folded in the firmament

The final chapter of MHA was bittersweet, hopeful, but with enough realism to remind us that life can still be mundane, underwhelming, painful. Honestly, this was a pleasant surprise to me as someone who saw this series as excessively optimistic at times. I wasn't expecting the epilogue chapters to go the way they did, and while I don't think the execution was perfect, I appreciate Hori for making the effort.

To get my complaints out of the way, I wish there had been more time for Deku and Bakugou to talk - about the apology, about Bakugou's death, about how their feelings about one another had evolved over the course of the series, or at the very least had more internal monologues. Deku in particular felt so...distant? Bakugou is my favorite character, so I'm probably the most hung up over him. He went through this incredibly traumatic experience, but we never see if and how this affected him (certainly, it had to have). At the same time, he's the type to keep his most personal thoughts and feelings private, he's also less about verbal expression and more about actions, so I can understand Hori's choice to an extent...but idk, that's where the internal monologue could have really helped.

Similarly, it's quintessential Bakugou (presumably) to secretly save the money for Deku's suit for such a long time. IMO that level of gift-giving plays right into his strengths and was an incredibly significant gesture given what we know about him as a character. Perhaps he doesn't have the words, but he can show, very clearly, to Deku that he can finally return the same admiration and deep affection that Deku always held for him. It isn't explicitly canon, but it's enough for me, it's more than I was expecting, actually.

Initially, Deku's ending made me sad. And I think it still does to some extent. He saved the world, and the world, for the most part, moved on. But that's reality. For many IRL helping professions, this is the routine - doctor's save lives, therapists successfully intervene in crises, the work day ends with lives irreversibly change, and then we wake up the next day to start it all over again. I've seen complaints that Deku lost his dream, didn't have a "becoming Hokage" type of moment, etc, but that was never why he was trying to be a hero in the first place. It's upsetting, of course, but he continues to help people despite the lack of quirk, the popularity, because he genuinely cares about humanity.

And in the end, we see that returned to him through those around him, we see his dreams return. He and his image of victory will get to compete together for the rest of their lives. I'll be 90 years old, and those panels of Bakugou reaching his hand out to Deku will exist somewhere, in a library, on someone's bookshelf or coffee table. And that's while it isn't perfect, it's an ending I can get behind.