|
I'm interested to see where Gentla and La Brava go from here though. They're on the cusp of villainy and vigilantism at the same time, so I could see it going either way. Right now Gentle's motivation is too vain for him to be a hero purely for the sake of saving people, so I kind of imagine they join up with the league of villains at some point, but the league also isn't in it for the publicity (at least not primarily).
|
# ? Apr 25, 2018 17:52 |
|
|
# ? May 10, 2024 22:10 |
|
I would've been more invested in this if UA was going to explode in five minutes.
|
# ? Apr 25, 2018 17:53 |
|
The emotional stakes are supposedly high, but the degree of villainy that Gentle intends to inflict isn't. UA shutting down is a second hand result given the fact that Deku himself only focuses on Eri and to a lesser extent the festival itself. But my problem is that I don't feel like Deku earned this victory. It feels incredibly cheap, just like when subpar shonen protagonists shout platitudes about friendship in order to power up and beat the villain by their lonesome. By contrast the people who poured their hearts into winning and put their beliefs on the line seems to be solely Gentle and La Brava, where Deku wins simply because A4O is the better quirk.
|
# ? Apr 25, 2018 18:04 |
|
Not really sure how "I want to be YouTube popular to prove my mom wrong" is any more worthy a cause to fight for than "I want my friends to have fun after all the hard work they've put into this", but okay. Like, I don't necessarily disagree that the fight itself came down to one quirk being better than another, but they were both fighting for real, but incredibly low-stakes, things. Both were basically fighting for variations on love.
|
# ? Apr 25, 2018 18:10 |
|
The stakes we're pretty high for Midoriya even if he didn't know it. Nedzu's conversation with the police commissioner pretty flatly is there to indicate some real bad poo poo would go down administratively if Gentle had crashed the festival.
|
# ? Apr 25, 2018 18:20 |
|
|
# ? Apr 25, 2018 18:21 |
|
It's a bit disingenuous/reductionist to say Deku only won because his quirk was better. He hit a few very real dead ends in this fight but got by on pluck and determination - not dissimilar from his fight against Muscular or Overhaul but this time he didn't hurt himself. He won because he wanted it more. Disliking Eri because she came out of a somewhat stale middle arc is a bit silly. He character wasn't the issue with the Yakuza arc, Overhaul being a filler villian was.
|
# ? Apr 25, 2018 18:21 |
Deku's not just fighting for Eri, it's also the entire school is putting their effort into something they care about and having that shut down, especially when they are getting over a lot of different traumas sucks. I kind of think that fight ended in a tie. Gentle got Deku off him pretty effortlessly but had to give up because he was going to inevitably be caught when the teachers showed up. He calculated it was better for LaBrava if he surrendered than fight and take the significant chance they would be beaten.
|
|
# ? Apr 25, 2018 18:26 |
|
Yeah, dislike Eri because sad little kids stink instead.
|
# ? Apr 25, 2018 18:26 |
|
SpacePig posted:Not really sure how "I want to be YouTube popular to prove my mom wrong" is any more worthy a cause to fight for than "I want my friends to have fun after all the hard work they've put into this", but okay. Gentle and La Brava start as goofy dudes that want to commit crime to somehow change society in some nebulous way. And then we see La Brava backstory and how she attached herself to Gentle because she believes in him, and he in her. Finally we see Gentle's backstory of how he couldn't make the cut as a hero and tried to somehow (erroneously) help society by being a gentle thief. Even if you think his backstory is dumb and uninteresting there is a progression of events where more and more of his story is revealed. By contrast Deku goes 'but eri' as his motivation repeatedly without change for several chapters. Deku feels static that entire fight as there was nothing narratively stopping him from winning after the first round.
|
# ? Apr 25, 2018 18:35 |
|
SITB posted:Gentle and La Brava start as goofy dudes that want to commit crime to somehow change society in some nebulous way. And then we see La Brava backstory and how she attached herself to Gentle because she believes in him, and he in her. Finally we see Gentle's backstory of how he couldn't make the cut as a hero and tried to somehow (erroneously) help society by being a gentle thief. Even if you think his backstory is dumb and uninteresting there is a progression of events where more and more of his story is revealed. Because this is the payoff and test of Deku's resolution and growth from the previous arc, not the instigator of growth.
|
# ? Apr 25, 2018 18:37 |
|
SITB posted:Gentle and La Brava start as goofy dudes that want to commit crime to somehow change society in some nebulous way. And then we see La Brava backstory and how she attached herself to Gentle because she believes in him, and he in her. Finally we see Gentle's backstory of how he couldn't make the cut as a hero and tried to somehow (erroneously) help society by being a gentle thief. Even if you think his backstory is dumb and uninteresting there is a progression of events where more and more of his story is revealed. Deku plainly explains to Gentle that what he's doing is bad and will both shut down the festival and make a little girl cry, and Gentle basically says "that's fine, as long as I can achieve my dream (be famous)" which rightly makes Deku want to beat him more.
|
# ? Apr 25, 2018 18:43 |
|
This is a series about heroes fighting villains. It is a hopeful, optimistic series, where justice always triumphs over evil. Gentle, regardless of charisma, is a villain, thus evil, and acting entirely out of selfish ideals regardless of how much he may say it was to send ripples throughout society or whatever. La Brava, regardless of love, is a villain, who was fully willing to commit cyber-crimes because she fell in love with someone. Deku is a hero who fought to protect a little girl's happiness as well as the efforts of both his close friends and other schoolmates, with no real gain to himself since the only reason he wanted the festival was for Eri's sake. Ergo, Deku wins, because he's the good guy. This isn't that hard to understand, people. Stop seeing Gentle and La Brava as good people, they're criminals, even if they're extremely charismatic and likable criminals with backstories that make us feel sad for them. They still were fully willing to ruin the school festival and make UA look horrible in public, most likely leading to the most important hero school in Japan getting closed, just because Gentle really wanted those YouTube views.
|
# ? Apr 25, 2018 18:45 |
|
SITB posted:Gentle and La Brava start as goofy dudes that want to commit crime to somehow change society in some nebulous way. And then we see La Brava backstory and how she attached herself to Gentle because she believes in him, and he in her. Finally we see Gentle's backstory of how he couldn't make the cut as a hero and tried to somehow (erroneously) help society by being a gentle thief. Even if you think his backstory is dumb and uninteresting there is a progression of events where more and more of his story is revealed. So we need to factor in Gentle and La Brava's backstory, but just take Deku as he is now without the backstory? Even though he clearly states during the fight that his fight is also to prove himself to the people that love him and believe in him? Like, I almost understand your point, but you're actively ignoring things to make it. It's very strange.
|
# ? Apr 25, 2018 19:15 |
|
Reducing Deku's motivation to "But Eri" is just as reductionist as reducing Gentle's motivation to "But Fame" would be. Gentle was strengthened by La Brava's literal power of love, but this is a shonen and it's not hard to see that Deku is being motivated and empowered by love for Eri and his other friends as well. If you can empathize with Gentle's desire to not disappoint a lonely young woman, I don't see how you can't empathize with Deku's desire not to disappoint a physically and mentally abused little girl. And it's not even just to not disappoint her. If Gentle makes it into the festival and makes a scene there's going to be a fight and Eri is going to be exposed to more violence, which will traumatize her even more. Being separated from Gentle will traumatize La Brava but not as deeply. We don't need to see flashbacks to Deku's backstory during this fight. We were there for it. We know what's at stake. It's unfortunate that La Brava's happiness is being put at risk here, but Gentle and La Brava both made the choice to put themselves in this situation. Deku made the choice to participate in a school event. He should be free to do so without a couple of (lovable) assholes putting everything at risk. UA knew the risks when they decided to hold this event but the entire point is that they should be able to hold events like this for the kids that attend their school without a bunch of criminals loving everything up. If this event fails then UA will change for the worse.
|
# ? Apr 25, 2018 19:25 |
|
I feel like Gentle and La Brava’s backstory almost helps Deku’s position in a way. It’s sad and sympathetic but it doesn’t really give any reason for why infiltrating this high school is a good thing or would actually help them in any way. Sure La Brava would be happy because Gentle would have done something cool and maybe he’d get to pretend for a moment that because he snuck into a high school his life mattered. But I don’t think infamy would improve things for them at all. What would’ve happened if they won? Would anything really change. They’d still remain tragic and sad people. Gentle would still commit petty and not so petty crimes he’d still come into opposition with heroes and his partner would still consider death at the idea of being separated from him, which would be a constant problem. Gentle and Deku’s motivations come from the same place. They’re fighting for people they care about and their goals originate from a childhood desire to be a hero. It’s just that for one of them their actions aren’t helping anybody least of all themselves or the people they care about.
|
# ? Apr 25, 2018 21:34 |
|
I dunno what'll happen in the next chapter but basically any other shounen would've had Gentle and La Brava get away like Team Rocket after some weird happenstance so both Midoriya and Gentle/La Brava learn a lesson about themselves and there'd be cliche split-panel ending with both parties renewing their respective goals with new perspective. Like that's a happy ending for both but it'd hardly be surprising or different in any way.
|
# ? Apr 26, 2018 00:24 |
|
Also realtalk if La Brava's response to him getting sent to jail for the crimes he rightfully did is "i will kill myself" without a hint of uncertainty then she might need the kind of help that Gentle can't give her, especially given the guy isn't exactly a spring chicken and will one day get caught/die entirely regardless of Deku's intervention.
|
# ? Apr 26, 2018 00:39 |
|
Conot posted:Also realtalk if La Brava's response to him getting sent to jail for the crimes he rightfully did is "i will kill myself" without a hint of uncertainty then she might need the kind of help that Gentle can't give her, especially given the guy isn't exactly a spring chicken and will one day get caught/die entirely regardless of Deku's intervention. It's almost as if they live in a society with absolutely garbage mental health care that leads to traumatized people with superpowers becoming 'villains' for lack of any of place in society. See also: Twice.
|
# ? Apr 26, 2018 01:28 |
|
did we all collectively forget how choked everyone was from the bakugou kidnapping? how close dekus mom was to taking him out of the school? if gentle made it in UA maybe woulda got shut down its gotten that serious of course people would be ignoring the flawed love loverlover and gentle have and gentles weird worldview where only his stamp on the world matters regardless of the hole it'll leave on the world.....MHA already had a villain who had better and more pious goals than the heroes and hes gonna beat the snot out of gentle when he meets him in jail cause his reasons are vapid and stupid edit: and i like gentle as a a character too but you're all insane if you dont see his dark streaks
|
# ? Apr 26, 2018 01:28 |
|
drjuggalo posted:did we all collectively forget how choked everyone was from the bakugou kidnapping? how close dekus mom was to taking him out of the school? if gentle made it in UA maybe woulda got shut down its gotten that serious The points regarding Gentle's actions not being good here (not that many people are saying they are) are kind of massively overshadowed by unironically praising Literal Serial Killer Stain. Wow.
|
# ? Apr 26, 2018 01:58 |
|
Gentle is tragic. He did what any good shounen protagonist would do and never gave up, but he's not the protagonist of a series and didn't have someone show up to suddenly guide him. It sucks. Gentle is about as real as any character in this particular fantasy universe is gonna get honestly.
|
# ? Apr 26, 2018 02:16 |
|
drjuggalo posted:did we all collectively forget how choked everyone was from the bakugou kidnapping? how close dekus mom was to taking him out of the school? if gentle made it in UA maybe woulda got shut down its gotten that serious If you're talking about Stain, Stain's goals are stupid, hypocritical, and self-destructive.
|
# ? Apr 26, 2018 03:05 |
|
Yeah Stain is way worse than Gentle. Gentle's delusional but Stain is outright psychotic and I wouldn't say his goals were better than the heroes at all.
|
# ? Apr 26, 2018 03:30 |
|
JahRoo posted:His stakes in the fight are twofold. Is UA getting shut down really all that bad of a thing? I mean, people do have a point that they did let a lot of really hosed up poo poo happen to their students, especially considering they are basically staffed by the Justice Friends. Maybe sending the kids to schools that aren't run by gerbils could be a good thing?
|
# ? Apr 26, 2018 03:52 |
|
Who What Now posted:Is UA getting shut down really all that bad of a thing? I mean, people do have a point that they did let a lot of really hosed up poo poo happen to their students, especially considering they are basically staffed by the Justice Friends. Maybe sending the kids to schools that aren't run by gerbils could be a good thing? UA is literally the best hero school in the country. In a country where people are already in a panic after the Nº1 hero, the pillar of justice, suddenly resigned. UA closing right now would not only tell villains "yeah, do as you please, we can't even form new heroes", it'd send people into an even greater panic and for all the right reasons. Not to mention how it could ruin the futures of every child involved. It'd absolutely be a bad thing.
|
# ? Apr 26, 2018 04:01 |
|
^^ There are other hero schools. UA closing would just make people think that tornado guy's school was better all along.Fabricated posted:Gentle is tragic. He did what any good shounen protagonist would do and never gave up, but he's not the protagonist of a series and didn't have someone show up to suddenly guide him. It sucks. Gentle is about as real as any character in this particular fantasy universe is gonna get honestly. Seriously, this. Y'all harping on about Gentle is just a criminal who doesn't care what happens in the wake of pursing his goals, like notorious super-criminal Monkey D. Luffy (who at one point lead a jailbreak of the worlds most dangerous convicts in order to get what he wanted) isn't the protagonist of the most popular Shonen Jump manga of all time. When Gentle said "That's what it means to pursue your dreams" it wasn't his selfish ideology, it was an accurate assessment of aggressively hierarchical society in which he lives where the only way to make it to the top is by stepping on someone else, regardless of how good your intentions are. If someone had told a young All Might "following your goal and becoming the #1 hero and symbol of peace will lead directly to a man abusing his wife and children" would he be selfish to do it anyway? ZiegeDame fucked around with this message at 04:08 on Apr 26, 2018 |
# ? Apr 26, 2018 04:05 |
|
Tbf Gentle’s already given up on his dream. I mean it’s easy to see from his backstory how and why he changed from aspiring hero to aspiring gentleman crook. But I don’t think he’s really chasing the same thing anymore.
|
# ? Apr 26, 2018 04:24 |
|
ZiegeDame posted:^^ There are other hero schools. UA closing would just make people think that tornado guy's school was better all along. And there are other Heroes and Endeavor had even resolved more incidents than All Might, didn't stop that All Might's retirement caused an upheaval of insane villainy that's running rampant, overworking everyone, with the populace left worried for the future. So of course if UA, the best hero school in Japan, even the world, shut down, unable to stop even a minor crook from breaking in and styling all over them, this would have no effect on anything. It certainly wouldn't be another pillar of society that just got torn away and left everything crumbling around it. It most definitly wouldn't empower criminals to be even more brazen, violent and lead to more incidents.
|
# ? Apr 26, 2018 04:29 |
|
Blaze Dragon posted:UA is literally the best hero school in the country. UA presents itself as the best. But you know, if Harvard billed itself as having the top anti-kidnapper training in the country and then let's one of their students get kidnapped then I'd be pretty comfortable sending some students over to Yale instead.
|
# ? Apr 26, 2018 04:35 |
|
Viridiant posted:
honestly it could change the entire country for the worse. if ua isn't safe how can the public be sure that any hero school is safe or really any place at all
|
# ? Apr 26, 2018 04:47 |
|
i was talking about uhhh overhaul guys sheesh
|
# ? Apr 26, 2018 05:03 |
|
One of the most heavily explored and central themes in this manga is myth-making and the different effects it has on inspiring people to action. When the myth is interpreted prosocially, you get Deku. When the myth is interpreted antisocially, you get Shiggy. In both cases, it was still all about All Might. Endeavor has quantifiably resolved more cases than All Might, but the public faith is shaken when he's the number 1 hero because he doesn't have the myth of being the Symbol of Peace. Even if in a hypothetical universe where this arc happened but the stakes were more "realistic" and people would just send aspiring heroes to a different school, it wouldn't change that in this universe UA closing would be comparably disastrous for society as All Might retiring. UA alone has the myth of being UA. UA isn't unique because its selection criteria is the most stringent or its job placement in prestigious and lucrative hero jobs is the highest; it's unique because in the minds of aspiring heroes it's a goal they can just run after and pour their hearts into. The myth of UA motivates the world around it like the myth of All Might motivates UA - it's why the students at Shiketsu academy push the extra mile to show they can compete with UA, it's why characters like Shinso and Monoma form neuroses around their relationship with the main cast, and it's why the general public watches the UA sports festival like the olympics. Everything in this world that's important is so because it's more than the sum of its parts. The myth of UA is the difference between kids with potential steering their virtue ethics into becoming Dekus or Shigarakis, or to a greater extreme between All Mights and AfOs. So UA closing would've been a really big deal and Gentle would've unintentionally caused a lot more damage than intended.
|
# ? Apr 26, 2018 05:56 |
|
ZiegeDame posted:^^ There are other hero schools. UA closing would just make people think that tornado guy's school was better all along. UA closing might make people begin to doubt that hero schools are a good idea at all, if the very best school with the very best heroes and the very best security can't stop villains from doing bad poo poo to students. Just because it's currently Class A from UA that has villains after them for reasons doesn't mean that Shigaraki might not decide later on that Tornado Town pisses him off and gently caress that up too. This is a problem because villains getting it in their heads that they can throw their weight around to close hero schools means they will become emboldened and begin acting more and more openly and unopposed in other ways until you end up with a return of the shithole dystopia that existed before All Might came onto the scene and convinced society that everything was okay because he is here. Kanos fucked around with this message at 07:45 on Apr 26, 2018 |
# ? Apr 26, 2018 07:41 |
|
Who What Now posted:UA presents itself as the best. But you know, if Harvard billed itself as having the top anti-kidnapper training in the country and then let's one of their students get kidnapped then I'd be pretty comfortable sending some students over to Yale instead. UA's sports festival literally replaced the Olympics in Japan. I'm willing to bet that as far as the story's concerned, UA is in fact the best and if it fails to protect its students then the other schools must be even more vulnerable.
|
# ? Apr 26, 2018 11:53 |
|
Really if the villain alliance or the newly inspired criminal underworld wanted to really put a dent in MHA's world they'd just start organizing attacks on any/all hero schools. The series itself kinda makes it appear that people just expect those schools to be safe because hey it's literally a gathering place of pros and kids training to be pros who are also authorized to use their quirks on school grounds. The best school in Japan gets a bunch of kids put in the hospital and one kidnapped, and even though in the end the school/police/pros rally and take Bakugou back and gut punch the VA it's still such a huge controversy that along with All Might being unable to fight anymore the police brass see further attacks on UA as being hugely damaging to society. The police start privately talking authoritarian measures might be needed, and all but threaten Nedzu over continuing to act like nothing is wrong with UA's security. People may be cool with kids training to fight badguys in costumes but they sure don't seem to be too keen on accepting that they can get hurt or killed or kidnapped doing it. One good massacre at a lower-ranked hero school would probably well call into question how great of an idea the hero school thing is.
|
# ? Apr 26, 2018 11:58 |
SyntheticPolygon posted:Tbf Gentle’s already given up on his dream. I mean it’s easy to see from his backstory how and why he changed from aspiring hero to aspiring gentleman crook. But I don’t think he’s really chasing the same thing anymore. He kinda is. His crimes are trying to highlight abuses by powerful people that can't be touched but end up a bit lame (a store knowingly selling expired pudding) and no one really cares. He's trying to be a hero outside of the system since the system totally rejected his dream of being a hero. The main characters from Vigilantes are absolutely criminals as well (one even working with the guy that connects villains with resources) but since they're the protagonists they have a plot that wants them to succeed and they end up being heroic.
|
|
# ? Apr 26, 2018 12:39 |
|
Shutting down illustrious prestige schools with elitist entrance requirements is a noble goal all its own that requires no further qualifiers to make worthwhile. Not making a good case against Gentle here yall.
|
# ? Apr 26, 2018 13:00 |
|
if they were in america he could just shoot up the school and it would be legal probably (i dont know the law in america)
|
# ? Apr 26, 2018 13:32 |
|
|
# ? May 10, 2024 22:10 |
|
where the red fern gropes posted:if they were in america he could just shoot up the school and it would be legal probably (i dont know the law in america) It's in the bill of rights.
|
# ? Apr 26, 2018 13:36 |