Nobody Knows Who I Am

I love the Boku no Hero Academia fandom, but your obsession with death flags is kind of worrying.

Kirishima will probably survive the Internship Arc. He’s here to stay for years down the line. 

Getting lots of character development and a backstory usually doesn’t lead to death. 

I hate saying this, but, overall, Kirishima doesn’t have a lot of successes as a character. His character arc still needs more successes and shining moments. In order for his character arc to properly end, it’s ideal for his character to have closure and feel complete. Kirishima doesn’t have that though since he has had quite a few moments where he has failed or been beaten down, especially when you compare them to his lack of successes over the series.

What are his successes before the Internship Arc? He does okay against the small fry villains during the invasion of USJ but is unsuccessful in taking out higher level villains. He does decent during the Sports Festival but struggles with insecurities of having a similar Quirk to someone else and then deals with a brutal loss against Bakugou during the tournament. Kirishima does okay during his workplace experience but doesn’t get any spotlight. The first time Kirishima really gets a shining moment is when he successfully rescues Bakugou during the Hideout Raid Arc. 

The other success he has before the Internship Arc is getting his hero license during the Hero License Exam Arc. However, he doesn’t have any shining moments during that exam. 

To put it simply, Kirishima comes across as a scrappy underdog who has room to develop as a character in the long term. If he were to die. He’d probably have more successes and shining moments before the Internship Arc. For instance, he’d have a shining moment during the Hero’s License Exam where he saves someone, or he’d have a full backstory and shining moment where he passes the End of the Term Exam. If Horikoshi were to kill Kirishima off, it’d be better to spread his character development and spotlight over the course of the series rather than cramming a lot of them in one arc.  It’d also be lazy writing for Horikoshi to give Kirishima all this character development in a short period of time during the Internship Arc before killing him off quickly.

When Kirishima finally gets success during the Internship Arc, the moments after that success show that Kirishima still needs to grow. 

Furthermore, Kirishima still has a lot of potential to grow and become important to the series down the line. For instance, he still has deep-seeded low self-esteem issues and moments where he’s overly critical of himself. It’ll be a good long term  story line seeing him work those issues out over the years. I doubt those issues will resolve in a short time. 

His character seems to be prepared for future long term growth and character development. It’ll be interesting seeing him slowly mature, overcome his inner demons, and overcome his failures. If he gets killed soon, then all this potential development that could have happened years down the line will be wasted. 

Also, Aizawa says this about Kirishima’s Quirk. 

In order for Kirishima’s Quirk to get strong, he needs to train his body so that his Quirk can become stronger, which will do great things for his character. Training his body takes TIME. He can’t get all this awesome growth for his Quirk if he dies during the Internship Arc or anytime soon. His Quirk has too much potential growth.

I’m sorry. I know this argument doesn’t make Kirishima’s death impossible. I’m just trying to say how it’s very unlikely and a poor writing choice for him to die. I really don’t buy the argument that getting lots of character development, being likable, and having a backstory equates to death flags. When people are freaking out over these “death flags”, I feel like they’re freaking out and worrying over nothing. I’ve skimmed through the manga many times, and Kirishima has never seemed like the type of character who would die early. He always seems like the type of character who has a long future in the series and has been building up to becoming a great a hero. 

Honestly, I don’t have anything against people freaking out and talking about the possibility of Kirishima dying. It’s fun to speculate that kind of stuff. I just know some people get attached to fictional characters and get sad about the thought of them dying. I’m just making this post to calm people down who are stressing out over something that’s non-existent.

For those of you who are worried about Kirishima dying, don’t be. There’s no good reason to be. Kirishima’s character arc is only getting started. You need to have more faith in him. That’s what a real man would do. 

Midoriya: So after All Might gave me his quirk—