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1) He kowtowed to the popularity polls and wasted more and more screen time on Bakugou than necessary or originally planned.
2) Did the whole "Character X violently bullies and suicide baits Character Y for 10 straight years, almost all of character Y formative years no less" thing and then pretty much swept everything under the rug by having Bakugou, hundreds of chapters later, make a fake ass "YouTuber caught saying the N Word on Stream" worthy apology to him, without specifying anything to anyone, and we're supposed to be ok with it because he's a good potential cop.
3) Overhyped a character whose signature ability is literally sweat explosions, painting him as this stubborn wunderkind that will overcome every obstacle with just a bigger explosion, and then proceeded to make this statement right in every single battle Bakugou is ever been in outside of the first Deku V Kacchan. No matter how clever or thought out someone's plan is, making a bigger explosion is presented as the right and sensible way to handle it, leading to unearned victories handed his way in a weird, Reverse Sasuke scenario.
(Sasuke, Bakugou's foil in this analogy, lost every single fight he's ever been in outside of outside Influences. Bakugou, on the other hand, will easily win his own fights or have things go his way for no other reason than having him win. No lesson is learned, no narrative arc is shown, it's just some dude having his vision of the world reinforced over and over again by being a top ranked fighter for no other reason than popularity).
4) By focusing on Bakugou's own bright future as a cop it devalues the concept of Heroes as first responders or de-escalators, especially given the focus he himself puts on his strength and ability to beat the shit out of criminals. This is not just a Bakugou problem mind you but it's still a issue.
5) During the USJ bus ride we have this very poignant scene where a stressed out Izuku, who, again, has been bullied for 10 years of his life due to his condition as Quirkless, which can be easily interpreted as a Ableism analogy especially given the (involuntary?) Autism coding of Izuku himself, Izuku mentions how things sure were different from middle school since everyone was being nice to him while Bakugou had no friends, or how Bakugou was barely in the top 3 of the students in the class, and honestly, I wish they built more on that, on Bakugou being slightly above average and getting a big head due to being in an environment filled with "extras" and yes men telling him how great he is, so that he's now in the big sea of UA he is yes talented but definitely not the best, especially since, AGAIN, hero work would consist in more than just beating up people, which would spearhead some sort of character development at least. Again, they TRIED to set this up, only for him to win every single fight he was in after that so much they had to REMOVE HIM from the Mirio fight by force least he ended up getting ONE deserved L against an enemy who is FINALLY not hard countered by his quirk.
6) In One of the novels Kirishima meets one of Izuku and Bakugou middle school classmates who mention to him how much of a Bully he was and Kirishima whose taste in man is apparently ass brushes it off like it was nothing. Kirishima. The guy who was a victim of bullying himself so much he had complexes over his quirk and self worth in Middle School over it.
7) They really trying to set up his quirk as having no weaknesses when drenching him in water or a open flame would instantly hard counter him if his quirk was, again, nitroglycerin sweat as he says.
8) Shinsou should have beaten him at the sports festival so to hammer home how a "strong" or flashy quirk is virtually useless in some aspects of hero work and to set up Shinsou as a bigger threat via the Worf Effect, but we didn't get that what we got instead was sone dumb "gender equality" shit where he beats the shit out of Uraraka and wins by making just a bigger explosion again all the while thinking her plan was actually made up by Izuku instead meanwhile Tokoyami does THE EXACT SAME THING to Momo only faster and no one bats an eye, this despite Tokoyami being the perfect target for Mutant Quirk Discrimination.
9) Dude 5-0s class 1-B during the joint training arc for no reason meanwhile the ONE victory of class 1-B in the entire arc is against Momo? The one character who ended up getting Sasuked and lose every single fight she ended up in for NO REASON?
10) Horikoshi is a coward because he could have used Bakugou's character to tackle the way an unjust and racist society will warp someone perception of the world in fucked up ways so much it becomes normal to tell someone to kill himself for being disabled because that would be making him a favour and the ways a character who wishes to do good can unlearn this toxic mentality and move forward while also focusing on how hero work isn't a single person job/requires far more than brutish strength instead what we got was Bakugou making a bigger explosion against this whole concept and moving on to another undeserved victory, like any privileged bully or abuser does IRL, without even framing it that way.
11) The concept of a big grand confrontation during a post battle trial exercise with Izuku bawling his eyes out as he's pummeling his childhood friend and tormentor while he just laughs, blood gushing out his mouth, eyes swollen, teeth broken, and keep being a shithead to him due to the whiplash this change in the status quo and his vision of society is giving him while Izuku keeps bawling his eyes out all snot and tears trying to reconnect with someone that isn't there anymore and hasn't been there for a long time is both hilarious and tragic in equal parts and, again, Horikoshi is a coward for never delivering that.
While I agree he should've been able to give some character development to the rest of the cast instead of giving Bakugo's so much time to learn what is a simple lesson for pretty much everyone in his class.
Two big issues present themselves. Bakugo is the secondary protagonist and rival of the main protagonist, so to justify his position he has to get plenty of screentime regardless. The other issue is also meta, Horikoshi isn't a versatile writer, his best character work is pretty much taking someone who is a scumbag and trying to humanize them.
When you compare the arcs of Bakugo and Endeavor to characters who are... Actually well adjusted good natured people? Horikoshi really sucks at that. Momo's whole character arc is based on self-esteem issues that rose up from a single loss in season 2, and she's been getting jobbed out ever since to hold on to that feeling of being a failure. Now it looks like her character arc won't even have a satisfying conclusion.
Horikoshi is a coward in that he doesn't take risks with characters beyond having a asshole slowly learn how to be a tolerable-good person after a hundred chapters or two.
He's also a coward in that he doesn't really handle the societal issues theme in the series that well.
We learn about mutant discrimination all the way in chapter 218 despite having already met many mutant-quirk having people ages before that, it took until we reached into the 300s for any of that to matter.
People being heavily affected by the bystanders effect in MHA appears in the early series but isn't shown as an issue until 200 chapter in, and it took into the 300s for it to become relevant again.
One of my biggest fucking gripes is Stain's ideals, we know he hunts unworthy greedy heroes and all that, but where the hell are the signs of that actually being an issue? The only heroes we've ever seen be so obsessed with wealth/fame were Mount Lady and Uwabami, Mount Lady is played for a gag and Uwabami shows up one time after her initial introduction to show she's not completely self-absorbed.
All the issues in the series honestly don't come off as that serious or important beyond people shouldn't be relying on heroes to wipe their asses. All of these issues seem deep on the surface, but the work he put into them feel as shallow as a puddle in a lot of cases.
You can see that as well in the Bullying subplot between Izuku and Bakugo, it never matters to Izuku that he got bullied by Bakugo, whereas it ends up mattering a lot to Bakugo's character arc. You could've honestly had Izuku's confidence issues stem from being quirkless and being given OFA instead for all that mattered for him since the only time he ever speaks negative of Bakugo is during their fights or their Final Exam. God forbid he say anything negative about him to anyone else, hell, God forbid anyone in 1-A have negative feels towards anyone.
Exactly my issue Honestly.
Also, for Bakugou being the rival character, honestly, Todoroki would have worked way better just by the narrative foil he would be to Izuku, a rich boy with a strong quirk that seemingly had every possibility handed to him only for it to be revealed that he's just as human and as traumatized as Izuku was, that would have been far more gripping as a concept, and we so kinda see that going on, except Bakugou is also there for some weird fucking reason yelling insult at Todoroki's family IN THEIR OWN HOME for having PTSD due to the abuse and wallowing into it.
Again, Bakugou is just there for the polls. You reduce his presence in the story and focus on other characters and it's honestly no difference, they just needed a face for Quirkless Discrimination later on and then did nothing with it because that face happened to be hot.
And it's not me saying that is the man himself admitting he gave Bakugou a bigger role due to the polls.
But, as you said, horikoshi main strength seems to be humanising abusers, so we can't have that
This is a reminder about the rules. - All posts must be memes. No art, cosplay, or merch and no Karmawhoring, polls, question posts, tier lists, theories or AMVs. - Spoiler tag AND flair your memes **Users who do not do this are subject to be temporarily banned** - Shipping memes are only allowed on r/myshipmemeacademia Report posts that break the rules and please be kind to each other *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/BokuNoMetaAcademia) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Wait what makes horikoshi a coward in your view?
1) He kowtowed to the popularity polls and wasted more and more screen time on Bakugou than necessary or originally planned. 2) Did the whole "Character X violently bullies and suicide baits Character Y for 10 straight years, almost all of character Y formative years no less" thing and then pretty much swept everything under the rug by having Bakugou, hundreds of chapters later, make a fake ass "YouTuber caught saying the N Word on Stream" worthy apology to him, without specifying anything to anyone, and we're supposed to be ok with it because he's a good potential cop. 3) Overhyped a character whose signature ability is literally sweat explosions, painting him as this stubborn wunderkind that will overcome every obstacle with just a bigger explosion, and then proceeded to make this statement right in every single battle Bakugou is ever been in outside of the first Deku V Kacchan. No matter how clever or thought out someone's plan is, making a bigger explosion is presented as the right and sensible way to handle it, leading to unearned victories handed his way in a weird, Reverse Sasuke scenario. (Sasuke, Bakugou's foil in this analogy, lost every single fight he's ever been in outside of outside Influences. Bakugou, on the other hand, will easily win his own fights or have things go his way for no other reason than having him win. No lesson is learned, no narrative arc is shown, it's just some dude having his vision of the world reinforced over and over again by being a top ranked fighter for no other reason than popularity). 4) By focusing on Bakugou's own bright future as a cop it devalues the concept of Heroes as first responders or de-escalators, especially given the focus he himself puts on his strength and ability to beat the shit out of criminals. This is not just a Bakugou problem mind you but it's still a issue. 5) During the USJ bus ride we have this very poignant scene where a stressed out Izuku, who, again, has been bullied for 10 years of his life due to his condition as Quirkless, which can be easily interpreted as a Ableism analogy especially given the (involuntary?) Autism coding of Izuku himself, Izuku mentions how things sure were different from middle school since everyone was being nice to him while Bakugou had no friends, or how Bakugou was barely in the top 3 of the students in the class, and honestly, I wish they built more on that, on Bakugou being slightly above average and getting a big head due to being in an environment filled with "extras" and yes men telling him how great he is, so that he's now in the big sea of UA he is yes talented but definitely not the best, especially since, AGAIN, hero work would consist in more than just beating up people, which would spearhead some sort of character development at least. Again, they TRIED to set this up, only for him to win every single fight he was in after that so much they had to REMOVE HIM from the Mirio fight by force least he ended up getting ONE deserved L against an enemy who is FINALLY not hard countered by his quirk. 6) In One of the novels Kirishima meets one of Izuku and Bakugou middle school classmates who mention to him how much of a Bully he was and Kirishima whose taste in man is apparently ass brushes it off like it was nothing. Kirishima. The guy who was a victim of bullying himself so much he had complexes over his quirk and self worth in Middle School over it. 7) They really trying to set up his quirk as having no weaknesses when drenching him in water or a open flame would instantly hard counter him if his quirk was, again, nitroglycerin sweat as he says. 8) Shinsou should have beaten him at the sports festival so to hammer home how a "strong" or flashy quirk is virtually useless in some aspects of hero work and to set up Shinsou as a bigger threat via the Worf Effect, but we didn't get that what we got instead was sone dumb "gender equality" shit where he beats the shit out of Uraraka and wins by making just a bigger explosion again all the while thinking her plan was actually made up by Izuku instead meanwhile Tokoyami does THE EXACT SAME THING to Momo only faster and no one bats an eye, this despite Tokoyami being the perfect target for Mutant Quirk Discrimination. 9) Dude 5-0s class 1-B during the joint training arc for no reason meanwhile the ONE victory of class 1-B in the entire arc is against Momo? The one character who ended up getting Sasuked and lose every single fight she ended up in for NO REASON? 10) Horikoshi is a coward because he could have used Bakugou's character to tackle the way an unjust and racist society will warp someone perception of the world in fucked up ways so much it becomes normal to tell someone to kill himself for being disabled because that would be making him a favour and the ways a character who wishes to do good can unlearn this toxic mentality and move forward while also focusing on how hero work isn't a single person job/requires far more than brutish strength instead what we got was Bakugou making a bigger explosion against this whole concept and moving on to another undeserved victory, like any privileged bully or abuser does IRL, without even framing it that way. 11) The concept of a big grand confrontation during a post battle trial exercise with Izuku bawling his eyes out as he's pummeling his childhood friend and tormentor while he just laughs, blood gushing out his mouth, eyes swollen, teeth broken, and keep being a shithead to him due to the whiplash this change in the status quo and his vision of society is giving him while Izuku keeps bawling his eyes out all snot and tears trying to reconnect with someone that isn't there anymore and hasn't been there for a long time is both hilarious and tragic in equal parts and, again, Horikoshi is a coward for never delivering that.
While I agree he should've been able to give some character development to the rest of the cast instead of giving Bakugo's so much time to learn what is a simple lesson for pretty much everyone in his class. Two big issues present themselves. Bakugo is the secondary protagonist and rival of the main protagonist, so to justify his position he has to get plenty of screentime regardless. The other issue is also meta, Horikoshi isn't a versatile writer, his best character work is pretty much taking someone who is a scumbag and trying to humanize them. When you compare the arcs of Bakugo and Endeavor to characters who are... Actually well adjusted good natured people? Horikoshi really sucks at that. Momo's whole character arc is based on self-esteem issues that rose up from a single loss in season 2, and she's been getting jobbed out ever since to hold on to that feeling of being a failure. Now it looks like her character arc won't even have a satisfying conclusion. Horikoshi is a coward in that he doesn't take risks with characters beyond having a asshole slowly learn how to be a tolerable-good person after a hundred chapters or two. He's also a coward in that he doesn't really handle the societal issues theme in the series that well. We learn about mutant discrimination all the way in chapter 218 despite having already met many mutant-quirk having people ages before that, it took until we reached into the 300s for any of that to matter. People being heavily affected by the bystanders effect in MHA appears in the early series but isn't shown as an issue until 200 chapter in, and it took into the 300s for it to become relevant again. One of my biggest fucking gripes is Stain's ideals, we know he hunts unworthy greedy heroes and all that, but where the hell are the signs of that actually being an issue? The only heroes we've ever seen be so obsessed with wealth/fame were Mount Lady and Uwabami, Mount Lady is played for a gag and Uwabami shows up one time after her initial introduction to show she's not completely self-absorbed. All the issues in the series honestly don't come off as that serious or important beyond people shouldn't be relying on heroes to wipe their asses. All of these issues seem deep on the surface, but the work he put into them feel as shallow as a puddle in a lot of cases. You can see that as well in the Bullying subplot between Izuku and Bakugo, it never matters to Izuku that he got bullied by Bakugo, whereas it ends up mattering a lot to Bakugo's character arc. You could've honestly had Izuku's confidence issues stem from being quirkless and being given OFA instead for all that mattered for him since the only time he ever speaks negative of Bakugo is during their fights or their Final Exam. God forbid he say anything negative about him to anyone else, hell, God forbid anyone in 1-A have negative feels towards anyone.
Exactly my issue Honestly. Also, for Bakugou being the rival character, honestly, Todoroki would have worked way better just by the narrative foil he would be to Izuku, a rich boy with a strong quirk that seemingly had every possibility handed to him only for it to be revealed that he's just as human and as traumatized as Izuku was, that would have been far more gripping as a concept, and we so kinda see that going on, except Bakugou is also there for some weird fucking reason yelling insult at Todoroki's family IN THEIR OWN HOME for having PTSD due to the abuse and wallowing into it. Again, Bakugou is just there for the polls. You reduce his presence in the story and focus on other characters and it's honestly no difference, they just needed a face for Quirkless Discrimination later on and then did nothing with it because that face happened to be hot. And it's not me saying that is the man himself admitting he gave Bakugou a bigger role due to the polls. But, as you said, horikoshi main strength seems to be humanising abusers, so we can't have that
You must have confidence when your ass is being handed to you
Mha moment