The Complete FAILURE of My Hero Academia's War Arc

I forgot midnight died

gran torino surviving, midnight dying to nameless bums, but afo taking over shigaraki after peak character development was asinine

It's funny that now that Shigaraki's gotten super powerful with his decay Quirk, the story is decaying right alongside him.

Exactly... gran Torino deserved to die and his last words should have been "some people can only be saved by killing them." That would have organically pushed Deku into the dark Deku arc with so many pro heroes dead as well as a mentor's death.

I'm not surprised that Horikoshi fumbled so hard in that arc, I was fully aware of their writting issue the moment I realized that Overhaul was a much more compelling antagonist than Shigaraki and that they realized it as well so they litterally took away his arms so he could never come back into the story despite his philosophy and woes of the world being much more interesting to explore than whatever hand boy ever had.

Y'know, sometimes I wish stories like MHA and RWBY just stayed in that simple era, where there was danger and villains to fight, but it's still just a story about teenagers in high school or something. I have no problems with darker storylines or favorite characters dying, but when it's not handled well, it just sours the whole experience.

MHA is the living embodiment of the old writers saying, "If you find yourself constantly thinking about what your characters should do rather than their roles being obvious you probably have too damn many of them..."

And the biggest sin of them all: replacing Chainsaw Man with Handsaw Lad.

it always feels like some of the best stories get totally ruined because they cant afford having characters with brains or common sense :l

MHA went through several changes in themes. Horikoshi's vision changed somewhere in the middle. Tge whole point Shigaraki being finally liberated is just...pointless(?). Hori made us so invested in Shigaraki only to pull the rug under from us.

I will always take solid writing and predictable twists that make sense over the "shock twist" that comes out of nowhere that destroys the reality the author built. I will also forever be salty about how EVEN IN DEATH SCENES the ladies of MHA are sidelined and used as props for other characters. In this case, Midnight isn't even a prop since everyone forgets she even existed in the first place. C'mon, man. Do better.

The fact midnight was effectively fridged bothers me so much, I wasn't particularly fond of her she made me uncomfortable when she was on screen but she did NOT deserve the fridging treatment

It feels like author is rushing the story. Introducing many characters then killing them off immediately, or characters we've known for too long but no real character development. I think it would be good if the author emphasize on "academia" more. Like we get to see the gang when they are 3rd year or at least graduated to the MHA and become pro before the final war.

man, it seems like so many superhero story authors these days forget that pure shock value impacts a reader once, while a well written plot point an attentive reader could even see coming will impact them for a LONG time.

I agree, midnights death would have been fine if the show actually ever killed other characters, but now it’s just weird

one thing that really set me off abt the future of this series was giving deku multiple quirks. it could probably be made decent but how is anyone expected to keep up with deku who can use over 100% and like 6 other quirks. i wish it was more about everyone having to work together with how long they had spent together as friends/classmastes.

One thing that annoyed me about this arc is the ridiculous ass-pulls when it comes to Shigaraki's power. His quirk is decay, so when he uses it, the town starts to crumble cuz he's grown in power. That makes sense to a degree. But then the show tries to tell us that while his quirks are being erased by Aizawa, he can fly through the air, take Endever's strongest attacks directly with little damage, and eventually morph his body like Akira? BULL. FUCKING. SHIT. Every time they make any progress the story gives Shigaraki some new random bullshit advantage and it's frustrating.

Not every story needs a war arc. More authors should find creative ways to end their stories.

6:20 this was one of the many plot points or world building elements that Horikoshi introduced at some point but just decided that it didn't really matter. He's the anti-oda at this point. Instead of introducing a lot of elements to give us the sensation that the world is massive, he just throw shit around the arcs to make it appear that the bnha world is more interesting that it actually is.

MHA for its whole entirety never had the balls to kill characters who actually matter, so thats why the ones who do die, get treated like garbage anyway