Bnha Analysis - Blog Posts

Yes please write more about Mic and Aizawa being foils to one another! I enjoy reading your in-depth posts!

OH BOY

okay, let’s talk a little about foil character in writing. foil characters are characters who commonly display opposite traits to another character they are closely tied with. it’s a common misconception that foil characters are always the rival to the character they foil and that they have to be opposite in every way–neither of these are true. it’s actually fairly common for a foil character to be set up as the character’s best friend and contrast only the traits the author wants to highlight in that character. i like talking about foil characters a lot because i feel as though they are very good in narratives when written correctly. 

like i said in that one ask, mic and aizawa read like foils to each other to me. or more, mic is a foil to aizawa, since aizawa is far more of a main character than he is. 

let’s start here–there was a post going around about how hizashi and aizawa’s hero names are pretty much opposites of each other, with erasing something being the opposite of presenting something and a headphone being the opposite of a microphone. that’s a good place to start, because those names are:

1. something that defines them, their careers, an who they are as people

2. fundamental to their relationship and their interconnectedness as characters, given that mic gave aizawa the hero name that he’s kept for 15 years and counting and the name that he operates his entire career under. mic essentially gave him part of his identity, and the name itself is pretty much the opposite of mic’s.

going a bit further, aizawa is characterized as not caring about appearances, introverted, and relying far more on technique than words when fighting/acting. mic is the opposite in every way, with his characterization being primarily very extroverted, obviously putting care in his appearance (i will never forgive him for That Hair), spending most of his career in the public eye, and literally using words to speak. mic is characterized as a person who pretty much never stops talking, while aizawa is much quieter and seems to pick and choose more when to speak. similarly, mic is much more visible about his emotions, whereas i think aizawa would rather die than admit he actually has feelings. mic is always moving, whereas aizawa relies a lot on stealth and being still. mic has neverending energy, aizawa can often be seen in the background asleep or just generally very lethargic. i could go on, but you get the point here for the most part. 

also, their designs are opposite of each other, too. i realize that both mic and aizawa wear all black, but you cannot tell me that the thing that sticks out with mic’s design isn’t his hair. it is literally the first thing people notice. the fucking cockatoo hair. and it’s bright fucking yellow. the closest to the opposite of black you can get without going for white. because of this, people assign bright yellow and bright colors as mic’s coloring, whereas with aizawa, everything is just black. dude literally does not wear any color (unless you count his goggles, in which case, bright yellow. literally the same color as mic.). going a step forward, mic obviously puts care into his appearance and has that weird 80′s aesthetic where all he wears is tight leather. meanwhile, we have aizawa, who wears a baggy enough jumpsuit that he could probably just wear a garbage bag instead and no one would be able to tell the difference. mic, who seems to meticulously care for his appearance, if that hair and weird mustache says anything, and aizawa, who looks like he hasn’t had a haircut or seen a razor in 14 years.

then we get to the whole style thing. mic lives his life in the spotlight. dude is a radio (and also television, maybe?) star who is well known, the head of a department, and a well-known pro hero. aizawa, on the other hand, very specifically stays out of the spotlight and works in the underground and acts like he is in actual, physical pain every time he has to talk to the press. with their fighting styles, aizawa is far more passive and would be categorized as either a support or a defense hero, since his quirk is purely non-physical. his gimmick is stealth. however, mic is completely offensive. even in the final exams, mic didn’t even chase the kids down. he literally just stood at the entrance and screamed, while aizawa has to get the drop on his opponents to attack them and usually has to be the first to attack.

speaking of quirks, i made a post a while ago about this, but mic’s quirk absolutely does not have many counters. the best thing mic has to a counter is aizawa’s erasure. mic is insanely powerful and knows how to control his quirk and would’ve easily won the final exam battle had it not been for his fear of bugs. i mean, when aizawa got hurt at usj, he easily leveled a bunch of villains with a single attack. countering mic’s quirk is very hard since he has so much control over it, and really the only counter he has in canon is aizawa right now. which, is pretty significant when you consider that these two are pretty interconnected. 

so yeah, i do really think mic is a foil to aizawa. mic usually doesn’t show up by himself in the manga or the anime–aizawa is usually somewhere to be found either directly or indirectly in the scenes he’s in. mic is used to highlight a lot of aizawa’s quiet nature, especially since these are the first two veteran teachers we see in the series–aizawa, who’s quiet and strict, and mic, who’s loud and pretty friendly. i think mic is set up to be his foil and i hope their relationship is expanded upon more in the future, since i personally think it’s one that’s important to aizawa’s character.

Canon EraserMic

Okay, so it’s gonna be interesting to see how people react to this, but with this being one of the most popular ships in BNHA, I decided to go back and look at the canon relationship between these two.

No images as I’ve heard they mess with mobile users, however, if my followers prefer it, let me know, and I’ll add them in future posts.

Keep reading

So, I noticed something interesting in the manga! Except for three times, Hizashi always tends to follow Aizawa or stand behind them.

Note:

*BNHA Spoilers

*Manga images

Keep reading

I haven't seen anyone commenting about something weird on how AFO is represented in the recent art by Horikoshi:

That being the fact this is the "prime" version of him with his face restored, but wearing the final war outfit and maskless. Something clearly not possible in the story itself, as obviously that outfit was gone when he used rewind on himself for avoid die by the fire of Endeavor.

But the interesting part is that this isn't the first time Horikoshi draw AFO in this particular way, mixing his restored look with the purple jacket outfit.

The other time was in that cover in which he's facing Deku (a battle that never happened in the story, or at least not directly against his main body).

In that other art AFO also has a unique look for his mask not being seen in the story, that looks vaguely like it was still broken and almost melted by Endeavor but pieced together again while still being red hot.

Also do you notice in neither of those arts AFO has the rewind effects over him? Considering it was the plot reason he recovered his face in the first place, is a bit weird that the art of Horikoshi doesn't present him being under rewind.

And yeah I know all this can be attributed to simple creative freedom and Horikoshi though mix both designs was cool or something.

But I can't help and make my theories about this.

Can these arts be a sort of "what if" scenario?

As I said before is interesting to remember that Deku never actually fight against AFO directly on his real body, they never even encouter each other in that state for that matter, they only interacted via ShigAFO.

So maybe Horikoshi at some point had a totally different display for the final battle? One that involved Deku vs AFO and a different use of rewind.

Considering in both arts "prime" AFO appears maskless with his outfit intact, I wonder if the real revelation moment when the heroes managed to destroy his new mask wasn't seeing his potato face, but he already got his face restored offscreen.

Which could also explain why Horikoshi didn't drawn AFO with the rewind effects in the art. As probably the idea of him being on a time counter that will banish him wasn't originally part of the story and only was a leter addition.

So in this alternative scenario rather than go back to fight ShigAFO directly, Deku instead for some reason ends up in front of the original AFO and they have a real battle, just as it was represented in the cover art.

Don't know how the story should continue from that point, as it probably would change a lot more of how the rest of the final battle will play.

TW: abuse; violence (?)

okay so bnha fans that hate endeavor are mostly kids/teenagers that suffered from psychological and/or physical abuse from their parents and therefore hate enji because they see their fathers or mothers in him. (WHICH IS VALID). In other words ppl hate abusers because they were abused/had experience with abusers. (I’m not saying that every enji hater had a difficult childhood, but like it’s just the majority of people).

And because of that I have a theory that if those people had experience with serial killers, maybe if one of their loved ones were killed in a horrible way, they wouldn’t like dabi that much.

Please, don’t get me wrong, I am not trying to justify endeavor’s or dabi’s actions, but i just kind of wanted to compare them; ppl really think that killing 30+ innocent people simply because your father was abusive is not as bad as abusing your wife and children. Again!! I’m not saying that “endeavor did nothing wrong” or anything like that. I just feel like some people forget about the fact that dabi is a literal serial killer and kidnaps, tortures and murders people for fun and they try to justify his actions by saying “his childhood trauma made him do it” or something like that?? Like, dabi doesn’t seem to be depressed or anything, he pretty much just enjoys killing people and being a villain. Honestly I wouldn’t mind if he just killed enji because in that case at least he had a motive, but killing random innocent people just because you can?

My point is; i feel like enji and dabi are on the same level of doing horrible things. enji ruined five innocent lives and dabi ended at least 30. you either hate both of them or love both of them. it’s kinda hypocritical to love one and hate the other one.

(I’m probably gonna be cancelled for this)

I wish Tsuyu had a bigger role in the Uraraka VS Toga fight- kinda like how Iida had a role in Shouto VS Touya.

With Iida, not only is he one of Shouto’s closer friends- but he also contrasts and parallels Shouto and Touya’s relationship.

Tenya looks up to his brother, and Tensei is motivated to do better because of that- they have a very wholesome brother-relationship.

While with the Todorokis… Touya has literally tried to killed Shouto and even indirectly Natsuo. Shouto has literally done absolutely nothing wrong to Touya- he was a baby when most of Touya’s trauma was happening, and he wasn’t allowed near him growing up. But Shouto still loves him unconditionally.

Even though the relationship between the Iida brothers is so different from the Todorokis- Tenya can still understand how Shouto feels. Tenya couldn’t save Tensei- so that was why he had to do everything he could so Shouto could save Touya (and the rest of his family + the civilians)

Tsuyu’s backstory is explained in an extra manga chapter that was then animated in one of the OVAs. We get insight into her family and one of her friends- though we don’t really know the reason WHY she became a hero. We still don’t in way.

What we do know is that Tsuyu believed a hero is someone who follows the rules. She tells Toga this, and says that Uraraka doesn’t care about the rules- she just wants to help, so she asks Toga to listen to her.

In my opinion, Tsuyu isn’t really a developed character. I’d say Ashido and Jirou have more development than her. Tsuyu’s reasoning in what a hero is- contradicts what the audience is shown.

“Heroes should follow the rules”

But what about the unjust rules?

Lady Nagant and Hawks are basically child soldiers. When Nagant asked if what they’re doing is the right thing- the HPSC president responded by pULLING OUT A GUN- when Nagant killed him, that could’ve been argued to be self-defense. Instead, she’s thrown in jail for people she was groomed to kill, and the murder of the HPSC president was covered up.

Hero society is shown to be corrupt- so I think we should’ve been shown more insight on how a character like Tsuyu handles the reality that laws aren’t always right. I want to see how she would’ve been forced to reevaluate her way of thinking. How the world that society said it was- was a lot more complicated than she thought.

People should follow the rules- but when the rules are harming people who just want to live their normal lives- we need to make adjustments to the rules so more people don’t have to suffer trying to become something they are not.

Tenya was also shown to be a very rule-abiding person at the beginning of the series. Even so, we see what his breaking point is- so what’s Tsuyu’s breaking point? How does she connect to the Uraraka & Toga arc?

From how I interpreted the arc, Toga was someone who needed to be understood as a human being. The reporter, Curious, wanted to understand her- but she only wanted to understand her as a news headline, as a martyr for the Liberation Army.

Uraraka says in the fight, that she can’t ignore all the hurt Toga caused, she can’t accept every part of Toga, she can’t love her in the way that Toga wants her to- but she wants to understand who Himiko Toga is, why she smiles and why she cries.

Uraraka saw the ‘ugliness’ in Toga’s heart, and she acknowledged that- but she also saw the beauty and pain in her heart as well.

How does Tsuyu fit into this????

It’s mentioned that Tsuyu struggled in middle school to make friends, as people couldn’t read her expression since she has a poker face. Perhaps she understands the whole ‘wanting to be understood’ thing?

It could also be a case of quirk discrimination. As we’ve been shown, mutation quirks are looked down upon.

The thing with Tenya is that role was a small part, and yet a big part of the arc he was in. He told Shouto that he is able to be the hero he wants to be now thanks in part to him- and that Shouto can be the hero he wants to be as well; he didn’t say much, and yet that says so much more.

Idk…maybe the role Tsuyu could’ve had is something like ‘She is someone who was discriminated against for her quirk, and people failed to understand her or see her as a human being- but she had a loving family and friends to support her’

-so then the conversation could’ve been more like Tsuyu trying to empathize with Toga and let her know that Uraraka was there to support Tsuyu, so now she’s here to help her as well.

Or it could even have mentioned Tsuyu’s friend from middle school- who also struggled to make friends as well. They were both people who others couldn’t understand them (because of their unexpressive faces) and because of that they connected to each other.

I think it was even mentioned that Himiko is the ‘oldest’ child of her family, so…what about her siblings? How does she feel about them? Could Tsuyu and Toga being older siblings parallel somehow???

The more I talk about this- the more I wonder if Tsuyu should’ve saved Toga or have an equal role to Uraraka. There could be a lot of similarities when I really think about it…

I think the ‘rule’ thing could’ve worked, but I think Tsuyu should’ve had her own arc and perspective shown for it to have more impact.

Maybe this is just a me- thing, but I think Tsuyu should’ve been fleshed out more if she is the character supporting one of the Savior trio.