Towards the end of June it was announced that we only had five chapters left in My Hero Academia. Now with My Hero Academia Chapter 429 we got the penultimate chapter of Kohei Horikoshi. As he has been doing throughout the course of this epilogue arc Horikoshi continued to explore the ramification of The Final War Saga. Both on the personal level of what the heroes we’ve followed this entire time to the new status quo for the world, there was a lot tackled in My Hero Academia Chapter 429. Let’s take a look at the biggest takeaways.
OCHACO URARAKA PAINFUL ADMISSION
Throughout My Hero Academia Kohei Horikoshi has made sure readers don’t forget this is a story of teenagers training to become heroes. In the journey to achieve their dreams Deku and his friends have done a lot of amazing things and had major accomplishments. But even with all these accomplishments and achievements we’ve seen various instances that there is a mental toll the young Class 1-A face as heroes in training. Afterall, the events caused by All For One forced the Pro Heroes have UA High School and other students in-training to play key parts in stopping the villains.
While ultimately the heroes were able to save the day the impact of the Final War Saga will certainly forever change the world of My Hero Academia. We saw in Chapter 429, titled “I Am Here,” how her near-death experience and being saved by Himiko Toga’s sacrifice had on Ochaco Uraraka. Initially when we saw Ochaco break down thinking of her injury and Himiko saving her that the physical pain still reminds her of Himiko’s sacrifice. That isn’t necessarily the case as the scar from the injury is not what pained Ochaco.
As she admitted to Izuku Midoriya, it was Ochaco blaming herself for not reaching out to Himiko as a friend sooner that caused her to be mortally stabbed and forcing Himiko to sacrifice herself. As readers we know it was not Ochaco’s fault at all. This is where Horikoshi reminding readers of the weight that comes with kids and young adults dealing with world ending scenarios have on them. We’ve seen that even the adult Pro Heroes like Endeavor had difficulty with the emotional toll The Final War Saga had. That’s especially the case for Ochaco as her battle with Himiko was one of the most intensely personal fights in all of My Hero Academia.
Izuku Midoriya showing up to provide his support as someone there for Ochaco just like she was at his lowest point. Adding to the importance of this was that once Midoriya reached his hand out was Ochaco admitting why she felt so guilty about Himiko’s death. Midoriya showed a lot of empathy by hearing her out so she doesn’t continue to bury the emotions she felt around others. It added to how important it was that the rest of Class 1-A showed up to emphasize that Ochaco has a great support group around her.
CHANGING CONCEPT OF WHAT IS A HEROES
The emotional toll The Final War Saga had on this series is a major aspect of this Epilogue arc. The other major thing that has slowly been developed during these last six chapters the Epilogue arc has had was the state of Pro Heroes. Tackling that has been understandably not the top priority. Thus far the focus has been on making sure Japan can recover from all the damage caused by the war against All For One’s forces.
But now with My Hero Academia Chapter 429 Horikoshi placed a spotlight that the meaning of being a Pro Hero has to be addressed before this series ends. While the scene was short we had a meeting between Hawks and All Might about this very thing. In this meeting of two Quirkless heroes, Hawks that the term “Heroes” should not be just used for those who have taken the Pro Hero path.
This is something Hawks does not say because he is now Quirkless. Rather, Hawks admitted to All Might that the Final War Saga opened his eyes to a major blind spot in the previous status quo. That was that there were so many non-Pro Heroes who played a vital role in the war against All For One. These vital people didn’t just suddenly show up during The Final War Saga. These were people from the Department of Support and Business we’ve seen in and out of UA High School. Before they were just seen as nothing more than support on a financial or hero gear sense. Now everyone that is helping society could be considered as a different form of Hero, a term no longer that will go to the Pro Heroes career.
SETTING UP THE FINAL MY HERO ACADEMIA CHAPTER
The concept what being a Hero means is a big change to the world. The way we see Hawks and All Might speak about it once again emphasizes that the hopes of a stable world can only be on the shoulders of the top Pro Hero or even the top ten. That would ultimately just lead the My Hero Academia Universe to fall in the same cycle it was before.
The importance of this change was shown in the orphaned kid who was abused by his family due to the freak variant Quirk he had. Everything down to the character design invoked that we were possibly seeing the rise of the second coming of Tomura Shigaraki. But right before the kid could do something that would lead him down that path an older woman reached out to him. Using lessons learned from watching Izuku Midoriya message of supporting one another, the woman told the kid she would be there to help him. This once again highlighted one of Horikoshi’s important messages in his work of the simple act of reaching out to others can make all the difference.
All of this sets the stage for My Hero Academia Chapter 430 to really be whatever it needs to be. Given its emphasis throughout the Epilogue arc, showing what being “Heroes” is will be something we see. Maybe it will align to something like what we see in the Marvel and DC Universes given how much Horikoshi used his love for comic book superheroes for this series. Though it will probably be something new entirely that merges different concepts of the term “Heroes.” Whatever the case is it’ll be exciting to see what Horikoshi does with this blank slate he has created for how we will say goodbye to My Hero Academia.
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