My Hero Academia - The Story of Todoroki

[informationgeek]

If someone was to ask me to name one of the best superhero comics going on right now, I would say the manga called My Hero Academia. Honestly, in comparison to most things from the big name publishers and any Indie comics that are try doing their own little spin/parody/deconstruction on superheroes… this one just works so much better for me. It’s hard to explain, but I’ll focus on one of the current subplots/character arcs currently going on in the series that will hopefully show you why I and many others like it. Plus, we could always use more good superhero entries here.

Here's context for what's going on with a link to a previous entry on the series done by skjam.



We begin with Chapter 31: The Boy Born with Everything. Taking place during the middle of U.A. High’s Sports Festival, our main hero/lead, Izuku Midoriya, is pulled to the side by Shoto Todoroki after the Calvary Battle. During that fight, Todoroki noticed that Midoriya’s power was very similar to All Might's and he is wondering if he is All Might’s illegitimate kid. Midoriya denies it, but Todoroki then starts talking about his dad, Endeavor, who is the second most powerful superhero currently.

Speaking of which, All Might meets up with Endeavor and wants to have a friendly chat with the guy and his epic flame-beard. However…



All Might is confused, but Endeavor just tells him he’ll mold Todoroki to the point where he’ll eventually surpass him. Now we cut back to the teens as Endeavor’s kid talks about how much of a bastard his dad is and how he only thinks about making him stronger…









Midoriya thinks how they are like from two different worlds and can’t even begin to imagine what it was like for him. Todoroki says he’ll just rise above him only using his ice powers and is about to leave when Midoriya speaks up. He remarks that he always had help from others and could have only gotten this far because other people’s help. However…





With that, our manga switches over to a battle tournament, where the remaining students still in the Sports Festival will be facing off. We’ll focus only on the parts with Todoroki and as such, we’ll skip to Chapter 34: Victory or Defeat!







Then comes Todoroki’s first match and well…





So that guy is out and Todoroki moves onto the second round. Speaking of which, we jump several chapters ahead to #37: Midoriya and Endeavor. In this chapter, the second round is about to commence and the first people up are Midoriya and Todoroki. As our lead heads for the fight, he runs into Endeavor, who is looking for him.













With that, we move onto Chapter 38: Todoroki Vs. Midoriya. The two of them have one hell of a fight, Midoriya wrecking his arms in the battle due to the use of his power, while Todoroki seems to be doing just fine enough with just his ice powers. However, towards then end of the chapter…















We then proceed into Chapter 39: Shoto Todoroki: Origin. We open with Todoroki flashing back to his mom saying, “That’s fine. You’re not…” before the memory fades away.

The two young heroes continue their fight, Midoriya starting to gain the advantage by going all out at cost of his own body. He yells at our ice based teen about why he wants to be a hero and why he is going full out. He then says he can’t even imagine what it was like for Todoroki with everything he went through, but…













The remaining part of what his mom says is: “Decide who you want to become and be all you can be.”

Todoroki finally remembers all of it and the chapter ends with him unleashing his fire powers.

We end on Chapter 40: Emancipation, where we open up with Endeavor gleefully cheering and stating that Todoroki has accepted his fireside. He declares outloud and yells to his kid that it all starts for him now and he’ll be able to fulfill his dad's ambitions. However, Todoroki seems to ignore him and continues on with the fight.

The fight ultimately ends with Midoriya getting easily defeated, especially since he already destroyed a lot of his body using his quirk. Afterwards, Endeavor meets with his son and congratulates him on getting over his “childish rebellion". He’s ready to surpass him and train more…













And that wraps up the look at this particular story line for the moment at least. Hopefully, if you weren’t interested in or convinced about My Hero Academia before, maybe you are now after getting to read a good bit of it. Or at the very least let you see why it’s such a liked series.

Comments

[locuatico]

I think i know why this series works so well as a superhero "comic" (i know they are both comic, but i'll use "comic" to talk exclusively of american mainstream comics for simplicity).

1) this series GETS the concept of legacy characters that pre-52 DC had in their comics for a long time. the "taking batman's mantle" or Wally West becoming The Flash. that idea of mentor figure that was also like a father or brother/mother or sister when the new character took the mantle.

2) the main hero...is heroic. he believes in the more idealistic idea of a hero and he is proven right in this pseudo silver/bronze-age world. hell, i think the scene of him talking to Todoroki and come through him is something that could be straight out of a Superman or WW story

3) this was done outside of america. small thing, i know, but i think the fact this series was done in japan (just as how it could be done in any other part of the world), made it easier for the autho to give their own little spine to the concept. realize that superheroes have a lot in common to shonen series and combine the two.

[md84]

Concerning the second point: the main character is ironically even more heroic than his role model and mentor All Might. The entire reason All Might chose him to be his successor was because he had the courage to rush in and help Bakugou in the first chapter despite being powerless. All Might meanwhile held back and nearly abandoned Bakugou because he had reached his daily limit. Seeing Deku rush in despite the odds inspired All Might to break his limit (causing some damage to himself in the process) and save Bakugou. Deku inspired All Might to do better -- and that's what being a hero is all about.

[adnor]

Easily one of the best new mangas around.

I certainly didn't expect Todoroki's story to be so... dark, but it made sense, and he doesn't look like he'll become a moody dark character like Sasuke. God I hope he doesn't become Sasuke 2.0.

Another thing I like is that this is one of the few cases that the cliche of "if you use your abilities you will kill yourself/shorten your life/not heal properly" is actually true. I mean, Deku's right hand, even after the surgery and Recovery Girl's power still looks awful, I wouldn't like to be him in a cold day.

[md84]

I like how even after this inspiring moment, Todoroki still hasn't gotten over his issues entirely. It's somewhat more realistic that a single epiphanic moment doesn't cure a lifetime of trauma. This is shown in Todoroki's next match -- he once again holds back his fire and defeats his opponent only using his ice.

[adnor]

Yeah, there's no way he'll get over everything. I mean luckily he's a good guy, if he was a villian I doubt anyone would doubt his reasons, but really, he's a pretty cool dude, he even ask Sero to forgive him for using so much ice in their fight!

Todoroki's growth as a character will be become his own hero, not the weapon his father wants nor shout "well fuck YOU dad" in every fight. I'm sure he'll prefer to use his right side, but use fire when he really needs it. In his fight against Iida using ice was clearly the best strategy, so he didn't have to use fire.

[md84]

The way he stares at his left hand for a panel after the match kind of implies that he's still quite understandably ambivalent about using his fire.

[skjam]

Note the noses on those American cheerleaders!

[md84]

I like how this series actually has the main character lose in the Tournament Arc, and not even making it to the Finals. Not something you see too often in Shonen.