Oh yes don't get me wrong, I don't think in canon any part about Yoichi and AFO relationship has any positive side, is totally horrible and toxic but still love the dynamic as a villain motivation. And is funny how the feelings are not one sided as many of AFO detractors think, because Yoichi until his 2nd death as vestige acts like he always wanted AFO to came back to him and be saved somehow.
On a related note, KudoIchi shippers are so freaking annoying...
Nine is a gentleman... that's canon. He has standards unlike crusty kid.
Eh... I wouldn't say any character in DS is trying to be like Bakugou. There's many abrasive characters in that series, but they're far from being similar to Bakugou in any other trait or story role.
Idk why anime fans are so reductive to compare characters based only on archetypes.
Is like the people who compare Shoto and Giyuu Tomioka from DS just because they're the "emo guy" of the series, when outside of a very basic part of their personalities both characters are nothing alike.
Canon possum is a joke but one thing I never forget is how decay IS powerful, sure a powerful quirk with an idiot is not a good thing in many fronts but...
Cinder (I'm loving him already) has to know a guy who can decay stuff with one touch even if he is an idiot.
Would cinder be worried about the quirk ?
Again, shig is an idiot and a bad leader and all that but one thing we can't deny is he knows how to fight.
So I think cinder would make a point to avoid him like the plague.
In canon Cider is the kind of person who knows he shouldn't bite off more than he can chew, since after all his plan during his debut was to steal during a very specific moment in which heroes aren't present, so is more reward without having to fight and less risk.
It was just a coincidence that A.M was there with Bakugou and Todoroki.
I guess his mentality also applies to fight dangerous villains, and the lov had some big names attached them. Their reputation probably was enough for Cider to not have his gang involved with such group of psychos.
But... I disagree on Shigaraki being a good fighter.
Maybe before all the bs power ups given by the doctor he at least knew how do surprise attacks and such, but Decay being such a one-dimensional quirk also means the user doesn't require a lot of skill to put it in use. It is basically just run towards the enemy and touch for instakill.
Which became even more braindead post awakening. Like even Overhaul has more room to be creative and need skill to put in use.
Decay is just a broken and boring quirk that requieres nothing to be effective. Crusty asshole somehow manages to be more plain than he already was at first, is like he evolves in reverse.
Tenko tried to copy that beautiful shot of Nine's hair dramatically blowing at the wind.
But it didn't work.
Sorry Tenko but your hair looks like the mop that nobody replaced in more than five years.
You could never compare to Nine's ethereal beauty 🤍🌩
Did I ever saw the MHA movies? No. Never bc I know it would be a BK fest (as if canon isn't one too)
But talking about Nine...
It makes me wonder how Nine would approach Izu ?
Bc shig in canon is this and ....I hate it for the simple fact he decided to be amicable to BK.
Hi @mikeellee đź‘‹
I know you haven't watched the movies but nine and izuku have interacted and fought each other during the movie, while nor deep or meaningful conversations took place the movie does establish them to be enemies as izuku is against nine stealing kasumo's quirk.
Nine is very hostile towards everyone who isn't his team so unlike shigaraki there is no bias where he is amicable to one character and hostile towards another.
Nine in this scenario starts out with his team that is founded after he helps them and he already has the ideology that the strongest in society should rule while the weak should stay in their place.
By having nine attack the usj with just his small highly skilled team trying to take down the symbol of peace it adds a lot more meaning and symbolism as
1) it makes sense for society to underestimate their attack
2) it would intoeduce us to the main villain group and their real capabilites early on
3) we would get more time to flesh out and develop the found family bond of nine's team
It's during the usj arc that we get both nine's ideology introduced and that we see that same ideology being indirectly challenged by
1) who nine is trying to take down (all might)
2) Izuku midoriya himself
This is because nine is trying to destroy the own natural order he pleads and praises by taking down the strongest person in society. Nine is trying to destroy the already establishes hierarchy where all might is clearly more powerful therefore, making him a hypocrite. However, he could plead his case and use the argument that all might and his reign of peace is inevitably coming to an end so nine will take this opportunity fight and prove himself to be the strongest and bring about change to the system.
Izuku midoriya as well as many other characters like eri or nejire are interesting characters that end up contradicting the system and ideology that nine has in place. I mention izuku midoriya specifically because he is the only charactwr our of the others that I listed that is involved in the usj arc.
In the usj arc nine will figure out that izuku holds a powerful quirk which would cause him to develop mixed emotions. On one hand nine would be intimidated by izuku as he has the ability to take over as the strongest and choose to uphold the status quo which nine wants to annihilate and change into what he label's the natural order of things. However, on the other hand nine would also relate to izuku as both of their quirks have horrible consequences in their body and would feel a sense of hatred as he sees another person discarded by society because his quirk is too strong.
Due to these feelings nine chooses to investigate the case of izuku midoriya further and choose to recruit him onto the team as a means of disabling the threat and also gaining a power tank on his side.
This feeling and motivation is reinforced by the sports festival arc where nine is introduced to both izuku and todoroki. However, another person also enters nine's field of vision: katsuki bakugo. Nine feels like he could manipulated bakugo to fit a narrative and mold that he wants him to fit and exploit him to show society that the strongest are being oppressed by the weak. This is a mistake that nine makes and he learns that this is a grave mistake through the consequences he receives (the kamino arc) and the new information he gathers during the kamino arc.
Through research and the kamino arc (where izuku and bakugo are kidnapped) nine finds out that izuku was quirkless. This would be an interesting development as izuku was and may still be someone who nine thinks should be at the bottom of the cycle but also izuku is too similar to nine. This discovery would send nine spiralling what does this mean for him? His ideals? His plan? People will suffer, people have suffered and people are suffering. Nine's plan wouldn't change a thing but would just make one group of people suffer less than another group of people.
Nine would have to go back to the drawing board and his interactions with izuku become more frequent trying to understand izuku and izuku trying to understand him. They fight, they argue, they talk and all of that to reach a middle point. What should be done with society? It's flawed, they have managed to acknowledge that but upholding the status quo would do no improvement and changing it to have it be a cruel cycle of the strong abusing their power would also be a horrible thing.
With all of this occurring one thing that brings nine and izuku closer to one another is the overhaul arc, specifically one character Eri.
Eri infulences them to meet a middle ground one where society isn't determined by power of quirks but a society where everyone has potential and is taken care of. No people aren't born equal but a sample of equity can be achieved if they try hard enough.
Izuku meets more people who got exploited by their quirks and so does nine. Nejire is a good example of a character being bullied because of her quirk and she is a direct foil to izuku midoriya which makes her more interesting
Horikoshi is always involved in the movies production in more or less degree, as a consultant for the story despite he doesn't get credit in the script writing, and doing character designs and he does the promo Volume that is gifted to the people that go to the cinema.
Heroes Rising in particular seems to be the one movie he contributed the most, as we know the overall plot is based on a discarded ending he had for the main series. And he did an origin chapter for Nine, something no other movie villain has.
Slice being betrayed by men is something HK put in the volume extras despite that info isn't present in the movie itself.
As you didn't see the movie let me explain this quick: Slice and especially Mummy don't get much real exposition about their past in the movie, as the plot gives more attention to Nine and Chimera.
I wouldn't discard Slice being exploited on a romantic/sexual degree, I guess that part is leave to the reader imagination.
Like I said my own interpretation based on the few info we got is that Slice trust and admire Nine because other mens in her life he views her with different eyes and help Slice to find a new porpuse, also giving her the opportunity to discorver her own strength and also meet people she can trust.
That's why also I don't like Nine/Slice on a shipping sense, it feels wrong (and Nine could only have one valid ship).
Looking at the characters pages in the Volume Rising extras, I notice an interesting detail about Slice's background.
Now I'm aware this is a rough translation by google, but it's interesting that Horikoshi explicitly describes Slice as being used by "men".
Which could also connect with this panel from Nine's origin backstory, in which Slice is seen lying on the floor of a destroyed apartment looking totally defeated and helpless.
As far I know this is the only time a female character (and a villain for that mattter) in the series is written with an explicit background about being used and possible exploited by mens, implying a context of misoginia.
Which also makes me wish we had more context about Slice relationship with Nine and the rest of the crew.
How she pass from not trust anyone to be fully concerned about her team? (All being mens).
There's a lot of potential to developed their relationship there.
But an important note: I don't see Slice devotion to Nine and his ideals as romantic, not at all like much people like to interpret just because she's a woman. I feel that kinda goes against her characterization, considering Nine probably was the first man she ever trust but unlike others he wasn’t a lover or anything, but a savior and a true friend/family.
Horikoshi also says on Slice character page that Nine asked her about her quirk first and he values the name of it over actual names (which btw adds to Nine's own characterization considering he doesn't have a real name). I like to think it might be one of the reasons of why Slice trust so much on Nine's vision for the world, as he probably give a new meaning to her life other than being a pretty face and help her to value her own power.
This type of bodies need more appreciation:
Look I love big muscular dudes as much as the next guy, but there's something beautiful about skinny dudes as well.
Horikoshi bring him back after the first war just to put him in jail again after a few panels.
But hey at least we got him unmasked for a moment, as he's hot af.
You can't imagine how much I love the Cider House leader guy...
A minor villain has no right to look so cool, badass and handsome like he does.
Also he probably got the best water quirk of the series.
Also he got so much sassy energy on top of having such insane drip.
Being one of his like 3 fans isn't easy, but still love him.
Well perhaps that's a good way to describe it, because I don't like how he' written and I hate how he ends being a big detriment for the quality of the story and ruins a lot of good character with his presence alone.
In concept he's fine, there's some elements about him that could be good if Horikoshi didn't overstay his welcome forcing him into a main villain role.
If he was like Mahito who dies at the middle of the story for example, it will be far more tolerable.
...
I will also support Muzan, but not because I like him more than AFO, but simply Muzan at least never let his creations outsmart or overwhelm him in any way. He was truly in full control, something AFO never truly felt in canon.
Wonder how Muzan would react to AFO desire to create a world in which everyone exist only for him, as he said to Yoichi.
Muzan probably will be like "how this inferior maggot think I would exist for him?" and he will be very offended.
What do you think about another crossover AU for SeltzerBunny? This time with Demon Slayer.
It's kinda easy to adapt the respective canon quirks of our dear couple into Breathing Styles.
Cider/Mizunami obviously would be a water breathing user, and for this AU I like to think he would be tsuguko of Sabito who survived this time.
While Midoriya is a wind breathing user (cause you know air force and float and green aesthetic... whatever) who was saved by Masachika (Yeah he's also alive at least for now) from the lower moon who killed his mother.
That lower moon would be no other than BK, who is a promising demon in ascension who is capable of generate explosions like his quirk in MHA.
And this would make Midoriya quest for revenge his principal motivation.
Still thinking about the details for this AU and who should be the other characters adapted into it, as MHA having such a big cast compared to DS force me to pick only the necessary lol.
@nyc3 hello
So while I did saw the first season of DS and do think it's well paced and better than MHA in every way -not a big achievement to behold. I didnt saw the other seasons, I got spoilers here and there. My point is how some of the names here are unknown to me.
That being said...I do like more aus for this ship.
Cinder is still a thief in this au or he seeks revenge?
How they meet and how is their dynamic?
(Almost finishing chapter 1 of my seltzer bunny fic)
A detail people tend to overlook (cause the anime fucked up the timeline) is that Geten and Cider were introduced in the same chapter in the manga.
And Re-Destro speech juxtaposed with Cider presentation.
So we have this two boys of a similar age, both have water/ice based quirks, both have white/blue-ish hair, both have the same blue eyes, and we didn't know their real identity at first (and in Geten's case is debatable if that's his real name).
What a big coincide huh?
My theory of C.H leader being a lost Himura gets more and more crazy everytime I think about it.
I love the idea of Geten and Cider, who I call Mizunami Himura, being lost siblings. And by extensions the lost cousings of the Todorokis.
Even if we cap a lot with the idea of "Well uh... AFO covered a lot of what happened to the Shimuras" it's really hard to believe AFO could erase any trace of what happened to a rich family of Six who lived in a very populated zone and which house just freaking exploded one night.
Besides All Might wasn't supposed to look after Shigaraki after Kamino when he learns his identity as Tenko Shimura? He says that but never ever invested a single effort on try to learn more about the family of the woman he considered a mother.
Gran Torino also have 0 reaction to know this, despite he should at least have some feelings about the tragedy of Kotaro considering he died because Nana never allowed Torino or A.M to being close to him.
It would have been easy to add a single scene when A.M, Gran Torino and Tsukaguchi are digging up in police archives and they say something like "Yes... there was a strange incident with a family named Shimura many years ago, their remains were never found for some reason"
One thing that is now unfair to ask is...what is Nine's name? Look hori treated him as an afterthought but his lack of origins works better than the comical twnko's origins.
Yes his family was all killed thanks to him but ...I can't help to think that scene was too ridiculous.
We never saw anyone mentioned them again, not even shig. (He remembers them in MVA and we do see the disgusting human puppet hori flay around) But that's it.
So Nine...
Im not one of those people who think a new character needs to be related to a pre stabelished one. Nine doesn't need to be a Todoroki, Shimura or hell even a lost Midoriya (hahahahahahaha as if hori would care for this family)
But ....imagine if Nine was related to Oboro, somehow, wouldn't that be interesting?
Maybe, maybe not.
Oboro's character became a thing to turns Aizawa into a better character...and fails. Kuro was sacrificed for nothing.
The thing about Shigaraki/Tenko backstory is that it feels... a bit overdramatic?
Well we can say that about his whole character, but the part of his backstory in particular when he kills his family is so exagerated for the sake of shock value that it kinda feels comical.
Horikoshi tried a bit too hard on make MVA feel like the edgier and "different" arc of the series, but the contrast in so big that I can't take it seriously.
Especially when Hori already nailed a dark tone without being super explicit or over the top.
Take the simplicity of Eri's backstory for example:
No blood, no unnecessary violence, just two panels giving a basic idea of what happened to Eri's father and yet the image of those clothes lying on the floor is much more haunting and eerie than the enterity of Shigaraki backstory.
Why Horikoshi stop being subtle with his storytelling?
...
Anyway going back to Nine real name, or the lack of one, I think it's interesting how that aspect of his character adds to the underlying theme of how AFO and Garaki dehumanize people, especially the ones that are part of their experiments.
We know very well how AFO doesn't view other human being as persons but rather objects that belong to him. This starts with his very own twin brother, which name Yoichi means something like "my first possesion".
And just like Nine, number 6 from Vigilantes was a child which whole life was modeled by AFO. They both are just numbers without a real name.
In this case the idea is presented even more explicitly because Six was a child who suffered some kind of amnesia and couldn't even view himself as a normal human with a face.
He even died as a monster without ever know if he had an identity outside being the number 6.
It's funny how you mention the idea of Nine and Shirakumo being connected somehow, as isn't the first time I've hear that.
It's interesting notice how they share this common theme about sky and clouds as part of who they are (Nine's name also is supposedly a reference to the term "cloud nine") both Nine and Oboro are individuals willing to sacrifice their own lifes for others, and ironically both of them ended being experimented by Dr Garaki.
I even have the headcanon of Kurogiri being the "Number 7" in this line of experiments were Nine and Six belong, as sort of missing link between Six and the sentient nomus.
I probably should make a post later explaining better this idea.
And yes for Horikoshi, Shirakumo was just a diposable character to make Aizawa look cooler and more edgy.
While the author of Vigilantes clearly invested a lot of effort on making Oboro a real and memorable character which complements Aizawa rather than just being an accesory. But that topic deserves it's own post as well.
P.S: I have an idea of what real name we could give to Nine, but I keep it for me at least for the moment.
It makes him pathetic in my opinion.
Kind of ironic how most of his major victories are always against enemies that were already defeated by heroes and he didn't have to do anything. Shigaraki fans literally celebrate him being a looser who steals the credit from other persons.
That even extend to the defeat of AFO.
I mean look at the panel Shigaraki fans pretend is a triumphant victory.
Dude literally died some chapter before, was saved offscreen by his grandma and his only contribution to the defeat of AFO was punch him along ten more people as part of a plan he didn't help to create.
That's the real "I got invited by a friend"
Hey I have a question. I never saw the movie nor I want to see it +Nine sounds cool as fuck but....bk is in the movie) my question here is......why shig killed Nine?
When that scene was reblogged on Twitter I had the impression it was smth like "nine was using his name and shig wasn't pleased" ...can't be that bc this makes sense. Too much sense.
So did shig just kill the guy bc yes?
Maybe afo or the Dr evil asked shig to do so... which is plausible but damn...what waste. And it cements once again shig as a npc.
I'll try to explain this the best I can, because tbh nothing about this situation makes sense to me even today. And some context of the movie as well.
The movie starts with a scene of the LOV transporting Nine while he was still on a medical capsule inside a truck. There's a reference to this situation in the manga when the doctor request Shigaraki to deliver "something" for him.
But here's a thing: neither the movie or the prequel chapter Horikoshi made explain where Nine was being delivered or what the doctor intended to do with him in case he arrived to destiny. It feel that missing context is important.
In any case, the heroes attack the truck trying to arrest the league. The truck is destroyed in the battle and this allows Nine to escape and go back with his team.
Then we got a couple of scenes were Shigaraki seem to be tracking Nine activities, also using Hawks to do the research job for them (it's worth mentioning the events of the movie are supposed to happen at some point after MVA).
And after all this... nothing really, the movie drops this subplot and Shigaraki only appears again in the end when he comes out of literally nowhere to kill Nine. Allow me to ask how they even know his exact location? The black goo teleportation quirk doesn't even work like that btw.
Just like you my first assumption was Garaki ordered him to do so, maybe because after the spectacle Nine did in the island the doctor decided to eliminate him for security reasons. But we never got any indication of this being the case, in fact there's a scene when Garaki explicitly tells Shigaraki to not touch "it" (Nine).
Things became more confusing because in MVA when Shigaraki gives Garaki one of his edgy speeches about destroying everything he hates, there's a small cameo of Nine among the things crusty boy hates.
On a side note: this is technically Nine's first ever appearance, even before the movie itself was released. A sort of foreshadow for what it coming.
But going back to the point: why Shigaraki hates Nine so much in the first place? We never got a clear reason for any of this, isn't like they ever interacted, the only time before the movie they have some kind of contact was the prequel chapter focused on Nine, and that was only Shigaraki looking at Nine through a window.
Also the final scene when crusty boy kills Nine for some reason makes it sounds the situation is very personal? Like if Shigaraki hold some grudge against Nine for some reason.
And the line "I agree, there only can be one king" doesn't make any sense because isn't like Shigaraki knew about Nine's ideology and his desire of rule the world. The writers makes it seem to be like they both interacted and had a long term rivalry for some reason, but that never happened.
Oh and it's extra hilarious how Shigaraki killing Nine for no reason directly contradicts this other little scene:
If crusty a**hole always intended to be "a hero for villains" (as the story seem to pretend) what about Nine then? Idk but for me killing a defendless man while he was crawling on the ground doesn't seem too heroic.
Let's not forget Nine was a real hero for villains without presume about it. He saved the life of Chimera, Slice and Mummy in a way Shigaraki wish to be able to do with the lov.
Honestly is funny to think all this one directional hate Shigaraki feels for Nine could be just crusty boy being jaleous, which won't be surprise considering Nine is superior to him in everyway possible.
But well, thinking about this on a perspective outside the story itself an explanation of why Nine was killed maybe is because Horikoshi just needed a reason to get rid of him, as his presence might be problematic for the course of the main story. I mean it would be a bit suspicious to have another AFO possible vessel who happens to be better than Shigaraki, and Nine is the only movie main villain to be permanently killed on screen, while all the others like Wolfram and Flect survived.
Anyway, all this festival of bs let a bitter taste in my mouth.
Needless to say, such a good villain like Nine surely deserved way better than he got.
One thing that is now unfair to ask is...what is Nine's name? Look hori treated him as an afterthought but his lack of origins works better than the comical twnko's origins.
Yes his family was all killed thanks to him but ...I can't help to think that scene was too ridiculous.
We never saw anyone mentioned them again, not even shig. (He remembers them in MVA and we do see the disgusting human puppet hori flay around) But that's it.
So Nine...
Im not one of those people who think a new character needs to be related to a pre stabelished one. Nine doesn't need to be a Todoroki, Shimura or hell even a lost Midoriya (hahahahahahaha as if hori would care for this family)
But ....imagine if Nine was related to Oboro, somehow, wouldn't that be interesting?
Maybe, maybe not.
Oboro's character became a thing to turns Aizawa into a better character...and fails. Kuro was sacrificed for nothing.
The thing about Shigaraki/Tenko backstory is that it feels... a bit overdramatic?
Well we can say that about his whole character, but the part of his backstory in particular when he kills his family is so exagerated for the sake of shock value that it kinda feels comical.
Horikoshi tried a bit too hard on make MVA feel like the edgier and "different" arc of the series, but the contrast in so big that I can't take it seriously.
Especially when Hori already nailed a dark tone without being super explicit or over the top.
Take the simplicity of Eri's backstory for example:
No blood, no unnecessary violence, just two panels giving a basic idea of what happened to Eri's father and yet the image of those clothes lying on the floor is much more haunting and eerie than the enterity of Shigaraki backstory.
Why Horikoshi stop being subtle with his storytelling?
...
Anyway going back to Nine real name, or the lack of one, I think it's interesting how that aspect of his character adds to the underlying theme of how AFO and Garaki dehumanize people, especially the ones that are part of their experiments.
We know very well how AFO doesn't view other human being as persons but rather objects that belong to him. This starts with his very own twin brother, which name Yoichi means something like "my first possesion".
And just like Nine, number 6 from Vigilantes was a child which whole life was modeled by AFO. They both are just numbers without a real name.
In this case the idea is presented even more explicitly because Six was a child who suffered some kind of amnesia and couldn't even view himself as a normal human with a face.
He even died as a monster without ever know if he had an identity outside being the number 6.
It's funny how you mention the idea of Nine and Shirakumo being connected somehow, as isn't the first time I've hear that.
It's interesting notice how they share this common theme about sky and clouds as part of who they are (Nine's name also is supposedly a reference to the term "cloud nine") both Nine and Oboro are individuals willing to sacrifice their own lifes for others, and ironically both of them ended being experimented by Dr Garaki.
I even have the headcanon of Kurogiri being the "Number 7" in this line of experiments were Nine and Six belong, as sort of missing link between Six and the sentient nomus.
I probably should make a post later explaining better this idea.
And yes for Horikoshi, Shirakumo was just a diposable character to make Aizawa look cooler and more edgy.
While the author of Vigilantes clearly invested a lot of effort on making Oboro a real and memorable character which complements Aizawa rather than just being an accesory. But that topic deserves it's own post as well.
P.S: I have an idea of what real name we could give to Nine, but I keep it for me at least for the moment.