The Wages of Redemption in My Hero Academia: a Meditation on Endeavor

 

Image courtesy of sugarfarts

 (WARNING: major spoilers ahoy)

The shonen battle series stands out as arguably the most recognizable genre in the wide world of anime.  This family of fist-pumping fictions aimed at boys includes dignitaries such as One Piece and Naruto among its ranks, and has attracted a peripheral demographic which cuts across age, gender, and national lines.  Its success lies partly in a tried and true heroic formula: young heroes/heroines set their goals, meet helpful allies along the way, and move up in the world to accomplish their dreams - usually by punching faces and smashing a few bad eggs along the way.  As a result, shonen fight manga have built up a reputation (both deserving and undeserving) as a shallow repository for competent but plebeian writers. Sure, there’s variation, and the pole of quality can shift from the lowest dregs to something approaching art, but minus a few superficial forays into “darker” topics like death or abuse, the genre usually limits what can and cannot be discussed at any level beyond middle school maturity.

Meet Endeavor

But every so often, one of these peddlers of physical might comes along and provides a rare, in-depth examination of a touchy subject not often looked at in a world stuffed with friendship power-ups and well-defined heroes and villains.  My Hero Academia, one of the most lauded modern shonen today, is one I've discussed before. Kohei Horikoshi’s story of a young boy named Izuku Midoriya who strives to become a hero despite being one of the few born in his world without an superpower, or “Quirk,” has enamored fans the world over with its endearing characters and surprisingly astute deconstructive observations despite keeping an upbeat and optimistic tone.  But there is one character who could be called anything BUT endearing. In this world, where superheroes are such an everyday presence that the public ranks them according to their prowess, few match the power and effectiveness of Enji Todoroki, aka “Endeavor,” the No. 2 ranked hero in the world and father of important main cast member Shouto Todoroki.  As bearer of a powerful flame-based quirk called “Hellfire,” Endeavor has saved hundreds if not thousands of lives over the course of his career. He is also, to put it lightly, a colossal tool to the third degree, rude and dismissive towards everyone, and driven as much by pride and envy of No. 1 hero All Might as by the desire to help the citizens who rely on him.  

But what really fixed Endeavor in the fandom’s eternal ire concerns how he treats his family.  His marriage to Shouto’s mother Rei seemed transactional to begin with, geared towards producing a worthy heir, which after three tries he finally found with Shouto.  His older children, deemed “failures,” lived in isolation from their little brother, neglected by Enji as he focused his attention to “training” (read: kicking the crap out of) his prized achievement.  And just to rain a few rotten cherries atop this unappetizing dessert, Rei sometimes got a face-full herself whenever she tried to protect Shouto. This led to her mental breakdown, culminating in a fit of blind rage which left Shouto scalded and permanently disfigured and landed her in a mental recovery hospital.  And all the while, Endeavor played the part of the pivotal patriarch, blind to the tremendous damage he’s done to his family, devoting his life to one aim: surpassing All Might, one way or another.

Endeavor’s characterization earned him considerable hate, but also a fair number of fans drawn to his cool design, undeniable badassery, and his status as a nominal hero among a top flight of generally clean paragons.  For a good few readers unable to draw the line between “evil” and “asshole,” Endeavor is held up as a great villain himself, to the point that many fans anticipated a showdown between him and other heroes down the line.

Character Growth and Its Discontents 

And then, dimensionality struck.

After All Might expends the last of his power in an epic fight and steps down as the world’s top hero, Endeavor gets kicked upstairs as the new big dog — which, since it was given to him rather than earned, royally pisses him off.  What’s more, years of playing the effective but aloof and vicious anti-hero has — surprise! — left him with an in-universe hatedom to match his fandom; instead of a “Symbol of Peace” like his predecessor, he’s a symbol of division and, in some quarters, scorn.  He comes to realize that all his actions over the past decade or two have amounted to nothing, and with this heightened perspective comes a recognition of the wreckage his hurricane of abuse has left in his own home, and it leaves a bitter taste.

For the fans, it was like: goodbye villainous aspirations, hello redemption arc.  And many of them loathe it.

Horikoshi received considerable backlash for even attempting to conduct a redemption arc with the character, with some fans even issuing veiled death threats over tumblr.  Others already dismissed it as “terrible” or “poorly-written” before it even began in earnest. This vitriol leaves me scratching my head, as it should any rational observer.  As a lover of good (key word here) redemption arcs, I welcome any attempt to have a character change themselves for the better; as a reader and a critic, I’m impressed with Horikoshi’s surprisingly nuanced and sensitive handling of the subject, certainly compared to other shonen anime (looking right at you, Naruto).  And yet despite the skillful way MHA handles this potential land mine, many fans remain bitterly divisive, still shrieking their discontent at even the attempt of letting Endeavor change, or better yet, saying that he doesn’t "deserve" a redemption arc due to the supposed severity of his past actions.

The Question of Why

All of this vexes me by its profound illogic.  The truth is that the world both in and out of shonen manga is no stranger to unlikely redemption stories; many of history’s most renowned saints started their lives as notorious sinners, and there’s no end of manga bad boys (and girls) who turn a new leaf after a series of nefarious crimes.  And while some of these turns fall prey to some seriously sloppy writing, few have inspired quite the visceral reaction (and death threats) as Endeavor. It looks all the more puzzling since Enji’s crimes, taken objectively, look paltry on the grand scale. While some clamor for the redemption of characters like Dabi, a notorious flame-based serial killer who shows no remorse for his actions at all, Endeavor — who to our knowledge has murdered no one, has saved many, and whose gravest crime is non lethal abuse to a handful of people — gets tossed to the fire by a large portion of the fandom.  While my initial reaction may be to call out the hypocrisy of this, further reflection helps place an understanding of these reactions into their proper context — and why despite that, Enji’s redemption arc is a worthy venture to get behind.

Close to Home

One thing consistent with the responses to this development, both for and against, is how many people bring their personal experiences to the fore in any discussion of Endeavor.  This lies at the root of why a hero whose biggest crime amounts to everyday douchebaggery can earn less sympathy than, say, an unreformed mass murderer; few people are unfortunate enough to run into a real life serial killer, but far too many have the specter of an abusive relative lurking in their closets.  This helps create a divide between extreme cruelty and our empathy with its victims. In addition, Endeavor’s victims are more intimately known to us: Shouto, a major character and a prime filter through which we perceive his father; his sister, Fuyumi, who seems most willing to forgive Enji but mostly wants some semblance of a happy family; their brother Natsuo, who hates their father with a passion and is resolved to never forgive him no matter what; and of course, Rei, who despite bearing the brunt of Enji’s abuse along with Shouto which eventually claimed his face and her freedom, looks willing to give forgiveness a try, even if the thought of facing her husband again terrifies her.  All four of these characters are known to us, their motives and concerns made “real” by their narrative focus, unlike the scores of faceless victims behind the story’s real antagonists. Now, there’s a ton of interesting psychology behind this (and frankly, it reveals some scary things about our capacity for empathy) but they all revolve around the fact that the struggles of a small group of known people, in relatable circumstances, will always trump the welfare of a huge swath of strangers, no matter how awful their suffering. The easy disconnect fiction brings to the table doesn’t help the empathy score, either. Now, this is by no means rational, let alone ethical, but it is understandable.

Redemption Is Not What You Think It Is

Furthermore, our punitive outlook when it comes to the riddle of retribution often leaves us confused when faced with an arc like this.  Some fans protest against Enji’s new turn on the grounds that he doesn’t “deserve” redemption, or that it’s too easy an out for his crimes, which is utterly ridiculous.  Redemption — or rehabilitation, if you prefer — is by definition the act of restoring, of making right. Redemption occurs simply when a character realizes “I done f***ed up,” and trudges down the difficult path of atonement.  Fans likely oppose this so fervently because they confuse atonement with forgiveness.  Atonement is an action on the part of the one who has wronged, and in that respect, no one can tell him or her they have no “right” to it; that’s completely their choice.  Forgiveness, on the other hands, rests with those they have wronged — in this case, Enji’s family. The boundary between a mature or immature redemption arc falls on how clearly the writer draws this distinction; having everyone suddenly forgive a character who has done great evil to a good many people breaks realism and leaves attentive fans deeply unsatisfied.  And again, Horikoshi sets himself above the competition in how he handles this most delicate of topics, showing that there is no right or wrong way to forgive one’s abuser. In the latest rung of Enji’s turn to good, his family remains divided, with some willing to forgive, others beyond the point of any forgiveness, and Shouto stuck in the middle, respecting his father’s skills and wanting to let go of his hatred, but justifiably skeptical over whether Enji’s change of heart will stick.  Enji, reading the atmosphere, comes to a very reasonable solution for them all: he will not seek forgiveness, and instead wish only to atone from afar, letting his family heal while he takes himself out of the picture. Such a mature reckoning should be lauded, especially coming from the pen of a “mere” shonen mangaka, and in fact, gets me thinking that if anyone in the medium has shown the attitude which merits forgiveness, it’s Enji.

The Bakugo Effect

I can’t leave this topic without kicking another fandom powder keg, one that’s only been agitated further by Endeavor’s redemption arc.  Enji at this point often gets compared to another character in MHA — Katsuki Bakugo, the series’s deuteragonist. Bakugo, a volatile, hot-headed punk with a powerful explosion Quirk and a superiority complex, follows a similar narrative trajectory to Enji: both got introduced as arrogant, violent, nominal heroes at best; both abused and tormented main characters (Enji to Shouto, while Bakugo bullied Midoriya for years); and both were hated by a fair portion of the fandom for their demeanor and actions.  And both have since revealed more complex and engaging depths to their characters, and in their owns ways are clawing towards redemption of a sort. The key difference, Endeavor fans keenly point out, is that Enji has actually apologized for his past actions, admitted his wrong doing, and has made a conscious effort to change and repair. Bakugo, though considerably mellowed compared to his introduction and learning to channel his anger constructively, remains a loud, pushy jerk, rude and verbally abusive to everyone, and has yet to acknowledge let alone apologize for his past bullying to Midoriya, which besides physical beatings included effectively telling him to go kill himself — an action which could have legal repercussions in real life.  And yet despite this, while Katsuki remains far from universally loved, he has gained tremendously in popularity since his character development, and gets consistent encouragement from fans for his growth, while these very same fans will dismiss any effort to “humanize” Enji. I’m a bit at a loss to decipher this; the characters are similar in the nature if not extent of their crimes, and Bakugo’s youth, while certainly a factor, gives no excuse.

It could simply be that we don’t have the right perspective to wrap our minds around characters like Enji and Bakugo.  Both prove less controversial in their native land than here in the West, with Endeavor even ranking high in one recent popularity poll for his new leaf.  Regardless, any attempt of a character to change for the better should be welcomed, especially if it leads from a writer with enough skill to treat the topic with respect. Horikoshi reveals redemption for what it is: messy, painful, and decidedly unheroic, but when handled well, speaks to a deep desire in all of us that by setting right what we have wronged, we can change ourselves and the world for the better, even if we never find forgiveness.  I don’t know where this road will lead, but I wish Horikoshi and Enji all the luck they can muster. 

They'll definitely need it.

One-Punch Man is back, but the resuts are mixed

Hero may not be drawn to scale

Show: One Punch Man, Season 2

Genre: Animation, action, comedy

Network: Hulu

Premiered: April 9th, 2019

So what do you get when you cross an awesome series, massive hype, and a premiere date that keeps getting pushed back to the far side of the universe every few months? Probably the explosive powder keg of edgy chatter that accompanied the release of anime phenom One-Punch Man's second season. Penned by the exemplary manga writer (and not-so-exemplary artist) ONE, this brilliantly-paced, satirical superhero yarn struck the 2015 anime world with the force of a meteorite, battering its adversaries with the overwhelming might of its strong story and fluid animation. For anime fans and casuals alike, this 12-episode buffet sated a TV hunger they never knew they had, and the withdrawal after it left the airwaves proved almost unbearable to the many viewers starving for more. But with no announcements and hardly a word from the creators, fans clung desperately to the hope of a future release like a life preserve until finally, an announcement two years back heralded the beloved series’s triumphant return. Or...it would have, until word got out that studio Madhouse, the artisans behind Season One’s dazzling spectacle, won't be returning to the drawing board. Instead, JC Staff - a group not exactly known to dazzle fans with the power of their presence - took the helm. This move was decried as the end of the world even before the season premiere, but is the switch to a different studio really that crucial to spoiling such a beloved, acclaimed show? Let's find out...

Synopsis

In a world filled to the brim with monsters, alien attacks, and other threats to the safety and welfare of mankind, Saitama looks like just your average hero for fun, sweeping in to rescue folks from the world’s myriad dangers in between bargain shopping and vegging out on his apartment floor. But Saitama isn’t just your run-of-the-mill, pajama wearing caped crusader; through a “rigorous” training method, he somehow accidentally became the strongest being in existence, capable of killing any villain he comes across with just one, lazy punch. Unfortunately, the wages for this phenomenal power are paid in baldness and boredom, and as the threats pile on and would-be disciples land on his doorstep seeking the secret to his power, our hero bumbles through his existential ennui with a dry wit and one desperate yearning: to find a foe strong enough to give him that one good fight.

The Good

I’m dodging the giant pink animation elephant in the room for now and just going to say that OPM Season 2 is still the same show at heart as before. The characters we all know and love are back, and bless 'em, they haven't changed a bit. Saitama is as lazily indestructible as ever, though he now thoughtlessly doles out common sense wisdom to everyone he meets, morphing him into some latter-day Bodhisattva and captivating some of the best of the best in the hero biz. This season finally gives a proper introduction to one of the series' more popular characters: the psychic diva Fubuki, or “Hellish Blizzard,” as per her hero name. The stunning, green-haired beauty has been a fan favorite since her debut in the webcomic, and her rendezvous with Saitama sheds a bit more light on the dodgy politics saturating the hero world. At the same time, it still adheres to the series's absurdist comedy, rooted in elaborate setups which lead to hilariously anticlimactic conclusions. Episode three showcases this brilliantly, with a serial escalation of fights and hype behind one particular character, only to see him get one-punched - or "one-chopped," in this case - like the Saitama afterthought he ultimately is. And speaking of scuffles, the battle between Genos, Saitama’s chief “disciple,” and the bald hero’s self-proclaimed ninja rival Speed-o'-Sound Sonic, possessed a fluidity and cinematography that exceeded my expectations, and the third episode's spotlight on Garou, the monster-obsessed antagonist this season, propels this kernel of competence into something approaching wonder.

The Bad

...Do I really need to state the obvious?  Fine, here goes: the animation quality, at least for some parts, gets stuck somewhere between “hot royal mess” and “something my sick dog fertilized the lawn with last night.” I'm leaving the fight scenes out for now, since that's an equine of an entirely different hue I discuss down below. Rather, it's what JC Staff does - or doesn't do - with its characters when they're not bleeding or in mid-punch that will leave you scratching your head. For one, it is very lazy; often, the characters are mere still shots with their mouths flapping, veering entire scenes to a level of uncanny artificiality that'd make the Stepford Smilers blush with envy. It doesn't help that for the first two episodes, the folks at JC Staff leave a lot to be desired with their fight scenes. Sure, Genos and Sonic’s epic showdown actually lives up to the overused adjective, but Saitama’s clash with Blizzard and her crew drew little more than a snooze out of me. One blatant gaffe I noticed during their fight made it look like Blizzard suddenly teleported to near Saitama’s head from over thirty feet away, ready to swing in with her box cutter, instead of the desperate charge it had been accurately depicted as in the manga. This was the only part of the fight that elicited more than a yawn from me, though I don’t think “snorting while trying not to laugh” is what JC Staff was shooting for. Beyond the laziness, and short of the best of the action scenes, the animation is passable, if not stellar. Still, fans can’t resist comparing it to the magisterial ease of the past season’s visual accomplishments, even with mundane matters like facial expressions. Madhouse managed to etch the personalities of each character into every tick and twitch of their faces, and every slump of their frames - even Saitama, who ain't exactly the most expressive guy around. But seeing these beloved characters rendered so dully gave a shock to the system of long-time fans, and I doubt the phenomenal first season would have sparked nearly as much acclaim had JC Staff been manning the ship from the get-go.

The Ugly

The animation.

All joking aside, the animation quality, particularly as it concerns the fight scenes, roams all over the map. Had this review gone up before the third episode, I would have judged it an unqualified bad; the hero clashes in the previous two episodes didn't inspire much beyond disappointment, Genos vs. Sonic aside. But then they drop episode three, and surprised everyone with a startling growth spurt from out of the dregs. Garou's curb-stomp across the faces of dozens of heroes reached a height of skillful depiction the naysayers would have thought impossible when the studio released its announcement trailer some time ago. It doesn't quite approach Madhouse's mastered fluidity and seamless execution, but JC Staff pulls off a valiant effort nonetheless, and has a knack for manipulating shadow and lighting to the service of high-octane movement that surpasses even their eulogized predecessor, and in my opinion, this style better fits the somewhat darker tone of this season. The reason I don't count this as a definite good is that we just don't know what to expect in the upcoming episodes: JC Staff may continue the upward march, shattering every negative expectation like the force from Saitama's apocalyptic fists; or they may slide back to the wonky mouth work and still images of before. It's anyone's guess at this point. Besides that, almost every scene so far has been lifted straight from the manga's pages. This is great, on the one hand, since ONE is, if nothing else, an outstanding storyteller, so you can’t go wrong with keeping faithful to the source. But too much faith can shutter the creative juices, and dogmatic adherence to the manga might prohibit JC Staff from making the acceptable breaks from the printed page necessary for every adaptation.

Tune In or Tune Out? 

Tune In. Never mind the seesawing animation quality, never mind the broken pedestal or ruined, mostly unreasonable, expectations; at the end of the day, this is still One-Punch Man, one of the best manga series to come out of Japan in the past decade. ONE's humorous tale of a superhero world beholden to image and devoid of meaning and the caped baldy who wanders that mire carries an evergreen resonance to modern life, no matter what package it comes wrapped in. JC Staff's style may, to old fans, feel like a bitter pill to swallow, but given some time and an open mind, it might still prove just what the doctor ordered.

Anime: A Meditation on Appeal

The Appeal of Anime

Look back to the early 90s, and you'll find anime - that special brand of animation from the Land of the Rising Sun - a niche entity, with a small yet devoted following among a few bands of dedicated geeks. Fast forward to the present, and that once niche outcrop standing lonely in the West is now a towering mountain of popularity, sheltering a huge, multi-million dollar industry across both sides of the Pacific. For those on the outside, the luster of this Japanese juggernaut seems way beyond us. What’s the big deal, we ask, about a bunch of cartoons?  

Well, a lot, apparently - enough to merit an examination of all the myriad ways anime has touched its faithful devoted - and why it might fall flat with others.

Cowboy Bebop

But first, the brass tacks: anime is not a genre. It is a medium, and that makes a big difference in this discussion. Too often, people toss around careless statements, like “I don’t like anime” or “Anime is the best,” like you're declaring a love for comedies or action films. Any snap judgment about anime centered on a few select tropes is bound to fizzle since it's basically the equivalent of saying you love or hate "movies" in the very broadest sense. Anime as a category is too vast for any kind of all-encompassing opinion to make a lick of sense, since series like Cowboy Bebop and Sailor Moon have next to nothing in common - any more than Friends and 24 can be counted as the same because they’re both live action shows from America.  

So with that in mind, let’s take a stab at why this broad medium reigns in the hearts of many millions of people worldwide.

 For the Love of Animation

Quite simply, you can’t appreciate anime if you don’t appreciate animation as a medium of entertainment. While there are quite a few self-declared anime fans who thumb their noses at anything they construe derisively as a “cartoon,” their enmity is more a rejection of the cultural baggage dredged up by those other, mostly American forms. Anime forges a connection with those who spurn the idea that they are too old/mature/masculine/whatever to “waste time on cartoons.” Personally, I’ve always held a great love for creative media, whether in text, graphic or animation form, and never miss an opportunity to pass time with a good animated flick or series, no matter where it comes from. Animation is an art form, one capable of  breathtaking beauty and wondrous enchantment, and for cultures reared on the Disney formula, stepping out of the "for kids only" cartoon ghetto can be quite liberating.

Hajime no Ippo

With that in mind, anime stands out as a unique animation vehicle, with a number of distinctions that sets the hearts of its fans ablaze. You can generally divide these traits into two camps: extrinsic factors of the medium itself - i.e. its diversity and aesthetics; and intrinsic factors bound up with what the viewers bring to the table, particularly how they concern subculture identification.

A Wide, Wide World

I know I keep beating that "it's a medium, not a genre!" shtick like a red-headed dead horse, but it's needed. We in the West are often blind to animation's potential through our maddeningly opaque set of Disney goggles, and even as the scales slowly fall from our eyes with the advent of more “adult” cartoons, it'll be a long time before we see anything close to the stunning diversity found in Japan’s best studios. Many of the same genres that grace the big screen in Western box offices, like heavy action flicks, stylized sci-fi and the like, are equally abundant in anime, and without the constraints of special effects budgets or real world physics. But there are rarer beasts lurking as well: a plethora of teen musical dramas, goofball comedies, gritty didactic fiction, and other genres that are practically unicorns in American entertainment.  Sports dramas, for example, are an endangered species on film, and virtually extinct in series format; but they thrive in anime with popular shows like Hajime no Ippo and Haikyuu!! The infamous “harem” genre, featuring an average joe or jane dating or even marrying multiple men and/or women, is a no-man's land in the States, but common as dirt in anime. And some of the flat-out bizarre comedy madhouses like FLCL and Excel Saga have few if any analogs anywhere in the West - animated or not. The freedom inherent to the medium means that all sorts of scenarios you couldn't imagine playing out in real life find a comfortable home under its umbrella.

That Certain (Aesthetic) Touch

Still, anime's tremendous diversity doesn't keep its manifold manifestations from sharing certain traits that split off from most Western media in culturally specified ways. Anime encompasses a great swath of genres, from the dark and gritty to the bright and shimmering, but on the whole it leans towards an idealized aesthetic. At the risk of generalizing, youth and energy are prevalent dressing on the backdrops of many anime properties, and in Japanese multimedia as a whole. This is at the heart of the “big-eyed” and cute appearance of many anime characters, especially those targeted at younger demographics, and even in less optimistic settings, fair looks and colorful clothes are not out of place. Not only that, but anime characters are largely more expressive and emotional than their Western counterpoints, often exaggerating facial features to get a particular mood across. For its

Akira

devotees, these traits lend anime a relatability that's harder to find in the more subdued or stiff styles typical to the West, and the expressiveness in particular can heighten the emotional charge, for comedic or dramatic purposes, in very potent ways. However, this bend towards the bright, the colorful, and the expressive slips between the ire of many anime “haters,” especially those who equate seriousness with the dark, gritty, or even the grotesque. But besides being superficial to the point of causing headaches, this line of thinking falls flat against the medium’s diversity.  You don't waltz into a Pixar film and complain about the lack of violence or dark realism; likewise, don't stumble into an anime with bright colors and characters who look like they fell out of a rummage sale truck bin if you want to satisfy those same urges.  There's a big enough pie out there to feed anyone's tastes.   

A Marker of Identity

But besides the visual feasts and wide selection offered, many fans in the West latch onto anime as a counterculture identification. Anime has often been a magnet for many who, either by their own reckoning or others', fall outside of the mainstream: the freaks and geeks, the shy and socially awkward, the derided and the untouchable. There has always been a certain unity in geekdom, tying cartoon, anime and manga fans together with fantasy fanatics, sci-fi nerds, and, to a lesser extent, trading card and video gamers. This knot was a bit tighter way back in the early- and mid-90s, when a stream of new wave anime like Akira and Ghost in the Shell swept through theaters as JRPG imports like the Final Fantasy juggernaut dominated console gaming; but even today, there is enough shared ground to bring all of these diverse fandoms together at massive, city-wide pop culture conventions. Some fans gather to dissect their animes for peeks into Japanese culture; some use it as a badge of difference, a line in the sand separating their hobbies from those of the “other” kids. And still others simply enjoy sharing interests with like-minded people, even as they take a secret pride in knowing said interests are terra incognito to the wider culture and makes their inner circle seem all the more exclusive. The need to belong is a universal human instinct, and anime is no different from any other trend, past or present, that accepts the perennial social misfits into its sphere.  This is all broad generalization, of course, and with the expanded popularity of anime in recent years, it's not uncommon to see the so-called "cool kids" making a fuss over the latest Dragon Ball Super or My Hero Academia episode.  But as long as the mark of stigma in any way clings to the medium in the West, it will always serve to shelter those looking for a subculture to belong to.

I know the arguments above might still leave the perplexed scratching their heads in incredulity. To them, I simply recommend asking an anime watcher in their lives (there's bound to be at least one, especially if children are afoot) and ask them about what they watch and why.  They’re likely to drop a few names and recommendations, so why not give it a shot?  There’s something for just about everyone, and I'll guarantee you'll find something worth watching.