Boku no Hero Academia Manga 318 – Reckless

Damage Control Council.

The leaves have fallen, branches have gone dry, skies have greyed and a light drizzle speckles the panels. All Might’s concerns are carried by Endeavor this time around. He calls Izuku and informs him they are changing tactics and international help is on the way. It’s time to wait. Izuku doesn’t listen; he’s got two legs, he can walk, and villains won’t wait so neither will he. Not even the vestiges can cut through his mad fixation. What is sad about Izuku’s ‘resolve’ is that it lacks rationality; what is painful about his ‘determination’ is that it’s actually a compulsion and a reaction to deep seated terror, rooted to his core. Deku is running on a dangerous fuel called fear.

What is tragic about fear fictions is that like any good piece of fiction they can sometimes coincide with the truth, since they are formed through trauma and exist because we expect they will protect us from the trauma repeating itself. Therein comes the problem: we turn these fear fictions into permanent ‘realities/truths’ or generalize their claim and cross-connect them with things that don’t belong together at all. For example: if Izuku stops to eat a meal, it doesn’t mean someone will die. But he made a decision that it means that due to his fear that he is failing everyone until he can find Shigaraki and The League of Villains. By functioning through these fear stories Deku is, ironically, steering further away from his goals and the values he stands for. Seeing as one can’t save another if they’re seriously compromised–or worse, dead.

Where’s Aizawa’s sleeping bag when you need it?

All For One’s symphony of maddening despair presses the plot forward at a bewildering pace. Midoriya Izuku has all the right ingredients for disaster: sleep deprivation, poor nutrition, physiological damage and psychological stress. Biologically, when cortisol and adrenaline levels are chronically through the roof–the ability to make rational decisions can be compromised. Given enough sleep deficit, people can even reach states of delirium. We’ve seen enough car crashes and accidents due to microsleeping (people briefly falling asleep at the wheel).

A lack of care when it comes to risks and danger, to act without thinking about the results of your actions: that’s what it means to be reckless (a befitting name for this week’s chapter). On top of his compromised biochemical condition is the broken fear software running in Izuku’s brain. Still, The Second stands by his position that Izuku walks the right path: “Inaction is not an option.” But it seems to me that sleeping is not exactly inaction in this context.

Hero Killer Stain was actually once a hero. He lost his way trying to change society and thus decided to take the matter into his own hands. Though parallels are being drawn as people question Deku’s intent and fear him, unlike Stain it’s unlikely Izuku’s hero journey will reach its peak at a complete disbelief in society. I’m betting that Stain’s future involvement with Deku will be about something else, since we’ve already seen this specific concept recently addressed again through Lady Nagant’s character. One of Izuku’s most consistent qualities is his optimism. So I don’t think The Dictator broke his will. Rather, Izuku is exhausted and in denial. Even as he is swarmed and suffocated, he’s talking about how he “just needs a strategy.” This for me was all the more heartbreaking.

*sobs in bakudeku*

I’ll be biting my tongue now because for this specific chapter I’ll be looking forward to the animated version. I’ve been singing too many praises for the manga and dismissed the anime quite a few times. I felt like Deku’s scene had tremendous potential to be more emotionally wrecking than it was. But alas, Horikoshi and every WSJ mangaka has to work around their 15 pages. Of course I was a fujoshi mess over Bakugou showing up on a two page spread looking all mature and perfect af, but I missed some climax with Deku’s scene. So BONES, I’ll be waiting. Please make it up for me.