The MHA fandom pisses me off SO much with how they talk about Deku being a hard worker and struggling to achieve his dreams when the series quite literally opens AND ends with that not being true AT ALL.
Deku is told at the age of 4 that he's quirkless, and therefore, his dream of being a hero is cut short right then and there. His mother has the most normal and expected reaction, feeling bad about it, and she cries along with him as she comforts him. He then resents her for it for over a fucking decade because what he REALLY wanted her to do was lie to him, tell him he could be, even though all heroes, as far as he and the world are aware, all have quirks so they can fight villains who ALSO have quirks.
He then mopes about it, doing nothing to change himself, he doesn't train, he doesn't learn any skills, like martial arts or any other fighting ability, he doesn't use his smarts to create a support item for himself to master, if anything Inko's only fault as a mother is that as soon as she found out Deku was quirkless but STILL wanted to support his dreams of getting stronger to help people maybe in ANOTHER line of work (policeman, fire fighter, doctor, etc. etc.) she didn't immediately get his ass in a class of some sort to help develop those skills.
But no, he decides he's just gonna cling to the very, VERY small chance that maybe one day he'll meet his idol All Might and ask HIM if he can be a hero, because he needs All Might to lie to him too. And when by absolute chance he DOES, All Might is an honest and good man who tells him the fucking truth, NO, no he can't be a hero without a quirk because there are extremely powerful villains with quirks who would kill his ass. Fucking duh. All Might was also born quirkless, but guess what we see him doing even when he was? Using fucking pipes and shit like weapons...had a strong body too, but even HE fundamentally understood he couldn't do much without a quirk, which was why Nana gave him OFA.
And of course, Deku whines about it. He's miserable and mopey and self-defeating because why won't the people around him just lie to him?! Why won't they just tell him he can, despite reality repeatedly telling him he can't? How fucking dare they not support his crazy dreams when he puts in ZERO effort to change anyone's mind!
But then he happens on the sludge incident and sees some poor guy struggling and stands in the crowd pitying them like everyone else...except it turns out it's not some guy!!! It's his lifelong bully!! The guy who told him to literally kill himself, not even a few hours ago!!! And what does Deku do? Rushes in to ''save'' him without a single idea of how to do so, and had All Might not been ''inspired'' by his reckless behavior, BOTH of them would have died. Ah yes, very brave.
It's enough for All Might, with one of the most powerful quirks in the entire universe, to be like, okay kid, I'll just give this to you, you can have it. But first, you have to train a little, because if I hand it over to you now, it'll kill you. So he spends a few months cleaning a beach and is given the second most broken power in the MHA universe.
The story then breaks itself in half to give him every opportunity in the world to succeed when he should fail over and over again. THAT would have been struggle, THAT would have required ''hard work'' but no, everything is handed to him.
The series then ends with him losing his quirk, which is good. AFO and OFA should have destroyed each other; that was a given, and the only thing Horikoshi did right with the conclusion of MHA. But what does Deku do after losing his quirk that was never really his to begin with? Fucking goes back to moping, gives up on his dream of being a hero, becomes a teacher (without a degree by the way, so like, he didn't even put in the fucking effort to become an actually decent teacher, because teaching is fucking hard and you SHOULD educate yourself before educating others...fucking christ Horikoshi, ANYWAY), until 8 years later he is once again HANDED the answer to his issues by someone else.
Bakugou, with the help of the other students of his class, all pitched in to buy him an Ironman suit, which he then uses only on his weekends because actually he really likes being a teacher and so he does hero work as a side gig, but that's not gonna stop Horikoshi from handing him the #4 position on the hero chart because apparently he earned that by killing one villain back when he was a freshamn in high school...versus other heroes who have dedicated their lives to the job and have continued to help people all the time, not just as a side hustle from their main job...
Deku is handed everything. Even the fact that he developed several quirks, All Might wasn't worth the vestiges revealing themselves to him despite nearly killing AFO once on his own, no no, only Deku ''deserved'' their support, so he could use all their quirks. Deku graduates from U.A.'s hero course and somehow didn't utilize his connections to support course students to like, give him support items to use legally to do hero work. Deku didn't use the base strength he gained from training to continue fighting, maybe low level street thugs. Deku didn't develop an interest in any other avenue where he was even slightly connected to hero work because they weren't good enough. If he can't be a HERO then fuck the various hero industries, actually, fuck saving people, being a teacher is fine. If only Inko had told him to become a teacher when he was 4!! Why didn't she think of that?!
Hard work and struggle, my fucking ass. He's given everything for free, supported by everyone even when he's doing shit he shouldn't do, people turn a blind eye or ACTIVELY support him when he does stupid shit that effects him horribly, and they all praise him for everything, even if they do reprimand him for something it's only with a wink and a nod because not actually. And even if he DOES face repercussions like with the damage to his body, it doesn't matter because the ultimate hack power will just heal him until it's not an issue anymore, actually.
But he'll be praised to high heaven because he's 'oh so relatable! He's a shy nerd! He's a nice guy! He's emotional! He's an MC that cries!!!' and his only flaw is that he gives TOO much of himself to the point he's self-sacrificing!!! Isn't that just so wonderful, how can you not worship the ground he walks on?
He's the worst MC in shounen to use as an example of an underdog who works hard to reach the top because no, he didn't, and no, he didn't! He's the perfect example of what happens when someone WANTS something and puts in 0 effort to achieve it on their own, but if they whine and cry enough and meet the right person to say 'Fine! Here! Take what you want and shut up!' THEN they'll put in some effort to try to get better at what they were given, but not actually before losing it and going back to whining until someone else comes along and goes, 'Here! Take this alternative and shut up!'
It's just unbearable to me how much people praise him as this amazing main character, going as far as to say he's even better than some of the other MCs in other popular shounen, and it's like, in no fucking way is he a better MC than the majority of shounen MCs. He's not even a decent Naruto knock-off. Naruto at least had actual flaws (like being stubborn as hell), Deku's really just a Gary Stu.
