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My Hero Academia General Discussion Thread #18

Please remember that this is the MHA General Discussion Thread, I'd rather not have to worry about JJK spoilers in a place that is meant to be unrelated.

I plan to binge JJK in the future and hearing people bring the series up here gets me tense that I'll see something I really shouldn't have.
 
Please remember that this is the MHA General Discussion Thread, I'd rather not have to worry about JJK spoilers in a place that is meant to be unrelated.

I plan to binge JJK in the future and hearing people bring the series up here gets me tense that I'll see something I really shouldn't have.
Get off the internet ASAP, it's a landmine field
 
Please remember that this is the MHA General Discussion Thread, I'd rather not have to worry about JJK spoilers in a place that is meant to be unrelated.

I plan to binge JJK in the future and hearing people bring the series up here gets me tense that I'll see something I really shouldn't have.
Satoru Gojo has eyes just like the ones that you see in my picture. But back to MHA, what I have been wondering most about is whether or not he will succeed in delivering the quirk to Shiga.
 
Apparently they believe the High-ends are continental (I don't know why) and since Toga can hang with/hurt characters who can survive or hurt High-ends, she's apparently also continental.

At first I thought the scaling would be some inflated calc involving Sad Man's Legion and it's potential but it's actually about base Toga!
Seems perfectly good to me
 
Finally Bakugo is about to get a solo 1v1 in the manga outside fodder and other students.

But it's also great that Horikoshi keeps solidifying the movies as 100% canon so film fights also count - the Two Heroes fight against the Purple Hulk guy and the guy who could hollow out space (what an amazing hax quirk/basically what people think hollow purple does), heroes rising fight against Mummy & Nine (even if this wasn't solo), and of course WHM with the Serpenters fight which is simply one of the best fights in the series.

So taking the films into account, he does have a solid roster of solo fights under his belt.
 
Personally, I'd say we just wait to see how the fight with All For One ends.
 
Honestly the series itself should be pretty damn close to ending if we're doing Bakugo vs. All For One and Deku vs. Shigaraki now
I think we're in the second to last volume now, yeah.

Most shonen series also tend to wrap up extremely quickly once the final conflict has ended so I'm not expecting an extended epilogue.
 
Personally, I'd say we just wait to see how the fight with All For One ends.
AFO’s durability is kinda trash as Bakugo cut his arms off pretty easily, idk if we’re gonna learn much of his AP from this fight. His other stats aren’t really changing other than him being faster and his explosions hitting harder.
Honestly the series itself should be pretty damn close to ending if we're doing Bakugo vs. All For One and Deku vs. Shigaraki now
Probably. We still have some other stuff to go through, like the Aizawa + Mic and Shirakumo stuff, as well as whatever it is Horikoshi said Sero was gonna do. But the fighting is probably gonna be over in like 10-20 chapters.
 
687840.jpg

The brutal aftermath of the war arc.
 
Well in terms of Durability, AFO seems to be nothing impressive. It's his Quirks and Regeneration that have been super deadly. Shigaraki is way stronger due to having All Might's Physical Strength alongside all them Quirks, I mean the dude nuked UA and broke the entire thing with one Quirk blast. Awakened Bakugo blew off AFO's arms, but he could barely even scratch Shigaraki.

Deku and Shigaraki being above everyone else by a wide margin still seems consistent
 
Yep. At the very least, Current AFO's durability is Unknown. We pretty much have no way to scale his durability to anything when AFO stopped caring about defending himself, especially now that he's regressed way back prior to his Prime body and turned into a child.

That does put Armored All Might's AP scaling in question, however, though you can probably form arguments that can scale his AP to his special durability (Sugarman, Red Riot) to an extent. It's difficult when he's been fighting against someone who's durability is nebulous.
 
AFO was getting more powerful the younger he was becoming iirc
He’s able to use his Quirks better/in stronger ways but his actual body can’t keep up with them. Like how he destroys his arm when he shoots the light beam, or how when he turned Stain into a stain his arm was bloody and broken.

He’s effectively a regenerating glass cannon.
 
That big boy blast probably would've destroyed his arms prior to the Rewind drug as well, so he only really started using the Quirk after he used Rewind.
 
Maybe I am overthinking, but seems to me that for the final battle Hori will want to have Deku and Bakugou against a Shiga empowered with the two quirks. Bakugou could still win this but I can't help believing that AFO will do one last ditch effort to merge with Shiga. Then we'll finally see Shiga's true Self-Embodiment of Perfection.
 
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Alright, so since he’s back in action, how are we gonna treat Full-Body Cluster Bakugo?
Uncertain as of now, he still hasn't done anything worth making another key. I'm just going to wait until we see more before making judgements.

But this fight will likely reveal a lot about Bakugo's stats, and maybe even about AFO's current stats as well.

We might end up changing how Rewind AFO is labeled as well. There's a lot that can happen here, though in the same vein nothing might end up changing at all.
 
Maybe I am overthinking, but seems to me that for the final battle Hori will want to have Deku and Bakugou against a Shiga empowered with the two quirks. Bakugou could still win this but I can't help believing that AFO will do one last ditch effort to merge with Shiga. Then we'll finally see Shiga's true Self-Embodiment of Perfection.
With the way Hori has been writing final confrontations it seems like this is what will happen, and we either get a Heroes Rising 2.0 or Bakugo managing to keep up with Deku through something
 
Never said that, but it’s the most impactful way to create stakes in my eyes (and in a lot of other people’s eyes)
Okay, there's many things wrong with this, but I'm going to explain it as simply as possible.

Killing off a character is not what creates stakes unless you do it an important or popular character (and Edgeshot is neither) and even then, it's usually either seen as a cop out or incredibly cheap if it serves no narrative purpose or value beyond shock factor. The ACTUAL best way to create "stakes" is to create conflict in a story. Doesn't matter what type of conflict it is, as long as it's well structured.

This is how sports manga or really, any manga that has drama in it, but doesn't specialize in any of the tropes you see in Shonen Jump, are seen as interesting. It always keeps you pleading for more content because you want to see what happens on the next page. Every manga has stakes, although, some to a lesser degree.

I don't think people even understand that killing off a character doesn't inherently mean anything unless that character serves an important role in the story. Otherwise it'd be pointless. Killing off characters for little reason other then "there needs to be consequences, this is a war" is stupid because in order for that to work, you'd need to find a reason or an excuse for these characters to die. A legitimate one, not just shock factor.

Would Jirou or Tokoyami dying be incredibly tragic and depressing? Sure. To the people who have an attachment to those characters I guess. Many don't, and simply wouldn't care. And of course, there'd literally be zero reason or incentive to do so anyways. This is the problem with using shock factor. It's only effective (and keep in mind effective /=/ good) at making people upset that their favorite characters died. For the people who don't even care? Yeah, good luck convincing them to give a shit that some random B-lister hero fell to a Nomu foot soldier. Most that character will ever get is a "RIP" or some fanart at best.

Nobody'll give a **** if someone like... I don't know, a random civilian is shown getting killed on screen because you don't know that character, nor has the story spent time building them up. And even if it did, there's still a chance that the majority of people wouldn't really care because they're not the main character or someone close to them.

Sure, you could kill off All Might and fulfill Night Eye's prophecy, but Bakugo coming into rescue him both makes sense narratively, and completes his character arc. Win to save, save to win, etc. The main appeal of this arc, and every other major arc that came before it was not that the story risked characters dying, but the conflict happening in the story. Whether or not Deku wins the Sports Festival is what keeps people reading, since it's clear there's obstacles in the way of that.

Of course, there's a bunch of utter things that build tension in a story, like character development, a contrast between two characters narratively, or even the message that the story is trying to relay to the audience itself. All of that is just as important, if not at least second to an interesting or exciting story.

Whether or not Deku can stop Shigaraki and All for One from completely merging isn't simply interesting because it's a life or death situation, because there's probably ways that he could still win. He's the main character. He won't lose, lmao.

What makes it interesting is that the story makes us conjure up ways Deku could win the fight. It actually makes us think, and has us on the edge of our seats. It's exciting because an all out fight between Deku and a full powered All for One would be ******* killer.

That's what "good stakes" are in a story. Simply put, it's tension. Nothing more, nothing less. Killing characters off with the mentality of "just because" just makes the audience roll their eyes if anything.
 
Okay, there's many things wrong with this, but I'm going to explain it as simply as possible.

Killing off a character is not what creates stakes unless you do it an important or popular character (and Edgeshot is neither) and even then, it's usually either seen as a cop out or incredibly cheap if it serves no narrative purpose or value beyond shock factor. The ACTUAL best way to create "stakes" is to create conflict in a story. Doesn't matter what type of conflict it is, as long as it's well structured.

This is how sports manga or really, any manga that has drama in it, but doesn't specialize in any of the tropes you see in Shonen Jump, are seen as interesting. It always keeps you pleading for more content because you want to see what happens on the next page. Every manga has stakes, although, some to a lesser degree.

I don't think people even understand that killing off a character doesn't inherently mean anything unless that character serves an important role in the story. Otherwise it'd be pointless. Killing off characters for little reason other then "there needs to be consequences, this is a war" is stupid because in order for that to work, you'd need to find a reason or an excuse for these characters to die. A legitimate one, not just shock factor.

Would Jirou or Tokoyami dying be incredibly tragic and depressing? Sure. To the people who have an attachment to those characters I guess. Many don't, and simply wouldn't care. And of course, there'd literally be zero reason or incentive to do so anyways. This is the problem with using shock factor. It's only effective (and keep in mind effective /=/ good) at making people upset that their favorite characters died. For the people who don't even care? Yeah, good luck convincing them to give a shit that some random B-lister hero fell to a Nomu foot soldier. Most that character will ever get is a "RIP" or some fanart at best.

Nobody'll give a **** if someone like... I don't know, a random civilian is shown getting killed on screen because you don't know that character, nor has the story spent time building them up. And even if it did, there's still a chance that the majority of people wouldn't really care because they're not the main character or someone close to them.

Sure, you could kill off All Might and fulfill Night Eye's prophecy, but Bakugo coming into rescue him both makes sense narratively, and completes his character arc. Win to save, save to win, etc. The main appeal of this arc, and every other major arc that came before it was not that the story risked characters dying, but the conflict happening in the story. Whether or not Deku wins the Sports Festival is what keeps people reading, since it's clear there's obstacles in the way of that.

Of course, there's a bunch of utter things that build tension in a story, like character development, a contrast between two characters narratively, or even the message that the story is trying to relay to the audience itself. All of that is just as important, if not at least second to an interesting or exciting story.

Whether or not Deku can stop Shigaraki and All for One from completely merging isn't simply interesting because it's a life or death situation, because there's probably ways that he could still win. He's the main character. He won't lose, lmao.

What makes it interesting is that the story makes us conjure up ways Deku could win the fight. It actually makes us think, and has us on the edge of our seats. It's exciting because an all out fight between Deku and a full powered All for One would be ******* killer.

That's what "good stakes" are in a story. Simply put, it's tension. Nothing more, nothing less. Killing characters off with the mentality of "just because" just makes the audience roll their eyes if anything.
Most of this is subjective, although the same goes for the reply that it is directed at.

A part of MHA's fandom has reasons not to like its direction. I can't blame them if they think there is no tension. For the way they enjoy things, the stakes are lacking when the antagonists or the arc don't feel threatening enough. This doesn't make them any less fans or wrong. They just have different tastes, things to give or take from their investment. I'm one of them, but I'm trying to maintain a modicum of neutrality in this answer. But I will also speak from personal experience, at times.

Seinen, Dark Fantasy, Horror, Sci-Fi, etc. Actually, even the drama and shoujo. All these have many titles with death. Other shounen with death that are popular Gundam Wing Hokuto No ken Evangelion Devilman Jujutsu Kaisen also do. I don't think it is a sin to expect MHA to cross that line some more, it is after all the greatest war, therefore suffering that its world has seen.

In the local scope of this thread we find a variety of answers, either with memes or serious. People express problems with MHA having a narrative built with an excess of protection to the heroes. A war for all of Japan is reaching unrealistic proportions even to the standards of shounen. This has some truth to it because even Naruto, in all of its talk no jutsu glory, had deaths and losses. Depending on taste, it can be frustrating.
This is not an argument about Naruto doing it right. Shippuden was its own can of worms for me. The intent is awareness that the most idealistic articles in the shounen library can still cross these lines to let an audience know that things are truly serious.
And this is the reality of many readers. Some of MHA's official servers, you'd expect everyone there to like the franchise's direction, also have fans debating these preferences. Death is not the only way to create stakes and should not be done just because, that is agreeable. But factual argument about what keeps people on the edge of their seats in this series, like there is a narrative constant to that, cannot be made. Disqualifying the good stakes created by death done right is wrong. Of course, let's say someone finds more appeal in the alternative, that is not wrong either.

Permanent loss of a character isn't a run-of-the-mill twist, especially in a shounen where grave wounds are about as lethal as the flu and a trip to the hospital will have the character doing just fine a few chapters later. When a foregone conclusion that the opposition will fail becomes increasingly true in every aspect of a plot, it can lessen all tension born from violent conflict. And when fans ask for death to happen, seldom do they mean death for shock value or to cut the cast down to the single digits.

People that ask for death are still fans. They're asking for something with impact, built up, true. It's disheartening when a fan mentions stakes from death and the answer goes on to tell us about all kinds of death done poorly instead of all the ones that stick with us, teach us things, make characters grow, fans mourn like they lost a friend and remember.

Despite the complaints, most fans criticizing believe that Hori could deliver that. No one should ask for a poor man's death. And if they are in it just for shock value then I agree that it would take away from any story to do it AgKGS.

Wanton death and destruction are pointless. But fake outs every time don't make it any better either. Hori building up potential losses only to opt for a fake out ad infinitum is more of a reason to make me roll eyes than anything else he could possibly do with this story. Not because no one died, but because it feels like the narrative is wasting my time spent reading. He already told me this is how his world works many times over.

But notice the use of — my time. This ends the same way that it began. Most experiences with a narrative are subjective and the purpose of this reply isn't the invalidation of anything. To the enjoyment of MHA's current arc or if someone doesn't like anything about it, at least the points shared here sound fine. I don't think you, me or anyone can stake a claim about what makes MHA objectively interesting (or not) to an entire audience. What is appeal to one is what ruins it to another.

It's that old story. Can't please everybody, nothing's perfect and odds are that if the pages don't, this thread won't change anyone's opinions on the story when it's this close to the end. But what right do we have to call ourselves human if we don't express what we believe in. El psy congroo.
 
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Death is not the only way to create stakes and should not be done just because, that is agreeable. But factually arguing what keeps people on the edge of their seats, like there is a narrative constant to that, is wrong. Disqualifying the good stakes created by death done right is wrong. Of course, let's say someone finds more appeal in the alternative, that is not wrong either.
I never said that death done right doesn't serve a narrative purpose. What I meant was that there was either little opportunity for Horikoshi to capitalize off of it or just no point, because, again; shock factor. And at that point, why kill off a character to raise tension within a story when you could use that same character to build tension through their actions or character development?

It's not about subjectivity. You have to think of the bigger picture. If Horikoshi killed off Deku for NO REASON other then too increase the tension in the story, it would be bad writing. Preferences /=/ Writing structure. Him doing that would be bad for multitude of reasons. You don't need to jump through hoops to explain why. It'd just be bad.

Same with people complaining about how Horikoshi doesn't kill off enough characters. At a certain point, you just have to realize that there are people that are wrong, and people who are right. There can be an in between where you could say depending on the person's preferences, they might prefer one way to tell a story then the other, but it really doesn't sully my point here.
 
I never said that death done right doesn't serve a narrative purpose. What I meant was that there was either little opportunity for Horikoshi to capitalize off of it or just no point, because, again; shock factor. And at that point, why kill off a character to raise tension within a story when you could use that same character to build tension through their actions or character development?
Yes but the examples brought up in your reply were mostly things that only happen when it's done poorly. I already addressed the part about opportunities, as fans many believe that Horikoshi could deliver it. And to be honest Hori isn't home-free from attempts at shock value because he tries to achieve exactly that result with his constant fake outs. Bakugou, Nagant, most recently AM were all cases of this.

Look look, Bakugou is dead...nevermind, Edgeshot to the rescue.
Look look! Nagant exploded...nevermind.
Broly look! AM is so going to die!...nevermind Bakugou to the rescue.
Look! Dabi is a living nuke!...nevermind.


This is shock value done differently. It's part of why I wish he'd actually not do these things to just drop them 5 seconds later and, once more, what makes me roll my eyes the most. I think at this point it's the only thing because I alread know that Hori isn't killing anyone. I can enjoy MHA without demanding that.
It's not about subjectivity. You have to think of the bigger picture. If Horikoshi killed off Deku for NO REASON other then too increase the tension in the story, it would be bad writing. Preferences /=/ Writing structure. Him doing that would be bad for multitude of reasons. You don't need to jump through hoops to explain why. It'd just be bad.
It's also interesting to bring up the main character, usually a given that they'll survive everything. I was explaining about a general lack of consequences to all aspects and directions of the good side. So that would be a mixed non-sequitur and strawman. I said this in a reply long before this one, but from the very beginning I never thought that Horikoshi would kill any character in the main class.

But the lengths that he is going to not kill anyone no matter how unrealistic and these perpetual fake outs are bothersome. They don't increase tension, and yes there is a level of tension necessary in any narrative to keep certain demographics of fandom entertained. It varies from one person to another. I never said Horikoshi should kill Deku or a main character.

I said that I understand how people have a problem with him being incapable of bringing himself to do it, when good works do it for great narrative effect and if I said I don't think Hori should bring a death to MHA, that would ruin the story, I'd be indirectly insulting his capability as a writer instead of praising his work. Because the implication here is that Hori somehow can't write an impactful death when his story is currently set in the best possible scenario for it to happen. A war for the country, and the world. Where all heroes and villains are clashing.
Same with people complaining about how Horikoshi doesn't kill off enough characters. At a certain point, you just have to realize that there are people that are wrong, and people who are right. There can be an in between where you could say depending on the person's preferences, they might prefer one way to tell a story then the other, but it really doesn't sully my point here.
This is a logical pitfall. At this argument's core, the message is that what one fraction of the fanbase enjoys is what is best for a story even if the fraction that you are invalidating presents good arguments. MHA does in fact lack elements that people aren't exactly wrong to expect from the arc that it promised. If it appeals to others that these elements are not happening that is fine. But it does not make the complaints and criticism invalid either. People can be fans and still have issues with how things are handled.
 
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Okay, there's many things wrong with this, but I'm going to explain it as simply as possible.

Killing off a character is not what creates stakes unless you do it an important or popular character (and Edgeshot is neither) and even then, it's usually either seen as a cop out or incredibly cheap if it serves no narrative purpose or value beyond shock factor. The ACTUAL best way to create "stakes" is to create conflict in a story. Doesn't matter what type of conflict it is, as long as it's well structured.

This is how sports manga or really, any manga that has drama in it, but doesn't specialize in any of the tropes you see in Shonen Jump, are seen as interesting. It always keeps you pleading for more content because you want to see what happens on the next page. Every manga has stakes, although, some to a lesser degree.

I don't think people even understand that killing off a character doesn't inherently mean anything unless that character serves an important role in the story. Otherwise it'd be pointless. Killing off characters for little reason other then "there needs to be consequences, this is a war" is stupid because in order for that to work, you'd need to find a reason or an excuse for these characters to die. A legitimate one, not just shock factor.

Would Jirou or Tokoyami dying be incredibly tragic and depressing? Sure. To the people who have an attachment to those characters I guess. Many don't, and simply wouldn't care. And of course, there'd literally be zero reason or incentive to do so anyways. This is the problem with using shock factor. It's only effective (and keep in mind effective /=/ good) at making people upset that their favorite characters died. For the people who don't even care? Yeah, good luck convincing them to give a shit that some random B-lister hero fell to a Nomu foot soldier. Most that character will ever get is a "RIP" or some fanart at best.

Nobody'll give a **** if someone like... I don't know, a random civilian is shown getting killed on screen because you don't know that character, nor has the story spent time building them up. And even if it did, there's still a chance that the majority of people wouldn't really care because they're not the main character or someone close to them.

Sure, you could kill off All Might and fulfill Night Eye's prophecy, but Bakugo coming into rescue him both makes sense narratively, and completes his character arc. Win to save, save to win, etc. The main appeal of this arc, and every other major arc that came before it was not that the story risked characters dying, but the conflict happening in the story. Whether or not Deku wins the Sports Festival is what keeps people reading, since it's clear there's obstacles in the way of that.

Of course, there's a bunch of utter things that build tension in a story, like character development, a contrast between two characters narratively, or even the message that the story is trying to relay to the audience itself. All of that is just as important, if not at least second to an interesting or exciting story.

Whether or not Deku can stop Shigaraki and All for One from completely merging isn't simply interesting because it's a life or death situation, because there's probably ways that he could still win. He's the main character. He won't lose, lmao.

What makes it interesting is that the story makes us conjure up ways Deku could win the fight. It actually makes us think, and has us on the edge of our seats. It's exciting because an all out fight between Deku and a full powered All for One would be ******* killer.

That's what "good stakes" are in a story. Simply put, it's tension. Nothing more, nothing less. Killing characters off with the mentality of "just because" just makes the audience roll their eyes if anything.
Not reading all that but thanks
 
Anyone have a TLDR for when i should watch the movies during the anime? Im rewatching the anime and I wanna fit the movies in where theyre supposed to take place. Never seen the movies before
 
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