The Way Shouto Consistently Empathizes With Other People Through Comparisons To His Own Experiences And

‘She wasn’t a good mother’ great are we evaluating this character trait as one of her many facets or are we just damning her for not being the most maternal womanliest woman who ever womaned

The Importance of Toya and Fuyumi’s Age Gap (Spoilers for the manga)

You know what has always struck me as odd? The fact that Toya and Fuyumi have such a small age gap. The manga has confirmed that they were born in the same calendar year, with Toya being born in mid-late January and Fuyumi being born in early December.

Prior to all this being confirmed, many people had assumed Toya was 3 years older than his sister to fit with the "Endeavor waited for each kid to get their quirk before having the next one" narrative, but now we know that Toya was only 10 months old when his sister was born! (We also know that Fuyumi was born partially out of Rei's genuine desire to have more kids so they could support each other).

But still, why have them THAT close together? From a family planning standpoint, probably so the kids would be closer in age and therefore possibly closer emotionally, but how about from a story standpoint?

Well, I believe it was to avoid any misreadings of what exactly got Toya so frustrated regarding his siblings.

Think of it; if Fuyumi had a 3 year age gap between her and Toya, there would probably be people arguing that Toya was simply angry that he was no longer an only child. Any frustration he voiced regarding his siblings could simply be hand waved away by saying "oh, he's just bitter that he has to share his parents' attention".

But by having him and Fuyumi be THAT CLOSE in age, it's physically impossible for Toya to remember a world where he was an only child. In his earliest childhood memories, Fuyumi would always be present, meaning he's literally never known a world where he didn't have a sibling and didn't have to split his parents' attention.

So when, in the future, Toya gets despondent and angry over Natsuo and Shoto's births, we know it's not because he's losing his "only child" status. Toya has never really been an only child. Instead, he reacts that way because he sees the bigger picture and understands that these siblings are different than Fuyumi. They weren't born from a genuine desire to have more kids.

They were born to replace him.

He's just tired of Tomura ruining his appetite before dinner.

they dancing

Another old tweet from Spinner’s VA Ryou Iwasaki!

During a talk with my manager about the November Event, he said, “When will Spinner get a power up?” I replied, “He’s fine the way he is. He is someone whose weakness is meaningful. I want him to be a person who fights with spirit more than ability.” [Manager] also asked “When will the Quirk be used,” so I stuck myself! On to the wall! Haha.

This man knows his character. 🙏🏼👍🏼❤️

Not-Really Chapter Thoughts BNHA 424

You know, I really think there should be a point at which Deku rushing in with no plan and doing whatever he thinks feels right should become Heroic Malpractice.

Just me?

Because, like, Shouto had a plan. He spent the time between the two war arcs specifically developing a brand-new combat technique that he planned to use to shut down Dabi's combat advantage without killing him. He convinced his dad not to change the plan like Endeavor was hesitantly sounding him out about[1]; he went out and talked and asked questions, and even if they weren't the right words every single time, he did his best and he did it with intention. If Dabi proves to be dead, it won't be because of anything Shouto did to him; it'll be because Dabi himself chose to stand back up, take a warp gate across the country, pick a fight with the guy who doesn't have the power set to shut him down without unduly hurting him, and try to replicate an Ultimate Move specifically tailored for someone with a balanced power set Dabi doesn't have.[2]

And if Dabi lives, it's still going to be because Shouto booked it across the country and used that same technique to stop him again.

1: Dabi surely would have preferred to fight Endeavor from the start, and it probably would have been the more "just" choice if it had to be one or the other, but Shouto is the nominal focal character between the three of them, so, critiques of the broader Hero-side decisions aside, Shouto's arc has to come first. This is one of those places where you can clearly see how much the decision to let Endeavor survive where Horikoshi originally planned for him to die hurts the shape of the later story.

2: Obviously ultimately if Dabi dies, it's going to be because his family and Team Hero made repeated choices to ignore and neglect him, culminating in the entire family swearing to deal with Touya together only to passively accept a battle plan that involved splitting them all and letting the kid who knows Touya the least be the one to fight him. But like, in the context of that fight, Shouto isn't the reason Dabi takes all that hurt.

Uraraka may or may not have had much of a plan, but at least the words she said to Toga reflected that she had been seriously thinking about Toga in the here and now, what Toga's told her, what Toga needs. If Toga dies, it will be because Toga chose to give Uraraka an unsupervised blood transfusion with no intention of stopping it. (With the same general caveats as in Footnote 2.)

But Deku? From the very beginning, Deku has been valorized by the manga for how much he doesn't plan. All Might tells him specifically that it's a sign of greatness shown by future "top Heroes" that, in some crisis situation, their bodies moved before they could think. Bakugou's Rising chapter is defined by him reaching that same state.

Deku claimed he wanted to save Shigaraki; he's sad in the latest chapter that he couldn't save Tenko's[3] life. But did he ever have a real plan to do that? With all the quirks he had at his disposal - both his own and those who would be in the flying coffin with him, or classmates whose presence he could specifically request - did he think hard and come up with a technique that would let him stop Shigaraki without harming him? Did he try to connect with the Shigaraki right in front of him by citing to the future?

3: And I have nothing but scorn for Deku's insistence on that name when "Tenko" goes out very pointedly calling himself Shigaraki Tomura.

Well, no. Deku obstinately yelled at the phantasms in Shigaraki's mindscape that he had no plan whatsoever. The only plans we saw him carry out were ones handed to him by the OFA collective that involved "breaking" Shigaraki's psyche; the only plans he came up with himself involved more efficiently breaking Shigaraki's body.

Way back in Chapter 130, Nighteye harshly scolded Deku by saying that his way of thinking was arrogant. He said, "Go after him haphazardly and he'll slip through our fingers. You're not so special as to be able to save who you want, when you want. (...) This world is not so accommodating that you can act the Hero because you feel like it."

It felt like something that Deku should have taken to heart, a lesson to be learned and applied later, but I never much got the feeling that he did. Nothing he did in that moment, in that arc, or anywhere else in the series afterward indicates that he thought Nighteye was right. He just chose not to talk back, and the arc ended with Nighteye dead and no longer around to pose objections to Deku's mode of heroism.

But Nighteye was right. Three hundred chapters later, Shigaraki is dead because Deku could not be arsed to plan for how he could stop Shigaraki without killing him. Because he let Gran Fucking Torino give him the intellectual out that killing someone could be a means of saving them. Because he followed his gut instincts of prioritizing the phantom Crying Child that he always saw as more valid and real than the human being standing in front of him.

Because he haphazardly acted the Hero and let his body move without thinking.

And he wants to act sad about it now? I hope Nighteye materializes in his bedroom to sneer at him every night for the rest of his life.

--

Incidentally, fuck All Might, seriously. "Wow, Deku and Bakugou, you two are the greatest Heroes ever. Fuck me and everyone else who fought tooth and nail, arm and leg, eye and earjack, life and death, to contribute to the pile of damage that was necessary to kill and/or save Shigaraki and All For One. You two got the last blows in, so you're the only ones who get the credit for it in my eyes. Hero Society is definitely going to be different and better with you two around."

i’m here for the LOV being chaotic dumbass but i think this arc is just more proof that hori has nothing to say about the politics of the world he created and that makes both the values of the protag and the antag extremely fucking dull

When endeavor said "just watch me". Homie my eyes are wide open. Not seeing much tho

I think Rei's writing is actually quite consistent, unlike another person we won't mention here. I think you actually answered your own question in your post, the reason why Rei reacted to Shouto's and Touya's situations differently was because they were different situations. It's the same logic to why Shouto and Touya reacted differently to their abuse and when you apply the same logic here it becomes easier to understand why Rei approached them differently (continue)

(continue) I think the other issue though is that Rei also didn't understand Touya either. She understood more than Endeavour but didn't understand fully which is why she wasn't able to reach out to Touya. I think the problem is Rei believes only Endeavour can get through to Touya. This was the case 16 years ago when Touya was 8 and this is still the case when Touya is 24. The only difference is she's more demanding but she's still missing something vital when it comes to understanding her son.

You bring up a lot of good points that I don't totally disagree with, anon, and that's fine! But I still maintain my conclusion in my original post.

I think the issue with Shouto vs Touya is that Rei applied the same tactics to Touya as she did Shouto, but it didn't land because Shouto's existence was justified and celebrated by his father for the sheer fact that he was born with the "perfect" quirk. His internal conflict arose not from his existence, but his similarities to his father, which he feared would result in him becoming exactly like his father, since that's essentially what Enji was gunning for -- creating a child that could be the perfect version of himself, rather than working to be that version of himself.

Whereas Touya was born "imperfect," so trying to meet his father's expectations against all advice and despite all the pain it caused him was never about being a hero and was all about validating his own existence. So I actually think the issue there was that Rei approached them the same, when Touya required an approach that acknowledged and validated his different circumstances.

Also, I agree that Rei didn't completely understand Touya because she couldn't fully relate to his experiences, but she definitely understood enough to know that Touya was aware of his father trying to replace him and that this would impact him negatively, hence his acting out and continuing to train, because we get confirmation of that in the flashbacks of Ch 301 & 302.