CHADhan Player.
Depends, Hori really hasn't given those two any real focus lately. Think the last time Deku and Iida interacted was in Kamino, and that was 100 chapters ago...
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.
They still interact a lot, its just Iida hasn't been the focus of an arc as of late. The two of them still form a Freudian Trio with Uraraka in regards to classes, with the two cheering Midoriya on as he makes it to class on time, going with him to Hatsume's workshop initially, and Iida unfortunately having to ignore Midoriya's pleas for info on the classes he missed while under house arrest. He and Shoto both check in on him during his internship when he was looking off, he was one of the first to check on the Internship group after the raid and even began shaking Midoriya while expressing how worried he was, and Iida is the one who asks Midoriya where he'll be interning next with Mirai's death. They're still rather close, its just the manga doesn't go to show every single interaction between the two during the school day.
If we're being frank, this also has to do with the fact that Midoriya hasn't been in focus too much lately. After the Culture Festival Arc, we've had five arcs, and Midoriya's only been focused on in two of them, and he wasn't even the primary focus.
- The Pro Hero Arc focused on Endeavor and Hawks.
- The Joint Training Arc was one of the arcs he got focus in, however he only had focus in his match, which constitutes only 1/5th of the arc.
- The Meta Liberation Arc focused on the League of Villains, more specifically Tomura, Toga, Twice, and Spinner.
- The Endeavor Internship Arc was the other arc he got focus in, however the main focus of that arc was Endeavor, Natsuo, and Shoto.
- The current arc, the Paranormal Liberation War Arc, has focus all over, however the chief focus has been on Endeavor, Mirko, Aizawa, Hizashi, and Tomura in the A Plot, and Hawks, Twice, Dabi, Kaminari, and Tokoyami in the B Plot.
There's a reason that people joke about how the manga became Keeping Up With The Todorokis recently.
The Head of the Hydra
Amusingly this is somewhat similar to Naruto & the Uchiha's but arguably more compelling.
"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."
Probably because there's three Todoroki characters (Shouto, Dabi, Endeavor) drawing focus instead of just one, plus two more from outside the family that are getting deeply explored at the same time (Hawks, Shiggy).
Edited by IniuriaTalis on May 27th 2020 at 6:27:36 AM
CHADhan Player.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
I guess it's just hard for me to consider Uraraka and Iida as his extremely close friends, since Deku's primary dynamics that actually develop him are with Bakugo and All Might. I'm not saying they aren't friends at all, but the lack of focus really makes the statement that they're his BFF's feel extremely artificial. Bakugo feels more like his best friend more than anyone, and I don't even need to begin to go into how wrong that is.
Add to the fact that as said, the subplot involving the Todoroki family has engulfed about half of the manga's focus, and you can see why it's hard to see Uraraka and Iida as important figures in Deku's life. Bakugo and All Might are the biggest pillars right now for Deku, and Shoto has his own hang ups dealing with Endeavor. There's not much room to develop Deku's dynamics with the rest of the cast I guess.
Edited by BlackYakuzu94 on May 27th 2020 at 7:04:12 AM
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.
I have no real complaint about that, since those three are all among my top 10 favorite characters, and I love the whole storyline. Hawks and Shigaraki are also both great characters in my opinion.
There are currently seven members of Class A on site - all of them except Koda among the more prominent members of the class. So I guess next chapter (or soonish) will be used to show their growth, but it occurs to me you usually don't see growth shown this way - instead of them defeating some strong opponent (because obviously Shigaraki isn't going down here) growth will be used to show them escaping and protecting/helping other people escape. Still heroic, but not really how things like this typically go.
Oh, and Manga and Nejire are also here, so maybe we'll see stuff from them too. That'd be cool.
CHADhan Player.
I have no complaints either, since the Todoroki storyline and Shigaraki's are indeed among the best parts of the series right now.
...That being said, it does validate the point that Deku himself has not been the primary focus of an arc in a while; I don't consider that a bad thing per se, but it does compound my point that because he hasn't been the main focus in a while, he hasn't really developed a close connection to anyone among his peers outside of Bakugo and Todoroki, which exacerbates my point at how Uraraka and Iida really aren't as close to him as I think we're supposed to think.
Edited by BlackYakuzu94 on May 27th 2020 at 7:15:51 AM
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.I fail to see how Bakugo is closer to Deku than Uraraka and Iida. Even after the animosity from Bakugo ended, the most they really interact either has to do with One for All, or Bakugo goading Deku into improving so he can eventually show him up. It's not like they're eating lunch together, hanging out outside of classes, encouraging each other overall, or the like. Todoroki I could see since Deku is his best friend, but Bakugo? I don't see it. Friends, maybe. Close friends? Nope. Hell, Aoyama is closer to Deku than Bakugo lately.
Vegeta: I'm back bitches!
They're definitely close, they're just not friends. The former might usually imply the latter, but in this case it definitely doesn't.
CHADhan Player.
Deku has stated that one of his primary reasons for being a hero is wanting to beat Bakugo, and how that motivates him to try harder. He's always amazed at Bakugo's drive for victory and uses that as a baseline of what he wants to achieve. And Deku has stated outright in Heroes Rising that if anyone were to succeed him as All Might's successor, he'd want it to be Bakugo due to their shared connection with the man.
While calling them friends is indeed a stretch; there's literally no comparison on who he's closer to compared to Uraraka and Iida. The latter may be his friends, but they're not the ones who push him forward to improve himself like Bakugo does.
In any other series, Deku, Uraraka, and Iida probably would be the quintessential True Companions and Bakugo and Todoroki would just be major characters with their own subplots who serve as Deku's foils. But that's definitely not the case here.
Edited by BlackYakuzu94 on May 27th 2020 at 7:56:26 AM
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.
Editor of Posts
I don't think Iida and Uraraka are being written out by any means, they both recieved notable focus and chances to shine in their respective matches in the Joint Training arc. The thing is though that no students have gotten any significant focus since that arc besides the Endeavor Internship arc, which was naturally limited to thos interning under Endeavour, and the current arc, which is only now starting to reach most of the class. The two of them are among the students directly shown in the path of the decay.
Edited by Druplesnubb on May 27th 2020 at 2:21:09 PM
Editor of Posts
Also I don't think this has been mentioned hin this thread, but you can see what looks to be 13 disintegrating in the big splash panel on page eleven.
Edited by Druplesnubb on May 27th 2020 at 2:25:09 PM
CHADhan Player.
I never said that they were ever going to be written out; I just said that the narrative has not made them seem as close to Deku as Rebel Falcon makes them seem.
Like out of the entire class, who would you pin as being the closest to Deku personally.
Edited by BlackYakuzu94 on May 27th 2020 at 8:32:28 AM
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.
Shouto, definitely.
Depends on how we're defining "close". If we're going by most supportive relationships, then I'd still put Iida and Ochaco ahead of Shoto and definitely Bakugo. If we're going by most impactful, that's Bakugo.
I'd say Izuku fulfills both of those roles for Shoto, but the inverse isn't true, though he's obviously still high up there.
CHADhan Player.
I would put Uraraka over Iida and Shoto in terms of supportive relationships, but only barely.
Deku is definitely more supportive of Shoto tho.
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.
Aspirant Creativity Wizard
I'd say Ochaco for closest to Izuku friendship-wise. Though yeah, she loses to Bakugo and Todoroki in impact on Izuku's life and development, but it's not a fair comparison due to the fact that Bakugo and Todoroki are main characters and she's not. Even so, for a supporting character she's still had a decent impact on Izuku.
She was the first of his peers that was legitimately nice to Deku, she was the first person he saved, she gave him some of her points so he could get into UA in the first place, and she is the one that encouraged him to reclaim his "Deku" as his hero name.
Since then she's tried to follow his example while supporting and cheering him on as much as she can.
Adventurers: homeless people who steal from tombs and kill things.
CHADhan Player.
I don't think it's that Bakugo and Todoroki are main characters; she's technically supposed to be one too. They've just had more chances to grow as characters than Ochaco.
That, and they arguably have more interesting relationships that the author wants to focus on.
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.
Yeah, Horikoshi has said he considers her a major character too, so...
But, hey, maybe he's about to have her do something really cool. I mean, she's here, and as I already noted this group of students is actually small enough that I think he can give them all moments without it feeling like a slog or overly fanservicey. And her power might be uniquely suited for this situation. Give us a really nice display of growth due to her internship.
Edited by LSBK on May 27th 2020 at 8:10:05 AM
CHADhan Player.
Given how Hori usually does females, I'm not really expecting much beyond a largely supportive role to whatever the power trio are doing.
Which I don't think is bad mind you, but it doesn't exactly let her make the biggest impact as you said compared to Bakugo and Todoroki.
Edited by BlackYakuzu94 on May 27th 2020 at 9:17:52 AM
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.
Aspirant Creativity Wizard
Wait, Horikoshi said that Ochaco is a main character? I had no idea. She's not uninvolved completely, but she's not nearly as pushed as the trio plotwise or marketing wise from, at least not recently.
She features in stuff about as much as the rest of the supporting cast, if slightly more during some arcs, so I assumed she was with them too.
She deserves far more focus to bring her up to snuff with the rest of the main characters for sure. I don't know if we'll ever get that, but hey, we can dream.
Edited by ILikeRobots on May 27th 2020 at 6:28:08 AM
Adventurers: homeless people who steal from tombs and kill things.
CHADhan Player.
In the early chapters and promotional material; the series made it seem like Deku, Iida, and Uraraka were gonna be the Three Amigos and the primary trio of friends. And yes, Hori has gone on record and labelled them as main characters.
What I'm assuming happened is that Hori became more invested in building up Deku's relationships with Bakugo, All Might, and Todoroki and Uraraka and Iida just kind of fell to the wayside, and that earlier dynamic I mentioned only getting a passing mention.
It's why people are so annoyed at how Out of Focus Uraraka is, because the early part of the story gave the impression that she'd be a much more major character. The series established her goals and how they diverged from Deku's, and even had Bakugo acknowledge her as a Worthy Opponent...and then...nothing... Outside of growing the obligatory crush on Deku.
A lazy millennial who's good at what he does.
Well, the author shifting focus from one character to another as they figure out which way they want to take the story on is hardly unusual.
It's what fan fiction's for.
Edited by HailMuffins on May 27th 2020 at 10:54:23 AM
Maybe Iida too. It's best that Deku have at least one grounded person amidst his closest friends know about it so they can keep him in line. And considering Uraraka aspires to be more like Deku, Bakugo is... Bakugo, and Todoroki is very socially awkward overall, the role would fall to Iida to keep Deku from doing something stupid or let him see the things the others may overlook.
Vegeta: I'm back bitches!