angry glasses

Koichi's the type who never takes on any more responsibility than he can handle, so he pretty much never finds himself in a situation where he can't back off and beat a quick retreat. I found myself wondering, "What sort of enemy would he force himself to actually confront?"...And voila - the answer was "Oh, duh. Pop!" She's the only one who fits the bill...

Note how Furuhashi doesn’t actually describe this as a flaw of Koichi’s, just an aspect of his personality that Furuhashi wanted to explore by forcing him into a situation when he couldn’t do what he normally would.  It’s basically forcing him to go Plus Ultra when he normally wouldn’t, and given that I don’t much care for the way the main series ultimately utilized the Plus Ultra thing, I certainly don’t mind that it’s not a motto of Koichi’s!

Like, I actually think you could just as easily read this as a marker of Koichi’s maturity, or perhaps simply his age/experience, that he doesn’t take on more than he can handle.  Having a realistic bead on your capabilities and taking care not to exceed them is good self-care and responsible community member-ing, actually!  All Plus Ultra All The Time is, regardless of what the main series says, a nice short trip to Burnoutville!

As to him “passively staying in his lane until he absolutely needs to,” I don’t think I really get that from him?  I mean, this is a guy introduced to us as constantly going out of his way to help people, first as just a neighborhood do-gooder picking up trash and giving out advice on the train schedules, and later as a vigilante hero, always rushing towards the sound of screams rather than away from them.

In point of fact, I think Koichi’s passivity is often exaggerated by people trying to compare him—usually unflatteringly—to Deku, in ways that make it immediately apparent that they haven’t read the first chapter of the main series in quite some time.  Deku, too, is nonconfrontational with bullies and also hesitates to jump in and save someone for several pages right up until he gets a clear look at the desperate plea for help flashing in their eyes.  Setting aside the presence or absence of Heroes on-scene, Koichi’s attempted rescue of Pop is way more 1:1 to the main series than a lot of people remember it being!

That said, where Koichi does “stay in his lane” is in prying into peoples’ business.  He doesn’t ask questions about Pop or Knuckleduster’s personal lives; he’s incredibly nonjudgmental (as Furuhashi notes in another character blurb on him in the final volume) about the Villains he fights; he doesn’t try to moralize or force some sort of “justice” on people who’ve done wrong, even to people who’ve wronged those he cares about, much less hurt him directly!

That’s certainly got more aspects that cause him problems, and if you’re a reader who does expect some moralizing and justice-bringing from your protagonists (and god knows BNHA Core has no shortage of that), then I can see how Koichi’s ready willingness to overlook crimes would grate!  But as I said so often about Heroes in the main series, their job is really just about keeping the peace—stopping Villain attacks and saving people in (immediate) danger.  It isn’t part of their job description to be the dispensers of justice in this society, and it sure isn’t part of their job description to stand around moralizing about it!  So, again, I actually quite like this aspect of Koichi and don’t really consider it as flaw as such!

As to what I do think is Koichi’s flaw, it’s quite elegantly handled in that it’s a flaw that stems from the same place as his virtue—a personality trait that can be positive or negative depending on the circumstances.  To wit, as part of being so nonjudgmental, Koichi is also extremely incurious.  He doesn’t really ponder the obvious disconnect between his admiration of Heroes and his own approach to heroism; he doesn’t ever try to have a conversation with Pop about all the times she gets particularly fed up with him; he doesn’t stop to consider how his friendliness with Soga and company might make Pop feel given what they tried to do to her; he doesn’t tend to ask questions about why Villains got so desperate as to embrace Villainy to begin with.

Koichi is, as a crimefighter and a protagonist, extremely pragmatic.  He deals with problems in front of him with as much compassion as he can manage and he doesn’t tend to worry about problems beyond his scope.  Furuhashi suggests in the last volume that Koichi had the luxury of being nonjudgmental because he didn’t have the responsibilities that a real Hero would, including by implication the responsibility of dispensing public moral censure.  That begs the question, however, of how Koichi will behave as an official Hero (or at least an official sidekick). One suspects that his “Let’s all just walk away and nobody have to get arrested today” attitude is not going to play very well in the United States or Japan!

I note that the Vigilantes epilogue is perfectly happy to only show Koichi dealing with a rescue operation rather than showing us how he’s treating Villains.  Unlike the main series cast, Koichi was never really asked to confront How He Deals With Villains by his narrative—he was never as harsh with them as Deku & Friends anyway!—so it doesn’t feel as egregious as it did in the main series when the Vigs epilogue dodges the issue.[1]  Still, it’s not a great look that the series just lets his transition from vigilante to pro slide by as a good ending, as if it hasn’t been made manifestly clear that Koichi doesn’t act like a Pro Hero is supposed to act.

1: Or outright bungles it, as in BNHA’s volume extra chapter, in which the great new “continuing to offer help where it’s not asked for” Class 1-A grads collectively treat a panicked carjacker in exactly the same way Mount Lady treated a panicked purse thief in the first fucking chapter. /dead horse flogging

In any case, while it should be fairly obvious from the preceding paragraph that I don’t have a huge problem with Koichi’s approach to Villains, at least compared to how they’re doing it over in the main series, I do think it’s a character trait that limits how much good he’s apt to be able to do on a structural scale.  Whether because he doesn’t question how the system he’s now joined treats Villains or because his own approach to Villains disregards the needs and feelings of victims, Koichi is certainly no model for Responsible Pro Heroism!

And heroism aside, it’s definitely more of a flaw for him on the personal level.  My god, just imagine what it would be like to date someone who can tell when you’re angry but just doesn’t care enough to talk to you seriously about the problem.  Pop even still being interested in Koichi after he proves willing to shrug off Soga's actions towards her is so glaringly bad I can only chalk it up as a problem on the writer side rather than try to rationalize it from Pop's in-character perspective.

And like, obviously Pop had her own massive issues with being a bad communicator, but even someone as stellar at communication as Makoto would still have the right to demand better from Koichi in a romantic relationship!  The fact that Koichi probably developed this problem as a result of having an abusive mother does not make it not a problem or not a flaw; it just makes it a sympathetic one.