Oooo, what do the light novels say/show about Shinsou??
here’s the chapter if you want to read it for yourself but here’s some points that i found particularly interesting:
-a lot of this chapter is ‘shinsou feels guilty for things he shouldn’t’. one of the biggest things he feels guilty about is his transfer to the hero course--which since this is during the cultural festival, was not yet set in stone. he’s really upset by the idea of ‘lying’ (he’s not actually lying, he’s just very anxious) to his current classmates and he’s extremely worried that they’ll hate him for transferring to the hero course. he’s described as “plagued by doubts and unease” regarding himself and his relationship to others.
-his feelings of guilt and anxiety are described as “dark thoughts” and the narration gives off the feeling that this is incredibly common for him and that shinsou spends a lot of time in his head thinking about this stuff
-similar to above, one of the most interesting things in this chapter is the fact that it explicitly says that no one is angry at shinsou for the things he did in the sports festival. all the class A students including ojiro (who is specifically mentioned with this) do not hold it against him because they realize that shinsou was playing by the rules and doing the same things the rest of them were. however there is an exception to this, and that’s actually shinsou himself. he feels guilty about it and there’s a portion of his narration where he says that he actually wishes that they were angry at him.
-for a kid whos “not there to make friends” shinsou is very concerned about how people feel about him.
-there’s a point in the beginning of the chapter where shinsou stares up at the sky and has a moment of introspection that’s very, very reminiscent of young aizawa in vigilantes. it’s so reminiscent of that scene where aizawa stares out at the sky from the rooftop that the official translator for bnha (including the light novels) pointed it out on twitter after he translated this scene.
-similar to above, shinsou is described as having a “lack of confidence” and his doubts about entering the hero course are expanded upon. again, it’s all extremely similar to young aizawa and that’s pretty clearly the parallel that’s supposed to be drawn here
-shinsou’s very certain that he’s more likely to be placed in class A due to aizawa’s involvement with his training than class B.
-shinsou has been too well behaved with aizawa to ever earn a scolding from him but when he sees a bunch of class A kids impersonating an angry aizawa, he actually feels jealous that they have.
-he genuinely thinks mineta should be expelled for sexual harassment.
-aizawa’s feelings towards shinsou are described as “having an affinity for him”.
-there’s this entire scene in the chapter where shinsou comes across class A’s band practicing and he literally just stands in the hallway and stares at them in genuine fucking confusion about how they’re so friendly and warm with each other. my favorite part of this is that this is where hori chose to do the illustration for the chapter and shinsou’s face as he just. stares. at these kids being friends is genuinely the funniest thing
-shinsou literally just studies all weekend and does not understand doing anything different, like hanging out with friends. it’s so weird to him that he can’t actually imagine it. he doesn’t think that kids who do hang out with friends on the weekends are bad students or anything, he just does not understand it
-aizawa has been taking a lot of days off to be at the hospital with eri, but he goes out of his way to find shinsou and check in with him about training and school. they also have an... interesting? slightly bizarre in a way only shinsou and aizawa can achieve? conversation about cats
-shinsou was actually the inspiration for aizawa’s cat outfit for eri. in the cat conversation aizawa suddenly has an idea and is like “wait. do little girls like cats too?” and then basically runs off and leaves shinsou dumbfounded behind
-finally, shinsou’s classmates know about shinsou’s upcoming transfer, but he doesn’t know that they do. he seems to think that they don’t like him, when the opposite is actually true--the gen ed students see shinsou as the pride of their class and are actually planning a surprise party for him when he transfers
