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destinygoldenstar · 2 months

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I Analyzed The Ninjago Movie Instead Of Sleeping

I have real mixed feelings on this movie. But not for the reasons you might think from a fan of the TV show.

The movie didn’t NEED to be connected to the show. And it clearly wasn’t trying to.

It was meant to be an AU in a way.

(If you look at the behind the scenes one of their original rewrites was a plot of them going back in time to save Lloyd’s dad from becoming the villainous figure he is in the present day.)

So I can forgive the inaccuracy so long as it could stand on its own as a proper story.

It doesn’t do that.

If you DON’T compare it to the show:

You got a movie with SOME good jokes, amazing animation, (SERIOUSLY THIS MOVIE LOOKS BEAUTIFUL AND VISUALS ALONE ARE A CHEFS KISS TO ME) but is so strangely paced that it feels like the movie starts at the middle of the story and never shows the beginning, and feels like a completely different movie halfway through, and is also very choppily edited.

(I even double checked a clip of the movie just to prove my point there: When Lloyd uses all his dragon mech weapons on Garmadon, they play the exact same sound effect and explosion, just with different angles, SIX TIMES. FSM WAS THAT EDITOR HUNG OVER WHEN DOING THEIR JOB THAT DAY?! And that’s just one example I’ve got. I think this was the first time EVER when I was in a movie theater and I distinctly remember asking “What is wrong with the editing here? Who thought this was good editing?? Who thought this was appropriate in any way???” So I thank this movie for giving me such a memory and making me value good editing.)

You also got a world that isn’t very well fleshed out, characters that the movie chooses to not focus on except the main character and the main villain. And you got a movie that tells its audience it’s okay to forgive your parents that neglected you and are active terrorists even if they earned or done absolutely no redemption whatsoever.

I mean Garmadon in this movie BETRAYS them and leaves them to rot so he could terrorize the city again at the end. Then gets eaten by the cat. Then Lloyd forgives him. Idk what more you want me to say.

I’m not gonna act like Crystalized did it any better though. Pick your poison.

But then you got fans of the show. The people who watched the show since kids (that includes me). Who are naturally bias towards the shows lore and characterization…

OOOOOOHHH boy…

I don’t hate EVERY portrayal of the ninja in the movie as much as other people. I actually think there’s some good ideas for an AU version of these characters here. Problem is the movie never does anything with them.

Well, I say I don’t hate every portrayal, the one I truly cannot stand is Zane’s.

There’s just so much wrong with how they portrayed Zane that it just does not work. Not as an adaptation of the character. Not in any way that makes sense for this universe and is actually kinda insulting.

There’s no other robots in this city. (Like there are in the show) Why is Zane the only one and why is he in high school? Why would Wu ever pick a robot to be a ninja?

In the show the reason is pretty simple: Wu didn’t know at the time.

But everyone knows in the movie. What’s movie Wu’s excuse?

There’s also in terms of personality.

Keep in mind later seasons of the show have the same issues, so I’m talking about what it was at the time of the movie.

Zane’s whole robot identity is crucial to his character. The show introduced him as ‘the strange one’. As he couldn’t understand social cues, took things very seriously, didn’t share the same sense of humor as the rest of the team, had a hard time displaying his emotions, and bonded with things the others didn’t and excelled at certain areas like cooking.

He’s a character that connected to a lot of neurodivergent people in the audience who could relate to him. No he’s not intentional autistic rep, but one that definitely mattered to the people that headcannoned him as such.

(Also helps that they introduce other robot characters later that clearly don’t have the same characteristics he does. So really it depends on what you see.)

So the reveal that he was a robot was such a huge deal to not just the plot but to him as he finally got a concrete definition of what he is and who he is. And the show NEVER decides to say “You know, it would be so much better if you were a human!”

“Why can’t you just be normal?!”

That’s part of why I personally can’t stand fics that make Zane human. It just doesn’t feel right to me and misses the point of the character.

While I absolutely did not expect the movie to cover his… really heavy backstory with his inventor/father and how he outlived him, then got his memory and sense of identity wiped by him moments before death, which was meant to be an act of sympathy but would actually harm Zane’s mentality for the entire show…

The movie didn’t need to adapt that. For all we know, movie Zane could have a very happy backstory. And that would be fine. All I wanted was for the identity-seeking aspect of Zane’s character to matter in some way.

It didn’t.

The jokes they use for Zane in this movie are that of “Haha, he’s a robot. Isn’t it so funny that he doesn’t understand humanity very well?”

You know, something that in one episode of the show was portrayed as a BAD THING for people to think that of him! And that those people needed to learn to respect him for who he is!

And that’s the ONLY thing they do with him. Just robot jokes. Very stereotypical robot jokes.

Again, later seasons of the show are guilty of this too. So I will not act like the show is perfect.

For the reasons I listed, these are actually far more offensive and harmful than you think. Especially fans of the show watching the movie. Him being the only robot in this movie world makes me think even more that this actually is autistic coding… and that makes it so much worse.

Zane being a robot being equal to autism is its own discussion. And has its own problems on paper alone. Whether or not this is your headcanon of him, and whether or not you think this is good representation either way is up to your feelings and experiences. (Personally I think it’s better than some live action shows attempting this)

The others don’t even seem to trust or want to be around him that much. The others seem annoyed by him half the time. Like they’re only tolerating him because he’s on their team. Yeah they don’t say that but simple looks and gestures are enough to get that impression. And not once does anyone ever express Zane’s value in their team. That’s the ONE thing that would’ve had me forgive this all.

But there’s my rant. The others?

Jay is mostly fine. I think this personality for the movie is a neat AU concept. Yes show Jay is openly terrified of things and awkward, but if there’s something he wasn’t was SHY.

Movie Jay is a shy and nervous wreck. And you know what? For a high school AU, I think it works. It doesn’t erase Jay’s essence entirely. They at the very least kept the detail of his character that he’s a fast learner.

I appreciate that.

Cole is actually a REALLY interesting concept to me with the AU idea they gave.

On the surface it’s just ‘He’s a DJ and willingly old school’

But if you see the show, this is actually an ODD approach. Because show Cole has a very complicated relationship with music.

In the show, Cole’s parents thrived in singing and dancing. His father specifically was a performer that won several awards with his band ‘The Royal Blacksmiths’. After Cole’s mother passed away, his father proceeded to push his ideals and his passions onto his kid and pressuring him to become another version of him. It got stressful enough that Cole ran away from home and resented music, something that used to be a bond of family for them, and that’s where Wu found him and made him a ninja.

Throughout the show, Cole would open up to music again more, but it’s pretty gradual and a very subtle bit of character development for him throughout the show. He doesn’t need to say “I hate making music” to get the point across. He only starts the music route again whenever it has something to do with making a family member, blood or not, happy.

So movie Cole is interesting to me for that reason. Because at the start, he basically IS a mini Lou. His whole thing is music and it’s heavily reflected on his personality.

To the point where his element in the movie isn’t even animated or portrayed as earth like it’s supposed to, instead it’s… sound waves?

Weird choice. Interesting one though cause maybe that’s just how movie Cole functions.

So it’s “Oh, what if Cole DID follow in his fathers footsteps and DID want to become a musician?”

Very interesting approach for a completely different approach of character development.

But the problem? Just like the others, not utilized.

But I do think this was an interesting AU idea. Is it accurate to the show version of the character? No. But that’s kind of the point I think.

Then there’s the RGB siblings. This is where it gets kinda weird for me.

Thanks to the movie, a lot of my friends mistook Kai and Nya for being twins.

They are not twins in the show. Kai is older.

I don’t think that dents their characters too much in the movie so long as the same points were across. They’re the blood related brother and sister who raised themselves when their parents abandoned them, and climbed out of the ashes to protect each other, and found a new expansion on their family that didn’t have to be blood related to count.

These two, in different ways, are the support of the team and especially Lloyd. They’re usually the lancer characters that Lloyd goes to when he can.

I still say that about Nya even though originally, she was NOT a ninja, but rather was a Samurai with a mech of her own invention that acted as a Tuxedo Mask for the ninja. She didn’t become the water ninja until Season 5.

Which… I know the movie takes heavy inspiration from the first two seasons, the beginning, so for those who haven’t seen the show watching the movie… yikes I feel bad about the lack of a spoiler warning. Same goes for Zane being a robot.

But I think that’s also a factor into Kai, at the former half of this show, (again I’m talking pre-movie with this). He was the first character we were introduced to and we’re following in the show before Lloyd ever showed up. So naturally he’d be the one with the most attention to supporting the Green Ninja. Something that was very vital character development for him individually as well.

He’s the old school one. He’s the cool one. He’s the one who looks out for you even if you don’t want them to. He’s the one that will jump to anything without thinking. He’s also the one with the most value in tradition out of the ninja, as a blacksmith instead of a techie and as a traditional sword fighter rather than a fancy complicated weapon. He doesn’t get involved in tech willingly till he learns Twitter is a thing.

And in the movie, I think they took this characterization and said “Eh, give it to the girl instead.”

So most of show Kai’s character traits are now movie Nya’s. She’s the cool one with the most passion for traditional stories, she’s the one with arguably the most talks with Lloyd to calm him, and she’s pretty loud and brash in personality.

Not saying show Nya is not those things, she is. But the difference in the show was that Nya was HUGE on independence and doing her own thing. Being the only woman and a younger sibling in the main cast is actually a big deal to her. Not wanting to have her destiny be decided by the world or her brother as a damsel in distress or a sacrifice, she took to tech to invent her own ways of helping. Her own character.

Until destiny told her “Actually no, you can’t be the person you want to be. You have to stick to tradition that your mother had and be the water ninja.”

That’s… honestly a very brutally honest message that not a lot of people I see give credit for. Cause yes, expressing yourself and being your own person and being able to make your own fate is amazing… but it’s not always possible.

Sometimes you can’t be the person you want. Sometimes the world just will not let you. That doesn’t mean your identity is worthless, though. If you go with the flow, you can actually find that fate has plans for you that might not suck after all.

Basically a ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’ messaging there.

It’s part of why Nya’s whole thing throughout the show is her starting as a damsel trying to reinvent herself and her stereotype, and ending as a willing sacrifice and death of her whole identity that she doesn’t regret because she’s embraced the flow of life and purpose. Even if she forgets herself in the realm of spirituality, her loves one’s never will.

…Until Crystalized undid ALL of that. BUT LETS NOT.

Movie Nya just really isn’t any of that. She’s basically just her brother.

Which… I’m actually fine with. The show has some bumps in the road in execution of her story anyway. And they want the only female of this team to not be a background character cause that’s look bad. I totally understand that. And her being a sibling to Kai makes me forgive it a whole lot more cause it does make sense.

But again, we don’t know what their lives are like or if they have similar backstories to theirs in the show at all.

But where does that leave Kai?

Well his whole character in the movie seems to basically be “I’m the loud one and a complete klutz and meathead.”

Basically TD Tyler.

It’s a personality in the movie that bled in the show post movie. While I personally think it was not THAT bad in the show, Secrets of the Forbidden Spinjitsu made me go “Okay. I understand now.”

As for movie Kai, that’s really about it.

It really was an early indicator of just giving Kai’s character traits to other characters. Before the show was visibly doing it.

Cause movie Lloyd is also basically just Kai but with a different backstory and context to situation. But honestly, I DO see what they were going for here.

As the ONLY ninja to get ANY focus, this version of Lloyd is well explained on what his life is.

In the show, he’s an abandoned child in an abusive boarding school who heavily idolizes his father, Lord Garmadon, and runs away to become a super villain. Only for Destiny to tell him not to, and we see his true colors and that he just wanted his family together and to love him. Something that was… hard. Considering who Garmadon is.

That is actually carried into the movie. Just cut out him running away. Here’s the difference.

Show Lloyd loves his dad and refuses to hurt him until he has to. While he is the Green Ninja, he didn’t resent himself being Garmadon’s son. What he resented was the destiny that took them apart.

Movie Lloyd HATES his dad for abandoning him, terrorizing the city, making said city cancel him for EXISTING, and he wants every excuse to shut this man out of his life forever.

That does make sense. And to the movie’s credit, the movie logic DOES work to make this version of Lloyd make sense.

It makes the movie pretty mean spirited and kinda unpleasant at times. But it works for the story.

I described Lloyd as ‘The Emo Child’. In the show. But that’s two words.

Emo. CHILD.

He’s still a kid. He’s still the youngest. He still has his own child-like wonder of the world and the aspirations that of a child would.

Yeah he’s a lot of angst. But he’s also a sweet kid who deserves hugs.

That’s not very apparent in movie Lloyd. Not that it needs to fit movie context.

But because we never see how the ninja in the movie got together, we have no idea why Lloyd even accepted being the Green Ninja in the first place. He even says in the movie that he’d give it up if it meant he didn’t have to be Garmadon’s son.

Movie Lloyd is the only ninja in this movie with an actual character arc. He resents his dad, tries to be rid of him, only to get consequences for it, goes on a quest to fix his mistake, bonds with his dad to learn he’s… sympathetic? I guess?? And in the end forgives his dad and chooses to let him in his life again.

Simple. Fine. It works on Lloyds end just fine. And I have to give credit for the movie making Lloyd resenting Garmadon more logical than Crystalized ever did.

It’s Garmadon’s end that just makes the whole thing a bad message in the end of ‘forgive your abusers.’

Yes he’s funny. That doesn’t undo his actions.

No it’s not undone in the show either, but at least you can buy the forgiveness there because every character knew that he had no choice.

In the show, Garmadon is the Oni Child of the FSM. Thus all it took was for another Oni creature, the Great Devourer, to trigger his blood and FORCE him into the evil role without his consent. It forced him to do nasty things to his loved ones and the land his dad created, and by the time he became his evil form, he was forcefully stripped away from all of his loved ones and a chance at normal life. So the only way he could ever get that back was to turn the world into his own image, thus having the world become him too. A monster.

The show made it abundantly clear that most of Garmadon’s evil deeds are either out of ambition for what he deems as helping the family, or not his fault at all due to snake venom influence.

I THINK the movie also has this because they do address him getting bit and becoming the creature he appears as in both versions.

Better than nothing I guess.

But then you get his ‘sympathetic backstory’ which is pretty much just a love story between him and Koko-

Yeah Lloyds moms name is actually different in both versions. And in role.

Misako abandoned her child to try and solve the destiny crisis, then returned to his life to help her kid out.

Koko remained a mother to her kid and supported him even when everyone hated him.

These are very different characters basically, and which one you prefer is up to you. Personally… I actually prefer the movie. I do think the mom was the one character that the movie actually improved upon. Especially with a very interesting story for her.

In the show, Misako is a researcher and just the fair maiden figure that Wu and Garmadon fell in love with. To which she chose Garmadon because of Wu’s letter that Garmadon forged his name on… it’s complicated.

In the movie, she was actually a fighter as well and took a part of the wars Garmadon was in. She enjoyed the thrill of the fight and fell in love with her opponent in a pretty cute montage.

But then they had a baby and her reality changed, realizing she could not raise her child on the battlefield. And when Garmadon refused to change his mind, she took Lloyd and left him behind. So she could be a mother.

Explains her actions in the movie all throughout very well and I never got lost when it came to her. She’s probably the one character in the movie I felt the most sorry for. She’s such a sweet parent and her interactions with Lloyd are probably the best parts of the movie. I wanna hug her.

But that’s all that’s shown of Garmadon. Apparently Garmadon was oppressed, but that’s told at the end and not shown or been significant at all.

They don’t hate you cause you look funky. They hate you cause YOU TERRORIZE THEIR CITY ON A DAILY BASIS AND SHOOT PEOPLE OUT OF A VOLCANO

Yeah show Garmadon did similar stuff, but again, WASNT HIS CHOICE.

Here, it’s absolutely his choice cause nothing indicated otherwise.

Garmadon doesn’t even PROCESS his kids existence or his own negligence three quarters of the time. And you expect me to buy a redemption from him?

You know, I’d be fine with it if he was just a one dimensional villain and the story of the movie was about Lloyd putting his energy away from a family that doesn’t care about him and more towards a surrogate one he has.

But no. You gotta have Lloyd forgive Garmadon and have Garmadon redeemed.

Cause that’s what the show did.

Even though this is supposed to be an AU not connected to the show so we can do whatever we want.

The most they do for Garmadon’s redemption is force him to be the mentor after Wu got yeeted off a bridge by a butterfly, have him go “Oh yeah, I DID shoot people out of a volcano!”, teach his son how to catch, and tell his son his backstory.

(Speaking if, Wu to me is basically the same. Just different voice actor delivery. I got nothing to say on him)

And then if that IS redemption, then he failed it. Because he offers Lloyd to be his general when they take over the city again, showing he’s learned nothing. Then when Lloyd says no, he steals their magic weapons and ditches them in a temple leaving them to DIE. Then he goes to terrorize the city again.

What redemption. /s

Again, this was all HIS choice. If it was not and if it was snake venom, they couldn’t at least give a visual cue or address it?

And now LLOYD has to apologize?

NO. LLOYD WAS RIGHT. THERES ABSOLUTELY NO REASON WHY HE SHOULD LET HIS DAD INTO HIS LIFE. THE DAD HIMSELF PROVED THAT.

It just paints an unintentional bad message of ‘you have to forgive your abusers’

I’m sorry but Lloyd doesn’t owe this Garmadon anything.

I do like Lloyd’s VA delivery though, and the speech about green being the color of life. I actually like the idea of Lloyds power being his heart. Yeah it’s not flashy powers like in the show, but for an AU, it’s a really cool idea and I wish they used it more.

I have mixed feelings on the celebrity casting. Did I expect the original voice actors? No. But this casting wasn’t awful.

Garmadon’s VA is amazing in this movie. Jackie Chan as Wu is very subjective I feel, love it or hate it. Nya and Jay’s were really good too. I think the only one that didn’t work for me was Kai’s VA. Just… why does this teenager sound like a 50 year old man??

But honestly, I think the thing that got to me the most about the movie was something I praised about the show not too long ago.

The bond between the ninja.

I talked about how the show is a master class at character dynamics. There is almost no point where the characters are just standing there in one big clunk. Someone is saying something, someone is making a comment, someone is doing something, and it’s usually there for others to see and react to. It’s a very small thing, but it keeps the scenes alive and fresh the whole time and helps the audience be sold on the characters bond.

They don’t wait for the scenes of “Okay it’s time for characters to interact”. They just do it all the time.

And guess what the movie did? They’re just there in one big chunk all the time. With “okay it’s time for characters to interact” bits.

It’s one thing to not explore the other ninja at all. It’s another to ignore their bond.

In the show, they’re a found family. They all had rough upbringings in life and find a new sense of purpose in each other.

That’s NEVER emphasized in the movie except for one speech at the end Lloyd makes. Mostly cause we don’t know the other ninjas lives, and we don’t know how they even got together. Cause as I said, the movie starts at the middle, and awkwardly cuts after Garmadon is forgiven to be the end. We don’t know what it is about THIS ninja team that we should care about. It’s not shown.

All were shown is them being a team by circumstance only. Then Lloyd pulls out the cat laser and the cat nearly kills them. Then they hate Lloyd for it and spend the rest of the movie making fun of Lloyd.

Which yeah they make fun of each other in the show too, but where it ended in the show was playful teasing in the middle of moments that showed they cared about each other. And when one bond between two or more of them was broken, you felt it.

Here? I don’t know that and there isn’t anything besides the high school montage to show they cared. Just some comments about “Oh it’s okay Lloyd, it’s just awkward that your dad is a terrorist”. And then they make fun of Lloyds expense.

It’s mean spirited. It makes me think they don’t like each other. And it’s not like they ever apologize for it. They’re just teammates because Wu said so. They’re just tolerating Lloyd cause Wu said so.

Honestly the bloopers for this movie show more personality and more of this bond than the entire movie does.

…OOF that took awhile. I don’t even know why I did this, I just didn’t feel like sleeping. Uh… you read this, congrats. Idk why you did.

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myheartissetinmotion · 4 months

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just thinking about how the musical numbers in wonka are so much more fun when you think of them all as diegetic

(i’m gonna put a read more for courtesy but. please click it i put so much thought into this)

some of them are explicitly so-scrub scrub is stated to be the group’s work song, lofty says his own song and dance can’t be stopped once it starts, abacus cues the wash crew on beat as they work behind the scenes of the shop’s opening, etc. this doesn’t happen super often in musical movies nowadays, which adds to the whimsy of this one

in the original catcf book, the demise of each “bad kid” (and the ethics of that is a WHOLE different-and lengthy-post) gets a song from the oompa loompas, and all adaptations include those; the 2005 film is the only one to have no non-diegetic songs, while the 1971 film and west end/bway stage adaptation have loads. this prequel, however, seems to lean hard into the idea of wonka as a showman-but an earnest one-who brings not only a new taste but also a new sound to the Unnamed European City™️ that he turns upside down.

colin’s newfound confidence wins the day when barbara sees him singing and dancing on a table, which is apparently just the kind of adventure she was looking for. willy shows his plan to the wash crew by presenting it in a reprise of their song, like he’s speaking their language. it’s the sound of the newcomer’s siren song, not just the crowd, that draws the scheming cartel to their windows. there are so many interesting things revealed about the characters if you look at it that way

for a moment starts rather quietly, and noodle’s singing to herself; she doesn’t sing aloud to start, but then willy does, and he’s in perfect counterpoint to her melody that he’s barely even heard yet. then, by the end, she’s *really* singing, because she’s finally found someone who’ll listen. they literally invented siblingism i’m gonna cry

and don’t even get me started on sweet tooth. mat and paterson said in an interview that the cartel sort of stops being villainous the second the music starts, that their number is a seduction at its core, which is so damn true. the fact that it’s acknowledged as diegetic-the chief’s “why am i singing”, slugworth’s “let’s give him the big sell”, etc-means that this is something planned and practiced. there is so much comedy in that-scary powerful capitalists working on their fan choreography is a great image-but it also shows just how sinister they are. “conceal” rhymes with “deal”. they knew he’d say yes in the end. it was predetermined all along.

and a world of your own!! (this might not be a whole analysis paragraph i just wanted to say the way the pulse of the orchestration slowly builds starting at “chocolate bushes, chocolate trees” is so thrilling omg i felt like a kid again)

all this to say that i got sucked into this story for good upon hearing pure imagination for the first time in fourth grade and never looked back so it’s so neat that the prequel involves music in such a thoughtful way OKAY BYEEEEEEEE *mic drop*

#wonka #wonka 2023 #wonka movie #movies tag #music tag #books tag #musicals tag

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iheartgod175 · 2 months

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Some Thoughts (Mostly ZP, but still)…

—I’ve kinda hopped back onto the Zula Patrol train again since writing Turnabout, but I am planning on doing art and stories for other fandoms, too, of course ^^ I actually worked on chapter 4 of DCR and some more of Love Language for the first time in a month! Which is amazing progress since I had both writer’s block and worries that maybe a lot of folks aren’t interested in the story. But even if that were true, it’s not going to stop me from posting stories, especially about my favorite childhood show ^^

—I went a bit in depth about an OC who gets some focus in both DCR and a few other entries, Firestorm, who’s a military commander in one of the other Zulean branches (I’ll detail my own headcanons on the structure of the Zulean government in another headcanons post) and is one of the few people that Bula gets along with outside of his team because like him, she doesn’t tolerate the BS/corruption that goes on in the government. And somehow, I got the idea that in an alternate universe, they end up as a couple. It has me cracking up because now, I have three potential love interests for Bula: Zeeter (with whom I can see happening even in canon), Bonnie (my old OC whom I’ve revamped and even have a solo story for), and now Firestorm (who might get teased in the future). Bula’s literally building his own harem, LOL XD

—And then it got me thinking that if Bula’s a typical “clueless harem protagonist” (although unlike them, he makes himself useful and isn’t admired due to some random skill he has out of nowhere), Ricochet would be the “smug harem protagonist with a heart of gold” in that he dated Denise, Diane, Melissa, and many other women before he settled down. Also, in a few AUs, he does have a better relationship with Serena, Denise’s outlaw sister, and their relationship borders on UST. Silly thoughts are silly, LOL

—I’ve also had an idea regarding the Third Sight ability. Originally, this ability has no offensive capability in any field whatsoever. But then I had a thought: what if there was a way, theoretically, that a user could hurt/even kill someone with their mind? It came about from a thought that DS! Elfilis (with whom Multo interacts with in my latest crossover) could totally do this easily, since he’s basically seen as a god (although he’s mortal) and he’s a lot more powerful/experienced with his psychic powers. Not to mention that between him and Multo, his cruel streak is not only bigger, but also more terrifying. It got me thinking that the Zuleans who have the Third Sight can do this same thing, namely in a moment of pure distress/fury, stemming from the desire to make the perpetrator feel every ounce of pain they felt at watching their loved one get hurt/killed. The name for this attack is called “Flashpoint” (or at least, it’s a working idea for a name). I had the idea that Multo accidentally stumbles across this ability after someone got the great (read: stupid) idea to hurt Zeeter or any of the others in front of him, and unable to physically defend them (due to being trapped), he’s filled with both horror at his loved ones being hurt, and pure rage at the perp, wanting nothing but for him to feel that same pain and worse. Cue that happening to the perp, with the guy literally losing his mind. With Multo being the kind of person he is, he’s shocked/horrified that he can do such a thing. One of the villains in my current WIP, Nova, takes an interest in Multo after finding out about him using this.

—And now, a part of me wants to do an alternative version of Multo that’s evil. That would be pretty terrifying. O.O

—Oh, I’m also thinking of getting back to The Return of the Phantom Empire soon, thanks to working on Firestorm’s profile. Just trying to work on the general plot of the side story, which focuses on Quick Draw McGraw, and possibly Quack-Up, namely in regards to the trauma he suffered before he joined the Galactic Guardians. This chapter isn’t gonna be quite as long as the first three chapters, but that might change, lol XD

#zula patrol #the zula patrol #hanna-barbera #ricochet rabbit #ramblings #canon x oc ships

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but-thats-its-own-story · 8 months

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This episode man...

This is a damn good Superman series.

I all but stood up and cheered when the House of Zod and his Full-Blown Space Armada was 30 seconds away from straight-up invading Earth but were apparently so in denial about Jor-El's warning that the fricking origin story blew them straight to hell.

I love how they finally name dropped General Sam Lane, implied that he was about to or just had a kid on Zero Day, and had Waller confirm that Clark reminds him of Lois, but still won't actually reveal it until next weeks episode about Fathers.

They were already hinting he subverts the 'heartless general' archetype before, but the way his resolve just breaks when he sees the tears streaming down Clark's face...

The attention to detail with the subtle confirmation that Waller didn't miss Livewire realizing she retained her powers without the suit...

And then Deathstroke gets his trademark eyepatch when she fries his eye out of its socket...

The Kaiju Parasite is a bit excessive, and in a lesser series it would be the season finale villain, but overall it's a pretty cool design, and this isn't over yet.

More attention to detail with the fact that Clark immediately healed when the sun oh-so-symbolically rose, and the emphasis on the dropped bag as a cue to notice Jimmy would pick it up- these people know what they're doing.

I find it interesting that (presumably) Zod is already in superhuman aspect, leading me to believe that he, and by extension Clark, were in fact intentionally engineered as living weapons rather than gaining powers inadvertently from the sun (and to reassert the part of my theory that Clark looks just like him, likely due to being some form of clone.) But it probably is actually Zod rather than a Dark Clark if he was an adult on Zero Day.

So we're just gonna have the most awkward family dinner in the world, where Lois has to explain that The General is actually her dad, Ma and Pa Kent finally make *another* onscreen appearance, Jimmy and Lois collectively freak the hell out over the Dark Clark reveal, and then Zod is just gonna burst through the wall battered from having spent twenty years flying here the long way...

#Toonami #My Adventures With Superman

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terminatorbuns · 1 year

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The Deep Cut Deep Dive: Overthinking the Deep Cut Dynamic in Excruciating Detail (An essay by @TerminatorBuns)

This was originally posted on Reddit, but I want to share with Tumblr to see if Tumblr likes this format more. Also because I'm close to finishing a second essay about Deep Cut, focusing on Frye.

Deep Cut is great, I love them, and their relationship dynamic lives rent free in my head. The one thing Nintendo did for us this time is drop story mode lore for Deep Cut on Day 1, and it has fleshed out their relationship dynamic in IMMENSE detail, enough to rival what we know about Off the Hook. How much detail are we talking about, you might ask? A FUCKING LOT it turns out! We're talking about Tableturf secrets, we're talking about Frye's feet, we're talking about the implications of Big Man's breakfast on the course of his artistic development, this shit goes DEEP. I don't know who needs to hear this but Splatoon idol lore is the meatiest part of Splatoon world building and an absolutely BONKERS ride. I want to take you through that journey if you haven't been on it before, or just need more fuel for your lore headcanons.

I wish this was a bit more academic but I didn't have the time and patience to cite everything with game screenshots, so I'm assuming whoever is reading this has already played the story mode and has a rough idea of what I'm talking about. Spoilers obviously. At the very least I hope this will be an entertaining rant, feel free to yell at me in comments about stuff I got wrong, I welcome the discourse.

1. A Bunch of Theatre Nerds

Deep Cut primarily differs from Off the Hook in one way: they do not specialize in music, but in THEATRE. Each of the two humanoid idols are designed from the ground up to represent two different forms of traditional Japanese theatre, and it ties deeply into their dual roles in the game. The important takeaway is that each idol excels in one art, but struggles at the other, and we will explore what this means. Let's talk about Shiver and Frye; Big Man is a special case, we'll have to put a pin in him and come back to that.

2. Shiver is Rakugo

Shiver is a performer of Rakugo, or Japanese seated story telling. Deep Cut's day job as newscasters is represented as a Rakugo performance, and Shiver brings a fan and a little table to the job, both common props in Rakugo. Shiver exhibits all the qualities of a strong Rakugo artist, she sits in a Seiza kneeling position with excellent posture, and delivers the news with wit and poise. She has excellent, sharp facial expressions that she directs straight at the audience, she uses her fan to gesture in ways to attract attention, and she punctuates her delivery by tapping her fan against her table to create little sound cues for a listener. Her approach to drawing an audience to her words is multilayered and complex, and her vocal skills as a storyteller seems to parallel her strong vocals when singing (not that you can tell how good her diction is since she speaks in warbly Squid-Gibberish).

Frye is much less skilled by contrast, for a number of reasons. She doesn't even attempt to sit in a Seiza stance, and in fact can barely sit still without attempting to wiggle off her cushion. From a general speaking perspective, Frye fails to establish eye contact with the audience because she's always staring at the other two performers, whoever is speaking at the time. She also lacks all of Shiver's propwork and has no intentionality in her gestures. She compensates for her weak delivery with goofy, high energy antics that are charming in her own way, and this is what earned Frye a reputation as a fidgety gremlin baby compared to the cool, sophisticated Shiver. Before launch that was everyone's impression of Frye, but the arrival of story mode dropped a massive bomb on us that flips the dynamic COMPLETELY UPSIDE DOWN. Feet are involved, let's discuss.

3. Frye is Kabuki

Story mode showed us Deep Cut as a hilarious team rocket like villain team, but the bigger takeaway is that we finally see Frye in her preferred art form: Kabuki stage performance. Frye's entire villain persona is a stage act, she thrives as a stage villain and has the charisma and skills to back it up. I should note that Frye doesn't practice pure Kabuki with all of its strict discipline, but Frye isn't full, or even partially Japanese herself, since she's very much South East Asian in design. She has her own, maybe(?) SEA inspired take on stage performance, but some of her stances in the later sections of story mode are unmistakably Kabuki, it's clear where she draws inspiration for her style from.

Villain Frye is amazing, she's confident and charismatic, and genuinely menacing in demeanor before her fight. She has a professional code of conduct as a villain: she states her intentions clearly, paying respect to the player before her boss fight and offering to negotiate before fighting. She's the only one who correctly uses her smoke bomb correctly to make a dramatic exit, and she names all of her meticulously choreographed attack patterns like a proper anime villain.

Conversely, story mode is where we finally see Shiver struggle. Her villain performance is fun, yet inconsistent: she's unnecessarily melodramatic and overacts every scene, and she throws petty insults at you before breaking character to just try to run you over with a shark-bike. She fumbles her smoke bomb and becomes increasingly frustrated everytime you knock her down, unlike Frye who doesn't break character and recovers immediately after she is downed. Shiver still makes a fun, campy comedy relief villain, but she visibly loses the confidence and dignity she had as a Rakugo performer, highlighting how much she is out of her element. In Shiver's defense, she does manage to pull off that absurd sleight of hand in her intro where she switches her mask for her fan while delivering the spiciest piercing gaze, while Frye just chucks her mask off screen instead. Once again Shiver's dexterity in her face and her hands are her strongest tools.

4. Frye's feet

I feel like an absolute lunatic writing this section, but I assure you there is genuinely a need to discuss this topic in length. Forget Frye's forehead for a second, her FEET are easily her most important assets. Frye uniquely emotes with her feet more than any other idol the same way Shiver emotes with her hands, except Shiver's hands don't have enough lore significance to fill a whole section. Frye's feet DO. I would go so far as to say Frye's feet are one of the most SIGNIFICANT visual tools we have for contextualizing the difference between Frye and Shiver's entire professional art forms. Strap in.

For starters, Frye's footwork is MONSTROUSLY powerful. Take a look at her during her boss fight, she's playing an instrument, and hopping up and down on an Octostomp like it's a goddamn circus ball. It doesn't take a single eel hit to knock her off balance, you have to send her ENTIRE eel army at her before you can knock her down! I think the eels inside her Octostomp are moving it, so in theory she's not piloting it with pure foot power, but also she kicks it onto its side before she starts blowing into her flute?!! I have no idea, I can barely comprehend what is happening here.

At the same time, her feet fully solidifies her ties to Kabuki. Kabuki is an art form done without shoes, and since she performs her villain persona outdoors, she doesn't wear shoes anywhere. Kabuki is also a full body art form which requires precision footwork, and she has that in spades. This is in stark contrast to Shiver, whose seated Rakugo performance has no footwork whatsoever. Shiver's footwork is comparatively weak as a result.

Don't get me wrong, Shiver has enough footwork to dance in blocky Geisha shoes (I've been told they are Okobo shoes), but it's in a stage performance capacity where Shiver's footwork completely falls apart. Shiver doesn't know how to express body language through footwork, so she DOESN'T. Shiver stands completely in place during her villain performance and tries to compensate with her upper body expressions, but this lets Frye completely dominate her in stage presence. In most scenes with both idols, Frye physically takes up more of the screen through footwork: she positions herself one or more steps TOWARDS the audience and literally looks BIGGER as a result. Frye's full body poses are also wide and faces the audience/camera at an angle that maximizes her surface area to attract visual interest, which is a core Kabuki concept that, again, requires intentional footwork and positioning. Shiver poses with her feet together and her body turned to the side, so her screen presence is minimal every single time. In fact, she uses her feet so little in her villain performance that she's the one member of Deep Cut that fights on a vehicle and has no mobility of her own!

At the same time, Frye's feet are double edged swords and her greatest weaknesses. Take a look at Frye while she is newscasting, what is she doing in her default pose? Yeah that's right, HOLDING HER FEET. Her Kabuki background is so used to full body acting that she's restless sitting still, and she's holding down her feet because they literally want to EXIT THE PREMISES. Every once in a while she fails to contain herself and kicks off in every direction, threatening to kick a hole in Big Man's TV and boot Shiver's table off the stage. Frye's feet are a MENACE.

5. Big Man and Amateurism

Remember at the beginning we put a pin in Big Man? His arms are getting tired so we're letting him down from the wall now.

So how does Big Man fit into this dynamic? Nintendo confirmed that he is their composer, so he provides a music background to the team whereas the other two are theatre nerds. Big Man is unique in that his talents are largely background work, unlike our other two idols who specialize in stage work. However, that makes him a bit of an outlier in terms of theatrical performance. He follows Shiver and Frye around to both their performances but doesn't have much proficiency in either one. As a newscaster he stumbles over his words often, and his villain persona is just his regular persona but slightly angrier. He doesn't really dance and sing particularly well either, there's a sequence in the Anarchy Rainbow choreography where Big Man nearly smacks the other two idols out of clumsiness. Big Man is an odd duck in the Deep Cut trio, and yet, this is a central aspect of his design and his appeal, it's kind of the point.

The central theme of the Deep Cut dynamic is Amateurism, and this ties into Splatoon 3's core theme of Chaos. Each humanoid idol is a master at a specific performance art, and an amateur at the other art form, but the important part is that they show up anyways to clown around, and that in and of itself adds a distinct flavor to the performance despite their individual weaknesses. The chaos of Splatoon 3 is the contrast between a professional artist on a stage next to two absolute goobers, and the chaotic, yet dynamic performance that results from three artists of different skill levels colliding. In that sense, Big Man is the true amateur who shows up to everything in an effort to contribute, and his bumbling inexperience is extremely lovable. This is in direct contrast to the Off the Hook dynamic, as both members of Off the Hook are musically talented and completely aligned in their artistic interests, while the members of Deep Cut have differing interests but will always show up for each other, like absolute BROS.

The Big Man discussion does not end here, however. Big Man's sunken scroll depicts him as a member of the prestigious Manta Clan, with the fanciest dining set while the text describes the Manta Clan's meticulous breakfast habits. Shiver and Frye's sunken scrolls, in contrast, describe the ancient artistic history that both of them descend from. Jumping into story theories at this point, I would personally guess that Big Man comes from a different economic background than the other two. Splatsville appears to have the aesthetics of a rural city after a rapid expansion, many of the buildings are cluttered and old looking in contrast to some infrastructure that looks very new. If we assume that Shiver and Frye's families have lived in this area for quite some time, it would be quite likely that they were poor or middle class, partially explaining their concern for the underprivileged citizens of Splatsville. Big Man on the other hand looks like he comes from the richest, snobbiest kind of high society family. He's a fancy fancy boy.

The more important takeaway is this: Big Man seems to come from a family background that prioritizes formality and rules over personal expression. From this we can make an educated guess that Big Man started his theatrical journey LATER IN LIFE. Shiver and Frye could easily have been practicing stage performance from early childhood through their family history, but Big Man's family traditions doesn't lend itself well to open self expression, and whatever artistic ability he might have gained through his family does not translate well to the stage! Big Man's exposure to theatre would have happened outside of his family, possibly after he gained some amount of independence from them. I'd hazard a guess that his friendship with Frye and Shiver might even be the starting point of his stage career!

Shiver and Frye are letting Big Man, maybe even encouraging him, to perform with them on stage despite him being a relative newcomer to theatre. There's relatively little judgement, they too understand that all artists have been amateurs at some point in their journey, and continue to be amateurs at other art forms even after mastering their own. My boy is doing his absolute best to perform alongside his theatrical seniors and it's so precious. This dynamic is wholesome beyond my wildest expectations, I am HEALED.

6. Tableturf and Artistic Priorities

I added this section last because I only discovered this information after I had completed my original draft, and Nintendo is actively fucking with me at this point. Each of the three idols have personality traits that come through in their TABLETURF dialogue, of all places, and it's kind of the final piece that makes the Deep Cut dynamic click for me. Through their tableturf dialogue we learn a lot about each member's priorities as an artist, enough for us to explore in detail.

Shiver is an audience focused artist. Her focus in tableturf is centered on you, the opponent, and she makes it a matter of personal pride to compete against you and she takes her victories and losses very personally. No matter the outcome she requests a rematch, because her priority is the opponent's experience, as she seeks the approval of her audience. Her eye contact and graceful mannerisms are as sharp as ever up close as she is on stage. This plays well with the second aspect of her artistry, which is the fact that she has a Geisha aesthetic in addition to her Rakugo specialty. Hospitality and direct conversational interactions are a part of both jobs, even if she secretly has a bit of an ego and barely resists gloating if she wins.

Big man is a self-focused artist. He comes off as awkward and shy in a tableturf match, and we get to see a little bit of the bubbling insecurity behind Big Man's jolly smile. Big man's lack of stage performance abilities translates into his social interactions as well, and he uses self deprecation to downplay his abilities and expects to lose, being pleasantly surprised if he wins. What Big Man is primarily looking for is a kind of self-acceptance, as an amateur artist he wants to hone his abilities to a point that he can be confident in himself, and he shows the same anxiety in his social interactions and tableturf games. No matter if he wins or loses, his primary focus is on his own performance, and he mostly comments on whether or not he has met his own expectations. Every small victory seems to do great things for his self esteem and you just want this boy to be happy, let him win at card games.

Frye's tableturf mannerisms is the most interesting, as it turns out, and is actually the reason I even wrote this section (my Frye bias strikes again). The most important detail is that she fails to make eye contact with the player, AGAIN, just like when she's newscasting! At face value this is VERY strange: in the news room she is clearly staring at whoever's talking, but in a direct conversation with you, why does she still not look at you? I've also seen people complaining that she's one of the only players that insults the player after a win and makes no attempt to console the player, and that is completely true. What isn't very obvious is the additional layer of meaning in the same win dialogue that really clarifies her priorities in the moment, and this is a CRUCIAL piece of Frye's characterization. When she wins her first instinct is to tell SHIVER and BIG MAN about her victory.

Remember that Kabuki is a stage performance with multiple artists in multiple roles. Rakugo can be performed solo, and Big Man seems to compose solo as well, but Frye's Kabuki actively requires the participation of other artists, it is a collaborative performancr. This brings us to the realization that Frye is a uniquely TEAM focused artist amongst Deep Cut: her top priority is her bandmates, at all times! Frye NEEDS Deep Cut, her personal style of theatre doesn't even work without friends, and she's fixated on maintaining her friend group as a result. Frye is able to focus on an audience when she is actively doing her job as a Kabuki artist, but any other time she starts spacing out because she simply spends all her energy thinking about ways to impress her bandmates! She comes off as dismissive to the player, because her mind is literally wandering to her band friends, even when they are not around! Deep Cut means the world to Frye in a way that isn't as meaningful for her friends, and she's made herself into the glue that holds this friend group together; Frye is very much the heart of the Deep Cut trio. Frye's dedication to her friends is the actual CUTEST detail in this entire game, I CANNOT believe they hid this information in tableturf. Why is Nintendo like this?!!

7. Conclusion

Splatoon's world building is extremely art centric, and the lore they write for their fictional artists is some of their best, most detailed work. Looking at Splatoon lore through an artistic lens is extremely rewarding because there are secrets and details everywhere. I've obsessed over Off the Hook's similarly complicated character dynamic in the past, and Deep Cut is really making me relive those memories like that dude from Ratatouille, it's hitting me HARD.

In some ways even this write up is only a surface reading, I'm no expert on traditional Japanese theatre or SEA culture and I have no idea how many details can be uncovered by an actual expert. I also have no music background and the Splatoon team hides fricking lore in the fricking OST and I cannot begin to unpack any of that. I fully expect that there's more details I've missed or have gotten wrong, but I hope I've at least established how deep this rabbit hole goes, and how much fun it is to dig through Splatoon lore instead of getting enough sleep.

Anyways the next time someone asks me why Frye is best girl I'm gonna have 3000 words of documentation to show them.

8. Miscellaneous notes

- What is going on with Shiver's shoes, they don't have straps, how do they stay on? Are they glued to her socks? Does she have to take the sock part off to remove the shoe? She has to take her shoes off to perform on a tatami mat, but we can't see what's going on back there feet wise since she has a Rakugo table in front. Is her lower body even rendered back there? I draw fan art, I need to know this stuff.

- Shiver likes to take jabs at Big Man sometimes that he struggles to respond to, being a less experienced conversationalist and just socially awkward in general. It's not necessarily malicious, however, Shiver could just be giving him opportunities to practice his conversation skills and keep him in the discussion. Plus he's very cute when flustered, I dunno that Shiver can resist prodding him.

- Big man is differently abled in a very literal sense. He has no hands or feet with which to emote, he's trying his best to express himself with his flappy fins. He barely has functional vocal cords, just going AY and making warbling fish noises all the time. Big Man's body isn't great at singing or dancing, but it is very good at things that Manta Rays are traditionally good at. He mentions being able to filter feed, and his mobility is remarkably good in swim form. Big Man is also a pretty dangerous predator unless you have the sensor upgrade.

- Shiver's family situation is kind of a mystery, how do they have a tradition of Shark taming if Octarian society is a militaristic dictatorship run by DJ Octavio? I suspect that Shiver was never a part of his army and there are Octarians living outside of his rule. She's definitely a Splatlands native, members of Octavio's Octo Canyon army should have been able to identify Callie and Marie easily.

- Shiver's aesthetic shifts to a violent Bōsōzoku biker gang aesthetic when she boards Master Mega, since he's outfitted with motorcycle parts and wears those bad boy sunglasses. It's a sharp contrast to her polite Geisha presentation, and so is her entire villain persona. This is what I mean when I say Shiver's performance style is inconsistent, but Shiver's two-faced presentation is also super fun to watch and kind of her entire appeal. There's an aggressive pettiness underneath the polite outward presentation and the gap between her two personalities is peak comedy. - I only just recently realized that she's a Geisha with a shaved punk cut and that's amazing: https://www.reddit.com/r/splatoon/comments/xk5mtx/did_yall_notice_shivers_head_is_supposed_to_be/

#splatoon #splatoon 3 #deepcut #shiver #frye #big man #in this essay i will #long post

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the-force-awakens · 6 months

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Yeah, that's a pretty good analysis. I don't see Poe included hardly at all, in fandom or in canon to a degree, and I think it's safe to say he has one of the least number of fans who are specifically fans of him. Like I don't see many blogs/accounts that are specifically Poe centric.

Oh man, I actually got up to answer this on my computer rather than my phone, so we'll see how into it I'll get into this ask, but yes! It's vastly unfortunate that he often gets excluded or overlooked when he's the entire catalyst for the sequel trilogy. He is, archetypically and narratively within the story, the Leia of our generation: if it was not for Poe and BB-8 (who is really like an extension of Poe), then Finn wouldn't have been able to escape the Finalizer, and Rey would have never left Jakku.

While yes, it's true that Poe wasn't initially meant to survive The Force Awakens (and other nine word horror stories for me), Poe is still one part of the primary trio of the trilogy and has been since 2015. He is not only Leia's first protégé, but the eventual leader of the Resistance, and according to the Rise of Skywalker novel, the heir to the legacy of House Organa (cue me loudly proclaiming him a Disney Prince). Yet, somehow, at the same time......no one seems to ever want to include him as part of the saga, and an important one as that?

(@dameronalone points out ever so often how much they love the shot where everyone leaves Exegol for this reason, because we see Poe flying alongside the Falcon, which really hammers in that Poe is an important player in the history of the saga).

More thoughts below the cut, because I have more and this is already lengthy.

The worst thing is that Poe was extremely popular. Lucasfilm and Marvel pretty much immediately greenlit a comic series for him, and while that was definitely to flesh his story out, if my memory serves, it was so popular that I believe the first printing sold out? And it was originally only meant to last 25 issues (which personally I think it should have stayed at, because I don't super vibe with 26-onward and it feels off and tonally disconnected to the rest of the series and also the ending of TLJ, and the characterization for Poe also feels off, but that's!! a different rant!!!) but the title was so popular that Marvel decided to extend it for two more storylines!

The issue was the fandom backlash to TLJ.

You don't have to look too far into my blog to know that I adore Poe in TLJ, and that I like his arc in the movie, and that I avidly defend him for it, but the internet in 2017-2019 was an entirely different universe from that. You could not go anywhere - Tumblr, Twitter, Youtube, fucking hell, even most major media news outlets and clickbait websites - without hearing about how much everyone hated Poe Dameron.

Why? Because they walked away from his arc deciding that he was sexist and the movie's perfect example of toxic masculinity (although, lmfao, the First Order clowns are right there). It went further than that, with headlines about how everyone hated him, how he was personally responsible for everything that happens in the Resistance in the film, and how he was the worst character in Star Wars since Jar Jar Binks (because clearly the Star Wars fandom never learns from its previous toxicity, right?). It was to the point that, to my immense horror and frustration, even as far as into promoting TROS, a reporter described Poe as a "secret villain" in TLJ to Oscar (and man do I hope that man knows Poe is loved, actually).

Fandom wasn't much different. Fanon Poe prior to TLJ was....a lot different. In some ways, a lot of fics hit the nail on the head on who Poe was, but there was a definite unifying idea of who Poe was: a pure cinnamon roll who never, ever swore, and always listened to Leia and never argued with her - let alone disobeyed her orders or put a toe out of line (this is even illustrated in canon, with the first Poe Dameron annual, where the author has Poe declare that Leia is "always right" and instantly caving in an argument).

And TLJ Poe is about....as far removed from that vision of Poe as you can possibly get - although nothing about him in TLJ is ooc. We see the bare bones of it in The Force Awakens, and Before the Awakening and the comics further flesh out Poe in a way that perfectly leads into the Last Jedi. But the cinnamon roll fanon was made so common and leaked so far into fandom consciousness, that there was this strange concept that Poe was never, ever angry even in expanded material, which...he does. He gets pissed off plenty of times in the comics, and with the Defense Fleet while arguing with Deso.

So, canon Poe did the unthinkable and, y'know, didn't fall in line with how fanon saw him, which resulted in a huge backlash over the fact that he was a character with agency and a personality (that is NOT sexist thank you), which resulted in us getting books like Resistance Reborn, by authors who can't stand him or describe him as anything besides "supremely arrogant" and spends three hundred pages emotionally torturing him, claiming he needs to die, physically assaulting him, and you know...having the person who attacked him and the other person who claimed he needed to die flirt with him, because it also spends an ungodly amount of time sexualizing him to an uncomfortable degree, because the one thing fanon could agree on outside of the fact that he had been "ruined" or that he was a jackass or a "fuckboi" (yeah that went around too), was that Oscar Isaac is really goddamned fine in the Last Jedi (he is, I'll give them that, there's something about tlj!Poe, scientists remain baffled).

And on top of all of that, a particular fraction of the fandom developed an interesting habit of taking new pieces of canon and spreading them around online out of context, claiming that the writers were now intentionally writing him as sexist and as a jackass, and ruining his character further. I don't know for certain if this had any effect overall on the fandom's perception of him, but I know that it did almost break my spin in him for a while because I thought people were being very genuine, and it wasn't until 2020 that I got curious and started doing my own research into the panels/paragraphs being shared online, and sure enough, discovered that the angle had been falsified to paint Poe into a worse light (which, if anyone is curious, is why I did my deep dive into everything that he was in, because I didn't want to be fooled again. You can't trick me if I know everything lmfao).

So essentially, his popularity nosedived after the Last Jedi. It seemed to bump up a little bit, or at least there definitely seemed to be more people interested in him/writing for him in 2020 coming off the lockdown, but obviously that has very much dwindled. But I've definitely not seen any blogs dedicated to Poe as a character since 2017, and you don't ordinarily see him in miscellaneous Star Wars gifsets that go around either, let alone solo Poe gifsets (I know because I lose my shit anytime there's a new one that's not by me), and Poe creations that have nothing to do with a ship is.........even less likely to be found.

I definitely think canon is at least trying to keep him in our minds though. He was the second character to lead one of the Lego Specials, and that Rey short story ("Through the Turbulence") was focused on her friendship with him. Whether or not that's because of the possibility of Oscar returning for the Rey movie (which feels fairly tangible, considering he's been kind of shady about it after mentioning he'd come back for a good story, and doing that Halcyon video), or if it's just because of Lucasfilm maybe warming up to him as a character again*, I don't know, but I hope it means we get good-faith content for him again soon.

*Because I'm tired of the story group constantly being a little bitch about him, and the same goes for the Topps Trading Card App. Maybe people wouldn't think he was a villain if you stopped describing him like a terrible person? Just a thought.

#ask box #i-belong-to-the-stars #i am so sorry for this motherfucking ESSAY #sometimes the 'ex article writer' jumps out #this was one of those times

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intangiblyyours · 1 year

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7th Time Loop: The Villainess Enjoys a Carefree Life Married to Her Worst Enemy!

Alright guys, light novel/manga recommendation time! I don’t do this often (or at all really) but when I do, it’s because I’m very passionate about it. 😤

WARNING: Not spoiler free. Using images from both the light novel and manga.

There’s been a trend of “villainous” anime/manga being released recently, and while I love them and they all have their personal charms, this one takes the cake for me.

Our main lead is Rishe, who returns to the moment her fiancé breaks their engagement each time she dies, and she has been inevitably dying at the age of 20 in every iteration. She retains her memories and skills, with the exception of her strength and stamina. Our story is set in her 7th cycle.

Rishe is determined to make the most of her life each time with the goal of prolonging her life if possible. As she searches for the quickest exit after her break up, she runs into our male lead, Arnold Hein. Who happens to also be her killer in her 6th life as a knight.

And you know what he does? He proposes to her (for reasons).

Rishe knows fully well that the smallest actions can change the course of her life drastically, so she ends up accepting knowing that she’ll never open up this path again. In every cycle, her death has been related to the war Arnold Hein wages in five years. Perhaps as his fiancée/wife this time, she’ll be able to prevent the war and live beyond 20 years of age.

Cue one of the cutest love story ever. I am a sucker for “cold” characters having a soft spot for the love of their life, and this is no exception. Plus, you add Rishe with a skill level of 999 facing off with the most formidable man in the world, trying to out play her soon-to-be-husband, and he let’s her. He let’s her scheme her schemes with the condition that she keeps herself safe. And he is smitten.

Our two leads are so likable and the premise, despite having several tropes involved, has a good bit of originality in it. I like having my fair share of female/male leads having heaps of flaws, but these two do not (for good reasons), which could be seen as a con but not for me in this scenario. Rishe is a very headstrong character that is determined to live her life the way she wants to, and Arnold supports her through and through. Their mutual respect and intrinsic trust in each other is what makes their dynamic so wonderful.

Also:

And:

These two having me swooning. Plus, the art for both the light novel and manga is gorgeous. I’ve heard they might be doing an anime adaptation??? Can’t wait. 10/10 recommend!!!

(Okay, my one complaint is I’m unsure if Touka Amekawa is still writing this? Says there are 4 volumes but the 4th was released in November 2021 in Japan and it’s listed as ongoing. Does anyone know anything about this?)

#7th time loop #7th Time Loop: The Villainess Enjoys a Carefree Life Married to Her Worst Enemy!#Touko Amekawa #Wan Hachipisu #Hinoki Kino #Light novel rec #Manga rec #these two are beautiful #Rishe x Arnold

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hyperfixatedfandomer · 10 months

Note

I saw your recent post about Quartich and got to thinking. If James cameron had invested his time in developing his villain better or giving him some backstory like, I don't know, that this Miles is clinging to his past self as a way to cope with his identity crisis or something, instead of showing shots of whales. Same for my baby Spider (don't get me wrong, I like them, but this movie definitely has a lot of wasted characters and subplots.) Is the movie okay as is or do you also feel like they wasted some things? Sorry if my English is bad, it's not my native language u.u

Lmao no problems, English isn’t my first language either!

I think JC did a decent job at creating a well-paced story, considering the thousand moving pieces in it, and in fact, both Quaritch and Spider were originally going to have a lot more scenes! Spider had an unnamed important event that was originally going to be put in atwow, but JC moved it into the first act of the third movie instead 😭 sad, but I’m so ready to see more of my fave boi in the next instalment!

The same applies to Quaritch. According to an interview with Slang, they had a lot of scenes filmed where Miles learned the ways of Na’vi and bonded with the kid, but they had to cut them out because atwow’s runtime was getting way too long and pacing a 4-5+ hour movie is an extremely difficult task.

But I do think that the movie shows somewhat well that Quaritch clings to his human side to cope with the fact that he’s a clone, and his coping mechanism is, well, Spider! This kid is a living, breathing piece of him, that directly ties recom Miles to his predecessor. The problem is that you have to rewatch atwow in order to see the behavioural cues, so tbh I feel like the film wouldn’t suffer if it was ten minutes longer, if it meant that we get a little more insight into him as a character, but maybe it wasn’t needed this time around 🤷 avatar is a franchise now so everything could change next time!

For the tulkun scenes, I think they’re okay. I get why people would get mad that the main characters don’t get more screen-time to show their personalities and conflicts, but the viewers needed that whale screen-time to get attached to them and feel bad when one of them gets murdered in front of us. They had to establish a whole new intelligent race that we knew nothing of until this movie, so I see where Cameron was coming from.

#atwow #atwow quaritch #atwow spider #spider atwow #avatar quaritch #quaritch avatar #recom quaritch #spider socorro #avatar spider #spider avatar #avatar 2 #avatar the way of water

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demifiendrsa · 11 months

Video

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Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 | Gameplay Reveal

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Introducing Kraven the Hunter

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 will launch for PlayStation 5 in Fall 2023.

Screenshots

Latest details via PlayStation Blog

It’s a banner day for Spidey fans! We’re delighted to finally show you the first-ever gameplay of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, the next installment in our original Marvel’s Spider-Man franchise, which will launch in Fall 2023. There’s a lot to unpack about today’s gameplay reveal, so let’s highlight some of the big stuff…

The Great Hunt begins

As many sharp-eared Spidey fans noticed in our announcement trailer in 2021, Kraven the Hunter. This version makes his debut appearance in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 and he’s in search of an equal. That spells bad news for the inhabitants of Marvel’s New York including a rogue’s gallery of villains and the Spider-Men, Peter Parker and Miles Morales. Between the start of Kraven’s Great Hunt and an all-new Symbiote threat to Earth-1048, our heroes have their work cut out for them.

Setting the stage for our gameplay reveal: Kraven’s Hunters, a new enemy faction, are in pursuit of Dr. Curt Connors, AKA The Lizard, and Peter needs to stop him. We kick things off at Connors’ home across the East River in Queens, one of the all-new playable and explorable boroughs we’re introducing in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2.

Let’s get Symbiotic

We don’t waste any time: bursting through basement doors is Peter Parker, our original Spider-Man in this story, who needs no introduction. But what he’s wearing perhaps deserves one: he’s donning the highly coveted, iconic, and beloved Black Suit and he’s more than ready for a fight.

Beyond serving looks, our Symbiote-bound hero has some new tricks up his sleeve. We’re no stranger to Spider-Man knocking heads, but never like this: he’s much more aggressive and punches certainly aren’t being pulled. Symbiote tendrils aggrandize Spider-Man’s silhouette, slamming foes against hard surfaces, dealing no mercy to Kraven’s Hunters.

My advice: get cozy with the L1 button because you’re gonna love it.

The super-popular suit can strike fear in almost anyone who comes face-to-face with it, but Kraven isn’t just anyone and his highly trained Hunters aren’t afraid of a brawl. Fret not! New combat abilities can neutralize our new headstrong opponents with a little finesse. Strike back with aggressive parries to gain the upper-hand, or cast a web to shunt enemies between a hard place and a harder place. You can also activate a classic dodge to get out of danger – but don’t get too comfortable; some attacks can’t simply be dodged and will require a parry to properly evade them!

Our animators put the work in to deliver a much more impulsive Peter Parker, fitting for the symbiote bonded to his person, without sacrificing his combative finesse. New takedowns humble even the most rugged enemies, and new combat animations push Spider-Man’s limits. I mean, did you see what Spider-Man did to this guy?

In Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, we’re putting respect on the Black Suit and giving it the story it deserves. In this installment, we’re really delving into Peter’s personal relationship with the Symbiote and how it affects those closest to him…

More Miles per hour

Speaking of which, this sequel features not one but TWO playable Spider-Heroes, as Miles Morales returns in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 and is a key player in our story. In this demo, Miles is in Harlem hot on Lizard’s tail. Speed is of the essence in many ways than one.

First, get a glimpse at the near-instant switching between both our playable Spider-Men. And if that wasn’t enough, traversal gets a significant speed boost in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2! Cue the Web Wings, which can be deployed by either Spider-Man to move about the city swiftly and urgently. Use wind tunnels between skylines to move with haste and behold the capabilities of the PS5 console’s SSD as you soar above the concrete jungle, zipping past all manner of cars, buildings, and people (and pigeons). If you thought traversal in our first two games was exhilarating, just wait until you experience it firsthand in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2.

Bringing down the warehouse

After a brief flight across town, Miles has tracked Connors inside the Harlem Fish Market. By the looks of it, Kraven’s hunters are making a move on him, so it’s time to clear them out.

In Marvel’s Spider-Man fashion, players can approach encounters with stealth or fists of fury, or both. Regardless of your approach, there are new gadgets and abilities that complement different playstyles. One of the new gadgets we’re excited about is the Web Line, a new way to sneak around the environment to get the drop on enemies. Cast a line over a couple of Hunters and watch as Spider-Man performs a dual takedown… a Marvel’s Spider-Man first!

Like his mentor before him, Miles Morales also has some new abilities and gadgets at his disposal. On the gadget front, we showed off the Web Grabber, a new gadget that pulls enemies together to an isolated spot. This allows Miles to chain one of his new abilities, the Thunder Burst, unleashing an electrifying ground-pound against a group of foes. You also saw a glimpse of the Chain Lightning ability, which has a shocking radius of effect on any nearby enemies.

Between Peter’s new Symbiote abilities and Miles’ newfound blue bioelectric powers, each Spider-Man has their own unique set of skills that can be upgraded via all-new individual skills tree. Our heroes share technology and train together, too, so we also included a shared Skill Tree that offers parallel upgrades for both.

The Lizard’s in the details

As Miles tracks Lizard through the Fish Market, our environments are sure to activate your Spidey senses: our world is richer, denser and packed with details from particles to improved textures. Lighting also gets an upgrade, casting more dramatic shadows and reflections along walls and pipes; meanwhile spatial 3D audio creates unique soundscapes all around you. Further, we’re upping the immersion in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 with our signature use of the DualSense wireless controller, including a range of haptics and spectacular use of the adaptive triggers.

Whether you’re sneaking through interiors or exploring our city streets, Marvel’s New York is brought to life in ways only possible on PlayStation 5 console.

Be greater together

Working together, the Spider-Men must pursue Lizard and fight the Hunters who seek his capture. Unfortunately for them, Kraven is well-equipped: boats, aerial transports, and weapons are all-eyes on Lizard. The Great Hunt continues along the East River, one of the new areas you can traverse in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, and the action is tight: Miles dismantles vehicles in his wake while Peter Parker leads the chase from afar.

You’ll seamlessly switch between both Spider-Men across a variety of story moments in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2. We want players to bask in iconic team-ups elevated by our signature set piece moments, and experience the story from the perspective of each Spider-Man.

Give me what I desire….

There’s no combination of words that can wholly convey how excited we are to finally show you Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 after all this time. We’re excited to give you this first-ever glimpse at what we’ve been working on all these years, and we hope you’re as thrilled as we are.

We know you have been patiently awaiting more information about the game, including when you will be playing it at home. While we can’t confirm a date today, we are on track for Fall 2023, and hope to be able to share a final release date soon. Stay tuned for future updates on Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, including edition information and pre-orders.

#Marvel's Spider Man 2 #Marvel's Spider Man #Spider Man PS5 #Spider Man #Marvel #Insomniac Games #Sony Interactive Entertainment #PlayStation Showcase #PlayStation Showcase 2023 #video game #long post

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bnhaobservation · 7 months

Text

Todoroki Enji's atonement arc: observations, ramblings and speculations (Part 2)

Welcome to part 2 of my “Todoroki Enji’s atonement arc: observations, ramblings and speculations” meta. Part 2 will make more sense if you read part 1 first, so I recommend you to do so.

In case you really don't feel like going through part 1, I'll tell you in it I went through what are assumed to be the steps of Todoroki Enji’s redemption arc, and noted why they don’t seem to work so well.

Now we’re going to dig into…

IN THE END WHAT ARE WE LOOKING AT?

Most of the story so far didn’t look as if it has been set up to shows us Enji walking a redemption path in regard to his family, as originally his goal was merely to become a better hero, fitting of the title of number 1.

So I might be wrong but my guess is that what the story aimed to show us so far wasn’t his redemption path, but how Enji came to the realization he has to atone to his family not because this means he’ll be a better Hero, but because he has wronged them and he truly regrets doing so.

Long story short, STEP 2 IS THE GOAL of Enji’s arc, not the beginning.

As Shōto said:

‘Chottoshita kikkake ga hito o kaeru koto mo arutte’ 「ちょっとした切っ掛けが人を変えることもあるって」 “Sometimes a small reason can change a person.” [Chap 192]

‘Kikatte’ (切っ掛け) can mean “motive”, “Impetus” but also “chance”, “occasion”, “start”, “cue”, “excuse”.

It’s one of the themes of the story, we saw it with Twice, that became a Villain due to a small incident that caused him to spiral always lower, but, in Enji’s case, we’re meant to see him slowly rising into a better person.

And the small thing that’s meant to trigger his change, his starting line, is his wish to become a better Hero so as to be fitting of his role as Number 1.

This is what will push him to ponder on what he did, so that he’ll later, much later, will come to the realization he did something horrible to his family, something that had devastating repercussions on them and can’t be just shrugged off, and that he has to redeem himself not in order to be a better Hero… but because he regrets he has hurt his family and wants to make them better.

That small thing is meant to lead him to point 2, which is still very, very far.

ENJI’S ‘TRAVEL’ TO REALIZE HOW MUCH HE WRONGED HIS FAMILY

So, let’s watch again what happen when Enji comes to the decision he’ll become a better Hero and tries to ‘atone’ because a Hero should protect people’s future, not cut people’s future short.

When, for the first time, he tries to reach out for Shōto gently, Shōto moves away, refusing contact. This drives home it’s not enough to change the way he interact with Shōto, to get Shōto to shrug everything off and start anew with him.

He can’t do something as simple as meet Rei, meeting Rei would be bad for her, while she could meet Shōto just fine, which drives home he’s actually the problem with Rei, not Shōto, even though it was Shōto who got hurt by her.

When he’s injured, his injury makes him take true notice of Shōto’s scar. He blamed Rei for it but Shōto blamed him for it and now he might start feeling guilty for causing his son such scar.

When he tries to connect with Natsuo, Natsuo calls out on his behavior. Enji just expects them to leave the past behind and start moving forward together but Natsuo is plagued by the past and can’t leave it behind. The past comes to his mind each time he does something as simple as seeing Enji’s face. Shōto also remarks how he is a great Hero but he still can’t forgive him for what he did to his mother. This forces Enji to face with the feelings of his victims. They can’t just… start again because he wants them to.

When things fail with Natsuo and Fuyumi is so very hurt by this, he’s forced to acknowledge how his daughter worked hard to give him the chance to have a family dinner and he wasted it saying the wrong words to Natsuo so he apologizes to her.

‘Fuyumi imamade sumanakatta’ 「冬美今まですまなかった」 “Fuyumi, I’m sorry (for what happened) until now”

‘Natsuo ni kakeru kotoba o machigaeta’ 「夏雄に掛ける言葉を間違えた」 “I said the wrong words to Natsuo.” [Chap 192]

I’ll stop a moment on this apology as it’s the first apology Enji makes in the story.

Japanese people have 2.000 ways to apologize depending on what they’re apologizing for, how casual or formal is the speech, who they’re talking with, the context… you name it.

And of course, Enji uses always different ways to say ‘I’m sorry’ and the various differences between a sorry and another aren’t that easy to translate in English so almost all goes translated with an ‘I’m sorry’.

Said all this… how Enji is apologizing to Fuyumi here?

For start let’s go with the premise he usually uses casual speech to talk with his family members, which makes sense.

The word he picks now to apologize is ‘sumanakatta’ (すまなかった).

‘Sumanakatta’ is the past tense form of ‘suman’ (すまん), which is the informal/contracted version of ‘sumimasen’ (すみません) which comes from the verb ‘sumu’ (済む) “to feel unease or guilt for troubling someone”.

This is the apology you use when you do anything that might make someone else uncomfortable and, even if Enji is using the casual form, it’s generally considered a formal apology, kind of like an “Excuse me”.

It doesn’t necessarily mean what you did was small, in fact it’s also what you’ll use to apologize to your boss for a mistake because, in polite language, this is the way to apologize you’ve to use.

An interesting thing though is that you can also use it with the meaning of “thank you” when someone does something for you, so you are apologizing for the inconvenience with the purpose of thanking that person. It’s however less strong than ‘arigatō’ (ありがとう).

In this case it can have both meaning, Enji might have been apologizing Fuyumi for troubling her up until then, or thanking her for all she did even though it troubled her up until then.

The following sentence seems to imply it’s more an ‘I’m sorry’ as he mentions messing up with Natsuo, which ruined Fuyumi’s efforts for them to have a family dinner.

Is he using polite language and therefore making a formal, serious apology to Fuyumi or it’s just casual speech?

The visual helps us figuring this out.

In fact, while it’s nice Enji apologizes, the apology feels hollow, a mere formality, just an act because Fuyumi went through a lot of effort and Enji was about to leave without saying nothing. He apologizes solely when she protests he’s about to leave and the visual doesn’t even show him watching her as he does so, no, he’s looking ahead, likely focusing on his atonement plan, which is ironic as he’s thinking at atoning and yet he isn’t even watching one of the people he should atone to.

So let’s go back to Enji.

When Enji decides Shōto should let him teach him Flashfire Fist because ‘now he’ll do like a father should’, Shōto for a while ignores his calls. This leads him to experience the feeling of being ignored, his feelings dismissed after he has done it for so long with the ones of his family.

This also tells us more on how he continues doing things one sided in his ‘atonement’, he basically wants to still do what he wants (teach Shōto Flashfire Fist) but in a different, ‘better’ way. He thinks Shōto should just open up to him because he’s going to be better, because he’ll became the man he wants to be (a man worth of the position of Number 1). He’s not addressing what he did to Shōto in the past, how it impacted Shōto’s life, nor he’s asking Shōto what he could do to make up and he’s again not really caring for his feelings since he is the one who decided Shōto should learn it, this is not Shōto’s idea.

So how this becomes another lesson?

When Shōto accepts to have his Work Study in Endeavor agency Enji takes it as a win, he doesn’t even ask Shōto what he wants to learn, he has already decided for him, SAME AS BEFORE, and what’s Shōto’s response?

Shōto, who had previously told him he believes he’s a great Hero but wants to see what he can do as a father, remarks he came to his agency SOLELY BECAUSE HE’S THE NUMBER 1 HERO and doesn’t view him as a father… because Enji did nothing to show him he can be a father. Wanting him in his agency, wanting to teach him Flashfire is still because Enji is a Hero and Shōto answers in kind, accepting him as a the Number 1 Hero but rejecting him as a father. And Enji has to face and swallow this, that now that he’s trying to be a father, his son views him solely as a Hero. Enji wanted to live in the Hero world with Shōto? Now he’s doing it, but he doesn’t have his son anymore.

And we continue with the lessons.

When Fuyumi invites them to dinner and Natsuo says he also used to cook for the family but Endeavor might not have let Shōto eat it because it was rich… Enji says he didn’t know Natsuo did this but hey, why not to try again, which is Enji’s version of attempting to connect with Natsuo now.

In reply Natsuo gets upset because Enji has again acknowledged he hadn’t paid attention to Natsuo in the past but he’s not apologizing, he’s not addressing the past, he’s just saying, try again, this time I’ll see you… and so Natsuo leaves, hurt, because his past pain was dismissed and he was fundamentally asked to move on, which leaves Enji to face the fact it’s not enough TO DO BETTER NOW, to try to pay attention to his kids now.

And all those lessons lead Enji to think harder at his family, at the situation, at what he’s supposed to do.

Later, for example, he’ll thanks Fuyumi.

Remember when I said ‘sumanakatta’ could work as “Thank you” but it’s less strong than ‘arigatō’?

‘Fuyumi. Arigatō’ 「冬美ありがとう」 “Fuyumi. Thank you.” [Chap 250]

Well, to thanks Fuyumi, Enji uses ‘arigatō’ now. He still seems not able to look at her in the eyes, but this time it’s not because he’s looking ahead at his future plans, his gaze is downcast so he’s probably ashamed of himself.

Enji had been trying ‘atoning’ by a while with little to no result and yet Fuyumi had always acted supportive. Now he’s likely more aware of how this isn’t necessarily a given, he has learnt to appreciate more his daughter’s efforts, this time he doesn’t try to leave without saying anything, he stops to thank her. And, from Fuyumi’s expression, we can see this matters to her, this makes her happy.

But back to Enji.

Enji claims each night he asks himself what he can do for his family. And his subconscious in a way answers him, as he says he dreams each night his family at dinner table, they’re all happy but he’s not there. Enji first interprets this as a manifestation of how he feels now, he’s cut out of his family, they’re now ignoring him, they’re happy but he can’t partake at their happiness… even though now he’s trying to be better and wants to be there.

But there’s another way to see the dream, as his subconscious pointing out at his mistakes.

He’s the one who was never with his family, he’s the one who decided on not sitting with them and enjoying that simple happiness, he rejected it because he wanted to live in the Hero world and surpass All Might, and so he cut them out, neglected them when he didn’t outright abuse them to force them to serve his needs. He had no time for them he wouldn’t see them. Now that they’re also cutting him out, he’s merely reaping what he had sown.

The fact he had cut his family out of his Hero World, that he is focusing only on his Hero persona is always the root of his problems.

His family has told him what they wanted him to do, Shōto wants to see what he can do as a dad, Fuyumi has made clear she wants her family back, Natsuo might feel more obscure in what he wants, but in the end he too asked Enji something, for Enji to do something, to make that atonement happen so that Natsuo will stop being plagued by the past and will manage to grant his sister’s dream for them to live together. Enji hears Midoriya saying Shōto is waiting, waiting to see Enji do something as a father, but he doesn’t know what to do because Enji is still too busy on being a Hero.

It’ll turn out his plan to do something for his family was AGAIN letting his family go. He’ll give them a new house and remain in the old one. Even though Shōto and Fuyumi made clear they wanted him to step up on the role of father, he’s not trying to be a father, he’s not trying to fix the hurt he caused, he’s just pulling out. AGAIN.

To be a Hero.

And here comes again an important lesson. In regard to his family he can’t even be a Hero.

In fact we see that when Natsuo is captured by Ending DUE TO HIM as Ending is targeting ENJI or better ENDEAVOR, even though didn’t want Natsuo to get hurt, in that moment in which his son was in danger he was so worried with his own feelings he froze. He couldn’t even be a Hero and Shōto, Bakugo and Midoriya had to step up and save the day.

We aren’t talking about him needing to be the Number 1 Hero, the strongest Hero, Ending is nowhere near a Nomu in terms of strength, we’re talking about being just as good as a Hero in training so that he can save his son. And he fails. And this for him might be the harshest lesson, that, for his family, he can’t even be a Hero, the only things that matters for him.

And this time, faced with his complete and utter failure as a Hero and the fact he was about to lose another child of his like he had lost Tōya, he apologizes to Natsuo.

He hugs his child, admits he failed where Bakugo and the others succeeded (a clearly humbling moment) and, when Natsuo forcefully breaks out of his hug, he apologizes to Natsuo, admitting he was in the wrong.

‘Warukatta…!’ 「悪かった…!」 “It was my bad…!”

‘Isshun kangaete shimatta ore ga tasuketara konosaki omae wa ore ni nani mo ienaku natte shimau node wanai ka to’ 「一瞬考えてしまった俺が助けたらこの先おまえは俺に何も言えなくなってしまうのではないかと」 “I thought for a moment that if I helped you, you might not be able to say anything to me from now on.”

‘Natsuo shinjinakute mo ī!’ 「夏雄信じなくてもいい…！」 “Natsuo, you don't have to believe me…!”

Ore wa omae-tachi o utonde ita wake janai 「俺はおまえたちを疎んでいたわけじゃない」 “It’s not like I was distancing myself from you guys”

‘Daga sekinin o nasuritsuke nigeta’ 「だが責任をなすりつけ逃げた」 “but I lay the blame/responsibility on others and ran away.”

‘Tōya mo… Ore ga koroshita mo dōzenda…!’ 「燈矢も…俺が殺したも同然だ…!」 “Tōya too…it's the same as if I killed him too…!” [Chap 252]

And here Enji apologizes again but this time the word he chooses is ‘Warukatta’ (悪かった).

‘Warukatta’ is the past tense form of ‘warui’ (悪い), which comes from the noun ‘waru’ (悪) “bad thing” (or, if you read it as ‘aku’, “evil thing”).

Technically, it isn't an actual apology but an admission of fault. Of course, if you admit you’re at fault, which is a big deal in Japan, this should imply you're sorry for what you did.

And okay, I already said Enji uses casual speech with his family but… this is a… very casual way to say ‘sorry’. Even if it imply you did something bad… it’s not something you should use, not even with your friends, for a serious matter, in fact it’s kind of like “My bad” and, what’s more, what Enji says after it, is still very much focused on defending himself and explaining himself but he’s FINALLY acknowledging some of his wrongdoing and taking responsibility for them instead than avoid the whole topic. He’s not escaping from the blame by pushing it on others anymore… even if, despite how serious they are, it seems he’s still underplaying them. There’s to say though that his head is lowered in apology so maybe he’s being super casual just because he’s Natsuo’s father and therefore socially above Natsuo, which makes him bowing his head to Natsuo matter a lot more.

However yes, he’s not really addressing Natsuo’s feelings… at least not in a way that matters. He’s not soothing the hurt he caused to Natsuo. He thinks he’s doing it when he says Natsuo doesn’t have to forgive him, but this is missing the point of what forgiving is and why it’s done.

‘Ore o yurusanakute ī’ 「俺を許さなくていい」 “You don't have to forgive me”

‘Yurushite hoshī n janai’ 「許してほしいんじゃない」 “I don't want you to forgive me”

‘Tsugunaitainda’ 「償いたいんだ」 “I want to make amends” [Chap 252]

The importance of forgiving, which often gets lost in redemption arcs as they tend to focus on the abuser and everything seems to get fixed for him when he’s forgiven, is that ‘forgiving’ isn’t done for the abuser, but for the victim.

The abuser can (and often should) continue to feel bad for what a disgusting thing he did even if he get forgiven but, at least, the victim will feel better because forgiving means to let go of all the painful/angry feelings the victim feels. That’s why, in a redemption arc, striving for being forgiven is important and is the milestone that signal the end to the arc, because finally the abuser is no more causing pain to the victim. He had paid the victim back. Which is the point of redemption. To pay the victim back, to make up to the victim.

In a roundabout way, this is what Natsuo is asking Enji to do, to soothe his hurt. It’s hinted Natsuo too wants to forgive Enji… but he doesn’t want to be the one who does the work.

Natsuo will in fact point out that when he sees Enji memories come rushing in. Those memories are painful so they clearly make him feel pain and he reacts to it with anger… so even though his sister would be happy to have them all, his father included, live together, he can’t do it. He feels like Enji is asking HIM to do the effort to let go of the past, but he wants Enji instead to make him let go of the past, to soothe the hurt he had caused.

Enji can’t atone if he doesn’t get forgiven because as long as Natsuo can’t forgive him, he’ll always feel pain seeing Enji, meaning Enji will always hurt him even when he tries not to.

‘Nande kotchi ga nōdōteki ni kawaranakya ikerunda yo!’ 「何でこっちが能動的に変わらなきゃいけるんだよ!」 “Why do I have to actively change!?”

‘Tsugunautte anta ni nani ga dekirunda yo’ 「償うってあんたに何ができるんだよ」 “What can you do to make amends?” [Chap 252]

And what is Enji going to do?

He’s again removing himself from Natsuo’s life. Yeah, if you want to face palm that’s the moment.

He will gift Natsuo and Fuyumi with a new, more comfortable house in which they can go live with their mother. Because Rei can’t see him without feeling fear, because Natsuo can’t see him without feeling pain and rage, he thinks the solution is for them to not see him, to avoid him, the way he has done with them.

He doesn’t try to fix the problem, he wants them to avoid it.

Mind you, he’s not doing this to be a jerk. Now he wants to be part of his family, he was thinking he could start again, so giving up on it feels painful to him… and avoiding him seems on the surface what Rei and Natsuo wanted, what they needed (Natsuo was trying to avoid him and Rei’s doctor said she’s not supposed to meet Enji). But this goes against what Fuyumi wants, for him too to be also part of the family, and shift the blame for this not happening on them.

Because they can’t stand to the sight of him, he has to pull back and Fuyumi won’t get her wish to live together and Shōto won’t get to see him acting like a father. And Natsuo made clear he wanted to fulfill his sister’s wish, he just didn’t know how to do it and wanted Enji to do something in that regard and Enji… didn’t.

Enji chose the easy way out of the problem, like he admitted he always did.

While the consequence he has to face is that he has ‘lost’ his family, turning into reality the dream he kept having, the family now that he’s no more plagued by his envy he has discovered he wanted to be with… building a new house for his family is no big deal for him as he has the money to do so and he can still hope things will eventually get fixed and that they’ll move over.

If this didn’t happen… well, he’ll remain without his family but, since he kept away from it though most of his life prioritizing his Hero career… to us readers it doesn’t really seem a big deal. After all it’s not like he wants to stop being a Hero, and he’s Number 1 and so we reach the Paranormal Liberation War with Enji still having been forced to face unpleasant consequences for what he did but, fundamentally, nothing earth shattering, nothing that pushed him to fight with all he had to make up to his family.

He still needs a push.

Enters Dabi, who’s more than willing to give him a giant size shove.

TŌYA OR WHEN GENTLY NUDGING YOU DOESN’T WORK, LET’S TRY WITH KICKING YOU

Redemption and revenge aim at the same thing, refunding the victim of an abuse. The difference is that in redemption the abuser decides on the refunding on his own, in revenge it’s the victim that take matters in his hands and extract refunding from the abuser, often believing they’re done in an ‘oculum pro oculo’ manner… but actually going way too overboard because they often want revenge for something that’s intangible and long lasting, the pain they suffered and keep suffering.

But back with Enji.

Up to this point Enji has interacted with his victims… but they were all what you call ‘good victims’ victims who wouldn’t try to return back the wrongdoing they have received. Even in Shōto and Natsuo’s case, despite them being angry with him, the most they do is tell him why they’re angry and avoid him or reject him as a father, they don’t really try to make Enji’s life as miserable as he made their own.

In fact, while Rei and Fuyumi are of the ‘forgive and forget’ type, Natsuo and Shōto are more of the ‘forgive but NOT forget’ kind (and, to be honest, they aren’t even fully done with the forgiving part) as they’re slowly letting go of their anger but they aren’t willing to shrug off what Enji did.

However Tōya, at the moment, is fully of the ‘NOT forgive and NOT forget’ type. His father ruined his life and he CAN’T get over this. What he suffered destroyed him psychologically, he’s suicidal and he chose anger as a way to cope with pain which leads him to pursue revenge as a way to get even with his father. If Enji made him miserable, he’ll make him miserable in return. If he destroyed him, he’ll destroy him back. If he’s in hell due to his father, he’ll drag Enji in hell as well.

‘Jigōjitoku da ze’ 「自業自得だぜ」 “You reap what you sow!”

‘Saa issho ni ochiyou Todoroki Enji!!’ 「さァ一緒に堕ちよう轟炎司！！」 “Well, let’s fall together, Todoroki Enji”

‘Jigoku (read: kotchi) de musuko (read: ore) to odorou ze!!!’ 「地獄(こっち)で息子(おれ)と踊ろうぜ！！！」 “Dance with your son (read: me) in hell (read: here)!!!” [Chap 290]

Tōya wants revenge which makes him aggressive as hell and causes him to do plenty of wrong things, but this doesn’t change the fact he’s also Enji’s victim, he’s also a family member Enji horribly wronged and Enji should atone to him too.

Now, a note on Tōya.

Differently from the rest of his family, who just blames Enji for the pain they suffered, Tōya is not just blaming Enji for what he went through, he’s blaming his family, who didn’t help him, and society, which enabled Enji.

So he doesn’t want to be paid back SOLELY by Enji, but by the rest of his family and society as well, and part of his actions aren’t aimed merely at hurting Enji but also all the others he views responsible, even if he thinks the biggest part of the blame rests on his father’s shoulders and extracting revenge from him is his main goal.

It’s what the other Todorokis, who set the blame solely on Enji, don’t quite get, but it’s also why Tōya has no problems hurting people who aren’t Enji. Because he sees them as co-responsible. To him it’s not ALL ABOUT ENJI, though Enji is the BIGGEST REASON of why all this happened and his main focus.

“Boku no Hero Academia” is a story that criticize/analyzes/promotes change in society as well so of course it has to be also about society… but this is about Enji and his redemption arc, so I won’t focus much on society and its problems and Tōya’s attempt to get revenge out of society as well. That’s for another post.

But, back on Enji.

Tōya’s role in this part of Enji’s arc is to FORCE HIM to come face to face with all that he is still trying to not see, the consequences of his actions and how they can’t just be erased, how not everyone will content himself with just moving out of his life and go on living because some can’t. Their future is a barren land, it doesn’t exist, they’re in hell and their only way out is dying.

Tōya’s whole speech is about forcing him to see.

Tōya doesn’t need to be prompted to speak his mind like Natsuo, he immediately makes clear his father ignored him, hurt him, stripped him of what gave his existence a meaning, made him miserable, he made clear the pain Enji put him through, and why he did so, which were the extremely selfish and egotistical reasons which moved Enji… and now he wants payback, or better he wants to return everything he received. He won’t set aside the past. Not only the past made him what he is now, keeps hurting him like an open wound, but it’s basically all he has, as he believed he has been stripped of his future.

‘Kako wa kienai za!!’ 「過去は消えないザ!!」 “The past doesn’t disappear!” [Chap 290]

Tōya also nails what had been Enji’s thoughts, Enji really thought ‘As long as I face the future, I can be better’, now that he was Number 1 he really tried to stare to his kids in the eyes longing to feel the warmness of his family.

‘Mirai ni me o mukete ireba tadashiku areru to omottadarou! ! ? 「未来に目を向けていれば正しくあれると思っただろう！！？」 “You should have thought if you turn your attention to the future, you’ll be able to follow the right path!!?”

‘Shira nē yōdakara oshiete yaru yo! !’ 「知らねエようだから教えてやるよ！！！」 “Since you don’t seem to know it, I’ll tell you!!” [Chap 290]

It didn’t went as easy as Tōya seems to think it went, as the others weren’t as accommodating and forgiving as he seems to believe they were, but those were Enji’s thoughts, he believed by walking toward the future he could leave the past behind.

And Tōya is there to remind him he can’t, that the past would never die. He dehumanizes himself so that he can present himself as the embodiment of such past, of Enji’s mistakes. He’s no more a person, he’s the result, the consequence of all of them.

Not only Tōya won’t forget what Enji did, he won’t forgive him and he’ll extract revenge from him.

Tōya won’t stay quiet in a mental hospital or go on with his life away from him, no, Tōya will expose everything Enji did, as well as the fact he’s his son and that his villainous actions are a direct consequence of Enji’s actions, an answer to them. He destroys Enji’s reputation as a Hero and as a man… and destroys the faith in Heroes the Hero society in which they lived thrives upon.

It was ‘easy’ for Enji to leave the past behind because he wasn’t the one who got hurt by his own actions, he wasn’t the one who had to face the consequences, who has to live with the psychological scarring.

Tōya forced him to see the past wouldn’t die, that the past actions have consequences that live on, that who’s hurt can’t just move on as easily as who had hurt people. He forces him to see this by hurting him, by giving him pain and psychological scars he won’t be able to shrug off and leave behind.

His father fails at empathy, he won’t get into someone else’s shoes willingly so Tōya forces him to do so in order to lead him to understand how much harm he did to him.

Tōya rips to shreds his father’s Hero persona, which was his father’s reason of existence, Enji now might stay Number 1 but he’s clearly no more a HERO in people’s eyes, no Hero is a HERO in their eyes. Because since Tōya was banned from entering in the Hero world by his father, he did his best to destroy such world in which his father thrived and which society enabled, refusing to see the wrong things Heroes were making.

What’s more, Enji, with Natsuo and Rei, thought he could fix things with them simply by pulling himself out of the equation. They won’t see him, and therefore won’t get hurt by seeing him, he won’t see them, and therefore won’t get hurt by seeing the consequences of his actions.

They all will not look at each other so that nobody will get hurt, or so he tells himself.

Tōya doesn’t let him do the same with him. Tōya wants Enji to look at him, to look at him and see all the harm he had done to him, he wants Enji to face consequences, to realize how he destroyed him for his beloved Hero world, for his selfish dream, for his ego.

Tōya is in pain and wants his father to see such pain and feel it on himself because Tōya is unable to move on, he can’t stop seeing Enji, he’s at a stage where he always feels pain inside himself. He doesn’t expect to be healed from his pain by his father, he’s more in a ‘commune naufragium, omnibus solarium’ mindset.

And Tōya does a pretty good job at making Enji face consequences, in fact, when Enji wakes up in the hospital he cries, saying Endeavor is dead. Tōya has succeeded in making him feel as miserable as he felt, he has ripped from him the reason why he existed, his Endeavor persona and Enji crumbles under the pain. He can’t just shrug it off like he expected his family to do.

He apologizes to his kids, this time using ‘suman’ (すまん).

‘Suman… hontō ni… sumanai. Suman…tsu.’ 「すまん…本当に…すまないすまん…つ」 “I’m sorry… I’m really… sorry. Sorry…”

‘Oso sugitanda… kōkai ga… zaiaku-kan ga… ima ni natte…! Kokoro ga mō’ 「遅すぎたんだ…後悔が…罪悪感が…今になって…!心がもう」 “It's too late… I feel regret… I feel guilty… now…! My heart is already…” [Chap 300]

Previously Enji has used ‘sumanakatta’, which was the past tense form of ‘suman’ (すまん).

So back at this are we? Is he just offering a formal apology because he “feel unease or guilt for troubling someone” in this specific case his family?

The visual helps us figuring this out.

This time the apology is more heartfelt. Enji is crying rather badly, his head lowered in shame, and he doesn’t say just ‘suman’ but also ‘hontō ni sumanai’ (本当にすまない).

‘Sumanai’ in this case should be the negative form of ‘suman’. The implication should be “he’ll never stop feeling unease or guilt for troubling someone”, so it’s a bit stronger than ‘suman’ even if still just casual (in fact some dictionary translate it as “I did something inexcusable”) and, to it, he adds ‘hontō ni’ (本当に), “really”, so he means “he really never stop feeling unease or guilt for troubling someone”.

This time the apology is clearly more serious, more heartfelt than with Fuyumi. It drives better home this time he’s more aware he didn’t just ‘troubled’ his family.

Now Enji is better grasping why he should be sorry about it, he’s crying, although he’s still very much focused on himself. His concerns are for his heart, which is broken (and possibly for how ‘Endeavor is dead’), not for how his family is feeling. He calls them there likely because he also wants them to comfort him, to make him feel better, not because he wants to make them feel better.

And this time it’s Rei to give him a wake up call, pointing out they had it much worse than him. And when he asks her if she’s okay, she points out she’s not.

Rei is another result of the past not dying, even though she’s moving on, now she’s capable to look straight at him… but it’s not like all the hurt went away.

Then Enji is forced to look back at the past and at his past actions as they, as a family, go through them.

Enji refused to look at Tōya, escaping responsibility, caused him to keep burning himself in an attempt to regain his affection and had two more kids with the excuse this would make Tōya stop burning himself but, in truth, because he was the one who couldn’t get over the fact he couldn’t surpass All Might. He drove Tōya so desperate that, in order to have him look at him, he attacked Shōto, because negative attention is better than no attention.

In response Enji isolated Shōto from his siblings, continued to refuse to look at Tōya even when it was made clear to him that this was what Tōya wanted, what Tōya needed, and not a sibling that could surpass All Might as Enji claimed Tōya needed… but that, in truth, was what Enji wanted.

Then Enji drove Rei to insanity and, even though he saw Tōya’s desperation and how his supposed idea to stop him from training by having Shōto didn’t work, continued to refuse to look at him to the point he knew Tōya would go to Sekoto Peak and would get burned if he were to use his Quirk but didn’t go to face him… and Tōya ended up with more than just new fresh burns, he burned down the whole place and himself as well.

As if this wasn’t bad enough Enji continued to put Shōto through hellish training, excusing his actions and insisting in his impressive sunk cost fallacy.

His family makes clear he can’t escape responsibility anymore and has to face Tōya.

Now, there is a problem in this if we look at the story as Enji’s redemption arc toward his WHOLE family (and therefore include Tōya too in it).

From now on, Enji will be pressured into focusing not on atoning to Tōya (or the rest of his family), but on focusing on doing his duty as Endeavor to protect and atone to society (which is tied to his responsibility toward society as Tōya’s father) which requires him to fight/stop Tōya/Dabi.

Yes, Tōya absolutely needs to be stopped, stopping him is the most logical thing to do but, if Enji is focusing on this and not on his atonement, stopping Tōya becomes a side quest that distracts him from his real quest… and stops him from seeing which is the fire he should truly stop, not the one his son creates with his Quirk, but the one burning inside Tōya, a fire he had light with his mistakes.

It’s a repeat of his past mistakes, where the family has focused on the fire of Tōya’s Quirk which burned him, and not on the one burning inside Tōya which made him miserable.

So, even though all the family is now taking responsibility for the situation, at the end of the day what they tell Enji to do is go face Tōya not as his father who needs to atone to him, but as the one who needs to stop him, likely wanting to encourage him to take up the mantle of Endeavor again, in fact Rei says ‘he has to fight Dabi’, using her son’s Villain name.

‘Sekinin wa anata dake no mono janai’ 「責任はあなただけのものじゃない」 “The responsibility is not just yours.”

‘Konkai no koto wa watashitachi zen'in no sekinin’ 「今回のことは私たち全員の責任」 “We are all responsible for this time.”

‘Kokoro ga kudakete mo watashitachi ga tata semasu’ 「心が砕けても私たちが立たせます」 “Even if your heart is broken, we will make you stand up”

‘Anata wa Dabi to tatakau shika nai no’ 「あなたは荼毘と戦うしかないの」 “You have no choice but to fight Dabi” [Chap 302]

Shōto also will remark they have to stop Tōya and then Hawks and Best Jeanist will insist on this as well. It’s irony at his finest, when Enji was finally willing to declare Endeavor dead, everyone wanted him to be Endeavor.

We could make another meta talking of his family and why they want this and why they don’t ask this because they don’t care about Tōya (they all love him), but that’s a Meta for another time.

Let’s stick to Enji.

The conclusion of all this is that he has to remain Endeavor and prioritize apologizing to society, atoning to it so he has to take part to a press conference and apologize.

‘Owabi no mōshiageyō mo gosaimasen’ 「お詫びの申し上げようもごさいません」 “There is no way for me to apologize enough/I have no excuses.” [Chap 306]

This is what he says to the press and this time the apology is as formal as you can get. It’s a sentence used to apologize to customers or superiors about really big mistakes. It’s fitting the context since he’s apologizing to the press and to society itself.

It makes sense he’s being formal here, he even shaved for the occasion.

It’s also worth to mention openly admitting his wrongdoing is a big deal in Japan. While he won’t face penal consequences for his sins, socially speaking he’s destroyed (as well as his family).

Hawks also will go with a formal apology.

‘Shazai mōshiagemasu’ 「謝罪申し上げます」 “I would like to apologize” [Chap 306]

It’s worth to mention that, while society thinks very poorly of Enji now… the way the manga presents it seems to imply society didn’t give a damn he abused of his family, their problem is such abuse resulted in them being ‘troubled’ and while not caring about Tōya can be in response to what Tōya did… what about poor Shōto? Tōya made clear he also was abused.

Enji’s arc likely is meant to parallel society’s arc. Because society was selfish, set in motion the chain of events that lead people like Tenko, Himiko, Jin and Tōya became Villains and now society is also paying the price and trying to deflect the blame solely on the Heroes. But again, that’s something for another meta.

Again to Enji we go and to how he gets here comes another wake up call.

A journalist also makes a point of how the past never dies.

She tells them than saying sorry doesn’t change the situation they’re in and that they can’t just stand there and pretend like it’s all over, that while Villains are to blame, they too share a responsibility.

‘“Subete jijitsudejita sumimasen” ja torikaeshinotsukanai jitaina ndesu yo’ 「『全て事実でじたすみません』じゃ取り返しのつかないじたいなんですよ」 “You just saying ‘It’s all true, sorry’ isn’t going to make it undone” [Chap 306]

Yes, she downgraded his formal apology to a mere ‘sumimasen’ to better drive home how little heartfelt it felt to her, how it just felt like a formality.

Enji asks her if, were they to show their pain, exhaustion and tears, this would fix things, which only enrage the journalist because of course it wouldn’t be enough.

Remember the whole atonement path?

Step 2 is realizing you did something wrong, step 3 is to regret it but then there’s a step 4. Step 4 is to start working on fixing things.

The journalist was accusing Enji to be at step 2, he’s aware he has done something bad and had wronged ‘society’ (as said before society don’t give a damn about how Enji has wronged his family), if he had also shown regret he would have been at step 3 but, according to her, he’s not, which meant he won’t move to step 4, which is the one in which he fixes things. Only with step 4 he can atone, just feeling sorry is mandatory but nowhere near enough.

And here however comes a problem, Horikoshi subtly remarks how this is bringing Enji away from atoning to his family.

The journalist starts to point out what he should do to atone to the people, only to pause in mid sentence as she realizes that, by asking him to take down every Villain, she’s asking him to take down his son.

‘Teki (read: Villain) o zenbu katadzukeru sore ga…’ 「敵 (ヴィラン)を全部片付けるそれが…」 “Get rid of all the enemies (read: Villains), that’s how…” [Chap 306]

‘Katadzukeru’ (片付ける) can imply that, in order to get rid of the Villains, Enji has to kill all the Villains. Note that in the past it was said that Heroes shouldn’t kill, and Hawks had to apologize for killing Twice… but now the public rage feels they’re entitled to be above such rules. They were wronged and they want blood… same as the Villains.

It was the point that Shigaraki made when he fought against Endeavor. Because he was rejected, he rejects. Because he was hurt, he hurts. It’s a vicious cycle. It’s what Tōya is doing. It’s what society wants to do. Again, on this too, we could write meta.

For now let’s only remark that, if Enji were to take down his son, he wouldn’t get to atone to him.

So the narrative calls Enji to a choice… but he doesn’t even realize it.

In fact, here he should decide if he wants to atone to Tōya, whom he had wronged, or society, whom he also had wronged.

Enji chose to be Endeavor and atone to society… but it’s not really a choice because he hadn’t truly grasped yet Tōya is HIS VICTIM and he has to atone to him too.

In fact later, fighting All for One, Enji will say his mistakes took form of Tōya… but Tōya isn’t a personification for his mistakes, he’s a real person he hurts and who’s now trying to retaliate.

His wish to look at Tōya after the war has ended, isn’t related to finally give his son the attention he emotionally always needed and asked, but to look after him to stop him from making mistakes/causing harm to the people. He’s planning to look after Tōya, not at Tōya.

Doing so is still part of his atoning to society, to make sure his son won’t cause further harm to it. And he’ll do this later, because he still first prioritize his Hero work… because his regret is very much focused on what his actions had caused to befall on society on how his son is a mass murderer now, which causes harm to society.

Let’s make clear Enji doesn’t want to kill Tōya, he has made clear he can’t when he woke up in the hospital, Tōya, to him, is not like Shigaraki whom he wanted to kill (despite how Heroes shouldn’t kill) and for whom he had no sympathy whatsoever. Tōya is still his son.

But he’s still not at the point in which he has realized he has to apologize to Tōya because he has hurt him, for now he’s just thinking he mismanaged the situation and seeing Tōya as an extension of himself same way as he saw Shōto. To him, they’re both his creations, Shōto exists to defeat All Might, Tōya exists as personification of his mistakes.

Ironically the chapters in which the Todoroki family past was told were called “The wrong way to put out a fire” in English, but in Japanese they are ‘Hi no fushimatsu’ (火の不始末) which can be more literally translated as “mismanagement/careless handling of fire” (it generally implied in ‘putting it out’) with ‘fushimatsu’ meaning “omission”, “failure”, “incompleteness”, “irregularity”, “mismanagement”. “misconduct”, “malpractice”, “carelessness”, “wastefulness”.

And this is what Enji felt he did, he messed up, he handled things badly. He’s not quite thinking at the hurt he caused to his son, he’ll still need some time to figure that out.

Due to all this, Enji’s redemption to society take priority, in Enji’s eyes, to his redemption to his family. Enji has to put society at ease, he has to redeem himself in society’s eyes by saving society… society needs to be saved for them to live… and everyone, his family, the other Heroes, are pressuring him to do just that… and so, in a way, his redemption arc to his family stagnate. He returns to prioritizing his Hero job… and doesn’t even realize that his redemption arc toward his family is being postponed. He isn’t yet at step 2 of his redemption to his family yet. Even Tōya realizes it (and it's interesting how we aren't shown his eyes as he speaks).

‘…Ijime tarinakatta ka a kuku…’ 「…虐め足りなかったかあクク…」 “…the bullying/tormenting wasn’t enough? Heh heh…” [Chap 306]

No, it wasn’t enough to make him empathize with the pain Tōya (or his family) went through.

Enji is sorry. For himself. Really, really sorry. But he’s not yet sorry for his son, for his family… possibly not even for society. He knows he messed up. But he’s still doing this because it’s his duty.

But we’re getting close because now he’s left experiencing what it feels like to be miserable, to be rejected, to be cut out from society, to have failed completely and utterly.

“Boku no hero academia” doesn’t explore it much, possibly because for Japanese people this is a given or because this is an optimistic story aimed at young audience, or because the editor just didn’t want to show one of the Heroes having it too bad, but I can recommend you a good SEINEN manga (remember, seinen manga are targeted at male audiences aged 18 to 40, if you’re younger they’re not for you!) “Theseus no fune” (テセウスの船 ‘Theseus’ ship’) which will show you how ‘kind’ Japanese society is with the family of a man who’s accused of having poisoned 20 people.

His family, his children included, is forced to live in shame, they can’t show happiness or pain in public, they’ve to live hiding their identity, if people find out who they are, they’re bashed, hated, avoided, bullied, they’ve to move away from their house and workplace/school, constantly apologizing. One of the man’s child, who wasn’t even born yet when the crime was committed, managed to get married but his wife’s family refuses to see him. He can’t become a teacher, he has to wear a mask to hide his face at work and avoid people the best he can so they won’t discover his identity and he learns from his mother that when she had to give birth to him hospitals didn’t want to take her in because she was the wife of a murderer.

So yeah, Enji and his family supposedly aren’t really having a nice time, which is hinted also when Tōya asked Shōto how was he when he was being holed up in U.A. after the truth about Endeavor was revealed. Tōya expected people to reject him as he were Endeavor’s son and Dabi’s brother.

However supposedly people in the shelter at U.A. and Shōto’s classmates are all nice with him and no one apparently harassed Rei, Fuyumi and Natsuo… or if they did it was never shown.

We see Enji has it a little worse as, while he’s on work, the people he just protected rejects him but again, the manga doesn’t focus much on this and he has his family’s support as well as the one of all the other Heroes so… he’s not having it as bad as one would expect, at least not visually.

Logically he should have it really bad… but the story prefers to focus on how nice people at U.A. and Heroes are which is… a choice.

Anyway, back to Enji, that’s why he comes to the battlefield completely unprepared to face his son, why he hadn’t thought of anything to say to him. Because he still hadn’t grasped Tōya is also a victim to whom he should atone… nor he has really grasped his family’s feelings.

In fact we saw how, although Shōto has agreed to work with him to stop Tōya, prior to the start of the war, Enji cuts communications with him and goes with Midoriya and Hawks on a Team Up mission.

When confronted by Shōto, he claims that Shōto wanting to help him to stop Tōya meant a lot TO HIM and that FOR HIM is enough, and Shōto is forced to point out Enji is again cutting him from the equation and focusing to himself. To Shōto the whole thing means nothing if Enji doesn’t act on it, if Enji ignores him. Enji has again not considered his feelings, has again ignored his family.

Shōto has to remind him again they’ve to stop Tōya TOGETHER.

And then the Heroes are ready for the war to start… and it’s decided Endeavor will be put against All for One while Shōto will have to face his brother... which isn’t exactly how many expected them to stop Tōya TOGETHER, even if yes, putting an end to All for One can be seen as a way to stop Tōya too as he could end up being affected by the consequences of All for One’s fall… but well… it’s a huge stretch.

More than them stopping Tōya together it’s just they happen to be together in the war.

Credits when it’s due, Enji will phone to Shōto suggesting they should switch, that he should be the one to face Tōya but Shōto refuses and encourages him again to act as the Hero Endeavor and stop All for One, not as Todoroki Enji, while he’ll act as the Hero Shōto and stop Dabi.

Now no, I’m not saying this to blame Shōto.

Shōto’s situation is very different from Enji’s, he did nothing wrong, he’s a victim and he’s trying to do his best and help people as well as doing his duty as Hero. He doesn’t have to atone to his brother.

Sending his father to face his brother would have been psychologically much easier for Shōto, because it pains him a lot to face his brother. All for One calls this cruel against Shōto and abuse against Tōya.

'Soreni mottomo zankoku na saihaida to omou ze?' 「それに…最も残酷な采配だと思うぜ？」 "In addition… Don’t you think this is the most cruel arrangement?"

'Tsurai tachiba no masshi ni shirinugui o oshitsuke' 「辛い立場の末子に尻拭いを押し付け」 "You forced your youngest son, who was in a difficult situation, to wipe your butt."

'Kare (read: chōnan) e no gyakutai o tsudzukeru to wa!' 「彼（長男）への虐待を続けるとは！」 "And continued to abuse that person (read: your eldest son)!" [Chap 345]

‘Zankoku’ (残酷) which means “cruel” should be a well known word due to the famous song theme “Zankoku na tenshi no these” (残酷な天使のテーゼ)

‘Shirinugui’ (尻拭い) litterally means “to wipe your butt” but yes, it can be used to mean “clean up for someone else’s mistakes”.

‘Gyakutai’ (虐待) can mean “Abuse”, “mistreatment”, “Cruelty”. “Child abuse” in Japanese is ‘Jidō gyakutai’ (児童虐待), just to give you an idea of how serious the accuse is.

Long story short, what Tōya is doing is the result of Enji’s actions so Enji should have been the one to deal with it, not again push the work on Shōto.

But from a Hero’s point of view, this is the best plan, they pin the strongest Hero against the strongest Villain. Putting Endeavor against Dabi, after seeing how he froze the last time and how he declares he wants to atone to his family, risks for that battle to get lost, Hawks can see this, can see there’s the risk Enji will figure out he should atone to his son too and therefore wouldn’t be able to fight him.

Shōto, on the other side, in addition to being strong and having a move that supposedly can counter Dabi’s fire, has no debts toward him. The way the Heroes see it, Shōto did nothing wrong against Dabi because he basically didn’t even interact with him and also, due to this, his family ties with Dabi feel weak. He can fight him without freezing up, especially since, from Shōto and the Heroes’ perspective, it’s Dabi who’s wronging him, making Shōto Dabi’s victim and therefore giving Shōto an incentive to fight back.

It’s a good battle strategy but it grabs Enji’s atonement arc and throws it into the recycle bin for the sake of winning the battle.

It asks Enji to prioritize being a Hero in the Hero world and neglect both his children. Shōto accepts it as his duty as Hero but this doesn’t make the matter less unfair to him as a son. Tōya of course, has no duty to accept it, it only makes him more enraged.

And so, instead than focusing on his atonement arc toward his family, Enji focuses on his atonement arc toward the people as Endeavor and fights All for One.

It’s not all lost though, there’s conflict in him, sadly it’s not Luke Skywalker who tells him “Search your feelings, father. You can't do this. I feel the conflict within you. Let go of your hate,” but All for One and let’s make it clear, All for One isn’t interested in helping Enji to atone… All for One is the palptine, the Emperor of the story, he’s interested in leading Enji to step 2, for the mere fact that this would shift Enji’s attention on the pain and regret for what he did and make easier for him to defeat Enji.

So All for One continues on hammering on it, on how Enji hurt his children, and reveals another of Enji’s failures, because Enji didn’t go to Sekoto Peak it was him who found Tōya.

What happens later is interesting.

All for One manages to deliver a good blow and Enji has an inner monologue with his younger self who… basically tells him he’ll never improve but that has to go on doing what he has always done, what has kept him alive, struggling against his weakness, to keep on raging.

It sets Enji in full Endeavor’s mode as the first thing he says is that putting an end to the fight is his duty.

He acknowledges some unpleasant truth like how, as Tōya said, the past never dies. He can’t just tell hurt people to move on.

He acknowledges that he’s the cause of many stolen futures… but he’s still not really focusing to his family in this. He thinks that his mistakes took form as Tōya and this lead to so many stolen futures, because he now acknowledges he’s the cause why Tōya did that…

‘Ore no ayamachi ga Tōya no sugata to nari’ 俺の過ちが燈矢の姿となり “My mistakes took the appearance of Tōya”

‘Ooku no hito no mirai wo ubatta’ 多くの人の未来を奪った “And stole many people’s futures.” [Chap 357]

… but he’s more focused on playing penance to society than to his son and it’s in this vein he claims he’ll continue watching Tōya.

‘Batsu wa ore ga uke tsudzukeru…!’ 「罰は俺が受け続ける…！」 “I will continue take punishment/being punished…!”

‘Katte Tōya wo mi tsudzukeru!’ 「勝って燈矢を見続ける！」 “I will win, and I will continue watching Tōya!” [Chap 357]

His idea that he’ll win this and after will keep his eyes on Tōya is not something he plans to do for Tōya. It’s for society so that it will have a path toward the future. It’s Endeavor’s atonement to society.

His keeping his eyes on Tōya doesn’t mean finally giving his son the attention he demanded, means to finally taking responsibility for him, keeping him from harming himself or the others as he hadn’t done when Tōya was younger.

It misses the part of the point of why he’s to blame for not watching Tōya when Tōya was a kid, not just because as a result Tōya got physically hurt, but because he got emotionally hurt by his neglect. Tōya isn’t doing all this because he got burnt, but because he got neglected.

However Enji hasn’t realized this yet and, in fact, when Enji finds himself face to face with Tōya and tells himself this time he’ll look at him…

‘Shimei…’ 使命… “My mission…”

‘Kondo wa ore ga miru’ 今度は俺が見る “This time I will watch you.” [Chap 376]

…and what he does after?

He doesn’t confront him on the hurt he caused him, he doesn’t apologize, he worries Tōya might have hurt Shōto and then drags him away so that Tōya won’t manage to hurt others.

And yeah, he’s clearly not trying to atone to him.

However, while many saw this as Enji saying one thing and doing another because it seemed he was escaping from the duty of looking at his son, this is actually what he’s doing, he’s making sure his son won’t hurt people. He’s trying to look after him… but he’s not looking at him.

He’s taking care of his mission, protecting people. And yes, he’s also doing one of his duties as a father, not taking care of his child but being responsible for his child’s actions, making sure they won’t hurt anyone. That’s why the tagline of that chapter in the magazine version says:

‘Chichi ni kasareta no wa…’ 父に課されたのは… “What the father was tasked/imposed with…” [Chap 376]

In a redemption arc atonement and redemption aren’t the task of the day, something others push on you. They’re your choice, your decision. No one can force you to redeem. You either decide for it or don’t.

We all were thinking now Enji would look at Tōya the way Tōya wanted, but that’s not the plan. Enji isn’t going to be there for Tōya like Tōya wanted… he’s going to act in a way that will stop Tōya from hurting others.

So Enji escapes to lead Tōya away from the others, so as to stop the incarnation of his mistakes from stealing other futures.

And it turns out this isn’t enough because Tōya is going to explode and when he’ll do… he’ll take so many lives with him. Tōya promised him he would try to take away from him what Enji tried to protect, that he’ll take away from him what Enji deemed precious in retaliation, and boy, he’s going to do it in a litteral blast.

And so Enji has to face his son… and in a way he really faces him as, although Tōya is in a terrible state, when Enji watches him all he sees is young Tōya smiling and asking him to watch him show him what he now can do.

It’s now he’s starting to reach step 2, because now he’s not seeing Tōya as a personification of his mistakes, but as his child… and tells him to stop because he doesn’t want HIM to die.

And it’s when Enji realizes Tōya has inherited Rei’s Quirk as well that Enji finally, FINALLY has his epiphany. [Chap 387]

This was what he wanted, a child with a superior fire Quirk and Rei’s Quirk to cool it down... and he got it, in a horribly warped way. The visual shows him thinking back to all he did that lead him to this moment, to have his wish fulfilled in such a distorted way, included his promise to ‘win and then watch over Tōya’.

Only now that he has finally connected all the dots and realized how much he hurt his son, he’s ready to finally watch him the way Tōya wanted.

AND YEAH! THAT’S STEP TWO! TOOK US A LOT OF TIME!

So finally…

2) Due to some circumstances Character A realizes what an horrible thing/things he did.

The visual is symbolic, Tōya had asked Enji to dance with him in hell, and now Enji is doing it. He’s with him in hell, he understands his pain and understands he’s the cause of it.

In fact it’s no more child Tōya he’s seeing, it’s the Tōya who told him to dance with him and Enji now is willing to do it

Enji finally answers to his son’s needs, takes full responsibility for what he did to Tōya. Finally he sees him, he sees the hell in which Tōya is, finally he’s with him like Tōya wanted, like Tōya needed.

‘Zenbu ore no sekinin da’ 「全部俺の責任だ」 “Everything is my fault/responsibility.” [Chap 387]

And with step 2 comes step 3.

3) Character A comes to genuinely regret his actions, they plague him, he’ll ABSOLUTELY have to either fix things or make up for them because he can’t bear living otherwise, it’ll always gnaw at him.

Enji goes through his original plan, bear the burden of the responsibility and live his life atoning (to society).

He goes on pointing out how Tōya had been watching him for all this time… even if it was painful, even if Enji wasn’t watching him back… while Enji didn’t watch him back so as to spare himself from facing responsibility, from facing pain.

‘Zenbu seotte tsugunai ni ikineba to omotte ita’ 「全部背負って償いに生きねばと思っていた」 “I thought I had to shoulder everything and live my life making amends.”

‘Demo omae wa zutto ore wo mitsudzuketetanda mon na…’ 「でもおまえはずっと俺を見続けてたんだもんな…」 “But you were always keeping on looking at me…”

‘Omae wo mite yarenakatta…’ 「おまえを見てやれなかった…」 “I couldn’t look at you…”

‘Omae ni mo tsugunawanakya ikenakattanda’ 「おまえにも償わなきゃいけなかったんだ」 “I have to make amends to you, too.” [Chap 387]

He can’t atone solely to society, he must atone to his son as well.

His dream of him never being at the table with his family comes to his mind. While in a way he accepts to make it become true… he accepts he won’t sit at the table with them… at the same time this time this time he won’t leave one of his family members alone, he won’t leave Tōya alone.

4) Character A starts to put all his efforts into atoning one way or another.

I’m not sure if, at that point, the explosion could have been avoided had Enji killed Tōya, but he’s not considering it because he won’t let his son die alone. He’ll die with him but in a way that won’t drag others with them. He thinks if they’ll go high in the sky the others won’t be caught up in the blast. Note that Tōya’s heat is so high it’s burning him but he’s not letting go of him.

Through the whole story, even when it was at his lowest, Enji has never thought to die, he always thought he would atone and keep living… this is also why Tōya said the bullying wasn’t enough, because his father never became as suicidal as him, and despite everything not even ‘Endeavor’, his Hero persona, died... but, after all, Enji’s whole start was that he didn’t want to end up like his father and die so he has a strong attachment to life… but now he’s accepting it. He’ll die with his son so as not to let him alone. It’s what Tōya asked him to do in a way.

But then Rei joins them and she immediately starts by apologizing to Tōya… as well as trying to cool him down. If Enji was ready to die with him… Rei, and then the rest of his children, will try to make their hardest to save them (and the rest of Japan from Tōya’s explosion) using their ice Quirk, a Quirk Enji always judged inferior to his fire Quirk which now is completely useless.

Enji can’t do nothing at this point, he can’t even bring Tōya up high in the sky, it’s too late for that, he can only beg Tōya, saying no one else has to die, just his life should be enough.

‘Mou… tanomu kara…ore dake ni shitekure…’ 「もう…頼むから…俺だけにしてくれ…」 “Now… I'm begging you… only me, please” [Chap 388]

Though Tōya’s mind seems to be partially gone, he’s aware enough for the first time everyone is paying him attention… and can’t understand why, if it was such a simple things, they hadn’t done it sooner. Now it’s too late, he’s about to explode and drag his whole family with himself.

But then Shōto, with the ice Quirk Enji only wanted him to have to cool down his fire Quirk, joins them and saves the day… yet he remarks in terms of sheer firepower, his own wouldn’t have been enough if he hadn’t added it to the one of his family members, rejecting the idea he was the masterpiece creation Enji wanted… remarking again how everything Enji did and believed, even in terms of Quirks and masterpieces and strength was wrong.

Meanwhile Tōya informs everyone this isn’t enough to soothe his hurt, that he still hates them all and himself as well and wants them all to die.

And, despite having to crawl to do so, Enji reaches him, rests his hand on him and apologizes to him.

‘…Tōya…! Warukatta… Sekoto-take ikanakute…gomen na…!!’ 「…燈矢…！悪かった…瀬古杜岳行かなくて…ごめんな…‼」 “…Tōya…! It was my bad... For not coming to Sekoto Peak…I’m sorry…!!” [Chap 390]

Remember Enji’s various apologies to his family?

We had an ‘imamade sumanakatta’ (今まですまなかった) said to Fuyumi, that was just a pro forma, then a ‘warukatta’ (悪かった) said to Natsuo, that was a really light way to admit it was his fault, then he went for ‘Suman… hontō ni… sumanai. Suman…’ (すまん…本当に…すまないすまん…) which better expressed how sorry he was.

Now… now he starts again with ‘warukatta’… but then he uses ‘gomen na’ (ごめんな).

‘Gomen na’ (ごめんな) is the informal/contracted version of ‘gomen nasai’ (ごめんなさい/御免なさい)” which comes from the verb ‘mensuru’ (免ずる) “To forgive” in its imperative form at which is added the honorific prefix ‘go’ (御) “Honorable”.

This is the apology you use when you really do something wrong, something you weren’t allowed to do, and asks for forgiveness, although you’re meant to use it only with people you’re close with like family and friends (for people you’re not close with use Endeavor or Hawks’ apology).

Basically Enji is begging his son and his family to forgive him with this ‘I’m sorry’ because he’s finally acknowledging he didn’t just ‘wronged them’, he is understanding how badly he wronged them and is so very sorry about it.

Basically previously Enji finally took seriously the consequences of his actions, but he still doesn’t quite grasp how much at fault he was, how much he hurt others. Now he does. He didn’t just troubled them, he hurt them and even if it happened in the past they still carry the psychological consequences of it and might carry them for the rest of their lives if he doesn’t manage to atone to them properly.

And when Tōya doesn’t just forgive him but professes his hate for him, he accepts this, he respect his son’s feelings and doesn’t try to escape to it. He tells Tōya to tell him more. This time he’ll listen, he’ll be there even if it’s painful for him, because saying all that IS GOOD FOR TŌYA.

And, since he’s at it, he apologizes also to his whole family and it’s all ‘gomen na’ (ごめんな).

Yes, it’s not a great apology speech, not to Tōya nor to the rest of the family. There are plenty of ways he wronged them but he’s picking one for each of them… and my poor Shōto gets solely a sorry without him even picking a thing for Shōto.

But, credits when it’s due, he’s not in the best physical situation and the real core of the apology isn’t that it’s a literary masterpiece… it’s that this time IT’S FINALLY HEARTFELT. This time he’s genuinely sorry for causing pain TO THEM, not for himself but FOR THEM, this time he wants to soothe their hurt that’s why he’s saying he’s sorry.

He doesn’t expect them to comfort him, he is fine if they toss hurtfull words at him, acutally he asks for them, to tell him how they feel, because he wants to make them feel better.

Yes, he still has a long way to go but he’s finally there, he’s finally ready to do all he can to have his family forgive him, even if he has to crawl, even if he has to face pain physical and psychological, because he’s sorry he has hurt THEM and wants THEM to feel better and that’s exactly the whole point of atoning.

You wants to ‘save’ the others from the pain you inflicted them.

However, at this point in the manga… we might never get to see step 5 because we likely will never see the end of step 4. Enji will have to work for his atonement, to get his family to forgive him… not because it’ll make him feel better, but because it’ll make them feel better.

The story will probably end with the promise he’ll work in this direction and, since this is an optimistic story, the idea is, of course, that he’ll manage to atone eventually, that he’ll manage to do enough for his family to fix all his wrongdoing. We’ll probably be asked to just… believe he’ll do it instead than seeing it, and the most we’ll get will be at most a flash forward showing him finishing to do so, having done so.

So yes, in a way we were right and in a way we were tricked. We were right into thinking the redemption arc was unsatisfying because we were tricked into thinking we were watching a redemption arc coming to full course, when instead Enji’s arc was not about redeeming himself but about coming to the point in which he could start working to redeem himself, the point in which he would genuinely understand his wrongdoings, the consequences they had and feel sorry for someone else that’s not him.

He created his family to basically take care of his needs, but now he’s finally ready to be the one who’ll take care of his family’s needs. He’s ready to be a father. He’s ready to try to work to deserve to sit at that table with his family and be happy for simple things with them. It took him a long time but finally he managed to work in the right direction.

At least… that’s my interpretation of his arc. As I’m not Horikoshi I might, of course, be wrong.

Said all this, thank you for sitting with me in this long analysis.

#boku no hero academia #bnha spoilers #Todoroki Enji #Todoroki Touya #Todoroki Shouto #Todoroki Rei #Todoroki Natsuo #Todoroki Fuyumi #bnha ramblings

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