I think the Overhaul arc being so long really messed up people's perception of characters, specially since it was followed by the Cultural Festival who only gives some spotlight to Jiro, and an Endeavor-centric arc immediately afterwards. And having the villain arc so recently only muddies things up further. All in all, Joint Training is the only arc most students saw any action in a very, very long while. Bakugo and Todoroki had the Remedial course to sort of compensate them sitting out Overhaul, but for the rest that was it.
So a lot of people thought Kirishima was going to replace Ida, but that was recency bias. Ida was a definite main character up until Stain. He fell out afterwards but then got semi-important roles in Kamino and the Provisional License (or at least further focus on his character arc), only to go back to the background for another long while. But when the focus went back to class 1-A again during Joint Training, he was featured prominently again.
Meanwhile Kirishima's only two major focus arcs were Overhaul and Kamino.
That said, they are probably comparable in the post-kamino era, but I give Ida the advantage because he was much more prominent in the early days, and 'Deku's best friend' is probably gonna get you more screentime than 'Bakugo's best friend'.
Basically, I think Kirishima will never be as big as in Overhaul, but for Ida I could maybe see him reach Stain levels again.
Edited by WashTheLaundryHero on Nov 14th 2019 at 1:08:05 AM
It's kinda jarring how Uraraka and Iida started off as Deku's closest friends at UA, but they kinda phased that out. It does help make the entire class feel important since aside from Bakugo and Todoroki (who are kind of the class loners ignoring their main character bias) since Deku doesn't seem closer to anyone and therefore can interact with more without it feeling weird.
But it's kinda sad to see.
But yea, I think people are putting too much stock whenever a character just happens to be more important than normal; Kirishima being on the main character page is kind of why I wanted to just get rid of it since people seem to think getting a limelight arc qualifies you as a main character.
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.I mean, they are still his closest friends. It's just that doesn't count for much when Deku's school life hasn't really been the focus in forever. Bakugo is now a part of the All Might /Of A plot so that naturally gives him scren-time and Todoroki has his own family drama that we're focusing on now.
Regarding main characters, there's this fragment from that interview:
Horikoshi: Hm…I guess that All Might, Katsuki, Todoroki, Endeavor, Ochako are all characters that this can be applied to, but since they are all main characters who have been progressing since their introduction, I wouldn’t say it’s an expansion of their character per se. However, if we are speaking about characters that had more plot expanded, then it would be Tsuyu and Toga. I think since they were first introduced, we took into consideration the voices of the readers, and afterwards changed their storylines. That’s why I would probably say Tsuyu and Toga.
He does mention Uraraka as a main character but not Ida. This was for the movie, so summer 2018. The manga was in the Pro Hero arc I think.
I don't know if there's any official site that talks about main characters.
Also another thing. In the Ultra Analysis Databook, the hero's pages are set up as trading cards and they have a 'rarity' field (SR, R or N) that seems to reference their prominence within their group. For class A, Deku, Todoroki and Bakugo are SR, Uraraka, Ida, Tsuyu, Kirishima, Yaoyorozu and Tokoyami are R, and the rest are N.
Edited by WashTheLaundryHero on Nov 14th 2019 at 4:02:05 AM
At its most base definition; a main character is one with a central role in the story.
That only really applies to Deku, Todoroki and Bakugo from Class A, all who have ongoing plotlines and you mentioned.
As I mentioned before, heroines tend to have a different connotation in Japanese media; so while I can count Uraraka a main character, it's more that she's the main character's love interest instead of being a protagonist with a central role in the story like the other three.
Past that, everyone else usually have mini subplots that are resolved quickly after they're introduced. Iida persisted as a main character at first, he was even presented as one of Deku's rivals back in the Sports Festival and then was the focal character in the following arc, but has kind of settled into a secondary role past that.
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.I think it's better to think of the series as Deku's story, with everyone else as supporting members of an Ensemble Cast, which most of us know Battle Shounen doesn't deal with too well.
- Seras Victoria and Sir Integra Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing from Hellsing
- Akame and Leone from Akame ga Kill!
- Revy from Black Lagoon
- Saya from Blood+
- Celty and Anri from Durarara
- Kagura from Gintama
- Ryuko Matoi and Satsuki Kiryuin from Kill la Kill
- Any of the women from Fairy Tail
- Nami and Robin from One Piece
Edited by RebelFalcon on Nov 14th 2019 at 12:11:23 PM
Rodimus: Self-sacrifice, Magnus— It's cheap. It's a cheap way out. I need to live so I can make amends.Aizawa can’t see her so she just pretended to run and then said done and he was like wow that was fast
Forever liveblogging the AvengersIt's not a rule, it's simply that the Word 'heroine'(taken from English) in Japan has the meaning of love interest/damsel in disstress(and/or).
That's why you hear editors and such refer to Orihime and Hinata as the heroines despite there being more prominent female characters in their series.
Series that have female protagonists don't call them 'heroines'.
In the context of MHA, the girls wants to be hero, not heroines, because heroine does not mean female hero, but what we said above.
In the villain arc Giran made a sassy remark that 'nobody wants to see an old man playing the heroine', refering to himself being taken hostage.
It's a matter of wording, basically.
Edited by WashTheLaundryHero on Nov 14th 2019 at 10:08:09 AM
I don't really see what's hard to get about how Toru did better than Izuku in the aggregate. Izuku messed up his fingers to do great on that one test, and he said the pain from that made him do terribly on the ones that were left.
Anyhow, Kirishima strikes me as the same group as Momo or Tokoyami - characters that Horikoshi has decided he likes and wants to spend more time on the regular, but he's not really part of Deku's main social circle, and that's going to be a detriment to any greater prominence he could have.
Like, I could make the comparison to Iida's role in the Stain arc and Kirishima's in the Overhaul arc but those aren't even the same - the Stain arc was about Iida, whereas Kirishima was just sort of forced in during the Overhaul arc. I think that distinction is important.
And, personally, I liked how he was handled during the Joint Training arc - it was a good for showing for Shishida, and the idea some people had that Kirishima should have been able to steam role people never made sense to me.
But then again, that seemed to be a consistent complaint about that arc - people going "the characters I like aren't just easily stomping their opponents, so Horikoshi is doing them wrong!"
Oh, and on he heroine thing, after Match 4 was over Kaminari calls Jiro the "heroine" of he team, and her response was basically "No, I'm a hero." looking slightly insulted. It's just a matter of a borrowed word taking on different connotations in a different language. It happens all the time.
Edited by LSBK on Nov 14th 2019 at 3:20:36 AM
I'm always surprised by people hating hard counters. The series established long ago that some quirk matchups just suck. Kirishima getting tossed was quite funny, and i think it also shows well that it's still just one trick. Gevaudan by comparison was far more balanced out. Unbreakable is a great move but it's still prominently just a defensive move, and a far cry from a rounded ability.
It's also funny because later in the arc we got Tetsutetsu, who is always portrayed as a Kirishima clone, do very well precisely because he hard countered Todoroki. He's also pretty much a one-trick pony, but it just so happened that his one trick was incredibly useful in the circumstances he got in.
The whole heroine thing does make other things I've read make a lot more sense.
Like in Kaguya-sama: Love Is War where the author described the main couple Kaguya and Shirogane as the protagonists, but describes the Spanner In The Work Chika as the heroine.
Funny, I'm the opposite - while I can accept that there's a level of force that even the most clever strategy can't surmount, I do enjoy people being able to defeat those stronger than them with well-executed plans.
Edited by KarkatTheDalek on Nov 14th 2019 at 12:29:39 PM
Oh God! Natural light!

I feel like people looked at the focus Kirishima was getting in the Overhaul arc and prematurely assumed that was just going to the permanent situation.
And I was right, he hasn't had anything like that since, and was quickly dispatched during the Joint Training arc. Meanwhile, Iida, got more spotlight than he's had in awhile.
Jury still out on what, if anything, he has in store for them.
Edited by LSBK on Nov 14th 2019 at 2:51:10 PM