The FAILURES of My Hero Academia's War Arc

in your average storytelling triax structure you see a rise to a climax a fall to a pinch point another rise to a secondary climax another pinch point and then the resolution right here academia showed us that it knew how to utilize this narrative climax exceptionally well with the fall of almighty and all for one and just how much the removal of those two characters shook up the world kombino the series first climax remains a high peak of the series to this day and greatly informed much of the second act what about mha's second grand climax though what about the paranormal liberation war arc war arcs are usually pretty massive deals they serve as the collisions of not only plotlines but also have characters in their different ideologies war arcs usually mean dire personal consequences for characters and dire consequences for the world at large changing the landscape as you know it for the narrative in what ways does plw fail or succeed at this plw was an arc in the making since the provisional hero license exam my hero academia wasted absolutely no time at all laying the groundwork for its next climax an arc that would come four years down the road to discount the amount of foundation laid for this potentially amazing conflict would be a disservice to plw as an arc we began to see midoriya come to terms with his own power something that he had previously used to destroy his own body and a self-related conflict that has been ever present throughout the entire story midoriya had to learn how to use his cork without damaging himself and all throughout act 2 and we always knew that him using 100 again would lead to permanent disfigurement and kind of acted as a chekhov's gun it also introduces us to the dynamic of midoriya toga and ochako as toga begins to question when the heroes won't save someone exactly where a hero society draws the line between saving and killing after ple shows us badoria working towards separating himself from almight's legacy the overhaul arc then tosses him into finding out what he as an individual strives for what exactly makes him want to be a hero mirio exists as a foil to midoriya to show the reader exactly what makes midoriya different what makes him worthy of being the inheritor of one for all and in the same vein overhaul exists as a foil to shigaraki to show him just how much he is lacking as an ideological leader or just as a leader overall midoriya and shigoraki had always been clear parallels of each other but overhaul is when it was quite explicit as their growth mirrored one another trying to find themselves in a world without their respective masters another point that makes their inevitable conflict that much more exciting what also makes that conflict more exciting is the school festival arc which some people might not believe this arc sets up deku's character big time for the future of the deco and shigaraki battle as it is the first piece of explosive growth that we see from our protagonist in a long while as madorya further separates himself from the heroic styles of old and learns that punching and kicking his way through everything won't solve everything he is faced with a stark reminder of his origins through gentle criminal and realizes that to solve some of the problems in this society instead of beating their ass and forcing them into a cell one must work to understand what exactly led people to this point pro hero and endeavor agency begins to do massive leg work and set up for the inevitable totoro rookie family climax and introduces us to the dynamic of the household hoyumi born to accompany toya on his journey to number one hero and desperately attempting to rebuild the family environment she wants natsuo represents the abused who does not want to forgive his abuser as he remembers what was done to both toya and shoto and the pain of being neglected by your family shoto is the undecided party who both resents his father for the life he forced him into but also wants to forgive a man trying desperately to be better it also introduces us to hawks the series first very explicit dip into the morally gray of this superhuman society somebody who wants a society where heroes have too much time on their hands and he is willing to do anything to achieve that utopia even when it comes to the friends he makes in his double life my villain academia is basically a pinch point for the series second act where we see explosive growth not only character-wise but also power-wise for the villains as they all have huge developments and progression namely shigaraki gets a backstory that connects himself to midoriya even more and how they both experienced not only the inequality of life but also their suffering caused by the hyperfixation of hero work this arc also gives this story a massive reality check going into the endeavor agency something is coming and it's coming fast in just a few months a new demon lord will be unleashed onto the world and the heroes have to do something about it i can't sit here and cover literally everything that goes into the war arc but that's a pretty strong summary at least the pieces are in place for a massive act to climax with in my opinion even better build up than the comino arc years and years of storytelling plot threads and build up all culminates in an explosive finish to the second act it's pretty safe to understand why plw is so highly regarded and so hyped up on a weekly basis so how was it executed execution is one of if not the most important part of storytelling all of this build up is great but build up isn't worth anything if you can't execute the ideas my hero academia's second act hits a peak here in the paranormal liberation war arc where all of these aforementioned plotlines and even more that i didn't mention come together to form an explosive finale the fated collision between two different perspectives on hero society the tying up of multiple plot points and extrapolations on even more was plw executed well yes and no to determine execution i have established in the previous sections some ideas that are to be executed upon i will then in this section be talking about how some of those concepts were executed including ones not mentioned in the build up section and how they seemed initially than how they might have aged going forward as at the time of writing the war started a hundred chapters ago plw falls into quite an unfortunate trap for how amazing of a first read it is the ark is full of amazing moments in a vacuum the issue of course lies in that stories do not exist in vacuums and what comes after still happens what might have been incredibly emotional or hype moments are retroactively made significantly less interesting the first major plot point in the war to be discussed is hawks vs twice and dobby as you first read this fight it's an incredibly emotional experience with quite a few chapters of build-up leading into it hux is the kind of character to do anything to achieve his carefree world including infiltrating the league of villains and befriending twice hawks about the story is someone shown to prioritize the needs of the majority over the needs of just one man but he becomes at odds with his own ideology when it comes time to dispose of twice he hesitates and tells him that he is a good person hawks would be willing to take him in to reform him hawks here is portrayed in a very sinister light with harsh shadows showing a much more villainous side to hero society as twice curls up on the floor in tears being betrayed by someone he thought was close to him on one side the representation of the darkness of hero society merely acting as a puppet for the state and on the other side someone representing goodness and caring for your loved ones quite the inversion of expectations thus far in the series surely this action truly pushes hawks away from his true goal as the death of potentially a good man on behalf of the state only serves to perpetuate the darkness of hero society right well the truth is we don't really know so [ __ ] you as twice was killed in chapter 266 and that was about it his death was used to make toca go ape [ __ ] in the mansion and the media lightly grilled hawks on his murder of twice but other than that it's more or less rarely been mentioned since not only is this sort of a spit in the face for hawks's character it's the equivalent of vandalizing twice's tombstone as a story which is not known for killing characters quickly moves past one of the major characters it killed with mostly solemn looks from toga and an absolute lack of recognition from tomor shikharaki a person characterized for his genuine love and care for the league of villains like when he was mad at the metal liberation army for toying with twice's feelings nearly 100 chapters after twice's death he shows not an ounce of thought or consideration towards his dead friend i thought the league of villains was supposed to be a found family why does nobody give a [ __ ] the common thought is that he'll get his moment to think on it eventually he just can't because offer one hasn't body jacked but there is a term known as too little too late nearly 100 chapters after his death and to only just possibly maybe not even guaranteed to get a reaction to it at the very end of the series after all for one's probable defeat effectively makes us not really care nearly as much as we would have otherwise about shigaraki's reaction i myself personally have just moved on from this character moment while twice's death in the moment was incredibly well executed the aftermath was severely lacking and retroactively hampers these strong individual moments speaking of the body jacking chapter 270 and most of shigeru aki's moments in the war are just another example to pile on shigaraki a once bratty incompetent man child slowly grows into his own over the course of the entire series something massively spurred on by the removal of his mentor figure all for one at the climax of act one he develops his own leadership style his own bonds and in the war rejects all for once hold over him but truly become his own symbol of terror absolutely demolishing [ __ ] having these horrific entrances and bodying endeavor there's this one moment in chapter 277 where shiguraki realizes that all for one lies dormant inside of him in a way when he calls madory a little brother he thinks about how the guy they called the lord of evil was defeated by the power of one man and says that he wants to be even better than that lord of evil as he decays the visual manifestation of offer one on his shoulder that's right he controls himself this is shigaraki's time wait what all for one unfortunately takes over the best character in the series a plot line i was willing to see out when it first happened now over a year later it's safe to say that this is not only a massive slap in the face to everything shigaraki represents but also all for one just [ __ ] sucks shigaraki in the war arc in multiple ways is the climax of his character arc thus far rejecting his mentor in his own way and coming into his own just to have him immediately stripped away from the narrative until well until the time of writing shigaraki is still not himself this character with deep roots into the series themes and even the rest of the cast is now just missing and replaced with an f-tier character could this represent the old generation refusing to let go of their hold and maintain control over the new generation sure it's possible but as a man wiser than myself once said something being the point doesn't matter if the point [ __ ] sucks not only does this actively undermine the aforementioned thematic relevance of the next generation it also harms madurai and shigaraki's dynamic which was built on the foundation of them attempting to discover themselves in a post-communal world if you damage the parallels these characters have in their dynamic then unfortunately you do not have a dynamic as midoriya and shigeraki have literally no relationship outside of that they have interacted twice in universe and both of those times have been some of the best content the series has to offer but outside of those two interactions there is absolutely nothing for these characters outside of similarities and parallels even down to their [ __ ] shoes bro even the terrible dog [ __ ] all for one has a stronger relationship with midoriya than shiguraki does despite all for one spending most of his time in prison the war's body jacking not only damages madory and shigeraki it also continues the war arc's tradition of having really cool moments in a vacuum until you read the rest of the story our next underwhelming plot point comes when the heroes are rushing kageta machia to try and stop his horrific rampage compress fires big rocks at both midnight and kaminari midnight collapses to the ground and quite literally gets jumped by a bunch of villains and is one of the few casualties of the war that we're familiar with to make things even more grim her body is discovered by the very students that she taught especially momo who was her direct mentor besides majestic who is also dead much like the audience the narrative and its characters more or less immediately forgot about midnight and kept on going that isn't the only thing lost by the narrative but the kid's reaction to being in a bloody war was completely glossed over blood was shed lives were lost cities fallen and our reward at the end of the day is a god-awful bath chapter and the rushing strain of the finale how do they feel about the passing of their teachers how did they feel about all of these civilian casualties that ochako looked so pensive about how do they feel about the revelations of endeavor being abusive hawks killing someone how hero society functions about their friend hiding his quirk from them for about a year now the absolute lack of in-universe acknowledgement of the events of the war arc that literally just happened completely and utterly undermines these traumatic events to see these characters who we knew to have their own feelings on things their own opinions on decisions suddenly be reduced to a hive mind of non-emotion and lack of interesting traumatic betrayal to keep the plot moving absolutely destroys the aftermath of the war arc ultimately what was a character like midnight killed for if it didn't spur any of these characters into interesting introspection or discussions surrounding hero society or the hero occupation was it purely done for shock value to actually give the war a sense of weight to the events that had transpired this isn't the only personal consequence that was made to be insignificant either shortly after midnight gets killed gran torino gets grabbed by shigaraki pierced through his chest and left to bleed out on the ground as he watches midoriya unlock float a fitting end for the character who is partially responsible for creating tomorrow for some reason however when horikoshi opts to kill midnight for the shock he gives up halfway through with gran torino and for some absolutely unbelievable reason decides to keep this old man alive despite him being a prime candidate for death if we're putting gran torino and midnight on a scale here midnight is kind of a nobody who has shallow connections with our cast and is kind of just a weird pedophile fran torino however is deeply rooted in the origins of almighty entomra and has a deep personal connection with both the aforementioned almighty and our protagonist midoriya izuku so not only does midnight's death lead to an unfulfilling emotional reaction from both the reader and the cast gran torino's lack of death retroactively hurts the fast-paced intensity of shigaraki versus everyone all while also damaging the personal stakes of these characters because apparently getting donut hold at the ripe age of 7 billion is something you could walk away from well maybe gran torino isn't doing any walking but you get the point these aren't the only two moments of a lack of personal consequences no it is in fact only the start of course aizawa lost his leg and can't really use his quirk anymore but monument exists to patch that up of course mirko lost her leg in an arm but her prosthetics are actually quite strong those are definitely instances of characters who sustain damage throughout the arc but there are some more horrible examples to go for plw let's circle back to hawks versus twice and dobby for a moment a moment that was supposed to be so impactful due to the sheer violence of it a body was dropped and hawks got cooked to such an extreme extent that dark shadow makes a comment about his back being gone while i still think that this fight more or less holds up pretty decently with future context just because it's such a compelling first time read it cannot be understated how heavily impacted it has been by future context like hawks regoing his wings a big part of the tension of that fight is in hawk's own words how this is a pretty bad matchup for him fire is a direct counter to him and his quirk and dobby is someone who has such intense flames that it burns himself even surpassing the firepower of the number one hero of japan he stomps on hawks's back and lights him up completely obliterating his back and burning his wings the narrative frames this in an extremely dangerous light like the aforementioned dark shadow line and the fact that in the later hospital chapters his back is completely wing-free it's shown to us in his backstory chapters that some stumps still exist which i was willing to like cook because to me it implied his recovery rate would never be the same and perhaps his wings would never grow back the same unfortunately his wings grow back quick enough thereafter that they are functional sure maybe not at the strength they were at before but the amount of weight the narrative put on his injury feels kind of for naught now especially since he could apparently just get vague prosthetics that we have no actual understanding of whether they are the wings themselves or prosthetic feathers we have literally no idea and seem quickly hobbled together to make hawks not useless in the final fight this is not the only time the war framed things as more severe than they would end up being take chapter 285 for instance in the middle of the blow for blow battle with midoriya and shigaraki and after he declares that he will take him down no matter what happens to him we go back to that chekhov's gun that i spoke about earlier in the back of the reader's mind we think about the consequences of him going 100 where the problem arises however is how it isn't left in the back your mind the story quite literally forces this into full view and gives you a visual reminder that midoriya is not supposed to be doing this him going 100 is a bad thing and will bring terrible consequences upon him for his recklessness and trying to defeat shigaraki right here right now that is until chapter 309 rolls around and this super impactful desperate decision from midoriya ends up working in his favor basically rewarding him for being reckless while i'm personally fine with the explanation we got that his body has adapted to the cork better so 100 doesn't blow him up as bad it certainly feels like a bait and switch when the consequences of this decision are dangled in our face like keys in front of a baby and then the rug is pulled out from under us midoriya is then given a support item that lets him potentially get away with even more recklessness it doesn't allow him to go 100 but he is then given fajin anyway a band-aid quark to fix the pacing of the series and how midori is locked at 45 now the primary issue with mha not sticking to these severe injuries or pulling out of long-term personal consequences halfway through is that it sets the bar for your series micro stakes extremely low for the future why would i be worried about a character's death flags now if the series won't even commit to killing gran torino why would i be worried about midoriya pushing it too far now that he got off scot-free with being extremely reckless why should i even be sad about a character's death when it goes largely unmentioned like twice or midnight it also doesn't help that midoriya had been struggling to come into his own to find out what he desires rather than following the same foundation or blueprint as almight and we see this come to a massive climax in the war arc during midoriya vs shigaraki madorya begins to see himself as just a vessel of one for all a tool used to destroy all for one which is a massive moment of regression for the boy who is trying to discover himself this moment also feels lessened by future context knowing that it was barely addressed by the narrative and years of a lack of self-worth and how you view yourself is readily fixed up by a couple of pages and a bath let's take a step back from these personal consequences for a second i've spoken about pretty much every major event this arc thus far but let's do a bit of a compliment sandwich where one side of the bread is really [ __ ] long and the meat is kind of thin the absolutely visceral destruction that is on displaying this arc is extremely hard hitting we see blocks of cities gone or gegenza makia running straight through japan and we know that there are many innocent lives lost in that rampage while the micro stakes of this arc are all out of whack the macro stakes are quite apparent cities have fallen alongside trust in the system not even just by civilians we get this one scene in the immediate aftermath of ochako trying her best to pull people out of the rubble of gagantomaki's massacre and we see heroes just giving up she looks on as she watches the system as we know it come to an end with thousands of innocent lives lost people start feeling cornered and that they have to fend for themselves because heroes just aren't cutting it anymore the absolutely massive scale battles that took place shook not only japan but the world to its core while a lot of plw's moments didn't age well the feeling of reading these fights and the raw emotion in some of them is something that still sticks with me to this day absolutely peeking at one of the greatest chapters of my hero academia to date chapter 290. dobby's dance is the chapter that literally out-trended the ongoing us 2020 presidential election at the time fans came together to celebrate such an iconic moment as all of the years of intrigue and waiting for this moment to finally happen finally came to a boil and we get toya todoroki quite literally dancing in front of his father as he reveals his darkest secrets not just to him or the people on the battlefield but to the entire world as it's plastered all over japanese television just as endeavour's atonement reaches a peak he's immediately torn back down by toya in made to face the monster he created because the past never dies unfortunately what comes after 290 is not all great chapters 291 to 295 are the primary example of bad pacing i use in my other video how my hero academia does pacing like when best genius suddenly appears to stop toya a plotline people have been pondering for quite some time and something that really added to the moral ambiguity of hawks's character which basically no longer exists immediately after that we get miriam's return single-handedly one of the worst chapters in my hero academia which is quite funny considering two chapters ago was one of its best and an absolute butchering of not only mirio's plotline but also ares by extension then we get the reveal of bakugo's hero name which just kind of feels forced amidst all these reveals and then we get another fourth reveal that mr compress is related to the thief ojiharama something that felt incredibly shoehorned in contributing nothing and at least so far has gone unused some of you guys might stop me and say that i'm being too preemptive of my conclusions for these plotlines and it's possible things end up differently well that is definitely very possible for some things but not all of my complaints it's very possible we see the kids react to midnight's death like how mina heard and saw her killer despite how massive of a contrivance that was it's possible we see shiguraki break out of afo's hold and talk about twice after miriam insulted him by saying he has no friends or [ __ ] that's good and all but as mentioned earlier these things can be too little too late while the moments would still be appreciated they won't be nearly as high quality as if they were to hit when the moment called for it when these events were still fresh in our mind an example people like to use is bakugo's explosion over all mike's falling kamino and how he blamed it all on himself which came an entire arc after kamino well the entire arc part is a bit of a stretch as it was 18 or 19 chapters and there were multiple hints that something like this was coming whereas for sugar locking it twice there is absolutely nothing and for the kids at midnight they cried a bit and i'm pretty sure it's over now we also do see some grievous wounds in this final arc like jiro's missing earlobe but because of hawks what if that just gets replaced with a prosthetic that we don't understand how it works endeavors missing arm and bakugou's injuries are cool but it kind of feels a bit weak to finally give consequences or big injuries to characters at the very end of the series where one could argue that it matters the least despite my myriad of complaints about the war arc and how i feel it's been absolutely ravaged by future context i still find it an enjoyable read overall but that might just be rose tinted glasses talking because it's a weekly experience that i will never forget thank you for listening to me rant about mha's lack of personal consequences and poor follow through on the war's plotlines if you disagree that's just the nature of opinions but i hope i at least made sense thank you for watching if you like this video please remember to like comment and subscribe for the funny youtube algorithm you can go down into the description below and you can follow me on twitter where i usually post about mha you can also join my discord down below we talk about mha jiu-jitsu kaisen re-zero and stuff like that that's about it see ya

Channel: AsarathaHS

Views: 111,205

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Id: FsEdRimwTu8

Length: 19min 34sec (1174 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 31 2022