From a conversation with @linkspooky about Suki's character and how boring it is

Essentially even woman or girl in ATLA was written as kind and compassionate, even the one's (like Azula) who really weren't intended to be written that way.* Hama and Yon Rha's mom are like the only two female characters not written as kind and compassionate.

*And funny enough, two of the three (Azula, Mai, Ty Lee) who were allowed to be mean sometimes are absolutely hated by the fandom.

it's good to remember once again that Danganronpa, for all its Goof, is a really Interesting Thesis on crime and punishment. i've gone on and on about this before so i won't belabor the point too much, but one thing i'm just now realizing while i'm reading DR0: it's very telling that Kodaka writes Junko's personality, underneath it all, as genuinely cheery and sweet.

stripped of a backstory and connections and any sense of self, Fashion Hitler is, in fact, just a girl who wants to be normal. there is no evil inherent in her. there's no Enoshima Gene or Enoshima Syndrome or Enoshima Aura that makes her crave despair at the bottom of her very being. she's Eve before the Serpent. laid bare to our cores we are Ryoko Otonashis each and every one

Chillin' out with the crew in the schoolyard

i'll just keep running forward.

Invincible: Proving the Superhero Genre Invincible

Another story I've watched recently is Invincible. I know it's based on comics, which I'll get around to eventually.

Despite masquerading as a dark deconstruction of the superhero story, the story is actually far more a hopeful coming-of-age story that just happens to don a gory costume. You can tell the writers love superhero comics, and that they aren't deconstructing it out of disdain but instead out of a desire to see what the main principles are.

In other words, it's far more akin to Hunter x Hunter's take on deconstructing shonen or even ASOIAF's spin on fantasy literature (matching the violence too) than it is a cynical, nihilistic tale with intent to ridicule. Love and friendships win the day. It's just complex to navigate them in a world where there has been so much hurt.

I wish Horikoshi had read a little more of this.

The tl;dr is that the world's Number One hero turns out to be working for a planet of alien colonizers who live forever and subjugate other lifeforms because they believe they're saving them. This gets to the heart of a thematic question often asked in the superhero genre but not often well-explored - what does it mean to save someone who doesn't want to be saved? Are there valid reasons to not want to be saved? What even counts as not wanting to be saved, and does perspective alter that? Is it not wanting to be saved for humans to cling to their fragile and short lives and free will when they could lose free will and have no more sickness and pain?

The story explores this through many different aspects and characters--from Eve being genetically engineered, to the boys turned into cyborgs, to Mark finding out his entire life has been a lie, to government bureaucracy running the superhero world. And just because the series affirms free will doesn't mean it's blind to the pitfalls of this, or that it doesn't explore the gray areas in which we live--namely, when to listen to others and obey orders, and when not to.

In addition to free will, the series affirms that one of the top gifts of humanity is love. Love is what wakes up the cyborgs when their emotions have been pried from their brains. Love is something intrinsic that can't be perfectly defined and doesn't listen to logic, yet also isn't purely emotional. It's powerful, and it's a weakness. It can save, but not always. (For example, Mark's love for his dad, the cyborg's love for his boyfriend, etc. But Eve's parents love for her doesn't save).

My favorite episode of the story is the final one in season 1, where Mark's father puts him through an overly literal lesson of the trolley problem and then tries to kill his own son. And then there's that one line:

Really he has 0 reason to still want his father around at this point. And yet that single line contains so much power about what the series is saying.

Mark shouldn't still love his father, logically speaking. Even emotionally, he's determined to stop his father by any means necessary. But, he chooses to still love him, no matter what that means. Whether he lives or dies. Because whether he dies then or later, in that moment he loves his father. And it's so illogical and against what Omni-Man has been trying to literally beat into his son, yet so real, that it pauses destruction.

It doesn't fix anything. Not by a long shot. Not Mark and his father's relationship, not the world, not the plan of Omni-Man's Space!British Empire. Not Mark himself, as Mark will go on to make some pretty intensely Bad mistakes himself. But it means, in that moment, that a life is spared. And that single life is worth sparing (saving).

(This is how you write an abuser-son redemptive love arc!)

Mark and his parents are well done as characters, complex and flawed. I did wish the show had shown more of the ugly side of Debbie's grief (which they apparently do in the comics). I really would like women to be less sanitized, even if that means they act in despicable ways.

That said, the best female character is undoubtedly Eve. The special that chronicles her origin was brilliantly written--one of the best hours of TV I've watched. It's poignant and , despite being horror scifi cyberpunk in some ways, also realistic in how it portrays humanity. I appreciated that her adoptive parents were extremely complex for background characters. They desperately wanted a child, but not necessarily her. Her mom loves her, but still wishes she was someone else, and her father is just a bad dad. Of course, this is underscored by the fact that she's not their biological daughter, but I don't know that it would have been different if she was.

Plus, Eve and Mark are a great couple, though they take a bit too long to get together.

On that note, I also liked Amber as a character, but I thought the writing kind of didn't know what to do with Mark and Amber at times. Clearly they wanted this relationship to demonstrate the struggles of Mark trying to balance being a superhero with a normal high school life, but the writers were actually a bit too harsh on Mark at times. (I know, right?) I thought the main conflict between them in season 1 (about his identity) was unfairly framed as only Mark's fault when it wasn't, and it wasn't resolved in a satisfactory way.

Ultimately, though, the story is about humanity and all its ways of attempting to create superhumans. Science. Religion. Aliens. Living forever. Strength. Cyborgs. But what it affirms is that there is so much that is beautiful about humanity, and what transcends humanity are the traits we all can have--love and free will.

TOGACHAKO VS. FUFFY: How To Save Your Evil Girlfriend

So, once again My Hero Academia has failed to deliver on its promise of saving / redeeming one of the main villains of its story, and victims of its ficitonal society. This time I'm going to make the added argument that not only does failing to save Toga make the story worse, it also makes Uraraka's character almost completely hollow. While you can dismiss Deku's lack of character development as him being a shonen protagonist, both Uraraka and Shoto had arcs and Ochako's is effectively ruined by her failure to save Toga.

In order to make my point I am going to compare it to a villain redemption arc in another piece of media that does it right, Faith's character, and her strained relationship with Buffy in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. A series which is overall anti-state punishment and pro-redemption and delivers on practically all the themes MHA promised us.

MORE UNDER THE CUT:

@linkspooky loved this analysis, I think you were able to put into words what I felt off about the ending of the story of BNHA.

Uraraka's character has a lot of potential early in the story, her poor background, her non-altruist ambitions to be a hero, and even the repression of her feelings could have been perfect flaws to be explored in her character narrative. But she is removed from the main story early on and reduced to "a girl that likes Izuku" and "Heroes need saving too". She does not feel like a full-fledged character, but someone who runs after Izuku.

Also, her placement in the way to "confront Himiko" feels forced, unlike Dabi and Shoto, Tomura and Izuku. Heck, even Shoji and Spinner. They all had more believable motives to be foils of each other. Meanwhile, the only thing that links Uraraka to Himiko is that "they like the same boy".

I sometimes see more parallels between Himiko and Izuku. They both suffered in a society that tried to force them into a box. They both have a fascination that others find creepy. And during the license exam, Izuku showed that he is willing to save everyone, even those who attack him. (Idk why, but I think that aspect of him was dropped in the latter half of the series for some reason.)

Still, I find that BNHA had a lot of potential for the elements it tried to convey to the public. Himiko is a flawed character and a product of society's prejudice. She could have been utilized and shown the wrongs of the system.

The main problem I have with the final arcs is that we are told a lot of things, but we are shown nothing. Uraraka facing Himiko feels off because the series lacks show events that make that confrontation to be meaningful.

PITY VS. EMPATHY

Jujutsu Kaisen Chapter 265 quickly surpassed Gojo's death chapter as my favorite chapter in the entire manga. It's a high point in both Yuji's character development and the Sukuna fight, a notion most of the fandom agrees with. That being said, it's once again time for me to take a stance contrary to most of the fandom opinion. I was going to make this post two weeks ago but I'm glad I waited, because this week's chapter helps me illustrate my point in the contrasting way Yuji treats Sukuna and Megumi.

As you can probably tell by the title, my hot take of the week is that what Yuji is showing Sukuna isn't true empathy. It's not atn attempt to understand Sukuna's worldview, but rather condescending pity from a place looking down on Sukuna, which is why it infuriates him so much. This is illustrated in Yuji's atual actions this chapter, which is to go at great length to show memories from his past to make Sukuna understand HIM and not the other way around.

Whereas, what Yuji shows Megumi is compassion, because he's not telling Megumi what to feel or imposing his own views on him but rather accepting the fact that Megumi might be suffering too much to keep living on.

I'll explain more under the cut:

WOAH i really liked this analysis!!! 0_0 It gave me so much to think about ad re-evaluate! Love it to pieces!!!!!! (IM SO SORRY i wanted this to be much shorter but got excited i guess.. a good part of this reply is a re-work of things already said in the post but hopefully i can contribute a bit to the discussion w my own thoughts/analysis T-T)