(includes spoilers for season 2 of MHA)

This is the third revision of my original MHA review uploaded in 2021.

#Context

Deku against Todoroki sucks some fat ass. I’ll get straight to the point and begin explaining why I don't like this fight nor most of the other fights in MHA (nor MHA as a whole), but first let me tell you some context.

I dont like MHA I think its quite bad.
I dropped MHA after watching deku vs todoroki. It was already bad and that was the nail in the coffin.
I have practiced combat sports my whole life, so I'd like to consider myself knowledgeable in fighting and its choreography.

That's it for the context part, now let's move on to the actual review, starting with basic plot structure.

#Story foundation and credit where it’s due

A plot always needs to follow this basic structure in the way it progresses and it is handled, this also applies to big story points, such as, a fight, especially a fight. This structure I am talking about is build up, execution and aftermath. Skilled authors have perfected these structures and are able to change it at will while still maintaining the same basic idea. This basic structure ensures many things, but particularly important for this review, it ensures context and hype, if done well at least. What I mean by hype is that thanks to the build up not only do you get context but you also are engaged and excited for the execution/climax. Before bitching about the fight I’ll be giving some credit where credit is due.

Deku against Todoroki perfectly handles the idea of build up. Way before the fight it gives you the idea that todoroki has a secret and that he has a rivalry, or hate, against deku. This is only reinforced when before the fight todoroki confronts deku about his powers also showing that todoroki also poses a potential danger to deku and his powers. These things I just mentioned make you excited for the fight because you know it will be a big story point and place for development for both characters, specifically todoroki.

The other place where I have to give credit is that the fight serves its purpose. I know that I didn't mention this in the structure part, but this is still important. What differentiates good fights from great ones is that it is not only a brawl, but also a learning experience for both characters. The learning experience in this fight is with Todoroki when he finally uses his fire. This is a turning point for his character because this means he has unlocked his true potential and it also reinforces his will against his dad in a way. The fight also serves its purpose in fleshing out Todoroki's backstory. This doesn't mean that the fight is good by any means because you can't have something great without a solid foundation, but we’ll talk about that later.

The final piece of credit I would like to give is the aftermath portion. Like I just said, this fight marks a changing point for Todoroki and that alone is a good enough aftermath, but that's not all. We also get better introduced to Endeavor thanks to this fight and that is going to be important later. Also the bond/rivalry between deku and todoroki is more fleshed out and that‘s important. Unfortunately, the fight (and MHA in general) has an overwhelming amount of negatives, so let's get into the execution part.

#Execution

This is going to be the main part of the review so be prepared to read. Before talking about something I hate, let's first talk about some good battles, execution wise.
-Orochi Doppio against Hanma Yujiro
-Every fight in baki
-Sasuke and naruto against that one white dude in boruto
-gin mori against park il pyo (before god stuff)
-all fights in samurai champloo
-araragi agaisnt karen (its just fucking epic)
-Toichiro Suzuki vs Mob
-etc..

Most of these fights are also good beside the execution part, but we’ll be talking specifically about execution in this section.

As you can see there are a lot of good fights in anime, now let's talk about bad fights
-deku against todoroki
-deku against todoroki
-deku against todoroki
-deku against todoroki
-deku against todoroki
-deku against todoroki
-deju against todoroki
-deku against todoroki

I fucking hate this fight, so lets talk about why.

Firstly let's talk about how MHA determines a good fight. I think what makes the foundation of a fight is it being visually appealing, i.e. interesting and engaging to watch (with watch being the key part). The way MHA treats the visually appealing factor is by putting all of the budget into making one attack look as flashy and intense instead of using that same budget/effort into making a well choreographed fight that flows dynamically and naturally. Thanks to this fact the fights can often get stale thanks to a lack of sense of flow. Another thing that also interrupts the sense of flow is the overwhelming amount of dialogue and narration of Todoroki's backstory. You may say that the dialogue is necessary, but the thing that separates good fights from great fights is that you can tell the emotions and things that are happening by the fight itself, not by the exposition. A great example of my previous point is kakashi vs obito when they’re in the kamui realm, with the fight dynamically integrating the history, emotions, and implications of the fight through its choreography and directing. The lack of any actual complex choreography is what makes MHA do the thing where they put the whole budget and effort solely on making it look flashy. This lack of flow makes the fight usually unable to maintain your attention and hype as the fight feels slower and unnatural.

Now that we’ve established this, let's move on to the fight itself. The fight basically starts (and continues) with the same repeated motion of Todoroki using his ice attack and Deku destroying that thing with a flick of his fingers. They do this around 7 times throughout all the fight and man is it boring. One time, it's surprising, the second time it's fine, the third time it's numbing, and the rest get ever so boring and desensitized as it goes. This is where the point that I made in the last paragraph comes in. They expect you to enjoy the fight because of the quality of animation used during this repeated motion, but because it is repeated so many times not only is it boring and monotonous but it also makes the fight lack a complete sense of flow. On top of that, the interaction between these two moves isn't very interesting, cool, nor nuanced. However, the author is aware of that and that is the reason why he included the sense of limit in the fight.

The author of MHA is aware that almost all his fights suck ass, and that is the reason why in every fight he tries to make you hype in it by including a sense of pressure or limit. In todoroki vs deku that sense of pressure comes from todoroki freezing and deku’s limited supply of fingers, but the problem with this sense of pressure is that it is fake, all sense of pressure in MHA is faker than the Kardashians body. The reason why I say this is because you already know the outcome of everything that happens in MHA. Yeah there are some times were you doubt, but the basic aftermath is the same because you know that nothing will happen to the characters and you know that even if todoroki freezed, deku would pussy up and surrender. MHA is a widespread phenomenon and that is the reason why every fight is fake. They try to build hype by making you doubt the outcome of the fight, but in your heart you always know the outcome or that the outcome doesn't matter. It is fake because it plays it safe, it's not like in other anime or manga where characters are at the author's mercy because in MHA there's no such thing as a dead good guy. There is no sense of actual stakes/danger. And in the extremely rare cases where something like this happens, it isn’t played to it’s full potential and still plays it safe. The author knows that if he plays it safe the MHA fans will continue reading it nonetheless and that's why it's a boring anime. This applies to the entire anime and not only the fights. Thanks to this overbearing false sense of pressure, you feel nothing if you aren't caught up in the fight because the fight is handled under the basis that you are hyped and that the hype is blinding you, but if you're not, than you can see it's fucking shit. This wouldn’t be a problem if it was constantly hype af, but it isn’t, it ain’t no solo leveling or anything like that.

Also the way they handle Todoroki's backstory in the fight also sucks ass. It is another thing that helps me prove my point that this fight lacks any sense of flow, because right in the middle of the fight there is a fucking 4 minute break for the backstory. I don’t have a problem with these sorts of flashbacks during fights, but when they interrupt the flow to such a degree and aren’t weaved in dynamically they only serve to hinder the quality of the fight.

Continuing with the fight itself, it provides limited variety. As I mentioned before the concept of repeated attacks is really common in this fight, especially the one I mentioned (because it takes up the whole fucking fight), but in the moments when the fight isn't doing this repeated action, what is it doing? Fucking nothing. During the moments when this motion isn’t being repeated you only get dialogue, backstory and the occasional shield or punch, nothing much. A fight has to have variety and different techniques and if you don't want to get fancy just make it so that all the attacks are done on the same foundation because it doesn't matter as long as it has variety. The fight is made up of very few moves if you count them, even though it’s a 7 minute fight. I can count all of the moves used only using my hands. And I can count all of the different moves used in a single hand. This is disappointing because in the tournament section before this where they had to steal banners the concept of variety was correctly utilized and made the scenes substantially more interesting, despite me not enjoying that section either. In the horse flag segment the concept of variety was handled well because it forced the characters to be creative and use the same foundation to form a good strategy with their techniques and teamwork possibilities, with that being the only interesting part of that segment. But if we compare that to deku vs todoroki there isn't any variety because not only are deku’s and todoroki’s power not as flexible as you think (todoroki without the fire), but they also repeat the same fucking move, as I’ve reiterated. I know I have repeated myself over and over, but it is to draw the point that it’s literally the entire fight.

Another core problem present throughout the fight is the way in which the attacks and movements are basically independently from each other and from what the other person is doing, instead of being a reaction to what the other is doing. By having each move be independent from whatever is going on around it, it not only helps to further disrupt the flow, but it also makes it feel unnatural. It makes it feel unnatural because real fights are founded on the person reacting to what the other is doing. Making the characters react to what the other is doing in a more dynamic manner and act in accordance to it also makes each move feel more powerful and consequential, something which is drastically needed throughout the fight. While it is true that deku reacts to todoroki's attacks via breaking them with his fingers, the reactions are still minimal, repetitive, monotonous, and lack dynamacy and variety, making them continue to feel independent from each other and as if they had no major effect or consequence.

This is my problem with MHA fights in general; they just lack flow, variety and are full of dialogue and other types of interventions/interruptions. I only chose deku vs todoroki as an example to prove my point. You can also see my point in the way that MHA’s author more commonly makes slow, undynamic strategy based fights instead of natural brawls.

Unfortunately these ideas aren’t only present in the fights, with these issues also plaguing the rest of MHA.

#What does this mean for MHA

I'll try to keep this part short, as I wanted to focus my review mostly on the fights, but this is still an important subject to talk about, as the way fights are handled in MHA are indicators of bigger problems plaguing the rest of MHA.

The main problem which can be seen in this fights that's present throughout MHA as a whole is the lack of actual stakes/danger. The presence of actual stakes is very important in an action series, with it being vital to giving importance/meaning to the actions and decisions of the characters, as it means those actions could negatively impact others. A perfect example of this is Chainsaw Man, with the feeling of danger being ever present and a core part of what makes the story good and entertaining. While MHA succeeds in having the illusion of stakes, the illusion isn't believable enough to accomplish what actual stakes accomplish, which is making the story more engaging and making you care more deeply for the characters. I understand that things like plot armour are inevitable, specially in action shounen, but MHA completely fails in hiding it's constant plot armour, thus taking away all the stakes. This lack of stakes makes the series feel more like meaningless entertaining, which, while fine for things like slice of life, isn't fine for actions series, thus making it substantially less engaging.

Another big problem present throughout MHA that is clearly seen in the fights is the lack of flow. While in todoroki vs deku this lack of flow is represented via the constant interruptions and lack of dynamic choreography, this can be seen in the story by the way the main plot is constantly interrupted by inconsequential school arcs. By having your main conflict be constantly interrupted by seemingly meaningless arcs that don't do well in expanding the conflict (nor the characters sometimes), it makes the story feel paused and attenuate. This paused nature of MHA makes it constantly vary in quality making it grueling and substantially more boring as a whole. This is a clear indicator of the lackluster structure and lack of vision in MHA. This lackluster structure is explained by the creators of South Park, with them saying that "We can take these beats (story beats) — which are basically the beats of your outline — and if the words ‘and then…’ belong between those beats, you’re fucked… you’ve got something pretty boring.” This applies to MHA in the way that lots of the story beats/points are connected by "and then" instead of by a "therefore" or "but". By having many story beat be connected by "and then" it makes the story feel more like a set of random events put together instead of a living, consequential story that has meaning. It is only through the your story points being connected by "therefore" or "but" that a story can feel interesting, dynamic, and consequential. This lackluster structure causes a lot of other problems apart from making the story feel boring and unnatural, with it also causing the flow, context, build up of hype, and natural character development, to feel lackluster too. These problems can be, at least, partially attributed to this lackluster structure and lack of flow, thus making the story substantially less entertaining and meaningful. This same lackluster structure is also responsible for the constant interruptions and meaningless arcs that have little to no connection nor significance to the overall conflict. As if they were filler. This same lackluster structure can also be seen in many fights in MHA, with deku vs todoroki being a clear example of this, with the each of the attacks being basically independent from each other and from what the other person is doing.

The last main issue plaguing MHA that I also want to take about is the way that it handles it's characters. From what I've seen of MHA i've realized that much of the character development in characters comes from single turning points/events causing a complete change or development in charactes. While this approach can also be seen in many other anime and manga, what I found lacking in it was the lack of buildup or constant character development in a slower more developed manner. By having all change happen at once it causes a lack of naturality in the change as opposed to having it happen through a period of time (with one event causing a domino effect). This lack of balancing in the forms of character development leads more towards shock value and inmediate hype compared to feeling of personal connection and flow in the story. A good balance is needed to have proper and meaningful character connection that can cement a personal connection with the characters and by having it not take place in a constant, ever-evolving manner, it strips these feeling from the development. For character development to feel natural it needs to be constant, buildup, and have a good resolution which proved the changing and evolving of the character, something which I fear isn't present in MHA. Fortunately, this wasn't as much of a problem with Todoroki and more of a problem I saw as a whole. Again, I must reaiterate that I haven't seen enough of MHA to give a proper judgement on the character development, but still wanted to bring this up as a possible seed for issues in the future and as a problem which I saw to a degree in the first two seasons.

I think this is the end of my review, thanks for reading it. What can you take away from this review? Read Baki, that's it.

#Conclusion

It is sad for me to shit on MHA because even though I hate it I think it had lots of potential and it started really strong with a the extremely powerful idea of wanting to be a hero even without a quirk. The start of MHA was really captivating and emotionally striking with those first 6 episodes being genuinely great and intriguing. For a moment I was struck by it, but unfortunately it couldn’t keep up this level of quality not only with the story, but with the themes and characters. I would give MHA in general a 3.5/10 (until about where I dropped it) but I would give the MHA fights in general, not just deku vs todoroki, a 1.0/10.

(P.S. this having a 1 to 5 like to visits ratio (at the time of rewriting) is really funny to me, keep at it)