I'm sorry Tien, but I must go all out.
I TOLD YOU! I TOLD YOU ALL! I KNEW SERO, SATO, AND OJIRO WOULDN'T BE SKIPPED OVER, AND I KNEW THAT AIZAWA AND MIC VS KUROGIRI WOULDN'T BE SKIPPED OVER!
This arc has had two previous moments where the outcome of an off-scrren fight suddenly influences the main battle, then we flashback to see that fight next chapter, those being Toga vs Ochako and Tsuyu (ending with Toga turning into Twice), and Kirishima and Mina vs Gigantomachia. THE RULE OF THREES! Of course Horikoshi was going to do that trope 3 times in the final arc, and this is the third one!
What I didn't see coming was Sero, Sato, and Ojiro getting a crack at All For One, but honestly, half of 1A has had their shot pummeling him so far, so it's not too surprising.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Admittedly, I wasn't thinking Hori wanted to skip them, but with the amount of health scares he's had I would find it understandable if he felt he needed to trim the fat.
Leader of the Holey Brotherhood
Wow. A lot of things came true, but in ways beyond what I could have expected.
AFO didn't just give Tenko his quirk. He literally set in motion everything that lead to Tenko killing his dad and the rest of his family. He swapped out the kid's original quirk, planted the seeds of fear against heroes in his dad (he did do that right?) and then deliberately planted the seeds of wanting to be a hero in Tenko. He even pushed Kotaro to have a second child because his daughter was too old to be manipulated. I get why everyone dislikes this, but....honestly, I've said it before that with everything we've known about AFO, him planting seeds was well within his character, but I vastly underestimated how far he was willing to go.
Meanwhile, we've been told that if Deku isn't careful, he'd lose his arms....but they're literally gone. Just bloody stumps. Holy shit!
And now, we get the more extra than anybody squadron to save the day.
I imagine this entire thing is bittersweet for a lot of people, but we'll have to see how it continues to develop.
One Strip! One Strip!
I'm sorry Tien, but I must go all out.
For me, All For One's machinations went into Crossing the Line Twice when it was revealed he even manipulated Tenko's friends into bullying him. Like damn, the Demon Lord really got nothing better to do than encourage some 4-year-olds to be mean?
Leader of the Holey Brotherhood
Yeah. That's something.
And yet, with everything we know about him, it's so in character. I knew that, even if things turned out to be exactly what we expected, there'd still be some kind of twist in execution, but I still applaud Hori for going so deep. Just like with Dabi, there would be no real twist in the reveal, but he still tripped us up a little in regards to the execution. Most of us stopped at he might have given Tenko Decay, but not a one of us ever considered he'd literally set every brick on the path of Tenko's life, or that it started even earlier than what we'd assumed.
One Strip! One Strip!
Submarine Chomper
Absolutely.
My mind was literally blown when realizing that AFO is the reason Tenko was even born to begin with, out of nothing but spite against Nana Shimura among other things. That and everything else definitely caught me off guard.
"If there's problems, there's simple solutions."
We're talking about a man who literally took his moral compass from discarded comic books... in which he rooted for the villain lol. He's still kind of a child mentally in a sense.
If this doesn't end with Tenko kicking his face in I will be incredibly disappointed because if I was in his position there would be some words I'd be saying to AFO, I can tell you that
Song of the Sirens
I'm sorry Tien, but I must go all out.
And I love that this chapter reminded us of that when he literally dropped the term "narrative trope". He really is one of us.
I wonder if that's why Hori only brought in the Out of Focus Three now. AFO's trying to live his life according to the "script" of what a great supervillain is; as such, he probably finds getting walloped by the tertiary characters downright offensive.
Team Rocket Boss.
Curse you ROB! YOU MADE ME SO CURIOUS TO SEE WHAT THE HELL HAPPENS.
![[lol]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lol2v12_4863.png "[lol]"){kind=small}
Gonna stay out now. BUT I WILL SAVE THIS PAGE.
I'll teach you a lesson about just how cruel the world can be. That's my job, as an adult.
Leader of the Holey Brotherhood
That's Dr. Title, thank you!
It occurs to me that for all of the comparisons of All For One to Reverse Flash, there's nothing actually preventing Reverse Flash from being in the comics All For One read. Especially since the idea of being inspired by reading old comics is part of Barry Allen's origins. For legal reasons it can't ever be said in the manga, but I think that's my head-cannon now.
I have seen people either annoyed that AFO doesn't stay down or that this twist in general weakens theme of the story even if its consistent that Horikoshi downplay's hero society's role in things.
Meanwhile I think AFO is self deluding himself to take credit for things that likely would have happened anyway, like couple deciding to have second child
Existence Weighed Against Nonbeing
Yeah, I personally would find it more interesting if AFO didn't actually manipulate things as deeply as he claimed, but he would absolutely never admit that he just got lucky by things just happening to develop to his advantage. It's absolutely in character for him to waltz into a situation like this and go "YES EVERYTHING HAS GONE EXACTLY ACCORDING TO THE PLAN THAT I DID, MYSELF, WITHOUT ANY EXTERNAL FACTORS, I ORGANIZED ALL OF THIS ENTIRELY ON PURPOSE" just because his ego would never allow him to admit otherwise.
Reaction Image Repository
I'm sorry Tien, but I must go all out.
Keep using spoiler tags, Red is in the thread.
Something really funny to consider: AFO encouraged kids to give Tenko the role of All Might, then encouraged Kotaro to be stricter and eventually abusive, and then snitched on Tenko so he could get in trouble. Its a Rupe Goldbergh mllevel of machinations thats both Xehanort level malicious and also moustache twirlingly ridicuolous. I knew he doesnt leave anything to chance but even I was kind of taken aback here.
This also probably means his spats with the Yakuza were also engineered, or maybe he wanted to see how Shiggy prevailed over one of his older pet projects. Maybe the PLA war was like the one thing he didnt orchestrate.
All for One is defeated by Sugarman, so he is beaten by the only Earth born evil greater than his. Nestle
.
Edited by TomWithoutJerry on Apr 7th 2024 at 12:20:26 PM
It'd be one thing if All For One had simply given Tenko "Decay", since that wouldn't erase the other two details which contributed just as much to making Tenko into Tomura. Instead though, All For One being revealed to have plotted out Tenko's life from before he was born practically removes what little agency had in all this. Everything, from his conception, to his father's disdain for Heroes, to his own initial love for Heroes, to his Quirk, it was all an extremely convoluted plan that not only absolves society or genetics of any blame for who he became, but also absolves Tenko of any blame since he never really had a choice behind his actions, and was instead just a puppet on strings from the day he was born. Since apparently even Tomura having a seemingly indomitable will was All According to Plan originally too.
- And considering his connection to Kai since "Decay" was really just a modified "Overhaul", as well as his already existing involvement in Toya's survival, what else is this Eobard Thawne wannabe gonna say he's responsible for now? Did he kill the Mother of Quirks and faked Destro's suicide? Was he the one who got Oji Harima arrested? Was he the Quirk Counselor the Toga's took Himiko too? Was he the secret leader of the HPSC that ordered the president and made Kaina do all their Dirty Business?!
This also doesn't make All For One look like the "Demon Lord" he wants to be, it makes him look like just as much a joke as he's always been. Not only did his plans get fucked with by Izuku sending most of One For All into Tomura trying to reach Tenko, but now he's lost access to "Decay", one of his strongest assets at this point, is gone due to his breaking Tomura's spirit, the body he'd been preparing Tomura to be is all but ruined, and he's now being bodied by three more "extras" as he would call them. I didn't think he could get anymore pathetic than after he got reduced to a tantrum throwing baby and got blasted by Bakugo, but here we are.
- In Yu-Gi-Oh! ZEXAL, the antagonists of the latter half of the series are the "Barian Emperors", seven rulers of the "Barian World" and an Anti-Villain seeking to save their dying world after it was cast aside and attacked by the "Astral World", the only exception being the psychotic Vector, the seven of them all once having been humans until they died and ended up in Barian World due to having an innate "Chaos" in them. Towards the end though, it's revealed that the evil god Don Thousand had actually orchestrated their deaths as humans, deliberately infecting them with Chaos so that they'd end up in Barian World in death since they were tied to seven cards he needed to find the "Numeron Code", a macguffin that would let him rewrite reality. For the most part, this didn't change who they were or are, with it even revealed the leader, Nash, was the only one who willingly went to Barian World without Don Thousand's influence out of devotion for his people, whereas Vector practically had his personality overwritten from a kind and peaceful prince to the spitting image of his warmongering father. Said detail doesn't change anything for anyone but Vector though since, even after defeating Don Thousand and having been Yuma's best friend "Shark", Nash still opposes Astral World at the end, since the Barian World is his true home and he needs to protect his people while avenging the deaths of the other Emperors, and even Vector initially goes with Freudian Excuse Denial and tries to kill Yuma alongside himself, only really changing when Yuma refuses to give up on him and says the time he was a False Friend was never really "false", something helped by his False Friend persona being identical personality wise to who he was before Don Thousand got to him.
- In the movie Underfist, it's revealed that the thought to be The Dragon Bun-Bun was actually The Man in Front of the Man, having tricked the thought to be Big Bad Mindy into thinking she was infected with Irwin's "Mummy's Curse" to trick her into helping him, having really put a "Witch Worm" in her hair. It's then that we enter parody territory, as he's then revealed to be responsible for the backstories of every Underfist member aside from General Skarr, no matter how implausible or nonsensical, having been the monster in Hoss Delgado's closet that traumatized as a kid, the reason Billy suffers Arachnophobia and in turn hates his son Jeff the Spider, and the one who sawed off Fred Fredburger's beloved tusks. This is meant to make him seem more "evil" and like a mastermind that the rest of Underfist can't beat since they're so exhausted and Skarr is seemingly on his side now... and in turn make it funnier when Skarr immediately kicks and melts his marshmellow ass into a cup of hot cocoa while he's midrant and reveals he's a Fake Defector.
Edited by RebelFalcon on Apr 7th 2024 at 3:49:23 PM
Vegeta: I'm back bitches!
Why does everyone think eri will magically save the day. Like they just said a few chapters ago, you can't help them eri you don't have enough rewind energy even if you were there. I took it as hori telling people don't worry eri isn't going to magically fix everything
The Wandering Geek
I think they meant it in the sense of that she may heal some vital characters like Deku and Ochaco.
Every time someone claims to be realistic is a dour cynic in disguise.
Because some people don't see that as confirmation that Eri won't be used to save everyone, they see it as setup for something to happen to allow Eri to save everyone.
when she's out of energy?
then eri could have succeeded at running to deku, or just not brought it up specifically to say no you can't rewind anyone right now
Plus the fact that its a case of Like You Would Really Do It. No way is Ochaco dying, so when they said "she's not gonna make it", that immediately raised the "Bullshit flag" and makes you think of how they'd save her life In-Universe. Same for Izuku losing his arms. In both cases, the answer is Eri.
Vegeta: I'm back bitches!
I get the “simple quirks” explanation to an extent but I don’t think it works in this case due to how incredibly useful Overhaul would be for AFO. Even if he ultimately still needed to use Shiggy to steal OFA, his original body being fully healed would make the events of the series so much easier for him. Plus all the applications for the Doctor’s mad science.
Edited by CheapMarzipan on Apr 7th 2024 at 11:43:18 AM