Aaaaaaaaand that arc came to nothing. Oh well. Just play with them and they'll have fun! Don't discover anything in yourselves or build your character. You just weren't ramming your head into a wall hard enough!
LeSigh.
Watching this episode, I'm thinking back where exactly this show and story went wrong. Because it definitely jumped the shark and fell off the rails at some point. Thinking back to Midoriya's powers, it really started when they couldn't establish what was the big turning point that made Midoriya a better hero.
We went from self-inflicted bruises to suddenly using his legs and being unstoppable? You introduce characters like Ari which make Midoriya and All-Might invincible again? Where is this leading?
It went from being an underdog story to Midoriya just being average. Boy, if this slump doesn't make you realize the genius of Naruto's epic tale, you ain't been paying attention. Sure, Naruto's power builds eternally. And BNHA is a post-modern attempt at shonen, it has to be after Naruto. But the author is fucking this up along the way because there's no road map to this. He's out there alone, he's experimenting, he's trying. It's not like all of western society didn't fuck up occasionally along the postmodern, existential trail. (They did). (The Office 2005-2013).
(We still are) (The Big Bang Theory 2007-2019)
So I'm not going to get up on my western culture high horse on this one. The big three were all completely modernist. Japan is a bit behind the times (I love modernism). Now big shonen mag has to be postmodernist to keep the kids and that's hard. Formulas go out the window.
Gintama was by the far the best at this by not giving a fuck about structure and formula. That's why Gintama is a masterpiece of self-relevant culture, you see in it what you yourself want. It attributes basic human values which are universal.
So if we don't build Midoriya to epic lengths as we did Naruto, then he's just a normal guy. But how do we keep giving that 7-13 crowd that epic push to sell mags?
Wish I could tell you. However it all hinges on Midoriya. The Ari arc was screwed from the get-go, and the Bakugo-Midoriya arc last season was boring from the get go. The show has been falling off since the final All-Might fight.
Midoriya has become a side character in his own show. He uses his legs? But he doesn't have any iconic super powerful moves! The flashbacks have been utterly awful. I can't say any of them in the last season has been any good. They rely on boring shonen stereotypes which wouldn't have sailed in the big-three days either.
Characters I AM interested in get short shrift. Uraraka and frog girl could've used their own character building and episode. Didn't happen. I want a Bakugo episode, I want a Todoroki arc.
It's crazy, the author made decent characters and now he's not exploring them or showing he can. It's hard to believe. He has the ammo he's just not pulling the trigger. I don't know if the editor is screaming down his back or this series got too big too quickly, but the elements are certainly there. We can't all be Togashi of HXH but we can put in some effort to have the fundamentals of a story.
The author definitely drove into the Ari-arc too fast. Jumped the shark completely with that one. And now we've sidelined the most interesting character up to this point, Mirio.
I can't tell you how annoying the goody-goody act is getting. Characters like Mirio and Midoriya lack any flaws, they're perfect humans. You never go full-shonen.
Lots of problems in summary. This series can be fixed but it would take major work, major lifting. You have to start building all of these interesting characters. I don't know if author has the ability. He built the ball field he just won't let his players play. A shame. |