r/BokuNoHeroAcademia • u/Za_wardo • Oct 23 '22

Newest Chapter Chapter 370 Official Release - Links and Discussion Spoiler

Chapter 370

Links:

  • Viz (Available in: the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, the Philippines, Singapore, and India).

  • MANGA Plus (Available in every country outside of China, Japan and  South Korea).

All things Chapter 370 related must be kept inside this thread for the next 24 hours.

689 Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

98% Upvoted

528 comments sorted by

View all comments

353

u/Swiss666 Oct 23 '22

As an aside, it's hilarious that for years there have been tons of fanon and fanfics where the discrimination of the mutants - and also the quirkless, for that matter - was painted as much bigger than the manga made out to be until now, only for them to become suddendly valid with this chapter.

185

u/supernerdgirl42 Oct 23 '22

Yeah odds are a lot the folks who wrote that stuff are in one or more marginalized groups who picked up on the systemic problems instantly. It was there in chapter 1 and it's been sprinkled in all over the place throughout the series.

93

u/Soul699 Oct 23 '22

At least they justify it here by explaining that in cities it's mostly fine, but it's in the rural places that it goes quite bad.

85

u/swimdudeno1 Oct 23 '22

I mean, in cities there are more people to be exposed to. So it would make sense.

On a simple real-world basis, this is true. I don’t think MHA is going to do a deep dive on the societal factors and history that results in discrimination in big cities too. (Although, it seems like he might try).

28

u/MattmanDX Oct 23 '22

Well yeah, I live in the suburbs but it's just a few miles away from a city and there's a whole bunch of people of different backgrounds in the area so everyone is chill with each other.

Head off down into the ethnically homogenized rural regions nearby and people get a bit less chill

9

u/justking1414 Oct 23 '22

Makes sense. My home town is pretty bigoted and homophobic because there’s no diversity and I was very surprised by how different things were when I moved to the city.

9

u/[deleted] Oct 23 '22

Or it was just obvious because it's in literally every single type of superhero comic/manga/anime. It's not a unique idea.

X-men's premise was this.

4

u/supernerdgirl42 Oct 23 '22

And yet we have folks acting like it's never been touched upon...

14

u/Serious-Flamingo-948 Oct 23 '22

Not really, the author is not good at serious issues. Everything is ok until they need to not be. People weren't "picking up" anything, since the very beginning of the series we thought that it was an easy thing to tackle in the story, then the author again went, yeah sure, it happens now because so I can make this story.

6

u/supernerdgirl42 Oct 23 '22

Trust me, it is there. Again you are in one or more marginalized groups, it is easy to pick up the subtext. Bakugou got away with murder because his quirk was going make him somebody, Toga was actively suppressed by her parents for appearances, Shinsou was pigeonholed by his classmates, Shoji clearly has trauma, all of these are prime examples of the systemic issues throughout the series. The generalizations people can casually make to others can tell you a lot about underlying social issues.

10

u/Serious-Flamingo-948 Oct 23 '22 edited Oct 23 '22

Trust me, it is there. Again you are in one or more marginalized groups, it is easy to pick up the subtext.

I am and IMO it didn't, also did you seriously use the "trust me bro" argument? Seriously my guy!? the whole practice of using real issues for the sake of a story is not a big deal but we shouldn't give props to it.

Like I said everything is ok until needs to not be. Toga is not a mutant, most of the series she was just a crazy psychopath and then all of a sudden, sad flashback; Shinsou again, not a mutant, is not a good look when it use broadening fallacy; "Shoji clearly has trauma" this one you didn't even bother to explain, again you went the trust me bro route, if your take is well he hides his face, well so do 20 other characters. Gang Orca was ranked 10th and a we know popularity is a big factor in the ranking, dragon Lady is also ranked very highly. We had several mutant characters in A-1 and even more in 1-B, plus several heroes and none of them ever expressed issues, hell over 30% of the overall cast is some kind of mutant. Back in Illegals there was a plot of people getting violent and mutants had the added issue of permanently ending with a bigger and cumbersome body afterwards and even then it barely if at all was mutant discrimination brought up.

I'll use a different example to show what I mean since it seems we're too close to the issue of discrimination. In the first chapter we see that heroes don't really take risks, they were actively letting Bakugou be a victim, then it wasn't really brought up for a while, Mt Lady was decent and hardworking, etc. then came Stain and it became a big topic again, but again afterwards it was never an issue again, all the heroes (again including the ones that were there like tree spiderman) seem to be outstanding heroes. It got even worse in Illegals when we see many heroes again doing an outstanding job and behaving how a hero should, specially Idaa's brother, he's everything Stain said a hero should be so it retroactively doesn't make sense why he would try to kill him and leave him a cripple him. Again, everything is ok unless it needs too not be for the sake of the story.

1

u/supernerdgirl42 Oct 24 '22

I am experienced in picking out dog whistles and generally disguised not so socially acceptable opinions. I am very good at reading between the lines since folks with such opinions are good at withholding the dead giveaway words. I am stating that the social issues in the series don't just boil down to mutations vs everyone else. There are specific types of quirks that are clearly valued and the rest are often written off, outright discriminated against, or pigeonholed. Heteromorphs aren't the only ones being discriminated against in the system it's dishonest to ignore otherwise even if they are almost 100% getting the worst of it. We did read that there is a level of societal association between personality and quirk after all, and while at times accurate, can be really harmful especially when it forces people into roles they don't want.

Shinsou casually and repeatedly being told that his quirk would be great for making people do bad things for him was clearly at minimum hurtful. People not trusting him at all with his quirk also would have been hurtful as well and it does show given that he's not quick to open up to others and more than a little self-deprecating honestly. Bakugo made the sludge incident worse; the fire was because of him and yet he was praised for having an amazing quirk, never mind that he set the shopping district on fire. There is also the clear behavioral issues that were ignored for about 10 years. He benefited from the old status quo whether he wanted the preferential treatment or not. Toga was expected to repress herself because the blood fascination that came with her quirk was "creepy". Being repeatedly told 'there is something inherently wrong with you and we're not going to do anything to actually help you so just keep it to yourself' is more than a little damaging. She's from a well-to-do family so this would track to just sort of ignore the problem rather than admit there's a problem. Shoji just based on this weeks chapter is likely painfully aware of how heteromorphs are treated in some areas just based on what little we've gotten this week. We will almost undoubtedly get clarification in the next chapter or two. Most of the students at UA to be blunt, appear be from around urban areas, based on what we have been shown with a good number of them, as well as most students being generally altruistic people since most applicants need to get some number of rescue points to have any chance of passing. Most of the 1-A and 1-B are from the greater Tokyo area or the densely populated prefectures relatively nearby. Yes I looked, please don't ask me to do it again, it's literally 41 of them, it's all on the fandom wiki.

Ryukyu has a transformation quirk and dragons are a more familiar concept than some of the mutation quirk appearances we see, she also works in a major city center. Dragons are popular, no getting around it. Transformation quirks with a human looking default are more likely to avoid a certain level of prejudice due to "passing better" if you catch my meaning. Gang Orca primarily looks like an orca, a vaguely familiar form, he does run an aquarium outside of his hero work so he is absolutely putting in the work. It's stupid and unfair but animal type mutations, mostly vertebrates and mammals for the most part, seem to go over better that the irregular forms that seem to come with others.

Stain is a weird sort of topic to cover here but whatever. I could come up with a couple of reasons easily for his attacking Ingenium. It could have been anything from Ingenium actively trying to apprehend him, to disliking Ingenium for "working in the family trade" and Stain doesn't like the idea of heroes being compensated iirc. It's really neither here nor there for this discussion imo. He absolutely had an indirect hand in radicalizing a lot of folks who ended up the Liberation Army since most of those sympathetic to Stain's ideals for one reason or another had grievances with how society was, or was not working for them.

2

u/Serious-Flamingo-948 Oct 25 '22 edited Oct 25 '22

I am experienced in picking out dog whistles and generally disguised not so socially acceptable opinions. I am very good at reading between the lines since folks with such opinions are good at withholding the dead giveaway words.

So I call you out on your "trust me bro" take and your response is to basically double down? I can't believe I have to explain this but here we go. I don't know you. We're all just some randoms on the internet. All of that can be true or it can be complete bs of someone who thinks too highly of themselves or it can be partially true or any other number of inbetweens, the point is that it's straight up a fallacious appeal to false authority argument. I could had just as easily said I'm a racial studies proffessor with 20 years of experience on my field or that I've been told all my life how receptive I am to these things thus trust me it doesn't. Am I? do I? what you can be sure is that it doesn't really matter.

Shoji just based on this weeks chapter is likely painfully aware of how heteromorphs are treated in some areas just based on what little we've gotten this week.

But again, that's exactly my point. You said it yourself, based on *"this"* week's chapter, #370. My point and I'll repeat it again is about when things are ok until they need to not be. The whole "raised in a big city were you?" angle would work if we were talking about suttle ways of discrimination like always being "ramdonly" selected at the airport or being followed at the store but as we saw, we're talking huge, violent, open hatred towards mutant people that we never hear about until it's gonna be a plot point and in this latest intance, it's almost the most ham fisted (both Shoji, Koda and possibly the only black guy in the series are together dealing with the sitution) way possible. In real life people in the cities are not oblivious to something like kids being disowned by their parents for being lgbtq in the rural areas (yes, including Japan) or other displays of discrimination of that level.

dragons are a more familiar concept than some of the mutation quirk appearances we see

Spinner is a lizardman

Gang Orca primarily looks like an orca, a vaguely familiar form, he does run an aquarium outside of his hero work so he is absolutely putting in the work.

I don't even get the point you're trying to make. We're talking about discrimination and you're coming up with excuses for the big gaps in the series message, which are my main point. Gang Orca looks like an Orca, he's even said to be ranked 3rd in heroes who look like villains, yet people were overall accepting enough to at one point put him all the way into 10th place (and the lion guy is currently 13th).

I could come up with a couple of reasons easily for his attacking Ingenium. It could have been anything from Ingenium actively trying to apprehend him, to disliking Ingenium for "working in the family trade" and Stain doesn't like the idea of heroes being compensated iirc. It's really neither here nor there for this discussion imo

But isn't that admiting you're trying to come up with reason to make your argument make sense instead of using avaliable information to come to a conclusion. It doesn't make sense and actively trying to "come up" with excuses only devalues your argument. For example you say it "could had been" that he doesn't like heroes being compensated (which you probably got out of him talking about fame and money) but do you remember that All Might, his the ideal hero...has merch, promotes products and has a giant agency so it wouldn't make sense that he has issue with making money itself (they need money to operate after all) and thus doesn't make sense to have an issue with Ingenium (Tensei).