The Charizard Den

What is your opinion in how Horikoshi handled Midoriyas bullying in the manga.

Well, I've been pretty vocal in the past on how I DO NOT LIKE AT ALL how Horikoshi handles Midoriya having suffered bullying in the past to the point I believe he made him someone who had been bullied, merely to ride up on how bullying was trending at the time due to how in 2013, in Japan, it was enacted an anti-bullying act which prohibits bullying, due to a 13-year-boy committing suicide in Otsu due to bullying in October 2011, and its parents suing three former classmates, their parents and the city in February 2012.

Mind you, the way Horikoshi handles bullying is tied to his beliefs that people should just bear abuse, don't give in to negative feeling and continue being the best version of themselves and reach enlightment or something but well, I still don't like it.

Finding the correct way to handle bullies is hard... but just being the best version of yourself won't stop them. AT ALL.

Vigilantes tackles bullies better than BNHA does.

To sum it up:

it conveniently removes a huge part of the reason why Midoriya was bullied/discriminated by others, giving him a shiny Quirk.

it offers Midoriya zero help beyond him receiving a Quirk. All Might knows Midoriya has been bullied and all he thinks Midoriya needs to overcome the trauma of having been bullied is fight with Bakugou. TWICE.

By the way Horikoshi tackles Midoriya's trauma and pain as something Midoriya has to overcome, and then procedes to have him just do so with a minimum effort.

Midoriya's admiration for how strong and determinate Bakugou is overshadows what should have been Midoriya's disgust for Bakugou's negative side. At the start Bakugou wants to be a Hero out of greed and wish for popularity, looks down on everyone, breaks laws by using his Quirk, mistreat people when they don't do as he pleases. He is basically in all but the name a villain but hey, he is strong and determinate and the Heroes aren't setting their eyes on him so he is cool and admirable in Midoriya's eyes.

Midoriya's admiration for Bakugou is handled as something valid and not worrisome at all when often admiration toward your abuser is born due to unhealthy copying mechanisms or from the belief you are abused because you are different/worse and therefore, if you were the same as your abuser, you would be free of abuse

Midoriya's lack of sense of worth is not handled as a negative trait but as a noble one, because, thanks to it, Midoriya sacrifices for others.

Midoriya overcomes his abuse so quickly and so easily he never gets to have a meaningful conversation about it. By the time Bakugou feels sorry for it, Midoriya barely remembers he was mistreated and while he probably apprecciated the apology it doesn't make an impact on him the way it should, it more makes him realize he was being mean telling his classmates they couldn't keep up with him, handling them as extra the same way Bakugou used to do even if for different reasons.

Bakugou comes to the realization Midoriya shouldn't be abused because he is a great person and that he abused him because he was afraid of how great Midoriya was which annoys me the most because no matter Midoriya's worth, no one deserves to be abused. Midoriya could have been a failure of a person and could have remained a failure of a person and he still wouldn't deserve abuse. I'll overlook the whole 'Bakugou abused Midoriya because he was afraid of him' because it is not a recurring reason for abuse but it can be one, but it still feels like propaganda.

There's probably more but I know some of it is cultural (I hate how the oh so awesome class A do not act in face of how things are between Midoriya and Bakugou but in Japan it is considered wrong to act in such private business) so I'll cut it here.

Or what is your opinion on how Midoriya was written in general.

And this question is why I took so long in answering because there are so many things I would want to say but I want to try to keep it brief.

There's an ongoing debate in the fandom which says Horikoshi wrote Midoriya poorly due to lack of love toward Midoriya. I don't think the problem is lack of love.

I think at the start Horikoshi genuinely wanted to see himself in Midoriya, to see in his wish to become a mangaka, Midoriya's wish to become a Hero.

But my problem is... he didn't seem to know what to do with Midoriya and since Midoriya is the main character, all the story's flaws in writing hit him way harder than anyone else.

Horikoshi do believes Heroes easily overcome trauma so Midoriya quickly and easily overcomes the fact he had been bullied by Bakugou, which stripped him of a potential layer of internal complexity as well of an internal struggle... something that foreshadow how he'll recover from having to act alone post the first war thanks to a bath with his friends.

Horikoshi's decision not to criticize society despite it being messed up ends up shutting down Midoriya's abilities of analyzing, criticizing and improving it. All Midoriya will say in the end is that yes, society is complicate so he'll offer a helping hand but that's it. Stain saved him but he never again pondered on that. He figured early on Tomura wasn't saved but... didn't matter. Lady Nagant told him the HPSC used to have her kill Heroes and he... fundamentally doesn't care? His only involvement with the Heteromorph plot is through ordinary woman and he is more concerned with reassuring her that those who had attacked her did so because they were scared than with how she got attacked in the first place or how shelters refused to welcome her. He demands Muscular to tell him why does he rage and if there was no other path for him and.. well, then the discussion dies here. The civilians would want to abandon him out of U.A. High in his time of need and this doesn't spark anything inside him because Uraraka manages to switch their mind. Ultimately Tomura tells him he has to stay a Villain to be a Hero fro Villains and... that's it. This becomes an indrance to his growth, as if he fundamentally accepts a society that is presented as flawed as it is without any interest in criticizing or changing it he becomes a static main character. Offering a helping hand is nice but that's it.

By the way this ends up affecting Midoriya's empathy, which is represented in a messy way, sometimes it's there and pushes him to act to his personal disadvantage, sometimes it's just not there, either because it would be a hindrance to the plot (he had to beat Shinsou even though he realized Shinsou has troubles and he couldn't show an interest in him as it was Aizawa the one who should help him and it has to be Uraraka who makes Quirk counseling so he just... does nothing) or because it would go against the idea that society needs to be accepted as it is, trauma needs to be overcome and everyone should just be the best version of himself. The result is Midoriya comes out more righteous than empathic. We start tame as with Kouta is main concern was persuading Kouta it is okay to want to be Heroes (aka accepting how Hero society works), instead than conforting the kid for his loss and accepting he wasn't ready yet to move on and we get worse when said empathy should be extended to Villains. He tells Overhaul he'll help him solely if he'll apologize to Eri. He moves from wanting to save Tomura to only wanting to know why he acts this way and forces his way through his psyche. He has no sympathy for Touya's pain, claiming he is looking at Endeavor as he tries to be better, when he actually had ignored him for 7 months and he happened to look at him in the last 3 months merely because he was interning under him. Himiko told him he liked him but he expressed no grief when she died, nor felt like he had abandoned her when he chose to go fight Tomura instead.

Horikoshi's liking for surprising twists ends up making Midoriya's choice to become a teacher so not foreshadowed it seems a thing decided last minute even if he actually planned it.

Plot needs also erase all the arc about Midoriya's struggle to control OFA without destroying himself which is just waved away as his arms all of sudden won't break anymore because... they got used to it... and later on when he'll lose them they'll get returned soon enough. Something similar happens with his additional Quirks with he quickly learns to handle to the point they ends up being a boring power up.

And should we mention how, always for plot reasons, we are meant to ignore the fact Midoriya's father is missing or how we are expected to be invested in a love story with Uraraka that Horikoshi himself didn't portray as really interesting and that remained stalled for 8 years?

The result is I do not get interested in Midoriya.

His struggles are solved way too easily, his view clashes with mine, his behavior is not an example I would follow. I don't feel inspired to save others when I watch him punch Tomura into dust.

...but likely it was because BNHA is so driven by its author's intentions the characters ends up not what it would be logic for them to do but what Horikoshi needs them to do.

Mind you, all the characters in a story do what their author wants them to do but the difference is that normally their author tries to make their moves look logical and their own decision.

As you mentioned when Homura learnt she couldn't rely on her time power she tried other solutions and this is logic and build up on her characterization. It seems a thing she could have chosen to do, one htat made sense for her to do.

On the other side Horikoshi needs Midoriya tohave a Quirk and use it because the editor said so.

Originally Midoriya wasn't meant to get a shiny new Quirk, but then Horikoshi was asked to give him one and so the plot ended up revolving on Midoriya having to learn to use such Quirk, the Quirk hurting him creating drama that then gets undone by Recovery Girl who fixes him back to zero so that Horikoshi can use him for a new adventure the following day instead than have to wait a month for Midoriya to recover.

So Midoriya doesn't think he could also use a capture cloth like Aizawa or something like that until he doesn't get used to his Quirk because he just has to use that Quirk for the plot to work.

Using his Quirk is his only way to be a Hero, the story is clear about this. Until it decides to take it from him and give him a suit, that's it.

At least those are my two cents about it.

And yes, I'm being bitter but the whole 'you can be a Hero only if you have a Quirk' thing is ridicule when in the cast we have people like Hagakure who can only turn invisible but somehow manages to get a better result than Midoriya in the qQuirk apprehension test because Midoriya needed to end last DESPITE using OFA once and therefore getting an amazing result... never mentioning he could have used it also in the last exercise since then the test would end so as to get a better result but nope. We couldn't risk him not ending up in the last place...