My Hero Academia

Tomura's situation does make me wonder if that bad quirk awakenings are sadly not an uncommon occurrence. Tomura wasn't the only one that lived in a abusive or toxic household or environment. I am pretty sure other abused kids around the MHA world sadly had really bad quirk awakenings if their quirks going immediately batshit when they show up is caused by wanton stress and bad mental states.

And if thats the case that makes the whole situation even more tragic. If it has happened before enough times their would be safety nets put into place for children whom had really bad quirk awakenings but no safety net can prepare for one of the worst warlords in history, aka All for One finding Tomura before the heroes or police did.

About why this didn't occur with the Todoroki's. The feeling I got was Endavour's abuse towards his children didn't start until after his children's quirks awakened (he was likely abusing Rei beforehand though) and that his abuse on them was mainly abuse disguised as training. It could be possibly though that what killed Touya was the constant stress from all the abuse eventually causing him to lose complete control over his quirk badly enough that it was assumed he burnt himself out completely.

Edited by Wispy on Dec 4th 2019 at 6:06:45 AM

I think Shigaraki is just a special case due to having an incredibly destructive quirk seemingly unrelated to the rest of his family.

The only comparable case is Eri, and lo and behold, she also got people killed upon manifesting it.

Happy childhoods seem to lower the casualties at least. Eri "only" lost her dad from that. If she was as stressed as Tomura she might have rewinded way more.

The anime ending kinda implies Eri's life only really went downhill after her quirk manifested.

Shigaraki, meanwhile, has a quirk that is apparently fueled by negative emotions and just went nuclear.

Even if Kotaro isn't a Hate Sink, I stand by what I said here in that his Freudian Excuse doesn't justify or really endear him to many readers, hence his deserving of the Unintentionally Unsympathetic trope.

I admit, I'm biased since I don't really like child abusers. The only exception being ones that either are trying to redeem themselves and atone for their mistakes like Enji, or ones who never intended to harm their children in the first place and immediately regret accidentally hurting them, like Rei.

Kotaro however failed to redeem himself or atone before his death, and his What You Are in the Dark moment solidified my dislike of him.

Edited by RebelFalcon on Dec 4th 2019 at 10:05:16 AM

It's also noted that quirks are getting stronger and harder to control. It may well be an increasingly common occurrence going forward.

I've made my feelings on Kotaro clear.

I fully grasp why he is what he is, but it doesn't change things for me.

I won't call him a villain, but he did fail in every way possible.

Flawed is a fair description of him I'd say.

… I'm sorry, do you think anyone likes child abusers? And you do understand that Kotaro does fit that second category you place Rei into right?

Kotaro's a lot like Endeavor in I'm still not really sure why a lot of people feel like going "Yeah, but he's still an asshole" as if we're not supposed to think that. Yes, he was a terrible father and, yes, he dealt with his issues in a shit way. None of these things are up for debate.

Acknowledging why those things are the case and sympathizing with the circumstances that lead him there are not the same things as undermining the depths of his actions or his responsibilities.

I'm not sure which I find more frustrating, really: what I typed above or the people who go in the opposite direction and flat out absolve all the villains of any wrongdoing if they happen to have a tragic backstory.

Edited by LSBK on Dec 4th 2019 at 12:31:29 PM

Sadly I've met some people who think Child Abuse is okay since "its the parent asserting their authority and making their children respect them". I get sick just thinkning about it.

But the thing is... I don't sympathize with any of Kotaro's circumstances. His circumstances are best described as a combination of Abandonment Issues and Mommy Issues.

Problem is though, I cannot bring myself to care about his mommy issues, and this is coming from a guy who can find a means of sympathizing with anyone short of a Complete Monster, whether through outright sympathy to even just pity.

Kotaro's circumstances being the reasoning behind who he became if anything just disgust me even more. Having lived with abandonment issues, knowing people who did become parents in spite of that, and having seen people who have done the same thing Kotaro did to Tenko... he just frankly disgusts me. Taking his anger out on his children who don't know any better and acting like a fucking child throwing a temper tantrum... I am appalled.

Endeavor used to disgust me too until he began to truly change. Kotaro didn't. Say all you want that he was going to change, but actions speak louder than words. His final moments were spent with him relapsing into his abusive behavior and demanding the emotionally broken Tenko stop after hitting him with a gardening tool. What Kotaro did is sadly what so many people assumed Enji would do: promise to change only to revert to the abuser he was.

And while I normally think what Kotaro suffered from Tenko would have been cruel for anyone, I won't lie when I say I got some catharsis watching Tenko kill him.

Maybe its because of the fact we as the reader know why Nana did what she did to protect him, maybe its because seeing this poor kid Tenko now the broken Tomura still clinging to his fathers hand like a security blanket even with what happened, or maybe its just because Kotaro hits much closer to home for me than Enji ever did, but I cannot ever bring myself to feel sorrow for the pathetic excuse of a person that was Kotaro Shimura.

Edited by RebelFalcon on Dec 4th 2019 at 1:55:42 PM

… Are you really blaming someone for freaking out when they see that their entire family is dead, the ground and house is collapsing around them, and it seems like they're going to be next? Because, yeah...

Because, honestly, that strikes me as in the same vein of people who go "Rei is just as bad, if not worse for what she did to Shoto than Endeavor is!" When you put in actual context it just doesn't track, at all.

But, yeah, if you have personal issues that can't help but cloud your perceptions of this whole thing, I guess there's nothing else to say about it.

Edited by LSBK on Dec 4th 2019 at 12:56:52 PM

Didn't stop Mrs. Shimura from trying to help Tenko despite Hana being dead. And doesn't change the fact that by that point, Tenko was begging his abuser for help. Had Kotaro truly wanted to redeem himself, he would've proved it there and realized this was because of him, and started bawling his eyes out asking for Tenko to forgive him.

But he did what he always did. Try to assert control through abuse and then whacked his son with a gardening tool.

And don't you even dare to suggest this is anything like what happened to Rei. Rei was suffering a Moment of Weakness and was unaware it was Shoto. And the moment she realized what happened, she began bawling her eyes out and tried to freeze where Shoto was burned. She never wanted to hurt her son, and when she saw she did, she was destroyed! Kotaro is nothing like her, and to even try and suggest that frankly disgusts me!

I don't care what you try to say to convince me otherwise. Kotaro Shimura in my opinion deserved everything he got, and I have no sympathy for his past or his fate.

Edited by RebelFalcon on Dec 4th 2019 at 2:01:52 PM

...Okay, maybe you should calm down and take a step back from this conversation.

But as for the comparison to Rei... obviously it's not exactly the same but 1) yes, she did know it was Shoto, and 2) she didn't do that by accident like you claimed.

Now, what happened was the tragic product of years of emotional and physical abuse and should be looked at in that lens, but that doesn't change what actually happen or that she did it.

Edited by LSBK on Dec 4th 2019 at 1:03:41 PM

Because I fear I'm on the verge of a panic attack, I'm dropping this subject now and not looking back. So I'm gonna take a panic pill and try to stop myself from being triggered.

Kotaro was arguably justified in trying to knock out a berserk Shiggy.

His entire family & home was already wiped out by that point so words clearly couldn’t do anything.

So the only logical course of action left is to cause him to lose consciousness in the hopes his powers subsides.

I understand this type of subject can be...uncomfortable for people who have had similar circumstances, but I wanna stress the importance of separating art from life.

And to not allow your personal feelings to cloud your judgment.

That's not saying this isn't...triggering for some people, but that means it's all the important to understand that.

I think we should probably put a moratorium on this particular topic for now.

A fun thing has been spotted thanks to the new character profiles in Volume 25, recently released in Japan. Another big hint for probably the single most popular theory in the fandom, and considered by many just something that's awaiting for a belated confirmation.

Dabi's birthday is January 18. 18 in Japanese is 八十, juuhachi. However, there's an alternate reading for those kanji. Touya

Edited by GendoIkari on Dec 4th 2019 at 9:42:25 PM

On a different note, as Volume 25's release had been delayed to come shy of the release of Heroes: Rising (which premieres tomorrow, before the wide release on the 20th), it has also been confirmed that the new movie is going to take place right after the MLA arc (which is probably going to be the last part of Season 5 in the anime), although it's declared to be watchable even if you don't have reached that part of the story yet, just that a few things are obviously going to be clearer if you did. Like Two Heroes, it's probably going to be mostly self-contained even if it takes place at a certain point in the timeline.

Also unless over the next few weeks the anime throws in a special episode for the movie in the middle of an ongoing arc, just like it happened in S3, it's also going to be the animated debut of Hawks, beside the little Early-Bird Cameo they added in S4E3. Despite being prominently featured in some promotional material, however, it looks like he'll appear only in the opening scenes.

Still, it's interesting to notice how this time round a movie was in development while the story arcs after which it takes place were merely planned and yet to be drawn and published.

Wait, so Dabi was picked up by a weird rich lady after losing his memories?

For the record, I didn't mean that Rei and Kotaro are on the same level, because they aren't. Her circumstances and reactions are much more sympathetic, while he is mostly pitiable. But I think it does a disservice to the story and its nuances. to go "Rei was completely innocent of any fault" or "Kotaro was just a monster and that's it". Because even real life isn't like that, and I think the series captures that pretty well in how it's been portraying these family situations and abuse.

It's the reason I've always said that while I understand why Shoto doesn't blame Rei or hold any resentment towards her, I wouldn't blame him if he did. It was really ballsy decision to make her the one to give Shoto his scar instead Endeavor, while still acknowledging that Endeavor was the direct cause of her actions, and thus indirectly scarred Shoto. But in the end, she did do the actual deed, and that can't just be overlooked.

Edited by LSBK on Dec 4th 2019 at 3:15:04 AM

kotaro is the single most evil character in the series and shigaraki should have slowly tortured him to death instead of letting him off easy

Edited by Saiga on Dec 4th 2019 at 8:11:59 PM

That’s a funny joke

Yikes.

I thought I disliked him.

This seems like a good moment to bring up that it was Af O that pretty destroyed much 3 entire generations of this family just to be a dick (one directly, another indirectly, and another a little bit of both).

Edited by WashTheLaundryHero on Dec 4th 2019 at 2:40:04 AM

Worse than the guy who harvested a child's body, killing her repeatedly in the process?

Worse than the megalomaniac supervillain who groomed a traumatized youth into a nihilistic Omnicidal Maniac who wants to tear down all society?

What the fuck.

Edited by M84 on Dec 4th 2019 at 8:23:31 PM