Midoriya and his many parents
I’ve mentioned this briefly in Aizawa’s profile, but BnHA is just chock full of father figures. There’s a big emphasis on mentors and fatherhood, more so than in a lot of other manga and anime I follow.
Now, the idea of the ’sensei’ is fairly classic, the old master who teaches the young hero their secret technique and all that. But the young heroes in BnHA, with their high stakes environment, do have a lot of them.
This is especially true for Midoriya.
Surely I’m not the only one who thinks it’s super interesting that we have not seen Midoriya’s biological father? Like… he wasn’t even on the couch watching the Sports Festival.
Considering his mother appears to be a house wife in a fairly nice apartment, I think it’s safe to assume that he at least exists. Maybe he’s a salaryman with a lot of overtime, more likely he’s working overseas.
Whatever the case, he’s very much an absent dad.
Now, absentee parents aren’t that much of a deal in anime. The ‘16-year old living alone in Tokyo’ is a bit of a trope, after all, but here, with the emphasis on several characters parents, it feels like a statement. This is the manga in which we know the entire family set-up of Tsuyu, and the names and appearance of Jirou’s parents. Much as I love Jirou, she’s a side character.
For the main character to have a blank space like that, is a Thing. It means that growing up, Izuku had one parental figure, and that parental figure was his mother.
And give the woman credit: she did amazing.
It is not easy to raise a child practically by yourself. Certainly not a child that is considered an outcast by society. The amount of love Midoriya receives from his mother is heart-warming, their relationship is one of the better ones portrayed in shounen and as a result, Midoriya is a kid with an incredible amount of mental fortitude, capable of handling some pretty devastating circumstances.
His mother has been a supporting pillar in his early childhood, which, remember, was pretty rough on account of all the bullying. As such she has shaped a lot of his personality. She’s equipped him with confidence, with an unshakable belief in himself.
However, she is very much not a hero.
Her love is one of katsudon and hugs and kind words and worried tears. She wants him safe, above all else. She’s never going to teach him hand-to-hand and going by her advice alone will not make him into the hero he desperately wants to be.
Him quite literally leaving the warm nest she made for him to learn how to fight evil people is a big part of him growing up.
Maybe that’s why Izuku puts so much of his hopes and dreams on All Might.
Here’s his ultimate hero taking an interest in little old him.
It’s a fairy tale. A manga trope.
And I really believe that he sees an alternate father figure in All Might once he gets closer to him. They have their wax on, wax off moment on the beach, with All Might encouraging him to get stronger. This is the trope. The sensei, mister Miyagi thing where the kid gets prepped to receive the ultimate technique (in the form of a lock of… hair, whatever).
But unlike traditional masters, and unlike his biological father, All Might sticks around. He is a presence in his life. He cares for Midoriya and his continued success in a way that, at this point, no other male figure does.
Dad Might gives Midoriya a whole bunch of very important advice, but it’s good to note that this isn’t a rough or distant sort of male mentorship.
All Might quite literally opens himself up to Midoriya.
He shows him his weaker side. The skeletal side. The broken side.
Because All Might, let’s not forget, is a friggin mess.
I mean, I know he’s going through a lot, but this man is Such a Dork. It’s definitely endearing and it is also one of his best traits as a character. However: as a person, he’s really not very well equipped to be raising a teenager. He lacks, in a way, the stability and level-headedness that comes with the position of a teacher.
He cares too much. About everything. All the time.
And he nurtures that side of Midoriya, when Midoriya already has plenty of that.
He can’t help but admire Midoriya’s selflessness. Can’t help but praise the very foundation upon which his own heroics are based: helping people.
When he saves Todoroki. When he saves Bakugou, All Might is there to tell Midoriya that what he did is all right.
And this is certainly important for Midoriya to hear, but at this point it’s also not the only thing he needs to hear.
Luckily Midoriya also gets a more traditional teacher figure.
It’s interesting to note that, despite being the younger of the two, and despite the fact that he sometimes teaches from an honest to god sleeping bag, Aizawa is a much more stable mentor and general Adulting Adult.
He still cares about his students, but he’s also much more likely to Act as a Teacher.
Because Aizawa immediately picks up on Izuku’s self-mutilation.
He watched the entrance exam, he knows that Izuku’s quirk is, at this point, extremely flawed. That Izuku doesn’t have control over it.
He explains it in a pretty standoffish way, and certainly this early in the show it comes across as cruel, but he’s not wrong.
Izuku is breaking bones every single time he uses his quirk at this point in time. If he does anything with his quirk, he’ll be a casualty.
Him using only a single finger is framed as a feat of intelligence,
but it is also INSANE.
‘Oh you only broke one finger, you have nine attacks left’.
That is NOT a good plan. Don’t do that. For fuck’s sake.
I hope we all realize that what Midoriya is doing is Not Healthy.
He is eating away at himself, destroying his own body over and over again.
When Aizawa tells Midoriya to get a grip on his powers he’s not just being an ass. He’s being a responsible adult, a teacher that cares about the general well-being of the students assigned to him.
Manga spoilers under the cut.
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