#mha235

This is not happening!!!!!

1) “And look at that, its mini nana momo, playing with the only creature that will survive the ensuing slaughter, because if Horikoshi dares to kill the dog… Oh, believe me, you don’t want to know how hard I’ll cry…”-

Boy it sure is funny how similar Mon looks to your own Dogglet, eh L?

…

….

Cough

2) “Hori, you were feeling particularly cruel the day you wrote this, didn’t you?”- So, first time we see that grey blob appearing, small as anything, it’s not when Tenko is locked out of the house, nor when his father harshly reprimands him for daring to play hero. It’s when his mother, in an effort to smooth out her family’s issues and have them play nice together, wanting them to be happy like a normal family, ignores the cold harsh truth of the matter in favour of a comforting lie- That her husband is wrong to treat their children this way out of his own personal issues with heroes, and that he shouldn’t be allowed to do it. But admitting that would mean that she’d have to take a stand against Kotaro, and she clearly knows him well enough that she knows the ensuring argument will turn ugly. So, in an effort to avoid that, she turns a blind eye to Tenko’s suffering, and lies to him and herself that Kotaro’s not hurting Tenko because of something either of them did was wrong, but because he cares about Tenko and wants him to be safe, rather than risk pain and injury fulfilling his dreams of being a hero. 

Both of them know that’s false. 

Kotaro and Tenko can’t both be right, one thinking his father hates him for liking heroes, the other claiming it’s in his best interest and to protect him in the future, out of love for him. But Tenko’s mom shares the same complacency issues that the rest of society has. She doesn’t want to rock the boat. She doesn’t want to cause a scene. So, she lies, she pretends everything’s ok so they can get back to Normal. And Poor Tenko Knows that. His line ‘kids are sneakier than You’s expect. And Simpler’ is him saying that he was smart enough to know the truth of the matter, but not understand it. He couldn’t understand why his mom and the rest of his family stood aside and didn’t help him, why they all supported Kotaro over him. And that’s when the ‘wound’ appears. The grey mass that AFO said prior was his source of strength, the twisted feelings that he keeps the hands of his family close by to keep it fresh and bleeding. 

I don’t think that the grey mass is Tenko’s implanted quirk growing, but I Do think it’s the source of His quirk’s power. I think that Tomura’s decay quirk quite literally runs off hatred and resentment, using it as a fuel source in the same way that Black Whip also gets amped up by Izuku’s emotions.

If so, then AFO was particularly malicious or far-sighted when he granted him the quirk, because it would only ever activate if Tenko suffered enough abuse and emotional pain under kotaro’s anti-hero household, literally resulting in the entire family dying through the fruits of their own inaction and complacency taking root in Tenko’s heart. And if it didn’t activate? Well then, Tenko clearly isn’t somebody who’d be suitable for AFO to groom into his weapon of vengeance against All might, and he’ll move into revenge scheme no:5- there’s no way AFO only had the one outcome in mind when he tracked down Nana’s family to enact second-hand revenge through them against people none of them really knew about, so the outcome we see was likely only one of several outcomes he’d cooked up during his planning phase.

3) “They all evaded the question, didn’t wanted to destroy his dreams, even though they knew that they would never come to fruition.

That was even crueler than telling him upfront that he’d never be a hero no matter how much he wanted to.”-And again, the grey mass appears and grows bigger when Tenko thinks about how they all ‘rejected him kindly’. Tenko was smart enough to know the truth of everything that was going on in the household, but not enough to understand why none of them even once accepted his wishes, why they all sided with Kotaro against Tenko like he was the bad guy. If the quirk runs on hatred, then it must affect and destroy whatever the user feels that hatred towards. If the quirk’s ability to erase or destroy whatever the user desires runs off the motion of hate, then it’s ‘targeting’, or spreading ability, only really extends as far as the decay needs to in order to crumble the target. 

Tenko’s heart Hated his family, and their rejection of him and his dreams, even if it also loved them as well, and that hatred activated the quirk and spread the decay towards them with laser-focus, as you can see when Tenko first activates it in the backyard. When Tomura crumbled the tower, despite being inside it, neither Giran and Re-destro were affected by the decay. Tomura hadn’t recognised their presence within the tower, so his quirk didn’t affect them because he had no emotional reaction towards something he couldn’t see with his own two eyes.  It’s currently- all-consuming decay and spread is because, thanks to AFO’s manipulations and Tomura’s nihilistic outlook, he hates ‘everything’ around him, the buildings, the people, the animals- all of it pisses him off, so of course the quirk is indiscriminate in decaying everything it spreads to. Tomura isn’t just destroying society because it angers him with the unfairness of what he’s suffered vs the ignorance and complacency of the masses- he’s able to destroy it all precisely because he hates it all so much. Hatred is the literal source of his quirk, as befitting the antithesis of the hot-blooded, hopeful, fighting spirit present in Izuku’s usage of OFA.

4) “I don’t believe this was him simply repressing something, because his wording there seems to indicate that there’s something wrong that he can’t figure out with this part of his past.”- Or more likely he repressed this memory completely because it was the starting point for the absolute hell his life became immediately afterwards. As somebody mentioned, Shigarkai blanks out his own younger self holding the photo because he doesn’t want to acknowledge who he used to be before the ‘incident’ since the pain of what he’s lost is too much for him, yet the deeply-buried memories still make him hurt himself in penance for being ‘bad’ and deserving punishment, hence his character tic of scratching himself- an indicator of self-harm, and perhaps anxiety towards remembering who he sued to be and what he lost to become who he is now.

5) “AND SHE EVEN WANTED TO BE A HERO LIKE HIM, SHE WANTED THEM TO BE HERO SIBLINGS”- Despair cuts deepest when it’s preceded by hope. Tenko finally thinks there’s somebody in the house who understands and accepts him and his dreams, that he can finally find a little freedom to indulge in his hopes of being a hero….so her turning around and ‘betraying’ him like that, making him into the bad guy ‘again’, is what finally pushes Tenko towards the edge, with his last lifeline and support gone, there’s nothing left but for the hatred to fester and multiply inside him, growing stronger……

6) “That’s definitely an ominous sign, and we’re already getting an estimate oh how long it will be before everything turns to shit: Not too long.”- It seems here that using Decay actually ‘hurts’ Tomura to use- which makes sense since he’s emitting something from his hands that’s antithetical to life, so naturally channelling such a destructive force comes with side effects- it’s just that Tomura, in his current state, is so used to pain both emotional and physical, that he doesn’t really register it anymore. Pain’s an old friend for him, perhaps the first friend he ever had, given how long they’re known each other.

7) “SHE DIDN’T WANTED TO THROW HER BROTHER UNDER THE BUS SHE JUST DIDN’T WANTED TO GET HURT”- ‘All it needs for evil to win, is for good men to do nothing’ Nobody stepped forward to help Tenko. Nobody was on his side. Ultimately, the entire family, though they loved each other, was only ever really thinking about themselves, and not wanting to rock the boat……And Afo won Big, gambling on that. It makes a sad sort of sense though. For a man as long-lived as him, he’d know better than anybody that there’s a line ordinary people hesitate to cross when somebody’s in need of help. Everybody fears crossing it because the entire crowd watching isn’t rushing forward. If you go first, you’ll make a fool out of yourself and make the situation worse. It takes somebody crazy to cross that line without authorisation or support just because they want to do something to help, and you may not even be rewarded for it.

But that’s exactly what izuku did in chapter 1.

All it needed was for somebody to step forward. All it needed was for somebody to take a stand, and not let his abuse happen. But they weren’t heroes. They were too afraid of doing the right thing, and ultimately, their inability to be the hero Tenko needed to save him killed them all.

8) “HE’S NOT EVEN DONE WITH IT YET”- The fact that kotaro goes this far, though it is ultimately the nail in the coffin, is perhaps a hint that even he was unaware, or perhaps in denial, of how badly he was still hurting from nana’s abandonment. He could never reconcile the knowledge of why she left him with the childhood pain he faced being left behind by her for some cause he didn’t understand. Like his son, kotaro carried a deep wound on his heart, and perhaps keeping the letter and the photo ironically ended up achieving the opposite effect of what nana wanted by leaving them to him. Just like his Son carried the hands to keep his wounded heart fresh, Kotaro was constantly reminded of the pain of his mother’s abandonment every time he looked at the letter and the photo, yet he could never bring himself to destroy them- he even preserved them close by in his personal study, so he could look at them whenever he wanted. Having that source of pain so rudely intruded upon by unwanted visitors provokes a reaction in kotaro not too dissimilar to Tomura’s own reaction to when his family’s hands get damaged, showing how Tenko, despite his good heart, learned how to carry on and embrace his father’s worst traits in his later life.  

9) “THIS JUST MAKES EVERYTHING HAPPENING RIGHT NOW EVEN WORSE. HE HATES HEROES BECAUSE OF WHAT HAPPENED, BUT THERE’S STILL A CHANCE THAT HE GENUINELY WANTS TO PROTECT HIS KIDS”- I wonder if, on that last panel with his closed eyes, contemplating his mother’s parting words, Kotaro sees the parallel between the ‘bad man’ that separated his family before, and his own actions just now in hurting his family out of some kneejerk reaction to his own source of pain being intruded upon. He stared into the abyss left by his mother’s absence for so long, he’s started to become a monster. Not a full demon like AFO, but certainly a worse human being that she would have wanted him to become. Perhaps that, more than anything, is what makes him so regretful here. The realisation that he’s becoming the very thing his mother left to fight against- a bad guy.

10) “YOU’RE MAKING ALL OF THIS SO DIFFICULT, WHY COULDN’T IT JUST BE CUT AND DRY LIKE IT WAS WITH ENDEAVOR, WHEN WE COULD JUST BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF HIM FOR EVERYTHING HE DID?

WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO MAKE ME FEEL BAD FOR WANTING TO PUNCH THIS ONE?”- With several cartoons of recent years, there’s one message that keeps popping up in different contents, and it’s one that resonates a lot with MHA. ‘No-one, is completely beyond redemption. As long as you desire and try- really try- to better, to be different from the you that you are just now, you may never fully be redeemed, forgiven, or atone for your mistakes, but you can be better than who you used to be’. Sadly, redemption is always available for everyone, but not forever. Sometimes….you just run out of time and chances to make things right before you’re gone.

11) “Also what the fuck, why are you guys implying that this is like, the first time he hit them? That was definitely not the vibe I got this whole chapter, let me tell you that.”- 

It probably was the first actual time he got physically violent with the kids. Even if they weren’t the confrontational type, there’s lines that cannot be crossed, not in any normal society, and especially not in one that has an over-abundance of heroes. There’s probably a few heroes who have experience dealing with domestic issues, and it would have been easy for Tenko’s mom to get them involved, but she decided to settle it herself first, within the family, so they didn’t cause a fuss for the neighbours beyond what already transpired. Kotaro’s treatment of Tenko stayed within the boundaries of that line- barely- but when push came to shove he crossed it easily- too easily. Even he’s clearly shocked in hindsight about what he did, and moreover how easy it was for him to do it. Kotaro just got a sobering look at how far he’s fallen from the happy kid he was with his own mom, and how different than her he’s turned out, and if contemplating whether or not his hatred of the heroics that cost him his mother is worth tarnishing the good parts of herself that she left to him. And even that too, was reduced to nothing in the end.

12) “THE POINT OF NO RETURN HAS BEEN CROSSED

NOW, ONLY DEATH AWAITS FOR THEM”- Now, with his hatred finally, tangibly manifesting within tenko’s heart for real, after losing his hopes and getting hurt again, unaware that his family have finally started moving to supporting him after Kotaro went to far, Tenko’s hatred, though he’s probably too young to fully understand what he’s feeling or how to describe it, is finally boiling over. The Wounds were torn deed, and there’s a pulsing heart of hate within him now, ready to attack the targets that hurt Tenko so much, even if half of him simultaneously wishes to save them, the quirk only works with the dark emotions newly born within him, uncontrollable, yet potent, and uncompromising. Maybe this could have been the moment where the family turned it around, maybe, had the quirk not activated here, they’d have managed to reach Tenko before it was too late.

We’ll never know.

1) “That… That’s a huge red flag, I’ll tell you that. This means that it’s already expected of me to want to do both chapters back to back. Alright, it’s a two-part, that’s fine, but the lack of names… Oh I don’t like it. My sister only said “the name would ruin the surprise”, what only made me even more anxious than before.”-It was at this point, that L started to suspect the light at the end of the tunnel was an onrushing backdraft.

2) “Oh hey, a color page, that’s nice, although I have no idea who those characters are. Are they new additions to the manga?”-Props to Horikoshi, for being able to write such fantastic antagonists that you actually feel weird remembering that they’re not the main heroes you’re supposed to be rooting for in the grand scheme of things. It’s gonna be sad when the Fight with the MLA is over and the story has to turn back to matching up two likable groups with sympathetic motivations against each other- Haven’t felt this conflicted since the Marley Arc in Attack on Titan.

3) “I’m pretty sure this isn’t even the first time we heard about this comment being made, how Shigaraki doesn’t have a survival instinct focused on protecting himself, oh no, his survival instinct is “kill even if you end up dead”. He doesn’t back down even if his life is at stake, not unless everything else is dead.”-Thanks to his trauma, Shigaraki’s nihilistic outlook on the world and his place in it is such that he basically doesn’t see the point in living anymore, but rather than allow that to destroy himself he focuses that desire outward, to make others feel the same way he does all the time, to enforce some kind of twisted ‘balance’ to the world, because it’s not fair for him alone to have endured everything that he did and everybody else gets to laugh it off and live normal happy lives. Shigaraki has no hope for the future, and has spent his life thus far in mourning for what he lost, even if he didn’t want to remember it, and wants to tear down everything around him so that others can feel his pain. This blind hatred towards everything drives him onward, even when he’s not fully aware of it himself, leading him to keep fighting, attacking and destroying things around him even without his mind being fully conscious. 

He’s like a spiteful version of the hulk- appropriate, considering Re-Destro’s current form- in that said cold hatred keep him moving even beyond the point of sanity and reasons to just lie down and give up. Ironically, the league as they currently stand act as both Tomura’s moral restraints and reason to keep existing now he’s come to terms with his past. He accepts that he’s got nothing to live for, that he cannot create or do anything worthwhile for society with the way he is, but because he’s got allies on his side who also stand against the system with him, he’ll do what he was ‘born to do’ for their sake and nothing else. Shigaraki basically give up on his own existence a long time ago, but because the league still sees worth and value in himself as a person, he feels like he owes it to them to destroy the society that oppresses them, since there’s nobody else who could take the burden like he can. If AFO was the king of an empire, then Shigaraki will be the lord of the wastelands he creates for his friends and allies, if only to see what they build from the dust and ashes.

4) “No wait, I think that was Bakugo. Right, sorry, it was Bakugo the one that did that.”-Interestingly, Bakugou, despite not having the ‘destined showdown’ aspect to his relationship wth Tomura, has still engaged in a similar relationship to him than the One Midoria has. It’s him that Shigaraki focused on brining into the league, tried to win over and ultimatly created the disaster that was Kamino and the fall of both their mentors and idol figures. Both characters have a violent streak the belies the intelligence and wit they bring both on and off the battlefield. Both characters are focused on using their quirks with their hands, and both are natural leaders, though Tomura took some time to start settling his Childhood trauma into his ideals of how to proceed before be started taking greater steps in that direction. Both characters have recently undergone intensive character development focused on making themselves better team players and more caring towards those around them who support them in their paths in life. Both were introduced with lofty goals they wanted to achieve centred around overcoming/being better than All Might. Both are showed to have insane levels of determination when getting beaten down by stronger opponents, driven by pure shonen grit and focus to succeed. 

Were it not for the fact that it’s Izuku that has the Good Counterpart quirk to Tomura’s mentor, they could almost be natural counterparts, in that despite their differences, there’s clearly similarities between the two of them that both recognise, albeit, Tomura failed to realise that Bakugou rejects the aspects that they share because he’s firmly a hero a heart, despite his initial violent tendencies and overall attitude. Izuku, meanwhile is both a rival to bakugou and the Natural Opposite to Tomura because whilst he shares some thematic background with Tomura, his path in life and attitude towards others is the complete opposite of his, to the point that neither can fully understand the other, and inherently rejects the other’s very existence, whereas Bakugou does recognise and admire several traits of Izuku’s- and in fact may have been one of the few who never truly doubted Izuku’s capacity to be a hero even back when he was quirkless. If Izuku and Tomura are fire and water, then bakugou would be steam in the middle of the two of them- sharing aspects of both, but once he cools down, he has more in common with Izuku than Tomura.

5) “Shigaraki has finally reached enlightenment, he is finally aware of who he truly is and how he got here, and, he still has one limiter remaining, the last hand to hold him down.”-It remains to be seems if his feeling of being in an ethereal transcendent state is because he’s achieved balance between the demons of his past and his convictions of the future….or if it’s because he’s 98% dead and almost passing over the River Stix.

6) “Oh, cool shot right there. Also incredibly eerie, but that doesn’t take away from the artistic side. Shigaraki is looking more like an spirit than a real person, and that hand…”- His peaceful and ethereal state of being is likely because he’s finally managed to process the entirely of his past, all the guilt and self-loathing he’s supressed towards himself and everything that he’s had to endure…. And has come to terms with in the same instant. When he ‘comes down’ to reality, he’s just gone through that entire traumatic coming-of-age story in a single instant…and gone, “yeah, guess I really am a monster, huh? Well, time to start embracing that shit! Monsters destroy things, don’t they? Let’s see how Much I can destroy before I kick it!!”

7) “Alright, he went from transcendental spirit-like figure to crackhead after a car wreck in 0.5 seconds flat. New record Shigaraki, round of applause to you.”- Fantasy vs Reality. Or, his emotional feelings contrasted with his physical feels, namely pain.

8) “Is that fucking nose getting bigger or something? I mean, I know you’re getting bigger with your quirk, but the nose is getting REALLY bigger, its leaving me uncomfortable, you’re starting to turn into some shadow Pearl.”-

Re-Destro has evolved into Chernabog!

‘Night on Bald Mountain’ Starts playing in the background!

9) “It’s happening, oh fuck oh no, another flashback, and I don’t think I’ll like where this one will end at.”- Yeah, so you got the asks pointing out that this was likely a full-face AFO who’d likely just passed the decay quirk into young Tenko under the guise of ‘helping’ the young boy get home…. But I think a more likelier explanation was that AFO had already passed the quirk to him at a prior point, and was checking up on its progress as it developed and grew, slowly gaining energy until it’s effects could bloom. Like was hinted by the steadily-growing blotch in the in-between panels, it seems the decay quirk needed time to build up and ‘grow’ until it was ready to activate, and more specifically, I believe that the quirk needs a particular type of nourishment to truly active it’s effect

10) “I ALREADY HATE THIS CHAPTER CAN SOMEONE PLEASE TAKE ME AWAY FROM THIS TORMENT”- in fairness, it’s not like Kotaro’s punishments went as drastic as starving Tenko or making him spend time in a cupboard under the stairs whenever he disobeyed his one rule, he just locked him out of the house for several hours on his own, leaving him with just his own emotions and regret for being punished this way until he was allowed back in. it’s a common behavioural tool to teach kids things like responsibility and such from a young age, but admit ably, Kotaro continuing to apply said treatment to his son when he’s 5 years old- past the point you’d use such methods once kids can start thinking for themselves- and basically locking him out of comfort and support as a lesson is fairly harsh- not outright abuse, but still stretching the boundaries of reasonable response, thanks to his inability to reconcile his ‘abandonment’ by nana with the concept of a loving family dynamic.

11) “Oh no, Shigaraki wanted to be a hero, didn’t he? OH NO, DON’T TELL ME THAT’S WHAT IS COMING”-Yep. By far the biggest similarity between Izuku and Tenko- and the biggest tragedy- is that they were pretty much the same when they were younger. Both admired heroes, and aspired to be one despite the limitations imposed on them by reality and those around them. But in the present day it only serves to highlight how far Tomura has deviated from Young Tenko in the present, becoming his complete opposite thematically, and also visually as well. If Tenko and Izuku had ever had the chance to meet, they might have been fast friends.

12) “This is already so fucked up in so many ways that I don’t even know where to start with.”- Perhaps worse is the fact that we can see other houses nearby, capable of peering into Kotaro’s backyard and seeing him lock his own child out of the house as punishment, capable of hearing Tenko crying alone in the backyard, but clearly nobody around them bothered to investigate or raise the issue. What happened in kotaro’s home was his own business, and there wasn’t any place for outsiders to interfere. Sadly, in addition to that, it doesn’t seem that Tenko had many actual friends or a social life outside the house, otherwise he might have had somewhere to go rather than wander around the streets aimlessly in search of help. He ‘played’ with other kids, sure, but he never really interacted with them on a deeper level. Kotaro basically cut Tenko off from the world- as evidenced by the fact that all his memories of childhood take place within the house, never outside in a park or playing with other kids. It’s like he was never really able to leave the stifling embrace of the house his father built to deny heroes until he tore it all down.

13) “What is it man? Is it a mix of both? What the fuck even is your game here because you’re sending some mixed signals”- It seems to be the way Kotaro is justifying his actions to his family members and himself. He’s claiming that his actions are ultimately in Tenko’s best interest because they’ll dissuade him of his fantasy before he does something stupid and tried to be a hero without the inbuilt ability to be one- a direct parallel to Izuku’s situation in chapter 1, albiet with harsher retaliation and denial of his chances that Izuku ever endured, though no less despair-inducing for that. Ultimately, however, it’s just an excuse he’s used to vent his hatred of the very concept of heroes and heroics upon his family. Had Hana ever grown up enough to gain her own quirk and demonstrate it, Kotaro’s self-deluding lies would have been brought to the fore, as he’d have to choose between also teaching Hana not to be a hero, no matter what, or stand aside and let her make her own path in life.