Boku no Hero Academia Manga – 337

The tears we cry.

“They’re less like friends and more like disposable tools.” If Touya is any smart, like we know all of Enji’s children are, he surely understood that this statement probably applies to himself and basically everyone else. I’d go so far as to say that for AFO, even OFA is not an indispensable tool, his ultimate goal could probably be achieved without it, but acquiring it would surely make it easier to get him what he wants (excluding the class 1A variable). I know this is some heavy speculation, but it’s still my personal feeling.

The case of Aoyama gets even more interesting, although he shares similarities with Izuku as in he was born quirkless and appears to have suffered bullying from his classmates, it was actually his parents who were more concerned with his quirklessness rather than himself. Yuga’s parents were afraid of what being different could potentially entail in his life, which brings me back to my previous assessment: Maman and Papa Aoyama were misguided, unprepared and irresponsible, but not outright awful. “My own dream sprang from that desire to conform.” He reveals. This shows a point of view we hadn’t seen before in the series: Yuga could’ve imagined a life without a quirk, certainly away from the hero industry, something 20% of the world’s population deals with, whereas Izuku could not fathom a life in which he didn’t become a hero–and I think we’re safe to assume that the life of a middle-class quirkless hero wouldn’t be the easiest. I mean, Bruce Wayne did it, but yeah, billionaire and all.

Take my hand ‘cause we’re walking out of here, love is all we need here.

As we all imagined, class 1A was distraught with the news of Aoyama’s betrayal and Katsuki was… Surprisingly introspective. “Another one of us who started out quirkless… small world, huh?”, could something similar have happened with Deku if given the opportunity? Kacchan probably ponders about that.

Due to the timeline of when he was given the quirk, Aoyama seems to be free of any implemented explosion mechanisms like Nagant was–AFO’s leverage against the boy is indeed his parent’s lives, and he’s been kept in check through the villain’s many eyes and ears. Before we continue, I want to take a moment to appreciate Horikoshi as a writer because Aoyama’s incompatibility with his quirk has been shown throughout the series, but I brushed it off because we’ve been exposed here and there to other cases such as Uraraka’s occasional vomiting and even Touya’s body. It was so witty on his part, because it really falls into the “we’ve seen quirk side effects in other instances.” But nope.

Mr. Compassion and Empathy (a.k.a Deku “Izuku” Midoriya) has none of that “I’m a villain” BS. He sees right through the walls of cheese Yuga has built, they were an S.O.S. Aoyama has been battling his own demons and trying to stand up to them in his own way. He can’t fool our main character, Izuku smells cries for help just as well as Tanjiro can smell demons. Deku saves to win and that’s just how he is, that’s just how he gets it done. “Doing wrong doesn’t make you a villain for the rest of your life!” cue in Tenko, Dabi, Spinner and Toga wearing party hats.

It seems AFO’s double agent is about to become a triple agent? You guys think he can do the job? How do you see this unfolding?

The Space Between – Dave Matthews Band (come and be cheesy with me, every friggin’ time Deku extends a hand this song plays in my head, it’s stronger than me).