#bnha 351 | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

thyandrawrites · 2 years

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I wasn't sure whether to ask you this now or Sunday but what did you think of the chapter? I liked it for the most part but I would love to get your thoughts.

So, to start off, I need to make something very clear: I think both brothers are wrong about and unfair to each other. I don’t mean any of what follows as a slight on either of them. I think it makes sense, considering both their backgrounds and the things they know about the other to make the kind of hurtful assumptions and dismissive remarks about each other’s baggage that they show in this chapter. But for the sake of analyzing why they just can’t seem to reach an understanding yet, I will go over both their mindsets and try to break down exactly why I think they’re both wrong.

If that’s not your cup of tea, please do value your sanity and skip out on reading this post. What follows is my take, and I will ask everyone to please respect it as such.

So, without further ado. [under a cut for length. grab some popcorn]

Let’s start with a simple concept. Dabi and Shouto have baggage. Both grew up in an abusive home, and though their experiences aren’t a 1:1 equivalent, both kids ended up developing a very strong belief system that they stick to with almost fervent drive. I believe that these strong beliefs are what are making it hard to see each other’s viewpoint. Currently, they both seem to be trying to make sense of how the other could end up like this by comparing them to… well, themselves.

A necessary introduction: explaining Dabi and Shouto’s personal beliefs

What motivated Shouto to help out his brother was noticing that Dabi was stewing in a spiral of hatred and thoughts of revenge similar to Shouto’s own struggle at the beginning of the series. However, because of this, I think he started seeing Dabi as what Shouto himself could’ve become if he hadn’t gotten support from class A and his family. And while this might or might not be true, it makes Shouto believe that the way he got out of that spiral will automatically work for his brother as well. I will go over why I think that in a moment.

As for Dabi, he has such a disparaging opinion of his little brother because he can’t fathom how Shouto could not want the things Touya desperately longed for as a child. What he says here:

is very telling. It seems that for all the things about his upbringing that Dabi rejects, he still hasn’t gotten rid of the mentality Endvr raised him with: when Touya and Shouto were small, he used to tell them that they lived in “different worlds” than regular people. The “world of heroes,” an elite space separate from the concerns of regular people. Of course, by the time he tells Shouto this, the words have become an excuse. A way for Enji to justify the isolation he forced on his youngest in order to make him as strong as he could be, as well as an excuse to keep training him in spite of Touya’s death.

But Enji’s relationship with Touya started out differently enough for the words to solidly take root in Touya’s psyche. Till now, Dabi still holds on to this idea that he was made to be this strong. Even as he fights his brother, he keeps comparing the strength of their quirks and calling his superior. When AFO’s surgeries weakened his body and thus his potential, Touya spent years trying to catch back up even if it meant collecting burns that would’ve killed anyone else.

The way he clings to this idea that he needs to prove that he’s strong is obsessive, unhealthy. It’s the result of Enji raising him with toxic expectations. Back when Touya was a child, Enji really believed him to be the key to achieving his lifelong obsession. He told Touya that he was the bridge that would close the distance between himself and All Might. All that was made possible by Touya’s quirk, one that surpassed Enji’s own strength.

Dabi took that to heart. He was lucky enough to be born the heir of Endvr’s legacy as a top ranked hero, and with an inherent potential that set him apart from others, from regular citizens. No one, not even his dad, could ever best All Might. But Touya was raised with the expectations that he could. That he would, in fact. Unlike others who only looked at heroes on TV and decided to pursue that career, Touya was already living in the house of the then number two. When other kids collected figurines and played video games, Touya was already cultivating his talent to eventually enroll in a hero school. Becoming one was his raison d’être, and he was supposed to be handed the tools to hone it to perfection. In that sense, he truly belonged to a separate world.

Yet, he proved to be “defective” before he could capitalize on that potential (which, not coincidentally, is why he gets mad at Shouto for wasting his).

Once Touya’s purpose was stripped away from him, he tried moving on with his life like everyone else, but that didn’t — couldn’t — work. Being raised with the idea that he only existed to fulfill his father’s ambition, Touya didn’t have the tools to adapt to an existence without that goal. As a result, he couldn’t mesh well with his classmates because he couldn’t relate to them. They had aspirations, goals, wants of their own; he was brought to life to fulfill his father’s.

Touya could see that he was different from other kids his age, too. For one, his family wasn’t normal. Enji didn’t marry for love and he didn’t choose his wife’s quirk at random. Touya and Shouto weren’t normal kids. Everything about their conception was a transaction, and their entire existences had been shaped by it.

Additionally, Touya’s awareness of the circumstances of his birth set him even more apart from others. Because of that awareness, he could see everything wrong with his family, and tried to address it. But the more he kept at it, the more his peers drew away from him and gave him the feeling that those around him couldn’t understand him. This is why for example we see him yell at Rei and Fuyumi for not getting why moving on isn’t an option for him — not when the thing he needs moving on from is his own DNA — or why he crawls to Natsuo for validation but gets upset when his brother “tells him to buzz off too.”

This perceived divide influences his actions as an adult as well. Despite sharing similar backstories with the League, he never confides in them, and even acts distant on accounts on how different he thinks they are. He calls Toga a nutjob, he doesn’t care about Shigaraki’s goals, and he refuses to admit the League was ever anything other than a stepping stone for him.

With the broadcast, we see Dabi attempt to bridge that distance for the first time. By his own admission, he wants people to understand why he made certain choices. Yet, he’s met with indifference and more scapegoating. The public doesn’t care about his reasons. He wanted them to think more critically about heroes. Instead they call Dabi annoying and they go back to giving support to Endvr and Hawks like the crimes Dabi just exposed them for were water under the bridge.

As a result, I think that Dabi convinced himself that people won’t ever listen, let alone understand. All they want to do is smile and laugh in the face of other people’s suffering, to paraphrase what he tells Toga not much later. They don’t want to think critically about the system and reform it. They only care about being reassured that everything’s okay. Or that it will be okay after the remaining heroes clean up this mess and restore the old status quo.

The fact that the public only wants stability — even if it’s just superficial peace that rests on wider, unaddressed societal issues — is well established by canon, by the way. It’s pretty transparent both in the press conference chapter and in the aftermath, when UA becomes a fortress and there are tensions between civilians and heroes that AFO attempts to exploit. And during the broadcast, Dabi made it a point of addressing exactly this type of audience. The people who, as he told Tokoyami, “stopped thinking for themselves.” Those who mindlessly go with the flow, with no personal conviction of their own. In other words, the feckless followers who only want heroes to take charge so that the regular citizens don’t have to examine if their system is even still effective at keeping up with a changed social landscape.

What does this huge tangent have to do with Shouto and the newest chapter, you’re probably wondering.

I think that Dabi resents that Shouto, quote, “holed up at UA with those scared little civilians,” because of everything I just went over.

Why would Shouto depend on others when he, too, was born different from them? Like him, Shouto was brought to life to fulfill his father’s ambition of besting All Might. Like him, he was set apart from everyone else by the purpose placed upon his conception. But unlike him, Shouto was gifted with the perfect mix of circumstances that Dabi didn’t have: the perfect melange of quirks his father wanted; a body that wasn’t at odds with said quirk; years of training under Endvr, who never looked away from him the way he did with Touya.

The fact that Dabi mentions birth is especially crucial here: he’s not simply envious because Shouto is better at everything than him. He’s furious because his father has validated Shouto’s existence, unlike Touya’s, and yet Shouto doesn’t seem to regard that for the blessing it is (for Dabi, that is. To Shouto, the attention was just a curse. Not that Dabi realizes that).

Shouto’s skills are such that he was never removed from his destiny — from the world of heroes. He’s not a failed creation, and as such he still has purpose.

Meanwhile, Touya feels not only forgotten about, but even erased from existence itself. Enough so that he thinks he needs to destroy himself and his father in order to “leave a mark in this world”. In order to prove he existed.

We now know that everything for Touya was an uphill battle. His father gave up on him. AFO gave up on him. The whole of Japan gave up on him. Only Dabi ever believed in himself, and yet, that never seemed to be enough. So when he sees Shouto ambling through life and following all the steps laid out for him, he gets bitter he wasn’t given the same chance and takes that misplaced anger out on his little bro, who has nothing to do with the neglect Dabi went through.

All the talking down he does in this chapter proves that while Dabi thinks he understands Shouto, in fact, he doesn’t even know him. He might’ve watched his little brother’s achievements from afar, but he doesn’t know Shouto’s intimate struggles with his legacy and with forming his own worldview.

Mistakenly, Dabi convinces himself that Shouto doesn’t have a belief system of his own. Since Touya was able to recognize the corruption of heroic ideals and of modern society from a very young age, he expects Shouto to do the same. But his little brother never came to reject the current system like him. Despite having experienced similar abuse, despite knowing first-hand how heroes aren’t always morally upstanding, Shouto still believes in heroes.

Dabi takes this to mean that Shouto is just another feckless follower who defends the current status quo without questioning it. This is why he assumes that Shouto is fully his father’s puppet: going where the number one tells him to, emulating his father down to the way Enji conceives heroes — only as strong fighters who simply defeat villains, defending the establishment with no deeper thought into what they’re doing.

It goes without saying that this reading is entirely wrong and unfair and pointlessly cruel.

In truth, Shouto’s never been his father’s pawn. In fact, he’s tried to oppose Endvr’s will any way he could. Every time Shouto happened to go along with one of Enji’s wishes, he always set down boundaries and made it very clear that he wasn’t doing it for Endvr. So for example, even if Shouto went along with the training, it was because Shouto wanted to be a hero like All Might. Even if he used the paths Enji opened for him, like the recommendation for UA, he still fought at his own conditions, only using his ice. Or again, when he accepted that he needed to work on both sides of his quirk, he only interned for his dad to exploit his long experience in the field, not because he wanted to blindly follow in his footsteps or put water under the bridge.

Fast forward to this chapter again. Dabi accuses Shouto of being here only because he’s Endvr’s puppet, obeying orders like all the sidekicks from the agency. But Shouto chose to be here, and the reason why is important because it perfectly shows his personal growth.

Shouto’s belief system boils down to a very simple concept. Letting people die when you can act and save them is wrong. Saving lives is a hero’s job and moral imperative. It always takes priority over anything else, even the law.

So Shouto can’t ignore Dabi and keep trying to be a hero anyway. That literally goes against his definition of what a hero even is. He has the capacity to intervene, to act, and stop his brother. So he does. Even if he has to put his life on the line. A hero is always willing to risk himself, his career and even his reputation to do the right thing and make a difference.

I’ll admit that putting it that way it sounds no different from Deku’s “my body moved on its own” idealization of pure heroic martyrdom. And in a sense, they do have common grounds. That makes sense since both of their conceptualizations stem from their admiration of All Might. All Might is the physical embodiment of that mindset: he’s a rescue hero who elected self-sacrifice as the pinnacle of selflessness and compassion. But in Shouto’s case, it’s a bit more complex and less black and white.

Shouto didn’t start his heroic career off on the right foot. At first, he had a lot of anger that got out at unexpected times. Once he realized that his hatred for his dad made him a worse person and thus a worse hero, though, he willingly made the choice to change.

Here he’s clearly referencing his own mindset prior to reconnecting with his mother. Back then, he didn’t concern himself with other people, and didn’t even give them a second glance, thinking he was above them. After his confrontation with Inasa, he realized that this mentality made him act too similarly to his father, and he wasn’t okay with that. I'm stressing that last part because it's important.

Shouto spent a good portion of his early life believing in predetermination. Growing up in an abusive household, he developed the fear that he would one day end up hurting others the way his father hurt Rei.

this was a big factor in why he struggled to accept his father’s training. He started associating his fire side with his father’s cruelty, and rejected it as a result. He thought that using it meant giving in to Enji’s will and following in his footsteps, but he didn’t want to be cruel like him.

After making peace with his fire side, though, he abandoned those ideas. Reconnecting with Rei and recovering the memory of her encouragement shifted something in him. He no longer believes in predetermination and instead embraces personal responsibility. In Rei’s words, Shouto’s not bound by his blood. His DNA and family circumstances don't doom him to continue the cycle of abuse. Shouto has agency to change his fate. He has the ability to make his own choices, and he can choose to be a better person than his old man.

From that point on, then, Shouto does just that. He rejects violence as a way to solve problems, and instead attempts to tackle them his own way. If up until the sport festival he only cared about excelling and coming on top of his competition, now he starts developing his own opinions on heroism and ethics. He decides that he doesn't want to be powerless again, like when he was five and Rei got unwell and then taken away from him. Swearing to become a hero who can actually help others, he vows to not let people within his reach slip away from him if he can do something about it.

This is why, for example, when he senses Tenya going down a dark path, he follows him till Hosu and offers him the same words that helped him. Choose the man you want to become. Don’t go down the path of revenge. Choose to be the bigger person, and stick to it. Even when you let yourself down and betray your values, pick yourself back up and do better from then on.

This philosophy is called personal responsibility. That is, the belief that individuals cause their actions and can thus control their destiny instead of passively suffering it. According to it, when individuals fail to meet expected standards, they don’t have to look for an external cause to blame, but direct that blame toward themselves and take accountability.

To Shouto, making your own choices and taking responsibility for them is comforting. It reassures him that cruelty is not automatically inherited like he originally feared, but always a choice. Thanks to this change in mindset, he was able to come to terms with his legacy and make peace with himself, so it goes without saying that he'd become an advocate for it. It helped him, so it should help others as well.

Right?

The problem with personal responsibility

Here, Shouto's clearly trying to push his brother to live by the same philosophy. This speech bubble is an obvious callback to what Dabi said during the war arc, equating his flames to their dad's to make Endvr partially responsible for Dabi's actions. This is Shouto's response. Dad went crazy, our home was shit, but you cannot blame your actions on someone else because at the end of the day it was you who burned those people to death, not father.

Now, I want to point out that Shouto's not condemning his brother's actions from a perceived higher moral ground. He's not saying "You're irredeemably evil and deserve punishment for your actions that I shall now deliver." I believe that interpretation to be a misreading of Shouto's character. It contradicts Shouto's core belief, the idea that people can change, and can choose to do a complete 180, because Shouto himself did one too.

However, I also think that Shouto’s words fall completely flat here for two reasons that I will now explain.

For one, Shouto’s demanding that Dabi owns up to his actions, but at the same time he’s giving Endvr a free pass to keep ignoring his eldest for the greater good.

Now, don’t get me wrong. In the context of a war, it makes sense for Enji to be deployed against AFO. They need his manpower. The hero ranks were thinned down in the previous war and Endvr remains one of their strongest fighters. Shouto knows this, of course. Back in chapter 56, during the first internship arc, he recognized that his father has the judgment and insight worthy of a top hero, so Shouto recognizes that Endvr’s experience in the field is valuable when it comes to hero work.

So, it makes tactical sense for Endvr to be there instead of facing his son. But thematically? Not so much. The central conflict in Endvr’s character arc is that he always runs away instead of facing the consequences of his actions, and that he hides behind hero work to skip out on his duty as a parent.

And the thing is, the narrative draws attention to this as well. Insert meme here: [heartbreaking: the worst person you know just made a great point]

AFO is a piece of shit, and he always greatly delights in twisting the truth, but what he says here is right on the money. Endvr IS dumping the weight of cleaning up his own messes onto his youngest son. The fact that Shouto apparently suggested it doesn't change the fact that Endvr is still doing what he’s always done: punching villains instead of caring about the wellbeing of his family.

Now, I don’t want to be unfair to Shouto’s character and apply selective reading. It’s not ooc for Shouto to be okay with Enji dealing with AFO, per se. Connecting to what I said earlier, Shouto believes that a hero’s moral imperative is that of saving lives. By his own admission, Enji is a shitty father but a passable hero. One with good battle sense, at the very least. When he’s fighting, he knows what he’s doing. It’s not a stretch to think Shouto wants Enji to stop AFO because he knows the threat AFO presents to civilians, and doesn’t want more innocents to die in the crossfire. In this light, Shouto would be okay with letting him do his usual Number One shtick for the same reason he was okay with letting his dad stay a hero without ever exposing him for the abuse: Enji is a good hero, and what he does helps people.

However, my problem is not with Shouto as a character, but with the overall narrative of the Todofam, and how it often fails to deliver on its own set up.

Before this arc, there was a great deal of focus on how Shouto got his father to agree that they would save Touya together. But in 351 we find out what that actually means: how is Enji defeating AFO in any way related to rescuing Touya? It’s not. Splitting up to fight on two different sides of a battle is the opposite of what doing something “together” means.

Now, I would understand the point of choosing to do things this way if splitting up had been Endvr’s choice, or otherwise the result of the heroes’ planning. Putting it like that works with the narrative. It shows that the old guard of heroes still isn’t ready for systemic change, because they’re not ready to critically re-examine their own flaws. It works because unlike them, the kids already have a set up as the harbingers of that change, the ones who will succeed even if no one believes that rescuing villains is even possible.

But if Endvr wanted to face Touya and only didn’t because Shouto insisted he shouldn’t, then Endvr’s cowardice gets reframed as mindfulness of Shouto’s wants. What is effectively continued neglect of his eldest suddenly gets framed as heroism instead, because Enji’s doing something morally good — he’s saving Japan from AFO.

Besides, showing Endvr’s reluctance to agree with this plan despite the fact that he does go along with it, only cheapens the narrative of personal responsibility further. Why is Dabi being ethically condemned as selfish for choosing to murder, but suddenly letting Endvr skip out on his parental duty is not his choice but Shouto’s and thus completely out of Endvr’s control?

See what I mean? It’s pretty ineffective writing all around. Endvr is getting sympathy, but Dabi isn’t, when in fact, both should be held accountable for their actions.

But I mentioned two reasons why I think Shouto’s words to Dabi fall flat. The second is because of this other line:

The heroes seem to be working under the assumption that villains can be “stopped” so long as they are talked into changing their methods. Toga would be a “normal” girl with a crush if she just stopped hurting the people she loves. Shigaraki would be the poor, misunderstood victim that Nana left behind, if he stopped it with all the atrocities. Dabi would return to being Touya-nii, if he stopped being a “baka aniki” and dragging people in his range of destruction.

But of course, it’s not that simple. Putting it like that ignores that the issue the villains are fighting against is systemic. It cannot be solved by simply changing the actions of individuals.

The official release translated Shouto’s line as “you’re not taking any more innocent lives.” However, for the sake of this argument, I want to focus on the nuance of that adjective. In his original phrasing, Shouto calls them “kankeinee hitotachi,” which actually means “people who have nothing to do with [something].” Coupled with what he says next, “aim all your rage at us,” the meaning becomes clear. He’s urging his brother to stop involving people who had no role in their family drama in his revenge plot. Dabi’s issues are with their father and him, so he should just focus on taking it out on them alone. In this sense, everyone else is innocent. Unrelated to the problem.

Now, that is simultaneously true and false. On the one hand, Dabi’s victims weren’t personally responsible for the abuse Dabi went through (with maybe the exception of the Flower man in AFO’s lab, assuming he’s dead). On the other hand, though, people outside of the Todoroki family aren’t completely blameless, and acting as though they are is the exact wrong thing to say if Shouto wants to actually connect with his brother.

See, the thing is, the public that watched Dabi’s broadcast put their faith onto Endvr despite being an abuser but called his victim annoying for wanting justice. As I went over above, they don’t care about the people that the system screws over in order to maintain the peace for the masses. In fact, they want to restore that system and go back to feeling reassured that the heroes have everything under control.

I’m stressing this because Shouto and Dabi need different things to come to terms with their trauma. While Shouto might be satisfied with letting his dad keep his job because to him change is demonstrated through personal penance, Dabi wants more accountability from the system itself, because they all backed up his dad. Even after learning the truth about the domestic violence, they all chose to bury their heads into the sand and called Dabi a liar. Because Endvr is good at his job, they all collectively decided to give him a second chance without consequences. In fact, the country doesn’t even know that Enji vowed to atone to his family. He never told them. During the press conference, he just asked them to believe in him as a hero, and they all did. For all the public knows, Enji could still be an abuser. How are they not enablers?

The issue is systemic. Individuals might choose personal responsibility but that won’t make a dent if the system itself is corrupted.

Does this mean Dabi should have killed people? Does it mean he’s justified? Of course not. His trauma doesn’t give him a free pass for killing. Shouto’s right that he shouldn’t have murdered randos just to get back at their father, but he’s wrong in thinking that only villains should own up to their violence. Heroes should as well. The whole system could use some more acceptance of their own flaws.

Lately, I get the sense that heroes are determined to “stop” the villains before they can save them. While this sounds perfectly logical on paper, I find the resulting approach to be ineffective. I agree that the villains need stopping; this rampage is both destructive and self-destructive. It benefits no one. But the heroes entered this second war with a mindset of soldiers when their goal (or at least, the OG trio goal) is more akin to that of social workers. Deku wants to save Shigaraki from AFO’s abuse. Shouto wants to get past Dabi’s hatred and bring Touya home for noodles. Ochako wants Toga to smile instead of crying. Their goals involve compassion, but their methods employ suppression. They’re simply not listening yet. And that’s the problem.

Utilitarian heroism might’ve solved problems in the past, but it’s outdated for the evolved problems the story’s depicting now. To make an easy example, punching Shigaraki and telling him how bad a victim he is won’t resolve the possession, because AFO’s control on Shigi is based on his resentment. The more Shigaraki feels misunderstood by society and suppressed for the greater good, the more his hatred will fester and make AFO’s control stronger. Similarly, all League members were shunned repeatedly, and clam up when faced with even more self-righteous blame.

The heroes need to work on compassion, not violence, if they want to break this impasse.

This chapter was an overall failure of communication and reinforced some of the unjust scapegoating on the villains. And you know what’s frustrating about it? That all this miscommunication would vanish if everyone just stopped bringing up each other’s actions as moral ammo to fire at their opponents and instead attempted to relate to each other more.

For example, I explained above that Dabi sees Shouto as an empty shell without personal convictions. He sees Shouto rely on others and thinks that makes him weak. He sees Shouto struggle to find his path as a hero and calls him a puppet for it, a doll on Endvr’s strings. But accepting that support is what allowed Shouto to get better and past the Earlyroki stage. While it’s true that for a time he lacked personal convictions, struggling with his identity was a big part of his inner growth and it got him where he is now.

During that time, Shouto let himself examine who he was without his father. Dabi never did. Lagging behind everyone for a while but ending up with more solid beliefs that are yours as a result is not a weakness. Ironically, the one who’s blindly imitating their father for lack of a sense of self outside of him is Dabi, not Shouto. He needs to get there like his little brother.

Hopefully, once they are done punching and yelling at each other, they’ll come to the same conclusion, too. In the meantime… eh. This chapter was just painful to watch, at least for me

#bnha meta #meta:dabi #Meta:todoroki #bnha 351 #my post #dabi #todoroki shouto #bnha spoilers

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originaldouble · 2 years

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my precious little vampire girl

#bnha #mha #lov #mva #himiko toga #bnha 351 #bnha vol 34

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bbq-hawks-wings · 2 years

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Title Here so I can talk about Shouto: 351-353, Part Two

Oh hey! The manga's good again!!! But anyway-

SHOOOOOOUTOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!

Now listen, for a while I know a lot of people were really concerned about how Hori would set up the final conflict between these two, but - listen! No, listen - it's actually really good. Or at least I'm going to argue why it's good from a storytelling perspective.

The character drama portion of this fight is phenomenal because the characters are all aligned exactly where they should be. I don't know if I could more reasonably balance everything. We have power set/limits, motivation to see the fight through, and individual motivation for being in the fight to begin with to consider when it comes to approaching it.

Dabi has the max fire power limit known of all three at the time. He also has no care or consideration for his life and so personal preservation limits are not a concern for him. Whoever goes up against him will have to have the power set, durability, and drive to put Dabi down for good or he'll just keep coming back.

Endeavor can't match Dabi's firepower, nor does he have the strength of heart to put down the twisted phantom his son has become. If Endeavor were to face Dabi, he would lose. While he would be personally deserving of it, Japan needs him alive so he can face threats facing all of them. Someone else has to do it.

Enter Shouto: Willing, able, and determined to see this difficult task through. The entire conflict with Dabi is different from his perspective. He's not detached from it - far from it, but even with the talk of sharing hot noodles with his brother he seems to be able to separate the different facets of this conflict. Yes, this is his brother, and his family, and Toya was born directly into the torment they all endured of which Dabi was a direct result. As someone who went through that and could see himself becoming another Dabi in another life, Shouto genuinely feels sympathy for Toya.

However, he also recognizes that Dabi - who by Dabi's own admission is not the same person as Toya - is a mass murderer and existential threat to humanity as a whole at this point by virtue of being such a powerful opponent directly aiding AFO and Shigaraki in their wanton destruction of society. Shouto understands that his first priority is the safety of everyone else, and he won't be emotionally compromised about it. Nevertheless, he'll try to understand Dabi and get closure as much as he reasonably can, if at all possible.

Understandably, Dabi doesn't want any of it. He wants to taunt and get a rise out of Shouto to see him suffer while he kills him out of spite, and he tries everything he can think of to do it. He attacks Shouto's character, calling him his father's ideal puppet. He attacks his ideals as being one of those kids who admire All Might but nonetheless runs to the safety of those stronger than him to protect him in UA. He attacks Shouto for being gifted with all the things one could think of to be powerful and successful, and yet he struggled to find himself and get his feet under him for a very long time; and in the meantime he had to lean on a lot of people, even to their own detriment. Dabi, every single time, attempts to make Shouto feel weak, inferior, and despair.

Yet every single time, Shouto has an answer for it because he's already had to face all of these accusations from having lobbed them against himself, first. He's already asked himself the hard questions about where he is, where he's been, where he's going, what he wants, what he's going to do, how he's gong to do it, and why he's going to do it that way - so he can counter Dabi's attempts to get under his skin; and that gave him the advantage he needed to be able to simply face the ghost of his brother head on.

He didn't show up to fight Dabi because he's his father's perfect mini-me; he's there because he wanted to stop Dabi from continuing his rampage because he truly aspires to the ideals of altruistic heroism that All Might embodied for him as a child. He also needed and does need the help of others, especially in the beginning when he was so lost in his pain that he forgot something as fundamental as the fact that he was his own person. But because his friends cared about him, and were patient with him, and gave him encouragement and room to grow and make mistakes, he got better and he got stronger; and with that in mind and the love and gratitude he has for his friends and support network he determined to put that new strength to use with a move of his own creation, specially designed to save everyone he loved from Dabi...

And how does he do it?

He embraced both halves of his abilities, using them in tandem with everything he's learned about his own power, and insulates his internal organs while stoking a charge of cold to expel instead of heat - starting by focusing on his heart. Don't mind me cryin' in the club.

This battle was equal parts a deeply personal turmoil for both brothers, but they both understood that the conflict had already grown far beyond just the two of them and their family history. This was a heated battle of ideals for the literal fate of the world with these brothers representing each side. That conflict was always personal, and it was always deeply painful and emotional for both of them; but it needed to end, and the die had been cast, and someone was going to lose in the process, and it was Shouto who was stronger and won in the end because he was the one who overcame himself and his pain.

AND THAT IS HOW YOU DO EPIC SHONEN FIGHTS WRAPPED IN OODLES OF CHARACTER DRAMA!!!!!!!!!

The Todoroki family drama has a lot of ups and downs in this series, but this is easily my top 3 moments of their interpersonal conflicts without a doubt! 😩👌

#bnha reviews #she speaks #bnha 351 #bnha 353 #bnha 352 #bnha chapter review #let's talk dabi

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itsnothingofinterest · 2 years

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So thought I had going over the last chapter; namely this line at the end:

What’dya thing the chances are for Dabi to go “y’know, you’re right, I should take this to dad” and then go fight Endeavor? Because I’m kind of thinking that’s a good place his character should go after this fight (presuming he’s not done after one chapter).

I mean I’ve posited the possibility that such an encounter might happen this arc before in my List of Ways This Arc Could Get Shaken Up; but now it’s almost like there’s actual set-up for it. Plus, Endeavor’s arc has kind of stopped in a way that’d be really disappointing to end on if he never confronts his son because he’s to busy being a hero; while facing his eldest head on would give that character arc the jump-start it’s long needed. Plus I still kind of think him dying would, in the right circumstances, be a good way to end his arc while advancing his sons’ (and also Hawks’) character arcs. Not that he needs to, simply facing Touya at all would be major progress.

Just wanted to throw the ideas put there.

#bnha #dabi #endeavor #shoto todoroki #touya todoroki #hawks #enji todoroki #bnha 351 #bnha 352

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rxdyzsoull · 2 years

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SHOUTOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

#todoroki shouto #todoroki touya #keeping up with the todorokis #mha 351 #bnha 351 #mha manga spoilers #bnha manga spoilers #🤚for mha😎#🤩hey i love you🤟

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vixx-ari · 2 years

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So I have made the mistake of reading the latest My Hero Academia chapter and...WOW. That is so much coverage that was finally revealed. So satisfyingly, hurtfully yet beautifully as well. The jealousy he feels towards Shoto is something I really recognize within myself, and I think lots of people with siblings can probably relate as well. The feeling of working pretty much your whole life to impress your parents and in comes your sibling and get all of it. For what? Being born? It seems to unfair. To see all that attention put into them and they don’t even need to do much, when the most you get is a, “erm...oh, that’s great sweetheart, just give me a minute I’m busy”. Even worse, to see them not even be GRATEFUL for this, for all this that you craved and still crave, as much as you deny it. You want to be SEEN. To be RECOGNIZED. To be LOVED. To have them say, “I’m so proud of you”. Yet you know you’ll never get that. All you can do is watch as your sibling gets all of it right in-front of your face, like eating a buffet in-front of a poor person. You want it, badly. And you deserve it in your mind. You deserve that love, recognition, ATTENTION. But you won’t get it. Cause they still won’t look at me. Look at me dad. Look at me. I can be cool aswell. I can do that too, I can! I can make you proud! Just look me, look at me please....

Look at me...

#this turned into a rant #sorry lmao #sorry not really sorry #touya todoroki #dabi todoroki #boku no hero academia #boku no hero manga #god help me #Not me kinning a mass murderer #But those human feeling are so...#Human!#thanks horikoshi #For ruining my life in the best way possible #Anyways #back to ranting about background characters #Not that anyone cares #bnha 351 #bnha chapter 351

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totoanime52 · 2 years

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I really hope that Touya can see his whole family at least one more time.

Please let us see that Todoroki family dinner become a reality!

#bnha 352 #todoroki shouto #todoroki touya #todoroki rei #todoroki natsuo #todoroki fuyumi #todoroki enji #please give this family some peace #they've been through enough #bnha 350 #bnha 351

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greenhappyseed · 2 years

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BnHA Ch. 351 - Review, parallels & comparisons

The word of the day is “neutralize.” Meaning to render ineffective or harmless by applying an opposing force or effort. Because that’s how Shoto is “stopping” Dabi, and no, not just in terms of the heat.

Yes, Shoto has developed his own unique ultimate move that uses both his ice and fire to blunt Dabi’s blue flames by bringing down the temperature (somehow).

But more importantly, in this chapter, Shoto neutralizes both Dabi and Endeavor on the emotional front. The kid who didn’t understand friendship is now able to navigate the emotional flames of the most angry, volatile men in the story. Dabi not only raises his quirk heat faster than Endeavor, but can switch from story mode to instant kill mode in a second. Meanwhile, Endeavor stoked his jealous rage against All Might for ~25 years (yes, I will talk All Might and “madness” later on, just wait for it……).

As Dabi unleashes his max output, exceeding Endeavor’s fire but lacking Endeavor’s control, he also goes straight for the emotional kill shot. (A technique he no doubt learned from how heroes try to break a villain’s spirit.) Dabi calls Shoto “kindling,” asks if he likes All Might, taunts him about scaring civilians, and calls him boy, half-baked puppet, and boy (again!) born with everything who is incapable of making himself into anything.

Does Shoto fight fire with fire? Nope. He lets Dabi use him as a punching bag physically (Dabi even punched Shoto right in Shoto’s scar.) He AGREES with Dabi’s insults, calling himself half-baked and a dummy. FYI, the official translation in English uses “dummy,” which can also mean “puppet” and makes for a nice pun, but in Spanish Shoto calls himself a fool or a moron, which I think is closer to the original Japanese based on fan translations. Finally, Shoto THANKS Dabi for watching him. In the war, Dabi was glad Shoto was raised with love, and here, Shoto is turning it around, saying he’s glad Dabi was watching him.

Shoto validates everything Dabi is unleashing. His immense power and speed that exceeds the #1 hero. His rage. His jealousy. All of it is valid except for one part….

…and it’s Dabi taking out his rage on innocent civilians. In fact, Shoto stays calm and doesn’t start yelling until the line “You’re not taking any more innocent lives!” But even then, he doesn’t tell Dabi to stop using his quirk or stop being angry. Shoto’s final line of the chapter is truly a masterclass in both empathy and heroism, demanding that Dabi direct his rage at “us.” Putting the trained pro heroes in the line of fire and placing their lives on the line instead of the citizens. Focusing Dabi’s mixed messages of hating hero society and revenge on Endeavor into one point. Shoto is absolutely surpassing All Might with this move, and it’s because Shoto is a caring person who is creative with all of his abilities; not just his max quirk output. Shoto is looking at his brother and understanding that Toya IS part of the same world (aren’t we all?) and is raging over being shut out. Shoto gets that the RIGHT way to put out a fire begins with understanding.

Oh, and Shoto does the same for Enji too. Shoto had insisted, since the hospital scene, that he and his father needed to stop Dabi together. But Enji couldn’t do it. He ghosted Shoto for weeks…then Shoto confronted him angrily and days later they reaffirmed their “togetherness” after Ochako’s speech. At this point, Enji did commit to togetherness with his sons, so when placed on separate battle teams, Endeavor’s reaction was to say no, he’s sticking with Shoto. (And maybe Enji wants a reason to tell All Might to shove it?)

Ultimately though, Shoto makes the decision to face Toya alone. He gets his father to back down by validating his strength as #1, saying Endeavor is the only remaining hero that can take on AFO. In doing so, Shoto reaffirms that Enji will lead against AFO just as “Midoriya” will lead against Shigaraki. Shoto may not say “OFA,” but he’s putting his father’s power on equal footing with the strongest quirk around — All Might’s quirk — because that’s the language Enji understands. Shoto then demonstrates he “recognizes and appreciates himself” (I’m quoting All Might here), reassuring his dad he CAN stop Toya and he WANTS to.

Yep, Enji is FINALLY showing he’s torn between the role of father and hero, and it’s Shoto pushing him to choose hero because Shoto knows that’s what his dad is good at, and that’s what’s best for everyone. I see it as Shoto’s personal sacrifice for the greater good. I also think Shoto knows his father doesn’t have the skill set to help Toya. Bakugo knows it; All Might knows it; the public knows it. Endeavor is not a reassuring, rescue type of hero. He’s a ruthless power hero who wants to win with strength. He doesn’t have the compassion Toya needs if Toya’s going to come home alive.

I also wonder if Shoto is giving Enji a pass here because he wants Enji’s true atonement to be facing his family “together,” and that can’t happen if Enji and Toya fight to the death. Perhaps that’s why Shoto redefines “togetherness” to mean “working together as part of one larger plan,” not a literal side-by-side fight. Shoto is reassuring Enji (and himself) they are, in fact, fighting together and stopping Toya together, so their promises to each other will be fulfilled — even on separate battlefields.

Ok, NOW it’s time to talk about All Might, because he’s at the root of Endeavor’s jealousy. (Aside from my unending brain rot, I suspect we’ll talk about All Might a lot more as a central figure as we head into the final battles.)

This chapter begins with a description of Endeavor’s ultimate move, Flashfire Fist. And immediately thereafter, the omniscient narrator informs us that Flashfire Fist drove Endeavor to understand his limitations. It’s not spelled out here, because we should all know it by now: Endeavor’s ultimate move wasn’t enough to help him surpass All Might, and the resultant jealousy and heat produced a “haze” that warped his view of his sons, leaving him unable to see them clearly — and preventing them from seeing each other.

Toya internalized his father’s goal of surpassing All Might, and that meant watching and observing All Might’s every move (just like his father). For example, Toya watches All Might on TV with Fuyumi, even without Enji around. Toya knew that All Might’s success was driving his father to discard Toya and have more children. The double page spread from Ch.302 is devastating, showing All Might grinning in between Natsuo’s and Shoto’s birth — and Toya watching from the top of the page. Additionally, we know Rei would show Shoto videos of All Might (so Toya might have seen that) and Shoto would watch them alone too. Somewhere along the line, All Might won over young Shoto. He never watched All Might out of jealousy or to glean competitive intelligence, but because he found All Might reassuring. In this chapter, more than ever, Shoto is inspired by All Might’s style of heroism — selfless, reassuring, raging only on behalf of others. Using his flames, yes, but as part of a unique move only Shoto can do, because only he holds that power. Toya, on the other hand…..

Theoretically, Toya should hate All Might because Toya wanted to make Enji proud, and Enji would only be proud of his child surpassing All Might. Toya refused to let AFO train him because he wanted so badly to be with his father, learning to be better than All Might. When Toya couldn’t return to his childhood home, he watched Enji from afar and taught himself Enji’s moves. Can someone who spent his life imitating Endeavor appreciate what All Might stands for? Does Toya admire heroes of any kind? Or does he simply want his father’s validation above all else (as Rei asked him)

As an adult, Dabi started following Stain, who supports All Might and hero society generally, just with a very rigid purity test for who is a true hero. Stain placed All Might at the top, and deemed Kamino to be hero holy ground. Stain also judged Izuku and Shoto as potentially worthy of the title “hero” (which Dabi might know if he indeed he saw the Hosu fight as he said in Ch.349). For all he rails against hero society, it’s pretty easy to get Dabi off that topic and talking about his personal crusade. He even points out that this war is about people with unresolved feelings, like himself. So, does Dabi actually believe in true heroes? Does he believe in a hero society, just “purified” of abusers like his father?

Unlike AFO!Shigaraki and Enji, Dabi doesn’t seem to hold All Might responsible for his misfortunes. But he’s still driven to “surpass” All Might to please his father. Upon landing in Kamino, Dabi burns the “hero must die” sign, then flies up above the hair tufts of the statue. From there he launches some attacks, monologues his backstory, and attacks again. He begins melting the statue on the left side, starting with the “victory” arm and then the left side of the head and face — exactly where Shoto’s scar is (the second time Dabi aims for that area in this chapter). That’s when Dabi taunts Shoto and asks if he’s an All Might fan.

But it’s really this final panel that gets me. Precisely when Dabi is talking about how he envies Shoto, and how Shoto was “born blessed,” Horikoshi shows us the statue of All Might’s left side melting. As Dabi exposes his jealousy of “natural born” Shoto, he melts the born-quirkless All Might. As Dabi critiques Shoto for needing friends, he melts the Symbol of Peace Loneliness. [Insert task failed successfully meme.]

Everything that Dabi is jealous of Shoto having are things All Might didn’t have. Dabi and All Might were both born with the “wrong” body for what they wanted to achieve. Both had to grow their powers and train alone after disappointing an overbearing and abusive father figure who only cared about their fighting skill and not the whole person. To the extent Dabi does follow Stain and believe in “pure” heroes, All Might does too. All Might complained about heroes who only wanted fame and glory way back in Chapter 2. And both have a grudge against AFO. This makes me more confident that we will see Toya add his considerable strength to the OFA fire, converting his flames from Endeavor’s murderous ones to the heroic blaze.

Finally… there’s a thread of madness/insanity connecting All Might and Izuku to Enji, Toya, and Shoto. I’m not entirely sure what it means yet, tbh. I think maybe the unifying thread centers on giving up on yourself vs being willing to die to prove your ideals, but there’s also an element of watching/being watched. I hadn’t thought before this meta of how Enji, Toya, and Shoto all watch All Might, but IMO it’s creepier than Stain, Nighteye, & Izuku’s obsessive fanboying.

Will we get a third All Might-Endeavor talk? Will Toya meet Stain or All Might? Or, knowing how dramatic Dabi can be — and how much he wants to bring down fake hero society — does Dabi have dirt on All Might? In the face of Shoto’s new move, what can Dabi do?

In conclusion: All Might is melting but Dabi’s piercings are intact. This is fine.

#bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #mha #bnha #my hero academia #boku no hero academia #mha 351 #bnha 351 #dabi #toya todoroki #shoto todoroki #todofam #all might #bnha meta #mha meta #stain #hero killer stain

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