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REVIEW: My Hero Academia - GN 12

I know Shounen are traditionally aimed at boys, but IDK what Jump series specifically have agaisnt letting girls be cool and badass two. Fairy Tail gets a lot of shit, but never in that series did I feel like the girls with significantly inferior to the guys. Lucy, Erza, Wendy, Mira, Cana, etc would all kick you ass just as hard as Natsu, Gray or Gajeel, that's what made them cool, they looked pretty but they were just as badass as the guys when push came to shove.

Compare that to a series like One Piece, or now MHA and the female cast either feel inept half the time, or are just eye candy. Robin, a woman who was a trained assassin, mind you, hasn't had a true proper one on one fight in One Piece since Skypeia, Nami has had one or two in the whole run, etc.

The only Jump series I feel isn't doing this right now is actually Black Clover, where Noelle, while not a combat marvel, doesn't mess around and is treated like a serious character, yeah she's crushing on MC, but that's not her sole defining character. Compare that to Ochako who went from someone serious and has rapidly devolved into "OMG I <3 Deku! BLUSH!"

Nah, Fairy Tail isn't great at it. Before the time skip it was good, but after the time skip, Erza and the other girls become more eye candy and mainly talk about there crushes. All of Lucy fights after the time skip was cut off or someone have to save her. Erza fights just become lazy (because I'm Erza) and put her in a sexy pose when she being torture. And Wendy became an idol that has old man lusting at her. (Lisanna did nothing)
I guess you never read World Trigger or The Promised Neverland or Dr. Stone (also Food Wars! sometimes). Noelle is good, but Chika, Erina, Emma, and Kohaku are better. The Ochako thing is more of character development, she hasn't been OMG Deku since this arc (That better than Erza OMG Jellal.) The Overhaul arc has a lot of shortcomings, I think Kohei over stuff the arc with new characters and wasn't able to fit everyone in correctly and it was the longest arc in MHA.

Comparing again to Ochako, she studied under strong Pros but outside of learning new moves for a fight (That we've seen once) I don't feel like she's grown as a person, where as I felt like Wendy was growing both as a wizard and as a person across her character arc in Fairy Tail.

This is just me talking now but I'd really love to see something with Ochako and Midnight, so that she can learn not only how to be a strong hero, but a strong woman as well, I think that'd be cool and give her character some needed growth in a way that doesn't have to be connected to Deku.

Ok. I was afraid my hero would drop in quality, but I should not be surprised. Every shonen series loses its luster after a few years running.

While I have not read the other volumes (up t volume 12) I don't think the series has gotten as bad as you are making it out to be.

I've actually read all of those but World Trigger. Emma is great, and Kohaku is alright (though she's held back by the relative youth of her series and it's non-combative approach). Erina is complicated since her evolution as a character is tied to her will to fight back, and I also worry cause where the manga just wrapped up an arc she was at a dangerous precipice of having too much of her confidence linked to Soma.

I will still say I thought the girls in Fairy Tail were fine and a better step in terms of female involvement than most series like One Piece or Naruto where most girls, good or evil, are mostly pushed to a sideline. While I agree that Erza did become a bit dependent on Jellal in terms of character growth what I was referring to was how her and Mira have respect, the series both shows and tells you they're strong, Natsu and Gray respect them, you don't mess around with these two they get taken seriously (Hence why Tartarous makes a point to separate them from the guild in their arc), etc.

I still think Ochako's character has really degraded since her exam with Aoyama, she's become very distilled into her relationship with Deku and not in a good way, to a similar vein of what happened in terms of Erza and Jellal. But with the later I didn't feel like Erza became a significantly weaker as a character, she still had a lot of interesting qualities, Ochako has become very flat and very Deku-centric IMO, what happened to all that stuff about her family, her gung ho attitude, there's literal a scene after this arc where spoiler[She says how she wants to be a great hero to stand on the same level as Deku].

And again look at what's happened in some of her recent stuff, Fight's 13 with Aoyama, comes back to her crush on Deku, her fight with Toga talking about Deku, this manga Vol picks again at her and Deku's relationship during a fight. I'm seeing an unhealthy pattern forming, a lot of her character and screen time is being spent talking about Deku and how she feels about him.

Also I have no idea what you're talking about in Wendy becoming eye candy for an old man (Are you talking about Mest cause that's usually played as a joke and not serious). But I actually thought Wendy was a good depiction of a girl growing up from her intro till the end, she started out scared and alone and grew into her powers by learning from the strong women around her grew into a strong confident young lady who was stepping up and not hiding in fear anymore.

Comparing again to Ochako, she studied under strong Pros but outside of learning new moves for a fight (That we've seen once) I don't feel like she's grown as a person, where as I felt like Wendy was growing both as a wizard and as a person across her character arc in Fairy Tail.

This is just me talking now but I'd really love to see something with Ochako and Midnight, so that she can learn not only how to be a strong hero, but a strong woman as well, I think that'd be cool and give her character some needed growth in a way that doesn't have to be connected to Deku.

My point that there's continued mistreatment of the female cast is not a spoiler, I never said what happened just that something happened to them that bothered me, that's not a spoiler. But since I want to be clear since some people aren't sure I'll be specific here and tag it spoiler[ I'm talking about how in the OVerhaul arc, at the very start ALL FOUR Female members of the assault force are written into a fight outside the main house. They are not seen again for the entire arc only to cut back to the final move of that fight right as the arc is ending. So not only were they pushed off screen, we barely even see their fight we maybe see 10% of it, instead time is devoted exclusively to the male cast here, if that's not a little insulting to a female cast of characters, i don't know what it.]

As awkward as Horikoshi is at writing females, it could still be worse.

He could be Tsumugi Ohba.

Don't get me wrong, I love the guy's works, but his writing can often times come across as a bit too ham-handed and yes, pretty damn misogynistic.

Sure, maybe Uraraka's focus on Deku might be a bit overplayed, but at least it's not like Misa devoting her entire life to Light Yagami.

Also, at least MHA has never said shit like "Men have dreams that women will never be able to understand." It's as if Ohba's mind is still stuck in the damn Showa Era, geez.

@Snakebit1995
Your persistent need to belittle MHA at every turn is commendable I'll give you that but calling the series "a disservice to female characters" while bringing up Fairy Tail is hilarious especially when its a perfect example of why having female characters active in battle do not make them good characters. Erza rivals Sakura as being the worst female character in modern shounen just thanks to her blatant Mary Sue tendencies, everyone else can be described as "boobs" when they fight Mashima makes sure that their clothes come off at every convience because that's female empowerment. Ochako hasn't had Deku on her mind for a while now and fact she just came upon a revelation recently with her original motivation for being a hero. Noelle is still very much a generic tsundere but if one fight is enough to make you turn around to her then Sakura would be a lot more well liked than she is.

People always seem to missed the fact that in the latest arc spoiler[the female team managed to accomplish their objective and save the males in the end. Toga manages to take down two heroes by herself by fighting smart. And while a flashback Mina manages to save two students from a villian while Kirishima does nothing but watch scared. ] If anycase complaining about female representation in shounen gets you no where because its ultimately a comic read for young boys and believe it or not girls don't give a damn about representation or not because they're reading it for the hot guys. Critically acclaimed series like Yuyu Hakusho and Hunter x Hunter barely have any female representation and the majority don't even fight, FMA is also a series without any strong female focus despite how well handed the few of them are (Liza is mainly support for Roy and Winry is a love interest) there's even an entire sequence where two strong female characters sit on the sidelines and watch two males beat up the badguy as they commentate. It just goes to show that people only ever bring up lack of female focus in shounen just to complain about nothing.

What I want is for Authors to stop wasting my time with side casts if they're just gonna short change them all the damn time, and I feel like this is what's happening to the MHA side casts, they get these plots set up and then the payoff is lazy or unsatisfying.

@Snakebit1995

Quote:

What I want is for Authors to stop wasting my time with side casts if they're just gonna short change them all the damn time, and I feel like this is what's happening to the MHA side casts, they get these plots set up and then the payoff is lazy or unsatisfying.

My Hero Academia is a newer Shonen series with a big cast. The characters you don't like are characters other people like. The Mangaka isn't wasting time with them. It the same thing Fairy Tail do, but you don't have a problem with it because you also like the popular characters. (Lisanna or Evergreen anyone?)
Anyway, I think the Mangaka know he didn't use all his characters correctly in the last arc. In the recent chapter where spoiler[Ryukyu drop a rank] and he tries to showcase spoiler[Nejire] in the last arc. If he didn't care, he wouldn't done that. I still think MHA female character is not lost cause yet, there still time for them to shrine. Also, Fairy Tail has 371 chapters and Dragon Ball Z have 336 chapters more than MHA. It has a long way to go