Natsuo Todoroki Hasn't Changed

Natsuo Todoroki hasn't changed

Since he was introduced, I have always considered Natsuo troublesome for his family. He doesn't respect Rei and Fuyumi's choices to forgive Enji. He spreads the false rumours that Toya said to him as a kid. Despite Enji already atoning, Natsuo gets aggressive with him, stressing out the whole family and preventing them from healing.

As the manga reached its finale, I hoped that Natsuo would realise he was going down a dangerous path and apologise for his mistakes. However, this turned out not to be the case. Natsuo hasn't changed and is set to turn out like his father, if not worse.

When it comes to stopping Toya, the Todoroki family is inconsistent with their choices. At first, the family's civilians remained safe, and the heroes were allowed to do their jobs. Otherwise, they could get into legal trouble for vigilantism. It doesn't matter how personal the stakes are. Additionally, Shoto could focus on his fight with Dabi and not worry about his loved ones.

Natsuo fulfils his promise at first, remaining in the shelter and keeping his sister safe.

It was reckless enough when Rei got involved in Toya's fight. Then, Natsuo and Fuyumi had to disobey their mother. Three civilians had stuck their noses in hero work. Luckily, it all ended well in the end.

Who knows, this plan change could be better in the long term. They are in the middle of a war, and sometimes, you can't wait for legal permission. The ice users have no hero training but could negotiate as the criminal's family. Natsuo claims he is the closest to Toya, so he must step up the most here.

For a brief moment, Natsuo seems he is on the right track. He remembers the night when Toya called the women "useless", and he refused to refute it. He enabled Toya for too long and now Natsuo must take responsibility.

Instead, he unhelpfully insults Toya. Where is Natsuo admitting his own guilt? Where is his meaningful speech? He hardly tries for the brother he claimed to be close to and enabled.

This is why non-professionals getting involved was a bad idea. He could have angered Toya further and made everything more dangerous.

After this brief line to Toya, Natsuo gives up on negotiating. Instead, he focuses on using his untrained quirk and trying to overpower Toya. This could have been disastrous.

When Shoto finally defeats Toya, Natsuo makes his loyalties known. He doesn't rush to check on Toya, who is likely dead. Instead, he keeps his distance. Natsuo is simply flunking his duties.

Natsuo doesn't even acknowledge or thank Shoto for saving everyone. It is Fuyumi who speaks up.

Despite having his thoughts, Natsuo doesn't say any of them aloud. He completely ignores his villainous brother dying on the ground and the complicated history that led to this point.

Enji's apologies revealed the bitter truth about Natsuo. He had it the easiest out of the entire Todoroki family. Enji and Shoto have put their lives countless times on the line to save them. Rei has spent ten years in a mental hospital. Fuyumi had to do the housework and keep the family together from a young age.

Meanwhile, Natsuo can fulfil his dreams at college, get a girlfriend and barely phone home. It is time for him to do his fair share and do some emotional labour. He can ease the load of his loved ones. However, he selfishly makes them do all the heavy lifting.

Even after his 16-year-old brother faints, Natsuo doesn't move to check on him. Toya is one thing, but Shoto is the most innocent one of all.

Even at the lowest possible point, Natsuo can't help but insult Enji: "Mom and Fuyumi had enough heat for one day." He indirectly throws shade on Shoto as well, just because he has a fire quirk.

Worst of all, Natsuo demands that Enji continue fighting despite losing his arm and having third-degree burns. Ignoring the family aspect momentarily, Natsuo is incredibly ungrateful as a civilian towards a serving hero.

After the war, the Todoroki family visit Toya in the hospital. Despite his brother dying and everyone being scarred, Natsuo just coldly stares. Rei and Fuyumi pipe up, but the thirdborn thinks he can ignore the past.

Worst of all, Natsuo decides to make it all about him and suddenly announces he is disowning Enji. Is he going to abandon his mother to look after his wheelchair-bound father? Will he ignore all the effort that Enji has put into atoning?

A child unnecessarily disowning their parent will leave an emotional scar on their very soul.

Has Natsuo reflected on everyone's part in the family's dysfunctionality? Does he not understand how sociopathic Toya was as a child and responsible for his parents' poor mental health? He remembers that Toya called the women "useless", but he doesn't acknowledge all the other horrible things Toya did.

Will Natsuo be a hypocrite and not disown the relatives who sold off his mother?

Despite Natsuo's stinging words at Enji, he gives him emotional whiplash by praising him. Deep down, Natsuo knows Enji deserves better, and he wants a connection with his father. However, he is overtaken by childish stubbornness and pettyness. Natsuo is the only person preventing Fuyumi's dream of their family being complete and he is denying her that. He is holding everyone back. He is a coward and ungrateful.

I'm seriously convinced that Natsuo will continue the cycle of abuse. He is already making the same mistake of marrying at the young age of twenty.

I'm wondering what Natsuo's girlfriend feels about this. Why did she agree to never meet her father-in-law? Why did she agree to a non-ceremonial wedding? Did she agree that her future children would never know their grandfather? She looks like she has a shy personality, and I wonder if Natsuo likes to take advantage of that. Is he controlling towards her?

What will his attitude be towards his future children? What if they become curious about their family history? What if they have fire quirks? What if they look exactly like Enji?

I fear that Natsuo will become like Kotaro Shimura, Shigaraki's father. If this happens, the ice user would be worse than Enji. Endeavour lost his father at a young age and didn't have a good example for his own parenting. Meanwhile, Natsuo has a long history to learn from. Multiple loved ones are reaching out to him and begging him to heal. Natsuo should know better, yet he chooses to fester on his grudges and potentially carry on the abusive cycle.

Natsuo already has a fierce temper and a habit of hitting things. How long before it turns from objects to real people?

why did he cook here ???? 😭😭

Dude the way Enji ignores Touya's existence is so similar to the way I've seen fathers in my career treat their disabled children 😭 He looks pained whenever he sees his injuries yet not in a way a father should be, it's in the way that he's defective. He isn't the perfect soldier he dreamed of. Even now his existence will always remind him of his greatest weakness. A genetic anomaly. Classic patriarchal way of thinking. Enji isn't just uncomfortable now that he's Dabi, his son's disability always made him uncomfortable. That's why he spends all this time praying at his altar yet doesn't change his ways at all until he becomes no 1. That's exactly what made Touya boil with rage, that his death had no affect and Enji continued on with his selfish dream even after his supposed death.

One other thing they do is blame the mother and make her entirely responsible for handling the disabled child because it's "her fault". Enji does this with Rei and blames her "weak constitution" even though ironically it was his flames that were burning Touya and his mother's resistance to extreme cold was actually a strength.

Deku and Ochako: Two threads running in parallel

MHA has a vibrant cast with each character having its own quirks and perks. We often find ourselves shipping them and rooting for them to become cannon but in the midst of these shipping wars, we often overlook their personal journeys become true heroes.

One such pair is IzuOcha.

People often view it as a straight vanilla ship and ignore everything that makes it special/different from the other so-called vanilla ships. The fact that their journeys were always running in parallel, fighting side by side, inspiring each other in a give and take relationship...but let's start from the very beginning....

.

.

Chapter 3: The first time we meet Ochako, she saves Deku from falling on his two feet. She's nervous, but not as much as Deku. She wishes them both good luck and leaves. Now, this was their first meeting, and this is where their "Do your best" starts.

They both did their best in the exams, where Deku saves Ochako from the giant robot and Ochako in turns saves Deku from falling, like literally saving his life this time around.

Chapter 4: Then, the next time we see her, she was vouching for Deku, even at the cost of her own points. This also parallels her speech later in the manga.

Chapter 7: They enter UA, finally meet each other again, and become friends. In fact, on the very first day, Ochako says that she likes the name Deku, as it kinda gives a "You can do it!" vibe. Another fun thing to note here is that in Japanese she refers to 'gambare' which literally means "Do your best!".

She changes the meaning of his name, from an insult to something inspiring and it might have looked like a comedy gag moment at that time, but when you look at future chapters, it was much more than that.

Chapter 8: The very next chapter, we see Deku facing off Bakugo and saying "He's the Deku who does his best!". And we even see the importance of what Ochako said as she inspired him to do his best. In that test, they both pass with flying colors.

Chapter 22: Then not after too long, we find out about Ochako's motivation to be a hero, which was to earn money so that her parents can have easier lives. Some might say, there are other ways to make money, why choose heroism?

Well, you need to look deeper into the character, especially for someone like Ochako that has layers to her character. She's not someone you can tell by looking at first glance. From outside, she might be all sweet and cherry but from the inside, there's a storm. She has an iron will, and that she depicted again and again, be it her battle with Bakugo in sports fest or her quirk awakening and battle with Toga in the 2nd war. She has always been like that.

On the surface, she presents herself to be your average girl next door, but when you look behind that facade, you'll see a plethora of emotions.

She laughs with everyone but cries alone.

Her crying after Deku leaves (ch 37) or her thoughts about "who saves the heroes", or her "I didn't know the first thing about Toga" thoughts...

She has thoughts and emotions that are deep and not for not everyone can comprehend them. Some people might still see her as nothing more than a blatant love interest but we know that's far from the truth and that's why we'll deep dive into her character a little more.

Ochako has a lot of self-respect >>>

Despite what inspires her to be a hero, she refuses to take help from anyone. This is depicted when she refuses to take help from Deku in the SF. She felt embarrassed when Iida challenged Deku as that made her question her own ideals.

They were all there to become heroes and that makes them all rivals, even if they are friends and thus she challenges him to meet her at the finals.

I think that was a very underrated Ochako moment. (can't present all the pictures because Tumblr only allows less than 10 pics, but you can see it in the collage above)

From the very first day, her "let's do our best!" moment to their battle with Toga in the final war, she has been challenging / inspiring Deku but due to her soft personality, it gets overlooked very often.

It parallels Bakugo in a way and I love the parallels between Bakugo and Ochako but that is for another day.

So it's safe to conclude that just like Bakugo who has been a hardcore rival in power and ideals, Ochako has also been a friend / rival both in terms of power and ideals, although it might be more of her morals that inspire him the most. He even thinks about her in his final battle with Shigaraki, because she was the only one that resonates with his idea of saving villains but more on that later.

Chapter 37: After her loss, Deku goes to check on her and it turns out she was doing fine. She has taken it very positively or so it may seem but as soon as Deku leaves, she starts crying and Deku overhears her. He even feels guilty about not being able to do anything for her.

And that shows you how perceptive Deku really is. He's not some dumb, dense MC that has no clue how others are feeling. He's very sensible and wouldn't cause unnecessary trouble.

Chapter 45: After the sports fest, we see everyone choosing their hero names and Izuku chooses Deku. We even get a reaction panel of both Ochako and Bakugo. Bakugo always looked down on Deku and used it as an insult to call him 'useless' but Ochako changed its meaning to some positive, more meaningful.

Then in the following chapters (ch 46) they both go for their internships where Deku learns to control his 5% from Grand Torino and Ochako learns combat from Gunheads and I might say, IzuOcha might be the only people who learned the most from their internships, lol.

From then onwards, they both continue to grow in terms of power, as the story starts focusing on other characters as well, and we see less of her. Plus, her slight crush starts to develop from that point on, which made most people overlook her entire story.

But let's go over some of the key moments from that time:

Aoyama and Ochako vs 13: Aoyama teases Ochako about Deku, and this might be the first mention of her having a crush on Deku (ch 67)

Izuku encounters Shigaraki at the mall: If it wasn't for Ochako, everyone in the mall, including Deku would have died, making it the 2nd time Ochako saved Deku's life, quite literally (ch 68 and 69)

God knows what would have happened if Ochako didn't come back at the right time. She called the police and alerted everyone. Ochako doesn't get enough credit for her responsible and mature nature.

Chapter 76-77: Deku vs Muscular and Chapter 80: Ochako and Tsuyu vs Toga 1.0 where Deku and gang's interference saved them kinda like how Ochako's presence in the mall saved Deku from Shigaraki, although that was more serious.

Chapter 100: Ochako, Iida and Deku meet Hatsume. Yeah, that iconic encounter that has another parallel.

Chapter 102: Ochako realises her feelings for Deku.

Chapter 105: Deku realises it's not Ochako.

The thing is, Deku knew from the get go that the stranger is not Ochako. He even says "Ochako has been training to use her quirk and now she can float herself for some time, ignoring the side effects. In a situation like this, she wouldn't forget to use it and to reveal herself to the enemy without a plan?"

No, you're not the Uraraka I know.

And that, says volumes out there relationship! Even though, we saw how Ochako had romantic feelings for Deku in the previous chapters, she still kept on improving and Deku acknowledged that!

Even if we don't see him analysing her quirk again and again like Bakugo, he always keeps an eye on her, because note that in the manga, she never specifically tells him about her improvement but he still noticed it!

He knows Ochako enough to know that she's smart and strategic and that she would never reveal herself in front of the enemy without a solid plan. So when he saved Toga (disguised as Ochako) he knew that it wasn't Ochako!

And that's pure respect.

It is one of the examples of "Show, don't tell".

Chapter 107: Ochako quickly followed Deku's idea because she trusts him so much.

Chapter 109: And later, we see her struggling to keep her feelings under check. Because she's so inspired by Deku to do her best, it becomes an internal battle of emotions. At one point, she wants to compete with him, on the other, she has feelings for him that she can't control.

After that, it's a brief period of self-reflection from Ochako. We start seeing her less and less. She gets busy with her internship with Ryukyu and the team and we later see that they help defeat that giant villain in ch 156.

We later see that one of the biggest developments of Ochako comes from ch 163, where she regrets not being able to save Sir Nighteye.

In the class 1a vs 1b arc, she saves Deku when his quirk blackwhip goes haywire. If it wasn't for her quick thinking, again God knows what would have happened.

She may not have numerous power quirks like Deku but she's a capable hero in her own right and that is depicted in the Joint training arc when not only does she save Deku, but also manages to KO 3/5 people in the opponents team (Monoma, Rei, Poltergeist). She was literally the MVP of that arc.

Plus we get to see more of what runs inside her brain. Her ideology about forms the basis for one of the greatest arcs in the story.

"Who saves the heroes when they are in pain?"

After JTA, they again go to their internships and when they come back Deku apologises for what happened during JTA. Note that even though it was never shown, he was still concerned about Ochako.

He was sad that he unknowingly hurt her (much like how he says thank you very later after her speech). But Ochako on the other hand brushes it off, saying it's not a big deal and it inspired her to use wires much like Sero and Deku.

So, we see this relationship of give and take come into play again and again where they both inspire the other to do their best. Then they share a cute fist bump.

On Christmas, out of pure coincidence (wink** wink** Horikoshi) they both receive each other's presents.

Also note that, Ochako gets her hero costume upgraded after JTA, where she starts using those grappling hooks to grab and throw stuff, much like Deku and also attaches tiny rockets in her heels for more mobility.

Plus, that cute tiny pocket where she keeps her AM plushie❤️(that she got as Christmas gift from Deku). I think, after Bakugo and Deku, she has the most useful costume upgrade in the entire class!

Also, when Deku has a battle with Shigaraki in the 1st war, there is an entire chapter dedicated to Ochako vs Toga. Plus, she also gets to witness the aftermath of the war and her face, even now serves as the highlight for that chapter (ch 295).

The ragged blanket of heroism shed that day and what was left was the remains, of what it means to be a hero.

And for someone who was initially there for the money, it is especially important that she gets to witness this. It was the true horrors of hero society. She witnessed all this and still chose to stay in that line of work already says that she is way past her old thinking.

She's not some government agent like Hawks or Nagant or training to become the No 1 hero like Deku, Bakugo or Endeavour. Her life is simple, much like the citizens she saves, but it still matters.

And that's what makes her a People's Hero.

And finally after the first war, Deku leaves UA and Ochako rethinks "Who saves the heroes when they are in need?" and after that point onwards there was no looking back as her character arc takes a great turn!!

We get an entire arc of Dark Deku, indulging more and more into the darkness of his own powers and almost 10 chapters later we see a completely different Ochako.

I still remember people talking about it when ch 319 dropped.

This Ochako is ready to take action and takes shit from no one! One of the greatest character developments if you ask me. Ochako in a way is more like Lucy from Fairytail. Gets ignored most of the time but their moments are just as important.

Even though Deku went around saving people for days, people started viewing him as a villain. Ochako's speech brought him back to being a human.

Not a hero, not a villain, just a human.

And then we see her thinking about Toga, and how she didn't know the first thing about her in ch 342. She had a chat with Deku, where she confided in him. I think that kind of emotional intimacy is what makes their relationship interesting.

Her morals matter a lot to Deku, believe it or not! And that's why when she asks him to leave and take care of Shigaraki in ch 348, he thinks back to this conversation and unwillingly obliges.

Because he has faith in her, the kind that cannot be expressed in words. That comes from a long time understanding of each other...that is beyond comprehension for many people and that's why her "Do your best!" matters because that's what they have been doing since the day they met!

~Sunshine

An absolutely horrible, evil oneshot idea

Dabi dies sometime before he can reveal his identity to the world.

Since he was such a big unknown, his genome is tested to find any relatives so the heroes might learn who he was.

Endeavor gets the worst phone call of his entire life.

A little something for Linguistics Tumblr.

So the Crunchyroll newsroom isn't a "room" so much as a Slack channel. We have news writers all over the US, in Australia, and in Japan. This means we have something akin to 'round-the-clock coverage, but it also means that our schedules respective to each other are skewed. For example, when the East Coast contingent is starting their day, the Japan contingent is shutting down for the evening.

Because of that, we started experimenting with greetings that could apply when Party A was coming in for the morning and Party B was leaving for the night. One person came up with "konbarning": a combination of "good morning" and "konban wa" ("good evening" in Japanese). It stuck.

Over the following months, "konbarning" got shortened to "barning" and other permutations. Now, a year or some later, this is how we announce our arrival: