The FAILURES of My Hero Academia's War Arc

shut up

It's also weird that All Might and Endeavor are on the same team during Villain Hunt but we completely skipped All Might's thoughts and feelings on Endeavor abusing his family and having children to surpass him.

The Hawks wings one will always get me. It was OBVIOUSLY pointing to heavy consequences for Hawks' actions but then... his feathers just grow back a little slower. Dark Shadows comment does nothing but mislead the audience into thinking there will be consequences.

I honestly can't believe Gran Torino is still alive. It would've definitely made more sense to kill him off during the war or even at the hospital. Not only that but it would make Deku wearing his cape even more significant. The fact that even after so many chapters he's still nowhere to be seen but somehow alive, makes me question if killing him was the intention but Hori backed down or if he still (somehow) has a purpose in the story

The newest chapters really do make me realize that Star and Stripe wasnt needed at all

The lack of reactions from the kids is definitely one of the biggest issues. It's like they're not even relevant characters anymore. I was so hyped to see what effect going through this crazy fight and learning about all these crazy revelations was going to have on them. I had so many questions, like "Will any of the students rethink wanting to be heroes and walk away from the fight?" "Will any of the students become vengeful after seeing so much death?" "How will Todoriki, Ochako, and Iida react to the truth about Deku?" "Will anyone be hurt or angry that Deku has struck out on his own?" "Will Bakugo struggle to recover physically from what seemed like a very significant injury, or will having come so close to death have any sort of emotional impact on him?" It seemed like such a perfect time to deepen our favorite characters or ones who haven't gotten the spotlight yet. But instead, it was just... nothing.

Still crazy to me how we saw All Might watching the broadcast, and we never see his reaction to Endeavor's abuse. Stuff like this is why PLW loses value over time.

All Might: it's a hero's job to meddle All Might, after the Todoroki family situation got exposed: well i'm staying tf away from that shit

what annoys me the most is that the show started differently. Everything seemed to matter, every decision had lasting results. Be it Ida's injured hand and often desperation to overcome his failures as a hero when it mattered, Deku's injuries, Momo's insecurity for failing during the school festival, Bakugo's descent into cornering himself until he breaks, Shoto's opening up and trying to figure his position out, but not without steps back and forth. For most characters that had any significant screen time, there were elements that were lasting, that were defining, that went on to linger even when the plot didn't focus on it anymore. And all of that is gone now, and that is what frustrates me the most. It feels like giving up on the story, and trying to wrap it up, not making an actual good story anymore.

MHA just don't hit like it used to. All these super 'BIG' events have been happening for the last couple of arcs, but I consistently finish each chapter feeling mostly underwhelmed. There's been no room for storylines to breath, and a lack of long term consequences that personally resonate with the characters makes everything feel kinda hollow. Still waiting for that moment where everything magically clicks for me again, but like this video says, it might be a case of too little too late.

14:50 also post War arc Deku’s power scaling is a complete mess now, we spend hundreds of chapters keeping up with his progress up to him using 20%+ Air Force and Black whip, then for the war arc we jump to 45% (which isn’t a big deal for me) and Float, ok it’s a bit much but we still kinda know his limits, then on act III he gets new prostetics who just vaguely help his arms, danger sense, smoke, Fa Jin and supposedly All Might level strength in a single arc, in the current arc I have no idea how strong Deku is, how far can he go with his quirk, the limits of his support gear, NOTHING How am I supposed to be invested in a fight between him and shigaraki if I don’t know the limits of either of them???

You know, I didn’t even realize that the kids had not mentioned anything about Midnight’s death and how it affected them after the war. I also felt like how Deku’s character arc when he was going off on his own was rushed. I (personally) would’ve liked it if we got to see his mental struggle a bit more and give it time to breathe and seem more dangerous and unhealthy, then have his friends come in and save him.

One big problem is that this show pushes the other classmates into background characters at first it seems like all the characters will get focus and we learn more about them NOPE there just nothing while we focus on the Shonen trio just like every other Shonen.

The sheer number of prosthetics which can keep up with the biological powerhouse Quirks makes me feel like the point of Izuku ever getting a Quirk in the first place was pointless. If Aizawa and Midnight, normal human adults if not for their niche Quirks, can compete with some of the stronger villains in the series just with hero tools, why did anyone ever believe that Midoriya COULDN'T have been a hero without a Quirk?

The consiquences of the adult characters being undermined like Mirko losing limbs, Best Jeanist coming back suddenly, Hawks having his back incinerated and Aizawa being seriously injured also damaged the themes of the story. If the adult characters were all out of comission (save Endeavor since he still has a lot of story left to tell), it would force class 1-A to step up and be the next generation. But the adult characters are still leading the fight and class 1-A isn't nearly as central as they should be. Monoma having to use Erasure is excellent, but with Aizawa there it's more like Monoma is a living prosthetic for Aizawa in the way the scene is framed. Hawks could have fully passed the torch onto Tokoyami, but Hawks is still on the front lines. Ojiro would be a decent successor to Mirko in terms of fighting style and yet Mirko just has prosthetics instead, and what could have been a good arc for Ojiro never happened because the story just kept moving along at that breakneck pace. And having Mirko, have to slow down would give her lots of opportunities to develop since she can't just brute force her way through life on her own terms anymore. Living vicariously through Ojiro would have been an interesting manifestation of her no longer being able to do everything she used to. Class 1-A played support to the Pro Heroes in the war arc, and in this final act, the heroes should be supporting class 1-A instead, and yet it somehow still feels like our characters in a coming of age story are just the apprentices. Bakugo and Deku feel like the only members of 1-A who matter anymore, with a few of them like Tokoyami and Jiro getting compensated with moments. The consiquences of the war arc were all undone but it undid the story's potential even more

I also got really upset about how Shigaraki has not been himself for over a hundred chapters, and how Shigaraki didn't react to Twice's death. But another thing that upset me is that no one has even mention Mr. Compress, it's been almost a hundred chapters and we don't even know if he's even alive or not.

When I was a kid I use to write wattpad (sorry). I'd normally think about a powerful scene and build the story around that so that I could eventually write out that scene. That's what I think MHA is doing, making strange decisions and fucking up the pacing so they can shoehorn in an emotional scene

I'm anime-only and this is taking making me second guess watching the next seasons.

Actually, Midnight was never Momo's mentor. She just gave her praise a couple of times throughout the story. That's it. There really wasn't that great of a connection between the two. Which is why this didn't create any new narrative for Momo's character to take part in. Instead, it looks like Horikoshi is setting up Mina Ashido as the one who is going to fight Midnight's killer.

Thank you for pointing out that whole "oh but that was the whole point so that makes this terrible plot development okay :D" fallacy. Just because you intended to shit on my plate the whole time does not mean I should tolerate you shitting on my plate. AFO taking over Shigaraki is imo the worst thing to happen to the story(tied with Horikoshi's desire to end the story in 1 year). I dont care if he planned to do that from the beginning, having your best antagonist and one of your very best characters be taken over by an objectively worse one and taking all his agency away in climactic moments that would have been incredibly narratively satisfying to see him go through while completely invalidating all of his growth is just a terrible thing to sit through.