My Hero Academia: The Systemic problems of Hero society

[tankdrop24]

Recently in the Pet Peeves in Fanfiction thread, there was a bit of a derail concerning My Hero Academia, the society it presents, and the systemic problems therein.

The main thrust of the arguments critiquing the Hero Society can be found in one of the earlier posts by @1KBestK:

So I'm going to crib some points (and expand on others) from this lovely tumblr post on how quirk laws are the leading cause of villainy in MHA. Firstly, Let's explain what the bounds of the laws actually are from what we've seen. Public use of quirks is illegal, with the exception of self-defense, as seen in the extra pages of Volume 9 of the manga. It's more restrictive than regular self-defense laws, though, stating that "No one may use his/her Quirk to harm another!" That means that, for example, Shinso's Brainwashing which doesn't harm the target would be okay, but Bakugo's Explosion wouldn't be because it would cause injury (unless he just scares them off with it and doesn't actually hurt them). So it's an extremely narrow allowance cause by a very strict law. Theoretically, even if using your quirk was equivalent to punching someone, it would be illegal for you to use it in self defense. Depending on the quirk, people (including the police and heroes) might not care about minor public use that doesn't affect anyone else, like Kaminari charging a cell phone with his Electrification. This creates a great imbalance of power between those who have "heroic" or otherwise "acceptable" quirks and those who don't. One of the protagonists of the MHA Vigilantes spinoff has the ability to move at around the speed of a bike with his Slide and Glide as long as he maintains three points of contact with a surface. Even though he's probably less dangerous to pedestrians than someone on a bike with his maneuverability, it's still illegal for him to use it in public. It's guilty until proven innocent.

Spoiler

Next, private use. You need to register your quirk to be able to use it on even private property legally, and even then there's restrictions, not all of which are clear. However, a primary one seems to be in regards to using your quirk for making money. If you want to use your quirk for your job, there's another type of license for that with its own restrictions. And, in some cases, like with Yaoyorozu's Creation, the use is strictly limited even with a license.

Spoiler

The potential for Yaoyorozu's quirk to do good is massive. Because she can make anything she knows the composition of, including complex electronics like tracking beacons (training camp arc) and speaker systems (provisional licensing exam arc), she could single-handedly bring down the cost of things like expensive medical equipment or difficult to manufacture pharmaceuticals to the ground, which would be a massive benefit to literally the entire world. Kaminari has already been shown to be capable of charging electronics, but if the restrictions weren't in place someone with a quirk like his could provide infinite clean energy and solve global warming. However, because it would disrupt the economy, they wouldn't be allowed a license to do so, even at the expense of everyone but the 1%.

This all culminates in an oppressive system that we view only from the lens of the chosen few who are allowed to actually use their quirks in any real capacity (Heroes). Gran Torino even mentions that they live in "an age of oppression, for better or for worse." Requiring a license in order to gain access to something like a firearm or a car makes sense, but quirks are an innate part of a person, not an object or tool they can acquire. It keeps the power in the hands of the few by playing off the fear of people abusing their quirks. It's throwing the baby out with the bath water. Quirks are often called the next stage in human evolution, but the laws in Japan basically try as much as possible to prevent quirks from changing anything of importance. They hold humanity in the past, prevent people from using what's literally a physical part of them, and reinforce the grip of capitalistic greed. The world of MHA could be a utopian post-scarcity society after 300 years of quirks being around, but the efforts of those in power to hold onto their power at the cost of everyone else's freedom and prosperity have only lead to an oppressive society that breeds discontent and "villainy."

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In addition to this, I personally think that a society based around Heroes is probably going to not end well for anyone. The combination of what is effectively a class of people with a triple threat of legal authority, the soft power of celebrity, and actual, physical superpower, is going probably going to take the issues with our current security state and multiply them by a hundred. And I don't think how Orwellian being able to legally declare people 'Heroes' and 'Villains' is.

Now, I know, this are all aspects the superhero genre and it's unfair to criticize the series for it. The problem is, the narrative of MHA itself gestures at idea of systemic issues being a thing. What's more, the series rarely has any kind of 'external' villain. There are no monsters, no aliens, no villains except what the society has allowed to come into existence. Which, in some ways make the whole Hero system a bit harder to justify. For every dollar that's spent on a crazy stadium or robot to train new heroes, how much more could that dollar done in preventing people from turning to villainy to begin with through things like counseling programs.

The series also shoots itself in the foot by having a character that could be charitably described as a sex pest and yet seems to face no serious consequences for his actions, nor any kind of expulsion. Which is utterly bizarre, because he's basically the exact kind of character that would be great to put into the main class of heroes if one wanted to show Hero society was fatally flawed and corrupt.

 

[Teal]

Well yeah

I don't want to be that guy but "the heavy-handed restrictions on quirks and reliance on celebrity law enforcement creates a highly unequitable society" is a pretty cold take. This has been known and acknowledged for a while.

Any society where people are born with random, unequally useful and powerful superpowers would be super fucked up, either swinging between Orwellian nightmare or Randian wet dream. Kōhei Horikoshi probably leaned into more of the former, at least in regards to the setting, (the economic and character politics can be very libertarian at times, but that's another discussion) because that is, honestly what RL Japan leans towards and is thus less discomforting for Kōhei and his primary audience.

Honestly for what it is, it doesn't need to be good or equitable society: MHA is a fun Shounen series about good guys punching bad guys. The setting works by regularly providing believable bad guys to be punched, and possibly providing systemic problems that the heroes may someday correct. It doesn't need to be a good place to live, it needs to be somewhere drama and conflict happens.

 

[1KBestK]

Well yeah

I don't want to be that guy but "the heavy-handed restrictions on quirks and reliance on celebrity law enforcement creates a highly unequitable society" is a pretty cold take. This has been known and acknowledged for a while.

Any society where people are born with random, unequally useful and powerful superpowers would be super fucked up, either swinging between Orwellian nightmare or Randian wet dream. Kōhei Horikoshi probably leaned into more of the former, at least in regards to the setting, (the economic and character politics can be very libertarian at times, but that's another discussion) because that is, honestly what RL Japan leans towards and is thus less discomforting for Kōhei and her primary audience.

Honestly for what it is, it doesn't need to be good or equitable society: MHA is a fun Shounen series about good guys punching bad guys. The setting works by regularly providing believable bad guys to be punched, and possibly providing systemic problems that the heroes may someday correct. It doesn't need to be a good place to live, it needs to be somewhere drama and conflict happens.

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The thing is, if we were talking about something more Marvel or DC esque where these ideas are never really broached, I'd agree that it's a cold take, but Horikoshi keeps bringing it up all the damn time in the stuff he writes. It just continually gets expanded upon. The people who bring up the injustices are usually just shown to be acting out of self-interest. For example, in the Vigilantes spinoff, there's a character who has been permanently physically altered into a 'monstrous' state, who then tells someone off for automatically assuming he's a monster/villain just because of his appearance... and then he immediately calls another person in a similar physical situation a monster and it's played for laughs, saying he's a hypocrite that only cares about that in regards to himself. The villains that bring it up are consistently violent and/or "craaaazy" people. We haven't ever gotten a character that really does legitimately care about these issues enough to speak out about them that isn't some form of 'bad.'

And, in the specific case I was talking about, it was in the context of people writing MHA fanfiction, not so much the actual series. I know it's never really going to be addressed even if it's been obvious from the get-go. My point was I want to see other people address it themselves in their own works in the setting.

 

[Teal]

The thing is, if we were talking about something more Marvel or DC esque where these ideas are never really broached, I'd agree that it's a cold take, but Horikoshi keeps bringing it up all the damn time in the stuff he writes. It just continually gets expanded upon. The people who bring up the injustices are usually just shown to be acting out of self-interest. For example, in the Vigilantes spinoff, there's a character who has been permanently physically altered into a 'monstrous' state, who then tells someone off for automatically assuming he's a monster/villain just because of his appearance... and then he immediately calls another person in a similar physical situation a monster and it's played for laughs, saying he's a hypocrite that only cares about that in regards to himself. The villains that bring it up are consistently violent and/or "craaaazy" people. We haven't ever gotten a character that really does legitimately care about these issues enough to speak out about them that isn't some form of 'bad.'

And, in the specific case I was talking about, it was in the context of people writing MHA fanfiction, not so much the actual series. I know it's never really going to be addressed even if it's been obvious from the get-go. My point was I want to see other people address it themselves in their own works in the setting.

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So?

My point was that this a very real critique of a literary setting, it's missing the real point of why the setting is what is, IE, it's a setting for superheroes to punch bad bois, and it's not substantive in any real way. Sure some characters are hypocrites, sure the bad bois are puppy kicking evil, but all of that is in service of creating an setting where the heroes can be applauded for arresting the villains. They're features, not bugs.

I guess you ask fanfic writers to write fixfics about Deku rewriting MHA!Japan's constitution or something, and that might be neat, but then you won't have superpowered crime conspiracies around every corner in need of busting. That's why MHA needs to start fucked up, so that there's conflict and drama for a story to happen.

 

[1KBestK]

So?

My point was that this a very real critique of a literary setting, it's missing the real point of why the setting is what is, IE, it's a setting for superheroes to punch bad bois, and it's not substantive in any real way. Sure some characters are hypocrites, sure the bad bois are puppy kicking evil, but all of that is in service of creating an setting where the heroes can be applauded for arresting the villains. They're features, not bugs.

I guess you ask fanfic writers to write fixfics about Deku rewriting MHA!Japan's constitution or something, and that might be neat, but then you won't have superpowered crime conspiracies around every corner in need of busting. That's why MHA needs to start fucked up, so that there's conflict and drama for a story to happen.

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Claiming it's just a 'real' critique of a 'literary' setting doesn't make any sense when the critique is quite literally present in the work itself. It wants to have its cake and eat it too. That's the problem. And you don't need to have some grand plotline about a political revolution to just... actually address it? Add in some non cartoonishly evil characters that talk about what's wrong with the world? Like, Ingenium's agency is a great opportunity to do just that - it's clearly atypical in construction. There's a bunch of 'sidekicks' and they work as a team, takkng into account what each of them are good at, rather than just being a system to gain clout and network. That right there is an excellent opportunity to show a group of people trying to come up with a better system in a productive and nonviolent manner.

 

[Teal]

Claiming it's just a 'real' critique of a 'literary' setting doesn't make any sense when the critique is quite literally present in the work itself. It wants to have its cake and eat it too. That's the problem. And you don't need to have some grand plotline about a political revolution to just... actually address it? Add in some non cartoonishly evil characters that talk about what's wrong with the world? Like, Ingenium's agency is a great opportunity to do just that - it's clearly atypical in construction. There's a bunch of 'sidekicks' and they work as a team, takkng into account what each of them are good at, rather than just being a system to gain clout and network. That right there is an excellent opportunity to show a group of people trying to come up with a better system in a productive and nonviolent manner.

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I'm saying it's a 'real' critique of a 'literary' problem because you're seemingly saying it as if MHA!Japan is real government whose real laws are leading to real crime, and criticizing the characters living in and perpetuating it as equally real. That's the position I'm claiming to be unsubstantive.

If there were real nations ratifying real laws about the usage real superpowers, your critique about how MHA!Japan has handled superpowers would relevant and substantive, but as is it's just completely missing the point.

The point being, MHA is a straightforward story about a bunch of kids learning to be superheroes and punching villains, while learning more about themselves and each other and becoming adults. It doesn't seek to cultivate the social commentary you ascribe to it; all the details of it's setting are ultimately incidental and irrelevant to it's character focused story.

I know it's a favorite past time here and on SB to tear apart and analyze fictional settings, and there are many settings that are conducive to that, where the author purposefully designs meticulous lore and backstory for everything and calculate travel times and what not, but MHA is not one of those settings. It's not. Despite being set hundreds of years in the future after widespread supervillain-induced societal collapse and hero-induced reformation, MHA' Japan is practically identical to modern Japan, excepting the presence of heros and villains. All we know of that time period is that it happened and All For One was vaguely responsible, not because secret plot stuff will be revealed about it down the line, but because that time doesn't matter to Deku's story. It's the same reason why we don't know what's up with the rest of the world, how they've managed heroes, or the origin of quirks or what not, none of those things matter to Deku's story.

And it's not like nobody in story ever talks about how fucked up the whole thing is; Deku's bullied hard for not being able to break physics at will, Todoroki's abused by his untouchable dad, numerous villains outright say they're villains because of how the system is, and obviously that Gran Torino quote you brought up. It's present, it's talked about, but only to the extent that it affects Deku because it's Deku's story and Deku's story isn't about fixing all the evils of the world in an even handed, nonviolent, rational manner. Yet. It's about Deku righteously punching villains and befriending rivals. For now.

 

[StellarSeeker]

I'm saying it's a 'real' critique of a 'literary' problem because you're seemingly saying it as if MHA!Japan is real government whose real laws are leading to real crime, and criticizing the characters living in and perpetuating it as equally real. That's the position I'm claiming to be unsubstantive.

If there were real nations ratifying real laws about the usage real superpowers, your critique about how MHA!Japan has handled superpowers would relevant and substantive, but as is it's just completely missing the point.

The point being, MHA is a straightforward story about a bunch of kids learning to be superheroes and punching villains, while learning more about themselves and each other and becoming adults. It doesn't seek to cultivate the social commentary you ascribe to it; all the details of it's setting are ultimately incidental and irrelevant to it's character focused story.

I know it's a favorite past time here and on SB to tear apart and analyze fictional settings, and there are many settings that are conducive to that, where the author purposefully designs meticulous lore and backstory for everything and calculate travel times and what not, but MHA is not one of those settings. It's not. Despite being set hundreds of years in the future after widespread supervillain-induced societal collapse and hero-induced reformation, MHA' Japan is practically identical to modern Japan, excepting the presence of heros and villains. All we know of that time period is that it happened and All For One was vaguely responsible, not because secret plot stuff will be revealed about it down the line, but because that time doesn't matter to Deku's story. It's the same reason why we don't know what's up with the rest of the world, how they've managed heroes, or the origin of quirks or what not, none of those things matter to Deku's story.

And it's not like nobody in story ever talks about how fucked up the whole thing is; Deku's bullied hard for not being able to break physics at will, Todoroki's abused by his untouchable dad, numerous villains outright say they're villains because of how the system is, and obviously that Gran Torino quote you brought up. It's present, it's talked about, but only to the extent that it affects Deku because it's Deku's story and Deku's story isn't about fixing all the evils of the world in an even handed, nonviolent, rational manner. Yet. It's about Deku righteously punching villains and befriending rivals. For now.

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someone needs to add thermians in the trees to this thread because buddy, you have completely missed the point

the fact that the story only briefly acknowledges that the setting it is in is fucked up makes it a worse story. it is an active detriment to the work that hinders it from being as good as it can be. it is not a problem with the universe of the story. it is a problem with the writing of the story.

sure deku's story doesn't touch on how his status as a minority has affected him beyond the most cursory of glances

but it really fucking should

EDIT: Whoever actually added Thermians in the Trees to this thread, you're legendary.

 

[Teal]

someone needs to add thermians in the trees to this thread because buddy, you have completely missed the point

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You clearly need to brush up on what a thermian argument is, because defending a text with out-of-text justification from an in-text criticism is the exact opposite of one.

the fact that the story only briefly acknowledges that the setting it is in is fucked up makes it a worse story. it is an active detriment to the work that hinders it from being as good as it can be. it is not a problem with the universe of the story. it is a problem with the writing of the story.

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I guess I just disagree, a story doesn't have to preface itself by explaining to great detail why you don't want to live in it's setting. I can't even conceive why this needs to be a thing, people don't write stories so that readers can have imagine living in them guilt free, people write stories to entertain and critique, both of which are greatly helped by some degree of grittiness in the setting.

sure deku's story doesn't touch on how his status as a minority has affected him beyond the most cursory of glances

but it really fucking should

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MHA literally shows us the entire depth of how Deku being quirkless has affected him: he's softly barred from one job, and he's bullied in school. That's literally the extent of discrimination against the quirkless in MHA, and how it affects Deku is hardly a "cursory glance", the first three episodes are wholly about Deku grappling with this fact of his existence.

Implying however that that's even remotely comparable to the experiences of actual minorities is incredibly ignorant.

 

[1KBestK]

Implying however that that's even remotely comparable to the experiences of actual minorities is incredibly ignorant.

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No it's not? People treating you like dirt, beating you, and telling you to kill yourself is kinda part of the minority experience. It's already treated as analogous. We also have other examples of prejudice based on the innate characteristics of people, like with Shinsou. People with powers/mutants have a long and storied history of being minority analogues and it can be done well.

 

[Teal]

No it's not? People treating you like dirt, beating you, and telling you to kill yourself is kinda part of the minority experience. It's already treated as analogous. We also have other examples of prejudice based on the innate characteristics of people, like with Shinsou. People with powers/mutants have a long and storied history of being minority analogues and it can be done well.

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Really? You're really gonna claim that the extent and nature of real bigotry is... Bullying by a handful of classmates? That there aren't institutional and cultural issues? Just a few bad apples?

Because that's the extent of anti-quirkless bigotry in MHA, one asshole who should be on a watchlist gives a classmate shit with help from his classmates.

The same applies with Shinsou, there aren't laws specifically targeting him because of his quirk, people just don't want to talk to him because he could hijack their body if they do. Individual bigotry =/= institutional bigotry.

And sure, you can claim that people with mutant quirks are minority analogs... But the text doesn't support it. Aside from "wow they look different" there's no connection there. They're not treated any different from the rest of society

 

[1KBestK]

Really? You're really gonna claim that the extent and nature of real bigotry is... Bullying by a handful of classmates? That there aren't institutional and cultural issues? Just a few bad apples?

Because that's the extent of anti-quirkless bigotry in MHA, one asshole who should be on a watchlist gives a classmate shit with help from his classmates.

The same applies with Shinsou, there aren't laws specifically targeting him because of his quirk, people just don't want to talk to him because he could hijack their body if they do. Individual bigotry =/= institutional bigotry.

And sure, you can claim that people with mutant quirks are minority analogs... But the text doesn't support it. Aside from "wow they look different" there's no connection there. They're not treated any different from the rest of society

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Firstly, the bigotry is not just 'bullying by a handful of classmates,' and yeah, it is institutional. The teachers literally do nothing to stop it. It's clearly not just 'one asshole.' On top of that, in the Vigilantes spinoff, there are examples of bigotry against both quirkless people and those with mutant quirks, and in the main manga there are multiple times where those with mutant quirks are insulted for their appearance. On top of that, things like the UA entrance exam are explicitly biased against certain classes of quirks - I have no clue how you have come to the conclusion that there isn't discrimination on the institutional level when the manga itself shows that in the very first arc. On top of that, All Might himself literally says that a quirkless person can't be a hero (which is factually untrue, read the Vigilantes spinoff). Hell, Shinsou himself gets Izuku to talk to him by calling Ojiro a 'monkey.' You have no idea what you're talking about. The only person characterizing the bigotry in MHA as 'individual' and the result of 'a few bad apples' is you. It's something that's brought up by the author themself multiple times throughout their works.

Edit: And when I said 'mutants,' I was referring to the X-Men, not those with mutant quirks.

 

[Reveen]

The villains that bring it up are consistently violent and/or "craaaazy" people. We haven't ever gotten a character that really does legitimately care about these issues enough to speak out about them that isn't some form of 'bad.'

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The wack thing about this is that this matches up with how institutional bigotry is handled in older media. Particularly cop shows or movies, or even just works that take place in a less equal era (like Forrest Gump). These works had a tendency to bring up the inequities of the era via having some group of stupid crazy radicals akin to the Weather Underground or Black Panthers to let the audience know that even if they do have a point that even if the status quo is unfair, the people most concerned with fighting it are stupid radicals who go too far.

But that was a device to mollify concerns about real world injustice in a work where the protagonists job could be seen as upholding said injustice. And not an original setting where the author has full control over how just or unjust the world is. So instead of either a. Creating a setting where the system is actually fair and just, b. Allowing the setting to be unjust and just dealing with it, they've chosen to bring up the idea that the system is unjust just so they can turn around and discredit possible criticism of it.

That makes it kind of hard to just blow off the issues with the setting, and in fact raises questions about the ethos the work is based around. It makes one wonder if the arbitrary restriction of freedoms in the setting is not only intentional, but seen by the narrative as a good thing. (Because there are, in fact, people in the world who see putting the boots to certain groups of people as being not quite good, but inherently necessary for an orderly society).