My Thoughts on My Hero Academia: Final Season
And I finally made it to the end. I really don't know why manga readers hated this ending so much. While it's not perfect, I thought it was overall a fantastic conclusion to the story. There's a lot to love here. First of all it opens with an epic battle between All Might and One For All. How is that possible you ask? Well, Melissa, the girl introduced in the first My Hero Academia movie, which pretty much proves definitively that the movies are canon to the manga, built him an exoskeleton suit that was not only able to recreate portions of his former power, but could also mimick portions of his student's powers. This allowed him to go toe to toe with All For One, although with a lot more struggle than he's used to. And it was awesome, I love All Might and seeing him fight one last time was great. In addition a few episodes later we see Bakugo fight All For One. Now this is one of my few complaints. While I like that he's alive and the explanation was clever, as far as I'm aware that usage of Edgeshot's Quirk was never foreshadowed before this. I would've liked a moment when Edgeshot explained that he could do something similar to this, or even getting to actually visually see him do it to someone else 2 or 3 seasons prior to build up to him saving Bakugo that way. I am generally more forgiving against Deus Ex Machinas with mangaka, especially weekly mangaka, than I am with novelists, because mangaka have incredibly strict deadlines and intense, overbearing work schedules and workloads. Weekly manga authors in particular have to pump out a new chapter literally every week, and while I'm sure it's possible to plan, it's obviously much more difficult inherently. But it's still a flaw regardless. One thing I can say definitively is that I didn't like the implication that it was the prayers of everybody watching the battle which allowed Bakugo to survive, especially when we got a more grounded explanation mere moments later. We could have done without that other part. I know this is a battle shonen and the power of friendship and faith is always going to be included in some way, but you can be a bit less overt about it, especially when a perfectly surfacable alternate explanation will be given anyways.
One of the biggest criticisms people had for the finale was that Izuku defeated Shigaraki by talking him down even after the vestiges of One For All told him that would be impossible. I've even seen some people compare this to Naruto's talk no jutsu, saying this is no differnet than in Naruto's war arc when Naruto was told that he couldn't talk to Madara (Obito), but then he ended up talking him into switching sides anyways despite all the things he did. But that's not the situation here at all. Whenever Naruto did talk no jutsu it was about forgiveness, and in most cases talking down an enemy that he probably could have defeated himself but didn't want to kill. But in Izuku's case he never forgave Shigaraki. He was simply incapable of defeating him, so he had no choice but to convince him to stop fighting. Even up to the last moments he had ever intention of ending Shigaraki's life but it was simply impossible, he'd grown far to powerful by that point. It was more of a last ditch effort to win the fight and save the world than him forgiving Shigaraki. He hated him to his core the entire way. It's this and how some people perceived the ending of Attack on Titan that's leading me to think media literacy is truly on a decline, especially in the anime space, because I thought that this was extremely obvious. I also liked the way it happened, with Izuku going into Shigaraki's past, witnessing the events that twisted his mind. I also liked that Nana Shimmura was included, since she is Shigaraki's grandmother, and blames herself for what her son did and how Shigaraki turned out. Which honestly I'm not on board with personally, but I get it. I'd be more willing to blame Endeavor for what Dabi did, but even that's iffy. It's his fault that Dabi almost died, but it's not his fault that Dabi used his Quirk to hurt people as a result of it.
A few other scattered thoughts before I talk about the very end. I loved everyone, all of Deku's classmates and several of the teachers, eventually coming to help him fight All For One. And I liked the reaosn, because Aizawa and Present Mic was able to get Kurogiri, their former classmate, to briefly help them and teleport them to the battlefield. And he got distant support from so many others, from the elderly to kids as young as Kouta. And many of them gave him very pratical to aid him, not wishes or anything like that. Even Eri broke off her own horn so it could be used to rewind Deku's wounds. I've said this before but I love when an author can make all of the beloved characters take part in the finale, and this series does a pretty good job with that I think. I also loved how we truly see the damage, devastation, and sorrow several times in the seaosn that Shigaraki and All For One caused, the people they've hurt, either directly or indirectly, because it increases the emotional weight of this battle. Two things I forgot to mention about the first fight. For one, All Might uses shoot style, which was an ability created by Deku, which I love because it's like first the student learned from the master, and now the master learns from the student. But also Stain came and got involved. He was eventually killed by All For One, but not before getting some awesome moments. Even All Might was convinced of what I've known for a decade, that he did truly care about the concept of heroism, he was just disillusioned by it when it came to most heroes. I am split because on one hand I would've liked if Deku confronted Stain, as All Might's replacement, after Stain told All Might to put an end to him, and arrested him, but Horikoshi still really managed to make this work too so I can't really complain too much.
But that's not all. After the battle most of the aftermath was good but the best part in my opinion was the stuff with the Todoroki family. I liked that Natsuo didn't forgive Endeavor for everything that happened. He even said that he's moving away, marrying his girlfriend, Enji will never met her, and that's about it. Although the series was more vague than I would've liked as to whether or not Shoto fully forgave his father. But the best part of this scene was, before Toya is taken away, Endeavor talks to him first, then Shoto does and asks him what his favorite food is. It seems like a small thing in general, but it was surprisingly powerful if you consider that these two are brothers but they never got to know each other too well, and this was one step closer to that, in addition to Shoto basically saying symbolically that he love shis brother, even though I'm pretty sure Toya dies shortly after this. There's also the scene with Deku and Uraraka. They were great together and it was sad hearing that Uraraka blamed herself for what happened to Himiko Toga. Which seems to be a theme in this series, and as we've covered it's usually not true, (although sometimes it is, like with Endeavor and Toya). I've heard some people say that the boy who was tormented in the final episode and saved by that old woman is the reincarnation of Shigaraki but I don't think so. First of all the timelines wouldn't match up, because I don't think that much time has passed. But also he was merely meant to be a symbolic parallel to Shigaraki, signing that the world is changing and becoming better, not a literal reincarnation, evidenced by the fact that the same woman that failed to save Shigaraki helped this boy.
I've heard some people say that Deku quitting being a hero and teaching instead at the end because he lost his power conflicts with the theme that anyone can be a hero, but I would argue that Deku being a teacher for eight years actually doesn't conflict with the message of "anyone can be a hero", as the final arc makes it clear that the definition of hero is not limited only to the more traditional pro heroes, but also to those who go out of their way to help others and society. By acting as a teacher for the next generation of UA students, I actually think Deku embodies this theme more strongly than if he was simply a pro hero right after the war. People like to get tunnel vision with Deku in this regard, and it further proves my theory that media literacy is in the gutter, it's kind of sad really. Overall, I thought that, despite some issues, this was a great finale. It honestly beats the endings of Naruto and Bleach, two that I grew up with which sadly ending kind of poorly in a lot of ways, out of the park. I don't think it necessarily needs the potential sequel that the author has talked about maybe doing, but I wouldn't be against it though.
One of the biggest criticisms people had for the finale was that Izuku defeated Shigaraki by talking him down even after the vestiges of One For All told him that would be impossible. I've even seen some people compare this to Naruto's talk no jutsu, saying this is no differnet than in Naruto's war arc when Naruto was told that he couldn't talk to Madara (Obito), but then he ended up talking him into switching sides anyways despite all the things he did. But that's not the situation here at all. Whenever Naruto did talk no jutsu it was about forgiveness, and in most cases talking down an enemy that he probably could have defeated himself but didn't want to kill. But in Izuku's case he never forgave Shigaraki. He was simply incapable of defeating him, so he had no choice but to convince him to stop fighting. Even up to the last moments he had ever intention of ending Shigaraki's life but it was simply impossible, he'd grown far to powerful by that point. It was more of a last ditch effort to win the fight and save the world than him forgiving Shigaraki. He hated him to his core the entire way. It's this and how some people perceived the ending of Attack on Titan that's leading me to think media literacy is truly on a decline, especially in the anime space, because I thought that this was extremely obvious. I also liked the way it happened, with Izuku going into Shigaraki's past, witnessing the events that twisted his mind. I also liked that Nana Shimmura was included, since she is Shigaraki's grandmother, and blames herself for what her son did and how Shigaraki turned out. Which honestly I'm not on board with personally, but I get it. I'd be more willing to blame Endeavor for what Dabi did, but even that's iffy. It's his fault that Dabi almost died, but it's not his fault that Dabi used his Quirk to hurt people as a result of it.
A few other scattered thoughts before I talk about the very end. I loved everyone, all of Deku's classmates and several of the teachers, eventually coming to help him fight All For One. And I liked the reaosn, because Aizawa and Present Mic was able to get Kurogiri, their former classmate, to briefly help them and teleport them to the battlefield. And he got distant support from so many others, from the elderly to kids as young as Kouta. And many of them gave him very pratical to aid him, not wishes or anything like that. Even Eri broke off her own horn so it could be used to rewind Deku's wounds. I've said this before but I love when an author can make all of the beloved characters take part in the finale, and this series does a pretty good job with that I think. I also loved how we truly see the damage, devastation, and sorrow several times in the seaosn that Shigaraki and All For One caused, the people they've hurt, either directly or indirectly, because it increases the emotional weight of this battle. Two things I forgot to mention about the first fight. For one, All Might uses shoot style, which was an ability created by Deku, which I love because it's like first the student learned from the master, and now the master learns from the student. But also Stain came and got involved. He was eventually killed by All For One, but not before getting some awesome moments. Even All Might was convinced of what I've known for a decade, that he did truly care about the concept of heroism, he was just disillusioned by it when it came to most heroes. I am split because on one hand I would've liked if Deku confronted Stain, as All Might's replacement, after Stain told All Might to put an end to him, and arrested him, but Horikoshi still really managed to make this work too so I can't really complain too much.
But that's not all. After the battle most of the aftermath was good but the best part in my opinion was the stuff with the Todoroki family. I liked that Natsuo didn't forgive Endeavor for everything that happened. He even said that he's moving away, marrying his girlfriend, Enji will never met her, and that's about it. Although the series was more vague than I would've liked as to whether or not Shoto fully forgave his father. But the best part of this scene was, before Toya is taken away, Endeavor talks to him first, then Shoto does and asks him what his favorite food is. It seems like a small thing in general, but it was surprisingly powerful if you consider that these two are brothers but they never got to know each other too well, and this was one step closer to that, in addition to Shoto basically saying symbolically that he love shis brother, even though I'm pretty sure Toya dies shortly after this. There's also the scene with Deku and Uraraka. They were great together and it was sad hearing that Uraraka blamed herself for what happened to Himiko Toga. Which seems to be a theme in this series, and as we've covered it's usually not true, (although sometimes it is, like with Endeavor and Toya). I've heard some people say that the boy who was tormented in the final episode and saved by that old woman is the reincarnation of Shigaraki but I don't think so. First of all the timelines wouldn't match up, because I don't think that much time has passed. But also he was merely meant to be a symbolic parallel to Shigaraki, signing that the world is changing and becoming better, not a literal reincarnation, evidenced by the fact that the same woman that failed to save Shigaraki helped this boy.
I've heard some people say that Deku quitting being a hero and teaching instead at the end because he lost his power conflicts with the theme that anyone can be a hero, but I would argue that Deku being a teacher for eight years actually doesn't conflict with the message of "anyone can be a hero", as the final arc makes it clear that the definition of hero is not limited only to the more traditional pro heroes, but also to those who go out of their way to help others and society. By acting as a teacher for the next generation of UA students, I actually think Deku embodies this theme more strongly than if he was simply a pro hero right after the war. People like to get tunnel vision with Deku in this regard, and it further proves my theory that media literacy is in the gutter, it's kind of sad really. Overall, I thought that, despite some issues, this was a great finale. It honestly beats the endings of Naruto and Bleach, two that I grew up with which sadly ending kind of poorly in a lot of ways, out of the park. I don't think it necessarily needs the potential sequel that the author has talked about maybe doing, but I wouldn't be against it though.
Commentaires
Still some an instant Uno Reverse Card for Bakugo, but as far as explanations go this one was a logical extension of his quirk.