mel.🌾

The face he makes when he’s told he isn’t needed anymore. Something he’s known for a long time. He KNOWS he shouldn’t be alive, and that he’s only a burden to everyone now; especially Deku.

The face of heartbreak. Of understanding Deku’s position. He understands more than anyone possibly could. He held the world up by himself for over 40 years. I know how you feel. I know it feels to want to protect everyone, especially those closest to you. And the only way to do so is to leave them behind. Distance and Isolate yourself completely so you can’t get too attached to anyone. Because if you do, and the villains find out, it would feel impossible to live on knowing it was your fault they died. Because you endangered them by just being around them. Loving them. It’s only now, that I’ve allowed myself to live, that I can see how wrong I was to believe that. You shouldn’t have to suffer the same way I did. I can’t let you!

When he falls to the ground, he first lands on his torso. Which feels significant given the mortal wound there, as well how the normal pain in his side has moved to his chest. And even though the pain of having a misshapen, broken body can be extremely debilitating, the pain he now feels is absolutely unbearable.

The bento box. Sure it’s wasted food. But the fact that kills me is how lovingly he made it himself for his boy. Imagine him in their makeshift shelter, which may just be an abandoned building or apartment, carefully using the best ingredients he could find, to make a meal and feed his overworked son. The son he’s more than just a little worried about. It’s all he can think about.

But he busies himself preparing the rice, keeping an eye on the meat to be thoroughly cooked but not burnt, and then cutting it into small strips so his boy can easily grab it with his chopsticks while on the move without having to worry about cutting it himself. Protein. That’s what Deku needs most. And vegetables to keep his strength up. Everything is prepared as perfectly as possible in the short amount of time he has between following Deku to every villain attack.

He already knows the boy isn’t eating on his own. He did the same when he was a hero. Sometimes going for days without a proper meal in order to Protect. Toshi didn’t have anyone to help him with this, save for the few years Nighteye was with him. And that’s why he knows exactly what Deku needs.

After meticulously putting together the food in the bento box, he wraps it his signature bunny cloth…only to have Deku reject not only the meal, but HIM as well. Watching the boy walk away from him raises a memory of himself doing the same to Nighteye in the hospital. He now knows how Nighteye felt when he turned his back on him. Nighteye had left, unable to watch him slowly kill himself.

But Toshi can’t leave. Deku is all. He. Has. The only reason he’s still alive.

And yet, the food he prepared for his boy, the love he put into it to nourish him, ends up spilt. Splattered in the mud. Ruined. Rejected. Wasted…The food too.

Today, Hori shares an interesting fact through his author’s note:

The poem is called Ame ni mo Makezu in Japan, written by Japanese poet Kenji Miyazawa, and it is a very famous poem. The verse Horikoshi is referring to is [ミンナニデクノボートヨバレ] (originally written in katakana) or “minna ni deku-no-bō to yobare”. Translated straight, means “Called useless by all.”

I’ve always wondered why Izuku never really gets credit or widespread acknowledgement whenever he wins villain fights, of how he doesn’t seem to be known more than being ‘the boy who broke his bones during the U.A. Sports Festival.’ The shared victory against Stain was credited to Endeavor, his personal fight against Overhaul was never televised, and his defeat of Gentle Criminal was never relayed to his classmates.

Even now, he’s known as ‘the cryptid who saves people.’ In the span of the entire manga, Deku never really sought popularity nor money. The closest he did this was when he was told by All Might to announce his presence to the world via the Sports Festival, but even then, he prioritized saving his classmate over winning and wasn’t recognized for his previous victories. He didn’t even receive a single internship offer aside from Gran Torino. Plus, Deku doesn’t exude a natural charm when it comes to scripted interviews.

The poem:

The poem illustrates a person who lives simply, who helps those who are in need of help, and doesn’t get praise for it (nor desires to be praised.) So aside from it’s other meaning ‘dekiru’ or ‘I can do it!’, Deku as a hero name means that he doesn’t seek credit for doing what should come naturally.

But since Izuku choosing it for a hero name is yet another statement: he still hopes to become someone that everyone aspires to. That is, by asking people to call him Deku, he becomes a ‘No One who can save everyone.’