained an annoying broccoli-haired loser with hero worship syndrome.

 

[Doctor of Autism]

They basically did just from the complete opposite sude of things though. That’s what I’m saying. Then the concept, that being the heroes and villains train their replacements that were the same but for circumstance was dropped.

Early Arc straight had the dude who everyone thought would grow into the final villain atraight seek out Deku because he wanted him to explain why he was a hero, considering they seemed to have so much in common.

That’s why when it started to become cliche and boring it dropped all of that.

The worst part about MHA is that it used to be interesting, but then things got worse when the power scaling got out of control and Horikoshi kept overworking himself without taking any substantive breaks.

It doesn’t help he incorporates the stupidest shit possible just for referencing Marvel and Star Wars like Iron Might, AFO becoming a Palpatine ripoff with two “No I am your father” moments, and randomly making up discrimination incidents to name them after Star Wars references in the racism arc.

I still can’t believe MHA tried to tackle racism in the most retarded way possible out of nowhere.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

There's a lot of clichés as-is in MHA, and what actually happened with Bakugo was far less interesting than anything that would be considered cliché. I started noticing Disney trying to do this in the last 15 years or so, is to set up one character as the villain so much so that it becomes obvious he isn't. (Frozen, Big Hero 6, probably other examples).

The fundamental problem is that the superhero genre is extremely well-trodden with many variations done (probably shouldn't be a surprise that MHA came around the high-water marks of the MCU), and I think the premise wasn't a bad one ("X-Men, but where a vast majority of the population are mutants instead of the other way around"). It should be accepted that whatever is done WOULD be considered cliché, but MHA initially saved itself by having interesting characters and some unique powers.

Issue with this trope is that you just waste people's time. It works in a mystery where the whole point is to find whodunit, but in a regular media you just make a lot of noise for no actual point.

Deku is a bit different from your typical shonen hero by being an autistic nerd who keeps stats on all his favorite heroes; whereas most of the shonen protagonists are usually a bit dim in the intelligence department. However, this works. Everybody likes Luffy, for instance, and even for Luffy's friends involved a bit of trial-and-error (by the time they got to Alabasta, Zoro and Shinji got nerfed).

When you start screwing around with this formula, it comes off as unbalanced. Deku's crybaby antics for the first third of the series are what caused fans to like Todoroki and Bakugo more, except Deku never got fixed. He always remained an annoying broccoli-haired loser with hero worship syndrome.

Deku might be unique for shonen, but the trope of "nerd gets powers" is overused in non-shonen anyways, especially with Shinji-esque crying combo. The big issue with Deku is that he pretty much finishes his arc immediately in becoming a part of the hero class and being adored by his peers. He should have failed and got to the backup class and that would have actually give him a way to progress that isn't tied to becoming Christ.

 

[Bunny Tracks]

You know it's sad when the controversial Attack on Titan ending felt more fitting than this. Yeah, sure, what Eren did was controversial and its final scenes where it all seems to have been for nothing on the long term might have been as so but it all still "felt" Attack on Titan, it's not the type of story that is bound to ever have a happy ending and thus we naturally didn't get one.

I disagree on the grounds that while AoT was obviously never going to have a happy ending, the ending it got as well as the entirety of its final arc did the same thing MHA's ending did ie; betrayed the themes, and goals it originally set up.

I will say that unlike AoT's ending which while being absolutely terrible, you can't really say what happened to its main character wasn't entirely deserved, the same isn't true for MHA's which is why the ending particularly feels so spiteful, and pointless.

 

[Xarpho's Return]

Issue with this trope is that you just waste people's time. It works in a mystery where the whole point is to find whodunit, but in a regular media you just make a lot of noise for no actual point.

The narrations for at least S1 outright say "this is the story of how I became the greatest hero" which is naturally supposed to be an origin story. Graduation with 1-A and maybe a distant time skip shot of "shonen chad Deku" (see attached picture of this post from @Kurohige) is expected.

Thinking an origin story is a "waste of time" ignores why people read media in the first place. From book one, it was basically foretold that Harry Potter would get in a final battle with Voldemort, unless it turned out that Voldemort was the decoy villain and there was even bigger villain out there. You go in with certain expectations and be happy that those expectations were met. Yanking out the rug and switching everything up for the sake of "subverting expectations" pisses people off. (This is one of the MANY problems of Star Wars ST).

Deku might be unique for shonen, but the trope of "nerd gets powers" is overused in non-shonen anyways, especially with Shinji-esque crying combo.

NGE is a "subversion" of the typical shonen story because Shinji is a whiny sadsack who doesn't want to be the "chosen one". Shinji of course was dealt a shitty hand and over the course of the series is manipulated and/or abused by everyone around him.

The big issue with Deku is that he pretty much finishes his arc immediately in becoming a part of the hero class and being adored by his peers. He should have failed and got to the backup class and that would have actually give him a way to progress that isn't tied to becoming Christ.

Shonen heroes are allowed early victories. Luffy basically trounced everyone in the East Blue when he wasn't stymied by other factors (falling asleep battling Kuro, almost drowning when battling Arlong), it was in the Grand Line where he faced his first real losses, whether against Sir Crocodile or Rob Lucci.

The wrong turn was when Deku wasn't allowed to really lose. This was apparent as the series decayed, like Tintin Mirio doing the heavy lifting on the big battle with Overhaul when it should've been Deku.

 

[The handsome tard]

Deku might be unique for shonen, but the trope of "nerd gets powers" is overused in non-shonen anyways, especially with Shinji-esque crying combo. The big issue with Deku is that he pretty much finishes his arc immediately in becoming a part of the hero class and being adored by his peers. He should have failed and got to the backup class and that would have actually give him a way to progress that isn't tied to becoming Christ.

I hate to say it, but Sky High did it better.



The main lead ends up with the "sidekicks" because he has no powers and, yeah, sure, him becoming arrogant once he starts to get some finally is a bit cliched but it does show him earning said popularity. There is also the fact it did the fire rival better with him revealing to be more than what he seemed (he didnt personally like the main lead given who their parents are but he was still decent with the other sidekicks).

Sky High has a lot of issues but I still unironically think it is a better MHA than MHA.

I disagree on the grounds that while AoT was obviously never going to have a happy ending, the ending it got as well as the entirety of its final arc did the same thing MHA's ending did ie; betrayed the themes, and goals it originally set up.

I will say that unlike AoT's ending which while being absolutely terrible, you can't really say what happened to its main character wasn't entirely deserved, the same isn't true for MHA's which is why the ending particularly feels so spiteful, and pointless.

As I said, it was controversial and Im sure we all got our own takes on how to improve it but it didnt feel that out of place for me. I think that AoT maybe went too far on its own dark and murderous nihilism (and the less said about the forced romance between Eren and Mikasa the better) while MHA didnt go enough into its bright optimism.

They both did mistakes but I guess its subjective if overshooting or undershooting is worse.

From book one, it was basically foretold that Harry Potter would get in a final battle with Voldemort, unless it turned out that Voldemort was the decoy villain and there was even bigger villain out there.

Now Im trying to imagine H.P with that sort of twist and I cant help but really hate it.

The original was kind of by the numbers, sure, but it was at least a satisfying ride the first time you follow it. Sometimes cliches and trends are used for a reason, they work.