How My Hero Academia continues to exploit the Todoroki family, explored

With the official release of the latest chapter in author and illustrator Kohei Horikoshi’s My Hero Academia manga series, fans saw the series head in an incredibly exciting direction. Especially intriguing were the issue’s final scenes, which saw a Quirk-less All Might prepare to confront All For One with what appears to be a mech-suit.

The latest My Hero Academia chapter also revealed that Dabi is turning himself into a ticking time bomb with a blast radius of 5 kilometers, which Endeavor won’t be able to stop. Thus, Tenya Iida and Shoto Todoroki began heading to the Gunga battlefield, with Shoto being the only one who could stop his estranged brother.

While it’s certainly an exciting development, it does unfortunately highlight one of the biggest narrative weaknesses of the series as Horikoshi writes it. Fans have been wondering how My Hero Academia continues to exploit the Todoroki family and the impact this has on the narrative.

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My Hero Academia chapter 386 yet again uses Todoroki family drama as B-story to Deku’s struggles

My Hero Academia’s latest chapter began with an update on All For One’s position. The Demon Lord was moving rapidly moving across Japan as the focus shifted to the situation in Gunga. Dabi’s continued accumulation of heat has essentially made him a bomb waiting to go off, with the expected 5-kilometer blast radius set to harm civilians in the area.

All For One was said to be getting even faster and was close enough to Pro Hero headquarters to use his teleportation Quirk. Meanwhile, in the Kamino ward, Iida and Shoto discussed their status when All Might suddenly brought them up to speed on the Dabi situation. He told them to go to the Gunga battlefield as soon as possible, with Shoto being the only one who could stop Dabi and Iida being the only one who could get him there in time.

The two then departed while Stain watched, acknowledging their readiness to fight for the sake of others. All Might was then shown standing in the road as Tsukauchi called him an idiot. All Might muses on his past with both All For One and Deku as the former approaches, smiling sadistically. The latest My Hero Academia chapter ended with All Might’s briefcase and car reassembling into a mech-suit, as All Might says his iconic line, “I am here.”

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How the series continues to exploit the Todoroki family

While there’s not exactly anything stopping Horikoshi from doing so, this latest entry in his ongoing manga series highlights exactly how he continues to exploit the Todoroki family. Since being first introduced several arcs earlier, the Todorki family and their drama have been the premiere B-story of the series.

Although the focus on the Todoroki family isn’t bad, both in a qualitative and inherent sense, it does highlight a chink in the series’ armor. It seems that Horikoshi is either incapable of or unwilling to create engaging side stories for his other characters to engage in.

While some have gotten a flashback or a cool moment here and there, no other side character in My Hero Academia has gotten anything close to the scale of the Todoroki family drama.

While the Todoroki family story is undoubtedly an engaging, exciting, and well-written aspect of the series, it’s one which doesn’t necessarily need to be the only B-story. Especially considering the series once Dabi was revealed as Toya, there was certainly no need for Shoto to be the only side character with as overarching and integral a side story as he has.

It’s also worth emphasizing that the Todoroki family drama being the only side story for the series doesn’t take away from the quality of My Hero Academia overall. Rather, it’s emblematic of a shortcoming for the series, showing that Horikoshi has the potential to give non-protagonists in his series such a focus. In this demonstration lies the shortcoming that Horikoshi is either unable to do so for other characters or worse is unwilling to do so.

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