#but every time I go back to that third kacchan silhouette and it's like damn though | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

makeste · 5 years

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on mysterious vestiges and intricate OFA time-travel plots

okay so I have done a lot of thinking about this over the course of the past week and have finally reached a point where I feel like I’ve more or less organized my thoughts, so here goes lol.

first off, a quick clarification; my lack of commentary on this in the recaps was due to my complete and utter failure to pay attention. sometimes I miss some pretty big details. in this case, I was so caught up in analyzing the OFA Avatars we could see that I failed to pay much notice to the two silhouettes aside from checking if either of them looked to be female. it didn’t occur to me to look for similarities to characters we already knew, because that wasn’t even a possibility in my head. obviously these two characters died years and years ago, so there’s no way they could possibly look familiar! logic! lol. (and off-topic, but I like to think this lends more weight to the Dabi = Touya theory because it just goes to show you that if you dismiss a possibility out of hand, your brain can completely ignore some pretty compelling evidence. so I think it is possible that Endeavor wouldn’t have recognized his grown up evil villain kid.)

anyway, so let’s start off by posting the silhouettes in question, from chapters 193 and 194:

and now some side-by-side comparisons. I’m going to start with Kiri first, mainly because I think the evidence isn’t as persuasive in his case.

like... I dunno. the shoulder pads are definitely similar, and an argument can be made that the silhouette clearly has something on their face that might be an upgraded version of Kiri’s faceguard. but that’s where the similarities end (and even with the faceguard, Kiri’s has a distinctly pointy shape that’s clearly more decorative than functional and which I believe is meant to emulate Crimson Riot’s distinctive pointy hairstyle. him changing up the look would defeat that purpose).

the hairstyle is very different. Kiri’s hair has a very pointy look to it whether he’s wearing it down in its natural state or gelled up in his usual spikes. a style like this would mean he’s grown it out to the point where his bangs are gone and it’s long enough to pull back completely with no hair coming loose on the sides. this would imply a significant timeskip prior to whatever is going on here. and that’s one thing I don’t see Horikoshi doing based on his interviews (though hey, who knows, I could be wrong).

lastly, there’s the matter of why Kirishima would be involved with OFA, story-wise. with Kacchan it makes some sense, since his story has been tied to Izuku’s from page one of the series, and over time his character has become increasingly connected to the OFA plot. Kiri, though, lacks any involvement in OFA matters as of now. he also lacks the personal connection to Izuku that Katsuki has; in fact he’s probably at least a good 5-6 characters down if I were to make a list of the 1-A students that Izuku is most closely connected to.

so given all this, for now I’m inclined to say that this figure is more than likely not Kirishima. as for who it might be instead, there’s a theory which I can’t find the link to (I’ll edit if/when I do) that it could be AFO’s masked bodyguard from chapter 193, which could be interesting and would make sense timeline-wise (if he was the second or third wielder). and their appearances do somewhat match up, although again it’s not exact.

aside from this, though, I have no current theories on their identity or why it’s currently being concealed. so for now, let’s move on to the other figure instead.

this last one is what sold me. with the other two images, I could be convinced that the similarities are just coincidence. we do, after all, have plenty of other characters with similarly spiky hair.

but for me, that last comparison goes past what can be considered a coincidental resemblance. here, take a look at it again, this time with the left image superimposed over the right:

this isn’t just “oh it looks kind of like his hairstyle/gauntlets/neck guard.” this doesn’t just resemble him; this is his exact profile. for Horikoshi to have drawn this and not been aware of the resemblance is frankly impossible. which means it must have been done intentionally.

besides which, there’s also the question of why he would keep the character’s identity hidden otherwise. if their appearance isn’t actually some sort of spoiler, then why hide it? I can’t think of any reason, which leads me to believe that it’s not just the hair, but the face as well. for whatever reason, this character design deliberately resembles Bakugou’s.

now granted, that doesn’t mean it actually is him. here are some other possibilities I can think of:

reincarnation (or hinted/implied reincarnation)

an ancestor of his

it’s not actually Kacchan, but whoever it is has a quirk that allows them to appear to others in the form of someone close to them, and so to Deku, they appear to be identical to Kacchan

some unrelated character that just happens to resemble him in a way which is intentional on Horikoshi’s part but coincidental in the story (possibly for humor purposes; “dsflkj he looks just like Kacchan how in the -- !?”)

however, I’ll be perfectly honest; none of these rings true to me. reincarnation doesn’t really seem to fit the tone of the series thus far. OFA itself is about as spiritual as we’ve gotten here. aside from that, we’ve steered pretty clear of metaphysical concepts and anything relating to religion, souls, afterlives, etc., so this would be a bit of a whiplashy concept to introduce at this point.

as for an ancestor, that seems more possible (particularly since we’ve seen that genes run incredibly strong on Mitsuki’s side of the family), but also would involve more coincidence than Horikoshi usually tends to work with. Katsuki’s ancestor just happened to be one of the original wielders of OFA, and now half a dozen generations down the line, his descendant just so happens to develop close personal ties to not one but two other OFA users. I mean, it could happen, but it’s odd, and I don’t really see the necessity of throwing in a detail like this, and it’s not often that Horikoshi does something simply for the hell of it without having some kind of purpose.

regarding option #3... it’s possible? weird, but possible. I don’t have any real rebuttals for it, other than it’s just really weird. I really only listed this because the idea occurred to me and I wasn’t able to completely dismiss it lol.

and lastly, the full-blown coincidence option. the character just happens to look like Kacchan. now @interstellar-elf, I know you mentioned the possibility of Horikoshi reusing a character design from a previous series:

here’s an image of Nina for those unfamiliar (she shows up in chapters 4 and 5 of the series, which you can find on the usual manga reading sites, sometimes listed as Sensei no Baruji instead of Barrage):

anyways, here’s my issue with this though -- this character design has already been reused. with Kacchan himself (and Mitsuki). if Horikoshi wanted to dust off an old design, I don’t think he would choose one so similar to an existent character, let alone one of the principal characters in the series. he has plenty of other available designs that aren’t going to invite the same comparisons. he already has two characters with strikingly similar appearances to Nina’s; why create a third? and again, why hide it if it doesn’t actually have some sort of plot importance?

all this leads me to believe that the most likely explanation is the simplest one: the shadowed figure that looks like Kacchan... is Kacchan.

and I know that I said “simplest” just now, but obviously a revelation like this would be anything but. how and why would Kacchan possibly be chilling out in Deku’s OFA dream presented as one of the 8 previous OFA avatars?? and here is my best answer: I have no idea. lol. this is beyond strange. chances are that any explanation I can come up with is going to end up being wildly off base.

having said that, the rest of this post is basically just wild conjecture. because if it is Kacchan, then there’s really only one possible explanation for how it would be possible:

time travel, bitches.

I know, I know. first off: is that even possible? but I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say yes. partly because all things are possible, because quirks; and partly because superhero comic storylines are fucking rife with motherfucking time travel. it’s a comic book staple. some of the most beloved storylines (Days of Future Past, anyone?) hinge on it. so yeah, sure, why not? let’s say it’s a thing.

and so now we finally get to the part of the post where I basically go nuts and basically just describe to you all the elaborate time travel plot that I came up with. will this be what happens in the series? almost certainly not. I’ll be honest, I have no idea what’s actually going to happen. not the slightest clue where this is leading. this all still seems really weird to me. but what I can tell you is what kind of plot I would come up with if I was the one writing it, and basically just doing what I want but whilst trying to fit the plot within the existing canon and what we know.

so here goes!

AFO comes up with a plan to undo the whole “All Might melted off my face” thing -- nay, the whole “All Might” problem to begin with -- by sending someone back in time to halt the OFA cycle by killing one of the past wielders. (not sure why they wind up going so far back in order to do this; maybe they only have minimal control of the actual time travel and kind of have to work with what they’ve got)

it more or less works, but Deku and Kacchan are caught up within the time travel user’s quirk and thus spared from the Back to the Future-like effects. but somehow they’re able to see what happens, and they realize that the bad guy somehow altered the past and they have to figure out what (s)he did and stop them

whilst in the past, Deku spots someone he recognizes from his OFA dream (most likely the guy standing in between All Might and Trench Coat, by process of elimination) and is all “oh snap that’s one of my OFA homies”

he then realizes “oh shit Time Travelling Bad Guy is trying to fucking kill this dude” and so he and Kacchan try to stop it

they are only partially successful; TTBG succeeds in mortally wounding OFA IV (oh yeah, forgot to mention that it turns out this is the fourth OFA user). but, in order to keep the OFA line from dying out, OFA IV passes the quirk along to Kacchan (because it has to be him, because Deku already has it and no one wants to experiment with what might happen if someone gives you OFA twice. and also, it’s possible that at this point the mysterious shadowy figure in Deku’s head has cleared up some and he realizes that it is Kacchan, and that this is all part of some closed time loop/predestination paradox bullshit lulz)

so now Kacchan is all “wtf am I supposed to do with this shit now, though, I obviously can’t stay here in the fucking past forever, we’ve gotta figure out a way back” and Deku is like “yeah”

and something something plot coincidence they end up running into OFA VI (because Kacchan is of course OFA V, since it’s the only number that’s part of his name), a.k.a. Trench Coat, whom Deku also recognizes and is like “OH SHIT, KACCHAN, GO AND GIVE IT TO THAT GUY”

so they do, thus succeeding in preserving OFA so that Nana, All Might, and then Deku can one day receive it, and thus restoring the timeline back to its natural “AFO gets his face potato-ized by All Might whether he likes it or not” state

and something something they figure out a way back (or maybe the time travel quirk just wears off, maybe they only had 24 hours or some shit like that), The End

except not quite because lol now Deku’s got a version of Kacchan just chilling out in his head, so that’s fun. and then the one thing that I don’t really like about this theory: the fact that this means he’ll end up getting Kacchan’s quirk. though maybe he’ll just avoid using it since it doesn’t feel right. or maybe he can’t use it without injuring himself since his palms don’t have the same resistance to said quirk that Kacchan’s do. or something like that. or maybe he somehow doesn’t get the quirk after all for whatever reason, but that seems less likely though

aaand that’s it. honestly, this would be a lot of fun but it also seems... how to put this... wildly indulgent, lol. like, this would be a dream arc for me. so for that reason alone I’ve got a lot of doubts. and also I have doubts because it feels like something out of Star Trek. not quite sure that this would fit in with the general tone of the series. mostly it’s just me throwing ideas out there. but hey, it’s fun, so.

anyways, so this post ended up being so much longer than I originally intended, but tl;dr: whatever the case ends up being, I think that one silhouette likely is Bakugou, and the most likely explanation is that some sort of time travel is involved. other than that I really don’t have much of a clue lol. if you guys have thoughts hit me up!

#bnha #boku no hero academia #bakugou katsuki #kirishima eijirou #midoriya izuku #bnha meta #bnha theory #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #makeste reads bnha #tbh there's no explanation for any of this that isn't intensely weird #the whole thing is just totally bizarre #I keep trying to come up with alternate explanations #but every time I go back to that third kacchan silhouette and it's like damn though #that's him!!#it's just so out there #guess we'll see #bak-u-go

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