They're dangerous because they're targeting our kids or threatening world order.Originally Posted by neflight86
They're dangerous because they're targeting our kids or threatening world order.
If it's not Isuzu-chan Mii~
I don't quite understand where this is comming from.We simply are expected to take at face value who is the most dangerous villain according to the story, but we aren't given self evident reasons to believe it.
Obviously All for One is the strongest and most dangerous villain.
He can basically own every single ability and thus has always an answer to someone he goes against.
Other than that, we aren't really told who is the strongest or most dangerous villain in this show.
The rest are just villains who have the criminal energy to be a villain. It doesn't matter how dangerous they are compared to someone else. It was never truely about the ability potential. It has always been about what the individual achieved with their ability and how he used it and what he wanted to do with it.
Stain for example killed a lot of heroes with his ability. Thus he is a dangerous individual because he uses his quirk to kill heroes/people.
That's it.
The same goes for Overhaul.
He is elusive and cunning and it was more about him staying in the "legal" area and the heroes had to find some dirt, so they could invade his hideout.
His ability wasn't what was dangerous, te technology he achieved by torturing the small girl is what made him a potential threat to all heroes and people in general.
And we've seen what that technology did. We have multiple heroes that are now without any powers. Including Lemillion.
I never felt like that the story told me "you have to fear this guy because he is super powerful" - aside from All for One of course.
The Villain group, in my eyes, isn't even actually truely powerful. As mentioned earlier Toga seems to be average at best and the whole group itself more like a "villain-training-group". The opposite of UA, so to say.
Last edited by KrayZ33; Tue, 03-30-2021 at 05:14 AM.
They are different, but they serve as forms of measurement. Arbitrary or not, they can be compared to provide a frame of reference in a given matchup. Who had more 'Nen' capacity in Netero Vs. King Ant in the Chimera arc? We knew going in which side could brute force and which had to be more tactical about it because it was clearly communicated to us beforehand, and I would argue made the fight richer. You could do lots of weird things with nen, but there being a quantity of it is such a handy tool for the audience's benefit.
Tools like jobbing and quantifiable power systems are useful to set the tone and guide expectations of the audience. In MhA, often enough I am left to decipher the likelihood of victory solely on other metrics like 'who is going to around in this story longer', or 'who is important to the narrative?' which are not engaging ways to predict the outcome of a fight.
That is correct, long and short. I get lost in the weeds because I'm trying to view them (the villain progression) through the shounen lens. I meant to say that I'm not convinced on an individualistic level that these villains are particularly threatening. Characters acting that way are certainly a dangerous element that society should not bear. My confusion stems from being unable to place their relative capability. Due to the nature of quirks in MhA, it feels like it wouldn't take much to simply 'introduce' another enemy with the same or greater danger. Since so many people are running around with powers, all it takes is for the author to decide that a random person has a super powerful quirk and we have a new arc. That is true of any work of fiction, and I trust the author to not simply go hog wild, but since there is no rarity or understood limits on quirks conceptually, the possibility is always looming.
Good points. Allow me to revise my original statement. Aside from AfO, the rest of the villains seem like random people who happen to have criminal intent (as you mentioned, it's what you do with your ability). That isn't bad inherently, and makes the show more 'realistic', if anything, as that is how the real life criminal element acts. My disconnect is that these villains are propped up with entire arcs of events and they feel like 'drops in the bucket' of what could happen to the superhero society if people begin to riot or act up en mass. The (villain) abilities are even impressive, but the world building hasn't suggested that there aren't tons more people with even more broken powers that should be more worrisome.
My problem is that I am measuring this by traditional shounen standards when this is less and less a traditional shounen story- that is good because not everything needs to rehash the same story arc. I'm just still adjusting (5 years in).
*shrug* I guess. But it's hardly necessary.
Quirks are basically like Stands. You can't measure them, and it's all in how you use them.
I wanted to point out:
Isn't something like a "bounty" what you critized? The story tells you who the bad guy is, but you never actually see why.
"He has the highest bounty, thus he is the biggest chad in town."
Quirks are what abilities or techniques are in Naruto imho.
You can measure Chakra all fine and well, but Naruto with unlimited Chakra was overall a pretty shitty combatant early on.
Last edited by KrayZ33; Wed, 03-31-2021 at 12:00 AM. Reason: Fixed quote
Assuming the double negatives here are intended, this sentence reads that
".. the would building has suggested that there are tons more people ... should be more worrisome."
Any hero that is strong could potentially decide to fuck up society and become worrisome. This show hasn't been second guessing any established heroes yet.. so..
..No the world building hasn't suggested strong people should be worrisome?
If they did, you'd have someone in the government being Batman and developing contingency plans for everyone.
If it's not Isuzu-chan Mii~
Well, Endeavor was painted as being pretty problematic. But he's been getting better, rather than worse.
I see what you mean. My wording could use some improvement. The distinction I would like the show to make is how the randos the cast have gone up against so far measure up against the heroes, like the top ten they bothered to rate at the end of last season. I understand that doing so arbitrarily would be wonky at best, and is one of the silliest tropes of shounen story telling ("X is roughly equivalent to Y", said a bystander). Also, because of how abilities are unquantifiable, direct comparisons are nearly impossible anyway. It is my unreasonable desire as a lover of such things from series past, nothing more. It wouldn't even fit the storytelling here; nothing is that tidy, and that is a good thing that I'm not fully used to.
Bounties and power levels and so on are more, to me, tools to set general competency expectations. If someone has a ridiculous bounty, that suggests that they are capable of and have indeed committed assorted criminal activity to justify it and that government agents to a certain degree (the bounty) have failed to subdue them. There is always wiggle room in those measurements (like your Naruto example), but they are still a comfort to me.
To get into a more detailed example, Overhaul had a pretty decent arc last season. He was a Yakuza boss with a pretty neat power. How does his individual 'strength' compare to high school heroes and pro heroes from the onset? No idea. No fight record and no jobbing. Leading up to the confrontation with him, I had no clue how to gauge his ability until the actual fight, other than what I could glean from him being 'the boss'. Due diligence was done in the meeting with Sigaraki, and he was menacing, but when it came time for the big fight, I had no idea what tactics or strategies were being used. I didn't know the limits or ranges of his reconstitution ability, and if I had, it would have probably slowed the fight to a crawl with exposition. Rule of Cool was how that played out. Which is fine- a jolly good fight, but not one that I remember much detail about other than the OST and sakuga. This concept is, as I'm sure you have noticed by now, hard for me to put into words.
It is personal preference, but I want a ballpark estimate of who should be at an advantage in a fight going into it. That's my minor hangup. Boku does actually provide it somewhat with the rest of its world building. Shame on me making it sound like a big deal when it really isn't, and thanks for calling me out on it.
Just this episode, Hawks has been seen cavorting with Dabi, so something is clearly going on there, as far as hero second guessing.
Sorry for the roundabout prose. My intent is to say that I think the potential for limitless threats is an unfortunate feature of Boku's setting. In other shounen series, fighters are typically a subset of the population separated by some training or innate ability- a limited talent pool to draw from. When 80% of the population could conceivably have nuke grade powers with little 'counter play', I wonder how the world hasn't collapsed on itself, which is a mild distraction, but that was addressed in episode one, season one- heroes keep that from happening, and that is perfectly fine for this story.
I figure that if a low budget youtuber like Gentleman can somewhat push Midoria in a fight, or social media creepers like Toko can become acolytes of Shigaraki and take down pro heroes (lock hero), the capability of randos is already plenty dangerous. That's not counting whatever new 'threats' will pop up at the grocery store, or wherever. Its a feature, not a bug; I'm just treating it like one
I always thought Stain was a twisted version of a teenage mutant ninja batman, though of course not for these reasons. I wouldn't be surprised if there was somebody keeping an eye on heroes...
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I get the feeling that the last season maybe should have ended one episode earlier. Because we're clearly continuing from the events of that one episode as though it was actually the start of a new arc...
I don't fully recall the last episode of the previous season.
But I kinda remember that it left the feeling of "the heroes will work together to fill the hole "One for All" left behind... and I think that's only possible because it ended at the point it did.
Ending it earlier would mean that it would've remained uncertain, but I think the idea was to leave us with a different "feeling".
The last episode ended fine. Just watching it again is enough of a reminder.
If it's not Isuzu-chan Mii~
It was Endeavor's fight with Nomu, which this episode was a direct continuation of.
Ya that's what I remember, and it ended in a way that made Endeavor and the other heroes look like they could pick up the fight.
And I believe that's how the season was supposed to end, even if the arc itself is still ongoing.
Gotta love the fact that they bothered to re-introduce everyone from the main cast and all their abilities but not that one guy who had one appearence during the school-tournament.
I have no idea why he used that other guy's voice to brainwash.
Probably because that other guy is the beast tamer/master. Silly idea I got reading your question, but why not for a guy who gets all the beast attributes to have a tamer/master.
Or at least a partner he gets better results with. For a brainwasher, using a significant other voice probably helps a lot.
All the things I really like to do are either illegal, immoral, or fattening. And then: Golf.
You get brainwashed by him if you answer his question/statement/taunt.
Enemies that know of this naturally would avoid answering if asked, so the dude changes his voice to trick you.
If it's not Isuzu-chan Mii~
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I'll reassert that Boku no Hero does group battles probably better than any other shounen. Tactics, mind games, and clever usage of powers were just what I expected.
As an aside rant, one thing that always bothered by about Fairy Tale was how it constantly bloated its cast and then spent more and more time trying to give them all some screen time. Like scraps for those character's fans; dug its own grave with that. MHA is content with giving side characters a spotlight and then simply allowing them to disappear until they are needed in the story again. Class B hasn't been shoehorned into the series more because it's really not about them, and I would like to call out the restraint in that.
To be fair, Dragon Ball and Naruto do that, only with way fewer characters.
Like Shino or Lee? Fuck you. Like anyone except Goku and Vegeta? Double fuck you!
That episode was dope! Amazingly fun.
It's so much better than the average power vs power theme most shounen fights/shows have.
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Good ol' shounen spirit with a side of chunni *chef's kiss*. Is hawks genuenely interested in raising another hero, or is he a triple agent?
I'm sure it has been scrutinized to death already, but apparently dark shadow did not levitate due to his cord attached to Tokoyami serving as an appendage and supporting weight, but because the darkness itself is weightless or apparently anti-gravity, and the teather is keeping it from floating off... This power property doesn't make much sense, but it looks neat. I like when a character learns an entirely new application of their power, even if it really shouldn't have been explained.
Kendo has always had one of the more cute character designs. But that quirk- I don't even know how she got into the hero course with a quirk like that, and still says Yao still has better grades than her. I wonder what her advantage is?
Mushrooms. Just mushrooms. I wonder how big the board with hero powers is that Horikoshi throws darts onto to decide who gets what?
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