My rant about volume 34 (and Star and Stripe)
OK BUCKLE UP because I’m annoyed. I usually try to find SOMETHING positive to say, but no. Volume 34 has got me so pissed it’s not even funny at this point.
If you like Star and Stripe and love this new volume, more power to you. I'm glad Horikoshi released something you enjoyed. This is just my opinion, and you are in no way required to agree. I just needed to get this off my chest.
Tangent incoming:
When the Star fight happened in the manga, the most I could compliment it was that the fight was cool to look at. But Star as a character DEEPLY bothered me for the following reasons:
She was introduced with basically no set up (because a single silhouette isn’t enough this late in the game. At this point, we should know every character unless they are a random background dude)
She existed as a plot device to solve a problem that could have been solved a million different ways (if you want to nerf Shigaraki, just say that being woken up early caused him to lose some quirks! Also, if you need an excuse for why pros around the world aren’t helping, JUST MAKE SOMETHING UP)
She did not exist outside of her purpose as a plot device (Re-Destro was also a very obvious plot device to give Shigaraki power, but at least he existed beyond that. He had his own thing going on and tied into larger story aspects, like his ties to Destro)
Her whole arc felt like grinding the story to a halt only to give us information that doesn’t matter now (at least with Nagant, the more we learned about her past the more we implicitly learned about the HPSC, Hawks, and hero society as a whole. Star’s backstory only told us about her and now it doesn’t matter)
The whole arc also felt pointless because we KNEW she (a random side character) wouldn't be the one to kill Shigaraki (the main villain). It's one thing to have these build-up fights throughout the series (Deku vs. Overhaul, Shigaraki vs. Re-Destro) even if we know the main characters are safe, but Star's fight came so close to the end that we shouldn't have had any new characters introduced at that point, AND it felt like a waste of time to pretend there was even a chance she would win
The only positive thing I will say about her fight (besides the fact that it looked cool) is that, for the situation Hori put himself in, he wrote the best way to get out of it. Having her die with her quirk would have felt even more pointless, and having Shigaraki get her quirk would have felt too contrived and made him way too op, so yeah. For where he put the story, Horikoshi found a clever way out of it. (But, like I said before, he could have nerfed Shigaraki in a variety of other ways).
Ok onto my issues with the volume
I 100% understand why she is on the cover this volume, but I don’t understand why she’s the ONLY person on the cover. Like yes, as a major player in this arc she should definitely feature, but make it a sort of “good vs evil” thing. Put AFO or Shigaraki on there. I saw someone say it should have mirrored Nagant’s cover which YES! Star and Nagant were already parallels, give them similar covers!
Instead, Star gets a solo cover. You want to know the other characters who have received solo covers? Shoto (5), Bakugo (7), All Might (11), Deku (15), Mirio (17), Shigaraki (25), and Dabi (30). All very important, and all justified (I mean, I think volume 15's cover sucks, but that's just me. Deku's the main character though, so his presence is justified). You know who hasn't received a solo cover yet? ANY OF THE GIRLS. That's right: Star and Stripe, the character who died 6 chapters after her introduction, is the first female character to get a solo cover
But no, Star didn't only get the cover, she also got the spine. I can hear you asking "why does that matter?" and I'll tell you!
In the early days of MHA volumes, the spines tried to feature as many 1A kids as possible. Usually they tried to put kids on volumes where they did something (like Aoyama being on volume 10 because he saved Tokoyami), but sometimes that didn't work (like most of the Overhaul volumes having students who weren't even present). Still, when they could, they tried to put people on volumes where they were important. The only non-1A characters they put on spines prior to running out were All Might, Aizawa, and Mirio.
After they ran out of 1A kids, they began putting villains, Pro Heroes, and Nejire (so, like Mirio, they're putting other UA students). Everyone they chose was also a main character or, at least, a major enough character that we know them (Nezu, Mt. Lady, Nejire).
Here's the main thing though: they never put a character on the spine twice. Look at something like volume 27; Twice and Hawks are both equally important, but Twice was on the spine in volume 24, so the obvious choice was to go for Hawks. You can also look at something like volume 30. The obvious choice would have been Dabi, but Horikoshi went with Nejire because he is likely saving Dabi for a future volume.
So now let's look at Star and Stripe. She's definitely featured prominently in volume 34 and she hasn't been on a spine before, but she's not a main character. The worst part? She never will be because she'd dead. She can't gain more importance after the fact because she's gone! She has contributed everything she could to the story.
I actually excused this choice when I first saw it because I assumed the volume would end of 337 (the "you can still be a hero" panel) and I reasoned that "yeah, there was no one else that could have been on the spine. Shigaraki and Aoyama already featured, AFO is probably being saved for later, I get why they did this."
But now we know the volume ends at 339 and you know who features PROMINENTLY in 339 (and at the end of 338)? HATSUME. We've known her from the beginning and she's had plenty of plot relevant moments, so she would have been a great character to have on the spine.
Now, you could argue that Hatsume will be on a future volume spine since she is helping during the final fight, and you'd be right, but there are so many characters who have yet to be featured on spines that you could always have found a replacement for Hatsume if she had been used here. You could also just pull what volume 31 did and put a random character on the spine despite them not being in the volume.
Less important, but it also annoys me that the volume is called "America" (the English version will likely be named "United States of America"). I personally think "parting gift" would have been an amazing volume title since it's a little more "in touch" with the spirit of the volume, but whatever. Nothing we can do at this point. I just felt like "America", when combined with the cover and spine, was just icing on the cake.
It's just so weird that this much attention is being given to Star because she's not a main character and never will be. We may be told the aftereffects she had on Shigaraki, but Star herself won't do anything else.
Star's whole arc felt like something from a different series, and now her volume feels like that too. Like she's a side-story that takes place separate from the main events of MHA. Points for consistency, I guess.
Thanks for letting me vent
Update: The back cover is Aoyama. I get why, he's IMPORTANT. This is very much his volume too, and I actually wrote about why this picture has a secret meaning but like... Congrats to Shigaraki and AFO for not being represented ONCE in this entire volume. It's honestly impressive at this point. I hope they're on the inner jacket, but at this point my hopes are so low I wouldn't be surprised if it were Hagakure
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