#mha commentary

I have three (four) main points I will go through that are related to Izuku's story that imo were ended well:

One For All & what the quirk did for Izuku & how it ended.

Izuku's on-going career, resulting in him as a teacher.

Izuku's future career with the hero suit.

2 and 3 also both pick up one of MHA's main themes: What it means to be a hero.

So, let me start with One For All (OFA).

OFA is the quirk that kicks off this series because it's the quirk given by the Symbol of Peace All Might to our protagonist Midoriya Izuku, who has been quirkless but dreamt of being a hero. There are a few important things to note about OFA:

OFA is very strong; so strong that All Might, even after agreeing to give Izuku the quirk, makes him train. A lot. And hard. Because a regular body would not be able to handle OFA due to its nature.

We learn later that not only does it cultivate the raw strength of all its previous users, but that it holds their quirks too. And that these quirks got stronger with each generation of OFA user as well.

In fact, the major reason why OFA is so insanely strong when Izuku receives it, is the fact that All Might had been quirkless himself and therefore is the longest holder of OFA as the other users could not handle having their own quirk and OFA as additional one, passing away rather early.

OFA is also the quirk of Yoichi who is All For One's (AFO) brother who, in very simplified terms, have a long history and complicated, but hostile relationship with each other. Yoichi wants to stop his brother.

And, to make a very, over 400 chapters long story short: Izuku defeats All For One and he does so after countless of training and battles where he learned to make the best use of OFA and in the end by transferring OFA to Shigaraki/AFO.

Izuku has always understood OFA as a borrowed power and ultimately as one he'd be the last user of—OFA was a power used to defeat AFO and the fact that transferring it, ultimately what AFO had always desired, is part of what destroys him is very fitting.

OFA has given Izuku the chance to enter the world of heroes—and to help change it in the long run. He was able to open the people's eyes about society, he has shown that even after he gave OFA away, he would still fight and he has animated people to be heroic even if they aren't employed as heroes. He has added more meaning to the word "hero".

Izuku as teacher, part 1 of what it means to be a hero.

Now, I have seen a lot of criticism to Izuku ending up as a teacher and I am here to tell you—it's perfect for him! Izuku is someone who loves learning, he is genuinely enthusiastic about it, and especially about quirks—he loves geeking out about them, he spends his free time analyzing them and drawing out their potential, he is an amazing supporting character for children that need assistance in finding their footing in the world of heroes. Who can you learn better from than from someone who loves learning itself? He's got a contagious kind of excitement that sparks over to you.

And, he knows better than anyone how chasing after this dream of being a hero feels like, knows better than anyone how important people supporting you on the way is—because this is what he has received, back then, when he was in high school himself. Izuku has learned and experienced himself how important support from the people around you is, so he now wants to provide exactly that to the future generation of heroes. He wants to guide them on their path.

This career path also opens a new perspective that MHA has been trying to tell us for so long now: "Hero" isn't just who goes up and picks up this nice certificate and runs around the city with the "hero badge". "Hero" is more than that. Helping people, in any little way, is being heroic and makes you a hero. Teachers are heroes too. Izuku is being a hero, even now that he doesn't do "pro hero" work, because he is helping children—a teacher doesn't only educate, a teacher provides mental support to some extent too, and that goes even moreso for UA and other hero school teachers. Teachers protect their students as well. Izuku is, by all means, still a hero, just not a "pro" hero. He is a guidance to children and is dedicating his life to extend a helping hand to them and their dreams.

And he's happy with it.

Yes, it's also said that he misses the work of a pro hero—but that doesn't mean that what he is doing now is bad or "settling". He could have done SO many other things, but he CHOSE to pursue a career as a teacher—because this, too, is something he enjoys and finds happiness in. Both statements can be true. You can miss something you used to dream of all your life—it's very natural, even, but you can still be happy about where you ended in life right now.

Moreover, even if you don't agree with my take as "teachers" being heroes too, we see just a few panels later Izuku being a hero:

Which further emphasizes the point I and MHA have been trying to make: You can be a hero even if your job title isn't "hero". That's why civilians got statues too, that's why they are considered for the heroes ranking too. You can have a diverging opinion on how effective it is, but that is the point that is being made and the characters in-universe try to bring across too.

The hero suit and the conclusion on what it means to be a hero.

Truthfully, I don't know why people keep acting like MHA ended after Izuku's teacher career, because we have a conclusion that even traces back and argues back against anyone who doesn't agree with my points about him being a teacher and still a hero. And, more importantly, it brings the full manga into a perfect circle:

Because remember what the manga opened with: Can you be a quirkless hero?

And in so many ways across all these 430 chapters, but now even in the most literal sense of itself, MHA is telling you: YES. Yes you can! It shows us that you can be a hero without a quirk because anyone can lend someone freezing or wounded a t-shirt and anyone can reach out their hand to someone who is lost and anyone can sprint to catch a stumbling child.

But, also, our protagonist Midoriya Izuku, who is quirkless and had lived his dream at the age of 15-17 after borrowing a quirk, now is only starting his dream again at the age of 25: He can be a (pro) hero again and that although he doesn't have a quirk.

Yeah, it's expensive and not yet affordable for the average quirkless guy. But that's not the point of the story, because we started with asking "Is it possible at all?" and were first deluded into thinking the answer is "No.", but MHA is here to tell you: Yes, you can be a hero. There is most certainly an argument to made that now that the first one has done it, more might be able to follow in the long run.

So, what does it mean to be a hero?

I think MHA's message on that is: A hero is someone who steps up because they can, who helps people achieve a part of happiness because they have the chance to. You don't have to have a quirk or do grand gestures, you don't have to rely on the "professionals" to take care of it, at least not if you can make a difference already. There is no shame in a little heroic act because it doesn't make the act less heroic. There even is beauty in everyone being a little hero to each other every day.

Some last words about my feelings on MHA's ending.

This isn't really part of the thread anymore, but I still wanted to say this. This is purely personal, but, to me, what was really beautiful was: Midoriya Izuku didn't "peak" in high school, he had one peak in high school, but life is made of multiple "peaks".

Izuku is 25 and hasn't even seen all of the world yet and now he gets to live his dream again. Because you never know where life takes you and even if you may feel hopeless or lost and like you already experienced all the highs of lives, Horikoshi and MHA are here to tell you: There's always another peak yet to come.

I’ll discuss Shigaraki first, as this one is less of a problem (though still very much of one) for the story as a whole. Shigaraki's death scene was far too short and remarkably callous, and he will remain forever incomplete even if "revived". We have seen very little, if any, introspection on his part during this entire war. We didn't see him grapple with learning AFO controlled even his birth. We didn't see him interact with his grandmother. We never saw him learn anything from Deku. We never saw him confront AFO. We never saw him come to terms with anything. Right up until he died in 419, then formally died in 423, he held the same rage. Realizing "wow, I was an angry kid after all" only to follow it up with bragging about being destructive to the very end is not character development. His death was not heroic, as he was more or less “killed” by AFO earlier and he only rallied for one hit. He didn’t sacrifice himself in any way, and it’s hard to consider his final punchdown on AFO particularly heroic under the circumstances.

Deku's final conversation with him was fairly cold, especially considering how he's spoken of him up until now. Saying to the very end that he'll never forgive him and mysteriously failing to say he wanted to save him was very damaging to both characters. Not once does Deku mention his goal of trying to save him. It's as if his goals suddenly changed when they no longer became possible to attain, as if he'll magically be shielded from any failure (a common theme with all heroes except for Hawks and Ochako, though the latter may well be negated if Toga lives). Some recognition of the goals we've been told about for the last 300+ chapters would have been nice, even if Deku just made a casual apology for not being able to "save" him. He seems almost dismissive of Shigaraki in the end despite repeating tirelessly throughout the story that he will do everything in his power to save him.

I also see a lot of assumptions that Tenko will simply return. If this happens, which is always possible, it would be the most outrageous asspull in the series. His body is completely gone. Unless he regained his original quirk and it's "Resurrection", it's not going to be believable in any sense (and a suspension of disbelief is necessary for fiction; we all know it’s a superhero story, but that doesn’t mean the author can do absolutely anything and we have to accept it). That, too, would be absurd because if AFO had that quirk all along he would have used it here. An argument can be made that he used it 6 years ago, but this is also questionable because a] he only used it once, b] given the Oboro/Kurogiri situation, it seems that Garaki can actually raise the dead. I don't know what Tenko returning would even do. We saw his dying words, and they were unrepentant, and Deku's final interaction with him was cold and detached (unlike, for ex. Shoto and Toya which was only hostile on one side, and Ochako and Toga which was openly affectionate). Coming back isn't going to undo any of that.

AFO dying with no character resolution whatsoever was an even bigger issue in terms of the greater narrative. As with Shigaraki, his death is not the issue; it was clearly going to happen. It’s the how. He died begging for his brother to love and look at him. His brother died condemning him. AFO died as he was born - unloved - despite having a very "human" awakening only a few chapters prior. This was made clear but how he changed how he told his brother he loved him. He shifted from the more formal and very rarely used “aishiteru” to the very personal “daisuke” because, after chasing him for a century only to lose him, he finally understood that what he felt for his brother was love.

He was vulnerable in a way he never had been before, but Hrksh opted to throw him away instead of bringing closure to his character. Consider how his original body died in 410, screaming about how he feels hatred. This time he died begging for love. It was futile either way. Yoichi, the only person he ever loved (albeit in a demented way), rejected him. All the other vestiges manifested faces, but Yoichi denied his brother this last chance to see him. AFO's last panicked meltdown clearly indicates that he simply can not conceptualize love in a normal way, which makes him more pitiable and, ironically, human, than it does make him evil.

The argument can definitely be made that this was a "fitting" end for him, and on some level I can appreciate that, but whether it’s satisfying is irrelevant. This ending does not fit the story of MHA, which carries certain themes. All other significant villain characters were granted some level of compassion, an attempt to understand them, by both the author and the characters. AFO was granted none of this. The main villain in a series about helping and saving others lived and died unloved by all. He might have been "born evil" depending on how one interprets chapter 407, but hrksh made it clear that he never had a chance in life. His backstory is objectively the most tragic and miserable of all, and he was the one character denied any compassion in the end. If the worst of the worst dies alone and unloved, then how can we say the story is truly about saving others, even those who don’t conventionally “deserve” it?

Furthermore, Deku's offhand comment about him being a lonely man comes across more as an insult and a mockery than any attempt to understand him. He "gave" AFO the chance to speak to Yoichi one last time, but it was a farce to distract him so he'd be easier to kill. There was no compassion there, only calculated manipulation. Granted, it's possible this comes down to pacing and what should have been 1-2 chapters was crammed into 1 page, but with no actual exploration of AFO's character on Deku's part, we have to take it at face value. Realistically, Deku should have sought to understand AFO hundreds of chapters ago anyway, if he really cared about saving everyone. In retrospect, not even considering the possibility of trying to figure out the why and how of AFO is a major failure on the part of the heroes. This goes back to how the author has set AFO up to take the fall for everyone without considering how it will compromise the central theme of the story.

Even as recently as chapter 416, Hawks remembers how important it is that we see everyone as united and understand one another. Strangely, nobody bothered to try and understand the main villain.

Ultimately, if the narrative is pinning all anguish and suffering in the world onto a single character, the origins of that character must be understood by the heroes to ensure someone like him isn't created again. By only bothering to understand and save those AFO supposedly created (even though he only created Shiggy), the heroes are healing symptoms and not the disease. There is no internal consistency within the story. He died largely a mystery. We will never know his true goals, as the closest we got was Aoyama's description, which AFO even said was not quite accurate. We also never learned his true motivation, as his reaction to Yoichi dying again indicates it’s not that simple. Which again, means it will just happen again because no characters made any effort to understand. It's like hrksh went for generic, mindless evil but screwed up with his relationship with his brother, ultimately turning him human. His goals and motives can be guessed, but given that this is a shounen, in-depth analysis should not be required to understand the final villain's goal.

This is made even more infuriating when you consider that AFO’s worldview is based on comic books. Shouldn’t this be something hrksh would want to explore, given the entire series is based on comic books? Without ever telling us the truth about his motivation, we lose the chance for the meta-analysis we were promised, one which had notable fan appeal regardless of character interest. AFO's abrupt ending also means we will never get any further explanation of quirks, the singularity theory, or their origin. AFO as the originator held all the mysteries there. Sure, maybe we'll get a monologue from the doctor later, but that's unlikely. And sure, you can argue that those things "aren't important", but they are. Many dropped plot points genuinely don't matter anymore, but these do given their significance throughout the series.  Essentially, all worldbuilding went out the window with AFO.

In the end, there is no sense of anything changing after this war. The chapter byline suggests that now with AFO dead, everything will be perfect, which is of course probably what we'll be told. The "cycle of suffering" has miraculously ended, because apparently all of it originated with AFO despite him having absolutely nothing to do with the creation of most villains.

The reality is that nothing in Deku's final battle addressed the failures of society and what can be done going forward to minimize people becoming villains. He completely ignored any attempt to understand the supposed root of all evil (AFO), suggesting he doesn’t actually care about fixing any deep-rooted societal issues and instead only cares about Shigaraki specifically. And even then, Deku did very little for him. When he entered the vestige world, he shielded Tenko from his father and tried to physically stop him from killing his family. That's it. Immediate, reactive, physical behavior. No reflection, no analysis, no acknowledgement of the deeper issues at hand (yes, it's a battle, but that never stopped hrksh from including that kind of thing before), no recognition of what Tenko went through in their final conversation. In this sense, Ochako and Endeavor have done a far better job at being heroes than Deku, which is a serious issue from a narrative perspective.

Rezzing Tenko might give us some flashbacks of neglected aspects of his character, granted with lost emotional momentum, but the bigger issue is how Deku handled his death. The same can be said for AFO, though unless Yoichi also returns, that's totally pointless. Giving Deku a second chance to redo everything with Shigaraki and/or AFO can't change the fact that the first time around, he failed to connect. He didn't know he'd get a second chance. Therefore we have to assume he was "doing his best" in 423, and that “best” was mediocre and contradictory to his character.