#(i do know people do solos with anyone but i'd lose my mind grinding that much)

[class1akids]

the thing with the series right now, is that im getting major mixed signals.

personally i get the people who are saying this is going a bit too smoothly and deku will hit a roadblock soon. because that's the way i feel too. deku's general appearance rn feels unsettling and unnatural to me at least, so im waiting for the moment where something is gonna give and everyone else will be re-introduced. im down for that.

but at the same time, it feels kind of disingenuous, because deku's not really doing it alone is he? he's got his ghost buddies that are at no real risk of injury and pretty much all think positively of him. they're all good people helping him grow and helping him do the right thing. on top of that he's got the top 3 heroes AND all might shadowing him. can that really be called doing it alone? it's not like deku ran away and is homeless, it's not like the vestiges are some shady figures tempting him to do questionable shit. nope, he's just training "solo" while still relying on teamwork albeit indirectly (shindou's attack against muscular). deku hasn't gone dark or edgy or lost his mind. he seems a bit sadder and more serious, definitely traumatized from everything in the war, but he is still smiling, and his mindset seems fine, if a little heavy leaning into the chosen one role.

we hope the narrative will eventually frame deku ditching his friends as wrong, but it's at most a shitty friend move, not a life altering mistake, not when he does still have support. we hope his focus on doing things solo will be framed as a flaw, but it would feel disingenuous since he's not doing things solo. he's just ditched his old support system for a new one, and the reason it feels so frustrating for me is that you've got this huge cast of already developed characters i care about being seemingly "replaced" (even if temporarily) by a new cast of characters (half of whom introduced in what we assume is near-endgame) with in comparison paper thin personalities that all fall into a slightly different brand of good boy.

maybe horikoshi will somehow get me to care about banjou and whoever four was beyond a surface level "oh im cool with him being on screen" but i'll still feel bad because it would mean splitting up the panel time between even more characters in an already huge cast, and eating up everyone else's moments.

maybe this could have worked if the other users had some more spice in their personalities, provided more conflict for izuku. but they don't. they're all nice and they're all love him. which isn't bad. it's just a bit boring. it's like those harry potter fanfics i used to write as a 12 year old where voldemort never existed and everyone was just happy.

and it's very telling that number 2 created such a big buzz in the fandom specifically because he reminds us of a certain someone down to the way he kicks down doors. it's almost like the moment a character with a certain personality shows up we all get excited because we see the potential for conflict and intriguing storyline. and it's not bakugou's appearance that facilitates this (i guarantee reactions would be similar even if 2 kept his personality while looking nothing like baku. the appearance is just the bonus) but rather his character. i know he's gonna provide more narrative struggle and therefore growth for deku than someone like banjou is. disagreement drives a story forward.

and that circles back to my main problem with the current arc. it's not that i hate deku or think he's boring. i just prefer his interactions with other characters and want to see him around people that will actually challenge him. the reason i like having bakugou around deku is that he provides important balance. that's why i found him entertaining in the ofa tea times. the moment he joined he started pushing them. deku and all might had been pussyfooting around each other a lot and bakugou comes in and instantly challenges them, brings a worldview to the table that's uniquely his and that contradicts both deku and all might. he brings conflict. bootleg not bakugou does that too, but even this in a subdued manner (apparently yoichi just had to flirt with him a little and he was down). whereas everyone else is just the happy circle of good person trademarked flowerchildren who can all respect each other's opinions. WHERE IS THE SPICE?

perhaps if i was more invested in deku's character or the fight level up aspect of the story i'd be more down for this. but as we are now i just read every chapter and think "... ok". i was discussing it with my brother yesterday aswell, and he agreed that there's gotta be some more spice to the ofa plot than this. it was such an interesting power at first with so much potential for mystery and intrigue. i liked it even after sixquirks popped up because i liked deku unlocking backwhip. horikoshi did a fantastic job with that scene and i could feel for izuku's frustration at being seemingly put back to square one with a volatile power after watching him struggle so much with getting it under control the first time.

but then the charm was lost because everything started going way too smoothly and all the windows for possible conflict were being rapidly shut, from the possibility of evil/unwilling users to the dilemma of giving that type of power to a kid in the first place.

just idk. sorry this got so long i just have a lot of feelings lmao 😭 i hope ill end up eating my words and that hori actually has something great planned that ive missed the clues for but well, i don't have high hopes.

I fully agree. This covers all my frustration points that I have voiced before. 

And exactly the fact that he’s teamed up with ghost friends and top 3 is what makes this so frustrating. He REPLACED his friends. In order to protect them, he just ditched them, and I wouldn’t care if we would get the UA scenes in parallel, but we are not getting anything. 

They just POOF disappeared from the story, and with the MC being seemingly on track, we have no clue when we would see them next. And what’s worse, it feels like they don’t matter in this post-war world. Not to the story, not to Deku, not to All Might, not to anyone. 

And yeah, maybe it will lead to something, but that doesn’t change the fact that the pacing is horrible, the OFA development is insultingly dumb and there is just no sense of accomplishment. 

Deku gets like candy powers and abilities that other characters GRIND years for. Bakugou’s first updrade in hundreds of chapters was this new explosion speed boost that he earned by sacrificing his life and before we even get to see it in a fight, it already looks like a rusty old car compared to Deku’s full-extra flying batmobile. 

Even if we cut back to the students, their abilities will just feel too pedestrian and overshadowed by Deku. Which is why I’m losing hope that we’d see them fight ever again or get any role or development other than whatever group battle is planned for them in the end. And of course a few extra panels for the main kids. 

#bnha critical #i'm glad to see so many people being frustrated #i'm not glad that the story is going the way it is #because that sucks #but at least we see the problems and talk about them #c1a asks