Spoiler warning is obvious.
Spoilers up to Chapter 364 of My Hero Academia. Content warnings about death.
“Why We Wield Power,” My Hero Academia, Chapter 364. By Kohei Horikoshi, translation by Caleb Cook, lettering by John Hurt. Available from Viz.
With the newest chapter of My Hero Academia, it looks like Bakugo will be resurrected thanks to a sacrifice by Edgeshot. There is plenty to say about whether this is abrupt (it is), whether the reveal should have been delayed to a later chapter (it should have), or whether it makes sense or is plot contrivance (yes and yes: it makes sense that Edgeshot could do this, but it is a plot contrivance to have Edgeshot off-screen for so much of this arc, which means his appearance looks in this chapter comes off as abrupt, with little setup, not to mention his lack of much characterization up until his death so that his sacrifice is largely hollow).
Where my conflicting feelings emerge about bringing Bakugo back is at the tension between how his potential resurrection does indeed work thematically and how it still isn’t believable. By “believable,” I don’t mean “ugh, Edgeshot could never do that before!” Again, as I said above, it makes sense that Edgeshot’s ability, allowing him to enter into a body, combined with Best Jeanist’s manipulation of threads, could replace Bakugo’s heart. And this is a series where just about any superpower is possible, so the bar to clear for “believability” is set pretty low.
But I’m not sure this is believable for how the characters would react–even as I read remarks that try to convince me otherwise. The Reddit board for both the pre-release and official release of Chapter 364 raised good points, for how this works thematically, even if I don’t think that’s how the characters would act.
This chapter is titled “Why We Wield Power.” It is a question that is answered by two people: All For One and Edgeshot.
For All For One, that fascist, it’s about amassing more power and disrupting the world to suit his own ego.
For Edgeshot, it’s not about himself, but what he has to sacrifice to save someone else.
I’ll get back to Edgeshot in a moment, but, like it or not–and there is a lot not to like about this approach to heroism–My Hero Academia is about people who think heroism is about sacrifice. All Might gave up his health and so much of his life to save others, and he gives up One For All to Izuku. Izuku has become a masochist in his devotion to saving others, so that, even when his classmates keep pulling him back to remind him this work is collaborative, something All Might never learned, at the end it’s always about him putting his life at risk to save others.
(If you don’t like this self-sacrificial approach to heroism, go read Fire Force as an antidote, showing how heroes have to survive so that they can keep saving others. …But don’t read Fire Force: it’s trash.)
And Edgeshot’s sacrifice becomes a bookend to Bakugo’s story that started way back in Chapter 1: his sacrifice can be read as a late apology on behalf of the other Pro Heroes, including All Might, way back in Chapter 1, for delaying to rescue Bakugo from the Slime Monster.
No Pro Hero wanted to risk their safety to protect Bakugo because no one thought they could do that and prevent further harm to Bakugo, or coming out unscathed–Death Arms, for example, but also All Might–or could easily do so without causing more problems–Mount Lady, for example, would cause more collateral damage. And as we learn in a post-chapter extra included in Volume 1 of the manga, Mount Lady’s other property damage due to her Quirk has caused her to amass significant bills and little to no insurance coverage.
So we have at least three Pro Heroes who show various degrees of selfishness. Last we saw Death Arms in the manga, he retired due to the shaming of Pro Heroes being too much for him: he wanted to retain status, and if he couldn’t keep it, he would just retire. Mount Lady’s reasons are understandable, including how her Quirk could end up getting more people killed–but when you add that she is avoiding her own monetary costs, even if understandable, it is about her own problems, so it is about the self, even if we don’t want to go as far as condemning her as “selfish” as we definitely could for Death Arms.
And All Might requires his own post about how, for all his selflessness, literally sacrificing his health, body, and personal life to save others, by taking on the weight of the world on his shoulders, he doomed society, leaving them unprepared to take on his mantle when he retired–and not keeping more of Pro Hero society in the loop to know exactly how much longer he had left, to give them a deadline, however much it would keep shifting, to know just how much longer he was going to have One For All, how soon Izuku could be his replacement, and how much time was left to get the Number Two Pro Hero ready to ascend to Number One.
(For all the crap I will give All Might in this story, to Kohei Horikoshi’s credit, the author is aware of these flaws to All Might, and while I think he has elided just how bad All Might is as a teacher and a mentor, he has made sure to emphasize that All Might’s choice to keep using up his Quirk for any heroic action at all, however noble, in the long run was a poor choice. Nezu back in the USJ arc was the mouthpiece for a lot of these concerns, and it was those choices All Might made that delayed his arrival for the League of Villains fight against the first Nomu.)
So, back then, we had at least three Pro Heroes who refused to do something that was simple to pull off–rescue Bakugo–despite what that would do in the short term (damage Death Arms’s credibility as a Pro Hero who acts logically and not recklessly; damage Mount Lady’s finances while also doing more damage to the city; shorten All Might’s lifespan, worsen his health, and likely diminish how much longer he could use One For All).
All of that makes Edgeshot’s action work thematically. But all of that is also where the “believability problem” emerges.
To repeat myself for absolute clarification, I don’t mean “Edgeshot can’t go into Bakugo’s body!”
I mean, I don’t believe these Pro Heroes, when facing Shigaraki, would stop what they are doing just for Bakugo.
That is harsh for me to say, even sociopathic. I am saying that I don’t see how these adults would stop everything to rescue one child whose heart is damaged beyond imaginable recovery. (But, as I said, this is a superhero story: of course you can fix a dead heart.) Before Edgeshot showed up and said what he could do, I saw no way they could save him. Now, I see an option for saving him–and that part works (again, superhero story).
But what doesn’t work is Best Jeanist stopping what he is doing. I get it–he is going to literally sew Edgeshot into Bakugo–but, and maybe I’m expecting too much, I imagine Jeanist would do that while also fighting, given his high ranking as a hero, I don’t think he would stop fighting Shigaraki even while performing surgery because he’s been built up as just that good at his job.
And what also doesn’t work is everyone saving Bakugo–and not also saving Mirko. We are shown there is a choice: let Bakugo die, or let Mirko die as another corpse Shigaraki can taunt Izuku with (and that potential fridging also requires another post, to add to the list of other fridging or near-fridging this franchise has given: Star and Stripe, Nagant, Midnight, to an extent Pop*Step). Given that Mirko is still in some fighting shape even after her injuries in this fight, saving Mirko would make more sense. For characterization, maybe I can ignore that: it’s fine in writing to show flawed characters, where Jeanist and Edgeshot just give up on Mirko and focus on Bakugo–but it is hard to make readers like either man when the end result is another fridging.
And what also doesn’t work is saying, “Bakugo is young, he has a life left to live, save him, because we’ve given up on stopping Shigaraki.”
This feels like thematic overkill: “We’re sorry that we didn’t save Bakugo from the comparatively minor threat of the Slime Monster that any of us could have stopped. To make up for it, here is the ‘grand gesture’ of saving Bakugo–which will mean nothing if we don’t stop Shigaraki, and if we don’t put all of our efforts to stopping him.”
Maybe I’m misreading all of this.
I mean, having Best Jeanist and Edgeshot, already injured and most qualified to handle replacing Bakugo’s heart, makes sense–but would be more believable if, say, we saw Edgeshot getting so beaten up earlier at any point in this fight, to justify why he is sitting out from the fight and, so injured, can only really do medical aid right now.
(But Horikoshi has had a lot of paneling problems in this arc. See also how Dabi is encased in ice in one panel, then suddenly out of the ice in a later panel. Even a chapter break wasn’t enough to satisfy me: you need to show Dabi in the ice, show that glow coming off of him, have a new chapter, in that chapter show a small crack in the ice, then in that same chapter or another one just show the entire ice tower shatter almost instantaneously, have everyone turn in shock–and just as one turns, already have Dabi’s hand around their neck. Compare how Dabi emerged to how All For One managed to steal a Quirk and a cape that quickly in the newest chapter. Studio BONES, please plus the manga here when adapting for anime.)
And, as I may also be misreading all of this, for all my complaining that stopping everything to take care of Bakugo is unbelievable, even for Heroes whose job is to protect lives, it’s not that the Pro Heroes have stopped everything and admitted defeat to Shigaraki and have given up fighting. After all, they still let the Big Three keep fighting, hoping that can delay Shigaraki until Izuku shows up. And even if Mirko is still in this fight, unfortunately (from a plot-based, fan-based, and disability studies-based reading) she is not exactly in a position to do much, not because she’s not capable, but because of Horikoshi’s choice to have her stuck inside Shigaraki’s hands and showing only defiance by biting into him (which is messed up in its own way: even if his body has to adapt to all these new Quirk from Garaki, Shigaraki’s new hands are far more of an ass-pull than Edgeshot replacing Bakugo’s heart; having those hands there just to make up for Aizawa’s Quirk disabling all of Shigaraki’s Quirks is to give a plot-based reason why the Heroes aren’t winning, not because it emerges out of previous content; having the hands hold down Mirko and pull off her artificial limbs reeks of fetish art).
What I’m getting at is this: it suits the characterization up to now that of course the characters would do whatever it takes to save Bakugo, not only because they think that’s what a Pro Hero should do, but because up to now, all of them have shown a commitment to fighting Villains and protecting lives…
Except Edgeshot. And that’s what really harms the believability of his sacrifice. He was one of the Heroes who helped rescue Bakugo long ago from the League of Villains–and yet I still don’t believe him as a character who would give up his life for Bakugo, except that he’s a Hero and evidently a good dude. The bar for believability in this superhero fantasy may be low, but the bar for characterization is still high. Edgeshot is so underdeveloped that, aside from his participation in rescuing Bakugo from the League of Villains before, hasn’t really shown much personality. He’s on a team with Kamui Woods and Mount Lady–but we haven’t seen the three bounce off each other enough to get a sene of who he is. We get this half-hearted flashback in this chapter that he was classmates with Best Jeanist–but that kind of playful long friendship is not as clear as it could be. This is yet another instance in this chapter where the believability falls apart: we saw Mirio give up his Quirk for Eri; I could imagine Tamaki doing the same based on Mirio’s example, and Nejire almost got burned to death before; Mirko just has hot-blooded passion to take down Villains; Jeanist had an interest to mentor Bakugo. But Edgeshot? What has he shown about himself that would make me think, “Yes, this is the logical end to his character arc?”
To summarize, Bakugo being resurrected by Pro Heroes, who failed him against the Slime Monster, is a logical end; Edgeshot giving up his life is not.
At this nexus between that works thematically and what is believable, we have a grand gesture that works to repeat the mission statement of My Hero Academia–a hero is someone who is willing to give up their own life to save someone else–but, based on what little we have learned about these characters, doesn’t come across as believable.
Thanks to Ellak Roach for being a sounding-board to some of these thoughts.
What do you think–is Edgeshot’s likely irreversible sacrifice something that works for you in My Hero Academia? Do you think it was too abrupt or illogical? And is the self-sacrificial message of MHA appropriate or too irresponsible for this manga to keep repeating? Let me know in the comments!
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